DR. FURNESS ON THE GOSPELS.* DR. FURNESS is one of
the most spiritual writers among the Unitarians of the United States ; and the present reviewer still remembers vividly the delight which some of Dr. Furness's books, published thirty years ago, gave him, so fresh were they in their treatment of the Gospels, and so unlike the ordinary criticism of the Unitarian denomination.
In this little book there is much to recall the best features of Dr. Furness's early writings ; and though, of course, we do not in the least concur in Dr. Furness's peculiar theology, or no-theology (which is, perhaps, what he would prefer to have attributed to him), no one can read even this little volume without feeling that he gains a fresher insight into the scenes with which Dr. Furness is dealing. Take, for example, the follow.
ing on " Jesus and his Mother," and note how freshly Dr. Furness interprets the comment of our Lord on his mother's desire to withdraw him from his ministry when she beard of the charges brought by the Pharisees against him ; and again the comment on the woman who had cried out that Mary was especially blessed in being his mother. And note, too, the delicacy of Dr. Furness's suggestion as to our Lord's reason for introducing the word " sister " into the blessing he then pronounced on all who do the will of God
" On a certain occasion, when Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd in a state of great excitement caused by a sudden cure that had just been wrought, and certain Pharisees present, stung to madness by hearing the people pronounce this base Galilean the son of David ! the Messiah! charged him with being in league with the very devil of devils, upon some one's calling out to him that his mother was there wanting to speak with him, he exclaimed, Who is my mother ?' an exclamation apparently so unfilial that M. Renan infers from it that be was wanting in natural affection,—He! he who, in the sharp agony of a terrible death, forgot himself in solicitude for her who bore him ! [That divinely human incident, by the way, at the Crucifixion M. Renan regards as a fabrication designed to intimate what a favourite of Jesus John was. This way of disposing of whatever in the history happens to strike us as unlikely is very easy, but, as I have said, the perfectly artless character of the Gospels peremptorily forbids recourse to any such suspicions. To return :J—Between the lines I read that his mother, alarmed at the stir which her son was causing, and fearing, from the malignant things said against him, that he would get himself into trouble, had come to persuade him to go home with her. I read further that, shocked to the last degree at the depravity of ascribing to the devil an act of humanity, he was so carried away by his indignation in exposing the base charge, that it was not in human nature to regard the abrupt introduction, even of his dearest personal ties, otherwise than as an intolerable intrusion. I read in his exclamation, not that he loved his mother less than he should, but that he loved God and truth the most. We can love no mortal friend truly until we love God supremely. In the third Gospel, where the same occurrence is related, there is nothing said of the mother of Jesus' wanting to see him, but it is written that a woman in the crowd cried aloud, 'Blessed is she who bore thee, and the breast that pare thee nourishment.' Between the lines I read that it was hearing the mother of Jesus mentioned (as stated in the first Gospel) that suggested this woman's exclamation. And I read also in his reply to her, Blessed are they who hear the irord of God and keep it,' the same state of mind that a moment before led him to exclaim, ' Who is my mother'?' Any allusion to himself or to his private relations he could not then bear, so absorbed was he in exposing the blasphemy of attributing to an evil spirit the manifest work of God. Such allusions, diverting attention from the truths that he was then declaring, and that filled his whole mind, he felt to be ill-timed, utterly out of place. When the scene ended by his pointing to his disciples, and saying, ' Behold my mother and my brothers ! Whosoever will do the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother,'— in this introduction of the sisterly relation is there not visible between the lines a reference to the woman who had just broken forth in blessing his mother ? Do I fancy, or do I not read, that the woman, with the characteristic disposition of her sex, took his reply, 'Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it,' although expressed in general terms, directly to herself, as a personal rebuff, as if he had said, ' Blessed art thou if thou hear the word of God and keep it,' and that it was because he saw her and marked her discomfiture, or felt that she was wounded, that he introduced the sisterly allusion ?"
As to Dr. Furness's special theory of the miracles of Christ, we are disposed to agree and disagree in the same breath. We agree when he speaks of them as in the highest sense natural to oar Lord, as indicating rather the absolute predominance of spirit over matter, than any breach of the laws of nature. We should hold with Dr. Furness that the divine spirit naturally controls, because it makes and moulds, all that we call nature ; and that it is rather the revelation of the true law of spiritual creation, than any breach of that law, when the Son of God restores hearing to the deaf, opens the eyes of the blind, and raises the dead. But when Dr. Furness ascribes such great marvels to the natural influence of the divine spirit in Christ, and then makes difficulties,—as we understand him to do,—over the calming of the storm and the transfiguration, we can hardly understand his position at all. He believes that Christ really raised Lazarus from the dead after he had been four days in the tomb ; and yet he regards it as a mere coincidence that there was a great calm when Christ rebuked the winds and the waves. Surely the former marvel is far greater than the latter. No mere human being could have exerted such a spiritual influence over the natural world as to have produced either the one event or the other; and it is the less of the two marvels, not the greater, at which Dr. Furness takes offence, and which he explains away as legendary. None the less, we recommend this little book to our readers, not for its somewhat unaccountable mixture of eccentric theory with genuine insight, but for the personal insight into the character of the Gospels that it displays, and for that alone. It is the writing of a man in whom the spiritual nature is vivid, and who, therefore, has infinitely more insight into the living power of the Gospel narrative, than a great many who are wiser philosophers and sounder theologians than Dr. Furness.
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