The Christ of History. Renan's 'Vie de Jésus'

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...by the Great God himself. This is not, like the others, a voluntary arrangement among men themselves, which they are at liberty to continue or to terminate as they please; it is a special, Divine constitution. Such authority as a father possesses over his child, so natural, so deeply founded, so real, no human being besides can possess over another. And this, accordingly, -is the selected type of the supreme rights of God, and of that essential sovereignty which belongs to the Father of minds. No other explains, as this does, the foundation and the nature of Divine authority. There may be other terms which express the single fact of sovereignty in God, and do so more pointedly and directly than this. For example: He is compared to a king; a name which belongs to the highest secular office and the highest secular authority on earth. "The Lord is King for ever and ever." His creatures are His subjects! He has given them righteous and wise laws, and they must answer to Him for obedience and disobedience. The comparison is obviously just up to a certain limit; but it is as obvious that, in many essential respects, it falls immeasurably short of the truth of God's relation to man. The king and his people are connected together by one bond, and one bond only, the bond FATHERHOOD A REALITY. 131 of authority and corresponding subjection. But the intimacy and tenderness of the connexion between God and His rational creatures are not expressed, or in any way suggested, by this phraseology. All that is conveyed by the word king--authority, rec-' titude, wisdom, power--is really and equally contained in the word father; but there is very much conveyed by the word father, which is not capable of being expressed by the word king. God is a...