And the only exceptions, which I remember, to this
rule, are two cases in which, from the personal appeal made to his
decision, Christ would have made himself a party to wretched delusions,
if he had not condescended to expose their folly. But, as a general
rule, the branches of error were disregarded, and the roots only
attacked. If, then, so lofty a station was taken with regard even to
such errors as had moral and spiritual relations, how much more with
regard to the comparative trifles, (as in the ultimate relations of
human nature they are,) of merely human science! But, for my part, I go
further, and assert, that upon three reasons it was impossible for any
messenger from God, (or offering himself in that character,) for a
moment to have descended into the communication of truth merely
scientific, or economic, or worldly. And the reasons are these:
_First_, Because it would have degraded his mission, by lowering
it to the base level of a collision with human curiosity, or with petty
and transitory interests. _Secondly_, Because it would have ruined
his mission; would utterly have prostrated the free agency and the
proper agency of that mission. He that, in those days, should have
proclaimed the true theory of the Solar System and the heavenly forces,
would have been shut up at once--as a lunatic likely to become
dangerous.
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