e who is Man has
imperfections which were not known to those who compiled memorials of
him. To impute to a person, without specific evidence, some definite
frailty or fault, barely because he is human, would be a want of good
sense; but not so, to have a firm belief that every human being is
finite in moral as well as in intellectual greatness.

We have a very imperfect history of the apostle James; and I do not
know that I could adduce any fact specifically recorded concerning him
in disproof of his absolute moral perfection, if any of his Jerusalem
disciples had chosen to set up this as a dogma of religion. Yet no
one would blame me, as morose, or indisposed to acknowledge genius and
greatness, if I insisted on believing James to be frail and imperfect,
while admitting that I knew almost nothing about him. And why?--Singly
and surely, because we know him to be _a man_: that suffices. To set
up James or John or Daniel as my Model, and my Lord; to be swallowed
up in him and press him upon others for a Universal Standard, would
be despised as a self-degrading idolatry and resented as an obtrusive
favouritism. Now why does not the same equally apply, if the name
Jesus is substituted for these? Why, in defect of all other knowledge
than the bare fact of his manhood, are we not unhesitatingly to take
for granted that he does _not_ exhaust all perfection, and is at best
only one among many brethren and equals?

II. My friend, I gather, will reply, "because so many thousands
of minds in all Christendom attest the infinite and unapproachable
goodness of Jesus." It therefore follows to consider, what is the
weight of this attestation. Manifestly it depends, first of all, on
the independence of the witnesses: secondly, on the grounds of their
belief. If all those, who confess the moral perfection of Jesus,
confess it as the result of unbiassed examination of his character;
and if of those acquainted with the narrative, none espouse the
opposite side; this would be a striking testimony, not to be despised.
But in fact, few indeed of the "witnesses" add any weight at all to
the argument. No Trinitarian can doubt that Jesus is morally perfect,
without doubting fundamentally every part of his religion. He believes
it, _because_ the entire system demands it, and _because_ various
texts of Scripture avow it: and this very fact makes it morally
impossible for him to enter upon an unbiassed inquiry, whether that
character which is dra