of the Gheologicns Soy PRINCETON,N. J. Presented by Dr. fF. Patton: Digitized by the Internet Archive In 2022 with funding from | Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/christusauctorma0Ocand_0 CHRISTUS AUCTOR atv aN Wha i Ae Pst td 4 vit Y ' ul & nah CHRISTUS AUCTOR A MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES BY WARREN A. CANDLER, DD ED, fOURTH EDITION | NEW YORK THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 33-37 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET UNION SQUARE, NORTH CoPpyRrRiIGuHt, 1900, By WARREN A. CANDLER, D.D., LL.D. CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION . : : f s ; I. CHRISTIANITY OFFERS CREDENTIALS. it. 1 i be VI. VII. VIIl. THE EVIDENCES. THE REASONABLE USE oF REASON . i ; A e ASSUMING THE EXISTENCE oF A Gop, THE ANTECEDENT PROBABILITY OF A REVELATION : : . s Is THERE A Gop? ATHEISM, AGNOSTI- CISM, DEISM, PANTHEISM AND RE- VEALED RELIGION 2 4 ‘ HAs Gop APPEARED AMONG MEN? Is JESUS A MyTH? : a A Has Gop APppPpEARED AmMona MEN? Is THE JESUS OF THE EVANGELISTS DIVINE? y . ‘4 : ; { Has Gop APPEARED AmMona MEN? Dip JESUS RISE FROM THE DEAD? St. PAUL’s TESTIMONY 4 - f . St. Pauw’s Testimony ConTINUED AND ITS CORROBORATION BY THE EXISTENCE OF THE CHURCH AND BY THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY (' ., : ‘ p HAs Gop APPEARED AMoNnG MEN? Dip JESUS RISE FROM THE DEAD? THE PAGE 1-8 9-16 17-28 29-38 39-56 57-68 69-88 89-104 TESTIMONY OF THE EYANGELISTS , 105-124 ¥ 1D.¢ XI. XII. XIII. XIV. Contents Has Gop AprpreaRED AMONG MEN? THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO THE DIVINITY OF JESUS WHEN Gop Was Amone Men Dip HE APPROVE ANY SACRED Books? THE WITNESS oF JESUS TO THE OLD TESTA- MENT Wen Gop Was Amone Men Dip HE PROVIDE FOR ADDITIONAL SACRED Books? WHat AuTHorITy DOES THE New TESTAMENT DERIVE FROM JESUS? HAVE THE SacrED Books AUTHENTI- CATED BY GoD WHEN HE WaAs Amonc MEN REACHED Us IN A Sup- STANTIALLY UNCORRUPTED STATE? Is THE IMPRINT OF Gop Upon THE Book AUTHENTICATED BY JESUS? THE IN- TERNAL EVIDENCES OF THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE. ‘ A THE CONCLUSION . : A - Z . 125-148 . 149-174 175-206 . 207-226 227-240 241-250 INTRODUCTION “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earn- estly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”—St. Jude. “Stand fast in the faith.”—St¢. Paul to the Corin- thians. “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doc- trine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”—-St. Paul to the Ephesians. “Nor will the Higher Criticism disturb the conclu- sion of our common sense. It has run its course and perished in the counter-currents of its own antago- nisms. Acids and alkalies of hostile theories have neutralized each other. Opposing electrical forces have adjusted themselves into equilibrium. The sky is cleared by its own violence, and we may once more discern plain truth by plain reason.”—John McDowell Leavitt, i a INTRODUCTION Braise Pascar in his Penscés has left frag- mentary materials for an apologetic treatment of Christianity, which he hoped to have made the work of his life. For so great a task he declared ten healthy years were required, while God had given to him only four sick ones. For more than twenty years, as the writer of these lines has had opportunity, he has pon- dered the Evidences of Christianity and stud- ied many of the masterpieces of the literature of the subject. But they have been busy years, crowded with toil and care, which denied him the leisure, if he had possessed the capacity, required for attaining the learning necessary to a just presentation of even the outlines of the great argument. From the standpoint of an amateur in apolo- getics, however, he has felt the need of a trea- tise in which the Evidences of Christianity should be presented in a different form from that of any with which he was acquainted. The older writers have seemed to take too much for granted, and besides, since their days the field of controversy has been entirely changed. Not a few of the modern writers, on the other hand, 5) 4 The Policy of Concessions have appeared to grant too much and to make concessions to rationalism which may be justly regarded as scarcely less than betrayals of truth. This modern policy of concessions to ration- alism, made in the interest of what has been called “a distressed faith,’ is unwise and un- necessary. It must be resisted and reversed, or a devouring criticism, having mutilated and mangled the Holy Scriptures, “the Oracles of God,” will presently proceed to an attempt to discrown and dethrone even the very Christ of the Prophets and Apostles himself. For, as Bishop Ellicott truly forewarns the Christian world, ‘The same spirit that has found irrecon- cilable difficulties in the supernatural element of the Old Testament will ultimately challenge the evidence on which the Incarnation rests. And the more so as all the age-long testimonies of the Old Testament, all the foreshadowings of all the promises that were greeted from afar, all the sure words of prophecy, will have been ex- plained away; and there will remain nothing save two narratives, which, it will be said, bear so patently the traces of illusion, or, at the least, of an idealism expressing itself under the guise of alleged facts, that the doctrine of the Word become flesh, the doctrine which is the hope, 1Bllicott’s “Christus Comprobator,” page 11. A Stand Must Be Made 5 light and life of the universe will be surren- dered to the last demands of what will have now become not a distressed, but a ruined faith. When that blessed doctrine is surren- dered, the total eclipse of faith will have com- menced and the shadows of the great darkness will be fast sweeping over the forlorn and deso- late soul.’” Already indeed a tendency is observed in cer- tain quarters “to minimize the knowledge of our Lord in His human nature,’”” and to set up a plea of nescience for Him in order to offset his testimony to the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures, to the end that the assumptions of a destructive criticism may not be embarrassed by open and undisguised conflict with Him while still calling him Lord. Against all this mistaken movement of theo- logical compromise a firm stand must be made, if a shred of Christianity is to be left for trans- mission to the generations to come, or even if the faith of the present generation is to be main- tained. At this present moment over wide areas of Christendom there are visible the char- acteristic parasites of a dying religion— mistletoe growths, such as Mormonism, Spirit- ualism, and Christian Science. Unless the “Christus Comprobator,” page 31. *Ibid., pages 85-96 and 97. 6 Christianity or Superstition, Which? influence of recent “destructive criticism” is speedily overcome the Christian world must prepare for an age of the most grotesque super- stitions. It can not return to paganism—the gods of the heathen world are dead beyond the hope of resurrection. But after it has re- nounced the guidance of the Bible, it will be forced to follow the lead of a blind but death- less instinct of religion into an era of ghosts and goblins. When the God of Samuel has been forgotten, having been dissolved in pre- cipitate and corrosive speculations of “redac- tions’ and “redactors,” the witch of Endor will be resorted to, or mayhap multitudes will fly to the superstition of an infallible Pope, to whom John Henry Newman filed in order to down the spectres of his own raising. When in riotous rationalism Christendom has wasted the substance of a rich revelation inherited from the ages past, the prodigal will awake amid a famine—“a famine not of bread, but of hearing the words of the Lord”—and will be forced to starve, or to join himself to some cit- izen of the far land whither he has heedlessly wandered. Forefending against a calamity so great, a stand must be made around the person of Je- sus. His authority must be made the bulwark of the faith “once (once for all) delivered to “Ohrist the Central Evidence’ q the saints.” As the Reverend Principal Cairns has truly said: “In the great struggle between faith and doubt the key of the position is the person of Christ himself, and so long as the ob- vious meaning of the Gospel narrative as to the life, character and work of that central fig- ure can be accepted ‘as fact and not delusion,’ no weapon lifted against Christianity can pre- vail.”* Jesus is the true Defender of the Faith. He is the refuge of Truth in this “age of doubt,’ as he hath been its “dwelling place in all generations.” From the standpoint of this confident belief have been written the pages which follow. No claim of originality is made for what is con- tained in them. Most of it can be found scat- tered throughout the apologetic literature of our own and other lands. It is, however, here brought together in a form of argument not hitherto adopted by the evidence writers, as far as the present writer is acquainted with them. The strength of the discussion is in the method of its structure, and not in the original- ity of its materials. It is put forth in the hope that it may steady the faith of some and restore the confidence of other wavering souls, and thus honor Him *“Christ the Central Evidence of Christianity,” page 1, in “Present Day Tracts,” Vol. I. 8 The Standpownt of this Writer “whom the glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets and the noble army of the Martyrs praise; whom the Holy Church throughout the world doth ac- knowledge; who is the King of glory, the Ever- lasting Son of the Father.” Unto Him be glory and power and dominion “throughout all the generations of the ages of the ages!” I CHRISTIANITY OFFERS CREDENTIALS. THE EVIDENCES. THE REASONA. BLE USE OF REASON “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”— St. Paul. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”—St. John. “Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?”— Zophar the Naamathite. “We must enlarge our mind to the magnitude of divine mysteries, not limit them to the narrowness of our understanding.”—Lord Bacon. “The last step of reason is to perceive that there are infinitely many things which surpass her; and if she does not attain this knowledge, she is weak indeed! ”—Pascal. “The whole compass and system of the Christian Evidences unquestionably has nothing like it, nor ap- proaching to it in the annals of the world. Itisa phenomenon standing alone.”—Davison, I CHRISTIANITY Orrers COreprentiats. THE Evivences. THr REASONABLE USE oF Reason. CHRISTIANITY alone of all the religions which have challenged the faith of man approaches him as a reasonable being, offering credentials of divine authority when demanding his gub- mission. There are Evidences of Christianity, but there are no Evidences of Buddhism, Brah- minism, or Mohammedanism. The Evidences of Christianity are the proofs © by which its claims to be accepted as the revela- tion of the only true God are attested. Evidences appeal to reason, and Christianity submits its Oredentials to the scrutiny of reason, insisting that the investigation of its claims shall be carefully and even severely conducted. It would not have men renounce the use of this God-given faculty in dealing with the highest and most solemn interest of life—religion. On the contrary, it demands that men shall employ reason, that spurious revelations may be exposed, the true faith es- tablished, and the genuine revelation correctly interpreted. it 12 Credentials, Not Contents, Considered But while demanding the use of reason, Christianity insists that reason shall not be used unreasonably. In seeking to ascertain if God has made a revelation to man, and if so, what that revelation means, investigation can not be too severe. In determining this great question of fact, no room must be left for de- lusion or fraud. But in settling this ques- tion the credentials and not the contents of the revelation are under consideration. The hypothesis of a revelation is, that it is given to impart knowledge which the unaided reason is unable to discover. It begins where reason falters and fails. “It is therefore to be expect- ed that it should communicate some truths not to be fully comprehended by the human under- standing. But these we may safely receive upon the authority which declares them without danger of violating truth.” ‘We have a right to sit in judgment over the credentials of heaven’s ambassador, but we have no right to sit in Judgment over the information he gives us.”” It is an unreasonable use of reason to reject a revelation in whole or in part, because its contents do not accord with some a priort notion of what it ought or ought not to contain. *“Theological Institutes,” by Richard Watson, Vol. I., page 1138. *Chalmers’s “Evidences of Christianity,” Vol. II., page 445. { An Absurd Use of Reason 13 Before the authority of reason may be justly allowed so enormous an extension it should be shown that the human mind is able to construct a philosophy of the Infinite, and formulate an ethical system perfect enough to test divine purity. But if human intelligence were com- petent to achieve successfully so great a task the necessity of a revelation would not exist. If such were its power, long ago men by search- ing would have found out God, and without a word from above they would have known the Almighty to perfection. But the human reason has no such power. Such use of it is unrea- sonable, for it makes the human mind _ the standard of the possible, the true and the good, and that too in the very moment of its confes- sion of weakness and insufficiency. Such a use of reason is “as absurd as a man’s making his visible horizon the limit of space.’” To the contents of a revelation human reason may not do more than apply the general tests of natural theology, viz.: that the revelation be consistent with itself and with the axioms of thought within which mental life and action are possible at all; that it be not immoral but con- sistent with the ends of holiness, for which only a revelation can be conceived to exist; that it ’Charles Hodges’s “Systematic Theology,” Vol. L., page 50. 14 Reasonable Tests of Revelation be adapted to the wants of man as a free, moral agent, not commanding his obedience without sufficient evidence that the command is from heaven, nor constraining his obedience by coercive proofs that would leave no room for freedom of thought and of action. These gen- eral criteria Reason is under the most solemn obligations to Truth to apply with the utmost care and caution. Before by these tests it de nounces a revelation as absurd, immoral or superstitious, it must be sure that its attitude is entirely judicial, and not that of a defendant in the dock pleading against the jurisdiction of the court and the validity of the law which threat- ens his condemnation. All disturbing influ- ences arising from intellectual pride, mental waywardness, or moral eccentricity must be severely excluded while the credentials of that which claims to be a message from heaven are scrutinized. The office of reason in religion we conclude is to determine the following questions, and these only: 1. Has a Revelation come from God? 2. If so, where is it? 3. Having found it, what is its real meaning ? In the settlement of these questions the proc- esses of reason can not be too severe or too painstaking. These matters are issues of life and death. They affect the life that now is Reason’s Office and Duty 15 and that which is to come. They touch duty and destiny. They are too great for trifling, too far-reaching for man to incur any risks of mistake by renouncing reason, or by employing reason unreasonably. On the peril of his life he must pass upon them reverently, seriously, sincerely, and settle them for time and for eternity. He can not after the manner of the Roman- ists transfer this responsibility to an Infallible Pope or to Infallible Councils. They are but men ashe isa man. No sanctification, or ordi- nation, or aggregation, of fallibility can ever produce infallibility. Every soul must bear its own responsibility, and enjoy its own freedom. There is no room for the office of an attorney be- tween any man and God. Every man must find and accept God’s truth for himself. On the other hand, he can not after the man- ner of the Rationalists undertake to revise God’s revelation, or to reject it, because of any preconceptions of his own. He must settle these great questions of fact upon the evidence which lies before him. If he finds as a matter of fact that God has made a revelation, he must obe- diently receive it, and he must reverently seek the true interpretation of it. He must earn- estly inquire, has God made a _ revelation? Where is it? What does it mean 2 16 The Questions Herein Considered The last of these questions belongs to the science of interpretation—Hermeneutics— with which the pending discussion is not con- eerned. The first two include all that is in- volved in the Evidences of Christianity— Apologetics—and are the matters considered in the investigation which follows. | | II ASSUMING THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD, THE ANTECEDENT PROBABILITY OF A REVELATION 2 “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”—Psalmist. “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down!”—Isaiah. “Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat. . . . Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I can not perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I can not behold him: he hideth him- self on the right hand that I can not see him: but he knoweth the way that I take.”—Job. “Tf He has, or rather is a Heart; if the moral quali- ties which are discoverable in ourselves have any transcendent and majestic counterpart in Him; then supposing the question whether he has given a revela- tion to be for us still unanswered, or even unexam- ined, we do well to traverse all the corridors of his- tory, to take counsel with the current wisdom and experience of the living, and to cross-question the re- corded convictions of the dead, until we see reason to hope that a solution is at last at hand; until ‘the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts,’ ’— Canon Liddon. TL: Assumine THE Existencr or a Gop, tHe ‘An- TECEDENT PROBABILITY OF A REVELA- TION. THERE is no God; there is a God, but He has made no revelation of Himself to man; there is a God and He has made a revelation of Him- selftoman. The foregoing are all the hypothe- ses possible to the human mind on the subject of God and a divine revelation. The alterna- tives of thought are therefore some form of Atheism, Deism, Pantheism or Revealed Re- ligion. No account need be taken of any phase of Agnosticism, for it excludes itself from con- sideration at this stage of the discussion by its non-committal attitude on the question of the divine existence. We are assuming the exist- ence of a God—which Agnosticism affirms is unknown and unknowable. For the present we assume there is a God, and raise the question, Is it probable that he has made a revelation of himself to man? All the forces of Deism and Pantheism, by whatsoever name called, answer with one accord, No. Is this answer reasonable ? If we think of God at all we must think of Him as infinitely powerful and infinitely good. 19 90 Atheism Better Than Deism Impotence or evil we can not attribute to Him by whom all things were made and do now ex- ist. But if He is both good and powerful He will not leave such a creature as man without all the light required for life and happiness. In the benevolence of God and the needs of man lies the antecedent probability of a revela- tion. As Canon Liddon says, most truly: “If we really believe God to be a Moral Being, we shall be prepared to find that he has spoken to us. The strength of the confidence with which we anticipate a revelation will vary exactly with our faith in the morality of God.” And Atheism is less repugnant to reason than belief in an immoral God, or in a God morally neutral. It is more reasonable to believe that there is no God, than to believe that there is a God, and that he has left such a being as man, beset with the circumstances of sin and pain and death, without a word of guidance amid conditions so tragic and so perplexing. Man’s origin, duty and destiny present problems, the solution of which vitally affects his welfare, but lies quite beyond his natural powers. God’s creatures of the lower orders, the brutes, having instinct to guide them, and being incapable of the sin and suffering possible to man, do not need and could not receive a di- *“Some Elements of Religion,” page 205, Deism and Pantheism Unreasonable 21 vine revelation. That they are without such supernatural guidance does not impeach the divine goodness. But man is appointed to a higher and more perilous position. To him is given the lofty and dangerous faculty of free agency, with all the possibilities of dread- ful failure or glorious success. To him light from above is as needful as the air is to the fowls that fly, or as the water is to whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. If he be left without a revelation from God, no argument can clear his Maker of the charge of cruelty. Deism, which claims that there is a God but he has not revealed himself, puts an “immeasura- bly greater strain upon faith’” than Christian- ity with all its miracles. And the attitude of Pantheism as to a revelation of God is essen- tially the same as that of Deism, with this dif- ference, that the latter believes in a silent God outside the world, ‘“‘banished”’ from his crea- tion, while the former claims a dumb God, who is “only a fine name for the universe,’” beneath which he is “buried.” Human nature and hu- man needs cry out against such gods. But it may be asked, Is an objective revela- tion necessary for man, and is the necessity for it such as to create the presumption that it has “The Foundations of Faith,” by Rev. Henry Wace, A.M., page 58. *Liddon’s “Some Elements of Religion,” pages 63-68, 22 Isa Written Revelation Probable? been given? Isa written revelation probable ? May not reason, conscience, the light of nature, and the divine influence which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, be sufficient to meet his needs? Men have been in the world certainly as long as sixty centuries, sin- ning, suffering and dying, and most of them have had no written revelation during all that time. Not less than twenty-five hundred years of the age of man elapsed before the books of Moses and Job were written. If a written revelation is necessary, why was its beginning so long delayed, and why was it not given in full at the outset? Why is the written revela- tion not universal? Why should millions sit in the region and shadow of death waiting for the light to reach them by the tardy compassion of the favored nations to whom were first com- mitted the oracles of God ? A perfect answer to all these questions it is not possible to give. Such knowledge is too high for us. It is enough to say that the anal- ogies of Nature would lead us to expect a rev- elation to be given to some in trust for the ben- efit of all. There is no equality of gifts, natu- ral or supernatural. High ends of benevolence and brotherhood are doubtless served by send- ing the greatest blessings to all men by the hands of some men. Moreover, the purpose and The Best Revelation for Man 23 plan involved in the existence of free moral agency must not be set aside by the method of a revelation, since the only object of a revela- tion is the moral well-being of the race. The means must be shaped to accomplish, and not to defeat, its own end. The question is not what God can do in the abstract, but what He can do in dealing with a free agent, having pur- posed that creation should reach its goal in virtuous free agency. The hypothesis of the divine goodness and the divine omnipotence does not require a method of revelation that should be best for some possible being. It re- quires the best form of revelation for the actual being, Man. A good God must not only give to his child, Man, light, but he must give the best light in the best way, Man being such a creature as he is. There are but three methods which God could adopt in making a revelation to man: 1. Reveal himself independently to each man. 2. Reveal himself to one or more men, and have the revelation transmitted to all others orally. 8. Or make a revelation and transmit it from the few to the many by written as well as spoken words. Which is the best ? | If God should adopt exclusively the first method, he must reveal himself to each man by unmiraculous suggestion and influence, or ap- 24 Revelation Must Be Public proach every man with impressive phenomena attesting the immediate presence of Deity. If the revelation were given by unmiraculous sug- gestion it would incur the peril of being un- heard and unheeded. Moreover, since in such a case every man would hear for himself alone, with no other eye to see the divine presence, and no other ear to hear the divine voice, de- pravity might without the fear of detection re- port falsely the divine utterance. Presently the world would be filled with contradictory revelations, mutually destructive, and every vestige of true religion would be Swept away by a flood worse than all the polytheisms of the ages. By such a method men would extend the confusion of tongues at Babel, and confound the speech of Deity. God himself would be made to appear polyglot, and monotheism would give place to polytheism. No fair tower of faith between heaven and earth would then be possible, nor city of God among men. A reve- lation to be of any use must be public, not pri- vate and personal. On the other hand, if the divine approach to each man were publicly attested by miraculous manifestations, theophanies would become so common and universal that they would cease to have any power to impress man or attest the divine Word. Or they would come with such Oral Tradition Inadequate 25 manifold terrors as to overpower the will and destroy free agency. In either case all the ends of revelation would be defeated by the method of revelation. Clearly, therefore, the needs of man fix the method of divine revelation. Mercy to all re- quires that the revelation be given to the few, and the solemn obligation of giving it uncor- rupted to the many be laid upon the men who receive the divine communications. It is equally clear that human instinct, as well as divine impulsion, would inevitably lead to the committing of these revelations to writing. The piety that would commend one to God as a proper medium for a revelation, as well as the divine authority which gave the revela- tion, would forbid exposing the heavenly word to the chances of oral tradition. The degen- erate faiths among men to-day witness to the student of comparative theology how ineffectual is tradition to preserve the Word of the Lord against human corruptions. The common rule of evidence, which excludes hearsay testimony, points to the unreliability of statements trans- mitted by word of mouth, and shows how little authority a revelation resting exclusively on tra- dition would have among men. “The man with a book” is looked for and longed for in all lands. This universal demand 26 “A Book Religion” Required for a written revelation has produced the al- most universal supply which we see in the Zend-Avestas, Vedas, Korans and Bibles of the world. The contribution by the Jews of their sacred books, their only contribution to the permanent possessions of the race, has set them apart among the nations in sublime sin- gularity as a “lonely people with their lonely book.” And the majestic purity of their faith amid world-wide superstition attests the supe- rior value and power of a written revelation over all oral tradition. From the foregoing considerations, the dog- ma of Deism, that God has not made a revela- tion to man, does not seem reasonable. The presumptions of reason arising from man’s needs and God’s goodness are all against it. Assuming the existence of a God, the antecedent probabilities lead us to expect that somewhere and some-when he has made a revelation to man, and that it has been committed to writing. None but a “book religion” seems to satisfy the requirements of man’s need. To use the clear, cogent words of a learned theologian: “The presumptions in favor of a divine revelation ex- tend to its commitment to writing. No one would trust an important communication, de- signed for all men and all time, to uncertain oral tradition. Everybody knows how un- A Book Religion or Constant Miracle 27 trustworthy are all unwritten anecdotes and memorabilia. How few of the reputed sayings and acts of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and the Apostles, outside of the Scriptures have come down to our times, and there is not one of them entitled to credit! We should there- fore naturally expect that if God revealed his will to prophets and evangelists, he would in- struct them not only to make oral communica- tions of them to the people of their own age, but also to commit them to writing, under the infallible superintendence of the same Power by whom they were revealed. Unless a con- stant miracle were wrought to keep the truth alive in the world, and preserve it unalloyed with error, its commitment to writing is the only conceivable method by which this end can be secured.””* But once the truth is committed to writing, and the writing has been accepted as a revela- tion from heaven, no miracle will be required to preserve it from corruption or from perishing. Pious zeal maybe relied upon to multiply copies of it, and an unmiraculous Providence may be trusted to protect the work of the consecrated zeal to which has been entrusted the miraculous communication. The God of Providence and ‘Dr. Thomas O. Summers’s “Systematic Theology,” page 438. 28 The Book His Peculiar Care the God of Inspiration are not two Gods, but one, and we may be sure the one true God will not in his providential government of the world abandon the work of his own hands. His Su- pernatural Book will be the subject of his pecu- _liar care. Nor will He need the extraordinary -means of miracle to preserve it. Miracle He will use to attest it in its origin, but the faith and love which it calls forth, together with his providential oversight, will be sufficient for its perpetuation. Hereby it will be so fixed that though heaven and earth pass away it will not pass. Wy IS THERE A GOD? i “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his Eternal power and Godhead.”—St. Paul. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”’—David. “For in Him we live and move and have our be- ing.”—From St. Paul’s address on Mar’s Hill. “That God is, all nature cries aloud.”—Cato. “So far is it from being true that the explanation of phenomena by natural causes leads us away from God and His Providence, that those philosophers who have passed their lives in discovering such causes can find nothing that affords a final explanation without having recourse to God and His Providence.”—Lord Bacon. TTL Is Turrr a Gop? - Uwxiess we accept philosophical scepticism and deny the possibility of all knowledge of every sort, we know that we are, and that the universe around us has a real existence. Our- selves and all things demand an explanation of their being, and we are compelled to give one of three explanations: (1) Matter and mind, as we know them, are Eternal; (2) Or they are the last effect of an infinite regression of causes; (3) Or there is a great First Cause from which all things have issued. Tt will be observed that the conceptions of the Infinite and the Eternal are involved in each and all of the three hypotheses from which we are forced by the laws of thought to select an explanation of the problem of being. It has been often assumed that religion—especially revealed religion—is chargeable with having originated the conception of the Eternal and must alone bear the burden of vindicating the validity of the notion. But this assumption is erroneous. The conception of the Eternal, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, is a ne- cessity of Reason, and can not be escaped by 3l 32 The Solution of Being renouncing religion and substituting the ter- minology of philosophy for the name of God. Men may choose between various theories of the Eternal but they may not rid themselves of the conception of Eternity altogether. As the perception of body compels the idea of space to arise, the perception of the succession of events compels the notion of time—the notion of in- finite time, eternity. Which, then, of the three theories, from which we must choose in giving an account of our own existence and the existence of all things known to us, is the most reasonable? Which solves the problem of Being most satisfactorily ? Are men and things kaleidoscopic manifes- tations of Eternal, Self-Existent Matter? Ev- ery impression of Sense and Consciousness leads to the denial of this hypothesis. Nor does scientific investigation lead to a different conclusion. Common observation and _scien- tific research alike declare that every object in the universe cognizable by the senses has had a beginning in time. “The most powerful, penetrating and delicate instruments devised to assist our senses reach no cause which is not obviously also an effect. The progress of science has not more convincingly and conr pletely disproved the once prevalent notion that the universe was created about six thousand ‘ pt Lie The Universe Not Eternal 33 years ago, than it has convincingly and com- pletely established that everything of which our senses inform us has had a beginning in time, and is of a compound, derivative and dependent nature. It is not long since men had no means of proving that the rocks, for example, were not as old as the earth itself—no direct means of proving even that they were not Eternal; but geological science is now able to tell us with confidence under what conditions, in what or- der, and in what epochs of time they were formed. We have probably a more satisfac- tory knowledge of the formation of the coal measures than of the establishment of the feu- dal system. We know that the Alps, although they look as if they have stood forever, are not even old, as geologists count age. The morning and night, the origin and disappear- ance of the countless species of living things which have peopled the Earth from the enor- mously remote times when the rocks of the Laurentian period were deposited down to the births and deaths of contemporaneous animals, have been again brought into the light of day by the power of Science. The limits of research are not even there reached, and with bold flight Science passes beyond the confines of discoy- ered life—beyond the epochs of the formation even of the oldest rocks—to a time when there 34 The World Not Self-Existent was no distinction of Earth and Sea and At- mosphere, as all were mingled together in neb- ulous matter, in some sort of fluid or mist or steam; yea, onwards to a time when our Earth had no separate existence, and Suns, Moons and Stars were not yet divided and arranged into systems. If we seek, then, after what is Eternal, science tells us that it is not the earth nor anything which it contains, not the sea nor the living things within it, not the moving air, not the Sun, nor the Moon, nor the Stars.’” This eloquent and invincible argument of Prof. Flint is not less emphatic and conclusive than the words of Prof. Clerk-Maxwell: “None of the processes of nature, since the time when nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact quality of each mole- cule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and pre- cludes the idea of its being eternal and _ self- existent.” *Flint’s “Theism,” pages 102, 103. 7From address before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1870. “A Manifest Absurdity” 35 The mind utterly refuses to believe matter self-existent. The hypothesis is unthinkable. Nor can reason be satisfied by referring the present order to causes back of it and these causes in turn back upon other causes, and so on through an infinite series. Prof. Flint well says: “The human mind universally and instantaneously rejects it as inconceivable, un- thinkable, self-contradictory, absurd. We may believe either in a self-existent God or a self- existent World, and must believe in one or the other ; we can not believe in an infinite regress of causes. The alternatives of a self-existent cause, and an infinite regress of causes, are not, as some would represent, equally credible alter- natives. The one is an indubitable truth, the other is a manifest absurdity. The one all men believe, the other no man believes.’” The validity of this argument is in nowise impaired by the modern theories of Evolution. Let us travel over whatsoever distance we may, scrutinizing the various links in the chain, we must finally reach a link which is fastened to a Self-Existent Cause. We may call that Cause by whatsoever name we will, God or Proto- plasm; It, or He, is worthy of our worship, and must command our reverence. What or who is this First Cause ? *Flint’s “Theism,” page 120, 36 The Great First Cause Nature is a unit. The very word, universe, implies this. All knowledge of nature con- firms the view. The First Cause must there- fore have attributes which no two or more be- ings can possess. All nature when correctly interpreted repudiates dualism and polytheism. The Voice of the Universe cries in unison with the Voice of Revelation, “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” In nature there is life and mind. An effect can never contain an element superior to its cause. The First Cause therefore must be a living and intelligent Cause. The First Cause must be a free cause. “It can not have been itself caused. It is absurd to look for it among effects. But we never get out of the Sphere of Effects until we enter that of free agency, until we emerge from the natu- ral into the spiritual, until we leave matter and reach mind. The First Cause must indeed be in—all through—the universe; but it must also be out of the universe, anterior to, and above the universe. The idea of Cause is a de- lusion—the search for Causes an inexplicable folly—if there be no First Cause, and if that First Cause be not a free cause, a Will, a Spirit, a Person. Reason, if honest and consistent, can not in its pursuit of Causes stop short of a ra- tional will. That alone answers to and satis- The Lowest Terms of the Problem 37 fies its idea of a Cause. The complex and har- monious constitution of the Universe is the Ex- pression of a Divine Idea, of a Creative Rea- son.’”* The hypothesis of a Great First Cause worthy of being called God and worshiped as such, is the most rational explanation of what we know ourselves to be and of what we per- ceive the universe around us to be. It reduces the mystery of existence to its lowest terms. It demonstrates the theorem that there is a God as nearly as it is possible for finite mind to comprehend such a transcendent proposition. All other explanations of the Universe, when followed to their logical consequences, lead us to the absurd. The most reasonable explana- tion of the universe is that “Nature is but the name for an effect whose Cause is God.” Its order, its marvelous adaptations, the existence of moral and intelligent beings as its climax, all point unerringly and inevitably to an Eter- nal Person of infinite Power, Wisdom and Goodness, working toward a grand moral and spiritual consummation—‘“one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves.” The grandeur of the material universe and the essential greatness of human nature alike assure us that they can not be the outcome of ‘Flint’s “Theism,” page 130. 38 The Footprints of God blind and vagrant forces operating aimlessly in infinite space and limitless time, originat- ing we know not where, nor when, nor how, nor why. ‘The existence of life and mind and the moral sense point unerringly to an Author who is himself living, intelligent and moral. The facts around us and within us convince us that the universe and man are the visible embodiment of an_ intelligent and moral purpose. On the surface of both the material and immaterial world, in both matter and mind, are the footprints of an all- wise, all-powerful, infinitely pure Creator, greater than man and the universe, before all things, outside all things, and above all things. “All the causes with which we come in contact here are, as we term them, second causes; but they point to a cause beyond themselves, to a cause of causes, to a Supreme all-producing Cause, Itself uncaused, unoriginated. The heavenly bodies move on unceasingly in their orbits, obedient to the laws of gravitation, but no law of gravitation assigned them their place in space. The whole universe bids us look beyond itself for the adequate explanation of its existence.” *Liddon’s “Some Elements of Religion,” page 58. ~ IV HAS GOD APPEARED AMONG MEN? IS JESUS A MYTH? “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-wit- nesses of his majesty.”—wSt. Peter. — “O myth! O how far exalted above all human mythology is this representation of Christ! He who could create such fiction is able also to create worlds, call spirits into being, inspire life and the highest blessedness, by the simple power of his breath. The facts are conclusive, that one has here not myth, but overwhelming reality and truth.”—Jacobi. “Measure Jesus by the shadow he has cast into the world? No, by the light he has shed upon it. Shall we be told such a man never lived? That the whole story is a lie? Suppose that Plato and Newton never lived. But who did their works, and thought their thoughts? It takes a Newton to forge a Newton. What man could have fabricated a Jesus? None but a Jesus.”—Theodore Parker, = LY Has Gop AprrarEpD Amona Men? Is JzEsus A Mytr? Havine considered the evidences of the exis- tence of God, and having seen that if such a being exists he has probably revealed himself to man, the question of fact now arises, “Has the God appeared among men ?”’ In seeking an answer to this question it is irrelevant to discuss the possibility of an incar- nation. That is a speculative issue which might be pertinent to some discussions, and it ig a matter of importance, but we are now con- cerned with a bare question of fact. If con- clusive evidence is found that an incarnation has taken place, that the God has appeared in our world, then there is an end of controversy touching the possibility of an incarnation. Nor will our incapacity to understand the mode of the incarnation in any degree affect the validity of the proof of it as a fact. Men must respect facts without regard to their own ability to understand modes and processes, and upon this principle they constantly act with the greatest confidence in dealing with all the affairs of every-day life. 41 49 God Can Not Be Mimicked There is little chance of deception about the incarnation as a fact, if the God has indeed ap- peared among men. The Divine nature rises too far above man’s nature to make the success- ful simulation of it an easy task. Any pseudo- theophanies, any impostures may be detected easily. The unearthly tones of the divine voice can not be so perfectly mimicked that men need mistake the speech of a pretender for the Word of God. The appearance of the true God, if He should appear, we may be sure will be as unmistakable as the lightning which cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West; it can neither be concealed nor counterfeited. If the God has ever appeared among men he appeared in the person of him whom we call Jesus. All who have ever come, before him or after him, are manifestly “of the earth, earthy.” If he be not God we need not look for another. We may limit our question therefore to the narrower issue, “Did the God appear among men in the person of Jesus of Nazareth ?” In the investigation of this question we must not assume too much. Let us assume only those things which no one can deny, viz.: that in four brief memoirs commonly known as the Gospels a distinct, character is set forth under the name of Jesus. We do not assume that these short treatises were written by the men Is Jesus a Myth? 43 whose names they bear. We do not assume that these records are authentic. We simply affirm that the character called Jesus is set forth in the books. The question then arises, Is this character a myth or a historic personage? And we affirm that neither the four Evangelists, nor any other men of that time or of any other time, could have invented this character, or have constructed it out of any materials which existed then or which exist now. Let us attend to some of the most striking features of this character. 1. It is an original character. It has no companion piece in any literature, ancient or modern. The nearest approach to it is the Messianic character dimly set forth in the sa- cred books of the Jews. But neither ancient nor modern Jews recognize in Jesus the fulfil- ment of the ideal of their Messiah. Certainly no writer, Jewish or Pagan, in the age of Tibe- rius could have drawn the picture of Jesus from the Messianic outlines in the Hebrew Serip- tures. 2. It is a. perfect character—“the only per- fect character that ever had a place in the his- tory or thought of men.” He is represented as living under the hardest conditions of pov- erty and friendlessness, opposed by enemies the 44 Testimony of Lecky and Mill most implacable, beset by circumstances the most trying to piety and virtue. But he ig set forth as never sinning and never repenting. Of the faultlessness of this character a sceptical historian has written, “It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love, has shown itself capable of acting on all nations, ages, temrera- ments, and conditions, has been not only the highest pattern of virtue but the strongest in- centive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philoso- phers, and all the exhortations of moralists.’” Of this character John Stuart Mill has writ- ten, “When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer and martyr to that mission who ever existed upon the earth, religion can not be said to have made a bad choice in pitching upon this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better *Lecky’s “History of European Morals,” Vol. Ih; page 9. The Symmetry of the Character 45 translation of the rule of virtue from the ab- stract to the concrete than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.’” 3. The perfection of this character is espe- cially manifest in its perfect symmetry and balance of excellencies. It presents a combi- nation of the active and passive virtues in per- fect proportion, such as can not be found in any other person, historic or fictitious. It blends piety and philanthropy, holiness and compassion, justice and love, purity and ten- derness, joy and sorrow, in a way never before lived or imagined. “He is never said to have laughed, and yet he never makes the impression of austerity, moroseness, sadness, or even of be- ing unhappy.’” He endures the hardest priva- tions, and yet there is about him a majesty which forbids the thought of helplessness. ‘In fact he does not allow us after all to think much of his privations; we think of him more as a being of mighty resources, proving himself only the more sublimely that he is in the guise of destitution. He is the most unworldly of be- ings, having no desire at all for what the earth can give, impossible to be caught with any longing for its benefits, impassible even to its “Hissays on Theism,” page 255. *Bushnell’s “Nature and the Supernatural,” page 286. 46 Its Perfect Balance charms, and yet there is no ascetic sourness or Tepugnance, no misanthropic distaste in his manner, as if he were bracing himself against the world to keep it off. At the wedding he is clothed in congratulation, at the feast in doc- trine, at the funeral in tears ; but no miser was ever drawn to his money with a stronger desire than he to worlds above the world. Men un- dertake to be spiritual and they become ascetic ; or endeavoring to hold a liberal view of the comforts and pleasures of society, they are soon buried in the world and slaves to its fash- ions; or holding a scrupulous watch to keep out every particular sin, they become legal, and fall out of liberty; or charmed with noble and heav- enly liberty, they run to negligence and irre- sponsible living; so the earnest become violent, the fervent fanatical and censorious, the gentle waver, the firm turn bigots, the liberal grow lax, the benevolent ostentatious. Poor human infirmity can hold nothing steady. And yet the character of Christ is never modified, even by a shade of rectification. It is one and the same throughout. He makes no improvements, prunes no extravagances, returns from no eccentricities. The balance of his character is never disturbed or readjusted, and the as- tounding assumption on which it is based is | | The Character Universal 47 never shaken even by a suspicion that he falters in it.’”” 4. Again, the character of Jesus is a unt- versal character. In it there is nothing local or temporary. Nothing provincial or transient adheres to it. No phrase more aptly describes it than the words, “The Son of man.” As Renan says, “Jesus is the highest of the pillars that shew man whence he comes and whither he ought to tend. In him is condensed all that is good and exalted in our nature.”* Or as Strauss remarks “in every respect Jesus stands in the first line of those who have developed the ideal of humanity.” “There are many peculiarities arising out of personal and historical circumstances, which are incident to the best human characters, and which would prevent any one of them from being universal or final as a type. But the type set up in the Gospels as the Christian type seems to have escaped all these peculiari- ties and to stand out in unapproached purity as well as in unapproached perfection of moral ex- cellence. . . . . If that type of character was constructed by human intellect, we must at least bear in mind that it was constructed _*Bushnell’s “Nature and the Supernatural,” page 288. “Vie de Jesus,’ page 457. “Leben Jesus,” page 625. 48 “The Essence of Man’s Moral Nature” at the confluence of three races, the Jewish, the Greek and the Roman, each of which had strong national peculiarities of its own. A single touch, a single taint of any one of those peculiarities, and the character would have been national, not universal; transient, not eternal. It might have been the highest char- acter in history but it would have been disquali- fied for being the ideal. Supposing it to have: been human, whether it were the real effort of a man to attain moral excellence or a moral imagination of the writers of the Gos pels, the chances surely were infinite against its escaping any tincture of the fanati- cism, formalism and exclusiveness of the Jew— of the political pride of the Roman—of the intellectual pride of the Greek. Yet it escaped them all. It is the essence of man’s moral na- ture clothed with a personality so vivid and intense as to excite through all ages the most intense affection, yet divested of all those pe- culiar characteristics, the accidents of time and place by which human personalities are marked.” 5. This remarkable character does not appear in the pages of the Evangelists as fabri- °A lecture by Goldwin Smith, quoted by Ganon Liddon, on pages 216, 217 of “Some Elements of Re ligion.” “One Transcendent Creation’ 49 cated by effort. “It is not set forth in a string’ of epithets, or abstract statements, or by vague, indiscriminate laudation.”” The character is set forth in easy, artless narratives about which there is an unmistakable air of reality. 6. This marvelous character is the same wm each of the four books in which it appears. Four writers with indubitable independence have drawn essentially the same picture. Well does Principal Cairns say “One Gospel is a marvel, what shall we say of four, each with its distinct plan,—its enlargements and omis- sions, 1ts variations, even where most coincident, its problems as yet unsolved, but always yield- ing something to fresh inquiry, and only mak- ing more manifest the unchangeable oneness and dignity of the history? The difficulties of the Gospels from divergence are as nothing compared with the impression made by them all of one transcendent creation.” 7. Furthermore, the task of the Evangelists was not ended with drawing a faultless figure. They must put speech upon its lips which would be in keeping with the majesty of its pretensions. If they imagined the man, they must also have im- agined his teachings, and what they represent 7G. P. Fisher’s “Manual of Christian Evidences.” “Christ, the Central Evidence of Christianity,” in “Tracts for the Times,” Vol. I., page 4. 4 50 His Wonderful Words him as saying is as marvelous as what they describe him as being. His doctrines are final. They are ultimate truths which the world can never outgrow. It is not possible to think a thought higher than his doctrine of the father- hood of God, nor one wider than his tenet of the brotherhood of man, nor one deeper than his conception of holiness of heart. Hope can not dream a brighter vision than that which shines in his teachings concerning the resur- rection of the body and the life everlasting after death. His conception of a world-wide “King- dom of Heaven,” is absolutely unique; for it seers and philoso- phers have brought forth no mate idea. The sayings of Jesus are not anticipated by any discourses before his time, and not one soli- tary shred of religious truth has been added to the world’s stock since the Gospels were first published. 8. Moreover the Evangelists record these marvelous utterances as parts of a calm narra- tive. They do not betray the excitement of discoverers in penning them, but they evince the calmness of eye-witnesses who simply repeat the words of a speaker uttered in their own hearing which were so entirely in keeping with his supernatural nature as to leave no room for surprise. They represent him as speaking with which should endure forever, A Calm Narrative 51 the most perfect serenity. “He delivers the most tremendous truths with the most perfect composure and balance of spirit. If a mere man were to see clearly for the first time what the Sermon on the Mount, the third Chapter of John, the parable of the Prod- igal, and a score of other discourses and reve- lations like them, really signify; if a mere man were, so to speak, to come suddenly upon such thoughts, such conceptions, so vast, deep and high, it would unbalance him. His brain would be on fire and his heart would break with holy excitement.” But the Evangelists break into no rhapsodies when they record his words. Is this marvelous character a myth? Are his discourses the inventions of novelists and romancers? Is the character the creature of imagination and the doctrine the product of the collaboration of four Jewish peasants of the time of Tiberius? Or of any other time? Neither the age of Tiberius nor any other age could have supplied the intellectual agencies equal to the task of creating the character and discourses of Jesus. After the Christian world has had the benefit of the four Gospels for eighteen centuries there has not been pro- duced, nor can there now be found a writer who is able to imagine a character which approxi- °“The Man of Galilee,” by Bishop Haygood, page 77. 52 An Impossible Invention mates this character. The task lies quite be- yond the powers of modern writers, however great; and far more beyond the capacity of any one in the first centuries of the Christian era,—- most of all beyond the ability of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to whom the four gospels are commonly attributed. “If to them had been granted all personal qualifications, the condi-— tions under which they lived made the invention of such a character impossible; they could not breathe the intellectual, social and moral air in which they lived and do it. For this char- acter, the Jesus of the Evangelists, is not in harmony with the essential characteristics of the Jewish race, or with the dominant influ- ences of that time; this character antagonizes these characteristics and influences at every point.” “Equally, it is incredible that these four men could have thought out the teachings of Jesus. For such thinking they lacked all things that history and philosophy show to be necessary for such thinking. Why could not Socrates and Plato, great, learned, wise and good, to whom came more than glimpses of heavenly truths, think out what the Sermon on the Mount contains. Socrates and Plato, if mere men could do such thinking, ought to have thought out the Sermon on the Mount; for they “Bishop Haygood’s “Man of Galilee,” page 20, Rousseau’s Conclusion 53 had every gift that nature could bestow, and every opportunity cultured Athens could offer. And they did their best to think out the truths that bind Man and God together. They failed; and Plato sighed for the coming of a divine Man who could make clear what to him was dark. And yet if Jesus never lived, the four Evangelists, or men like them, thought out His wonderful doctrines. It is unthinkable.’’*? The life and words of Jesus are beyond the power of inventive genius. ‘The life was lived; the words were spoken, or the Gospels are themselves as great a miracle as the incarnation of God. As Rousseau puts the case,—“The Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor of it would be more astonishing than the hero.” And this conclusion is still further confirmed, if we consider the mighty and beneficent forces which have issued from Christianity. Can influences so pure and institutions so enduring have sprung from a myth, and that too during the centuries in which men have been recording consecutive histories? Discussing this myth- ical theory, Prebendary Row says with great force, “Its meaning, stripped of all disguises, is that the mightiest power, which for more than 11Bishop Haygood’s “The Man of Galilee,” pages 21, 22. 54 Has a Myth Saved the World? eighteen centuries has energized for good, nay more, which is at this moment the cause of an overwhelming majority of such institutions as exist in Europe and America for promoting the happiness of man is based on a delusion. If then the Jesus of the Gospels is an ideal crea- tion, and not an historical reality, then a phan- tom and a shadow has been the centre of a mightier power, and has exerted a mightier influence for good than all the realities which have ever existed. If this be so, one thing is true and one only,—that man is walking in a vain shadow and disquieting himself in vain. Why then struggle for truth, for delusions are mightier than realities, and their influence for good has been greater than all the self-sacrifice of the wisest and best of men. If so, all is vanity! the present life is a dream, the life to come a blank, and man’s only hope—shall I not say his best hope ?—is to be swallowed up in that eternal silence out of which he has come, to which he is hastening, and from which there will be no awakening.” “The person of Jesus Christ stands solid in the history of man. He is indeed more sub- stantial, more abiding, in human apprehension than any form of matter, or mode of force. The conceptions of earth and air, and fire and zManual of Christian Evidences,” page 93. A Real Christ Appeared 55 water, change and melt around him as the clouds melt and change around an everlasting mountain peak. All attempts to resolve him into a myth, a legend, an air—and hundreds of such attempts have been made—have drifted over the enduring reality of his character and left not a rack behind. The result of all crit- icism, the final verdict of enlightened common sense, is that Christ is historical. He is such a person as men could not have imagined if they would, and would not have imagined if they could. He is neither Greek myth nor He- brew legend. The artist capable of fashioning Him did not exist, nor could he have found the materials. A non-existent Christianity did not spring out of the air and create a Christ. A real Christ appeared in the world and created Christianity.” He is so real and enduring that the authors who concocted the “mythical theory” could not publish their books without dating the publica- tion from the day of His birth. The small fig- ures near the bottom of their title-pages more than refuted all the arguments contained in the chapters which followed. The marvels which the Christian Scriptures record as having at- tended His birth, and which the critics would 8“The Gospel for an Age of Doubt,” by Henry Van Dyke, D.D., page 59. 56 The World’s Dates Fixed by Christ resolve into legendary wonders, are not so as- tounding as that Jesus of Nazareth should con- strain the world’s date-lines to bend around his manger cradle. When commerce makes entries on its ledgers, when governments issue decrees or publish laws, when infants are born or the aged die, when kings or peasants enter the world, or when they pass to their long home— all pay homage to the Babe of Bethlehem. Cal- endars which fix dates can not rest on a floating myth. Absolute exactness they may miss as when men dated by the beginning of the world or the founding of Rome. But they point to firm facts that can not be dissolved into myth. That Jesus was born at Bethlehem about nine- teen hundred years ago is as certain as that the earth exists or that Rome was built on the Tiber, V HAS GOD APPEARED AMONG MEN? IS THE JESUS OF THE EVANGELISTS DIVINE? “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”—St. John, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”— St. Peter at Caesarea Philippi. “My Lord and my God.”’—St. Thomas. “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God.”—wNathanael. “What is the mystery of his person? What does he say of himself? For this will always have to be that which, after all, makes the final decision. For so much confidence we can in any case give him— be we never so distrustful in other respects—that he knew who he was, and did not speak differently from what he knew.”—Luthardt. “He called himself the Son of God: who among mortals dare say he was not?’—Lequinia. SS eee