The old and new theology 2 lectures Author:Henry James Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART II. TjWERY attentive reader of the gospels will I j have remarked, that the controversy between Jesus and his antagonists, was a controversy betwee... more »n the most enlarged humanity on one side, and a well-established orthodoxy on the other. The battle which he fought, was the battle of universal man against the principalities and powers of this world, who sought to make humanity a stepping-stone to their exaltation. It was not as commonly reported, a battle between God on the one side and man on the other: for the Christ invariably declared God to be the unchangeable friend of man, infinitely more ready to shew him favor than man was to ask it. It was a battle between God considered to be thus friendly to universal man, on the one side, and a set of men, or rather a nation of men, on the other side, who arrogated His special friendship to themselves, on the ground of a certain ritual righteousness which distinguished them from the rest of mankind. In fact, the doctrine of the Christ is nothing more and nothing less than a revelation of the essetitial unity of God and man. He acknowledged no other mission than the vindication of humanity from the stigma of unrighteousness before God, no other joy than to persuade the conventionally vilest of men of the infinite righteousness he had in God. No matter what the occasion may have been, you find him invariably identifying himself with the interests of the most enlarged humanity, and ready to sacrifice every private tie which in any way involved a denial of the universal brotherhood of the race. But what is the use of dwelling on the point ? Every one who reads the scripture for original instruction, and not merely for the confirmation of some traditionary opinion, recognizes in Jesus the God-anointed champion of humanity aga...« less