134 Some Implications of the Incarnation [CH. 



of the miracle. Probably, belief on this matter will 

 never be united. The whole is so tinged with the false, 

 and I would even say wicked, depreciation of hallowed 

 sexual intercourse, that is the legacy of a celibate priest- 

 hood, that dispassionate examination is difficult for 

 many. Mr Box 1 has recently given us a careful, if not 

 wholly unbiased, survey of the evidence, and one can- 

 not do more, as one may not honestly do less, than ex- 

 press the personal opinion that he makes a very strong 

 case in his defence of the Virgin Birth as an historical 

 fact. While deprecating any bitterness of contention 

 with those who equally honestly believe otherwise, re- 

 garding the evidence as inconclusive or dubious, one 

 ought at least to state, with all the force one may, that, 

 whether the mode of Christ's birth was that or not, at 

 least it involved a miracle. The doctrine underlying 

 belief in the Virgin Birth is true, whether the expression 

 of the truth followed that mode 2 or not. 



This same doctrine of the complete limitation of 

 Christ to the powers of perfect manhood incarnate 

 under cosmical conditions helps towards an under- 

 standing of many questions that at one time and another 

 puzzle us. His eschatological teaching, which seems not 

 always to see clearly beyond the fall of Jerusalem ; His 

 human hunger, His human fatigue, His human griefs 

 and disillusionments, His inability to see into the future 

 (" If it be possible let this cup pass from me," and again, 

 "Of that time knoweth no man, not even the Son, nor 

 the angels, but only the Father"); even His human 

 fallibility in judging the character of Judas Iscariot 

 all these cease to provide difficulties when we accept 

 His Manhood as a real thing, and not an epiphenomenon 

 of Godhead. And we have seen already what clear light 

 is shed upon the mysteries of the Atonement. Even if we 

 1 The Virgin Birth of Jesus. 

 1 As the present scribe himself believes. 



