Some believed Jesus to be a supernatural
person, commissioned by God to give a supernatural revelation of truth
and duty, and empowered to prove the divinity of His mission and
doctrine by supernatural works. Others looked on Christ as the natural
result of the moral development of our race, like Bacon, Shakespeare, or
Baxter. They looked on miracles as impossible, and regarded all the
Bible accounts of supernatural events as fables. They were Deists. One
I found who declared his disbelief in a future life. There was a gradual
incline from the almost Christian doctrine of Carpenter and Channing,
down to the principles of Deism and Atheism.
While in London I became acquainted with Dr. Bowring, afterwards Sir
John Bowring. He was one of my hearers at Stamford Street Chapel, and
complimented me, after the sermon, by calling me the modern John Bunyan.
He had been pleased with the simplicity of my style, and the familiar
and striking character of my illustrations. He invited me to his house,
showed me a multitude of curiosities, which he had collected in his
travels round the world, made me a present of part of a skull which he
had taken from an Egyptian Pyramid--the skull of a prince, who, he said,
had lived in the days of Joseph,--he also made me a present of his
works, including five volumes of translations from the Poets of Russia,
Hungary, and other countries, and some works connected with his own
eventful history.
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