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The Fundamentals and these gifted men have labored in fields akin to this of our four'evangelists. The mightiest minds of the race_men of Chaldea, of Egypt, of India, of China, and of Greece—have tried to draw a perfect character, have expended all their might to paint a god-like man. And with what result ? Either he is invested with the passions and the brutalities of fallen men, or he is a pitiless and impassive spectator of the world’s sorrows and woes. In either case, the character is one which may command the fear but not the love and confidence of men. Again, we ask, How did the evangelists solve this mighty problem of humanity with such perfect originality and pre cision? Only two answers are rationally possible: 1. They had before them the personal and historical Christ. Men could no more invent the God-man of the Gospels than they could create a world. The almost irreverent words of Theo dore Parker are grounded in absolute truth: “It would have taken a Jesus to forge a Jesus.” 2. They wrote by inspiration of the Spirit of God. It cannot be otherwise. It is not enough to say that the Divine Model Was before them: they must have had something more, else they never could have succeeded. Let it be assumed that these four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were personally attendant on the ministry of Jesus that they saw Him, heard Him, companied with Him for three years. Yet on their own showing they did not un derstand Him. They testify that the disciples, the Apostles among the number, got but the slenderest conceptions of His person and His mission from His very explicit teachings. They tell us of a wonderful incapacity and weakness in all their apprehensions of Him. The Sun of righteousness was shining on them and around them, and they could see only the less! He told them repeatedly of His approaching death, and of His resurrection, but they did not understand Him ; they even questioned among themselves what the rising from the dead should mean (Mark ix:10)—poor men! And yet
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