Original

Magazines

Matthew 11:28 · stempublishing.com

1900 84 These are not the words of a mere man, but rather of One, Who, however lowly, always spoke as befitted Him, Who is both God and man. They are in short the words of a divine Person speaking with divine authority. There are no words like them save His own, search where we will in the records of antiquity. And it is needless to say that the same may be asserted of the sayings of all moderns. No doubt we are in less danger of overestimating those who have lived near our own time, with whose foibles too we are perhaps somewhat acquainted. Such do not loom large to the imagination through the mists of time. But for all their detachment from our familiar scrutiny, and our consequent tendency to put the very highest value on their words, no statements of the great men of old can match, nay, even approach, the divine definiteness, the calm majesty, of our Saviour's utterances. It is not that poets and philosophers, particularly the poets, did not say wise and true things sometimes; but obviously their whole attitude was different. Their language was speculative, tentative, and unauthoritative, whenever it went beyond a doubtless often eloquent lamentation over man's impotence.