I Fame ar ene pw baa SOI Ia eee IT See SSD ee Seas : = a See See : Sei ae z reese Ce i ea ee ee ey ee ene tenes Se pee ee Saree SS = : eee ah Se Se SEES = eee SE ee ee Se, Re eI Ea za Sse ES Se oe Som See Hit i Potts Tey he gi the Gheologicns 5,,, y “itty a PRINCETON, N. J. Inbrary of Dr. A. A. Hodge. Presented. - Brey ye D4 1885 Defence and confirmation of the faith | oa eer es =e oe Lp Seth — pts It ngnt x ee RY ae ee) A as Sees, had ? Tae oe LY ae at “DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION’ OF APACE. enya) aD eT. Six Lectures DELIVERED BEFORE TH“ WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN THE YEAR 1885, on THE FOUNDATION OF THE ELLIOTYr LECTURESHIP, FUNK & WAGNALLS NEW YORK: 1885, 10 AND 12 Dey STREET. All Rights Reserved. LONDON: 44 FLEET Srreet, Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. PREFACE. Tue Elliott Lectureship is so called in honor of the Rev. David Elliott, D.D., LL.D., who was for sixty- three years a minister of Jesus Christ in the Presbyterian Church, and for thirty-eight years a professor in the Western Theological Seminary. For the purity of his life, for the beauty of his moral character, for the abundance of his labors in the Church, and especially for his eminent services as a professor of theology through so many years, this honor is peculiarly due to his revered memory. The first course of lectures given under the Lecture- ship was delivered in 1880 by the Rev. Alexander F. Mitchell, D.D., St. Andrews, Scotland. The second course, given during the winter of 1884-85, is now presented in printed form to the alumni and friends of the Seminary. r= ins * ¥ eat x oo A ree - a he =e ee a a = i hs CONTENTS, LECTURE I. By Rev. Witu1am M. Taynor, D.D., LL.D., New Yor. PAGE The Argument from the Messianic PYOPHOCIOSS. Vives.cvcce dives: 70 LECTURE IL. By Rey. Carrorz Curter, D.D., Presmpentr or WESTERN Rez- SERVE COLLEGE, CLEVELAND, O. The Philosophy of Religion Considered ag Pointing toward a Divine Redeemer of Men......... ..... ease eee eWC daaeee s 28 LECTURE III. By Rey, Srmon J. McPuerson, D.D., Cuicaco, Inu. Jesus Christ, the Unique Reconciler of Contradictories in Thought and Oharacter:.... 00... ..s 05. .e Rate 9 hase t RE Ate arin, 59 LECTURE IV. By Rev. Natuanten West, D.D., St. Paun, Minn. An Apologetic for the Resurrection of Christ............... see 80 LECTURE V. By Rey. Syzvester F, Scoven, PResIDENT oF THE UNIVERSITY oF Wooster, Woostzr, O, Christianity and CRYIN ASOD AN, tateg oo oe Utne ie inat maath g 130 LECTURE VI. By Rev. Henry OC, McCoox, D.D., ParapEnpata. Foreordination in Nature: As an Argument for the Being of God, Illustrated from the Maternal Instinct of Insects....,, 174 2s athe bat. ~e . > * “\ 4 "ae od as Am Ae ee wh a P a ie | aye. Pe a’ Oe ef & \o= ae VE - ye va un tr : ey x J gk tee HS bia 2 Ao PRP Oe, « p ipa re et LECTURE I. The Argument from the Messianie Prophecies. BY REV. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D. In support of their claim to be received as the word of God, the Scriptures, among other evidences, set before us that of prophecy ; and I propose at this time to give a specimen of the argument which is built thereon, A full treatment of so large a subject would require a volume; but I must content myself with bringing under your notice only a few of the more important Messianic predictions contained in the Old Testament, together with their historical fulfilment, and drawing the infer- ences which are fairly warranted by the correspondence between the two. | The term prophet means one who speaks for another. It implies that he has received both his authority and his message from him whom he represents. Thus Jehovah said to Moses,* ‘‘ See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh ; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet ;’’ and what these words denote is made perfectly clear by those others spoken shortly before at the bush +—‘‘ And Aaron shall be thy spokesman unto the people : and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.’’ In the specific scriptural sense of the word, therefore, the ‘* prophet” was one authorized and qualified to speak to men the A i ay ee + Ex. 4:16. 8 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. message which he had received for them from God, and ‘* prophecy”’ was the message so delivered by him. Their discourses partook both of an ethical and a predictive character ; but the predictive was subordinated to the ethical, which, indeed, was always the staple of their ut- terances. Their highest duty was to declare the truth in God’s name; and in their labors among God’s chosen people they wrought for the preservation of Israel’s polit- ical existence—for morality, for education, for everything that tended to elevate those to whom they were primarily sent, while at the same time they secured ultimately for all mankind a written record of the revelation which had been made through them. This implied a claim on their part that God was supernaturally present with them, to guide them what and how they should speak and write ; and of that claim prediction was the authoritative indorse- ment. It was to the message by which it was’ accompa- nied what the miracles of Christ and His apostles were to the doctrines in connection with which they were wrought. Indeed, in this case the prediction was the miracle, for foreknowledge is as supernatural in the psy- chological sphere as the power ina miracle, commonly so called, is in the physical. But just as Christ and His apostles were more than miracle-workers, so the prophets were more than mere foretellers of future events. They were, in truth, the representatives of God among the people, to keep alive His knowledge in the midst of them, to stimulate them to holiness, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort them as occa- sion might require, and especially to prepare them for the coming of that great Deliverer who was to appear - once ‘in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.’? The manner in which the truth which they were to proclaim was revealed to them is THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 9 beyond our ken, but the revelation itself took its form from the cireumstances in which they were placed, and from the individuality of the prophets themselves. God used them as men, and not as machines, and through their message to their own times He spoke to men of all times. To have, therefore, anything like a just concep- tion of the work which they did we must set them in the environment of their age, and get a correct idea of the kind of evils with which they were required to contend, and in this department good service has been rendered to the Biblical student, even by writers from whom he may be constrained to differ on other matters of great impor- tance. But when we get a full appreciation of their work we are able to see how, apart altogether from their predictions, and looking only at the ethical character of their messages, a striking and irrefutable argument may be drawn for their divine inspiration. Just as the supernatural in Christ may be conclusively proved from the peerless excellence of His character and the lofty morality of His teachings, taken in connection with the absolute impossibility that these could be the simple prod- ucts of such an age as that in which He appeared upon the earth, so the divine mission of the Old Testament prophets may be established from the contrast which their writings present, especially in their theology and morality, to the religious literature of contemporary times in other lands. Here were a body of men stand- ing forth for centuries as witnesses for monotheism in creed and for holiness in life, in the face not only of the polytheism and immorality of surrounding nations, but also of a perpetual tendency toward these same evils among many of their own people ; and yet from first to last they never wavered in their utterances, or lowered their testimony in the least. Take the oldest religious 10 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. books of other nationalities, and mark the contrast be- tween them and the writings of the Hebrew prophets ; then explain, if you can, on merely natural principles, how it came that in such a number of short treatises, written by men at distant intervals, there is one purpose running through them all; how that purpose was not merely of national importance, but included in it all the people of the earth ; and how such a world-embracing purpose was conspicuous in the sacred writings of a people who have been correctly described as ‘‘ of no great power or influence, limited in number, possessed of many high qualities, but narrow-minded, prejudiced against foreigners, and devoid of all cosmopolitan ten- dencies.’’* Truly, to believe that such a literature was a spontaneous growth among such a people is harder far than it is to accept the statement that it was God who, ‘‘at sundry times and in divers manners,’’ spake thus to the fathers of the Hebrew nation by the prophets. I have said so much to indicate that [ am by no means insensible to the cogency and importance of the argu- ment which may be drawn from the writings of the Old Testament, apart altogether from the consideration of the predictions which they contain. But it seems to me that too little attention has been given, in recent times, to the predictions. In the controversies of the eight- eenth century the ethical character of the writings of the prophets was all but entirely ignored, while the predic- tions were exclusively regarded ; but now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and the tendency is to depreciate the predictions by giving undue prominence to the didactic element in the prophetical books. We * See Prophecy a Preparation for Christ, by Dean Payne Smith, p. 3. THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. th cannot forget, however, that the Lord Himself and His . immediate followers made great use of the Old Testament in their reasonings to show that the Christ must needs suffer and rise again from the dead; and in a day when the very possibility of the supernatural is by many denied, it must be of immense service to bring up the facts which here are indisputable, and ask how else they are to be accounted for than by the inspiration of the prophet on the one hand, and the all-controlling provi- dence of God upon the other. Without further preface, then, let me address myself to the work which I have taken in hand. And, first, let me lay down the conditions under which alone any valid argument from the alleged fulfilment of a prediction can be drawn. They are these three: First, the prediction should be not only anterior to the fulfilment, but so long anterior to it as to lift it above the range of mere human foresight ; second, it should be so constructed that the story of the fulfilment could not be manufactured out of its terms; and third, the fulfilment should be uncon- scious and undesigned on the part of those who brought it about. Now, with these conditions in mind, let us open the Old Testament Scriptures. Almost on the very first page, and in connection with the punishment of our first parents for the first sin, we come upon these words in the doom of the serpent: ‘‘I will put enmity between thee and the-woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’’ * Now, the discussion of the date of Genesis is quite unnecessary here, and it makes little matter, so far as the present argument is concerned, whether this was * Gen. 3: 16. 12 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. first written by Moses, or whether he found it in an ancient document and incorporated it in his narrative. In any case, it was written many hundreds of years before the advent of Christ. It is of no consequence, either, for the purposes of this argument, whether we take the story as an allegory, or, as I feel bound to accept it, as a veritable history. However regarded, the serpent stands for Satan; the woman is viewed apart from the man; and her seed denotes some individual in human nature in whose history the conflict between the serpent and the race as a whole should culminate, the result being the crushing of the serpent’s head and the bruising of the conqueror’s heel. As one has put it, the words imply ‘that the human victor would himself experience the whole power of the enemy in the very act of overcoming him.”? All this seems enigmatical enough ; but when we read it in the light of the New Testament we have the true interpretation given to it, for the first time, by its fulfilment. In the Lord Jesus Christ, who was ‘conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary,”’ we have one who is, as no one in human nature but Himself has been, ‘‘ the seed of the woman,’’ while in the crucifixion on Calvary we have the death-blow given to Satan when Christ, ‘‘ having spoiled principali- ties and powers, made a show of them openly, triumph- ing over them,’’ and introducing a new birth for the race by His own death. No one looking at the original words could of his own ingenuity have devised such a fulfilment ; yet when it came it fully met the require- ments of the case ; and as the seed of the serpent—those murderous Jews, who were of their father the devil— hissed out their malice at the meek and lowly sufferer, they knew not that they were verifying this first of all the Messianic oracles. 2 THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 13 Passing on, in our perusal of the Book of Genesis, we come upon the promises made to Abraham; and though we might find in them all much material for profitable remark, it will be sufficient for our present purpose that we dwell only upon one. Take, then, the first of them, which was given to the patriarch ere yet he had left his native Ur of the Chaldees, and for the purpose of encouraging him to leave that for another, but yet un- known, land. ‘‘ I will make of thee a great nation, . .. and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”? * Here again the date of the promise, ‘‘ I will make of thee a great nation,’’ on any theory regard- ing the age of the Book of Genesis, was long anterior to the rise of the Jewish nation. Yet how completely it has been fulfilled in the history of that people! But more remarkable still the prediction, ‘‘in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” was, as Paul has made abundantly plain, a preaching of the Gospel unto Abraham, a foreshadowing of the fact that ‘‘ the blessing of Abraham should come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.’’+ There, millenniums ago, is the predic- tion, and even now it is being fulfilled before men’s eyes. or wherever the Gospel has gone it has carried richest blessings in its train. It has elevated woman, purified the family, taken the little children in its arms, stimulated benevolence, widened civil and religious lib- erty, emancipated the slave, lifted the savage into civili- zation, and dispelled the darkness of the tomb by bring- ing life and immortality to light. These are facts that cannot be controverted, and yet, as we see, they are but the onward march toward its fulfilment of this prophecy, * Gen. 12 : 2, 3, + Gal, 3:14, 14 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH, which was given more than three thousand years ago to Abraham, ere yet he left his country and his kindred to become the first and greatest of the Pilgrim Fathers. Take, next, that remarkable utterance of the dying Jacob, in his blessing of Judah—*‘ A sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between. his feet, until that Shiloh come; and unto him shall be the obedience of the peoples.’?* This is the translation given in the Speaker’s Commentary and sanctioned by many eminent Hebrew scholars ; and the variation sug- gested by some, ‘‘ until he came to Shiloh,’’ has found little favor. The term Shiloh has been differently un- derstood ; but now the best expositors are divided be- tween these two meanings, ‘‘ The peaceful,’’ or ‘* He whose it is,” the one referring to the character of the coming ruler, and the other to his right to the sceptre of Judah ; but as the latter would require a considerable change in the Hebrew word, involving even the leaving out of one of its letters, I prefer the former. Now, from the first this oracle has been understood of the Messiah, and as such it indicates that He should be of the tribe of Judah ; that when He came He should be ‘‘ the peaceful one,’’ and that He should come just before the sceptre should depart from Judah. The date of the prophecy is that of the Book of Genesis, at least, and therefore on any theory it was long anterior to the advent of Christ. Moreover, the character of the facts foretold is such that no one could of himself bring about their fulfilment. Now we know that our Lord sprang out of Judah, and every one must recognize the appro- priateness of Shiloh, the peaceful one, as the name of Him on whose birth night the heavenly host sang, ‘* Glory to * Gen, 49 : 10, THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 15 God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men.” But more difficulty has been felt about the time of His appearance, as here indicated ; yet even here we have no need to shrink from the strictest scrutiny. I cannot put the truth about it into briefer compass, or in a clearer manner, than it has been expressed by Dr. W. H. Thomson, a beloved office-bearer of my own church, in his admirable work on Christ in the Old Testament, which he has named ‘‘ The Great Argument.’’? * ‘* The figures used,’’ says he, ‘‘ denote a continued national existence on the part of Judah. . . . The sceptre is em- blematic of an actual executive authority, whether king or magistrate, bearing sway over some definite territory or country rather than over a scattered race. . . . The lawgiver denotes that other indispensable adjunct to a real nation—namely, the possession of its own courts and institutions. (Now) over against this ancient prophecy stands this fact in history, that with the brief exception of the stay in Babylon . . . the tribe of Judah main- tained its specific existence from the beginning of He- brew history down to the overthrow by Titus, a nation in the strict sense of the term, when that is used in dis- tinction from a race or people.’’ Under the Persians, in the years of its independence after the successful conflict with a portion of the empire left by Alexander, and under the Roman power, though such a thing was exceptional in its dealing with subject peoples, the Jewish nation retained these badges of its existence, and lost them only after that memorable siege which Josephus has described, when Jerusalem was destroyed. Since then the Jews have been a race, a people, but not a na- tion. The sceptre has departed, the lawgiver has dis- - * The Great Argument, p. 104. 16 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. appeared, but not before the Shiloh had come, to whom —and here we have a repetition of the promise made to Abraham—‘‘ shall be the obedience of the peoples.” Thus distinct, on the one hand, are the meaning and the antiquity of this prophecy ; and on the other the precise- ness of its fulfilment—a fulfilment which, as it extended through centuries and involved the action of a state like that of Rome, whose rulers had never even heard of the existence of the prophecy, could not have been brought about by any collusion. We take, next, the prediction of Moses concerning his greater successor. It is to be found in Deut. 18 : 15, ‘* The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye shall hearken.” Now, it makes little difference, for the cogency of this argument, how you settle the ques- tions concerning the authorship and date of Deuterono- my. Ina matter of this kind, the prescience that sees through seven centuries is just as supernatural as that which sees through thirteen. We know that the book was in existence before the captivity of the Jews, and that is enough. Yet see how thoroughly this prediction was fulfilled in Christ. It may have had, as some imagine, a partial verification in the case of the different prophets that appeared in the history of Israel, but its terms are satisfied in none of these. The pith of the prediction is in these words, ‘‘ like unto me ;’’ and the likeness is not moral, but official. Now, as Moses was the mediator between the nation of Israel and Jehovah, so Christ is the Mediator between God and men; as Moses was the introducer of a new economy, so Jesus was the Inaugurator of a new dispensation ; as Moses was the intercessor for the people, so Jesus ‘‘ ever liveth to make intercession for them that come unto God by a THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 1% Him.’? Thus we have the official likeness in every par- ticular, and Moses here has given a description out of which no mythical Messiah could be constructed, but by which the real Messiah might be easily recognized when He appeared. We have a similar prediction in that message which Nathan brought to David, when the King of Israel ex- pressed his purpose to build a temple to Jehovah. The only difference is that, while Moses speaks, as became his time and his office, of the great coming Deliverer as a Prophet, Nathan now, in the fuller development of the nation, refers to Him as a King, and as the Son of David. Thus He who was at first described as the seed of the woman is gradually more and more definitely characterized as the Son of Shem, the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah, a Prophet like unto Moses, a King in the family of David. Here is the gist of Nathan’s message : * * It was in thy heart to build God an house, but the time has not yet come for that ; it is well that it was in thy heart to do it, and thy son shall carry out thy plan ; but God will build thee an howse’’—that is, will maintain thy dynasty—for ‘‘ thine house and thy king- dom shall be established forever before thee : thy throne shall be established before thee.”? This might not be very clearly intelligible either to David or to Nathan at the time ; but when, now, we take into consideration the fact that Jesus was of the house and lineage of David, that He came to found, and did found, a kingdom not of this world, but spiritual, and set up in the hearts of men—-a kingdom yet to be universal and destined to be perpetual, we are at no loss to find the interpretation of the promise in its fulfilment, for, as Keil has said, ‘* The * 2 Sam. 7 : 5, 16. 18 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH, posterity of David could last forever only by running out in a person who lives forever—that is, by culminat- ing in the Messiah, who lives forever, and of whose king- dom there is no end.”’ But now let us take the oracle of Micah as to the place of the great Deliverer’s birth. ‘¢ But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.’’ * I cannot go into the minute consideration of the section of Micah’s writings of which these words form a part; let it suffice to say that from the time when Micah uttered them up till that of the rejection of Christ by the Jews, the Israelites themselves universally regarded this oracle as strictly Messianic. Even the chief priests and the scribes, when Herod asked them where the Christ was to be born, answered, without hesitation, ‘“‘ In Bethlehem of Judea,”’ with a reference to this passage ; and it was only when they found that this interpretation of the prophecy identified Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah that the later Jews began to seek for it another explanation, But a close inspection of the whole tenor of the context will lead to the conclu- sion that this original application of the passage is cor- rect. Here, then, we have the birthplace of the Mes- siah specified. And when we open the New Testament we find that Christ was born at Bethlehem. Yet His birth there was what men nowadays, perhaps, would call an accident. Mary had gone thither with Joseph, not dreaming of this prophecy at all, but in obedience to the decree of the emperor, which required the enrolment at that place of all belonging to the family of David; and * Micah 5 : 2, THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 19 so, in a quite incidental and undesigned manner, the prediction of seven hundred years before was fully veri- fied. Turn with me now to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. That prophecy was long prior in date to the appearance of the Messiah. We do not care to inquire here whether it was written by Isaiah himself or by Ewald’s ‘‘ Great Unknown.’’ We have evidence, in the Septuagint ver- sion, of its existence, at least two hundred years before Christ. Neither can it be alleged that it was so plain a description of the events that one might have con- structed the Gospel history out of it; for though the Jews originally referred it to their Messiah, they still failed to get out of it the idea that he was to be a sufferer. Yet mark how the history at once interprets and fulfils it. The ministry of our Lord prior to His death was to human view so unsuccessful that He might well say, ‘‘ Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?’ His bearing before His accusers was such as exactly to harmonize with the words, ‘‘ He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.’? The manner of His death is indicated in the expression, ‘‘ He was numbered with the transgressors ;’’ yet no one was thinking of that when they crucified Him between two malefactors ; and the peculiar incidents connected with Mis burial are shadowed forth in the clause, ‘‘ His grave was appointed for Him with the wicked, but He was with the rich in His death,” a statement never thought of, either by the Roman soldiers when they prepared three graves for those who were executed that day on Calvary, or by Joseph when, in the kindness of his heart, he offered his 20 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. new tomb because it was nigh at hand. Then, in the description which comes after, ‘‘ He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied,’’ we have a reference to events which, without expressly mentioning His resur- rection and ascension, do yet fit in fully with what we know were the results of His entrance into glory and His bestowal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. For my part, I do not see how one can read the history in the light of this prophecy, or this prophecy in the light of the history, without feeling the force of Peter’s words, ‘‘ Now, brethren, 1 wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers; but those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all the prophets that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled.” Your time will permit me to refer to only one predic- tion more. Let it be that in the ninth of Daniel, wherein, in answer to Daniel’s prayer concerning the close of the captivity, Gabriel gave him a revelation, which not only unfolded to him the nature and effects of Messiah’s work, but also the time of His appearance. True, the date of Daniel’s own book has been disputed ; and some have contended, falsely as I believe, that the prophetical parts of it were not written until after the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. But that is of small account here, for we find this also in the Septuagint ver- sion of the Hebrew Scriptures two hundred years before Christ, and prescience such as that is as much above human foresight as it would be through five hundred years. Here, then, are the words, given in the best translation which I have been able to find: ‘‘ Seventy sevens (of years) are determined in reference to thy people and thy holy city, to shut up, or restrain sin, to THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 21 sea] transgression, to cover iniquity, to bring in everlast- ing righteousness, to seal the vision and the prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies. Know and understand ; from the going forth of a decree for restoring and re- building Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince are seven sevens and sixty and two sevens. Thestreets shall be re- stored and built again ; it is decided and shall be, though in distress of times. And after sixty-two sevens Messiah shall be cut off, and there shall be nothing more to Him. Then the people of a prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary ; its end shall be with that sweeping flood ; even unto the end of the war desolations are determined. One seven shall make the covenant effective to many. ‘The middle of the seven shall make sacrifice and offerings cease ; then down upon the sum- mit of the abomination comes the desolator, even till a complete destruction determined shall be poured upon the desolate.’’* Now here, more important even than the date, are the descriptive passages referring to the work of the Messiah. The phrases to ‘‘shut up or restrain sin’? and to ‘‘ cover iniquity,’’ describe most appropri- ately the sacrificial nature and sanctifying effects of the death of Christ ; the expressions to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the vision and the prophet, refer to the work of Christ as furnishing His people with an everlasting righteousness, and sealing up by ful- filling the prophecies of the Old Testament; and the anointing of the Holy of Holies, may refer to the purifi- cation and consecration of the Temple by the presence in it of the incarnate God. The portion of the oracle referring to the first seven sevens of years we need not go into now ; but in the description of what should come * See Coles on Daniel, p. 401. RR DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. at the end of the sixty-nine sevens, we find that in the middle of the next heptade sacrifice and offering should be made to cease, which clearly points to the doing away of all legal sacrifices by the death of Christ. Other expressions are equally significant, and all identify the Messiah here with Jesus of Nazareth. Now, let us look at the matter of the date. The point from which these seventy sevens are reckoned is the issuing of a command- ment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. But that cannot refer to the edict of Cyrus, or its repetition by Darius Hystaspes, for these had respect only to the Temple, and said nothing about the city. Itis probable, therefore, that it designates either the commission given by Artaxerxes Longimanus to Ezra in the seventh year of his reign, or that given by the same monarch to Nehemiah in the twentieth year of his reign. The former of these is pre- ferred by Pusey and other commentators of authority in the case; and as the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longi- manus corresponds, in the most accurate chronology, with the year 457 B.c., we may easily calculate thus. Sixty-nine sevens, or four hundred and eighty-three years, bring us to the year 26 of our era. But if, as many have shown with much probability, Christ was really born four years before that which was fixed on ultimately as the year a.p. 1,* He would be, in the year A.D. 26, in His thirtieth year ; and we know from Luke that His baptism, or public manifestation to the people, took place ‘‘ when He began to be about thirty years of age.”’ Further, in the middle of the seventieth seven, or heptade, the Lord was crucified, for, as almost all are agreed, and the Gospel by John makes it all but cer- tain, His public ministry lasted three years and a half, * See Pusey on Daniel, p. 172. THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 29 Still, again, it is said, ‘‘ One seven shall make the covenant effective tomany.’’ During the first half of this period, as we have just seen, the Lord’s personal ministry con- tinued ; but the people, as a whole, would not receive Him—‘‘ there was nothing more to Him” from them : and the remaining three and a half years probably mark the time during which the Gospel was preached to the Jews after Christ’s resurrection and before the conver- sion of the Gentiles showed that the special privileges of the chosen people were at an end. Finally, we have here a very distinct indication of the overthrow of Jeru- salem by the Romans, which followed not indeed imme- diately in time, but yet as the immediate effect of the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews. Now, bear in mind that four hundred and ninety years from the year B.c. 457 bring us to the year a.p. 33 ; that, according to the corrected chronology of many, the crucifixion took place in the year a.p. 29, and that that is the middle of the last of Daniel’s heptades at which the Messiah was to make an end of sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and you will see how marvellous the fulfilment is. I know that in the matter of dates we must speak with caution, and therefore I have been the more particular to give the greater emphasis to the phrases in this prophecy which describe the nature and effect of Messiah’s work. Still, ‘it is remarkable that the widest divergence between the many different computations made from this starting- point to the end of the sixty-nine sevens, when the Mes- siah should appear, do not vary ten years either way from the date of the preaching of John the Baptist and the first appearance of Jesus Christ.’ * Here, however, I must rest my case. I have given * The Great Argument, p. 339. 24. DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. you only a specimen of the Messianic predictions, It would require not one discourse, but a whole course of lectures, to go over them all; but I have brought out sufficient to form the basis for the argument which I proceed now to construct. I want a satisfactory explanation for the converging of so many prophecies upon Christ and their fulfilment in Him. You need not speak to me here of human fore- sight. That might account for the warning given by a deep thinker of some danger that lies in the near future, but it is ridiculous to name it in this connection. It might explain, for example, De Tocqueville’s forecast of our civil war, but it will furnish no satisfactory cause for such things as I have set before you now. Equally idle here is it to speak of accident or mere coincidence. There might be some ground for believing that the fulfilment of a prediction is accidental if it stood alone and by itself, an exception in the history of an individual ; but when we have so many predictions all pointing to one person and verified in him, no man with any candor will account for such a thing by mere coinci- dence. In scientific investigations, when we have a case like this, the philosopher, no matter what may be his creed, sees some design in the converging of so many lines toward one point, and asks, in spite of himself, What is the purpose of all this? What end is it meant toserve ? Andinthat way he arrives at some of his most important discoveries. When we look upon a modern map and observe a great many railroads from different directions approaching to and centring in one point, we immediately infer that the design of them all is to reach some important city that is situated at that point ; and the same principle will lead us infallibly to the conclu- sion here that these predictions were intended to furnish THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 25 the means for the perfect identification of the Messiah promised to the Fathers when He should appear among men. Still less can we talk here of these fulfilments having been brought about by collusion. Those concerned in the matter were working, for the most part, in igno- rance. They knew not what they did; and yet, while acting with perfect freedom, they verified all that had been written hundreds of years before. The. only hypothesis that will meet the case is that the prophets spoke under the guidance of God, and as directed by His foreknowledge. No doubt we are met here with the objection that this is a form of miracle, and that the supernatural, in any form, is impossible. But to that we may answer, in the words of Dean Payne Smith, that ‘‘the prophecies contained in the Old Testament are so numerous, so consentient one with another, and yet so contrary to the whole tenor of Jewish thought, so mar- vellously fulfilled in Christianity, and yet in a way so different from every anticipated fulfilment, that while it is unscientific to refuse to listen to the proof of their reality, because of any @ priori supposition, it 1s even worse than folly to speak of them as mere forecasts and anticipations.’’* Here are two classes of facts. On the one hand, the predictions hundreds of years before the events ; on the other, the events thoroughly fulfilling the predictions. Neither of these can be got rid of. They must be accepted as facts. Now, the great principle of the in- ductive philosophy is that nothing which claims to rest on actual fact is to be rejected without examination ; and it is an axiom in science that nothing shall be accepted * See Prophecy a Preparation for Christ. Pref. pp. xv., xvi. 26 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. as a cause which is not adequate to produce the effect that is attributed to it. By these we stand as strongly as any man of science among them all, and when these are applied to the facts which I have now brought before you, I feel persuaded that every unprejudiced inquirer will be led to the admission that God is in these ancient Scriptures, and that the prophets spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Further, these facts prove that God is in history. Men in working out their own designs are yet only ful- filling His purposes. We cannot tell how this is accom- plished without doing violence to their free agency ; but we see that it is really so, and are prepared to assent to Peter’s words, ‘‘ Him being delivered by the determi- nate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.”’ Finally, we are warranted from these facts to conclude that God is in Christ. Be sure that in believing on Jesus you are following no cunningly devised fable, but are becoming the disciples of Him to whom God has pointed by the finger of Moses, and David, and Micah, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, as well as by that of John the Baptist, saying, ‘‘ Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”? In building on this foundation you are not laying stones on a quick- sand, in which they disappear as soon as you have placed them, but you are setting them upon the Rock of Ages. In venturing on this bridge you are not trusting yourself to a tiny plank which will break beneath your weight, but you are treading on a structure stable as the throne of God itself. ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.’’ If Christ is not certainly the Son of God, then there is no certainty. If this is not proof that He is the THE ARGUMENT FROM MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 27 Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him, then all proof is impossible. I repeat, therefore, with a firmer emphasis than ever, the precious words, ‘“¢ This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’’? But as L think of old Jerusalem, and see the Roman eagles shin- ing in the lurid light of the conflagration by which its temple was consumed, I am constrained to add, ‘‘ Be- cause of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear ; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He spare not thee.” LECTURE IL. The Philosophy of Religion Considered as Pointing Toward a Dwine Redeemer of Men. BY REV. CARROLL CUTTER, D.D., PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE, CLEVELAND, OHIO, Tue subject of my lecture to-night is, The Philosophy of Lfreligion Considered as Pointing toward a Divine ftedeemer of Men. I propose to show what I under- stand by religion, by the philosophy of religion, what the outlines of such a philosophy are, and how it points to a divine Redeemer of men. This is obviously a large field, which presents many deep problems for discussion, rather than topics for pop- ular discourse. But the substantial facts and relations may be presented in a plain way, without complicated criticism and refutation of other views, so that even the common mind may grasp them without being lost in doubts and hard questions. Religion is such a common fact in our experience and observation that we scarcely think of defining it for our- selves or others. We point to the exercises of it which we daily see in a Christian community, and attempt no farther determination of its nature. When we see vari- ous forms of religion differing from each other and from our own in creed, life, and worship, some are apt to refer them all without inquiry, as perversions or diseases of the soul, to the class of superstitions unworthy of THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 29 respect or study. Others of a more sceptical mind are inclined to rank Christianity with the rest, as only a less baneful and irrational superstition, destined to pass away in its turn, as fetichism, the worship of animals or of nature, as Greek polytheism, has passed away. The great number and variety of religions is often made the ground for rejecting all religion as a product of vain fears and baseless theories. If there be therefore a true, real, and well-grounded religion, having substantial and permanent causes in the soul of man,—if there is a real fitting object toward whom these activities go out,—if the nature and situation of man and the nature of the object of religion demand its exercise, then by defining what religion essentially is, pointing out these permanent eauses, showing the reality of the object and our rela- tions to it, we shall do something to defend and establish it ; because we thus give a rational account and intellect- ual justification of it ; we give a philosophy of religion. If we show that religion thus defined and accounted for requires a divine Mediator and Redeemer, we shall do something to defend and establish the Christian system. There have been many attempts to give a brief and comprehensive definition of religion in a single sentence. Examples of these are the following: ‘‘ Religion is the observance of the moral law as a divine institution ;” it is-‘¢ faith in the moral order of the universe ;” ‘‘ the union of the finite with the infinite ;” ‘‘ the union of God with man;’’ ‘‘ faith founded on feeling in the reality of the ideal ;’’ ‘‘ the recognition of our duties as divine commands ;” ‘‘ conscious participation in the highest reason ;’’ ‘‘ the feeling of absolute dependence.” Such vague, abstract, or metaphysical phrases may suggest to the imaginative particular aspects of religion, but they can convey no definite conception of any sub- 30 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. ject, much less of that great concrete reality which so absorbs and controls all human life, and which we call religion. Dr. Whewell defines religion as ‘‘a man’s belief respecting God and His government of men.” This gives religion wholly an intellectual character. Belief concerning these things is certainly involved in religion, or constitutes one element of it, but not the whole. If a man’s belief on the question whether God is, and whether He exercises any government over men, should happen to be that there is no God and no divine govern- ment, that would not be religion. Bretschneider has said, with more correctness, ‘‘ Religion is faith in the reality of God, with a state of mind and mode of life in accordance with that faith.’? Professor W. D. Whitney defines more at length by saying that ‘‘ Religion is a belief in a superhuman being or beings whose actions are seen in the works of creation, and in such rela- tions on the part of man toward this being or beings as prompt the believer to acts of propitiation and wor- ship, and to the regulation of conduct. It is a philoso- phy with the application to human interests added, and not only added, but made the prominent consideration.” The Westminster Review (April, 1881, p. 194) says that, ‘‘in all acts or states of religion two characteristic features are invariably present: First, an emotion in the mind of the devotee, manifested with more or less in- tensity in the form of reverence, awe, and dependence ; second, this state of feeling as related in some form or other to a supernatural being or power. The former is the product of our emotional, the latter of our intellect- ual, nature.” The defects of the latter two definitions will appear in the sequel, but they are far superior to those briefer THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 31 ones. Religion is a hard thing to define adequately, ‘because it is so comprehensive,—in logical language, becanse it has so many essential marks. Any proper conception of it must be as broad as the nature and life of man, and must have reference to a real being outside and independent of man, which is its proper object. It we look at it as we experience it ourselves, or as it is reported by others who have had a deep experience of it, we find that it includes knowledge and feeling, choice and action,—that is, it includes the whole of man ; all his powers and activities have a part in it. If any of these elements is absent, or defective, or perverted in its action, the religion is either changed into a superstition, or loses its full and proper nature. It is something which takes the place of religion or a diseased and dis- ordered exhibition of it ; not religion in proper propor- tions and balance of its elements. If we should attempt to define religion so broadly—that is, by so few marks—as to bring under the definition all its perversions and defective types, all those things which have ever taken the place of religion, we could give only the fewest qualities, and must leave out many essential elements of real and true religion. The more correct method would be to define the true, real, and full conception, and then, if need be, point out the de- fects by which other things fall short of this conception, even though they may practically take the place of religion. When we speak of a philosophy of religion, we properly mean religion as a psychological activity and a psychological product. If we speak of it as an outward form or exercise, as a performance or ceremony, it is a perversion of language. Performances are a mere husk, and of no account except as an expression of a psycho- 32 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. logical activity. But religion as a psychological activity and a psychological product can have no occasion and no existence except with reference to an object, which must be, or be conceived, as a superhuman being, and, in the strict sense, as a supernatural being. It must be super- human in such a sense as to have power over man ; it must be above, superior to man. It must be supernat- ural in the sense that it has power over the mind and soul of man as no other man and no material thing as such, has, even though it should be itself a material thing, as the sun, the ocean, fire, some force of nature, or a mere idol of wood or stone. It is not common matter or common material force. It has, by some means Which the believer may not understand, become separated and lifted out of the class of ordinary material things. Perhaps the thought may not rest, or intend to rest, in the material thing at all, but that may be consid- ered merely as the representative embodiment or sug- gester of an unseen power which is served and wor- shipped. And even if the thought does rest in the material thing, it does not rest in it merely as material ; for then all material things alike would be gods; but as distinguished in some way, however dimly the way may be apprehended, from all other material things, so that this has some special power and right over the man which cannot be set aside or successfully opposed. Religion, then, implies, first, knowledge of a Being who is to be served and worshipped,—knowledge of a God who is so far above us and in such relations to us as to have power and right over us. By some means or other all men have some conception of such a Being or beings, and belief in them, and that they stand in such plaiots to the gods. Second. If there are conceived to be such arrsie THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 5 beings or such a Being, it must also be conceived that there are certain feelings due to him, corresponding to his nature and our relations to him. If he has a power over us, we must inquire how we can render him such service as will satisfy him ; if he has also a right over us, we must cherish and express awe, reverence, duty, and submission. If we should have besides a high con- ception of God’s wisdom and goodness, of the benefi- eence of His dealings with us, that calls for love and gratitude. Whatever perfections we might discover in the Deity would call for special feelings. These are religious feelings, and their fulness, as well as their pre- cise character, will depend on the knowledge or belief which prepares the way for them, as feeling always depends on knowledge and on the degree and kind of contemplation of the object. Third. If there is such a Being, with power and right over us, with wisdom and goodness, his will, if we can learn it in any way whatever, must govern our choices and be the law for our actions. Our view of God’s character and attributes will determine whether we can obey His law with a high, generous principle and pur- pose, or whether we shall obey with a cringing, slavish, ignoble spirit. If we look over the religions of the world, I think we shall find these three elements present in them all,—per- haps varying much in degree and with many strange and deadly errors in thought and exhibition. Now, reducing these explanations to the form of a definition, 1 would say that religion is a knowledge or belief of some supernatural Being with power and right. over men, together with the exercise toward him, or toward one another in obedience to him, of feelings, choices, and actions corresponding to the character of / 34 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. that Being, and our relations to him and to one another. It is now plain that religion, if this be a correct defini- tion, is not the exercise nor the product of any one faculty of the soul; it is an exercise of the whole soul, of the whole man, and it embraces all the activities of the man. It does not differ in kind from other activi- ties. It is knowing, willing, feeling, acting. It hasa special object of knowledge ; the feelings, choices, and actions correspond to the object and the relations. The chief difference between religions will grow out of the view which their votaries take of the divinity, whether there be one or more gods, what the character of the god is conceived to be and his relations to men. Now, such a fact or series of facts as this definition of religion implies is found universally among men in some form or other. There is everywhere belief in supernat- ural beings. The attempt to prove that there are tribes of atheists is a failure. There is everywhere worship of gods, often degraded and degrading, but some service rendered, some ceremony performed, some thoughts, feelings, purposes, cherished, as due to the gods or required by them. There is everywhere conduct toward fellow-men supposed to be required by the gods. Relig- ion may not be anywhere all-controlling. We confess that even our own exalted religion has far too little inilu- ence over us; but reason tells us, and we acknowledge, that it ought to control us wholly. A philosophy of this series of religious facts would consist in accounting for them—that is, in pointing out their causes, and in show- ing how the facts are intellectually justified from the nature and situation of man. The philosophy of religion must rest, first of all, in ——— THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 35 the facts of psychology—that is, in the nature of the human soul, where we must seek the causes. If we find religion everywhere, man must be essentially a religious being in his very construction. It rests, in the second place, in the reality of an object of religion known to man. Our reasoned certainty that there is such an object known to us rests largely in metaphysics—the meta- physies of knowledge, the metaphysics of the substantial world, the metaphysics of ethics. We must first inquire what are the causes of religion in the constitution of the human soul. [First of all, there is the fact that man ts an intelligent beg. As such he cannot shake off the belief that there is some great superior power controlling the world. I am not speak- ing of philosophers consciously reasoning to prove that there is a God ; but all men with the most casual thought see too much intelligence in things, too much harmony, order, regularity, law, too much plan, too much rich and varied beauty in things, too much in their own lives above their control and yet evidently ordered, to permit the idea in their minds that chance or blind force is supreme. Even the lowest are prone to project some magnified image of their own personality over all things. There have been a few men, we must admit, who have professedly laid aside this belief in a God, who have set up the theory, the speculative opinion, that there is no God ; but no man can work theism as an active practical force out of his soul. It is presented to our minds, it is urged upon us, from so many sources and in so many ways, it strikes our nature on so many sides, that we cannot practically resist it, even while we speculatively deny it. A natural theism in the soul, forming the basis of all its activities, will break out to control the life, to make it harmonious and beautiful if accepted, or 36 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. to shatter and torture it if rejected. I am not now justifying this deep thought and fixed belief, but only calling attention to it as a fact. And I maintain that this natural belief in gods in some form or other shows that man, as intelligent, is essentially a religious being, however ignorant and degraded he may become. He always finds some object whom he thinks he ought to worship, whom he wd/ worship and serve. Second, there is the fact that men are moral beings. They have a conscience, a sense of duty, of obligation, of law, of right and wrong, and an intellectnal percep- tion of the same. All men know and feel that there are some things which they ought to choose and do, and others which they ought to reject and avoid. We find the most various and strange views of what in particular we ought to do and what to avoid, the most marvellous contradictions ; but the strangeness and variousness of these views does not diminish the proof that man is essentially a moral being. They rather increase this proof, since they show that the moral is deep and strong enough to break through every crust of ignorance, error, and wickedness even, and to assert itself against the greatest and most varied obstacles. Man did not create this feeling of duty ; he cannot eradicate it or lay it aside. He may dull, impair, or pervert it, just as he may any other faculty. ‘‘It does not wy to be consulted or advised with ;’’? it does not come out of education or religion ; is not dependent on any opinions concerning our origin or destiny. It springs up spon- taneously, ‘and asserts itself magisterially.’’ It carries with it a dread of the consequences of wrong-doing. Wrong-doing creates fear, right-doing creates peace of mind and a sense of safety. This moral element in the human soul is a powerful THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. ot cause of religion, No other animal has it, and there is no sign that any other inhabitant of this earth 1s a relig- ious being. This sense of duty causes religion in two ways: First, because, intellectually considered, it implies that there is a God over us: a Lawgiver, a Ruler, a Judge. I do not speak of the philosopher who speculates on the meaning of such things ; but the common man, the dull and degraded man, though he may frame no theory, inarticulately feels that the implanted law itself declares that there is a Lawgiver, the necessary correlate of the law. Second, because we are thus brought into vital relations with the superior power which, on other and merely intellectual grounds, we believe to exist. This ever-active moral principle brings us into relations of accountability and responsibility toward God. We are to be judged for our conduct, and we cannot shake off this thought and feeling. These relations with a supe- rior lawgiver are permanent, delicate, and sensitive. It makes a great difference, we feel, how we conduct our- selves, which side of the dividing line between good and evil we are on. This hope and fear, connected with the sense of duty, do not stop with our earthly life; they reach out into another life ; they carry immortality with them ; they carry rewards and punishments with them ; they are rewards and punishments begun here, and they anticipate a personal and final decision upon conduct by a righteous and authoritative Judge. I cannot attempt to bring out all that this ethical ele- ment in the soul implies. It carries with it a great deal philosophically, in the way of proving that there is a God ; in the way of giving reality and present force to the doctrine, and in showing what God is; in the way of showing what human nature is as a whole, what 38 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. human life is in its unity and purpose, what this world is in its structure, laws, order, and beauty, as a theatre for man ; as well as in the way of showing more specifically man’s relations to God and what his religious life must be. In all these respects this ethical element is, intel- lectually considered, a ground of religion which can never be shaken, and practically it 1s the most powerful cause of religious feeling and action. It is such a power- - ful practical cause of religion that even if the intellect is \ uncultivated and incapable of forming correct speculative views of the world, or if for any reason the mind has gone away into confusion and error, this ethical element will work out some form of religion. This is the prime characteristic of the ethical in man, that it makes him religious independently of speculative views, of any rea- soned doctrine that there is a God and another life. It is an irresistible religious force within every human soul. Many seem to suppose that the proper sphere of ethics is only to regulate our social life among men. That is the least part of ethics, and that is not for social, civil, and temporal ends alone, or chiefly; it is for disciplinary ends with reference to God and another life ; it is for religious ends. The deep, inarticulate feeling that this is its real meaning and force is seen in the fact that it always comes out in some form of religion. The third thing which makes man essentially a relig- ious being is the feeling of dependence and limitation. We are never suflicient for ourselves ; we always feel the need of support, and are conscious of our ignorance and helplessness in every crisis of life. We come into the world without our own choice, we know not whence ; we are kept in life often without any wisdom of our own, or when our own wisdom would destroy us; the most trifling accidents shape our destiny without any THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 39 foresight on our part ; we cannot escape the control of fixed laws of life, nor the toils of what seem mere chance circumstances ; we are helpless and alone in death ; we go out into the blank unknown never to return. The stoutest man feels his weakness, his need of help, his dependence in these physical things. There is a sense of moral dependence, of uncertainty, of timidity before the moral forces of the world, a felt need of guidance, instruction, and help, as to what is duty and right, how we shall place ourselves in harmony with the moral law and the moral forces of the universe. This sense of dependence does not have reference merely to our fellow-men and the material world about us. They do not give a satisfying support. They are not self-sufficient nor sufficient for us. This solid earth, this grand cosmos, is finite and dependent ; it has its being and support in something beyond itself. So the family, the community, the state, as social and civil bodies, are all dependent, subordinate, unsatisfying. They point to and rest in the controlling ethical forces of the universe, and these in turn carry us on to a supreme ethical author and supporter acting for ethical ends. The dependent physical and moral world alike refer us to God as the only adequate, satisfying support. We are thus brought into conscious practical relations with God which we cannot evade or lay aside the thought of, and that without any conscious reasoning or speculation on our part. We are inwardly practically impelled to reach out beyond the fleeting, failing forms of things to the permanent, unchanging supporter of them all. Our very souls push us into relations with God and make us recognize these relations through their conscious weak- ness. The fourth element in the soul which causes religion is 40 DEFENCE AND CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH. what I may perhaps eall the obverse of the last, the belief in the boundless and unlimited, the sense of our limita- tion or relations to the unlimited, the struggle to escape bounds and dependence. Man is a limited, finite, and dependent being, but he is not contentedly and passively dependent like the brutes. He is deeply conscious of his dependence just because he is ever reaching out beyond it, longing and striving to break out of his limits, to lay hold on the infinite and independent, to associate with and share in the infinite, the boundless, the perfect, the self-sufficient. Weights hold him down when he strives to soar, but he strives none the less. He distinguishes himself, his permanent and abiding self, from all his particular acts, feelings, impulses; from all that is low and holds him to low and temporary things, and asserts his superiority to them ; he feels himself humiliated and kept below his native privilege by them. Thus every soul is carried out toward God, not in the way of reason- ing and conscious, deliberate search, but in the way of native tendency. The impulse may be blind and vague, may lead to untold errors and follies, but it is real and active, and is satisfied only when the soul is united with God, when it is lifted by the Infinite One into some conscious union with itself. A fifth cause of religion in the soul is the affections, the tendeney to love something, and the longing to be joved. The soul goes out in love toward other persons —parents, friends, neighbors. But none of our fellow- men satisfy us; they have too many faults and defects, too much selfishness; they are too little responsive. Inven if their whole souls should come back to us in reply, it is too little to meet our longing. on rm ede - hie. > Wot dnaad aio r Rees yas Ri pe a i Set ne = ee he a Pes a we pw Daal i wee ae ge 2 oe Kea fous < y Ys ¥ we od ed ee rn ms 2 aed dee te Re eee ; ‘ 7 das ae ~~ a Wee Pe et eee 1 —> Dak _— . a Pit ts } —" + +9 PY rh a : i Aad oe Ys , 7." ee a . Seg ay roa Ey