The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864, page 89 by Various Authors
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ness of personal freedom from guilt and from all need of salvation. And this is the unmistakable impression made upon us by his whole public life and conduct. He nowhere shows the least concern for his own salvation, but knows himself in undisturbed harmony with his Heavenly Father. While calling most earnestly upon all others to repent, he stood in no need of conversion and regeneration, but simply of the regular harmonious unfolding of his moral powers. While directing all his followers, in the fourth petition of his model prayer, to ask daily for the forgiveness of their sins as well as their daily bread, he himself never asked God for pardon and forgiveness, except in behalf of others. While freely conversing with sinners, he always does so with the love and interest of a Saviour of sinners. This is an undeniable historical fact, no matter how you may explain it. And to remove every doubt, we have his open and fearless challenge to his bitter enemies: 'Which of you convinceth me of sin?' In this question he clearly exempts himself from the common fault and guilt of the race. In the mouth of any other man, this question would at once betray either the height of hypocrisy, or a degree of self-deception bordering on madness itself, and would overthrow the very foundation of all human goodness; while from the mouth of Jesus we instinctively receive it as the triumphant self-vindication of one who stood far above the possibility of successful impeachment or founded suspicion.
The assumption that Christ was a sinner, and knew himself such, although he professed the contrary and made upon friends and enemies the impression of spotless innocency, is the most monstrous deception that can well be imagined. 'If Jesus was a sinner, he was conscious of sin, as all sinners are, and therefore was a hypocrite in the whole fabric of his character; realizing so much of divine beauty in it, maintaining the show of such unfaltering harmony and celestial grace, and doing all this with a mind confused and fouled by the affe