And here I might inquire, whether there was anything in their personal
knowledge of Christ which could have suggested such a thought to those
men. We have seen that the grand lesson of their education as Jews
was, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with _all_ thine heart, with all thy soul, and
with all thy might." Whatever other faith or worship did not harmonise
with this was deadly idolatry. It is true that, with the exception of
Paul, all the apostles had seen Jesus in the flesh, and John specially
pleads for His humanity, and presses it home with every form of
expression. "That," says he, "which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,
of the Word of life." But if we lay aside all supernatural and
miraculous evidences of our Lord's person, what was there in His life
which could have produced this impression, or awakened this strange
conviction of His divinity? Not surely His lowly birth, nor the long
years in which He was known only as the carpenter's son; not the
sorrow and grief with which He was familiar, or the real though
sinless infirmities to which He was subject; not the reception He met
with from His countrymen, or the death by which His short earthly
career was ended! What was there in an earthly life so intensely
human, to convince such true, thoughtful, godly men as the apostles
that this man was one with the Holy One of Israel, the Almighty
Creator of the heavens and the earth? Yet such _was_ the conviction
of John, who leant upon His bosom at the Last Supper, watched Him in
Gethsemane, beheld Him in the judgment-hall, and stood by Him at the
cross! Such _was_ the faith of Paul also who never saw Him in the
flesh, or ever heard His voice while He tabernacled among men.
If, however, the alleged supernatural facts in the Bible are
true,--including the gift of the Spirit who was to "glorify"