Trusting to the goodness of my cause, I have ventured it into an unequal combat; and from a consciousness of my admired friend's high superiority, I do feel a little abashed at being brought face to face against him.

But possibly the less said to the public on these personal matters, the better.
I have to give reasons why I cannot adopt that modified scheme of Christianity which is defended and adorned by James Martineau; according to which it is maintained that though the Gospel Narratives are not to be trusted in detail, there can yet be no reasonable doubt _what_ Jesus _was_; for this is elicited by a "higher moral criticism," which (it is remarked) I neglect.

In this theory, Jesus is avowed to be a man born like other men; to be liable to error, and (at least in some important respects) mistaken.

Perhaps no general proposition is to be accepted _merely_ on the word of Jesus; in particular, he misinterpreted the Hebrew prophecies.

"He was not _less_ than the Hebrew Messiah, but _more_." No moral charge is established against him, until it is shown, that in applying the old prophecies to himself, he was _conscious_ that they did not fit.
His error was one of mere fallibility in matters of intellectual and literary estimate.