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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Th e A ens Care 
 
 DICT Ky 1+) Saal 
 
 BT 1101>:. B48. 1924 
 Bergen, John Tallmadge. 
 Evidences of Christianity 
 

 

 
 
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 EVIDEN C E S Logica stX 
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 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 By 
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 JOHN TALLMADGE BERGEN, A.B., A.M., D.D. 
 
 Minister of the First Presbyterian Church 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 
 
 ROBERT SCHELL PROFESSOR OF EVIDENCES OF 
 CHRISTIANITY, HOPE COLLEGE, 
 HOLLAND, MICH. 
 1895-1904 
 
 3 
 
 AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE 
 MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
 
Copyright, 1902 and 1916 
 By 
 THE Rev. JoHN TALLMADGE Bercen, A. M. 
 
 ALL RicHTs RESERVED. citjunns fae 
 
 Cepyright 1924 
 By 
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PREFACE 
 
 Tuls book is a brief, new statement of the 
 standard historical arguments for Christianity, for 
 popular use and for short courses in Evidences of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Many great and profound works on this subject 
 have been written from the days of Justin Martyr; 
 and many very valuable small books have enriched 
 this field of literature, among which ‘‘Fisher’s Man- 
 ual of Christian Evidences” has no peer. Thousands 
 of American college students owe to this manual the 
 strength of their religious faith. However, certain 
 questions have arisen concerning the Old Testament, 
 the Divine Existence, the relation of modern science 
 to miracles, etc., which are not treated at any length 
 in the “Manual.” 
 
 To meet these issues, we have recast into new 
 form some of the old truths and have added some 
 that are new. 
 
 A “New Spinozism” is standing to-day in the 
 path of Christian progress and striking lusty blows 
 at miracles. The materialistic tendencies of our 
 times are clothed and fed by this monistic, mechan- 
 ical hypothesis of the universe. 
 
 Another form of pantheism of a mental character 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 is being propagated. The advocates of these cults, 
 quoting “‘God is all,’ make the illogical conversion 
 and affirm “therefore all is God’’; and since ‘‘God is 
 spirit,” therefore ‘“‘All is Spirit, or Mind.” From 
 this fallacy it is easy sailing into a most corrupt and 
 bigoted Mentalism. It disowns Jesus Christ the 
 Savior; it divides Jesus and Christ; it is splits 
 anti- Christian. 
 
 All these false teachings have arisen in the past 
 Christian ages, and always have been met and de- 
 prived of their power and influence by the restate- 
 ment of the historical Evidences of Christianity. 
 
 Then, also, the great shift that biology has caused 
 in the theories of evolution during the last few 
 years, calls for a restatement of the relation between 
 scientific evolution and revealed creation... | 
 
 Then, also, the new Oriental archeology has be- 
 come a mighty factor in the argument for Chris- 
 tianity in its relation to the Old Testament. 
 
 These new, revived forms of attack and these new 
 counter weapons for an advance would call for a re- | 
 statement of the classical argument. 
 
 The neglect of sound, doctrinal teaching in the 
 pulpits and class-rooms of our churches is producing 
 a dangerous condition of Christian life and experi- 
 ence. Multitudes believe uncertainly in Jesus Christ. 
 A brief and fairly accurate statement of Christian 
 Evidences, while it cannot take the place of a cate- 
 chism, can to a large degree ground its student firmly 
 
 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 in the historical Jesus Christ and the certainties of 
 His religion. 
 
 Paul straightened out the “foolish,” “bewitched 
 Galatians” by ‘evidently’ setting forth ‘Jesus 
 Christ crucified.” 
 
 We, with blessed memories, acknowledge our in- 
 debtedness to the late Dr. William Henry Campbell, 
 President of Rutgers College, N. J. 
 
 From the notes which the author wrote while 
 studying under the same grand old teacher, many 
 points in this volume have been derived—although 
 they but poorly represent the master-mind which 
 forty years ago, inspired them. 
 
 The late Henry Watterson, lifelong editor of 
 the Louisville Courier-Journal, and the Nestor of 
 American journalists, says in his autobiography, 
 ‘‘Never in the history of the world was Jesus of 
 Nazareth so interesting and predominant.”’ 
 
 The late Dr. Philip Schaff, who was my beloved 
 teacher, said: “‘Jesus of Nazareth is the one abso- 
 lute and unaccountable exception to the universal 
 experience of mankind. He is the great central 
 miracle of the whole gospel history—.”’ 
 
 JOHN TALLMADGE BERGEN. 
 Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 1, 1923. 
 
 1 The Greek word is from prographein, meaning to demonstrate 
 openly. 
 

 
INTRODUCTION 
 DEFINITION 
 
 EVIDENCES of Christianity is an argument prov- 
 ing that Jesus Christ, as prophesied in the Old 
 Testament and revealed in the New, is an historical, 
 supernatural person: that the Gospels, Acts and 
 Epistles are genuine, trustworthy accounts of His 
 life and teachings: and that CHRISTIANITY is the 
 divine religion. Evidences of Christianity must be 
 distinguished from Apologetics.’ Apologetics is a sys- 
 tem of apology or defense of all the points of Chris- 
 tian doctrine against an actual assault. Apologetics 
 is broader than Evidences, and has become a branch 
 of scientific theology. Evidences of Christianity is 
 aggressive. It builds up a positive, logical argu- 
 ment, the conclusion of which is that Jesus and 
 Christianity are all that they claim to be, viz.: Di- 
 vinely inspired and supernatural. 
 
 NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE 
 
 Evidence, from ‘‘e’’ intensive, and ‘‘video”’ to see, 
 means the ground by which that which claims to be 
 truth is made clear to the mind. There are two kinds 
 
 1 Bruce, Apologetics—p. 33. 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of evidence, demonstrative and moral. Demonstra- 
 tive evidence is argument with necessary truth; L.e., 
 truth that cannot be otherwise. ‘The proof that the 
 square of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle 
 is equal to the sum of the squares of the base and 
 altitude is demonstrative evidence. Every step in the 
 argument is a necessary truth. It is evident that this 
 kind of reasoning cannot apply to Evidences of 
 Christianity, nor to any science except pure mathe- 
 matics. | 
 Moral evidence is argument with contingent or 
 moral truth; i.e., truth the contrary of which might 
 have been. Astronomy proceeds by moral evidence. 
 Its foundation is pure mathematics; but its conclu- 
 sions, derived through the telescope and spectro- 
 scope, depend upon the human senses, and hence an 
 
 element of uncertainty must enter which makes the | 
 
 evidence probable or, moral. 
 Moral evidence may amount to certainty, and its 
 conclusion may be as firmly established in our belief 
 
 as that of demonstrative evidence. Nearly all things 
 that we believe, when examined as to their proof,. 
 
 will be found dependent upon moral evidence. 
 Demonstrative evidence applies not to facts but to 
 assumptions, which are necessary to thought and 
 exist only in pure reasoning. Evidences of Chris- 
 tianity employs facts of nature and history, hence 
 its reasoning is moral like that of all other applied 
 sciences. 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL 
 
 Evidences of Christianity may employ internal 
 and external proof. The internal proof is in the 
 consciousness of the believer in the experience of his 
 soul. It includes all that Christianity is to the 
 converted man.” The craving of every thoughtful 
 soul for the very satisfaction that Christianity gives, 
 is also internal proof. But this is not satisfactory 
 to all, nor can it be entirely satisfactory to any who 
 desire to know why they believe. Christianity is a 
 religion of the heart and of the head as well. It is 
 a conquering faith, thrusting itself upon men’s at- 
 tention, compelling investigation, declaring itself as 
 the only solution of life, sin and death. Hence the 
 internal proof alone is not enough for our science, 
 although it satisfies the heart enlightened by divine 
 grace. 
 
 The external proof relies upon testimony and rea- 
 soning. ‘The testimony is all documentary and his- 
 torical, and must be weighed and judged in like man- 
 ner with all such testimony, with this exception, that 
 the miraculous element in Christian testimony can 
 
 be shown to be rationally necessary and in no way in- 
 credible. | 
 
 1 Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience. 
 
 2 A former judge of one of our courts said to me, “I have 
 enough evidence in my own experience to prove Christianity 
 a supernatural religion.” 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CUMULATIVE EVIDENCE 
 
 Evidences of Christianity are cumulative. By cu- 
 mulative evidence we mean an aggregate of facts, in 
 many cases entirely independent of each other, all 
 pointing to or assisting in the construction of one con- 
 clusion. A chain or series of testimonies, each link 
 of which is derived from its predecessor, is not cu- 
 mulative. This chain will be as weak as its weakest 
 link. But cumulative evidence is a center of proof, 
 the result of many lines of testimony, each of which 
 is admissible and independent, and all focusing in the 
 one triumphant conclusion. Such a system of proof 
 furnishes the strongest ground of belief. If an oppo- 
 nent should attack one of the lines of proof, the fact 
 that there are others converging with it to its con- 
 clusion, makes it so much the stronger to sustain an 
 assault. Injury done to one line of proof counts for . 
 little so long as the others stand. All must be assailed 
 and destroyed before their conclusion can be denied. 
 Circumstantial evidence, if it have this character, and 
 if there be enough of it, becomes stronger than any 
 other kind of evidence; because it is impossible to 
 invent a number of independent circumstances and 
 make them so connected as to amount to the proof 
 of the point without introducing a tremendous possi- 
 bility of mistake or falsehood contradicting the main 
 issue.’ 
 
 1 See article on Evidence in Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY 
 
 The subject-matter treated will include the Proof 
 of the Divine Existence, the Probability of a Super- 
 natural Revelation, the Possibility and Probability 
 of Miracles, the Authenticity of the Old Testament, 
 the Testimony of Roman ‘Historians, the Genuine- 
 ness and Credibility of the New Testament Writ- 
 ings, the Character of Jesus, the Resurrection, Paul, 
 the Monuments and Rise of the Church, Evidence 
 from Prophecy, the Moral Excellence of Christian- 
 ity and the Evidence from Experience. 
 
 THE AIM 
 
 The aim of Evidences of Christianity is not direct- 
 ly to change the hearts, but to convince the minds of 
 its students. And yet the heart cannot be closed to the 
 winning power of Jesus Christ, however intellectually 
 He may be studied.’ In this study every student 
 is on trial. 
 
 “The end in view is not to remove skeptical 
 doubts, but to gain a clear conviction of duty. We 
 do not divest ourselves of all belief in the divinity of 
 Christianity and then seek to prove it. But retain- 
 ing all that we now believe of this institution, we 
 confidently expect to feel ourselves more and more 
 in the presence of the best, noblest, wisest and 
 mightiest work of God that is revealed to men. We 
 
 1 Fisher’s Manual—p. 8. 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 expect to see Christ so clearly that the divinity of 
 Christianity shall be as self-evident as the shining 
 of the sun.’” 
 
 RESULT 
 
 The result of a sound system of Christian Evi- 
 dences will be truly missionary. David Livingstone 
 wrote: “Christianity requires continual propagation 
 to attest its genuineness.’’ A Christian faith built 
 upon a subjective experience alone, would have no 
 authority and little power for a missionary propa- 
 ganda. On the other hand, the possession of the 
 external proofs of Christianity equips and inspires 
 the possessor to obey the command, “‘Go ye, there- 
 fore, and make disciples of all the nations.” 
 
 1 Lecture of W. H. Campbell, D. D., of Rutgers College, 1883. 
 
 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 
 
 CHRISTIANITY proclaims itself a supernatural re- 
 ligion of which the Absolute Deity is the author. 
 Many writers on Evidences of Christianity assume 
 the Divine Existence as a truth established by 
 natural theology; or they prove Christianity to be 
 a divine revelation and hence, through this proof, 
 clear away all doubt as to the Divine Existence. It 
 seems better to us, at the beginning of our treatise, 
 to present the arguments for the existence of God. 
 While this is not a part of the historical proof of 
 Christianity, it certainly will aid us in considering 
 probabilities and preventing objections all along the 
 line. If this being of God can be morally proved, 
 we then can “show cause”’ for all that is to follow. 
 
 ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 
 
 Anselm of Canterbury presented this argument in 
 substance as follows: We have the idea of a most 
 perfect being. Nothing greater than this can be con- 
 ceived. But this something must exist in re as well 
 
16 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 as in conceptu. For if it exists only in conceptu, then 
 something greater than it could be conceived and that 
 as being actual existence also, which is contradictory. 
 Therefore that ‘‘something’’ does not exist in con- 
 ceptu only, but also in re. Anselm implies that if the 
 most perfectly conceivable being does not exist, then 
 we can conceive of one who is still greater in his 
 existence, and this is contradictory. 
 
 Descartes also presents this argument somewhat 
 as follows: ‘In proportion to the clearness of the 
 idea is the evidence that it actually represents an 
 objective reality. But one of the clearest and most 
 prominent ideas actually possessed by man, is the 
 idea of one infinitely perfect being.’ 
 
 This argument is open to criticism., It has been 
 rightly maintained that logical necessity does not 
 prove objective reality.” Admitting that the idea 
 of a perfect something is logically necessary, this 
 offers no ground from which we can certainly step 
 to reality. : 
 
 But the Ontological argument has very important 
 use. Dr. Samuel Clarke recast it to meet the English 
 Panthesis; and to-day it is one of the legitimate argu- | 
 ments, for it removes logical doubts. That the idea 
 of God is a logical necessity we stoutly maintain; and 
 although there is unproved substantiality, still the 
 
 1 Outlines of Theology—Hodge, p. 18. 
 2 Stearns. Evidence of Christian Experience—p. 44. 
 
THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 17 
 
 argument prepares for the result of the inductive 
 arguments—the existence of God is believable. 
 
 We conclude this a priori argument with the 
 query: Does not the idea of God prove His sub- 
 stantial reality when self-existence is involved? 
 
 THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 
 
 Aristotle, among the ancients, and Thomas 
 Aquinas, among Christian philosophers, are the 
 ablest advocates of this argument. The sequences 
 of the universe are effects, the causes of which are 
 often discernible and fully agreed upon by all. We 
 are obliged to assume a cause for all the sequences 
 of the universe, and for all the universe itself. 
 Nothing can come into being without cause; the con- 
 trary is an absurdity. Now if this be so, then a 
 cause which does not come into being, but always 
 was, an uncaused cause, must exist. ‘Hence a first 
 cause caused the universe. If there were no first 
 cause, this universe would be like a chain “hanging 
 on nothing.” 
 
 Our only direct knowledge of first cause is in our 
 own consciousness. We are immediately conscious 
 of ourselves as the cause of our volitions or free 
 choices. Society holds us responsible for them. We 
 approve or condemn ourselves for them, because 
 we are free and first cause of these choices. Thus 
 we have the category of free, first cause in our con- 
 
18 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 stant experience. Therefore reasoning from self, 
 the only first cause of which we know is a free 
 cause, nor can we conceive of a first cause unless it 
 is a free cause. There must be then a first, free 
 cause of our universe. This cause must be either 
 personal or impersonal. But among other things 
 in this universe are intelligent persons. ‘These have 
 to be accounted for among the other effects; and an 
 adequate cause only can account for them. ‘There- 
 fore the first, free cause must be personal. 
 
 Our greatest agnostic, Herbert Spencer, at the 
 close of his Synthetic Philosophy, says: “But one 
 truth must grow ever clearer—the truth that there 
 is an Inscrutable Existence everywhere manifested, 
 to which he”’ (the thoughtful observer) ‘“‘can neither 
 find nor conceive either beginning or end: Amid | 
 the mysteries which become the more mysterious 
 the more they are thought about, there will remain 
 the one absolute certainty, that he ts ever in presence 
 of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all 
 things proceed. i? 
 
 This view is quite melancholy, no doubt, to our 
 friends the agnostics; but it furnishes a comforting 
 conclusion to the Cosmological Argument. | 
 
 Of late there has been a newly awakened inter- 
 est in the ‘““Theory of Relativity,” the doctrine that 
 all knowledge of particular things is dependent upon 
 the relations in which they stand to other things, or 
 in which their elements or attributes stand to each 
 
 
 
THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 19 
 
 other. One of our foremost and authoritative 
 writers on this subject has produced an inductive 
 argument the conclusion of which is that every 
 Theory of Relativity is impotent if it attempts to 
 represent the Cosmos without including a genuine 
 Absolute Being or God." Proceeding from uni- 
 versally admitted physical facts, and reasoning syn- 
 thetically to all that we can apprehend of the uni- 
 verse, we could not conceive it as a complete, orderly 
 Cosmos without at the same time apprehending its 
 creating, providential God. 
 
 TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 
 
 John Stuart Mill says that the argument from 
 design is a genuine inductive argument, and that 
 proof from design is not random but universal.’ 
 
 The order and adaptation of nature is the ground 
 of this argument. Socrates illustrated it by a statue. 
 
 All works of man are by design, revealing more 
 or less the perfection of the designer. All natural 
 things are discovered to be designed, 1.e., there is in 
 their structure and adaptability to each other a plan 
 working toward an end. Therefore we conclude, 
 a mind has designed them. ‘‘He that planted the 
 ear shall he not hear?” By the same inductive 
 process by which we believe in gravitation we believe 
 in a design. 
 
 1 See “Scientific Theism vs. Materialism, The Space—Time 
 
 Potential.” Reuterdahl. Edition 1920. 
 2 See Fisher’s Natural Theology—p. 20. 
 
20 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 In nature we see only subordinate ends,.but as 
 when we see a spoke we are forced to assume its de- 
 sign, not in itself but in a wheel, and then still fur- 
 ther its design in the organism of the wagon; so by 
 the same foresight we are compelled to assume a 
 final end planned by an intelligence. 
 
 Science assumes that nature is the embodiment of 
 thought, else science itself would ever be chaotic. 
 The human thinker endeavors to unravel the mys- 
 teries of the earth, air, sea, sky, etc., and present 
 these data in rational order. What is he doing but 
 discovering an adjustment which he never made but 
 only reproduced? He enjoys it; comprehends it in 
 a measure; finds it suitable to his thought. He did 
 not design it. Could it be designed by a being less 
 than man or equal to man? The thoughtful mind — 
 does not leap, but takes a necessary step. An infinite 
 mind designed it. 
 
 Does the theory of Evolution invalidate this ar- 
 gument? 
 
 Evolution is a present-day theory standing over 
 against creation of species in special acts by a sover- 
 eign creator. Evolution assumes that each species 
 is evolved from the preceding species, either by a - 
 sudden change or by very gradual tendency to varia- 
 tion with force of heredity perpetuating this. All 
 are derived from a few simple forms. The evolving 
 process is from the simple to the complex. Their 
 surviving or perishing is by natural selection, or, as 
 
 
 
THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 21 
 
 Spencer terms it, “the survival of the fittest.’”” Such 
 a theory true or false in no way invalidates the 
 Teleological Argument. Indeed there are some 
 thinkers who claim that evolution itself is teleolog- 
 ical. ‘“‘Notwithstanding the seeming success which 
 temporarily marked the first assault of the theory 
 of natural selection on the doctrine of final causes, 
 it is now becoming more and more evident every 
 day that the attempt to explain the universe and all 
 it contains in a purely mechanical fashion as to the 
 fortuitous outcome of the collision of the blind 
 forces, has completely failed; and that the theory 
 of Evolution is hopelessly incompetent to solve even 
 the simplest biological problems without ultimately 
 falling back on a teleological conception of the 
 world." 
 
 Evolution sity shifts the question. Why is this 
 heredity and tendency to variations? Why Correla- 
 tion? Do not these so-called laws prove that wis- 
 dom is in the plan? Is not natural selection as a 
 law the function of a mind and a will? The “‘fit- 
 test” is that which has been endowed with fitness 
 for the destined end. If adaptation to environment 
 helps to form varieties, then there is evidence of 
 design in environment. How did it get there? Is 
 the environment a thoughtful being? Is it not more 
 rational to believe that a thoughtful being formed 
 it for an end? 
 
 1! Maher’s Psychology—p. 526. 
 
Ze EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 THE LATEST EVOLUTION SUPPORTS DESIGN 
 
 Darwinian Evolution is rapidly losing its hold 
 among leading biologists. The new theory of ‘‘muta- 
 tions” is superseding the old theory of “variations.”’ 
 ‘“Typical of the new school is the botanist Hugo de 
 Vries of Amsterdam. The ‘first steps’ in the origin 
 of species according to Dr. de Vries are not fluctuat- 
 ing individual variations, but mutations, i.e., deft 
 nite and permanent modifications. According to the 
 mutation theory a new species arises from the parent 
 species, not gradually but suddenly, * * * with- 
 out visible preparation and without transitional 
 steps.’” | | 
 
 Such evolution as De Vries has demonstrated is 
 tantamount to a creative act, and adds a powerful 
 
 element in the argument from design. 
 
 MORAL ARGUMENT 
 
 The Moral Argument proceeds from the con- 
 science of man and its recognition of the obligation 
 to obey holy law. No one will deny the premise. 
 Conscience and obligation to obey the moral law 
 are universally admitted. Obedience to the moral 
 demand will bring its sure reward, disobedience will 
 result in penalty. The moral order can be accounted 
 for only on the ground of a moral Governor. Chance 
 is an absurd explanation. It cannot be explained by 
 
 a 
 
 1 “At the Deathbed of Darwinism’—p. 18. 
 
 
 
THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 23 
 
 the civil law, nor by social consent, for these derive 
 their authority by an appeal to moral law or right 
 principle. Evolution assumes that somewhere in 
 the cosmic process, the ethical or moral process 
 arose. But this does not account for its cause. No 
 explanation explains, no assumption is adequate, ex- 
 cept that of a moral being who is perfectly holy. 
 ‘“Through the operations of conscience we discern 
 that we are subject to a righteous lawgiver who re- 
 wards and punishes. We are brought into contact 
 with the moral attitude of the Being in whom we live 
 and move. There is within us an immediate, unde- 
 niable testimony to His holiness and righteousness.” 
 The great bacteriologist, Pasteur, bears this testi- 
 mony: ‘‘Posterity will one day laugh at the fool- 
 ishness of the modern materialistic philosophers. 
 The more I study nature, the more | stand amazed 
 at the works of the Creator. I pray while I am en- 
 gaged in my work in the laboratory.’’ Virchow was 
 not a professed Christian, but he was as much op- 
 posed as was Pasteur to the theory of materialistic 
 Darwinism. At a convention of anthropologists, 
 held in Vienna, Virchow said: ‘The attempt to 
 find the transition from animal to man has ended in 
 a total failure. The middle link has not been found 
 and will not be found. Man is not descended from 
 the ape. It has been proved beyond a doubt that 
 during the past five thousand years there has been 
 
 1 Fisher’s Manual of Natural Theology—p. 62. 
 
24 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 no noticeable change in mankind.” ‘The present 
 status of this theory has been well presented by Dr. 
 Goette, the Strassburgh Professor of Zoology, 
 when he says Darwinism has passed through four 
 stages of development, namely: (1) The begin- 
 nings, when it was received with great enthusiasm; 
 (2) the period in which it flourished and found 
 general acceptance; (3) the period of transition and 
 sober second thought, when its principles and teach- 
 ings were called into question; (4) the final period, 
 upon which the scientific world has just entered, and 
 when its days will evidently soon be numbered, while 
 the germ of truth it contained will become a perma- 
 nent possession of modern science. 
 
 The Moral Argument is considered by many writ- 
 ers on natural theology to be the strongest of all the 
 proofs of the divine existence. Many who object to - 
 the Cosmological assent to the Moral. Dr. Wm. H. 
 Campbell of Rutgers College, speaking of these, 
 said: ‘The arguments for the being of God ought 
 to be well weighed, and I have no hard names for an 
 honest doubter. Hence I do not care how many 
 hard knocks, and good hard ones too, great reason- 
 ers may give these arguments. If the Cosmological . 
 Argument cannot stand, then let it fall under the 
 blows, and no tears may be shed, for we still have 
 left the citadel of the Moral Argument which they 
 believe to be impregnable.’’ However, Dr. Camp- 
 bell himself defended the Cosmological Argument. 
 
 
 
THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 25 
 
 We believe that the Cosmological and Moral Argu- 
 ments are closely associated; starting from different 
 premises both reach their conclusion by means of the 
 metaphysics of first cause. 
 
 The Ontological Argument makes Divine Exist- 
 ence credible; the Cosmological proves a first cause 
 who is being; the Teleological proves an intelligent, 
 rational being who designs and destines the universe; 
 and the Moral Argument proves that there is a holy, 
 absolute, just being. This proof is not perfect dem- 
 onstration, but from different premises points us to 
 one conclusion so probable that it amounts to cer- 
 tainty. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 REVELATION 
 
 REVELATION, as an act, is the direct communica- 
 tion of truth from God to man. There is a certain 
 knowledge of God, as an existent being, through 
 nature, but this is not revelation; the hand of divine 
 providence may clearly be discerned in the course of 
 history, but this is the result of an induction. Reve- 
 lation, as claimed in and from the Scriptures, is the 
 body of truth which God has made known to men by 
 miraculous means; it could not have been given in 
 any other way, and it relates indirectly or. directly 
 to men’s moral and spiritual welfare. Inspiration is 
 the operation of the Holy Spirit, by which men were 
 impelled to publish revelation and were guarded 
 from error in doing it. For example, the Law was 
 a revelation given of God to Moses at Sinai, and he 
 was inspired to write it accurately in a book. That 
 there is such a revelation rests upon evidential 
 grounds. No one denies that the Bible exists. How 
 did it originate? Christianity claims—by revelation 
 as stated above.’ We clear the way to direct proof 
 by showing that such a revelation is possible, prob- 
 able and necessary to man’s well being. 
 
 1 Luke 1:70; Heb. 1:1; 2nd Peter 1:21. 
 
 
 
REVELATION taf | 
 
 REVELATION IS POSSIBLE 
 
 We have concluded that the infinite God is a ra- 
 tional, moral being. But man also is rational and 
 moral, capable of imparting rational and moral in- 
 telligence. The possibility of revelation from the 
 infinite to the finite at once becomes apparent. Even 
 such an opponent of revelation as Feuerbach, says: 
 “With idea of the existence of God is connected the 
 idea of revelation.”' The objector to the possi- 
 bility of revelation must remove the infinitude of 
 God, if he is to maintain his point. 
 
 In treating Revelation and the Divine Existence, 
 we are not reasoning in a circle, i.e., proving the for- 
 mer from the latter and then the latter from the 
 former.. The Bible does not demonstrate the Divine 
 Existence, it only assumes the foolishness of the con- 
 trary. Our purpose here is to clear away all obsta- 
 cles in the way of the future presentation of the 
 Scriptures as the revelation of God to man. 
 
 REVELATION IS PROBABLE 
 
 The mythologies of all ancient peoples rest upon 
 the belief that supernatural beings can communicate 
 with natural. Amid all the wrecks and decay of tra- 
 dition, this fibre of truth remains, that man in the 
 
 1 Essence of Christianity-—Evans Trans.—p. 263. 
 Feuerbach terms this “the illusion of the religious conscious- 
 ness,” / 
 
28 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 dawn of history must have had sure basis of fact for 
 this universal belief. It is most highly probable that 
 the creator of a race of rational beings would for 
 the enlightenment and advance of His creatures, re- 
 veal Himself to them. The unity and order of the 
 universe seem to need this. Man is not like a planet; 
 but is free, and yearns for God. Were men not sin- 
 ful we have every reason to believe that this longing 
 would still exist until revelation had satisfied it. 
 
 But the curse of sin is upon man and nothing in 
 nature can allay its agony. There is the feeling of 
 guilt, and the desire that this pang shall be removed. 
 There is the searching of the soul to find a way of 
 forgiveness, and a cry for help because of the tyran- 
 ny of sin. ‘There is the craving for something after 
 this life, for a place of rest and freedom from the 
 woes of this earth. There is the fond desire, “this — 
 longing after immortality.” There is the instinct 
 or habit of prayer. If this is habit, it must have had 
 a ground, either instinctive or revealed, from whence. 
 it arose. There is the need of more than human 
 help in time of sorrow and death. 
 
 GOD IS MERCIFUL 
 
 If God is a moral being, and we have shown that 
 He must be, then mercy is one of His attributes. The — 
 deplorable condition of the human race in its sinful 
 state, almost presumes the revelation of some means 
 
 
 
REVELATION 29 
 
 of relief on the part of a merciful God. In no way 
 responsible for the sin of His free creatures, it is 
 highly probable that He will not leave them to drift 
 onward to an inexorable judgment. 
 
 Even heathen themselves have concluded that 
 God spared evil men, to give then Shas aE, for 
 repentance. \ 
 
 REVELATION IS NECESSARY 
 
 Apart from the needs of sinful man, the human 
 race would need Revelation. Reverence to God is 
 absolutely necessary to normal relations between the 
 creator and the creature. But man could never know 
 how to fitly reverence God if it were not revealed to 
 him. Again, duty in general, though recognized, is 
 often vague and obscure. Conscience needs aid and 
 guidance for its perfecting. It is unlikely that God 
 would leave His moral creatures to a life of moral 
 uncertainty. Revelation alone can satisfy the prob- 
 lem. 
 
 As we shall see hereafter, Christianity alone of 
 all the claimants to a revelation meets all these 
 needs, satisfies every moral demand, yea, gives far 
 beyond every natural craving, and proves itself the 
 only revealed religion. There are truths in other 
 religions, but Christianity will evidence that it is 
 the revealed truth. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 MIRACLES 
 
 SUFFICIENT CAUSE IN DIVINE EXISTENCE 
 
 THE belief in an infinite God, who will most prob- 
 ably reveal Himself to His intelligent creatures, 
 gives sufficient cause for miracles. In this chapter 
 we shall show just and sufficient cause. 
 
 The testimony of human consciousness is that we 
 can work changes in the physical world; not by 
 thwarting nor overthrowing natural law, but by im- 
 posing a higher law, i.e., the law of our free author- 
 ity, upon the course of natural law. I throw my 
 bunch of keys into the air. I do not violate nor sus- 
 pend the law of gravitation; but while the keys are 
 going upward a higher law is for the moment im- | 
 posed upon the natural law. The same power must 
 be granted to the infinite God. His existence is suf- 
 ficient cause for the historical Miracles. 
 
 SUFFICIENT CAUSE IN NEED OF REVELATION 
 
 We have seen that man needs Revelation. But 
 Revelation cannot be without miraculous attestation. 
 Natural law is the ordinary way by which the course 
 
 
 
' MIRACLES 31 
 
 of temporal things moves onward. No divine reve- 
 lation can come through this means to meet the issue 
 of sin, guilt and death. Nature must ever be help- 
 less in their presence. The world needs the convic- 
 tion of a personal God to help and save. Such a 
 being must reveal Himself as superior to nature. 
 Man would never believe, with any ground of hope, 
 in a saving God if He had not revealed His way of 
 salvation by miracles. That an infinitely good God 
 should reveal Himself and His plan of salvation to 
 His creatures by miraculous proof is a most rational 
 belief. When credible, unimpeached witnesses testi- 
 fy to the Resurrection of Jesus, and the human heart 
 and hopes evidence the rational need of the Revela- 
 tion which this event forever attests, then this mira- 
 cle of all miracles becomes the most believable fact 
 
 of history. | 
 
 PANTHEISTIC OBJECTIONS 
 
 Spinoza denied the possibility of miracles on the 
 ground that God and nature are identical. ‘The 
 virtue and power of nature are the virtue and power 
 of God, the laws of nature are the decrees of God. 
 Therefore we must conclude that nature is infinite, 
 and her laws are so made that they extend to every- 
 thing which is conceived by the Divine Nature itself.” 
 This philosophy leaves no room for miracles, for if 
 nature extends to all possible events no miracle can 
 
ae EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 take place. Many evolutionists of modern times 
 stand in Spinoza’s shadow. 
 
 This argument against the possibility of miracles 
 falls with the philosophy upon which it is built. Pan- 
 theism denies alike the personality of God and man. 
 It defies our consciousness that we are personal be- 
 ings. It goes under, before the assault of the argu- 
 ment for the existence of God, which proves a Cre- 
 ator who is a moral person apart from ‘His works. 
 It is utterly wrecked on the rocky problem of sin, 
 which it must either deny or identify as an attribute 
 
 of God. 
 
 HUME’S OBJECTION 
 
 David Hume is the most celebrated antagonist of 
 miracles. While Spinoza denied their possibility, 
 Hume denied their credibility, claiming that no 
 amount of testimony could prove a miracle. 
 
 ‘‘A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; 
 and as a firm and unalterable experience has estab-. 
 lished these laws, the proof against a miracle from 
 the very nature of the fact is as entire as any argu- 
 ment from experience can possibly be imagined. And 
 if so it is an undeniable consequence that it cannot 
 be surmounted by any proof whatever from testi- 
 mony." ‘The only case in which the evidence for 
 the miracle could prevail, would be that in which 
 
 } Hopkins on Hume. 
 
 
 
MIRACLES 33 
 
 the falseness or error of the attesting witnesses 
 would be a greater miracle than the miracle they 
 afirm.’”* Hume would say, you must assume a mira- 
 cle to prove a miracle. 
 
 HUME’S FALLACY 
 
 Hume begs the question, i. e., he assumes in his 
 premise something not yet proved and indeed the 
 very conclusion which he sets out to prove. He 
 says you cannot prove what is contrary to the in- 
 variability of nature, which, he assumes, a miracle 
 is. his is the very point to be proved. A miracle 
 is not the violation of the laws of nature, but a new 
 and supreme cause, producing a new and miraculous 
 effect. We have shown sufficient cause for such 
 effects; hence, 'Hume’s argument, aimed at the 
 “nature” side, entirely misses the mark, which is 
 not nature at all but a superior power who mani- 
 fests His energy above nature. Hume’s argument 
 can have weight only with those who deny that God 
 exists or with those who claim that if He does exist 
 it can never be manifest to us. 
 
 Again, as J. S. Mill has shown, “the evidence for 
 the unbroken uniformity of nature is diminished in 
 force by whatever weight belongs to the evidence 
 that certain miracles have taken place:’” and Hume 
 
 1 See Trench on Hume; also Hume’s Essay on Miracles—pp. 
 128 and 144. 
 4 Fisher’s Manual—p. 16. 
 
34 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 himself admits in a note after his essay, that there 
 may be miracles of such a kind as to admit of proof 
 from human testimony, though he denies this , ae 
 of the Bible miracles.’ 
 
 Again, our belief in the uniformity of nature is 
 the result of testimony, and Dr. Mark Hopkins ex- 
 poses the whole sophism of Hume as follows: 
 ‘“HHume uses the term experience in two senses. 
 Personal experience is the knowledge we have ac- 
 quired by our own senses. General experience is 
 that knowledge of facts which has been acquired 
 by the race. If, therefore, Hume says a miracle 
 is contrary to his personal experience, that proves 
 nothing ; but if he says it is opposed to universal 
 experience, that, as has been said, begs the ques- 
 tion.’ 
 
 RATIONALISTIC OBJECTIONS 
 
 From Julian the Apostate down to Prof. Huxley 
 and his following of rationalistic Evolutionists, it 
 has been claimed that miracles are nothing more — 
 than the working out of some law of nature itself 
 by superior insight. ‘They all rely upon the dogma 
 of the “constant mode of operation in natural 
 things,’ but fail to consider the great moral cause 
 of supernatural or miraculous changes of which we 
 have spoken above. ‘This objection on the part of 
 the Evolutionists proves too much. Many miracles 
 
 1 Hopkins’ Evidences of Christianity—p. 36. 
 
 
 
MIRACLES 35 
 
 and those best attested would require such a superior 
 insight into the workings of natural law, that the 
 insight would be miraculous. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS 
 
 The present-day objection to belief in miracles is 
 based upon scientific grounds. One who stands to- 
 day at the height of ethical scholarship says: ‘But 
 with the triumph of the scientific mode of thought, 
 which starts from the hypothesis of the universal 
 reign of law and then seeks to verify it in particular 
 cases, the intellect has come to rebel somewhat 
 strongly against miracles and magic. * * * There 
 are riddles, says science, which we cannot as yet 
 solve, but there are no miracles, no occurrences 
 which exclude, in principle, the possibility of a nat- 
 ural explanation.” 
 
 ‘*The Bible miracles are no exception to this rule; 
 they belong to a category of world-views which has 
 disappeared and cannot long survive them.” 
 
 “Besides it may perhaps be shown that miracles 
 not only contradict the scientific conception of our 
 age, but also the spirit of our religious faith. “They 
 really belong to the polytheistic stage in the evolu- 
 tion of Theism; gods work miracles, God works 
 no miracles. * * * God alone is an independent be- 
 ing, all things are and exist not in themselves, but 
 in Him; or according to Spinoza’s formula: God 
 
36 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 is the substance, the things are the modifications of 
 His essence. * * * Whoever takes monotheism 
 seriously, whoever regards the difference between 
 monotheism and polytheism not as a numerical dif- 
 ference, but as a difference in the divine essence, and 
 does not look upon God as the only survivor of a 
 great host of gods, whoever interprets monotheism 
 to mean that God alone truly exists, cannot at the 
 same time believe without contradicting himself, 
 that He reveals Himself in miracles and signs.’? — 
 
 Prof. Paulsen writes the above reverently and 
 with a desire to preserve the Christian faith. We 
 think the quotations fairly open up his view, al- 
 though not exhausting it. 
 
 ETHICAL ANSWER 
 
 This is perhaps the best representative modern 
 attack from one who would hold the faith and drop 
 all belief in the miraculous. It may be met upon 
 ethical grounds. Its impeachment of Jesus and the 
 disciples, either on account of their wilfulness or 
 ignorance in deception, is so marked, that all the 
 moral basis of Christianity is gone. —The New Tes- 
 tament miracles were believed and recorded as facts 
 by the disciples of Jesus. Prof. Paulsen says: ‘It 
 may be that miracles and signs were once needed 
 to strengthen the faith of the Church; at present 
 
 1 See Paulsen’s Ethics, Thilly’s trans—pp. 435 and 436. 
 
 
 
MIRACLES 37 
 
 they merely discredit it.” He evidently means that 
 
 belief in the miracles was needed. But faith must 
 have facts beneath it; and we need belief in those 
 historical facts just as truly now as did the Apos- 
 tolic or Middle-age Christians. 
 
 HISTORICAL ANSWER 
 
 Another feature of this scientific objection is 
 eliminated upon historical grounds. ‘The Jews were 
 intensely monotheistic after the exile. Four hun- 
 dred years of most pronounced monotheism pre- 
 ceded the miracles of Jesus Christ and His dis- 
 ciples. Their age was the most abundantly mirac- 
 ulous the world has ever seen. Monotheism had 
 attained its purest form—then came the New Tes- 
 tament miracles. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC ANSWER 
 
 But the final answer to the scientific attack upon 
 the miracles must be also upon scientific ground. 
 The weapon in the hand of the hostile scientist is 
 “the hypothesis of the universal reign of law.” But 
 its blow falls upon the impenetrable shield of evi- 
 dence both from history and experience, a portion 
 of which we try to bring to light in the remainder 
 of this book. The ‘hypothesis’ confronts tremen- 
 dous facts from an array of credible witnesses. The 
 “hypothesis” again, as in Hume’s days, begs the 
 
38 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 question. The testimony of the witnesses allied 
 with the Divine Existence and the cravings of lost 
 men, the character of Jesus, the fulfilment of 
 prophecy, the monuments of those ages, scientifically 
 applied to the ‘“‘hypothesis,” overbalance it. Prof. 
 Paulsen has no more power against this tangible 
 proof than had David Hume or Baruch de Spinoza. 
 
 EARLY OPPONENTS 
 
 ‘The history of opinions about miracles must be 
 startling to those who deny the miracles of Scrip- 
 ture. Ihe nearer we approach the century in which 
 Jesus lived, the less denial do we find. The Jews 
 all believed that the Old Testament miracles were 
 genuine works of God; and not being able to deny 
 the facts of Jesus’ miracles, they ascribed them to 
 diabolical influences.’ Later Jewish writers have af- | 
 firmed that Christ possessed, by fraud, the secret 
 and infallible name of Deity, and thereby wrought 
 His miracles. | 
 
 ‘‘Celsus, the first great opponent of Christianity, 
 ascribed the Christian miracles to magic. He does 
 not deny them. Julian the Emperor admits that 
 Paul worked miracles, and ascribes them to a super- 
 ior knowledge of nature. 
 
 ‘These are the most noted opponents of Chris- 
 tianity before the year 363 A. D. If the fact of the 
 
 1 Matt. 12:24; Mark 3:22-27. 
 
 
 
MIRACLES 39 
 
 miracles could have been denied would they have 
 admitted it?” 
 
 PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES REMOVED 
 
 From these considerations we draw the conclusion 
 that instead of an antecedent presumption against 
 miracles, there is enough presumption for them, both 
 as to their possibility and probability, to remove all 
 a priori objections, and place them upon the basis 
 of any ordinary historical fact, capable of being evi- 
 denced by historical proof. 
 
 1 Pres. W. H. Campbell’s lecture, 1883. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PROOF OF MIRACLES FROM 
 COMMON GROUND 
 
 THE COMMON GROUND 
 
 No competent critic will question that Paul wrote 
 certain epistles. Romans, First and Second Corin-— 
 thians and Galatians are accepted as genuine Paul- 
 ine writings even by those who deny the credibility 
 of miracles. Hence then, in these epistles we all can 
 stand upon a common ground: and must accept con- 
 clusions drawn logically from them. a 
 
 PAUL’S MIRACLES IN ROMANS 
 
 In Romans 15:18, 19, Paul writes: “For I will 
 not dare to speak of any things save those which 
 Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of 
 the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of 
 signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Ghost.”’ 
 The signs and wonders, according to all New Testa- 
 ment usage, were miracles.’ Paul will speak only of 
 those things which were proved to be of God 
 through his miracles. In other words, Paul risked 
 
 1 See Meyer on this passage. 
 
PROOF FROM COMMON GROUND 41 
 
 his whole religious system on the fact of his mira- 
 cles. Now these Romans had never met him, up to 
 this time, in their capacity as a church; yet such 
 is Paul’s confidence in the evidence of his miracles, 
 that he attests his Gospel by them. These Roman 
 Jews and Gentiles were a metropolitan people, not 
 easily deluded. No treatise of antiquity possesses 
 more depth of thought and keenness of logic than 
 the epistle addressed to these people. They were . 
 credited by Paul with an earnest reasonableness 
 that commands admiration. Would Paul dare to as- 
 sert his miracles to such a society if such miracles 
 were not above all question? 
 
 In Second Corinthians 12:12 Paul writes: ‘“Truly 
 the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in 
 all patience, by signs and wonders and mighty 
 works.” Here he plainly calls the Corinthians to 
 witness that he worked miracles among them. If 
 ever a reformer, spreading a new doctrine, was 
 put to the test, such a one was Paul at Corinth. His 
 hearers were the former ruler of the Synagogue, 
 Crispus, a Jew, who gave up his dearest idol, his 
 old faith, to embrace Christianity, Sosthenes, also a 
 synagogue-ruler, and Erastus the city-chamberlain, a 
 high official. Though not many of the wise and no- 
 ble, in a worldly sense, were called, still the Corin- 
 thian Church was an enlightened and intellectual 
 community. Would Paul have dared to write them 
 such words as we quote above, claiming to have 
 
42 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 wrought miracles, if all had not been absolutely con- 
 vinced that the claim was valid? Paul’s ability as 
 an apostle was questioned in Corinth, judging from 
 his epistle, by Judaizers who sought thus to under- 
 mine his authority. In the face of this he asserts 
 with perfect confidence that he had worked miracles 
 of which they were witnesses. This documentary 
 evidence is tantamount to the testimony of the en- 
 tire Corinthian Church that Paul worked miracles. 
 
 COMMON GROUND IN THE WORDS OF JESUS 
 
 Even such a rationalist as Ernest Renan agrees 
 that some of the words of Jesus and others as 
 quoted by the Gospel writers are genuine: Accord- 
 ing to this theory Renan admits that Jesus’ relatives 
 once said to Him: ‘Depart hence and go into Judea, 
 that thy disciples also may see the works that thou 
 doest.”’ If these words are genuine how can we 
 refuse the conclusion that Jesus and His relatives 
 agreed that He could do these works? Again, Renan 
 says, ‘Others, without being blamed by the dis- 
 ciples, took Him for John the Baptist risen from 
 the dead, for Elias, for Jeremiah,” etc. How was 
 it possible for this opinion to prevail without 
 miracles? ‘The discourse on the ‘‘bread which 
 cometh down from Heaven,” which Renan admits, 
 is intelligible only in view of the miracle of the 
 loaves and fishes. In his “Life of Jesus,’ Renan 
 
PROOF FROM COMMON GROUND 43 
 
 assails the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, and 
 accounts for its origin as follows: ‘ ‘If one was 
 raised from the dead perhaps the living would re- 
 pent,’ was no doubt the remark made by the pious 
 sisters. ‘No,’ was the response of Jesus, ‘even 
 though one rose from the dead they would not be 
 persuaded’; recalling next a story which was 
 familiar to him, that of the pious beggar covered 
 with sores, who died and was carried by angels to 
 Abraham’s bosom. ‘Even should Lazarus return,’ 
 he might have added, ‘they would not be per- 
 suaded.’ Later on this subject was treated with 
 singular levity. The hypothesis became a fact.’ 
 Let it be said here, that Renan impeaches Jesus 
 and makes Him a party to a fraudulent story. ‘His 
 conscience, through a fault of the people and not 
 his own, had lost somewhat of its primordial sin- 
 cerity.’’ Renan is obliged to assume that the people 
 believed in the fact of the raising of Lazarus. 
 Well, this is all that we ask. The attempt to con- 
 struct the story out of the parable of Dives and 
 Lazarus would be amusing were it not also sadden- 
 ing to witness the puerile extremity to which those 
 who would naturalize the miracles of Jesus are 
 driven. If the people in Jerusalem, including Je- 
 sus’ enemies and bitterest foes, who were plotting 
 His death, believed this testimony, that Jesus raised 
 Lazarus, while the living subject of the miracle was 
 
 1 Renan’s Life of Jesus—Ch. 23. 
 
44 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 but fifteen furlongs off, who can doubt the evi- 
 dence? 
 
 PRESENT-DAY MIRACLES 
 
 The discussion of the miracles alleged to have 
 been wrought in the Middle Ages and also in more 
 recent times has been used as a foil to discredit 
 the Bible miracles." We notice this in passing, al- 
 though it does not strictly belong to our argument. 
 The miracles of Scripture were wrought in an age 
 when other miracles were claimed by some writers 
 who contradict Christianity. But these other so- 
 called miracles are clearly distinguished from those 
 of sacred writ. ‘Hence, as we must expect counter- 
 feits after the genuine has been issued, so we must 
 expect these medieval and modern claims to mir-— 
 acles. 
 
 But all miracles must submit to test. Jesus asked 
 His enemies to judge His works. Are these alleged 
 post-scripture miracles able to stand the test? Are 
 they wrought to substantiate a revelation from God, 
 which will bear recording, and stand as the accepted 
 Word of God to men? Since Jesus through His dis- - 
 ciples has given the entire Gospel, ‘the power of God 
 unto salvation to everyone that believeth,” and has 
 confirmed it all by means of miracles, are any more 
 miracles necessary? Are not these superfluous? 
 
 1 Paulsen’s Ethics—p. 335. 
 
PROOF FROM COMMON GROUND 45 
 
 Even those which have been wrought, as is alleged, 
 by pious Christians, add nothing to Revelation. We 
 claim the regeneration of the soul as a miracle, but 
 this is wrought by the Holy Spirit. That God will 
 work miracles in the consummation of the ages, we 
 truly believe. But until our Lord comes again, in 
 view of the power of the Gospel, we cannot accept 
 even the need of miracles. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT 
 
 USE OF TERMS 
 
 THERE being no fixed terminology among the 
 teachers of Evidences of Christianity, we have set- 
 tled upon the following usage for this book: The 
 genuineness of a book means that it was written 
 by the author to whom it is ascribed in the canon of 
 Scripture. Authenticity means that the subject- 
 matter of the book is true and in accordance with 
 fact. Credibility is applied to the writers and their 
 witnesses, and means that they are trustworthy and 
 competent. Credibility is sometimes applied to the 
 testimony; if so used, it will be so indicated. Jn- 
 tegrity means that the book as it appears in the 
 canon of scripture, is substantially the same as the 
 original document. 
 
 PRESERVATION 
 
 The authenticity of the Old Testament rests upon 
 most substantial grounds. The books of the Jewish 
 people were written for a people of highest intelli- 
 
 2 a _——— 
 
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 47 
 
 gence and universal literacy. Nearly all of these 
 books were composed in the light of public accept- 
 ance of their facts. [hese statements were sub- 
 jected to the most searching criticism in literary, 
 governmental and religious circles. Only the truth 
 could survive. Defeats, failures, national shame and 
 sin were freely recorded. ‘This is true of no other 
 national record. 
 
 Then, the preservation and copying of these books 
 were sacred duties, committed to most trustworthy 
 men. Absolute accuracy of copy was demanded. 
 There was very slight possibility of mistake and no 
 possibility of fraud. Hebrew historical books that 
 were accepted as ‘Scriptures’ have an authenticity 
 that challenges all literature. 
 
 FORMERLY UNCORROBORATED 
 
 “Until very recently the greater part of Old 
 Testament history stood alone.’” Formerly the his- 
 torical statements of the Old Testament were be- 
 lieved because they were Biblical. ‘The Bible evi- 
 denced itself as the Word of God, produced effects 
 like those of no other books, and declared itself to 
 be given by inspiration; therefore the believing mind 
 accepted its historical statements as true. 
 
 But this history was almost entirely uncorrobo- 
 rated. Josephus wrote as he read from Scripture 
 
 1 Dr. H. A. Sayce, in Homiletic Review. 
 
48 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and cognate Jewish books, and therefore adds no 
 
 weight to their testimony.. Herodotus, the ‘‘Father 
 of History,” died about 400 B. C. He wrote the 
 history of the Greco-Persian wars, and being the 
 first philosophical historian, traced the causes of this 
 struggle backward, and thus gives an account of the 
 history of the world. This is not given as accurate 
 history but as a substratum for his own work. He 
 begins accurate history where the Hebrew historians 
 left off. All the traditions found in the Greek 
 classics commenced when the Greeks were brought 
 
 into contact with the Asiatic nations. ‘They neither 
 
 helped nor hindered to any extent the trustworthi- 
 ness of the Hebrew narratives. 
 
 RISE OF HIGHER CRITICISM 
 
 Intense study of the Scriptures, without the fel- 
 lowship of spiritual life accompanying it, produced 
 Jewish Rabbinism in Jesus’ day; likewise the critical 
 investigation of the books of the Old Testament, 
 and the endeavor to reconstruct its history and the 
 origin of the individual books in harmony with the 
 theory of evolution, have produced Higher Criti- 
 cism. 
 
 No literature corroborated the historical state- 
 ments of Scripture; therefore the principles of 
 criticism were at liberty to be employed in the rear- 
 rangement or destruction of Old Testament his- 
 
 a 
 
 > _—— 
 
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 49 
 
 tory. Many of the narratives were called legends 
 with no historical validity. Others were labeled 
 pious frauds, invented by good men in the interest 
 of their religion. Moses was declared incapable of 
 writing the Pentateuch; and the histories of Samuel 
 were pronounced full of errors. 
 
 ‘False in one, false in all,’’ has ever been the cry 
 of the hostile critic; and however illogically this for- 
 mula has been applied to the Old Testament, the fact 
 remains that the common mind of Christendom feels 
 the shock of every denial of accuracy to the Word 
 of God. If the Bible is false in its histories, the 
 truth-loving mind will ever be baffled in reconciling 
 this fact with the claim that inspired men wrote it. 
 
 RISE OF ARCHAEOLOGY 
 
 When hostile criticism had done its worst, ar- 
 cheology came forward; and with gigantic strides 
 and sweeping blows cleared the field of the foe, and 
 showed us once more the citadel of Christian faith 
 uninjured. Archeology does not take the place of 
 Old ‘Testament history, but corroborates some of its 
 most important statements. It corrects misappre- 
 hensions, silences the fire of hostile criticism, and 
 leads us logically to assume with confidence that all 
 its history is correct. 
 
 Archeology has given to the Old Testament an 
 historical setting that was unknown to the Higher 
 
50 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Criticism of the generation of the Wellhausen 
 School. All the text books on Ancient History that 
 have any standing have been rewritten in the setting 
 of monumental evidence. Archeology has recon- 
 structed all of this history. The absolute historical 
 date has been set far back of any that was known to 
 the Higher Critics of twenty years ago. ‘he corrob- 
 orative effect of this reconstruction upon Old Tes- 
 tament History is remarkable. ‘The contribution 
 which archeology makes to this subject is that 
 wherever it has been possible to test the statements 
 of scripture in its multitudinous historical notices 
 and its other references to fact, the Bible has been 
 found correct to a remarkable degree, and that, in 
 its present form, and even in minute peculiarities of 
 statement.’” PMY od 
 
 In 1887, at Tel el Amarna, Egypt, a deposit of 
 clay tablets was found inscribed with cuneiform 
 characters. Previous advance in the study of cunei- 
 form letters had prepared scholars capable of read- 
 ing the tablets with comparative accuracy. [he study 
 of the ancient languages of the nations of the Nile 
 valley and of the Mesopotamian bed had become a 
 recognized branch of Old ‘Testament learning. These 
 tablets proved, upon examination, to be letters sent 
 to the government of Egypt by the kings of Baby- 
 lonia, Assyria, Canaan, Cappadocia, and from chiefs 
 of the nomadic tribes of Arabia. These letters show 
 
 1 Kyle, “The Deciding Voice of the Monuments’—p. 61. 
 
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 51 
 
 a high degree of intellectual and literary culture com- 
 mon to all the people, soldiers, merchants, etc.; and 
 the date being a century before the Exodus, no proof 
 is wanting that Moses could have written the Pen- 
 tateuch. 
 
 MONUMENTAL VINDICATION 
 
 Many historical statements of the Old Testament 
 have been vindicated. ‘The campaign of the East- 
 ern kings as recorded in Gen. 14 was treated by the 
 critics as a late production and unhistorical;’ now 
 all the names of these Eastern kings are found, some 
 of them inscribed by themselves, and in such rela- 
 tions that all the events of the campaign told by 
 Moses, point to an author who knew of the early 
 Mesopotamian supremacy in Palestine. Letters of 
 Amraphel have’ been found by Dr. Scheil which 
 were written after that king had thrown off the yoke 
 of the king of Elam, “‘on the day of Kudur-Logh- 
 gharmar’s defeat.” 
 
 In Assyria, tablets have been found, giving the 
 facts of history and politics in and before the times 
 of Abraham. ‘Ur of the Chaldees”’ has been dis- 
 covered, and in connection with its history, its monu- 
 ments mention such names as Abiramu, Jacob-el, 
 Joseph-el only one generation before the appear- 
 ance of ‘Abram the Hebrew.” 
 
 1 See Kuenen’s Hexateuch, Wicksteed’s trans., p. 324. 
 See Dillman’s Genesis, vol. 2, pp. 32, 33. 
 See Homiletic Review, March, 1897. 
 
nip EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The genuineness and authenticity of the Book of 
 Daniel have been fiercely attacked from the days of 
 Porphyry the Heathen to the age of Canon Driver. 
 
 But nearly every place in the book that has suf- 
 fered from these assaults has been refortified by 
 archeology. 
 
 The historicity of Belhaeeac was denied: ‘But, 
 behold, Belshazzar turns up in an inscription by his 
 peed ion Nebuchadnezzar. Darius the Mede 
 was denied a place in history: But lo, there is an 
 inscription of a Darius who could have been only 
 a Mede. | 
 
 Driver aftirms that the musical instruments named 
 in Daniel could not have been known in the Babylo- 
 nian period and therefore the writer of Daniel lived 
 in a later period: But now there are inscriptions in 
 the Assyrian period, at least 650 B. C., in which 
 these Greek musical instruments are named as in 
 use in the army. 
 
 The Porphyry-Driver criticism of Daniel becomes 
 obsolete, and nearly all of the destructive criticism — 
 of the Old Testament has shared its fate. We give 
 these two commonly known examples of a vindicated 
 Old Testament; they are only samples of a world 
 of new and Bible-proving literature. 
 
 The archeological discoveries prove the Old 
 Testament to be credible even in its details. The 
 objection, ‘‘False in one, false in all,” falls to the 
 ground, when one by one these minute historical 
 
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 53 
 
 statements are corroborated; and the time has come 
 when the writers on ancient history fear to challenge 
 any Old Testament statements, for what has already 
 been discovered seems but an earnest of what is to 
 be found. The Old Testament claims to be a reve- 
 lation from God. Apart from the New Testament, 
 it stands self-proved as a preparation for a greater 
 revelation; and its credibility, as such, might be es- 
 tablished. But this is all. that we could claim for it. 
 
 JESUS AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 As revelation from God to us, the Old Testament 
 stands or falls with the New. If the life and teach- 
 ings of Jesus are supernatural revelation, then the 
 Old Testament is a living God-inspired book to us. 
 
 Jesus continually appealed to the Old Testament 
 as the inspired Scriptures that could not be broken, 
 saying: “These are they which bear witness of me.” 
 Because all Jews, in Jesus’ and the apostles’ times, 
 believed in the Old Testament as the Word of God, 
 these writings were appealed to as attestations of 
 God to the religion founded by the Man of Naza- 
 reth. Jesus believed the Books of the Law to be 
 the writings of Moses,’ the Psalms, i.e., some of 
 them, of David,’ and the prophets’ inspired of God 
 to testify beforehand concerning Him. 
 
 1 Matt. 19:8; Mark 12:26; Luke 5:14; John 1:17. 
 
 2 Matt. 22:43; Mark 12:36. 
 3 Matt. 26:56;’ Luke 18:31. 
 
54 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Apostles continued in this line of testimony. 
 Nearly all the apostolic sermons recorded in the 
 Acts, certainly all those which were preached to 
 Jews, are built upon the Old Testament. With us 
 the other way of proof is stronger. We do not 
 prove Jesus and His Gospel from the Old Testa- 
 ment, and then prove the Old Testament from 
 Jesus, which would be most illogical. But we first 
 prove Jesus and His Gospel to be a miraculous reve- 
 lation from God; and thus find that the Old Testa- 
 ment is so interwoven into the very fabric of His 
 life and teachings, that it derives its credibility as a 
 ‘divine book from Him. Believing in Him we must 
 believe His historic and prophetic testimonies. 
 
 HARMONY OF THE OLD AND NEW 
 
 The Old and New Testaments are in perfect har- 
 mony concerning God’s plan to save the world. The 
 Old Testament prophesies a nobler dispensation.’ 
 The New Testament declares that the Old Testa- 
 ment ordinances were types of the New.’ 
 
 The ethics of the New Testament rises far above 
 that of the Old, but both came out of the same car- 
 dinal principle. The New Testament ethics is Jove 
 in brighter bloom.° 
 
 When we consider the prophecies of the Old Tes- 
 
 1 Tsa. 60. 
 2 Heb. 6, 7, 9, 10. 
 3 Deut. 6:5; Levit. 19:18. 
 
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 55 
 
 tament, especially those which relate to the Messiah, 
 and then read the historic proof of their fulfilment; 
 when we consider the unchanged moral law of God 
 in both Testaments; when we remember that the 
 Olid Testament promises the salvation offered in 
 the New, righteousness by faith,’ we can affirm that 
 the Old Testament is in every way a credible account 
 of the revelation of God to His chosen people, 
 Israel, and, through Christ, to us. 
 
 +*Gen: 15-6; Ros. 4:3, 5:1. 
 
CHAPTERVV! 
 
 PRESUMPTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM 
 ROMAN HISTORIANS | 
 
 STATEMENT OF TACITUS 
 
 ARE there any testimonies to Jesus from contem- 
 poraneous writers, and what is their value? — 
 
 Tacitus the historian was born about the middle 
 of the first century. He wrote the history of Rome 
 from the death of Augustus to Domitian. Account- 
 ing for the burning of Rome and the charge that 
 Nero did it, he says:’ ‘“To suppress this common 
 rumor, Nero procured others to be accused, and in- 
 flicted exquisite punishment upon those people who 
 were in abhorrence for their crimes,” and were com- 
 monly known by the names of Christians. ‘Chey had 
 their denomination from Christus, who in the reign 
 of ‘Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal by the 
 procurator Pontius Pilate. This pernicious supersti- 
 tion, though checked for a while, broke out again 
 and spread not only over Judea, the source of this 
 evil, but reached the city also.” 
 1 See Furnaux on Tacitus’ Ann. xv. C. 44 
 
 2 Their crime was not revering but Renyine the gods. They were 
 also charged with infanticide, etc. 
 
PRESUMPTION OF DOCUMENTS Sit 
 
 We ask with all earnestness—How could a re- 
 ligion spread over Judea and at last reach Rome 
 without documentary credentials? 
 
 STATEMENT OF SUETONIUS 
 
 Suetonius, another historian, lived in the latter 
 part of the first century. Writing of the Emperor 
 Claudius, 41-54, he says: “‘He banished the Jews 
 from Rome who were constantly making disturb- 
 ances, Chrestus being their leader.” It is well 
 known that Jesus ig sometimes called “‘Chrestus”’ by 
 heathen people in the early ages of the Church. 
 Again, Suetonius says of Nero’s reign, 54-68: ‘“The 
 Christians were punished, a sort of men of a new 
 and magical superstition.” 
 
 TESTIMONY FROM PLINY 
 
 Pliny the Younger was born 61 A. D. In the year 
 100 A. D. he was a Roman Consul. While acting 
 as governor of Bithynia he wrote letters to the Em- 
 peror Trajan, reporting his way of dealing with 
 those who were charged with being Christians. 
 Speaking of those who were guilty of this crime and 
 who at the point of punishment recanted, he says: 
 ‘They affirmed that the whole of their fault or error, 
 lay in this, that they were wont to meet together on 
 a stated day, before it was light, and sing among 
 
 1 Lardner’s Works—vol. 6. 
 4 Letters of Pliny the Younger, 96, 97; Lardner, vol. 7, p. 23. 
 
58 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 themselves alternately a hymn to Christ, as a God, 
 and bind themselves by an oath, not to the commis- 
 sion of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft, 
 or robbery, or adultery, never to falsify their word, 
 nor to deny a pledge committed to them, when call- 
 ed upon to return it.” In reply Trajan wrote to 
 Pliny not to seek them out; but if any were charged 
 and proved guilty they were to be punished.’ : 
 
 VALUE OF THIS TESTIMONY 
 
 These testimonies from heathen historians who 
 were obliged to be hostile to the rising faith, clearly 
 set forth Jesus and the infant church in the historical 
 light, and point to the early belief in Him as God, 
 and the powerful moral principles of His religion. 
 We do not require the passage from Josephus, the 
 genuineness of which is so keenly disputed, to prove 
 outside of the New Testament, the historicalness of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 We gain nothing of additional historical value 
 from these testimonies. ‘These historians were per- 
 sonally untouched by the Gospel, and seem to regard 
 it with aversion, fearing its destructive influence 
 upon their Latin civilization and society; they in- 
 stinctively feel that this ‘‘superstition” threatens the 
 Roman Empire.” The value of this testimony to 
 
 1 “Pliny’s Correspondence with ‘Trajan’—Hardy, p. 2106. 
 4 The secret meetings of the Christians were regarded with 
 suspicion that this might be another plot against the Emperor. 
 
PRESUMPTION OF DOCUMENTS 59 
 
 us is, that from it we can presume documents con- 
 cerning Jesus, either from Him or from His follow- 
 ers. 
 
 THE GREEK LANGUAGE AND THE JEWS 
 
 The first century was an age of highly developed 
 literature. The Greek language had become the 
 medium of public and private communication, es- 
 pecially in the Mediterranean countries. Its chaste 
 naturalness, and its possession of the best works of 
 antiquity, made it the desired acquisition of every 
 cultured person. The Greek language was firmly es- 
 tablished in Galilee when Jesus appeared, preaching 
 His kingdom. The common people of that age and 
 country could speak and read the language. ‘They 
 were familiar with the Septuagint, the Greek render- 
 ing of the Old Testament. Josephus, born in Jeru- 
 salem in the apostolic period, 37 A. D., wrote such 
 excellent Greek that Jerome calls him ‘‘Grecus 
 Livius.” Jews had become the influential traders 
 and bankers in the larger cities of the Empire. ‘“The 
 Jews multiplied so prodigiously that the narrow 
 bounds of Palestine could no longer contain them. 
 They poured, therefore, their increasing numbers 
 into the neighboring countries with such rapidity, 
 that at the time of Christ’s birth, there was scarcely 
 a province in the Empire where they were not found 
 carrying on commerce and exercising other lucrative 
 
60 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 arts.’ Such a business demanded an ability in let- 
 ters, and it is not too much to say, that the Jews 
 were foremost among the cultured class of the first 
 century. 
 
 A FIRST CENTURY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 
 
 If Jesus lived in Galilee, and gathered His disci- 
 ples from there, it would be with the Greek language 
 that they would go forth to spread His religion; so 
 soon as they stepped outside the limits of Palestine, 
 Greek would be the medium of communication. 
 That Jesus lived an actual historical character is 
 amply proved by these Latin historians; that His 
 disciples spread His religion in the first century, 1s 
 also a matter of secular history. If this be so, then 
 the records of His life and teachings, and the teach- 
 ings of His followers, can be presumed with hardly © 
 the shadow of a doubt. ‘There must have existed a 
 documentary literature, in the form of biography, 
 history or epistles, embodying the facts or beliefs 
 upon which these hated Christians built their faith. 
 If there were no Gospels nor Epistles, the unbiased 
 archeologists would wonderingly ask—‘‘Where are 
 the documents of Jesus and His disciples?” 
 
 1 Mosheim, vol. 1, p. 24. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPEL 
 ACCORDING TO JOHN 
 
 STRUCTURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 Tue New Testament consists of twenty-seven 
 documents, all of which are proved to have been 
 written during the first century. Of these, twenty 
 were always received by the early Christian Church 
 as genuine writings of apostles or apostolic men; 
 and these twenty are those of most important bear- 
 ing upon the miraculous life and teachings of -Jesus, 
 viz.: four Gospels, thirteen Epistles of Paul, the 
 Acts, First John and First Peter. The other seven 
 books were doubtful to some portions of the church; 
 and came into the canon after having been most 
 closely examined by every possible test, and proved 
 by overwhelming evidence to be worthy of a place 
 in the Scriptures. 
 
 GENUINENESS, CREDIBILITY, AND 
 SUPERNATURALNESS 
 
 Our study of these books will lead us to the fol- 
 lowing conclusions: First, that these writings are 
 
62 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the works of the men to whom they are ascribed, © 
 i.e., their genuineness. Second, that these men and 
 these writings are worthy of the fullest belief, i.e., 
 their credibility. Third, that the evidence which 
 they present proves that Jesus Christ and His Gospel 
 are supernatural and the only possible ground of 
 salvation for all men in all time. 
 
 GENUINENESS OF JOHN 
 
 We begin with the Gospel According to John, be- 
 cause it was probably the last book written, and be- 
 cause it has a peculiar line of both external and in- 
 ternal evidence. ‘The Fourth Gospel has been un- 
 der the fire of criticism, during the last generation, 
 more than any other Gospel; hence a short study in 
 its genuineness will form a type of the method of 
 constructive evidence for the genuineness of any 
 gospel. 
 
 IRENZEUS 
 
 Ireneus (born 120-140, d. about 202) was a 
 pupil and friend of Polycarp who was a pupil and 
 friend of John the Apostle. Hence, Irenzus is a 
 direct descendant, in the religious sense, of the 
 Apostle; and having been reared in Asia, and having 
 in his latter years served in Gaul in Europe, he is a 
 man representative of the general opinion of the 
 
 Church, East and West. Moreover, he is of the « 
 
GENUINENESS OF JOHN 63 
 
 highest standing as a historian in the estimation of 
 Jerome, Tertullian, Eusebius, the Gaulish Bishops 
 and many others of the age succeeding him. ‘Ter- 
 tullian says—“He was a diligent inquirer of all 
 sorts of opinions.’* ‘The testimony of such a man 
 is worthy of all acceptance unless it can be clearly 
 disproved. 
 
 Ireneus wrote clearly to set before the Church 
 the fallacies of the heretical writers, and to reaffirm 
 the true Johannean doctrines of Jesus Christ and the 
 Gospel. He accepts beyond all dispute the Fourth 
 Gospel as the genuine work of John the Apostle. 
 After speaking concerning the first three, Ireneus 
 says—‘‘Afterwards, John the disciple of the Lord, 
 who also leaned upon His breast, he likewise pub- 
 lished a Gospel while he dwelt in Ephesus in Asia.” 
 ‘John the disciple of the Lord, being desirous, by 
 declaring the Gospel, to root out the errors that had 
 been sown in the minds of men Cerinthus * * * 
 he thus begins in his doctrine, which is according to 
 the Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ ” 
 
 In the letter of Irenzus to Florinus (177 A. D.) 
 he says: ‘For while I was yet a boy, I saw thee in 
 Lower Asia with Polycarp, distinguishing thyself in 
 the royal court, and endeavoring to gain his appro- 
 bation. For I have a more vivid recollection of 
 what occurred at that time, than of recent events; 
 inasmuch as the experiences of childhood keeping 
 
 1 Lardner, vol. 2, p. 166. 
 
64 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 pace with the growth of the soul become incorporated 
 with it; so that I can even describe the place where 
 the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse. * * * 
 also how he would speak of his familiar intercourse 
 with John and with the rest of TOR who had seen 
 the Lord.” 
 
 SUBSEQUENT TESTIMONY 
 
 After Ireneus came Tertullian and Clement of 
 Alexandria in the second and third centuries, and 
 Origen and Eusebius (who preserved the fragment 
 from Irenezus) in the third and fourth, all contin- 
 uing the same unqualified testimony. This testi- 
 mony so carefully collected and universally received, 
 was not assailed by any writer of importance until 
 the close of the eighteenth century; and then by 
 critics who did not possess one particle of evidence 
 from any historical source, but relied wholly upon 
 conjecture.’ 
 
 Previous to the time of Ireneus, there had been 
 no need of any special historical declaration that 
 the Fourth Gospel was the work of the Apostle 
 John. The fact was so universally received that 
 no defense of it was called for. We should expect, 
 however, to find quotations and versions or trans- 
 lations, and with these we are amply supplied. 
 
 1 Godet on John, vol. 1, p. 16. 
 
GENUINENESS OF JOHN 65 
 
 TESTIMONY COTEMPORANEOUS WITH IRENZEUS 
 
 Theophilus of Antioch (cotemporaneous with 
 Ireneus) quotes John 1:1-3 and mentions John as 
 the writer. 
 
 The Muratorian Canon, a fragment of which re- 
 mains (160-170), is a treatise on the writings which 
 were read publicly in the churches. The Fourth 
 Gospel is mentioned as John’s. 
 
 Before 170 A. D. two versions of the Gospels, 
 translated from the Greek, were in circulation, the 
 Syriac and Latin. The Fourth Gospel, John’s Gos- 
 pel, exists in both. 
 
 Tatian (155-170 A. D.) quotes from the Fourth 
 Gospel, and his Diatessaron opens with the prologue 
 of John’s Gospel. 
 
 Justin (who died 166 A. D.) quotes voluminous- 
 ly from the memoirs of the apostles, and among his 
 quotations are some taken directly from John’s 
 Gospel: ‘Unless ye are born again, ye shall not en- 
 ter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Justin’s writings 
 in fact are saturated with the peculiar theological 
 teachings of John’s Gospel. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE EARLIER GENERATION, 
 POLYCARP 
 
 We now go back to the generation before Irenzus. 
 Three men who came out of the first century quote 
 from John. Polycarp, the Apostle’s pupil, has a 
 quotation from the Epistle of John. Only one letter 
 
66 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of Polycarp is left us, and this is very brief. But 
 one direct quotation from the First Epistle of John 
 proves much. In genuineness the First Epistle and 
 Gospel of John stand or fall together; and a quota- 
 tion by Polycarp from the Epistle proves that the 
 Gospel was written by one who lived and wrote be- 
 fore Polycarp.’ 
 
 PAPIAS 
 
 Papias was born in the first century, and wrote 
 not later than 120 A. D. He reports anecdotes 
 from the life of Jesus, deriving them from those 
 who had been with the disciples of the Lord. From 
 these sources he records what Andrew, Peter, — 
 Philip, ‘Thomas, James, John and Matthew had 
 said; and ‘“‘what Aristion and the Presbyter John, 
 disciples of the Lord, say.’’ Only thirty lines of the | 
 works of Papias are preserved by Eusebius, and 
 we are not surprised that he does not quote directly 
 from the Gospel, in these few lines; the chances 
 are that he would not; but the order of apostolic 
 names is clearly from John’s Gospel. Aristion and 
 John the Presbyter were disciples of John the Apos- 
 tle, and if Papias had never seen John the Apostle, 
 he could have learned of these things through these 
 Apostolic men whom he knew and who undoubtedly 
 wrote the closing testimony in the Gospel. (See 
 John 21:24.) 
 
 1 Schaff’s Apostolic Christianity, p. 704. 
 
GENUINENESS OF JOHN 67 
 
 Professor William Sanday says of this last verse 
 that it is “weighty testimony to the autoptic char- 
 acter of the Gospel. It is easy to see that the con- 
 cluding verses are added on the occasion of its publi- 
 cation by those who published it. They, as it were, 
 indorse the witness which it had borne to itself.’” 
 
 IGNATIUS 
 
 Ignatius also came out of the first century, and 
 was martyred not later than 120 A. D. John’s 
 Gospel must have been but lately written and Igna- 
 tius does not quote literally, but paraphrases from 
 the Gospel. We quote from his seven authentic 
 epistles. ‘The living water which speaks in me.’” 
 “I desire the bread of God which is the flesh of Jesus 
 Christ.’ Jesus is called “the door of the Father.” 
 ‘God come in the flesh.” These expressions cannot 
 have come from any other source than John’s 
 Gospel, and we are forced to the conclusion that 
 the Gospels existed at the close of the first century. 
 Hilgenfeld says—‘“The entire theology of the letter 
 of Ignatius rests upon the Gospel of John.’ 
 
 TESTIMONY FROM EARLY HERETICS 
 Heretical writers of this age also furnish testi- 
 1 Criticism of The Fourth Gospel, p. 81. 
 2 John 4:10. 
 
 3 John 6:51. 
 # Godet on John, vol. 1, p. 166. 
 
68 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 mony to the existence of the Fourth Gospel. - Valen- 
 tinus, a cotemporary of Justin, lived at Rome 140 
 A. D. and with his disciples built up a school of 
 theology upon the Gospel of John. 
 
 Marcion (138) uses for the basis of his cheatoae 
 a mutilated Gospel of Luke, and rejects the other 
 gospels, among them that of John. Basilides (120- 
 128) quotes from an older writer and uses words 
 and teachings from John’s Gospel. 
 
 THE DIDACHE 
 
 The Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles, dis- 
 covered by Bryennios in 1873, is one of the oldest 
 documents of the early Christian church. It was 
 composed at or shortly after the beginning of the 
 second century, as a manual of Christian conduct, 
 and it contains twenty-three citations from ‘the 
 Gospels.” Of these none are direct from John; but 
 the Eucharistic service is clearly based upon the 
 teachings contained in the sixth chapter of John’s 
 Gospel. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE 
 
 Summing up the evidence thus far named, we find © 
 the accepted testimony, from Ireneus onward, that 
 the Fourth Gospel is the writing of John the Apos- 
 tle. Written to refute heresies, and with its doc- 
 trines antagonized all through this age, would its 
 opponents have allowed the statements of Irenzus 
 
GENUINENESS OF JOHN 69 
 
 to stand undenied? ‘The only deniers of its genu- 
 ineness were the Alogians of Thyatira, a heretical 
 sect of the second century, who denied the Logos, 
 and claimed that Cerinthus the Gnostic wrote the 
 Fourth Gospel while John the Apostle lived. This 
 sect is very obscure (its very existence is denied by 
 some) and their testimony as recorded by Eusebius 
 proves, at least, the early date of this Gospel. But 
 would the Christian Church of the latter part of 
 this century be content to accept the work of a well 
 known heretic as a genuine gospel.’ Would the 
 versions, accepted by the orthodox church, contain 
 a gospel by a recognized heretic? 
 
 Previous to Ireneus, from Tatian down to Igna- 
 tius, we find quotations full and in part, their num- 
 ber decreasing as we approach the first century. In 
 these same writers we find at the same time a great 
 mass of teaching which points to the Fourth Gospel 
 as its source. 
 
 Now these quotations, references and teachings 
 compel the theory that the Fourth Gospel was origi- 
 nated before the end of the first century; and this 
 confirms the positive and accepted historical state- 
 ment of Irenzus. 
 
 INTERNAL EVIDENCE 
 
 We now turn to the internal evidence for the gen- 
 uineness. 
 
 1 Fisher’s Manual, p. 66. 
 
70 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 WHO WAS “THIS DISCIPLE ?”’ 
 
 In John 21 :24 we read ‘This is the disciple which 
 beareth witness of these things and wrote these 
 things, and we know that his witness is true.”’ Thus 
 from the book itself, evidence aims to identify the 
 writer; and all that is left is to determine who is 
 
 “this disciple.” 
 
 We learn from John 21:20 that this same disci 
 was the one “‘whom Jesus loved,” “which also lean- 
 ed back on His breast at the supper and said ‘Lord, 
 who is he that betrayeth thee?’ In John 13:23 
 it is written—‘‘There was at the table reclining on 
 Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples whom Jesus 
 loved.” This man then is the disciple who wrote 
 
 the book. 
 WHO IS THE UNNAMED orenrinee 
 
 All through John’s Gospel there is an unnamed 
 disciple (see John 1:40, 20:2, 19:26, 21:7). He is 
 the one “whom Jesus loved,’ the other disciple 
 ‘whom Jesus loved.’”? He is one of the seven who 
 went night-fishing on Galilee, after the resurrec- 
 tion. Who, of the fishermen, could the unnamed 
 disciple “whom Jesus loved’ have been? All 
 are named except the sons of Zebedee and two 
 others of His disciples. One of these four was the 
 disciple “whom Jesus loved,” and he wrote the 
 book. The two other of His disciples were most 
 
 1 See Meyer on John, vol. 2, p. 392. 
 
GENUINENESS OF JOHN 71 
 
 probably ‘“‘disciples in the wider sense;’’ but the disci- 
 ple whom Jesus loved was an apostle. We have 
 thus confined the writer to the small group of four 
 at the most. 
 
 HE I§ IN ANOTHER GROUP 
 
 But we can also find the disciple whom Jesus loved 
 in another group in the other Gospels. In Matt. 17: 
 1-13, Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:28-36 it is said that 
 Jesus took Peter, James and John and went up into 
 a high mountain. ‘here He was transfigured, and 
 during the descent revealed His approaching death. 
 Again, when about to begin His agony in Geth- 
 semane, He took with Him Peter, James and John 
 (see. Matt) 26:37, Mark 14:33). “These, most 
 closely attached to Jesus, His companions in His 
 highest glory and deepest agony, are most surely 
 the disciples whom Jesus loved. In the prologue to 
 the Gospel the writer says: ‘‘And we beheld His 
 glory, glory as of the only begotten from the 
 Father,” which makes it still all the more probable 
 that the writer was one of the three who were upon 
 the mount. 
 
 ALL ARE EXCLUDED EXCEPT JOHN 
 
 Thus we have identified the disciple whom Jesus 
 loved in two groups. Peter is excluded in the first, 
 and the sons of Zebedee are common to both. James 
 
V2 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 could not have written the Gospel for he died, the 
 first apostolic martyr; and we have proved the book 
 to have been written at the close of the first century. 
 John then is the disciple whom Jesus loved, who 
 wrote the book. 
 
 The testimony of the writer to the smallest de- | 
 tails in these events, and the spirit of the writer 
 which constantly comes from the explanations and 
 narrations reveal him as an eye witness, a Palestin- 
 ian Jew, the closest companion of Jesus. John is 
 the only possible disciple who can satisfy all this in- 
 ternal investigation. ‘Thus the external and inter- 
 nal testimony make the evidence for the Genuine- 
 ness of John’s Gospel overwhelming. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS 
 
 THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 
 
 The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and 
 Luke are called the Synoptics. They possess much 
 material in common, some that is peculiar to two of 
 them and a considerable amount of testimony pecu- 
 liar to each alone. ‘This opens the “Synoptic Prob- 
 lem’’—Are they dependent, independent, or partly 
 both, in their composition? Which is the oldest? 
 What is the order of their composition? From 
 whatever source their material was derived, we ask 
 —Were these books written by the men to whom 
 they are ascribed? 
 
 JOHN PRESUMES OTHER GOSPELS 
 
 Having proved the genuineness of John’s Gospel, 
 we can assume that when John wrote, other Gospels 
 by disciples of Jesus were then existing. In John 
 20:30, 31 it is stated why John chose to record cer- 
 tain signs that Jesus did, viz.: ‘“That ye may believe 
 _ that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.” 
 
 We must remember that John has omitted many 
 
14 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 miracles of Jesus’ life, e.g., the miracles surround- 
 ing His birth, the temptation, the healing of lepers 
 and demoniacs, the transfiguration, the ascension. We 
 know from history that these miracles were believed 
 in long before John wrote. Paul, in his Epistles, 
 whose genuineness none disputes, assumes all these 
 occurrences; and Paul must have written many years 
 before John. Is it credible that John would have 
 omitted them if they had not been fully and accept- 
 ably recorded? 
 
 John also says in the thirtieth verse of the same 
 chapter—‘‘Many other signs therefore did Jesus in 
 the presence of the disciples which are not written 
 in this book.” ‘This’ is written after “book,” em- 
 phasizing this book in contrast with other books. 
 What are we to believe, but that disciples before 
 John had written other books containing these 
 “other signs,’’ which John has not recorded. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN AND PAPIAS 
 
 The historical testimony of the genuineness of © 
 the Synoptics is very complete, and as we might ex- 
 pect, runs back a little earlier than that of John. We 
 begin with Justin Martyr and Papias, whose testi- 
 monies supplement each other. The former died 
 about 165, the latter about 153 A. D. 
 
 JUSTIN MARTYR 
 
 Justin has left us three writings, two “Apologies” 
 
GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS 75 
 
 and the ‘“‘Dialogue with Trypho.” In his Dialogue 
 he gives an account of his conversion from Greek 
 Philosophy to Christianity. Justin was most highly 
 educated, a noble and beautiful character, and at 
 last laid down his life for the faith. Justin made 
 use of our Gospels, quoting them as ‘‘Memorials” 
 written by “‘Apostles” and their ‘‘companions.” He 
 does not mention them by name, but quotes very 
 largely from Matthew and Luke, and once from 
 Mark. He says that these writings were “‘also 
 called Gospels’? and were read in the service of the 
 Christians. 
 
 Justin was a great Apologist, but there was need 
 of no defense of the genuineness of these Gospels 
 from which he quotes. His line of proof is that the 
 teachings of Christianity are in fulfilment of proph- 
 ecy and in accord with the revelation of the Logos— 
 the Son of God, and are morally pure, wholesome 
 and in accord with all that is good. Justin is a most 
 valuable witness. We must remember that he had 
 been a Stoic and a Platonist, and had become most 
 learned in these cults; that he had surrendered ab- 
 solutely to the powers of Christianity and that he 
 sealed his testimony with his death.’ 
 
 PAPIAS 
 
 Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis and a contem- 
 
 1 See Ante-Nicene Fathers. Introduction to Justin. 
 
76 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 porary martyr of Polycarp. Eusebius who preserves 
 fragments from him speaks of him in one place as of 
 “small capacity,’ in another as ‘‘most learned.” 
 Whatever Eusebius may mean by this, the historical 
 statements of Papias are worthy of all belief since 
 they are the oral testimony of “Aristion and the 
 Presbyter John’? and others of the elders.’ The 
 statement ‘‘small capacity” is no doubt a reference 
 to the strong Millenarianism of Papias. Papias 
 says (quoted by Eusebius)—‘‘And the Presbyter 
 said this: ‘Mark having become the interpreter for 
 Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he remem- 
 bered. It was not, however, in exact order that he 
 related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he 
 neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But 
 afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who 
 accommodated his instructions to the necessities, 
 but with no intention of giving a regular narrative 
 of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore, Mark made no 
 mistake in thus writing some things as he remember- 
 edthem. For of one thing he took especial care, not 
 to omit anything he had heard and not to put any- 
 thing fictitious into the statements.’’’ Of Matthew, 
 Papias says: ‘‘Matthew put together the oracles in 
 the Hebrew language and each one interpreted them 
 as best he could.” 
 
 The testimony of Justin and Papias proves that 
 in the first part of the second century there were 
 
 ¥ See History of Christian Church, Schaff, vol. 2, p. 694. 
 
GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS WE 
 
 books called “memorials” and “oracles’’ written by 
 Matthew and Mark, and that these documents were 
 received as accurate accounts of the life and teach- 
 ings of Jesus. 
 
 EARLIER EPISTOLARY EVIDENCE 
 
 The external evidence for the existence of the 
 Gospel previous to the two writers mentioned 
 above, consists chiefly of letters or fragments of 
 them, written by church Fathers for advice and ex- 
 hortation, in which no need arose for testimony con- 
 cerning the composition of the Gospel. ‘These let- 
 ters are valuable to our subject because of a few 
 direct quotations, and their broad teaching of the 
 Gospel-history and doctrine. They assume the out- 
 lines of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion and resurrection. 
 They echo the teachings of Jesus on the mount. 
 They could not have been composed without gospels, 
 written or oral, like the accepted canonical books. 
 
 EPISTLE OF POLYCARP 
 
 Polycarp, the pupil of John, in an epistle to the 
 Philippians quotes from Matthew, Mark and Luke, 
 as follows: ‘‘But remember what the Lord said, 
 teaching: ‘Judge not that ye be not judged;’ ‘For- 
 give and ye shall be forgiven; ‘Be ye merciful that 
 ye may obtain mercy;’ ‘With what measure ye mete, 
 it shall be measured to you again;’ ‘Blessed are the 
 
78 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 poor and they that are persecuted for righteousness’ 
 sake for theirs is the kingdom of God.’”’ ‘‘As the 
 Lord hath said: ‘The spirit indeed is Me but 
 the flesh is weak.’ ’”* 
 
 Polycarp has many quotations from our New 
 Testament, and he gives them Scriptural authority. 
 These letters, and there were many of them, were 
 written to churches composed of the most intelligent 
 Christians, all of whom must have accepted the same 
 inspired sources of the Gospel. No sane mind can 
 doubt, in view of this evidence, that the New Testa- 
 ment existed and was fully received before the be- 
 ginning of the second century. 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS 
 
 The Epistle of Barnabas was sitieten ihe) the 
 destruction of Jerusalem to those who had “‘seen so 
 great signs and prodigies.” It is one of the earliest 
 of the Post-Apostolic epistles. He quotes from the 
 Synoptics as follows: ‘“‘He came that He might 
 _ show that He came not to call the righteous but sin- 
 
 ners to repentance;’’* “Give to everyone that ask- 
 eth thee; ‘‘Let us therefore beware lest it should 
 happen to us at it is written—‘There are many 
 called but few are chosen.’ ”’ 
 
 ! Lardner, vol. 2, p. ror; Matt. 5:3, 7, 10; Luke 6:20, 36, 37, 
 38; Mark 14:38. 
 
 2 Epistle of Barnabas, ch. 5; Matt. 9:13; Parallel in Mark, “to 
 repentance” only in Luke. 
 
GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS 79 
 
 EPISTLES OF CLEMENT OF ROME 
 
 Clement of Rome, according to Irenzus, was the 
 ‘“‘oupil of. an apostle.”’ ‘The accepted tradition is 
 that he was third Bishop at Rome. His epistles to 
 the Corinthians are proved to be genuine and were 
 often accepted as apostolic documents. He uses as 
 authorities the Old ‘Testament Apocrypha and 
 the New Testament. He is especially familiar with 
 the Epistles of Paul, of whom he speaks with great 
 veneration. He quotes from Matt. 26:24, from 
 Luke 17:2, from Mark 9:42. The most probable 
 date of this epistle is 97 A. D., although some con- 
 servative writers would place it as early as 68 A. D. 
 
 THE DIDACHE 
 
 This oldest church manual, to which we have al- 
 luded, gives twenty-three citations from “the Gos- 
 pel; of these, seventeen are from Matthew or 
 Matthew and Luke. The writer claims no authority 
 for himself; but gives the teachings from the Lord 
 through the twelve apostles. His citations are evi- 
 dently from commonly accepted writings. No oral 
 Gospel can be proved by them, for five are express 
 quotations from our written Gospels. The date of 
 the Didache most easily maintained is from 100 to 
 
 {AUN Wags BP 
 TESTIMONY TO LUKE’S GOSPEL 
 That Luke’s Gospel was in documentary form 
 
80 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 early in the second century is certain from the use 
 which Marcion, the founder of the sect which bore 
 his name, made of it at Rome 140 A. D. Marcion 
 had been expelled from the Christian church at 
 Pontus, and going to Rome issued a gospel which 
 can be nothing less than Luke’s Gospel worked over 
 to suit the peculiar views of this heretic. Accord- 
 ing to Marcion, the true canon of Scripture consisted 
 of Luke’s Gospel, and ten Epistles of Paul. When 
 Marcion wrote, the Gospel according to Luke must 
 have been written, and, according to Theodoret, a 
 historian of the fourth century, Marcion was not the 
 originator of this heresy, one Cerdo, who “proved 
 by the Gospels the just God of the old covenant and 
 the good God of the new are different beings.’ 
 ‘Hence the predecessor of Marcion is found to be 
 dependent upon Luke. 
 
 NO EARLY DEFENCE NEEDED 
 
 We have shown that our Synoptics were in pos- | 
 session of the. generation immediately following the 
 apostles themselves. Why there is no definite state- 
 ment that these were genuine documents by Mat- 
 thew, Mark and Luke is very evident. ‘There is no 
 dispute upon the genuineness; hence the statement 
 of it would not frequently be made. Why should 
 Polycarp or Clement of Rome defend a point not 
 
 1 Godet on Luke, p. 4. 
 
GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS 81 
 
 yet attacked? However, as soon as a statement of 
 the genuineness was needed, it was given with the 
 utmost confidence and certainty of acceptance. 
 
 IRENZUS TESTIFIES 
 
 [reneus of Gaul, shortly after he became bishop, 
 wrote a book against the numerous heresies that had 
 arisen in the church. The majority of these were wild, 
 irrational speculations of gnostic Christians. In 
 his third book Irenzus adduces “‘proofs from the 
 Scriptures,’ and in so doing, informs his readers 
 how these Scriptures came into being.’ He says: 
 “We have learned from none others the plan of our 
 salvation than from those through whom the Gospel 
 has come down to us, which they did at one time pro- 
 claim in public, and, at a later period by the will of 
 God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the 
 ground and pillar of our faith.” 
 
 ‘Matthew also issued a written gospel among the 
 Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul 
 were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations 
 of the church. After their departure, Mark, the 
 disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand 
 down to us in writing what had been preached by 
 Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded 
 in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, 
 John the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned 
 
 i Trenexus Adv. Her. book 3, ch. 1. 
 
82 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel dur- 
 ing his Bdente! at Ephesus in Asia.” 
 
 Ireneus names these facts as undisputed, re- 
 ceived by all, and uses them to crush his opponents 
 who do not deny the genuineness of these Scriptures; 
 but “turn around and accuse these same Scriptures 
 as if they were not correct nor of authority—and 
 that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot 
 be extracted from them by those who are ignorant 
 of tradition.” 
 
 THE GOSPELS ARE THE ‘‘MEMORIALS”’ 
 
 The “Gospels” of Irenzus are the ‘““Memorials” 
 of Justin—a vast number of quotations in both 
 proves this. The time between these two writers 
 was too short to permit the rise of any other docu- 
 ments without the knowledge of Irenzus. The quota- 
 tions in the writers before Justin prove that they 
 also had the same documents. 
 
 SUBSEQUENT EVIDENCE 
 
 After Ireneus, the great church-writers affirmed 
 the same statements. ‘Tertullian, Clement of Alex- 
 andria, Origen and Eusebius carry us up into the 
 fourth century; and finally at the Council of Car- 
 thage 397 A. D. the canon of the New Testament 
 was finally settled, not because the Church Council 
 had determined upon these books, but because all 
 
GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS 83 
 
 Christendom was satisfied that these Gospels were 
 genuine. 
 
 That they were identical with what we now have 
 has been made more apparent by the discovery of 
 the Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the middle of 
 the fourth century. Thus the line of evidence is 
 complete from the days of the apostles until now. 
 
CHAPTER [x 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT CREDIBILITY AND 
 AUTHENTICITY 
 
 By Credibility we mean the trustworthiness of 
 the narrator; by Authenticity, the truth of the nar- 
 ration itself. “Chese two topics are so interdepend- 
 ent that we treat them as one. | 
 
 THE UNIVERSAL ATTESTATION 
 
 There is no way of explaining the rise and growth 
 of the Christian religion and church, except upon 
 the ground that a great multitude of the best and 
 most thoughtful men of the first and second cen- 
 turies firmly believed that the apostles were credible 
 witnesses and their testimony worthy of all belief, 
 In Asia, Africa and Europe, from among Jews and 
 Gentiles, from all walks and conditions of life they 
 testify—‘‘We believe these men and their writings.” 
 The statements made by the apostles covered events - 
 which were enacted before the eyes of multitudes; 
 these were living witnesses, and some of them hos- 
 tile to the new faith, in whose time these books are 
 proved to have been written. “These things were 
 not done ina corner.” The apostles staked all their 
 
CREDIBILITY’ AND AUTHENTICITY 85 
 
 reputation upon the certainty of the fact of these 
 things; and thousands of cotemporaries witnessed 
 by word and life that these things were so. The 
 early church-fathers staked their reputation, their 
 present and future happiness, their lives upon the 
 credibility of the apostles.. If the latter had taught 
 or written falsely, detection would have been easy 
 and immediate. In that part of the world where 
 the events occurred, and at that time, they preached 
 and wrote with the calmness of certainty. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE WRITERS 
 
 Compared with the wise philosophers and rhetori- 
 cians of the heathen world, these men were babes. 
 Compared with the products of these wise men of 
 the world, the writings of these babes are as the 
 sun to the rush-light. When we consider the Gos- 
 pels in their beauty, depth and power, and then re- 
 member their human authors, we stand amazed— 
 the cause is inadequate to the effect. Matthew was 
 a publican of Galilee, evidently in character a busi- 
 ness man, a man of the world; not irreligious, but 
 loving and making money until his Master called 
 him, and for three years taught and then inspired 
 him. Mark was a younger man, possibly a Jerusa- 
 lemite, companion to Paul and Barnabas and after- 
 wards to Peter. Mark had his weaknesses in the 
 early part of his career, but Paul afterwards con- 
 
86 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 sidered him “useful to me for ministering.”* Mark 
 wrote the Gospel preached by Peter. ‘he integrity 
 of Mark, i. e., his correct rendering of Peter’s Gos- 
 pel is not questioned, being universally accepted. 
 And who was Peter? A fisherman of Galilee, an 
 uneducated man in the wisdom of the world, yet 
 challenging his age with a message that drives all 
 worldly wisdom to the wall. Luke had some cul- 
 ture. He was a Greek, probably, and a physician 
 —howbeit, physicians were often slaves. Luke 
 wrote as Paul preached; still he had knowledge 
 of Jesus from other apostles and his Gospel is his 
 own testimony from eyewitnesses.” John was also 
 a fisherman of Galilee. John did not make Chris- 
 tianity. Christianity made John. Nothing can be, 
 nothing ever was, alleged against these men that in 
 the least degree weakens them as competent wit- 
 nesses, and recorders of the testimony of others. 
 Two of them were eyewitnesses of the facts of Je- 
 sus’ life, death and resurrection; and two after the 
 
 year 48 A. D. were companions of the foremost 
 
 apostles. ‘Thus they, the four, represent the testi- 
 mony of all the apostles. 
 
 They had the means of having the facts. Nearly 
 all histories are written by authors who obtain their 
 facts from others. There is no cotemporary of 
 Alexander who writes the history of the brilliant 
 
 Y and Tim. 4:11; Acts 15:38. 
 2 Luke I :1-4. 
 
CREDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY 87 
 
 Macedonian; but who will doubt that we have a 
 substantially accurate account of his career? Je- 
 sus’ disciples, who were thoughtful, earnest and 
 uncultured men, Jews with strong and ever prej- 
 udiced feelings against any new faith which might 
 conflict with that in which they had been reared, 
 testify to the facts which happened in their presence. 
 Some of these facts were contrary to their opinions 
 and beliefs. But the disciples were the servants of 
 facts. They could not but bear witness to what they 
 saw and heard. Their testimony as we have viewed 
 it is not the testimony of one man, but of many, 
 and all agree in the essential points. We believe, 
 by clear, theological proof, that the Holy Spirit 
 inspired these men to record without error. Evi- 
 dences, however, do not ask for this ultimate faith, 
 although it paves the way for its reception. The 
 reliability of the witnesses and the substantial ac- 
 curacy and agreement of the testimony are all that 
 we need in our argument. 
 
 THEIR HUMILITY 
 
 In all the testimony of the apostles we find a very 
 marked humility. They claim to have originated 
 nothing of their faith; but were only and always 
 witnesses of their Lord. ‘They never assert their 
 superiority, but offer themselves as servants to God 
 and men. They have but few opinions of their 
 
88 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY | 
 
 own, and even confess that some which they form- 
 erly had were erroneous. ‘They let facts speak. 
 Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pilate, Caiaphas, 
 all were guilty of great wrong towards their Mas- 
 ter and His cause; yet the apostles do not use any 
 denunciatory epithets when they write of them, but 
 calmly state what these rulers did. John alone says 
 that Judas “was a thief,’’ and says this only to ex- 
 plain the reason why Judas spoke certain words at 
 Bethany. Peter says, dismissing the case of Judas, 
 “that he might go to his own place.’” 
 
 THEIR CANDOR 
 
 They candidly relate things discreditable to them- 
 selves. They childishly contend among themselves — 
 which should be the greatest.* Even at the last sup-. 
 per this controversy again arose.* They testify to 
 their own unbelief or little faith,’ their hardness of 
 heart,® their ignorance,’ their cowardice. Peter, 
 through Mark, relates his shameful rebuke and 
 fail’ 
 
 Such men are generally accepted as honest wit- 
 nesses. If they had related ordinary events betray- 
 ing such a character as we have shown them to pos- 
 sess, no one would ever doubt their testimony. But 
 we have shown that the extraordinary events, to 
 VY John 12:6. 4 Luke 22:24. 7 Matt. 15:16. 
 
 2 Acts 1:25. 5 Matt. 17:20. 8 Mark 14:50. 
 3 Mark 9:34. 6 Mark 6:52. 9 Mark 8:33, 14:66-72. 
 
 
 
CREDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY 89 
 
 which they bear witness, are credible in the light 
 of what the religion of Jesus is, does and claims to 
 be able to do. Other men in other times have testi- 
 fied to miracles, but those to which the disciples of 
 Jesus testify stand out in their moral cause and 
 effect as the morality of Jesus towers above all 
 others. There is adequate cause for both these 
 miracles and this morality. If the events to which 
 the disciples testify did not happen, what did hap- 
 pen that Christianity should arise? 
 
 DECEIVERS, DECEIVED OR HONEST MEN WITH FACTS 
 
 We have shown that the apostles cannot be 
 charged with deception. The standard of morality 
 which they teach would suffice alone to make such 
 a charge absurd. 
 
 Nor can they have been deceived. ‘There were 
 too many of them to be victims of a plot such as 
 this theory would assume. So many men of hard 
 sense could not have been the subjects of a hallucina- 
 tion such as the Gospel miracles would demand. 
 Miracles began at a certain time and then stopped. 
 They were not always wrought, Jesus guards His 
 followers against overestimation of miracles. The 
 report of them is sometimes suppressed. Middle- 
 age miracles are in line with prevailing belief. 
 Apostolic miracles are against the prevailing faith. 
 
90 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The mythical theory of the last century has gone 
 to pieces against these considerations.’ 
 
 These apostles sealed their testimony with their 
 death. This was a forecast of their Master. They 
 relate it. ‘They believe it. Still onward they go, 
 joyful to suffer in His cause who died for them. 
 On the other hand they avoid death whenever pos- 
 sible.2, Such men are not wild enthusiasts, but calm, 
 convinced, credible witnesses to authentic events. 
 
 HARMONY 
 
 The four Gospels are four stories of one biog- 
 raphy. They are by four writers each of whom had 
 a different reason for writing. This, then, must 
 follow—Agreement in all essential points, with dif- 
 ference in details. Four witnesses with this kind 
 of testimony would make the strongest kind of a 
 law-case. It disproves collusion between the wit- 
 nesses, It proves the certainty of the essential 
 points. Nearly all the so-called discrepancies in the 
 four Gospels can be resolved into a case in which 
 both or all the details are possible. Such is the 
 nature of the testimony of the apostles. To sum 
 up—the apostles have almost universal attestation. 
 They were true, unsophisticated men. ‘They had 
 the means of having the facts. They were humble, 
 candid witnesses. They evidence that they were 
 
 !¥ See Fisher’s Manual, p. 74. 
 2 Acts 12:17. 
 
CREDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY 91 
 
 neither deceivers nor deceived. ‘They surrendered 
 all and died for their testimony. Their witnessing 
 
 agrees. Therefore they are credible and their nar- 
 rations are authentic. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 CHARACTER OF JESUS 
 
 From the four Gospels the world has derived 
 the character of Jesus. In truth it may well be 
 said—‘‘His character stands as the central orb of 
 the system, and without it there would be no effec- 
 tual light and no heat.’? The truth of deductive 
 logic does not rest upon the character of Aristotle, 
 nor the philosophy of the pure reason upon the 
 character of Kant; but Christianity rests upon the 
 character of Jesus. He claims our love and offers 
 Himself as its object. He is a living embodiment | 
 of all that He taught. 
 
 A MANY-SIDED CHARACTER 
 
 The character of Jesus is like a great jewel; from 
 many faces the glory sparkles. His character, if 
 viewed from the negative side, presents no oppor- 
 tunity for moral criticism. He did nothing for 
 which He can be reproached, and at the same time 
 He neglected nothing which He ought, morally, to 
 have done. He was free from even the excusable 
 
 1 Mark Hopkins, Lowell Lectures, p. 212. 
 
CHARACTER OF JESUS 93 
 
 customs of His day, which some might regard as 
 compromising. In all His relationship with men, 
 women, society, the state, the church, He is abso- 
 lutely free from any word or deed which might have 
 injured a good name. He challenges His enemies 
 to convict Him of sin,’ and this in the midst of His 
 most hostile surroundings. If the opponents of 
 Christianity could have successfully assailed the 
 character of Jesus, the apostolic age would have 
 witnessed the destruction of the rising faith. 
 
 HUXLEY AND THE GADARENE SWINE 
 
 Professor Thomas Huxley has found a flaw in 
 the character of Jesus as presented by the Gospel 
 writers.” ‘Everything that I know of law convinces 
 me that the wanton destruction of other people’s 
 property is a misdemeanor of evil example.” Hux- 
 ley, of course, does not believe that evil spirits are 
 able to pass from men into swine. ‘“The choice 
 then lies betweeen discrediting those who compiled 
 the Gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, 
 whom they, simple souls, thought to honor by pre- 
 serving such tradition of the exercise of His author- 
 ity over Satan’s invisible world.” ‘This is the 
 dilemma.” 
 
 We are concerned with the moral issue alone. 
 
 ¥ John 8:46. 
 2 See Mark 5, and Huxley’s Science and Christian Tradition, 
 p. 370. 
 
94 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The New Testament writers agree that demons are 
 moral agents, possessing a measure of freedom. 
 The demons request Jesus that they shall be per- 
 mitted to enter into the swine (according to all 
 these writers). Jesus has exercised His ‘‘all author- 
 ity’ in commanding them to depart from the man. 
 Going out from the man they are again given their 
 freedom, and are responsible for all the conse- 
 quences. The permission on the part of Jesus must 
 fall into the category of all permissive decrees. The 
 moral freedom of the agent who commits the deed, 
 under permission, determines who is to blame. 
 
 POSITIVE WITNESS 
 
 Viewed from the positive side, the character of 
 Jesus is still more wonderful. Even those who do 
 not believe in His divinity admit that His character 
 is one of the greatest moral elevation. 
 
 Spinoza speaks of Christ as the symbol of divine 
 wisdom, and attributes to Him an immediate intui- 
 tion of God. 
 
 Goethe says: “I esteem the Gospels to be thor- 
 oughly genuine, for there shines forth from them 
 the reflected splendor of a sublimity, proceeding 
 from the person of Jesus Christ, and of as divine 
 a kind as was ever manifested upon earth.” 
 
 The skeptical Rousseau asks, ‘‘Can the Person 
 whose history the Gospels relate be Himself a man? 
 
CHARACTER OF JESUS 95 
 
 What sweetness, what purity in His manners! What 
 affecting goodness in His instructions! What sub- 
 limity in His maxims! What profound wisdom in 
 His discourses! What presence of mind, what in- 
 genuity of justice in His replies! Yes, if the life 
 and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher, 
 the life and death of Jesus Christ are those of a 
 God.” 
 
 Strauss speaks of Christ as ‘‘the highest object 
 we can possibly imagine with respect to religion, the 
 Being without whose presence in the mind perfect 
 piety is impossible.” 
 
 W. E. H. Lecky, in his ‘History of European 
 Morals,” says of Christ: ‘The simple record of 
 three short years of active life has done more to 
 regenerate and soften mankind than all the dis- 
 quisitions of philosophers and than all the exhorta- 
 tions of moralists. ‘This has indeed been a well- 
 spring of whatever has been best and purest in the 
 Christian life.” 
 
 Jesus was a man of ideal ethical type, suitable 
 to any age. He was a member of the society of 
 His day; He was no recluse; and yet was as far 
 removed from other men as our moral imagination 
 can reach. In any age this would have been true— 
 is true today. Jesus always has stood, still stands, 
 alone. He was deeply pious and reverent toward 
 God, His Father; and at the same time filled with 
 an abounding love and loyalty toward sinful men. 
 
96 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 He was true to His own mission; and yet so un- 
 selfish that the interest of all men was served by 
 Him, to the utter sacrifice of Himself. His purity 
 was combined with the utmost tenderness and com- 
 passion. Even in His stern severity, which at times 
 was called forth by the hypocrisy of His enemies, 
 He was great and righteous. It was anger without 
 passion, and ever ready to turn into tender forgive- 
 ness. He could be sinned against while at the same 
 time a sin against the Holy Spirit could not be for- 
 given. 
 
 NO SELF-REPROACH 
 
 Jesus never prayed that His sins might be for- 
 given. He never repented. Regret for past deeds 
 never came from His lips. He was conscious that 
 He was doing God’s will. He kept His Father’s © 
 commandments.” Even in His last days when the 
 darkness of the dreadful scenes of His agony be- 
 gan to close around Him, and on into the unutter- 
 able torture of soul and body, with His disciples 
 fled and all the world against Him, there is no self- 
 reproach. No word nor deed betrayed penitence - 
 on His part. ‘There is but one conclusion. The dis- 
 ciples accepted Jesus as morally perfect. They do 
 not apply to Jesus nor to His character in the Gos- 
 pels, such terms of commendation as we have used. 
 
 ! Mark 3:20. 
 2 John 15:10. 
 
CHARACTER OF JESUS 97 
 
 They simply record facts, facts with no comments. 
 They publish this character as witnesses to His 
 words and deeds. 
 
 THIS CHARACTER IS A MIRACLE 
 
 This fact then confronts us. Jesus left the im- 
 pression upon His followers that He was sinless. 
 Then either of two explanations must be true: Je- 
 sus was and did as they, the disciples, record, or 
 they, by conspiracy or innocently, invented this sin- 
 less character, and that by actual deed and life. 
 If the former is true, Jesus is a miracle. If the lat- 
 ter is true, these Galileans, whether by fraud or in 
 innocence, have performed a miracle. If we must 
 assume a miracle, the former is by far the simpler 
 and more acceptable to the rational mind. It can 
 be shown that the latter is the effect; the former is 
 the cause. The testimony of the witnesses, who 
 could invent such a life as that of Jesus, that they 
 saw and heard Him do and say these things, is a 
 moral impossibility; for it would make them, while 
 holding and recording perfect moral ideals and in 
 practical form, the very basest of men, the grossest 
 of deceivers. ‘he hypothesis of invention is self- 
 destructive. The miraculous character of Jesus 
 must have been a reality.' 
 
 1! See Row’s Manual of Christian Evidence, p. 81. 
 
98 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 THE SON OF GOD 
 
 This man of the purest and noblest character 
 declared that He was the supernatural Messiah, 
 the Son of God.' For this declaration He was 
 crucified. He had attested it by miracles. He 
 further proved it, as we shall see by His resurrec- 
 tion. Some Christian Evidences seem to shrink 
 from this final conclusion. Why should we? The 
 evidence is in our hands. He raises the dead; He 
 arose from the dead; His character is perfect; He 
 must be believed in all things, or perfect moral 
 purity and divine demonstration are < Volnpataes with 
 the grossest deception. 
 
 Renan, notwithstanding his opposition to the be- 
 lief in miracles, admits the logical conclusion that 
 Jesus is divine. 
 
 Renan’s estimate in his “Life of Jesus” is very 
 emphatic: ‘“‘Jesus is in every respect unique, and 
 nothing can be compared with Him. Be the un- 
 looked for phenomena of the future what they may, 
 Jesus will not be surpassed. Noble Initiator re- 
 pose now in Thy glory! ‘Thy work is finished, Thy 
 divinity established. A thousand times more living, 
 a thousand times more loved since Thy death than 
 during Thy course here below, Thou shalt become 
 the corner stone of humanity, insomuch that to tear 
 Thy name from this world would be to shake it 
 to its very foundation. No more shall men dis- 
 tinguish between Thee and God.” 
 
 1 Matt. 26:64. 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURREC- 
 TION OF JESUS 
 
 HAVING established the genuineness of the Gos- 
 pels, and the credibility of their writers, we now 
 proceed to the authenticity of the account of the 
 resurrection of Jesus. ‘This is the central miracle 
 of the New Testament; and being also the key to 
 all that followed in the rise of Christianity, it ought 
 to be subjected to the keenest light and the strong- 
 est tests possible. We offer it in evidence as the 
 crowning point of the argument, and are willing 
 to stand or fall with it. ‘‘And if Christ hath not 
 been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith 
 also is vain.’” 
 
 HUME’S TEST OF A MIRACLE 
 
 The modern attack upon miracles is nothing new, 
 it is a revival of Hume’s old assault, not with philo- 
 sophic but with scientific weapons. ‘The following 
 is Hume’s verdict: ‘‘There is not to be found, in 
 all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient num- 
 
 F gst, Cor! 15:14 
 
100 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ber of men, of such unquestioned goodness, educa- 
 tion and learning as to secure us against all delusion 
 in themselves; of such undoubted integrity as to 
 place them beyond all suspicion of any design to 
 deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the 
 eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to lose, 
 in case of their being detected in any falsehood; 
 and at the same time attesting facts, performed in 
 such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of 
 the world, as to render the detection unavoidable. 
 All such circumstances are requisite to give us a full 
 assurance in the testimony of men.’ This text was 
 also adopted by Professor Huxley in his celebrated 
 controversy with Mr. Gladstone.’ 
 
 It is our purpose, not only to accept this test, but 
 also to present the positive evidence for the ritrafele 
 of the resurrection of Jesus along these very lines. 
 This properly belongs to credibility of the writers, 
 but we have adopted it as common ground with an 
 opponent in the discussion of the resurrection. 
 
 IMPORTANCE 
 
 Both the enemies and friends of Jesus regarded 
 the resurrection as the most important fact of His 
 history. The former saw in it the danger of a 
 mighty revolution in religion, hence they attacked 
 it. ‘he latter discovered it, and found it the guar- 
 
 ! Huxley’s Science and Christian Tradition, p. 207. 
 
AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION 101 
 
 antee of their immortality and the very pillar and 
 ground of their faith; hence the abundance of tes- 
 timony that clusters around it. The Elders of the 
 Jews circulated the report, through the soldiers who 
 had guarded the tomb, that “His disciples came by 
 night and stole Him away while we slept.’”* Only 
 men who had been asleep during the theft could 
 have offered such testimony. Celsus, the great op- 
 ponent of Christianity in the second century, sug- 
 gested the vision-hypothesis, a theory explaining the 
 resurrection on the ground of self-deception. This 
 has been revised in the nineteenth century under 
 various forms. Every foe of supernatural Chris- 
 tianity in all the ages has recognized that to over- 
 throw the resurrection of Jesus is to destroy all 
 faith in His miracles. 
 
 On the other hand, the apostles and their follow- 
 ers staked all their claim to veracity upon the resur- 
 rection. ‘They were willing to be found false wit- 
 nesses if Christ had not arisen. They preached 
 “Jesus and the resurrection.” ‘Their whole doc- 
 trine of redemption was linked with the resurrec- 
 tion. All depended upon it; hence we should ex- 
 pect it to be guarded as a great, sacred truth, and 
 offered for the closest and most critical inspection. 
 The resurrection was held up before a doubting na- 
 tion and an indifferent world; and the result was 
 
 t Matt. 28:13. 
 
102 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the disintegration of the one and the conquest of 
 the other. 
 
 JESUS’ DEATH 
 
 That Jesus actually died is established by heathen 
 testimony. ‘Tacitus would not have accepted the his- 
 torical fact if it had not been a matter of record or 
 of universal belief. “The centurion at the cross saw 
 that He ‘‘gave up the ghost.’” It was the business 
 of the soldier to see that the criminal died. “Pilate 
 marveled that He was already dead,” but the centu- 
 rion assured him. Joseph of Arimathza as well as 
 Nicodemus, a member of the council, knew that Jesus 
 was dead. To make doubly sure, one of the soldiers 
 thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, and blood and water 
 came out, testifying to a hemorrhage from the 
 heart-cavity. 
 
 THE BURIAL AND WATCH 
 
 Two men, both of the highest standing and integ- 
 rity among the Jews, laid the body of Jesus in the 
 tomb. The disciples were scattered. John had 
 taken the mother of Jesus to his house. Only the 
 women beheld where the body was laid. 
 
 No Jew would touch a dead body on the great 
 sacred day which followed. None ever suspected 
 that it was taken away at that time. The Elders 
 bribed the guard to say that the disciples stole away 
 
 ¥ See Mark 15:30. 
 
AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION, 103 
 
 the body while they slept (i.e., slept on guard), and 
 offered to “persuade the governor,” if it should 
 come to his ears. If they could have offered the ex- 
 cuse that the disciples did the deed before the guard 
 went to the tomb, it would have relieved the soldiers 
 of all danger and would have made the bribe un- 
 necessary. 
 
 On the next day’ after the crucifixion, this guard 
 was placed at the tomb, at the request of certain 
 members of the priests and Pharisees. “The tomb 
 was “made sure, sealing the stone, the guard being 
 with them.’” ‘These ‘‘attesting facts’’ settle the cer- 
 tainty of the death, burial and safe-keeping of the 
 body of Jesus. [he witnesses who are cited are 
 enough to prove any other event. Their goodness, 
 education, integrity and freedom from design are 
 unquestioned. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicode- 
 mus lived to hear the resurrection become the most 
 discussed question in Jerusalem. If the Jews had 
 the body they would have produced it, and over- 
 thrown the growing faith. ‘The disciples were in- 
 capable of stealing the body under the circum- 
 stances; and their testimony that they saw Him alive 
 and the peculiar manner in which they saw Him, 
 make the story of the body-snatching an absurdity. 
 If they had been deceivers, and had stolen the body, 
 which afterwards they claimed came to life, would 
 
 ! The next day began at sunset. 
 2 Matt. 27 :66. 
 
104 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY © 
 
 such men have left themselves out of the transac- 
 tion? It would have been their glory to claim that 
 God had so worked a miracle through them. 
 
 THE FOUR ACCOUNTS 
 
 The statements of the four evangelists are a won- 
 derful illustration of unity of evidence through di- 
 versity of detail. ‘If there had been an exact agree- 
 ment about everything, in time, place and expression, 
 few would have believed them; the agreement would 
 then have been ascribed to human contrivance, and 
 because they had concerted matters together before- 
 hand.” So says Chrysostom. If the accounts of the 
 resurrection were an invention, how could such dif- 
 ferent details ever have been invented? 
 
 But viewing all, one can make an account, which, — 
 
 while not a perfect harmony of the recorded events, 
 at least gives a satisfactory succession, including all 
 the statements. 
 
 THE EMPTY TOMB 
 
 The Hebrew day began and ended with sunset. 
 
 Jesus was in the tomb from Friday before sunset, — 
 
 until Sunday morning sometime before daylight. ‘A 
 day and a night” in expression is the same as a day, 
 and a part of a day is often called a day." 
 
 Very early on the third day, the first day of the 
 
 ! Robinson’s Harmony, p. 171. 
 
 a ——— 
 
 —— ~~ 
 
\ 
 AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION 105 
 
 week, the women came first to the tomb, having the 
 spices with which to anoint the body of their Lord.’ 
 Mary Magdalene may have run ahead, and seeing 
 the tomb open, hastened to tell the disciples. The 
 other women coming up find the open tomb with no 
 body in it; as they stand amazed, the two angels an- 
 nounce the resurrection of Jesus. The women then 
 go away. Next Peter and John come running to the 
 tomb, followed by the weeping Mary who thinks 
 that her Lord has been stolen. Peter and John 
 enter the tomb and see evidence in the condition of 
 the grave-clothes and the napkin that the body has 
 not been stolen. ‘They depart, wondering. Who 
 can doubt that John’s testimony is that of an eye- 
 witness, when he says that he outran Peter, and that 
 he was obliged to stoop down, and that Peter went 
 in first? 
 
 FIRST-DAY APPEARANCES 
 
 After they had gone, Mary remains weeping, and 
 Jesus appears unto her. This is a possible arrange- 
 ment if we conclude to accept Mark 16:9. 
 
 The other appearances on the first day fall into 
 place as follows: 
 2—To the women returning from the tomb.—Mat- 
 
 thew. 
 
 1 See Matt. 28, Mark 16:2, Luke 24, John 20. Robinson’s Har- 
 mony, p. 199. 
 
106 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY — 
 
 3——To Peter later in the day, reported also by Paul. 
 —Luke. 
 
 4—To the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. — 
 Luke, Mark. 
 
 5—To the ten in the evening, alao by Paul.—Mark, 
 Luke, John. 
 
 APPEARANCES AFTER THE FIRST DAY 
 
 6—To the eleven, eight days after the first—John. 
 7—To the seven on the lake.—John. 
 8—To the eleven and five hundred brethren, also by 
 Paul.—Matthew. 
 
 9—To James, reported by Paul alone. 
 10—To the eleven immediately before the ascen- 
 sion, by Paul.—Luke in Acts. 
 
 We have included the testimony of Paul, that the © 
 table of appearances may be complete. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE APPEARANCES 
 
 We thus learn that these appearances began and 
 ended abruptly. At times and places unexpected, 
 except in the mount, Jesus appeared unto more than © 
 the apostles, to over five hundred, according to Paul, 
 whose testimony will be considered hereafter. These 
 apostles testify that they did not believe. Jesus 
 overcame their unbelief, They saw and touched 
 Him. To prove that He was not a spirit, He ate 
 fish before them. ‘These interviews were spread 
 
AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION 107 
 
 over forty days; then leaving His last commission 
 with them, viz.: that they should witness these 
 things unto all the nations, He ascended into a cloud. 
 Myths and legends arise under far different condi- 
 tions than these. If these interviews were imagin- 
 ary they would have increased and not come to an 
 abrupt ending. 
 
 Here is a body of men, acknowledged to be good 
 men; if not highly educated, at least possessed of 
 the soundest judgment; of unimpeached integrity 
 (one, Peter, tells of his own denial of his Lord) ; 
 with all the facts of the case opposed to any design 
 on their part; with everything to lose, their own 
 souls according to their belief, if untrue in their 
 statements. ‘There is also the attesting fact that 
 three thousand persons in Jerusalem in one day con- 
 fessed to their faith that these things were so. We 
 must believe that the resurrection of Jesus is au- 
 thentic history. The certain death, the guarded 
 tomb, the empty sepulchre, the unexpected appear- 
 ances testified to by the honest, earnest disciples, the 
 character of the witnesses, the rise of the Christian 
 faith, the consistent lives and sacrifice of these wit- 
 nesses make the resurrection the most truly authen- 
 ticated event of ancient history.’ 
 
 On what ground will any candid student of these 
 evidences throw out the testimony of the apostles? 
 
 On a priori ground? Then they but walk in the foot- 
 
 ! See Schaff’s Church History, vol. 1, p. 181. 
 
108 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 prints of Hume and thresh over his old straw. On 
 scientific grounds? What has science discovered 
 that denies this testimony? ‘They who would retain 
 their Christianity and still deny, or refuse to admit, 
 this miracle must stand and be judged at the bar of 
 apostolic testimony. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 PAUL 
 
 THE GENUINENESS OF ACTS 
 
 Tue Acts of the Apostles is the narration of the 
 rise of the Christian Church at Jerusalem, and its 
 development and spread, until Paul, one of the great 
 apostles, is establishing his aggressive faith at Rome. 
 The book is amply proved to have been written by 
 Luke, the companion of Paul. The introduction of 
 the Gospel according to Luke and the preface of the 
 Acts, the style and structure of both books consti- 
 tute powerful internal evidence. Nor is its external 
 proof less. Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, 
 Hermas, Justin Martyr, all reproduce its language. 
 It stands in the Syriac and old Latin versions as it 
 stands in the New Testament to-day. Prof. Har- 
 nack, a most advanced and in some respects rational- 
 istic historian, locates both Luke and Acts in the 
 first century. Its accuracy in all details is wonderful. 
 None but a most competent eyewitness could have 
 written it. 
 
 No one doubts that Paul wrote the Romans, First 
 and Second Corinthians and Galatians. There are 
 
110 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 nearly forty coincidences in the four epistles and the 
 Acts, with no possible reference from one to the 
 other. That a companion of Paul wrote it, is proved 
 beyond a shadow of a doubt. The book is a unity, 
 for the oldest quotations are from the passages not 
 containing the ‘‘we,’’ as well as from those which in- 
 clude this much discussed word.’ ? 
 The Acts accounts for the rapid spread of Chris- 
 tianity. That Christianity spread with great rapid- 
 ity we can easily infer from Roman historians. 
 There was a great multitude of Christians in Rome 
 in the year 64 A. D. according to Tacitus.? In the 
 province of Pontus and Bithynia, Pliny the Younger 
 reports that “the number of the Christians was so 
 large that the heathen altars had been well nigh de- 
 serted, and there had been no market for the sale 
 of animals for sacrifice.” Pliny reports also that — 
 ‘the temples which were almost forsaken to be more 
 frequented,’ showing that his administration was 
 overcoming ‘‘the superstition.”’—A. D, 107. 
 
 PAUL SAW JESUS 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles gives the historical 
 ground for this rapid spread, and is in every way an 
 authentic history. It contains the record of the 
 conversion of Saul of Tarsus, which accounts are 
 
 ! M’Clymont’s New Testament and Its Writers, p. 42. 
 2 Tac. Ann.. xv. 44. 
 3 See Lardner on Pliny, vol. 7, p. 24. 
 
PAUL 111 
 
 corroborated by Paul in First Corinthians and Gala- 
 tians. ‘Three times is it narrated in the Acts, viz.: 
 Acts 9, 22, 26. In Galatians 1:13-17 and Ist Cor. 
 15:8 and 9:1, Paul affirms the same event. 
 
 When the faith of the crucified Nazarene began 
 to rise like a mighty flood in Jerusalem, Saul of 
 Tarsus, a young Pharisee, a pupil of Gamaliel, and 
 a most zealous Jew, was one of those who were de- 
 termined to stamp out this destructive heresy. He 
 was evidently a member of a court which condemned 
 Christians, probably a member of the Sanhedrim.’ 
 While going to Damascus, on the road, at midday, a 
 great light appeared unto him, a person revealed 
 himself and gave positive evidence that the reveal- 
 ing one was Jesus of Nazareth. Paul says in Gala- 
 tians: ‘“‘It was the good pleasure of God, who sepa- 
 rated me even from my mother’s womb, and called 
 me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me.” 
 The fiercest persecutor at once became Paul the 
 mightiest advocate. 
 
 HE WAS TOTALLY UNPREPARED 
 
 Paul had opposed Christianity with a good con- 
 science.” He had seen Stephen die, consenting and 
 aiding in his death. ‘Hard for thee to kick against 
 the goad,” means: “It is for thee a difficult under- 
 taking that thou shouldest contend against My will.” 
 
 ¥ Acts 26:10. 2 Acts 23:1, 26:0. 3% Meyer on Acts, 16:14. 
 
112 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 This occurrence took place away from Jerusalem, 
 and perhaps as much as four years after Jesus ap- 
 peared unto the apostles. To some minds this 
 change in Paul is the most remarkable thing in Bible- 
 history. He went ‘breathing threatening and 
 slaughter.” He came back ‘‘preaching Jesus and 
 the resurrection.”’ Dr. Baur who had maintained 
 the vision-hypothesis admits that it cannot explain 
 how God ‘‘revealed His Son in Paul; and adds 
 that ‘‘this miracle appears all the greater when we 
 remember that in this revulsion of his consciousness 
 he broke through the barriers of Judaism and rose 
 out of its particularism into the universalism of 
 Christianity.” | 
 
 How can this “revulsion of consciousness”’ be ex- 
 plained in such a man as Paul? There is only one 
 possible adequate explanation. He saw Jesus. 
 
 PAUL’S PERSONAL TESTIMONY 
 
 In First Corinthians, Paul gives the appearances 
 of Jesus to the apostles and brethren. Five of these 
 appearances had been witnessed to him by the 
 apostles. ‘They include one to ‘five hundred breth- 
 ren at once, of whom the greater part remain until 
 now, but some are fallen asleep.” 
 
 This is most remarkable testimony. Paul’s char- 
 
 ! For a full discussion of this, see Schaff’s Church History, 
 vol. I, p. 315. 
 
PAUL 113 
 
 acter is one of the purest of all human history. His 
 integrity may have been assailed at Corinth, but we 
 never should have known it if he had not unselfishly 
 alluded to it. Would he have risked his standing in 
 the church, and indeed his whole cause, on the state- 
 ment that a greater part of the five hundred wit- 
 nesses were still living, if it had not been true? 
 
 ‘Last of all, as unto one born out of due time, He 
 appeared to me also.’” Paul is an apostle, but an 
 independent witness. ‘The Epistle to the Romans 
 alone proves its writer one of the brainiest of men, 
 deep and safe in his thought, strong and sound in 
 logic, the last man in all ancient history to be de- 
 luded. Paul had communications with Jesus after- 
 wards, but they all are distinguished from this one, 
 which was an appearance to confirm the resurrec- 
 tion. Paul gave his life in obedience to the com- 
 mand of the resurrected Jesus, sealing his testimony 
 with his martyrdom. He was the sanest and hum- 
 blest of men. It is no sacrilege to say that those 
 who try to explain away the miracles of early Chris- 
 tianity are broken when they stumble upon Paul, 
 and that those upon whom he falls, are ground into 
 powder. 
 
 THE CONCURRENT TEST 
 
 The evidence from the apostles and Paul concern- 
 ing the miracle of the resurrection can be summed 
 
 t rst. Cor.. 15:8. 
 
114 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 up along every line of our test. “The number, the 
 goodness, the education, the learning and integrity 
 are all provided for in these witnesses and in the 
 way in which they, through years of struggle and 
 sacrifice, presented the evidence. In the face of a 
 sinful, hostile world they submitted their evidence 
 to the very sunlight of investigation, fearing no pos- 
 sibility of being detected in falsehood. “In so cele- 
 brated a part of the world as to render the detection 
 unavoidable,” yea, in the very place where the resur- 
 rection occurred, they had their greatest number of 
 converts and also the attesting facts in the rise and 
 growth of Christianity and the Christian church. 
 Chrysostom says—‘‘For the Christian religion to 
 have spread over the world without miracles, would 
 be a greater miracle than any recorded in the New 
 Testament.” 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CHURCH AS CHRIST’S MONU- 
 MENT 
 
 CHRISTIANITY WAS BEFORE THE NEW 
 TESTAMENT 
 
 Tue New Testament was a growth of the first 
 century. Document after document was written by 
 many men in different places. Paul wrote from Cor- 
 inth, from the barracks at Rome; Peter wrote from 
 Babylon, wherever that was; John wrote from Ephe- 
 sus. Professor Harnack pushes the date of the epis- 
 tles backward several years earlier than formerly 
 accepted, even by the orthodox teachers. So that 
 we can safely assume that from some year in the 
 fifties until the year ninety-five, this book of the 
 Kingdom arose. Under these circumstances it is 
 plain that Christianity was the cause of, and pro- 
 duced, the New Testament, in the effectual sense of 
 the word cause. There was a religion, perfected as 
 a saving faith, fully developed in every essential, 
 which antedates the books from which we have 
 learned it. There was also a church, an organiza- 
 tion whose welfare called forth these documents. 
 The very oldest perhaps is the First Thessalonians, 
 
116 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 written for instruction and particularly about 
 Christ’s second coming. Here we have the fullest 
 evidence for a well organized church in the year 53 
 A. D. disturbed by speculations concerning Christ’s 
 second advent. 
 
 CHRIST IS BEFORE CHRISTIANITY 
 
 But Christianity itself is an effect. ‘The power of 
 a character, a life, supremely good and divine, is be- 
 hind Christianity. Jesus Christ lived, and if He had 
 not been what His disciples represented Him to be, 
 then whence came Christianity? Where are the 
 germs that brought forth the fruitage? Evolution, 
 mechanical, theistic or any other, stands dumb when 
 it confronts this phenomenon of the first century. 
 It could not be explained, not even upon the ground — 
 of a revealing God, without the personal revelation, 
 Jesus Christ. The only adequate and reason- 
 able explanation is in the life, death and resurrection 
 
 of the God-Man. 
 
 THE CHURCH IS HIS MONUMENT 
 
 From His earthly life the church arose and has 
 continued nearly two thousand years. Its material 
 is human lives in process of struggle with sin. Hence 
 it must be expected to be an imperfect organization. 
 But its ideal is perfect righteousness and holiness. 
 It has sometimes fallen very low in the conflict; but 
 
THE CHURCH AS CHRIST’S MONUMENT 117 
 
 has always had enough spiritual light and power to 
 arise and, in newness of the old life, march onward 
 towards its goal of victory. Nothing ever could 
 have saved the church from the times of Nero until 
 now if it had not possessed a great supernatural 
 source and supply. With all their defects and divi- 
 sions, all churches, Greek, Roman Catholic and 
 Protestant, look back to their common origin and 
 creator, Jesus Christ. 
 
 ITS GROWTH 
 
 Why did it expand so rapidly and effectually? No 
 keener critic of its growth has ever written about 
 this wonderful progress than Gibbon in his “Decline 
 and Fall of the Roman Empire.” There are the 
 five causes which he assigns for the spread of Chris- 
 tianity—‘‘the zeal of Christians,” “their doctrine of 
 a future life,” ‘the miraculous powers ascribed to 
 the primitive church,” ‘their pure and austere 
 morals,” and ‘‘their union.” But, pray, what was 
 the cause of these elements? Did these produce 
 Christianity? Did not Christianity produce these 
 elements in human lives? 
 
 NOT FROM HUMAN ENTHUSIASM 
 
 Christianity is too deep to have for its cause hu- 
 man euthusiasm for better things. Truly the thought- 
 ful men of the world were sick of its infamy, indeed, 
 
118 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 always had been. Seneca’s denunciation of the so- 
 ciety of his times was an old story. But none saw 
 the true malady nor the remedy. Christianity 
 charged men with sin in a way that had never been 
 known before. It assured them that they were 
 hopelessly lost, that there was no avenue of escape 
 open. It raised the consciousness of guilt and hope- 
 less futurity. Enthusiasts never arise in this way. 
 He who was the foremost preacher of Christianity 
 called himself the chiefest of sinners; and this is 
 characteristic of all the apostles and disciples. 
 Christianity proposed to remove this guilt and to 
 change this hopeless fate, not by any trifling nor 
 human means, but by faith in the atonement through 
 the death of Jesus Christ. Immortal life was of- 
 fered through His resurrection. ‘This is as far as 
 can be imagined from the methods of human enthu- — 
 siasts.’ 
 
 JUDAISM CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR IT 
 
 Nor can the system of religion called Judaism ac- 
 count for Christianity. Their connection is histori- 
 cal and vital. ‘The last and greatest of the Jewish 
 prophets, John the Baptist, was the forerunner and 
 attestor of Jesus as the Savior. The Old Testament 
 and the New are one in author, spirit and purpose. 
 But Judaism had become useless as a saving faith. 
 
 ! Hopkins’ Evidences, p. 188. 
 
THE CHURCH AS CHRIST’S MONUMENT 119 
 
 Its roots of truth and the spiritual kingdom of a 
 righteous God were hidden. Jesus brought them 
 to light, and then endowed them with a life and 
 power of which the most enlightened Jews had 
 never dreamed. The teacher of Israel wonderingly 
 said: “How can these things be?” Jesus opposed 
 the whole Jewish system of His day. He shattered 
 its sectarianism and bigotry. He bade farewell to 
 its temple and its sacred places. His whole life ran 
 counter to their ideas of Messiah. He set aside 
 even the ceremonial law by fulfilling it. He gave up 
 His life in the face of the condemnation of the holy 
 council of the Jews; and then set His death over 
 against their entire religious system, calmly declar- 
 ing that He had come into the world for this pur- 
 pose, and confident that His death would revolution- 
 ize the world. And it has and will. This is not the 
 way in which a mere Jewish reformer would have 
 
 lived and died. 
 
 THE SACRAMENT IS A MONUMENT 
 
 The Christian church with its pecular institutions 
 has to be accounted for. The Lord’s Supper alone 
 furnishes an unanswerable argument for its founder. 
 That Jesus instituted it is beyond question; and un- 
 derneath all the form and ceremony, that often has 
 been attached to it, the church has ever discerned 
 
 ? John 3:9. 
 
120 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY — 
 
 the body and blood of the Lord. From the Aly of 
 the apostles this monument has been in evidence, a 
 constant proof of His death and an assurance of 
 His return. ‘The resurrection of Jesus alone can 
 account for the enduring vitality of this holy sacra- 
 ment. A living Jesus is the only logical inference 
 from this monumental fact. ‘‘And ever since has 
 this blessed institution lain as the golden morning 
 light far out even in the church’s darkest night—not 
 only the seal of His presence and its pledge, but also 
 the promise of the bright day at His coming.”* 
 
 ¥ Edersheim, vol. 2, p. 512. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 PROPHECY 
 
 ‘THE very nature of prophecy is miraculous. A 
 correct induction of a wise forecast or a mere coin- 
 cidence of statement and succeeding event cannot ac- 
 count for Scripture prophecies. Justin Martyr said: 
 ‘To declare a thing shall come to be, long before it 
 is in being, and then to bring about that very thing 
 according to the same declaration, this, or nothing, 
 is the work of God.” 
 
 In Isaiah 44:28 the prophet says: ‘“That saith 
 of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all 
 my pleasure; even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be 
 built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be 
 laid.” A century and a half after these words were 
 written, Cyrus in his decree writes as follows: Ezra 
 1 :3——‘‘Whosoever there is among you of all his 
 people, his God be with him, and let him go up to 
 Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of 
 the Lord, the God of Israel, (He is the God) which 
 is in Jerusalem.”’ On this passage Dr. Mark Hop- 
 kins says: “History itself could not be more plain 
 or specific, and such events were plainly beyond the 
 reach of human sagacity.’” 
 
 ? Hopkins’ Lowell Lectures, ch. on Prophecy. — 
 
122 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 But Isaiah and Jeremiah are abundant in such re- 
 markable evidence of genuine prophecy. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JESUS CHRIST IN 
 PROPHECY 
 
 Although the Jews in Jesus’ time had largely lost 
 the spiritual truths of the old religion of Israel, their 
 scriptures possessed enough of this prophetic ele- 
 ment to warrant the claim that Jesus of Nazar 
 was an historical fulfilment of them. 
 
 Jesus appealed to the Scriptures. We prove on 
 Scriptures through Jesus. This is not reasoning in 
 a circle; but is as if one person should prove that 
 the rain is coming because certain kinds of clouds — 
 gather, and afterwards another person proves that 
 certain clouds have gathered because it has rained. 
 These are independent lines of reasoning and are 
 valid. 
 
 John the Baptist was prophesied in Mal. 4, in 
 Isa. 40:3. The Christ was to be of the house of 
 David in Isa, 11:10, Jer. 23:5, 6. The place of 
 birth was prophesied in Micah 5:2. Christ was to- 
 work miracles, Isa. 35:5, 6. He was to enter Jeru- 
 salem in a kingly and prophetic manner, Zech. 9:9. 
 He was to be rejected, Isa. 8:14, 53:2, 3; scourged 
 and mocked, Isa. 50:6. Almost the entire cruci- 
 fixion scene is in Psalm 22, Zech. 12:10 and Isa. 
 
PROPHECY 123 
 
 53:9. He was to rise from the grave, Psalm 16:10. 
 These are some texts in the Old Testament which 
 were fulfilled in detail in Jesus’ life on earth. Here 
 we face the evidence of a stupendous miracle, both 
 in the giving of these prophecies and the experi- 
 ences of our Lord. 
 
 JESUS’ KINGDOM WAS PROPHESIED 
 
 The Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, 
 is the Book of the Kingdom of God. The Old 
 Testament prophesied that in Messiah, or Christ, 
 that Kingdom would become world-wide, not by 
 arms but by peace, not a government of human con- 
 trol, but of divine supernatural power (Isa. 5 :6-7). 
 The Gentiles would be included, unto the ends of the 
 earth (Isa. 49:6 and 40:3-5). Jesus designedly 
 fulfilled these, it will be said. But to designedly 
 fulfill these would require supernatural power. His 
 enemies also fulfilled some of these prophecies. Did 
 they designedly do it? 
 
 JESUS AND THE APOSTLES PROPHESIED 
 
 He foretold His death and the manner thereof in 
 Hongo Matt, 17:22,.23, Mark .9:31;° Luke 
 9:44; in the same passages He tells them that He 
 will rise again. They acknowledge that they did not 
 believe these things, could not understand them, yet 
 afterwards they remembered. 
 
124 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Jesus prophesied the Jewish war and the destruc- 
 tion of the holy city, the utter overthrow of the tem- 
 ple and the flight of the Christians, in Matt. 24, 
 Mark 13, Luke 21. We have but to read Josephus 
 and ‘Tacitus, and the miraculousness of these chap- 
 ters is incontestable. 
 
 The spread of the Christian religion was also a 
 matter of prophecy with Jesus. Witness the para- 
 ble of the mustard seed. The apostles were to be 
 witnesses to all nations for their evangelization, 
 Acts 1:8, Matt. 28:19, 20. Jesus warned them, and 
 prepared them to meet the very events of their 
 apostolic life, prophesying even the death of Peter, 
 in John 21:19. 
 
 We have but glanced at this line of proof of the 
 supernaturalness of Christianity. The argument 
 from prophecy alone would make a creditable case. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TEST OF MORALITY AND 
 EXPERIENCE 
 
 Christianity, like its author, offers itself to every 
 honest test. ‘he character of Jesus which we have 
 considered grows brighter and purer the longer and 
 more deeply it is studied. His religion also though 
 taught by means of earthen vessels’ reflects the 
 perfect image of Jesus Christ. Every cardinal 
 point may be tried by moral and experiential tests; 
 and the severer the trial the more satisfactory will 
 be the result. Morality will confess a superior in- 
 stitution in Christianity; and experience will ac- 
 knowledge its supreme comfort and satisfactoriness. 
 Reaching this decision, and comparing Christianity 
 with the other religions of the world, we shall find 
 that there is no other that in the light of these facts 
 can be called a religion. If Christianity endures this 
 moral and experimental] test, then in view of its ex- 
 ternal evidences, in comparison with other forms of 
 belief, it is the only spiritual religion. Christianity 
 professes to be a saving religion, and the only sav- 
 ing religion. ‘And in none other is there salvation; 
 
 ! 2nd Cor. 4:7. 
 
126 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 for neither is there any other name under heaven, 
 that is given among men, wherein we must be 
 saved.’? There is no need to compare Christianity 
 with other forms of religious belief; if Christianity 
 is proved supernatural and true, then any truths 
 which may be in others cannot save them from being 
 false religions. 7 
 
 CARDINAL DOCTRINES. GOD 
 
 God is revealed, in al] His attributes, a perfect 
 being, self-existent and infinite, not removed far 
 from His creatures, nor identified with them, as in 
 deism and pantheism, but near and with a living 
 providence caring for them. God is perfectly just 
 and merciful. He overlooks the weakness and 
 failings of men, not that they may be lightly for- 
 given, but looking onward to the redemption which 
 He is to accomplish for them. God is love and 
 holiness. It is enough to say that no other concep- 
 tion of God from any source can be compared to 
 this. 
 
 MAN THE SINFUL CHILD 
 
 Christianity appeals to the conscience of fallen 
 man, and asks if its charge of depravity is not true. 
 It boldly accuses us of sin by nature and deed. It 
 never glosses over the iniquities of our natural heart. 
 It never closes the question until the stain is entirely 
 
 1 Acts 4:12. 
 

 
 MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE 127 
 
 removed. This sinful man is still an offspring of 
 God, made in His image but lost. Sin is traced back 
 to the root, in sin, the principle of disobedience 
 which is in the human soul. We submit this to our 
 moral consciousness, and behold, we recognize the 
 truth which could not be known without Christianity. 
 Experience and the Christian doctrine of sin are in 
 perfect harmony. 
 
 SALVATION 
 
 Christianity proposes to save this sinful being. 
 Into his darkened soul a ray of light is sent, a 
 voice speaks hope and cheer. Man is lost, but need 
 not be forever so. Life becomes hopeful. Even 
 this experience of struggle is infinitely better than 
 the hopeless lethargy of unaroused sinful men; and 
 assurance is given with full proof, that hereafter 
 there will be perfect life. What a contrast with 
 any other form of faith! The Christian Heaven is 
 where God’s will is perfectly obeyed, and all His 
 creatures praise and serve Him—rest and activity 
 perfect each other. 
 
 THE ATONEMENT 
 
 The means to this end is the atonement wrought 
 by Jesus Christ. Here we come to the keenest 
 moral test; but this citadel of our faith arises far 
 above, and our morality can but stand in awe and 
 
128 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 reverence before it. The atonement is vicarious. 
 Jesus Christ, though sinless, was made sin for us. 
 “fe bare our sins,’ suffered on account of them, 
 died under this suffering and thus atoned for them. 
 He proved Himself the Son of God, and as such 
 could do this vicarious work. Only a God could 
 have done it. Eternal justice is satisfied. God's 
 supreme government is vindicated in the sinful do- 
 main, man is saved, and there is no other way mor- 
 ally conceivable. ‘The ideal of God’s perfect gov- 
 ernment is shattered if we accept any lower view 
 of the atonement. 
 
 Further, this atonement is voluntary. This com- 
 pletes the moral structure and lifts it far above us. 
 Jesus Christ was not compelled to die. He made 
 Himself the substitute. ‘“‘Who being in the form 
 of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality 
 with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of 
 a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and 
 being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Him- 
 self, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the 
 death of the cross.”* Human morality never con- 
 ceived such an ideal as this; and Jesus’ life, espe- 
 cially when He, knowing all that awaited Him, 
 ‘steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,” real- 
 ized it. This voluntary element in the atonement, 
 coupled with the judicial, makes it the simplest 
 and profoundest conception that ever has arisen 
 
 1 Phil. 2:6, 7, 8. 
 
MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE 129 
 
 among men. It came not a dry dogma, but a liy- 
 ing actor who performed it by deed and demon- 
 stration. The epistles of the New Testament are 
 absolutely inconceivable without the life of Jesus. 
 No human origin can account for this teaching; 
 none for such a life. 
 
 CHRISTIAN MORALS 
 
 But Christianity makes men good in this world. 
 Truly this goodness is not perfect, but is to be per- 
 fected. “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your 
 heavenly Father is perfect.” Face it with our 
 moral consciousness, and decide !—Can we lower it? 
 Dare we lower it? Can such an ideal be derived 
 from a human source? Still once having obtained, 
 we recognize it as the only perfect ideal, and we 
 cannot lower it. We are just as helpless in our in- 
 ability to lower it, as we should have been in our 
 ability to erect it. 
 
 Another moral proof is the perfect reconciliation 
 between the two principles of self-interest and un- 
 selfishness. ‘They never had been reconciled, they 
 never could be in the limitations of human thought. 
 Yet the germs of both are valid and imperishable 
 in human nature. Jesus denied Himself and taught 
 His disciples to deny themselves. At the same 
 time He was toiling for His Kingdom and His 
 throne. “Who for the joy that was set before Him, 
 
130 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 endured the cross.’ Hence the Christian virtue is 
 unselfish, and at the same time seeks the destined 
 reward. The reward does not vitiate the virtue, 
 nor does the virtue o’erlook the reward. ‘This har- 
 mony was in Jesus’ life, and His is the unselfish- 
 ness that challenges the admiration of the ages. We 
 have it in Him, not as a moral philosophy but as a 
 moral life; and we are constrained to say, no human 
 agent could have invented it. 
 
 EXPERIENCE 
 
 Jesus Christ the divine Savior of men can be re- 
 ceived only by faith. Faith is the ultimate test. 
 “Have faith” was Jesus’ urgent command, Faith © 
 apprehends the spiritual Jesus. Hence they who 
 have faith are qualified witnesses to Jesus and Chris- 
 tianity. They are not biased; they are competent 
 to testify internal evidence. Just as the witness on 
 the stand who has received benefit or injury from a 
 certain medicinal remedy, is not biased but compe- 
 tent, so those whom Christianity has reached with 
 saving power are in every way admissible to testify 
 this. And what a multitude can be summoned! 
 
 JESUS CHRIST AND THE GREAT WORLD WAR 
 
 When the great war had been fully launched and 
 Europe was lurid with the flame of battle in 1914; 
 
 li Feb. 32:24. 
 
MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE 131 
 
 and to the deeper students of history the participa- 
 tion of the greater part of the world seemed certain, 
 then the opponents of Jesus Christ in religion and 
 philosophy flung a challenge into the face of the 
 Christian churches: ‘“‘the religion of Jesus Christ 
 has failed!” | Ln 
 
 In all that terrible struggle it was true that Chris- 
 tianity and Jesus Christ were brought to the severest 
 test of all history. Some lighter thinkers among 
 the defenders of Christianity endeavored to foil 
 this attack by showing that this particular war was 
 prophesied by the Scriptures and even by Jesus 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 Others sought refuge in the hope that this was 
 the Armageddon of the Apocalypse, and that Jesus 
 Christ would come at the climax of the fighting to 
 take all governments of this earth and make them 
 His millennial kingdom. 
 
 But the sober, thoughtful students of church his- 
 tory realized only a war, one of many, though per- 
 haps the greatest, of all human history; they read 
 the words of Jesus, ‘‘and when ye shall hear of wars 
 and rumors of wars be not troubled; these things 
 must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet.’” 
 So they took up arms for their countries and polit- 
 ical ideals, doing their duty according to their re- 
 spective covenants with their governments, knowing 
 that God was “highest of all’? and that Jesus Christ 
 
 1 Mark 13:7. 
 
132 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 would reign through all the conflict of nations, and 
 that after the war had ended He still would ‘“‘have 
 the government upon His shoulder.’” 
 
 It is true that the war was caused very largely be- 
 cause of the neglect that a self-seeking world had 
 wrought against Jesus. 
 
 German thought, both scholastic and popular, had 
 wandered far from the old simple faith of Luther. 
 A literary pride had reduced the accepted facts of 
 Jesus’ life to the very fewest, and His words and 
 deeds to the “irreducible minimum.”’ : 
 
 Losing this faith in the historical Jesus Christ, 
 Germany lost the strongest fiber of her character. 
 
 Nor were England and America guiltless; for 
 this same deep, satanic intrigue had permeated 
 many of their schools and had stultified many of 
 their pulpits. 
 
 A Christian world losing its grasp upon the his- 
 torical Jesus Christ is a fit subject for the “loosing 
 of the red horseman.” | 
 
 But what of the challenge from the adversaries? 
 
 The war is ended; the question of the imperialism 
 of thrones is forever answered; but the imperialism 
 of anarchy is rampant still and threatening the very 
 life of humanity. 
 
 During the great war, Jesus Christ ‘came unto 
 His own”’ as never before. Everywhere He was the 
 dominant religious factor. 
 
 1 Isa. 9:6. 
 
-~ MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE 133 
 
 This testimony is given and corroborated by many 
 witnesses who had opportunity to test the issue. 
 
 The author was a private in the Home Guard of 
 his state and held all the non-commissioned offices 
 except first sergeant; then he was a commissioned 
 officer of the Brigade Staff; then an appointed and 
 acting chaplain of a regiment; then a commissioned 
 officer in the United States Army; then acting as 
 chaplain of a cantonment of seven thousand Amer- 
 ican soldiers. ‘This experience opened comradeship 
 with nearly all elements of an army. Everywhere 
 and among all, Jesus Christ was the almost universal 
 religious ideal and hope. With but little knowledge 
 of His life, works or word; with no religious habits, 
 no prayer, and but few associations with His ordi- 
 nances; yet even profane men would express their 
 faith in Jesus. In some way He was their savior. 
 
 Hundreds of testimonies have come from the 
 armies in Europe that the same primal faith in Jesus 
 Christ was the dominant note of the religious life of 
 those vast forces. 
 
 Dying German and French soldiers prayed with 
 each other on the blood soaked turf; German and 
 English boys looked alike to Jesus Christ as they 
 breathed their last in a final comradeship of death. 
 
 During and since the war France has had a re- 
 vival of worship as the consequence of her extremity 
 when she, with her back against the wall, went to her 
 
 Christ for help. 
 
134 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY - 
 
 Germany is realizing her neglect of the Jesus 
 Christ through whose Scriptures and by whose free- 
 dom the Germany of the olden time was made free. 
 
 This sentiment is expressed in all the nations that 
 have suffered in the dreadful cataclysm. 
 
 ‘Unless we turn again to the principles of Jesus 
 Christ and make them the foundation of our na- 
 tional life, there is no hope for the world.” ‘This 
 was said by many at nearly the same time in the 
 year 1919. Jesus Christ and Christianity were 
 proved in the great world war and were found to be 
 the final and only ground of a universal comradeship 
 for eternal peace. 
 
 A sergeant of the A. E. F. said: ‘The universal 
 religious doctrine of the French Poilu and the Amer- 
 ican Doughboy was ‘Jesus Christ my substitute, with 
 me in the trench, by me in the barrage, and to save 
 me if my call comes.’ A chaplain of the A. E. F. in 
 one of the hospitals where there were thousands of 
 casualties, said: ‘Everywhere I went among the 
 wounded, sick and dying the universal refuge was 
 ‘Jesus Saves’ ” 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 We conclude from the foregoing evidence, both 
 external and internal, that Christianity stands unique 
 and alone, the only supernatural religion. We 
 have shown that revealed religion to be effective 
 in binding sinful man to his Holy Maker, forgiving 
 
MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE 135 
 
 and saving the lost and constantly lifting them into 
 purer moral life, must have supernatural attestation 
 without, and conscious virtues within. It must be 
 universal, suited to all men in all places, and after 
 its revelation good for all time. Such is Christian- 
 ity. No one can doubt that Buddha lived and that 
 his ashes are buried in Nepal; that as a philosoph- 
 ical reformer he was far in advance of the super- 
 stitious priest-craft of his day. But he left no sav- 
 ing faith nor spiritual power that solves the prob- 
 lem of sin, or answers the yearnings for holiness and 
 Heaven. This can be said of every other claimant 
 to the founding of a religious faith except the Christ 
 who founded Christianity. He and His Gospel, en- 
 during every test, are to-day standing out in clearer 
 and stronger light, enhanced by the evidence of 
 every new, regenerate heart. He is the only Savior. 
 Christianity is the only true religion. 
 
 THE END 
 
FROM LETTERS OF COMMENDATION 
 
 From the late Dr. George P. Fisher, of Yale— 
 
 “* * Tt is the product of sound thought and careful study 
 and it cannot fail to be a useful manual.” 
 
 Fyrom the late Dr. Jacob Cooper, of Rutgers College (the 
 Author’s college professor )— , 
 
 “IT was much interested in your Manual of Christian Evi- 
 dences * * * and I hope you will publish a second edition of it. 
 
 “Can you not enlarge it, working in some more proofs 
 from the Anthropological side: thus combining the direct evi- 
 dences of the writers of Revelation, with the ideas growing out 
 of Teleology—which seems to me the ground: for the battle 
 with Infidelity in the future?” 
 
 From Dr. Charles E. Hart, of Rutgers College (the Author’s 
 college professor )— 
 “You have made a most compact exposition with no sacri- 
 fice of clearness and completeness.” 
 
 From Dr. W. O. Rustin, Dean of the Faculty of Dubuque 
 College. and Seminary— 
 
 “I desire to express my pleasure in reading your excellent 
 work on ‘Evidences’. 
 
 “It cannot but do good in this period when sound teaching 
 and right thinking are so much needed. It is brief and crisp, 
 and many will no doubt be willing to read it who would not 
 have time for larger works. 
 
 “T trust that it will have a wide sale. 
 
 “It will be considered in our Apologetic Department.” 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Apologetics must ever shift its point of defense as the foe 
 will shift his attack. Evidence of Christianity never has 
 shifted its ground; but ever extends its front, and advances 
 as the Gospel forces move onward to conquer this world for 
 Jesus Christ. Hence, some of the older works are not to be 
 neglected. We name a few, together with some more up to 
 date, that seem to the author to be of special value in his 
 studies of forty years, with regrets that we must omit others 
 of great value. Some of these older books are out of print 
 and can be bought only at the “old book” stores. 
 
 “The Works of Dr. Nathaniel Lardner,’ ten volumes includ- 
 ing the topics, The Credibility of the Gospel History, His- 
 tory of the Apostles and Evangelists, Jewish Testimonies to 
 ‘the Truth of the Christian Religion, Testimony of Ancient 
 Heathen Authors, Imperial Laws that Evidence Chris- 
 tianity, State of Gentilism under Christian Emperors, His- 
 tory of Heretics, Vindication of Our Savior’s Miracles; and 
 in Volume Ten an index by which every mention of Jesus 
 Christ or His religion in the Scriptures or in heathen lit- 
 erature can be found in full. This great work is invalu- 
 able and fundamental to our subject. The author has used 
 the edition of 1838, published by William Ball, of London. 
 
 “Ante-Nicene Church Fathers,’ ten volumes “translations of 
 the Writings of the Fathers down to 325 A. D.” Charles 
 Scribner, N. Y., 1899. Every volume is indexed. 
 
 Paley’s “Evidences of Christianity.” 
 Butler’s “Analogy.” 
 
“Evidences of Christianity,’ by Rev. Archibald Alexander, D. 
 D., published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication. 
 
 “The Evidences of Christianity in their External or Historical 
 Division,’ by Charles Pettit M’Ilvaine, D. D., Bishop of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, 1859. 
 
 “Evidences of Christianity,’ by Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., 
 published by Marvin and Son, Boston, 1900. : 
 
 “Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief and Manual of 
 Christian Evidences,’ by George Park Fisher, D. D., LL. © 
 D. Charles Scribner and Sons, N. Y., 1902. 
 
 “A Manual of Christian Evidences,’ by C. A. Row, M. A,, 
 published by Thomas Wittaker. Bible House, N. Y. . 
 “Apologetics: or, Christianity Defensively Stated,’ by A. B. 
 
 Bruce, 1892. . 
 
 “The Evidence of Christian Experience,’ by Lewis French 
 Stearns, D. D. Charles Scribner’s Sons, N. Y.; 1899. 
 
 “Handbook of Christian Apologetics,’ by Alfred E. Garvie, | 
 M. A., D. D. Charles Scribner, N. Y., 1913. 
 
 “The Deciding Voice of the Monuments in Biblical Criticism,” 
 by Melvin Grove Kyle, D. D., LL. D. Bibliotheca Sacra 
 Co., Oberlin, Ohio, 1912. | 
 
 “The New Biblical Guide,’ by the Rev. John Urquhart. 
 Marshall Bros., London. Eight volumes. 
 
 “A Reply to Harnack on the Essence of Christianity,’ by Her- 
 mann Cramer, D. D., LL. D. ‘Translated by Bernhard - 
 Pick, Ph. D., D. D. Funk and Wagnalls, N. Y., 1903. 
 
 “The New Apologetic,’ Milton $. Terry, D. D., LL. D. 
 Eaton and Mains, N. Y. 
 
 “A System of Christian Evidence,’ Lutheran Literary Board, 
 1922, and “Contending for the Faith,’ 1920, by Leander S. 
 Keyser, D. D. Geo. Doran, N. Y. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Topic : Page 
 
 BA UMITIOLIOTE ooo relics iateotok Se esvcb loinc orterasielsns execeees RUE OL 
 Definition—Nature of the Evidence—Internal and 
 External Evidence—Cumulative Evidence—Scope of 
 Ingquiry—Result. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 PR REEE LPEWAIREY) NUXASEOTROOH C5255) 8e 0) clots ces cccdesspaceuctatceestevssdueteneosesctieves 
 Ontological Argument—Cosmological i Sean cies 
 ological Argument—Moral Argument. 
 
 CHAPTER ITI 
 | ELE Ea EUS SG a RRR Paes ERR Dyck WOM ac OLA TEND ay 
 Revelation and Inspiration—Possibility: of Revelation 
 —Probability of Revelation—God is Merciful—Neces- 
 sity of Revelation. 
 
 CHAPTER III 4 
 TES, ASG Gai OIA A SSB, SARS ARP SS SA Re OSG RY Opa A 
 Sufficient Cause in Divine Existence—Sufficient Cause 
 in Need of Revelation—Pantheistic ‘Objections— 
 Hume’s Argument—Hume’s Fallacy—Rationalistie Ob- 
 jections—Scientific Objections—Ethical Answer—His- 
 torical Answer—Scientific Answer—Early Opponents 
 —Presumption against Miracles Removed. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Proof of Miracles from Common Ground.....................cc000.000 
 Common Ground—Paul’s Miracles in Romans—Words 
 of Jesus—Present Day Miracles. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Authenticity of the Old Testament............0..0... cece eeeeee 
 Use of Terms—Preservation—Old Testament formerly 
 Uncorroborated—Rise of Higher Criticism—Rise of 
 Archreology—Monumental Vindication—Jesus and the 
 Old Testament—Harmony of the Old and New. 
 
 15 
 
 26 
 
 30 
 
 40 
 
 46 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Presumption of Documents from Roman Historians............ 
 Statement of Tacitus—Statement of Suetonius—Testi- 
 mony from Pliny—Value of this Testimony—The 
 Greek Language and the Jews—A First larvae ath Chris- 
 tian Literature. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Genuineness of the Gospel According to Johm..............0....... 
 Structure of the New Testament—Genuineness, Cred- 
 ibility and Supernaturalness—Genuineness of John— 
 Ireneus—Subsequent Testimony—Tertullian—Clement 
 —Theophilus—Muratorian Canon—Latin and Syriac 
 Versions—Tatian—Justin— Polycarp—-Papias— Igna- 
 tius—The Heretics—The Didache—Summary of the 
 External Evidence—Internal Evidencee—Who was 
 “this Disciple?’”—Who is the Unnamed Disciple?—He 
 is in Another Group—All are Excluded except John. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Genuineness of the Symopties......0..0000..cc ccc ccccecceccceeessceenseeeares 
 The Synoptic Problem—John Presumes Other Gospels— 
 Testimony of Justin Martyr—Testimony of. Papias— 
 Earlier Epistolary Evidence—Epistle of Polycarp— 
 Epistle of Barnabas—Epistles of Clement of Rome— 
 The Didache—Testimony to Luke’s Gospel—No Harly 
 Defence Needed—Irenzeus Testifies—‘‘Gospels” are 
 ‘““Memorials”—Subsequent Evidence. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 New Testament Credibility and Authenticity.......................... 
 The Universal Attestation—Character of the Writers 
 —their Humility—their Candor—Deceivers, Deceived 
 or Honest Men with Facts—Harmony. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Character of! JOsus ciel sic lakeatiaheotbaceeeauncnapaeanunes 
 A Many Sided Character—Huxley and the Gadarene 
 Swine—Positive Witness— No Self-Reproach — His 
 Character is a Miracle—The Son of God. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Authenticity of the Resurrection of Jesus............00..00...0. 
 Hume’s Test—Importance—Jesus’ Death—The Burial 
 
 61 
 
 %3 
 
 84 
 
 92 
 
 99 
 
and Watch—The Four Accounts—The Empty Tomb— 
 First-Day Appearances—Appearances Afterwards— 
 Character of the Appearances. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 MRRP Me ay eae Gir Sel apanslss candids aeieaes Cin iubacaad ab eae bh cxduntanennsodvaneteacs 
 The Genuineness of Acts—Paul Saw, Jesus—Paul was 
 Unprepared—Paul’s Personal Testimony—The Concur- 
 rent Test. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 The Chureh as Christ’s Monument............00000.c.ccccccccecesees 
 Christ is Before Christianity—The Church, His Monu- 
 ment—Its Growth—Not from Human Enthusiasm— 
 Judaism Cannot Account for it—The Sacraments are 
 a Monument. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 HE i aS RST AIG OSM AP OO EN CCRT WNW Doe DL Ba 
 Christianity and Christ in Prophecy—Jesus’ Kingdom 
 was Prophesied—Jesus and the Apostles Prophesied. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 Test of Morality amd Experience ...0...0...........cccccccceeceeseesseereees 
 Cardinal Doctrines—God—Man the Sinful Child— 
 Salvation—Atonement—Christian Morals—-Experience 
 —Jesus Christ and the Great World War—Conclusion. 
 
 109 
 
 115 
 
 121 
 
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 Sig Oh TLS Noe ARERR) Pr RU RAN AED, SOAS RCO ee ryt AEE 67 
 PERT UALE EOLA) ol OLIT) nor danetivacnaes socnsgoennadios testuesnostusnsdehenbasacy 69 
 ANTCSTICY © 10.00.0005. Pi ERR AIR NN iy SMe Ae AEE ny MERE ALIVE Ra Ne 46 
 EMME MRORREEEITE SY LUT Ve eno can oe gk ng ok shes ccna Sed Soaccue rece Pode ean ge Re came abet 26 
 OE NE OAS REE SEE SERIE SERRE a SDE OUP SERRE IN ONLI AL REO AD 62, 64 
 Bee MRR TORVESERTOTE 26 dicc)5 sd 52 chars yap daeds caedconcas tema vacsek ca tecuuaen aia 59 
 OMIA SEMUIIMOTOSS! OL! 52.0..ccsssenccocsiessocotossoctasccetuobhdosdaccecsaenteteg 62 
 Swe VEO ey a aA ER RD oe RRR i OO MP HOG We AN NN 66 
 MPR EMO PaN TNCHEE IESE Loo tek ab Ws dalcvns cage doncbs Sansa erboncayaue see ehabe cake ee 66 
 EP USTOW EN ATER scl Pee b eadgdeweh Week cievsdpoous strat acdeauucatab ee cs ok 47, 58 
 SONI en Ee Be eae cates Sal Wars ahansackedaunyepeces eioboddoncom causeuee 88 
 Re MEME MEMORY OS TA VROREA LO iis ede. 0s invedgieains cceeedacs cenounhachsocsv i gosseeeeake 34 
 NT Ghat ARS SR CO A TSI ine ne i) AE 65, 74, 121 
 5 LIES SEAR IAS BIG BE er ANS Har cU N/E” WAVERED A CE GS 57, 63 
 1d Seas REE a EASE od EERE HAE Sy SCE Re ae RAD SP GT 95 
 SoM IIUNTLOTIOSS: OL. 5,5 5s05-scavasneas cchastsschesuspaddawssbedcssouetacuess 82 
 SS PGE RRR RSE PSE SS eye ER pe 85, 86 
 Ty RIG A ROSE SAG BER eR eee lak Dee ARN ALCL 85, 86 
 Mark, Genuineness of Gospel .......... eeu ssebabdcennseae ache radee 73, 82 
 Neen ra ud Pave Masse Wodacwaneated ceeniae 68, 80 
 EM EN RA ERTEILOLOR OL. vccvccensdcecddvontuuecas schestsarvdeveavobevedatsies 85, 86 
 Matthew, Genuineness Of Gospel ...........ccccsseeesescecseseesseeens 73, 82 
 eM UEERIR CL aceite ts 0.0 65. os cbs dic desc topos serees als no shh oahanoerccaserdinhatuese 110 
 
 Ee Re tue cule nsat acne a bisasges 70 
 
BERL LORI SOMA TE | vai arslivotsccseavenestasvarecocotss suas meee ceaaetune Rees M ob Bi 4) 
 Miracles, Cause and. Weed “iia aa ea ates ee 30, 31 
 Moral Argument ........c.c:cccccccaseseeees PRIMARY NEV LRRD tal re te a 22 
 Moses, Writer of Pentateuch eee ie ee UPUREA YY MARNE NED Sy 51 
 Mosheim ...... PV eeecas Go VEU ats natiosec ey a22k dae Milk digs pas can aa tae 60 
 PEUTACOLIAN ) CANON 4 cotestscccmovdecseumer ocdidavkotnabeaatdteans Aarapeumunentnas 57, 65 
 PETIA CLONSG Walircslackielsissatdoeveuihibiecieevena reps yeraes aa! A detrhiautax es eves teen 22 
 New Testament Canon yy iesutany (2th dads doreuel nertae eeativee PM ste 61 
 I) of Fe ie EE La ha bel RIM B Ie ARR EME, HURE a HOUSER NFO), 56 
 Ontological Arguments oii ele ie cen ae 16 
 A bc) | PROVO Cs PUES IN NSC IE LS pe MANS py AD NP esr) y Ny Soucy urns Ce big fad ICU" 82 
 PA TIPE ST SI ee ee ele Oe Pa Rae a PED AR Nal Bede PTS) 31 
 1 ig A: PRIDE ie AM RIL BUUREN Fa VAR US at Was nla udan anne 40, 41, 42, 109 
 PADIAS iol. ETON U ana aN ECR RE aaron Mee Mca at UP ihe 66, 75 
 Paulsen ..... MURTHY SL eas h RATES pt LONER Me ois be USUNNE, Tor ch 36 
 Persecutions)) of) Christians (iucGAc nukes 56 
 FOUTITY: ctr tvecs tues eUared dada pia eh cUiotlec ants COUR thea CAN DE Rare Cae A ea, 58, 116 
 U Sele) hid oe Bg | MACE RET Seo ADT SOU CC MUISMOR MRC NA Mae LI irabihy FU. 65, 66 
 Proof, Internal, External WL Laur boterend caceseee Lcweavas sateen ane Bi hE 
 Prophecy, iiss biaalessisaadcedsdeceah Vauecad eeaewreeanwe auduuenet out iaactan ee aaanaame mY 121 
 PROBATE | Seouker he Ake lyllaees fed ca tem cdanaeuucsd tad dad enlatace 1a ee ae cena 42, 48, 104 
 Reuterdant ho oe hee eae Silas Spe aulup Ohuee de HOR Pod ies ana 19 
 FLOUNSCA WH sual eel ig Da NUUAUAL  S t" eiaul Lava dock va datoeas 94 
 Row, Manual of Christian Evidence ..............cceesceeseeceeeees 7 97 
 Sacraments .............. Ud Fab ey SONNE AEE HEB RT Gin 500 maa 2 ides 1198 
 ids T MOE SEL BEE PRR PEPER: CORAM DMR RE A eee e iMetd) ahs Bays. 0, 66, 112 
 NGiontific ‘ObyJections Wives dcdcdc ee eae, Uy dae eee 35. 
 BOC TA TOR et NEDO AUER AN Mis TRI TI BAeS ere ll Pgh 4 19 
 PION COL Lievirccistcmacecapeeucteatisd eT AMl MAL aaAmN onthe lyse, eee Re 18 
 SPRY EE COD77 I WRN iy Ra Aaa ian DERI PORE CR HOA dod Seine AM A Wieipzateplieed 31, 32 
 ‘*Spinozism, see Preface. 
 
 Stearns ......... POL CGA EAN COD Dr be AU aia BE RURRD IB sfc Re Be WSU, hails Se eaten 11, 16 
 SUPE COMI i ee ales eA ad 0 ie oe ihe 57 
 SVNODCIC)! PODIOMS | sa, cles Ginccatpecih spcdsesvupedouaberdaaaeenne BW Ys te 73 
 TACHI Feel ides decewes ese ab ogilba act hs deseo feb akekadededen Meihe Peet mraen ana 56, 110, 124 
 SRPUELETD dc balcude tecedénnsdecuasdachspueuaie ddasene eden be chy ue ued sie AigcamnCeaie ae amen ; 65 
 Thomas Aquinas ............ bvsili Lnaavondlcceaduhidetou/aluadeone loca meee ne aaiee By (Me 
 Theophilus / OF sANCOCH ev eed chic Siena eects cua 65 
 Tiberius ..... La eeWiade Vide HME dicdavede deities deh coke Evicted 56 
 ob age Es i haps came LRU SNE A RC EM EO AA dR Pe deathavdnastedties 58 
 ev hae 00) i crac hicahecs wh bau dldnioet teed lb daut Uae eee HPV ET ss. 64, 82 
 Valentinus .............. EAT AER, ADEA att ME AME a CUI Pe ae eeDhadeh at elda uaaatiiebe 68 | 
 Versions, Syriac and Latin i icddicsda ki ccs teste eue 65 
 Wellhausen School ......... fo Kisicna Ua tehtakiic na beh aitace tant aati ena ane 50 
 
 *For discussion of New Spinozism, "see Maher’s Psychoidgy, 
 pp. 261, 505. . 
 

 

 
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