"The common cry, re-echoed from mouth to mouth, and retailed from pen to pen, is, that he was mad; an aspersion which, notwithstanding some totally false and merely calumnious tales have from time to time been fabricated to support it, literally rests upon no foundation whatever, but that on which the same imputation was thrown against an infinitely greater character. "He hath a devil and is mad: why hear ye him?" (John x. 20.[[Bible (King James)/John#10:20|]]) Such was the salutation with which the Divine Truth, in person, was assailed, when "he came unto his own, and his own received him not."—The Lord Jesus himself was reproached as insane by the leaders of the professing church of that day; and even his own kindred according to the flesh, had so little conception of his true character, that when he began to display it by mighty words and works, "they said, he is beside himself. And they went forth to lay hold on him," (Mark iii. 21.) for the purpose of putting him under restraint, as a person of disordered mind. So little capable, when in the darkness of its sensual perceptions, is the human mind, of distinguishing the most exalted wisdom from insanity! No wonder then that the proclaimer of genuine truth now should be derided with similar reproaches. "The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord; if they call the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household!" (Matt. x. 24–5.) Such were the prophetic warnings by which the Lord prepared his disciples for the treatment they were to expect: and the experience of distant ages has proved their truth. When the apostle pleaded the cause of Christianity before Agrippa and Festus, the Roman governor replied with the exclamation, "Paul, thou art be side thyself; much learning doth make thee mad;" (Acts xxvi. 24.) and so, in our times, a man who has been favored with a degree of illumination as much superior to that of modern Christians in general as was the divine knowledge of Paul to the darkness which then overspread both Jews and Gentiles, is assailed with the same cry, and, while his attainments in science are admitted, it is pretended that his studies had ruined his faculties. By the candid and reflecting, a sufficient answer to this charge will be found in his writings, which, though a period of twenty-two years intervened between the publication of the first of his theological works and the last, exhibit the most perfect consistency of sentiment throughout, while they are all written with a regard to the most orderly and methodical arrangement, and display in their author the most acute powers of reason and extraordinary strength of memory; which last faculty is
Page:The Judgment Day.pdf/206
