If we attentively examine the life of Jesus, as written by the four evangelists, we shall be surprised at many parts of his proceedings. His uncourteous language to the great men of his nation must strike the reader very forcibly. He preaches humility and meekness, and soon we perceive him arrogating divine honors, and calling those, who came before him, robbers and thieves. He commands his followers to _judge not_, and the next moment he judges others, and condemns them without ceremony; and although it is said of him, that "a bruised reed he would not break, and smoking flax he would not quench," and that "_his voice could not be heard in the street,_" yet we find him using something very little short of outrage and violence. In the affair of the Temple, for instance, it is recorded that Jesus took a cord, and began to attack those sitting about that sacred place, "_overthrowing the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves,_" calling them "_a den of thieves._" Such conduct the Jews could not expect from their long-wished and earnestly-desired Messiah.
Even at twelve years of age, his conduct seems to have had something strange about it; namely, his absenting himself from his home. When his parents found him, and told him that "_they had sought him sorrowing,_" he said, in reply, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" This answer appears not to have been understood by his relations; but if Joseph was not his father, his mother could not wonder at his straying from home; she would have said to Joseph, "As you are not his father, he has reference to the Holy Ghost." His conduct also partook of the same strangeness at the marriage-feast. When the wine was all out, his mother told her son of it; his reply was not very dutiful--"_Woman_," says he, "_what have I to do with thee?_" At such a place, on the night of a marriage ceremony, there seems something so unearthly about him, that he never appeared at ease in any company; such an absence of mirthful enjoyment was calculated to spread a gloom throughout the whole party.
But that which appears very strange in Jesus, is his using language that even his disciples did not understand, such as, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand;" that he "came down from heaven;" for, says Jesus, "_No man hath ascended up into heaven, but he who came down from heaven, even the son of man, who is in heaven._" And again, "_Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;_" and to the rich man, who asked him what he was to do to secure the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said, that in addition to loving and fearing God, and doing his duty to his neighbor, he "_must sell all he had, and give it to the poor._"