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WHY AM I A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 BY 
 vA 
 
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 \e Owe VV) 
 
 VISCOUNT STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE 
 
 PC ae he Gi,- GiGi ee 
 
 Be ready always to give_an answer to every man who asketh 
 you a reason of the hope that is in you’ 
 
 Hirst Ep. Gen. of St. Peter 
 _ ‘While the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, 
 it may sometimes rest in them, and go no farther; but when it 
 beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it 
 
 must needs fly to Providence 
 Bacon’s Essays 
 
 Henry S. Kine & Co. 
 
 65 CoRNHILL & 12 PATERNOSTER Row, LONDON 
 
 1873 
 
(All rights reserved) 
 
ST. LEONARDS-ON-SEA: 
 May 8, 1873. 
 
 Nie DARD 24%: *: 
 
 Your memory is still so clear that, in 
 referring to past times, however distant, I may 
 well seem to you as going but a little way back 
 from the present. You must remember how we 
 worked together at a most interesting period in 
 that vineyard, which sometimes, as of late, has 
 yielded very sour grapes, if any at all. We were 
 then on Eastern ground, zz partibus infidelium, so 
 fully occupied with our official duties amid the 
 stirfing events of a world-wide struggle, that leisure 
 for anything else was almost out of the question. 
 Our conversation when we have since fallen into 
 friendly intercourse at home could hardly fail to 
 take a more varied range. Recently, as you know, 
 
 we have talked with serious concern of that ten- 
 
v1 
 
 dency to a sceptical and irreverent treatment of 
 religious subjects, which even in this Christian 
 country marks to no small extent the passing age. 
 We have agreed in lamenting the prevalence of a 
 distemper which seems in its progress to imperil 
 the settlement both of Church and State. It was 
 under impressions derived from a painful sense of 
 this danger that I reviewed my own grounds of 
 faith, and having committed them to writing, made 
 up my mind, under the influence of friendly per- 
 suasion, to take the further step of committing 
 them to the Press. Hazardous as the execution 
 of this purpose may be, I venture to count on your 
 approval. 
 
 The pages which follow this letter contain my 
 answer to the question at their head. In some 
 parts they are by no means so entirely devoted to 
 it as to exclude remarks connected with the same 
 object, though not essential to its accomplishment. 
 Much of what precedes my enumeration of Chris- 
 
 tian evidences may help, as I imagine, to bring 
 
Vii 
 more particularly into view three or four collateral 
 topics of a corresponding character, and the con- 
 cluding paragraphs are little more than a summary 
 of the evidences, and a declaration of their effects 
 on my understanding. I need not tell you that I 
 have aimed at no graces of style. A plain un- 
 assuming mode of expression is best suited to a 
 subject of such imposing interest. Should I fail 
 in doing the little good which is my sole ambition 
 in the matter, and even if I incur the censure of 
 irritable critics, I shall find comfort not only in the 
 motive of my attempt, but also in the reflection 
 that I leave a record of the almost life-long inter- 
 course which I have kept up, as opportunities 
 offered, with one who from the first engaged my 
 
 cordial esteem. 
 
 Ever, my dear Friend, 
 Affectionately and faithfully yours, 
 
 STRATFORD DE R. 
 
WHY AM I A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 IT may be said with more or less of truth that 
 every age since the promulgation of Christianity, 
 and perhaps every country within its pale, has had 
 its free thinkers, its sceptics, and its unbelievers. 
 No wonder, for we are told in Scripture that even 
 in the lifetime of Christ numbers of His would-be 
 followers fell off from Him on hearing the full ex- 
 tent of His requirements. Scepticism being of so 
 old a date, how is it with the objections to which its 
 professors principally appeal? I cannot take upon 
 myself to affirm that novelty in that respect is alto- 
 gether wanting to those who have latterly joined 
 the ranks of infidelity ; but such at least is the pre- 
 valent persuasion of many well qualified to judge. 
 However that may be, one thing is unhappily clear 
 enough: reliance on authorities long revered, on 
 B 
 
2 Prevalence of Scepticism. 
 
 doctrines held sacred by every class of Christians, 
 now trembles in the balance and threatens to de- 
 cline still more from day to day. 
 
 The Spirit of enquiry, so useful when properly 
 directed, so dangerous when unrestrained by feelings 
 of reverence, now drives its roots into every crevice 
 of our establishments, and nothing, however solid, 
 however time-honoured, is safe from its intrusion. 
 A love of change predominates in all departments— 
 a love of change, which has not always improvement 
 either for its aim or for its consequence. The 
 social relations are passing from one stage to another 
 with unprecedented rapidity: political institutions 
 give way to the pressure of numbers, theories, and 
 combinations. Theological questions are debated 
 on platforms, discussed at dinner-tables, dogma- 
 tised. in newspapers, and sometimes not a little 
 complicated by members of Convocation. The 
 subject of highest importance both in a temporal 
 and in a spiritual sense is tossed about from mouth 
 to mouth like the newest piece of gossip or scandal, 
 and that, which of all matters most requires to be 
 fixed and clear, appears to break into more varieties 
 
 and to gather a cloudier aspect in proportion as our 
 
e) 
 
 Lmportant Qualification. 3 
 
 material prosperity and vaunted civilisation ad- 
 vance. I have no wishto goin search of the cause 
 or causes of this extensive proclivity. The fact is 
 enough for my immediate purpose, and judging 
 from what I hear in so many conversations and 
 read in so many productions of the press, I state it 
 without fear of contradiction, 
 
 I state it, however, with an important qualifica- 
 tion. Strong as the prevailing tendency to scep- 
 ticism appears to have become of late, it would be 
 wrong to overlook the increased and increasing 
 strength of religious earnestness which characterises 
 the clergy and other churchmen of our day as com- 
 pared with those of the last century. Nor-is this 
 promise of a more healthy state of public opinion 
 as to religious matters in future confined to mem- 
 bers of the church of England. Numbers of those 
 who dissent from the ritual or doctrines of our 
 church may fairly take credit for a sincere zeal in 
 the profession and practice of Christianity, and some 
 indeed may boast with truth of having taken the 
 lead in what may be called its latest revival. 
 
 This improvement, however partial and liable to 
 
 _ premature relaxation, is, moreover, manifest, and, to 
 
 B2 
 
4 Religious 
 
 all appearance, progressive elsewhere than here in our 
 Protestant Island. Of the two currents we are at 
 liberty to hope that the more genuine and salutary 
 one will ultimately obtain the ascendant, but in 
 order to realise that hope, the spirit of religious 
 faith must be sustained by well-united and strenuous 
 exertions. Nor can the church afford to be less 
 resolutely bent on discharging its high duties than 
 was the devoted King of Israel, when he swore to 
 take no rest, to yield to no desire of sleep, until he 
 had found a place of local habitation for the Lord, 
 his God. The powerful dissolvent believers have 
 to counteract carries with it an evil which, though 
 opposed to it in principle, gives a greater effect to 
 its action. The many, whose spiritual faith is 
 starched into outlines of substance by ritualistic 
 forms and damnatory creeds, endeavour to promote 
 their cause by throwing discredit on secular know- 
 ledge and popular institutions. The partisans of 
 progress, impelled by the law of re-action, raise in 
 consequence a counter-cry of alarm—of threatened 
 danger—of darkness imminent, and making an 
 idol of free thought, confound the love of liberty 
 with a licentious distrust of religion. Both parties, 
 
Parttes. 5 
 
 like the traveller in Asop’s fables, look to the 
 weather for deciding the state of their garments, 
 with this difference, that they tighten them when 
 their zeal is hottest, and loosen them when it cools. 
 
 Expressed by its externals, religion is now sub- 
 ject to fashion nearly as much as dress. High 
 Church, Low Church, and Broad Church are so many 
 modes of taste in that department of opinion. 
 Many of their respective votaries are, no doubt, 
 sincere Christians, but the importance they attach 
 to the ceremonials of worship, or to minor points 
 of doctrine, weakens, if it does not destroy, that 
 unity which Scripture declares to be the essence of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Hence in great measure the divisions which, 
 separating one class of believers from another, 
 inflame the spirit of antagonism, and not only 
 discredit the general faith, but affect the stability 
 of secular institutions, and, in the case of national 
 education, make it difficult to give religion its 
 proper place in the instruction of youth. Humanity 
 is not so constituted as ever to be of one mind in 
 all things. Differences of taste and opinion will 
 probably exist to the end of time. But the objects, 
 
6 Stumbling Blocks : 
 
 which disputation magnifies beyond their natural 
 size, may be levelled down to their just proportions, 
 and leave the grand eminences of truth so distinct 
 and unclouded as to impress the commanding sys- 
 tem formed by their combined testimonies on every 
 candid and intelligent mind. My own experience 
 falls in with this view, and in the course of con- 
 versation with others I have found reason to think 
 that what I feel on the subject is felt by many. 
 The broad foundations on which Christianity 
 rests carry with them an overwhelming conviction 
 of its truth. The doubts entertained by those en- 
 quirers who see a camel in every gnat, a moun- 
 tain in every molehill, may be said to have their 
 source in particulars which offend the judgment 
 either by some obscurity of language, or want of 
 congruity, or as not coming under the test of the 
 senses. To minds of a certain description such 
 difficulties are, no doubt, serious stumbling-blocks, 
 because they are apt to occupy a microscopic sight 
 to the exclusion of other considerations far more 
 comprehensive and at the same time coherent. The 
 eye of a traveller applied closely to a milestone 
 would be so filled with the one object, by com- 
 
their Antidote. 27 
 
 parison diminutive, that the surrounding landscape 
 and even the road itself would be shut out from his 
 view. What ought we to think of an artist or 
 engineer who, having to describe a rural district or 
 a city, should give pre-eminence to one exceptional 
 feature and take it as determining the character of 
 the whole region ? 
 
 Having, myself, as I hinted above, been worried 
 by impressions of that contracted kind, I wish, 
 if possible, to afford my fellow-sufferers occasion 
 to profit by my experience. This I propose to do 
 by stating in a popular form and in terms divested 
 of all pretension to ecclesiastical learning or supe- 
 rior discernment, the grounds of my persuasion 
 that a full remedy for want of faith or inordinate 
 scepticism is to be found in a steady contemplation 
 of those grand evidences to which the Christian 
 may confidently appeal, whether they precede, 
 accompany, or follow the period of our Lord's 
 appearance on earth. I cannot deny that even this 
 humble mode of trying to give effect to my purpose 
 is an act of presumption in my Case. I excuse it 
 to myself by virtue of the motive in which it has 
 
 originated, and if more were required for its justi- 
 
8 Christianity addressed 
 
 fication, I would plead my quality of layman. 
 In treating of spiritual matters a layman lies under 
 no suspicion of being affected by professional habits, 
 or ecclesiastical interests, and his opinions may on 
 that account be received the more readily by those 
 who stand most in need of suggestive aid. It will 
 be my endeavour to preserve as much brevity as 
 can hold an even pace with clearness. 
 
 But I have previously to introduce a few ad- 
 ditional sentences in the way of premise. 
 
 It has always appeared to me that the religion of 
 Christ is addressed emphatically to each individual. 
 There is no scriptural application of it to com- 
 munities or social bodies of any kind whatever. 
 Nature speaks in the same sense. We come into 
 the world, and we also go out of it one by one. 
 Each of us in his passage through mortality is cha- 
 racterised by his own peculiar qualities, whether 
 bodily, intellectual or moral. His spiritual respon- 
 sibilities are exclusively personal. It is related of 
 Sir Walter Scott that on some occasion, when 
 walking to church with the support of a friend, he 
 threw off his companion’s arm at the church door, 
 exclaiming ‘ Here, alone!’ 
 
to Individuals. 9 
 
 In harmony with nature, baptism is an indi- 
 vidual act, and so is the other essential sacrament, 
 that of the Holy Eucharist. I remember hearing 
 Mr. Whitbread say in the House of Commons that 
 the responsibility of individuals lay in a future 
 world, whereas in this present life only would 
 States and their Governments be made to feel the 
 consequences of their conduct. Hooker, in speak- 
 ing of the Sacrament of our Lord’s last supper, 
 observes that ‘the real presence of Christ’s most 
 blessed body and blood is not to be sought for in 
 the Sacrament, but in the receiver of the Sacra- 
 ment. This also applies to the individual. It 
 means, I presume, that if the elements are received 
 by the person partaking them in their true spirit, 
 they operate so as to confirm him in that state of 
 communion with Christ which ensures the salvation 
 of his soul. What then are we to understand by 
 their true spirit? The elements are bread and 
 wine. Does not the bread represent the body of 
 our Saviour, who described Himself as the ‘dread 
 of life?’ Woes not the wine represent the blood of 
 Him who was the ‘¢rue vine?’ That body, was it 
 not one of perfect holiness? That blood, was it 
 
if) Need of a Church 
 
 not shed in obedience to God’s will? If so, does 
 it not follow that the reception of those elements 
 by a sincere Christian implies his acceptance of 
 them as types of holiness and obedience, as rules - 
 of conduct and means of communion with Christ 
 in both respects to him, the individual receiver ? 
 
 Be it remembered that bread and wine intro- 
 duced as food into the human system undergo a 
 change which makes them in effect become the 
 flesh and blood of a man’s body. 
 
 It was an idea of ancient mythology that the 
 earth was attached by a golden chain to the throne 
 of Jupiter. According to the Revealed Faith every 
 Christian is connected, or so at least it inay be 
 thought, with the presence of his Heavenly Father 
 by a ray of celestial light. At all events it is clear 
 that divided responsibility, such as exists in con- 
 ventional societies, would be only too liable to be 
 shuffled off from the shoulders of one individual to 
 those of another, and also that if the great mass of 
 Mankind were, as individuals, to be thoroughly 
 imbued with Christian principles, the decisions of 
 Governments, and indeed of every Corporation, 
 would be consistent with their spirit and practical 
 intention. 
 
or Churches. II 
 
 Although it is true that Christianity is addressed 
 in the first instance exclusively to individuals, it is 
 not the less natural, and indeed necessary, that 
 Christians should form themselves into a church or 
 churches. They have need of mutual intercourse, 
 of mutual support, and encouragement, to say 
 nothing of concurrent action for religious or chari- 
 table purposes, with a view to more. effective 
 results. It is most desirable that they should 
 meet for public worship, and by a joint profession 
 of faith and use in common of the same ritual 
 proclaim the belief entertained by them as indi- 
 viduals, and so by their example promote its 
 further diffusion. Thus formed into bodies more 
 or less numerous, which, however, as experience 
 shows, does not insure identity of opinion, those 
 who constitute a majority must feel sufficient 
 motives for seeking to enjoy the consideration 
 attached to a national church. Among those 
 motives the desire of security and an undoubting 
 reliance on the truth of their own convictions are 
 not the least powerful. 
 
 Next comes the union of their Church with 
 
 the State, a question which rests on grounds of 
 
12 National Church. 
 
 its own. There may be Christians to any amount 
 in a country without their standing in any recog- 
 nised or special relation towards the State. There 
 may, as we all know, be a national church unen- 
 dowed by, and disconnected with, the Civil Govern- 
 ment. That union which has for ages been 
 established in every European country, what- 
 ever its form of government, is treated throughout 
 a large portion of the New World as a matter of 
 mere convenience or national policy. With us the 
 question can hardly be viewed as open to discussion 
 on general principles. Our Legislature could not 
 decide for disestablishment without giving a violent 
 shock to the long-cherished feelings and habitual 
 convictions of those, both the many and the few, who 
 from the earliest times have formed the backbone 
 of the population, and deranging in many very 
 important respects some of our most deeply-rooted 
 and time-honoured relations, whether legal or 
 social, proprietary or moral. It would require a 
 large and well-proved indictment of short-comings, 
 abuses, and evils resulting from our established 
 system, together with the certainty of being able to 
 replace it by something far better, before we could 
 
Church and State. 13 
 
 be justified in exposing the country to all the con- 
 sequences of an experiment at once so hazardous 
 and unnecessary. This consideration, I confess, is 
 alone enough for me, and therefore I leave all 
 abstract arguments on the subject to those who 
 either seek for purposes of their own to subvert the 
 existing establishment, or whose love of theoretic 
 perfections blinds them to any objection, however 
 reasonable, which stands in the way of their 
 favourite scheme. 
 
 Progress in civilisation is the implied motive of 
 every headlong change in our political system. Be 
 it so; but really it would seem that civilisation 
 presents itself in a very one-sided manner to its 
 most active partisans, who often expose themselves 
 to the charge of forgetting that man has a soul as 
 well as a body. Those, who are not careful to take 
 God with them in the study of his works and their 
 desire to improve the condition of His creatures, 
 content themselves with framing provisions for the 
 material and to a measured degree for the intellec- 
 tual progress of classes. In this respect they not 
 only fall short of the obligations prescribed by man’s 
 
 natural constitution and the corresponding character 
 
14 Spirit of Christcantty. 
 
 of his wants, but take a position the very reverse of 
 that which was taken by the Author of our religion. 
 Christianity goes directly to the seat of our 
 affections, the heart, and to the source in common 
 with it of our morals, the conscience, enlightened 
 by knowledge of God, and perfected by faith in 
 Christ. It clears no paths in the domain of 
 science ; it gives no patronage to the mechanical 
 arts ; it leaves even the indispensable field of agri- 
 culture to its own resources. Yet no hindrance of 
 any kind is offered thereby to the attainment of 
 knowledge, or to the cultivation of every art and 
 product conducive to the sustenance, the com- 
 fort, the progress of mankind. But these things 
 are held by the Saviour to be subordinate to our 
 heavenly concernments ; and so they:are, not only 
 in a strictly religious sense, but also on the 
 ground of their happiest development being due in 
 the main to those moral virtues which Christ has 
 pre-eminently enjoined. ‘ Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God and His righteousness ; and all these things 
 shall be added unto you.’ Matt. vi. 33. 
 
 The heads of evidence, under which I propose to 
 state the grounds of my belief that Jesus Christ. 
 
fleads of Evidence. 15 
 
 was the true Messiah, are sixteen, and I present 
 them in the following order, as being in my opinion 
 the most natural: 
 
 I. The probability of an after revelation, de- 
 ducible from the imperfect nature of man and the 
 relation in which he stood from the beginning to- 
 wards his Almighty Creator. 
 
 II]. The manifest want, as proved by later cir- 
 cumstances, of such a revelation. 
 
 III. The prophetic announcements, both general 
 and personal, relating to Christ. 
 
 IV. The fulness of Time. 
 
 V. The Saviour’s humble plebeian birth notwith- 
 standing His high descent. 
 
 VI. The consistency of His character in all its 
 parts. 
 
 VII. His perfect, irreproachable example. 
 
 VIII. The depth of His principles. 
 
 IX. The breadth of His doctrine. 
 
 X. His miraculous powers. 
 
 XI. His own declarations. 
 
 XII. His resurrection. 
 
 XIII. The conduct and voluntary sufferings of 
 His apostles and others of His followers. 
 
16 First Evidence. 
 
 XIV. The fulfilment of His own prophecies. 
 
 XV. The diffusion and establishment of His faith 
 by means of disciples wholly destitute of worldly 
 advantages. 
 
 XVI. The beneficial results thereof existing to this 
 hour, and on the whole increasing though slowly, 
 interruptedly, and at times even with partial defec- 
 tions. 
 
 ie 
 
 That the moral character and principal attri- 
 butes of the Supreme Deity were brought to the 
 apprehension of man at the time of his creation 
 in a more or less degree seems highly probable of 
 itself, and Scripture at its very commencement 
 moves in harmony with that most natural conjec- 
 ture. Taking the Bible for guide—and what other 
 historical account of the Creation and its earliest 
 succeeding ages is known to exist ?—we see dis- 
 tinctly that our first parents were endowed with 
 faculties which enabled them to understand that 
 certain relations existed between them and their 
 Almighty Creator. They are there represented as 
 having had personal intercourse with Jehovah. 
 
first Evidence. 17 
 
 The curse indeed which followed immediately on 
 their transgression would seem to find its justifica- 
 tion in their knowledge of those relations. They 
 became liable to punishment because they failed 
 knowingly in their duty to God, who, as the author 
 of their being, and having made them in His own 
 likeness, required that in their conduct they should 
 conform to His will. His attributes of omniscience 
 and omnipotence, of goodness and wisdom in per- 
 fection, oblige us to believe that if He had chosen 
 to reveal Himself completely and once for all to His 
 reasonable creatures it was in His power to do so. 
 We cannot of course presume to fathom the depths 
 of Almighty Wisdom, but the fact of a later and 
 final revelation, deferred, as we are told, to the 
 fulness of time, shows unquestionably that it was 
 not in the Divine will to make itself completely 
 known to man in the first instance, and we may 
 ' perhaps venture to shadow out in part a notion of 
 the reasons which determined that reserve. With- 
 out adopting Mr. Darwin's theory that men were 
 originally monkeys, we may conceive of them that 
 time and a long succession of generations were 
 necessary to fit them for receiving with full and 
 C 
 
18 First Evidence. 
 
 permanent advantage the whole truth. Their 
 knowledge of God’s works, and of their own 
 deficiencies had, one may imagine, to be previously 
 increased, the compass of their views to be enlarged, 
 and their faculties to be improved by exercise and 
 mutual intercourse. There is little doubt that 
 mankind, like individuals, had their childhood, and 
 adolescence before they advanced towards a period 
 of maturity. Those who believe in a pre-Adamite 
 population are especially bound to accept this 
 statement as true. Civilisation in a mere secular 
 sense was evidently gradual, not to say slow, on any 
 supposition, and we are assured that the world be- 
 came so depraved in its first stage as to bring on 
 the destruction of the whole race of man with the 
 exception of a single family. Such at least is the 
 purport of the Scriptural record, and traces still 
 apparent of a calamitous deluge more or less vast, 
 in many parts of the earth go far, with heathen tra- 
 ditions, to confirm its substantial truth. It may be 
 added that before the Christian era in places the 
 most civilised, intellects of the highest order pro- 
 claimed the want they felt of a future revelation 
 
 by the efforts they made, however ineffectually, to 
 
first Evidence. 19 
 
 obtain a clearer insight into the nature of God and 
 the prospects of humanity. Nor did the new reve- 
 lation, when at length it came, exhibit any absence 
 of harmony with those suggestions of the human 
 cgnscience, those instinctive longings of the soul 
 which long before had acquired a stronghold, with 
 few exceptions on the intellectual universe. In the 
 darkest times God did not leave Himself without 
 witnesses here on earth. St. Augustine has remarked 
 that the real thing, which we now call the Christian 
 religion, existed among the ancients, and was not 
 wholly wanting from the commencement of the 
 human race. Civil affairs are not in the least altered 
 by the Gospel, which leaves every one,—husband and 
 wife, master and servant, magistrate and subjects 
 in their respective relations with each other as 
 before. Locke has taken notice of this in one of 
 his treatises, and surely if any one, he was a care- 
 ful observer, and an accurate expounder in all cases 
 to which he applied his attention. Did not Christ 
 Himself declare that He came not to destroy, but 
 to confirm or fulfil the Law? Had it been other- 
 wise, had the doctrines promulgated by our Saviour, 
 been other than confirmation in the widest sense of 
 
 : C2 
 
20 Second Evidence. 
 
 what the human conscience had in its best anterior 
 enlightenment recognised, sceptics would have been 
 sure to make the most of the discrepancy. We 
 should have been told on that ground, as we have 
 already been told on others of a more fanciful kind, 
 that two contradictory revelations could not pos- 
 sibly have issued from the same omniscient and all- 
 
 powerful source. 
 
 II. 
 
 That the world stood in need of a more com- 
 plete revelation can hardly be denied. Of this 
 some passing notice has been taken in the pre- 
 ceding sentences. The want was undoubtedly felt 
 by minds the most competent, humanly speaking, 
 to supply it. But more than human sagacity was 
 required to accomplish the stupendous work. The 
 passions, whence vice and crime, discord and 
 misery proceed, were practically in full play at the 
 time of our Saviour’s advent. Sages, moralists, 
 philosophers, and. legislators condemned offences, 
 which nevertheless were freely practised by large 
 majorities, to say the least, of those for whose 
 
 correction or guidance these laws or precepts were 
 
Second Evidence. 21 
 
 framed. Massacre in war, slavery and proscription 
 in peace, torture and idolatry at all times, together 
 with orgies of debauchery in the name of religion, 
 were flagrant in those countries where social 
 customs were the most genial, arts the most ad- 
 vanced, science and literature the most cultivated. 
 For these abominable excesses in the pursuit of 
 pleasure, power, and wealth, in the indulgence of 
 hatred, vengeance, envy, pride, and other male- 
 volent or presumptuous feelings, Christianity pur- 
 posed to establish a purely spiritual worship, 
 humility, universal love, active charity, holiness of 
 life, a constant, earnest, and loving submission to 
 God, all proceeding from the heart itself under an 
 awful yet glorious responsibility. But what, I 
 wonder, would this sublime system of ethics have 
 effected without a divine sanction and a perfect 
 example? We see that even with those immea- 
 surable advantages its progress has been slow in 
 acceptance, slower still in practice where accepted, 
 and having yet to make its due impression on 
 millions and millions of our planet’s inhabitants, 
 notwithstanding the zeal of numerous missionaries 
 and the almost unlimited distribution of the Holy 
 
22 Second Fovidence. 
 
 Book. The mustard seed of Scripture has indeed 
 attained the growth of Californian vegetation, but 
 it must expand into a forest before it can give 
 shade and shelter to the entire population for 
 which it was consigned to the ground. We are 
 bound as Christians to believe that its ultimate 
 extension throughout the world is only a question 
 of time, and reasons sufficient to explain the delay 
 are obvious, though few. The abnegation, or at 
 least the restraint of self as a rule of conduct, the 
 warfare so often experienced between flesh and 
 spirit, body and soul, the frequent disparity ex- 
 hibited by well-meaning Christians between doctrine 
 and practice, operate as powerful drawbacks on the 
 attractive features and imposing behests of Chris- 
 tianity. Converts from other forms of religion 
 have to shake off seductive habits, or to give up 
 fanatical modes of belief impressed upon their 
 minds in childhood. The doctrine of the Trinity 
 can hardly be otherwise than an obstacle in the 
 path of conversion to those who, like the Mahome- 
 tans, make the simple idea of one God their 
 supreme point of faith. The mere act of passing 
 from a sensuous kind of worship to one of spiritual 
 
Third Evidence. 22 
 
 re] 
 
 purity must be a rude trial for the strongest under- 
 standing. A blindfold leap from the one to the other 
 is hardly to be expected or desired. These re- 
 marks go far to show that, instead of there being 
 any reason to doubt the want of a supplementary 
 and final revelation at the time of Christ’s ap- 
 pearance on earth, much still remains to be done 
 in order to complete and give full effect to that 
 which He declared by His ministry and sealed with 
 His blood. 
 
 IIT. 
 
 Prophecy has prepared us for both stages of 
 the Christian Dispensation, for its introduction 
 and also for its completion. The commencement 
 of the prophetic power as a ground of faith 
 and an instrument of salvation dates from the 
 Fall. It was then announced that the seed of the 
 woman should bruise the head of the Serpent, in 
 whose form Satan had worked the ruin of our first 
 parents. Prophecy in the shape of promise, not, 
 indeed, referring to a future revelation, but assuring 
 Man’s perpetual exemption from a recurrence 
 
 of the Deluge, appeared in the Divine communi- 
 
24 Third Evidence. 
 
 cation made to Noah immediately after that event. 
 At a later period, as we all know, in the same 
 direct form, but having a much higher signification, 
 came to Abraham the prediction that in his seed 
 should all the nations of the earth be blessed. 
 The preternatural birth of Isaac was the earnest of 
 that, the most wonderful, which, in the person of 
 Jesus Christ, was appointed to realise the holy 
 announcement. Our Saviour’s own language con- 
 firmed it when He said that Abraham rejoiced to 
 see His day, that he saw it and was glad, 
 taking at the same time occasion to manifest His 
 own Divinity by the sublime declaration, ‘ Before 
 Abraham was, [ am. Clearer and brighter grew 
 the word of prophecy in succeeding generations. 
 The devout harpings of David were preludes to 
 the song of angels which ushered into human life 
 the immortal Saviour of mankind. The inspired 
 and inspiring radiations of Isaiah were luminous 
 forerunners of that Sun—the Sun of Righteousness 
 —whose beams, once seen above the horizon, would 
 never cease to enlighten, though often by a mere 
 glimmer of dawn, the darkest corners of our globe. 
 
 ‘Unto usa child is born, unto us a son is given: 
 
Third Evidence. 25 
 
 and the government shall be upon his shoulder: 
 and his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
 ‘sellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the 
 Prince of Peace.’ ‘There shall come forth a rod 
 out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow 
 out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall 
 rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understand- 
 ing, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of 
 knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.’ Such are 
 the words of the Great Prophet, and further down in 
 the course of time came Daniel, who also appears 
 to have received intimation of that Spiritual king- 
 dom which in due season would overshadow all 
 earthly powers. ‘Thou sawest till that a stone was. 
 cut out without hands, which smote the image 
 upon his feet that were of iron and clay. Then 
 was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the ' 
 gold broken to pieces together, and become like 
 the chaff of the summer threshing-floors ; and the 
 wind carried them away, that no place was found 
 for them: and the stone that smote the image 
 became a great mountain and filled the whole 
 earth.’ ‘And in the days of these kings shall the 
 God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never 
 
26 Third Evidence. 
 
 be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to 
 other people, but it shall break in pieces and con- 
 sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for 
 ever.’ 
 
 Observe, moreover, that the new revelation pre- 
 pared by Almighty Wisdom was not only thus an- 
 nounced in general terms, but the very person and 
 special character of Him who was appointed from 
 of old to declare and establish it, were described 
 many centuries before in language not to be mis- 
 taken. What says Isaiah in this respect? ‘ His 
 visage was so marred more than any man and His 
 form more than the sons of men.’ ‘To Him whom 
 man despiseth, to Him whom the nation abhorreth, 
 to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, 
 princes also shall worship.’ ‘He hath no form, nor 
 comeliness ; and when we shall see Him, there is 
 no beauty that we should desire Him. He is 
 despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, 
 and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, 
 our faces from Him; He was despised, and we 
 esteemed Him not.’ ‘He was oppressed, and He 
 was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He 
 is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a 
 
Third Eurdence. a7 
 
 sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth 
 not His mouth.’ What says the royal Psalmist ? 
 ‘The Kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers 
 take counsel together against the Lord and against 
 His Anointed.” ‘I will preach the law whereof 
 the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, 
 this day have I begotten Thee.’ Again, ‘Thou 
 art fairer than the children of men: full of grace 
 are Thy lips, because God hath blessed Thee for 
 ever, alluding probably to His doctrine and lan- 
 guage, perhaps also to His tone of voice and 
 demeanour, possibly even to the expression of His 
 countenance. ‘Gird Thee with Thy sword upon 
 Thy thigh, O Thou most Mighty, according to Thy 
 worship and-renown. Good luck have Thou with 
 Thine honour; ride on because of the word of 
 truth, of meekness, and of righteousness, and Thy 
 right hand shall teach Thee terrible things. Thy 
 arrows are very sharp, and the people shall be 
 subdued unto Thee, even in the midst among the 
 king’s enemies.’ Well may we exclaim in the 
 words of the great, the earlier prophet, ‘How 
 beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
 Him that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
 
28 Third Evidence. 
 
 publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God 
 reigneth !’ 
 
 It is not my intention to note every link in the 
 chain of prophetic evidence, and still less to go into 
 the controversial arguments which bear on the 
 whole or any particular portion of it. The object 
 I have in view would not be advanced by such 
 prolixity. If used in the matter of prophecy, it 
 would also be required in treating the other chief 
 branches of evidence applied to Christianity. The 
 learning necessary for dissertation belongs more 
 especially to professional or professed writers. In 
 this brief sketch I have not even quoted some well- 
 known passages in the Old Testament, which in 
 few words, but with an outline sufficiently definite, 
 shadow out the perfect revelation to come in the 
 person of an anointed Saviour. Herein the most 
 superficial readers of Scripture will require no 
 reminder beyond a bare mention of such names as 
 Abraham, Moses, and David. The _ respective 
 testimonies of their later successors have left a 
 dying but consistent echo in the very last of the 
 prophetic pages of the Old Testament. With re- 
 spect to Moses in particular, the Gospel of St. Luke 
 
Third Evidence. 29 
 
 contains the following passage, speaking of our 
 Saviour after His resurrection: ‘Beginning at 
 Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto 
 them in all the Scriptures the things concerning 
 Himself.’ 
 
 Who can turn from the contemplation of these 
 successive and harmonious predictions without a 
 strong conviction of their essential truth, realised as 
 it was by the whole tenour of our Lord’s career? 
 Their divine character is confirmed by the very 
 unwillingness of the Jews, especially of their rulers, 
 to accept it, in as much as the personal condition, 
 the meekness, poverty, and purely spiritual doctrine 
 of Jesus were utterly at variance with the ideas 
 which, in spite of written prophecy, they entertained 
 of the promised Messiah. The Jews were con- 
 firmed in the expectation of a mere earthly king 
 by that pride of race and nation which so strongly 
 marked their character, and gave to most of them 
 
 a fatal obliquity of understanding. 
 
30 Fourth Evidence. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Gospel was announced as about to come 
 in the fulness of time, and so completely did the 
 fact, when it occurred, correspond with that re- 
 markable expression, that unbelievers have taken 
 advantage of the coincidence to argue from it that 
 the success of Christianity was mainly traceable to 
 the circumstances which made it opportune. Those 
 circumstances are so well known that to name the. 
 chief of them is almost a needless trial of the 
 reader’s patience. In the first place, there was a 
 general expectation even in the heathen world that 
 some great personage, appointed to confer immense 
 benefits on the human race, was on the eve of 
 appearing. Much aid was also derived from the 
 scattered condition of the Jews, who had large 
 establishments, or who at least resided in con- 
 siderable numbers at sundry important places in 
 the three great continents then known ; at Babylon 
 for instance, Antioch, Alexandria, to say nothing of 
 Rome, Ephesus, Athens and elsewhere. . The preva- 
 lent use of the Greek language, and the extension 
 of Roman power through so large a portion, east 
 
fifth Evidence. 31 
 
 and west, of territories emerging from barbarism, 
 were also, no doubt, efficient in opening ways 
 for the reception of Christianity. At Jerusalem 
 itself much of what realised in particular the truth 
 of prophetic foresight may justly be ascribed to 
 the establishment in that city of Rome’s imperial 
 authority. Can we for a moment suppose that 
 God is inferior to man in the wisdom of securing 
 success by a judicious adaptation of means to a 
 preconceived end? Who in his senses would think 
 even of planting a tree without reference to season, 
 soil, and situation? No: we may shut our eyes, 
 but we cannot thereby obliterate, or even alter the 
 objects of sight. We may withhold our conviction 
 from the accomplishment of prophecy, but the 
 concurrent circumstances which prove it remain the 
 
 Same. 
 
 Ve 
 
 It was foretold that the Saviour would come 
 ‘in the fulness of time,’ and the time of Christ’s 
 appearance tallied, as I have already shown, with 
 the obvious meaning of that term. He came at the 
 
 allotted period, and in what manner did He come 
 
32 Lifth Lvidence. 
 
 Though marvels of a Divine character attended His 
 birth, He was wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid 
 ina manger. No marks of wealth or dignity sur- 
 rounded His person. He took upon Him the form 
 Oia servant, He was subject to his parents, He 
 shared their humble lot, and when He entered upon 
 His public ministry, it was asked contemptuously 
 whether He was not Joseph the carpenter’s son. 
 But surely it must strike the least observant 
 among us that to these plebeian circumstances was 
 owing in a great measure the sympathetic reception 
 which His religion experienced from the pagan 
 masses. His doctrine, though addressed to all, 
 was more especially applicable tothem. In answer 
 to the Baptist’s enquiry He says, ‘the poor have 
 the Gospel preached unto them,’ and with this by 
 way of climax, He concludes the number of acts 
 which He mentions in proof of His divine mission. 
 Of the rich He almost despairs. In a worldly 
 point of view He was not one of them. He threw 
 in His lot with the millions, who like Himself were 
 more immediately dependent on Heaven for their 
 daily bread. It required all the pride of the 
 Jewish priesthood, and all the prejudiced devotion 
 
Lyfth Evidence. 33 
 
 _ of their votaries, to obstruct the progress and to 
 delay the triumph of the Gospel. 
 
 The priestly authorities, when they had resolved 
 upon His death, resorted to the hours of darkness to 
 _ take Him, ‘because they feared the people’ Con- 
 stantine must have known that popular opinion 
 marched before Him when he proclaimed his 
 adoption of the Christian Faith, and made way 
 for a Christian bishop to take his seat in the chair 
 of the Cesars. Catching inspiration from the 
 Sibyls, the delightful poet of Mantua exclaimed, 
 
 ‘Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis ! 
 
 Little did he imagine that, while he was sounding 
 the praises of his imperial friend, he ignorantly 
 heralded the approach of that far greater One, who 
 would not only recall the golden age, and extend 
 his sway beyond the confines of India, but whose 
 government was destined to comprise the whole 
 earth, and to establish the law of peace in the 
 hearts of all mankind. In proportion as the spirit 
 of Christianity was understood, it could not but 
 find its way to the hearts of the people; and Virgil, 
 in ascribing to Augustus what applied on juster 
 D 
 
34 Szxth Evidence. 
 
 grounds and in a degree immeasurably higher to 
 Christ, flattered the emperor by placing to his 
 credit those elements of popularity which existed 
 in the object of general expectation. The genea- 
 logy, which placed our Saviour in the iine of 
 descent from David and the Patriarchs, was, no 
 doubt, agreeable to the Jews in general, but if He 
 had possessed the wealth of Abraham, or wielded 
 the sceptre of David, could He have enjoyed that 
 access to the sympathies of the people which the 
 circumstances of His birth were so well calculated 
 to obtain? 
 
 VI. 
 
 A personal character consistent in all its parts, 
 consistent also with prophecy, and with doctrine, 
 could not fail to operate powerfully in favour of 
 a religious and moral legislator. So perfect was 
 the consistency that the more our Saviour was 
 known, and the more He was scrutinised, the 
 greater was the love, the confidence, the admira- 
 tion of those who approached Him during His | 
 ministry. The full light of day shone upon all 
 His actions. He lived in habitual fellowship with 
 
Szxth Evidence. . 35 
 
 His disciples; sinners of every description were 
 admitted to His presence; He did not refuse the 
 society of women; He sat down to table with the 
 rich ; He led for some time a life of publicity ; He 
 frequented the synagogues ; He taught assembled 
 multitudes, and shrank not from the misery of the 
 sick or from the treacherous duplicity of lawyers. 
 He was so thoroughly a man that He felt our 
 passions and was subject to our infirmities ; but, 
 nevertheless, His virtues maintained their even 
 tenour, and sin had no dominion over Him. It has 
 been written of Alexander the Great that ‘he sub- 
 dued all things but himself, and of Julius Cesar 
 that he was ‘the world’s great Master and “zs own.’ 
 Archimedes is reported to have said of himself, 
 that he could move the earth if he had a proper 
 standing-place. Christ, who appeared neither in 
 the guise of a conqueror, nor in that of a philo- 
 sopher, achieved in a spiritual region far greater 
 conquests than either the Greek or the Roman, and 
 used a lever for lifting the minds of mankind as 
 powerful as that which the Sicilian engineer sighed 
 
 for in vain. 
 
36 Seventh Evidence. 
 
 WARE 
 
 If the consistency of our Saviour’s character 
 in itself be one of the many proofs which entitle 
 Him to our belief, how greatly is its efficacy in- 
 creased by the perfect harmony exhibited between 
 that character and His professions, more espe- 
 cially by His conduct. It was not only by word 
 of mouth and the spirit, but emphatically by 
 personal example that He strove to establish His 
 empire in the hearts of men. He preached hu- 
 mility, and He was humble in all His actions sus- 
 ceptible of that quality ; He recommended prayer, 
 and was frequent and earnest in the practice of 
 that form of devotion; He pressed upon His disciples 
 the duty of forgiveness, even to the extent of 
 returning good for evil, and to the last hour of His 
 life He inculcated that difficult lesson by His own 
 example. ‘Father forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do. He taught us to pray that we 
 may not be led into temptation, and by undergoing 
 the trial Himself He showed in what manner it 
 was to be resisted and overcome. ~His doctrine 
 
 involved the duty of an entire dependence upon 
 
Seventh Evidence. 37 
 
 God, and a total submission to His will. The 
 possibility of living up to these exalted obligations 
 He fully exemplified by His own conduct in the 
 wilderness, on the lake, in the garden, and on the 
 cross. Some writer has drawn a distinction be- 
 tween two military commanders by describing the 
 one as saying to his soldiers in action, ‘ Forward, 
 my children!’ and the other as himself charging 
 at their head. The man of meekness, forbearance, 
 and humility, belonged to the latter class, and still 
 after eighteen centuries He maintains the same 
 position, no longer in His temporary form on 
 earth, but in the faith of His followers and the 
 records of His life. 
 
 If anything were wanted to complete His cha- 
 racter as bearing the impress of Deity, we have 
 only to seek it in those remarkable lectures which, 
 under the title of ‘ Christ satisfying the instincts of 
 humanity, have increased the debt we all owe-to 
 the eloquent and effective pen of Dr. Vaughan. 
 
 The credit of a revelation rests on the complete- 
 ness of its authority. The Son of God took upon 
 Him our nature, as it would seem, that He might 
 be a pattern to mankind, as well as a teacher of 
 
38 Eighth Evidence. 
 
 divine truth. To show His sufficiency in the 
 former character was a great help, if not a necessary 
 step, to his acceptance in the latter. Christ, by 
 His human sympathies and manifest perfection in 
 their exercise, completed that consistency which of 
 right claims so large a share in our convictions. 
 
 Of one great instinct of our nature there is, 
 indeed, no trace in the account of His life; and 
 the exception conveys to my mind an additional 
 proof of His divinity. How could the Godhead 
 be subject to any feeling of GRATITUDE? ‘The 
 want of it in some who had experienced Christ’s 
 benevolence did not escape His notice, but the 
 Giver of all good was under obligation to no one 
 
 on earth. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Moreover, in the depth of principle on which 
 His doctrines are founded we recognise another 
 evidence of their truth. Where could Humanity 
 find a more profourtd’and efficient source of motive 
 and action than in the love and fear of that all- 
 perfect Being whom we are taught to worship 
 under the endearing name of Father, omniscient, 
 
 omnipresent, eternal, unchangeable? That single 
 
Exghth Evidence. 39 
 
 appellation makes a brotherhood of all mankind, 
 not only in name, but in reality of feeling and cor- 
 respondent practice adapted to relative positions 
 and circumstance. We can do nothing, we can- 
 not abstain from doing anything without a motive, 
 at times, it may be, unconsciously, but still there 
 must be a motive as cause and spring of any 
 positive action or resolution. Out of the heart, 
 as we are told on the best authority, that is out 
 of ‘self, proceed those passions, feelings, fancies, 
 and evil inclinations, with which our better nature 
 is at variance, and which we are taught to control 
 under the heaviest responsibilities. What stronger 
 motives can we have in a moral sense for keep- 
 ing those enemies of our happiness in subjection 
 than the fear and love of God, and that charity, 
 the interest of all directly and reciprocally, which 
 St. Paul has so well described? Where in the 
 heart or in the head, where in the whole stretch of 
 nature can be found principles which go so com- 
 pletely to the root and source of all morality? In 
 this respect, if in no other, the Christian dispen- 
 sation differs essentially from the Mosaic. The 
 fear and love of God were indeed inculcated by 
 
 Moses, but with a view, in no small part, to worldly 
 
40 Lighth Evidence. 
 
 advantages, and nothing was so dear to the Jewish 
 heart as the pride of exclusiveness, the devotion to 
 forms, and the destruction of enemies, all of which 
 characteristics were the very reverse of those be- 
 longing to Christianity. In other respects also the 
 Christian dispensation differed from that of Moses. 
 Not only did it rest upon principles of greater 
 depth, but with very few exceptions, if any, it 
 rested on principles alone. Unlike the great reli- 
 gion which preceded it, unlike the false religion 
 which followed it, no special legislation, enforced 
 by earthly penalties, is to be found in its precepts. 
 This distinction is so manifest that slavery and 
 suicide have been defended on the ground of their 
 not being branded with any special prohibition in 
 the Gospel. To an argument of this kind the 
 answer is obvious. The whole spirit of the Gospel 
 condemns such practices. Take the case of slavery. 
 ‘Do unto others as ye would they should do unto 
 you. Would anyone like to be made a slave? | 
 The final, the universal religion must, one would 
 think, be a religion of principles; and seeing that 
 such is the religion of Christ, are we not bound the 
 more to believe in its divine origin? 
 
Ninth Evidence. AI 
 
 1p .e 
 
 The principles of the Christian Revelation are 
 not more remarkable and exhaustive in point of 
 depth than are its doctrines in that of breadth. 
 Other forms of religion are but too apt to engender 
 feelings of enmity towards the professors of rival 
 creeds, and a conceit of superior excellence on the 
 part of their own respective votaries. The religion 
 of Mahomet, who is thought to have framed his 
 Koran in the moral parts not sparingly upon the 
 tenets and sacred books of Christianity, affords a 
 striking example of this illiberal spirit. His fol- 
 lowers are taught to view and to deal with their 
 co-religionists as brothers, but to treat as enemies all 
 those who put no faith in their prophet—to ex- 
 terminate if they resist, to enslave them if they 
 submit. Look to the castes of India, that fright- 
 ful offspring of sectional animosity, and remember 
 how they operate to nourish prejudice, and to 
 separate one portion of mankind from another. 
 Different indeed is the doctrine of the Gospel from 
 these deplorable instances of human inhumanity. 
 Love without limits, varying only in degree, 
 
42 Ninth Evidence. 
 
 kindness even to enemies, the return of good for 
 evil, forgiveness to the extent of seventy times 
 seven and not stopping there, constitute the essen- 
 tial character of that Divine message. Would that 
 the practice flowed on a level with the doctrines 
 themselves! Their never-ceasing disparity shows 
 but too plainly how much the world, as we call it, 
 stood in need of that Revelation which came in the 
 fulness of time! Alas! in the very centre of 
 Christendom this want has long been manifested 
 by cruel distortions of truth, and the assumption 
 of powers entirely at variance with the spirit of 
 Christianity and the recorded language of our 
 Saviour, ‘My kingdom is not of this world!’ 
 i Give unto Cesar, the things that are Cesar’s.’ 
 Consider for a moment the morality of Christ in 
 a worldly sense alone. Its rules of conduct in life 
 are exhaustive. They have nothing of their own 
 kind beyond; nothing below them. They might 
 be adopted generally to the profit of mankind as 
 the mere results of human research and human 
 experience. But they come to us with the addi- 
 tional, the surpassing advantage of a Divine sanc- 
 
 tion manifested in a manner and to a degree 
 
Ninth Evidence. 43 
 
 peculiarly their own. They are, moreover, con- 
 firmed, and shown to be capable of sustained 
 practice, by an example equally Divine. Viewed in 
 their full extent, they are found to comprise the 
 whole duty of man. When steadily and perseve- 
 ringly carried out, what, I venture to ask, are their 
 ordinary results even here on earth but. the health 
 and happiness of individuals, the peace and welfare 
 of communities, the strength and independence of 
 each nation in its domestic affairs, the advantage 
 and security of all in their foreign relations? If 
 they often fall short in practical effect, the doctrine 
 itself is by no means to blame. We must all feel 
 that the frailties and perversity of our nature are 
 the real causes of their present comparative failure. 
 Pearls of inestimable value are placed within our 
 reach, but few are they who appreciate them to the 
 full, and treat them as the best part of their house- 
 hold treasure. It must be allowed that among the 
 philosophers of antiquity there were some who 
 reached a high degree of moral elevation, but the 
 best of their systems were rotten at the root. Self- 
 esteem, worldly considerations, the love of quiet, 
 
 _ the pride of mental serenity, and fear of the con- 
 
44 Tenth Evidence. 
 
 sequences of excess are shallow motives compared 
 with those of the Christian system. In the latter 
 there is love apart from self, the universe contrasted 
 with a spot, happiness supplied from infinite 
 sources, instead of being confined to one or several 
 of a narrow and unstable kind. More than this, 
 the mind imbued with them draws nourishment 
 and character from the pure springs of action by 
 which it is quickened as by Christ Himself. Some- 
 thing more and more approaching to spiritual takes 
 the place of its original nature, and love in its most 
 exalted sense expands by habitual exercise into 
 communion with that Divine attribute from which 
 the best of Christians derive their highest aspira- 
 tions, and indeed every spiritual grace. 
 
 of 
 
 I have now to touch upon a great question 
 in few words. The question I refer to is that of | 
 Miracles, and it may be called emphatically @ 
 question, because it has afforded matter of disputa- 
 tion more, at least, than any other of the evidences 
 
 brought forward in support of Christianity. In 
 
Lenth Evidence. 45 
 
 proportion to its importance in argument, and its 
 extraordinary character, we are entitled to have it 
 cleared of all doubt, and established in point of 
 fact on solid grounds. When Christ presented 
 Himself to the Jewish public as having to promul- 
 gate a new mode of faith, it was natural and fitting 
 that He should be required to accredit His mission 
 by some proof of divine authority. What more 
 efficient for that purpose than to show that He 
 possessed the power of working miracles—that is, 
 the faculty of altering by a word the course, or 
 regular appearances of nature? Miracle enough it 
 was for Him to agree in person and character with 
 the prophetic announcements of the Messiah; but 
 Jesus, though on more than one occasion He ex- 
 pressed impatience at being urged to ‘give signs 
 and wonders, appears to have acknowledged the 
 fitness of His being expected to perform miracles 
 in proof of His having a divine commission. In 
 answer to the Baptist’s inquiry whether He was the 
 real Christ, it will be remembered that He mentioned 
 miracles among those acts of His which were to 
 accredit Him as the true Messiah. The inquiry 
 
 was natural; the answer reasonable. When an 
 
46 Tenth £:vidence. 
 
 Ambassador is sent from one court or nation to 
 another, the first thing he has to do on reaching 
 the place of his destination is to give proof of his 
 being duly authorised to speak and act for the 
 Sovereign he professes to represent. He is not 
 indeed required to perform miracles; but he is ex- 
 pected to produce his credentials. A prophet, or 
 divine legislator, may be described with propriety 
 as an Ambassador from God. His obvious cre- 
 dential is the exercise of preternatural power, of 
 power not possessed by other men, or derivable 
 from any human source. 
 
 This condition belonged especially to our Saviour’s 
 ministry, because it had been foretold as one of His 
 attributes. Much as a miracle is to be expected, 
 and fairly required under the circumstances, it is 
 not the less hard to be received. Among our first 
 impressions on the occasion suspicion is quite as 
 active as wonder. We mistrust the performer, we 
 mistrust our own senses. After all, we can form 
 no idea of the means employed, or of the process 
 by which the miraculous effect is produced. It is 
 reported of the great Napoleon that, in talking of 
 apparitions on one occasion, he said it was a 
 
Tenth Evidence. 47 
 
 question of fact. Who could explain the existence 
 of a blade of grass? So is it with miracles. Our 
 belief must turn upon the credibility of the evidence, 
 of that of the eye-witness in the first instance, of 
 that of the reporters in the second. Now, what 
 are among the principal miracles ascribed to our 
 Lord? If my recollection of them be correct, they 
 were the conversion of water into wine, the feeding 
 of multitudes in the wilderness, the marvellous 
 draught of fishes, the cure of the ten lepers, the 
 walking on water, the calming of a storm, the 
 restoration of the blind man’s sight, and—most 
 wonderful of all—the raising of Lazarus from the 
 dead. These eight miracles may be taken as ex- 
 amples of the various kinds of miracle attributed 
 to Christ. The many others described in one or 
 all of the Gospels require no particular notice in 
 these pages. ‘The performance of a single miracle, 
 free from suspicion of fraud or illusion, might 
 have sufficed to accredit a divine revelation. The 
 very first miracle performed by Moses in Pha- 
 ‘raoh’s presence was a failure, because it had 
 pleased God to harden the king’s heart and 
 to encourage or to allow the magicians of the 
 
48 Tenth Evidence. 
 
 court to display a similar prodigy. But it is 
 evident that a miracle was thought to be necessary 
 in order to obtain evidence for any one who 
 assumed the character of a prophet. When Elijah 
 pitted his prophetic character against that of the 
 priests of Baal, it was the miracle of fire from 
 heaven that gave him the victory and cost them 
 their lives. God, or the angel of God, Himself con- 
 descended to accredit His personal communication 
 to Moses in Mount Horeb by changing a rod or 
 wand into a serpent, and afterwards by restoring it 
 to its original shape. Miraculous appearances even 
 in modern times have been enlisted in the service of 
 some local sanctity or of some religious opinion. But 
 it has been remarked that our Saviour’s miracles 
 have in every instance this distinctive quality. 
 They lie open to the perception and judgment of 
 the senses. Morbid sensibilities and excited imagi- 
 nations have hothing to do with them. The broad 
 light of day shone upon them; eye-witnesses to 
 the fact were never wanting, and sometimes, we 
 may remember, large crowds of spectators were 
 present. Surely amongst those numbers many . 
 
 scrutinising and incredulous minds were to be 
 
Lenth Evidence. — 49 
 
 found. Such and so positive was the immediate 
 evidence by test of which we determine the reality 
 of Christ’s miracles. With respect to the Scriptural 
 accounts of them, we are not at liberty, I believe, 
 to distinguish them in point of authority from other 
 portions of the Gospel narrative. They are inter- 
 woven with the story—the quadrilateral we might 
 call it—of a life, remarkable above all others for its 
 consistency and transparent candour. They stand 
 or fall with the whole fabric. If they possess in 
 some cases a special vitality of their own, the 
 account of the man born blind and restored to 
 sight, as given by St. John, is perhaps the most 
 striking of all. It is impossible, I conceive, to read 
 it without an overpowering conviction of -its truth, 
 derived from the simplicity of the language com- 
 bined with a singular perspicuity and effectiveness 
 in the particulars. The most spiteful homethrusts 
 are there parried by the most telling replies. In 
 the midst of cavils, shivered into splinters, the 
 truth emerges simple, great, unshaken. ‘One 
 thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.’ 
 
50 Eleventh Evidence. 
 
 AL 
 
 Our holy Redeemer's declarations as to His 
 person and office, the necessity and efficacy of 
 belief in Him, the essential importance of the 
 Sacraments and other co-ordinate features of 
 Christianity, present themselves to the mind with 
 peculiar force when following immediately upon 
 the preceding points of Evidence. The declarations 
 of His Divinity were to all appearance intentionally 
 eraduated. His miraculous birth and the wonderful 
 circumstances which accompanied it were little 
 known, or forgotten, except by His nearest relations 
 and their immediate friends, when He began His 
 public ministry. Sixteen or eighteen years had 
 elapsed from the time when in His boyhood He 
 had displayed a remarkable acquaintance with the 
 writings of the Old Testament. He was known as 
 the son of Joseph the carpenter, and had probably 
 worked as a carpenter himself, when He entered in 
 public on His high mysterious calling. It was not 
 till after His baptism and temptation that He 
 began to preach, St. Matthew relates that when 
 Jesus came up from the water He saw the heavens 
 
Ltleventh E Celene | 51 
 
 opened, and ‘the Spirit of God descended like a 
 dove and lighted upon Him,’ It is not stated that 
 any one else except the Baptist saw this phenome- 
 non, or heard the voice from heaven which followed. 
 St. Mark’s relation of the same circumstances 
 differs only in words from that of St. Matthew. 
 St. Luke in shorter terms, but substantially to the 
 same effect, agrees in the main with the two pre- 
 ceding Evangelists. St. John, referring to the same 
 events, uses these words, ‘John bare record, saying, 
 I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a 
 dove, and it abode upon Him ;’ but it appears not 
 from him that any others either witnessed the 
 miraculous appearance or heard the heavenly voice. 
 According to St. Matthew, in the early part of His 
 ministry, while He gave signs of professing pre- 
 ternatural and miraculous powers He only styled 
 Himself the Son of Man, and even then did not 
 escape the danger of being charged with the capital 
 offence of blasphemy. A little later in the same 
 gospel He is described as saying the ‘Son of Man 
 is Lord even of the Sabbath day.’ When the 
 Pharisees accused Him, He withdrew, as if the 
 time had not yet come for a full declaration, To 
 
 E2 
 
52 Eleventh Evidence. 
 
 His disciples He was more explicit, when He 
 spoke of the ‘Son of Man as sending forth Hi: 
 angels in the end of the world. He was not 
 completely so when, upon St. Peter's saying to 
 Him, ‘Thou art Christ the Son of the living God,’ 
 He replied, ‘ Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
 my Father which is in heaven.’ Afterwards He 
 said to His disciples, ‘The Son of Man shall come in 
 the glory of His Father with His angels, and then 
 He shall reward every one according to His works.’ 
 In the 26th chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel it is 
 stated that, being adjured in God’s name by the 
 High Priest to say whether He was the Christ, the 
 Son of God, Jesus answered, ‘Thou hast said, 
 nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see 
 the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, 
 and coming in the clouds of heaven. Matt. xxviii. 
 When the chosen disciples saw Him in Galilee 
 after His resurrection and worshipped Him, anc 
 some doubted, Jesus said to them, ‘ All power is 
 given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, 
 therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in 
 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
 
Eleventh Evidence. 53 
 
 Holy Ghost! .... . Lo! I am with you to the end 
 of the world!’ 
 
 According to the Gospel of St. Mark, Jesus 
 intimated that He was the Son of God, by referring 
 to that Psalm in which David is described as having 
 called the future Messiah, ‘Lord. The same 
 Evangelist states that when the High Priest asked 
 Him, ‘Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed,’ 
 Jesus said ‘I am: and ye shall see the Son of Man 
 sitting on the right hand of power and coming in 
 the clouds of heaven!’ Thus we have the testi- 
 mony of two Evangelists to the reality of this 
 conclusive declaration proceeding from the mouth 
 of One who showed by the whole tenour of His 
 public life that He was incapable of falsehood, and 
 proving by its consequences how necessary it was 
 that He should complete His ministry before He 
 declared Himself completely. The graduated cha- 
 racter of His personal declarations thus shown to 
 have taken place is fully explained by what finally 
 occurred, namely, His condemnation to death as 
 soon as the culminating declaration was made. It 
 is evident that an earlier publication of the truth 
 
 would have put an end to His ministry at once. 
 
54 Lwelfth E videntce. 
 
 The immediate cause of His crucifixion on the part 
 of the Jews was the idea of blasphemy they at- 
 tached to His final words in answer to the High 
 Priest, and on the part of Pilate that governor's 
 fear of being accused at Rome of having befriended 
 
 a pretender to the Jewish crown. 
 
 ATT. 
 
 We come now to that wonderful and decisive 
 fact, the resurrection of our Lord’s crucified body, 
 that fact of which St. Paul declared that if it were 
 not true, the Apostles, and indeed the believers 
 in Christ generally, were the most miserable of 
 men. It is worthy of remark that the resurrection 
 of our Saviour is nowhere mentioned in Scripture 
 as a fact attested by eye-witnesses. The truth of 
 it rests on the disappearance of the body from the 
 Sepulchre in which it had been laid, on the position 
 of the burial-clothes within the Sepulchre, on the 
 angelic attendance and injunction given there, on 
 the several subsequent appearances of the Lord’s 
 person, and finally on His visible ascension to 
 
 heaven. All these circumstances are distinctly 
 
Twelfth Evidence. 55 
 
 related in parts of Scripture received from the 
 earliest times as being of undoubted authority. It 
 may be added that those circumstances, which more 
 immediately regard the sepulchre and what took 
 place there on the discovery of its no longer con- 
 taining the crucified body, are mentioned in each of 
 the four Gospels, not exactly in the same terms, 
 but in meaning substantially the same as to the 
 essential: point. Variations of this kind, and the 
 coincident, though circumstantial character of the 
 evidence, are surely to be taken as confirming the 
 truth of the main incident by excluding altogether 
 the supposition of collusion or any other form of 
 deception. How natural it was that Peter, of all 
 the Apostles, should have been the first to see Him 
 after the resurrection, as St. Luke relates in the 
 last chapter of his gospel ! 
 
 The palpable appearances of our Lord after His 
 resurrection was the all-important point. If any 
 weight beyond that of the fact could be given to 
 it, we might look to the wonder itself for the 
 addition. 
 
 Christ, viewed exclusively as man, possessed 
 intellectual powers of the highest order. He was 
 
56 Lwelfth Evidence. 
 
 also truth itself, and wisdom itself. Is it to be 
 conceived that a legislator thus gifted could 
 possibly have made an event by anticipation so 
 utterly incredible, the corner-stone of His new 
 religious faith? It is clear that such an article of 
 belief, unsupported by positive proof, could only 
 “have exposed its author to rejection, mockery, and 
 insult. 
 
 The resurrection of the human body after its 
 decomposition in the grave is certainly a startling 
 demand upon our faith. But, independent of the 
 scriptural facts, what authority have we for limiting 
 that power which, in the beginning, created all 
 things? Why should it be more difficult for the 
 Almighty to revive our bodies for another state 
 of existence than to have brought them into the 
 world which they now inhabit? The principle of 
 life is still hidden from the researches of science, 
 and we, in the certainty of death, may yet most 
 reasonably rely upon the power of God, and the 
 promises of Christ, already realised by His own 
 resurrection. 
 
Thirteenth Evidence. 57 
 
 PLES 
 
 It was a thorough belief in the truth of the resur- 
 rection that more than anything else enabled 
 the Apostles and other early Christians to bear up 
 against the hardships and sufferings which their 
 zeal in propagating the Gospel drew upon them. 
 Their journeys alone exposed them to peril 
 by sea and land. The violence of infidel mobs 
 occasionally brought their lives into immediate 
 danger. In times of authorised persecution those 
 who escaped martyrdom found refuge underground 
 in caves and catacombs, where life and death lay side 
 by side in straitened darkness. Nothing in short 
 could shake their faith or detach them from the 
 observance of its practical obligations. No doubt 
 there were cases of individual weakness which did 
 not come under this description; but we must 
 presume them to have been exceptional. What 
 authentic reason is there for supposing that the 
 mass of those who professed Christianity did not 
 stand manfully to their colours in defiance of terror, 
 derision, and pain? 
 
 Moreover, their numbers continued to increase. 
 
58 Thirteenth Evidence. 
 
 Persecution had no permanent effect in checking 
 the progress of their belief. It acted as a landslip, 
 which, falling into the channel of a river, does but 
 accumulate the waters until they either overflow 
 their banks with fertilising spread, or gather 
 strength and volume sufficient to sweep away the 
 casual obstruction. Apart from any positive sta- 
 tistics, this may be fairly inferred from the passions 
 of jealousy, fear, and hatred, which raged among 
 the adversaries of Christianity, and were in fact the 
 immediate causes of open persecution. When at 
 length the new and purifying faith was adopted by 
 imperial authority, it is obvious that popular opinion 
 on a large scale must have given the decisive 
 impulse to its triumph. This elevation of a 
 Christian Bishop to the central throne of European 
 government and also of European idolatry, being 
 the consequence of a wide-spread acceptance of 
 Christianity by the masses, was a gigantic stride 
 towards the accomplishment of that parable by 
 which our Saviour compared the kingdom of 
 heaven to a grain of mustard seed which grows 
 from being the least of seeds to the size of a tree in 
 
 whose branches the birds of the air might roost. 
 
fourteenth Evidence. 59 
 
 ADA 
 
 This parable was not the only expression of 
 our Lord’s prophetic power. Many of those 
 who fell short of accepting His mission in its full 
 development, confessed Him to be a mighty pro- 
 phet, and His title to that designation has been 
 confirmed by other predictions of His, beside that 
 of the mustard seed’s growth. Every one is ac- 
 quainted with the beautiful and affecting words by 
 which He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 Christ also foretold His own death, and the denial 
 of Peter. It cannot be necessary to pursue this 
 part of the subject further. What is stated above 
 suffices to show that the evidence of Christianity 
 derived from ancient prophecy is carried out by the 
 
 prophetic power ascribed on authentic grounds to 
 our Saviour Himself. 
 
 Of akin with the power of foretelling future 
 events were several incidents recorded in Scripture 
 of Christ, and which, to use a modern phrase, 
 might be classed under the name of second sight. 
 Such were His preparatory commands for entering 
 Jerusalem, and also for the celebration of His last 
 
60 Fifteenth Evidence. 
 
 supper, His anticipation of Judas’s betrayal, and 
 His knowledge, when out of sight, of Nathaniel’s 
 position and employment. But these are secondary 
 points. Jesus is described in St. Luke’s gospel as 
 Himself asserting His prophetic character. ‘It 
 cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.’ 
 In the same gospel these words are applied to 
 Him : ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed 
 and word before God and all the people.’ 
 
 XV. 
 
 The establishment of Christianity in the capital 
 of the Roman Empire by no means reached the 
 fulness of His prophetic announcement. The 
 amazing progress of our faith in the ages suc- 
 ceeding that event, however satisfactory and pro- 
 spectively promising, is almost superfluous in point ; 
 of evidence. The diminution of its rate in latter 
 years might act as a discouragement of our more 
 sanguine expectations ; but it may be well to bear 
 in mind that progress in every matter is liable to 
 variation, and that its continuance at the same 
 
 rate is more to be desired than from natural causes 
 
fifteenth Evidence. 61 
 
 to be expected. It cannot be denied that, looking 
 to Africa and Asia, Christianity has met with 
 obstacles which, with small exceptions, have yet to 
 be overcome. Even in those extensive portions of 
 India, over which the British Government exercise 
 a supreme political authority, the zeal of mis- 
 sionaries and the increased intercourse of the natives 
 with European Christians have been attended with 
 a mere sprinkling of conversions. False religions, 
 whether by doctrine or in form, maintain their hold 
 on the population through regions of vast extent. 
 Abyssinia, and some portions of Africa, may even 
 be cited as having declined from the profession of 
 Christianity. On the other hand, America and 
 Australia, to say nothing of some among the 
 numerous islands of the Pacific, are not only 
 receptacles of the true faith on a very extensive 
 scale, but are calculated by a rapid natural process 
 to become exclusively Christian throughout their 
 immense territories. In countries hitherto sealed 
 to any sort of enlightenment, prejudices are gradu- 
 ally yielding to the influence of superior knowledge 
 from the west, and interests created by commerce, 
 
 and political dependence, can hardly fail to open 
 
62 Szrteenth Evidence. 
 
 channels for the reception of a creed which tends to 
 bring all nations into the bond of universal kind- 
 ness and profitable intercourse. Let us not forget 
 that the whole of Spain, with the exception of a 
 narrow mountainous district, was occupied during 
 many centuries by the Moors from Africa, idolators 
 at one time, Mahometans at another, before the 
 remnant of Christian inhabitants were able to drive 
 them out, and to establish in their place that form 
 of worship and doctrine which, under the sway of 
 Philip the Second, became so deeply rooted and so 
 utterly exclusive. 
 
 XVI, 
 
 More confidence and further hope may be de- 
 rived from the contemplation of Christianity with 
 respect to its actual results. To expect perfec- 
 tion in those results would betray a strange mis- 
 conception of human nature, its passions and its 
 defects. St. John in his First Epistle affirms that 
 God sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins. 
 Does not this passage imply at once the greatness 
 of the sacrifice, and by consequence, the greatness 
 
Szxrteenth Evidence. 63 
 
 of that sinfulness for the remission of which the 
 sacrifice was made? In truth the human heart 
 presents as much resistance to the practice of 
 Christian doctrines, as the world at large presents 
 to their acceptance. In considering the results of 
 Christianity we must therefore dismiss the idea of 
 perfection other than extremely gradual from our 
 minds. Why was the Law denounced as _ being 
 unable to effect justification? Why was faith 
 proclaimed as being alone able to produce that 
 effect ? Why but because nobody could reason- 
 ably pretend to keep the law so entirely as to 
 attain complete righteousness under it, and also 
 because the forms of law might be kept without 
 any adequate amendment of the heart? 
 
 With these considerations in view we may 
 venture to assert that in sundry most important 
 respects Christianity has produced a great and un- 
 questionable improvement in the general conduct 
 of those, whether persons or nations by whom its 
 truth has been accepted. I have already stated 
 that it does not suit my purpose to go exhaustively 
 or even deeply into these questions. I cannot, 
 
 however, abstain from calling to mind some few 
 
64 Sixteenth Evidence. 
 
 of the evil practices which prevailed among the 
 heathen, even the most enlightened, of old, and 
 which have been denounced by modern legislation 
 in Christendom. First in the list stands slavery, 
 whether as. a trade or as a social institution. It 
 would be an insult to enumerate the benefits 
 conferred upon society by that one renunciation of 
 an odious crime. It has been pleaded in favour 
 of slavery that it is nowhere condemned in the 
 Gospel. The answer is obvious. The whole spirit 
 of Christianity is against it. ‘Do unto others as 
 you would they should do unto you?’ Would any 
 one desire that others should make him a slave? 
 Cruel legislative punishments, and cruel usages in 
 war, have in many instances yielded to the softening 
 influence of Christianity. Protection of animals from 
 cruelty may be classed under the same head. ‘The 
 care of the poor, the abundance of charitable institu- 
 tions, and compulsory taxation for the relief of pau- 
 perism, may be justly ascribed to the teaching of 
 Christ. The legislative repression of licentiousness, 
 and a more general respect for the female portion of 
 mankind are also in great measure the results of 
 
 our Christian faith. These more salient instances 
 
Suxteenth Evidence. 65 
 
 of improvement in law and morals are enough to 
 show the active operation of Christianity after the 
 lapse of so many centuries. It is not only a living 
 agent in these latter times, but its agency increases 
 and extends, slowly, if you please, and with frequent 
 checks and partial interruptions, yet still on the 
 whole deeply and expansively, considering the in- 
 crustation of vicious propensities it has to penetrate, 
 and the midnight ignorance it has to encounter, 
 more or less in every part of the world. 
 
 This brief and imperfect summary is intended to 
 represent in natural sequence the links of a chain 
 of evidence having strength sufficient to resist the 
 united weights of all the doubts which Cavillers 
 and Sceptics have scraped together from time to 
 time. The stumbling-blocks which arrest them in 
 the course of inquiry are generally known, and have 
 been treated with a view to their removal by writers 
 well qualified to examine and demonstrate their 
 insignificance if such be the character justly ascribed 
 to them. It appears to me that the argument 
 involved in my statement of leading evidences 
 deprives them in a comparative sense of any real 
 importance. Consider by way of analogy, that a 
 
 F 
 
66 The Bible and Science. 
 
 conviction of God’s benevolence is in no way 
 shaken by the numerous cases of suffering and of 
 evil which, according to our comprehension, exists in 
 this world of His creation. 
 
 There remains one very large question which I 
 will not entirely pass by, as the little I have to 
 offer respecting it may be comprised in half-a- 
 dozen sentences. I allude to the discrepancy 
 which seems to exist between the account of the 
 earliest periods brought to our knowledge by 
 Moses, and certain discoveries which modern 
 science adopts as irrefragable truths. It is no 
 business of mine to question either the truth of 
 those discoveries or the correctness of the inferences 
 deduced from them. What I have to suggest on 
 behalf of the Bible is independent of any such 
 question. Without presumption, I conceive, it may 
 be asserted that the objects to which the Holy 
 Scriptures were originally addressed, were the bring- 
 ing to man’s knowledge the character and will of 
 the Supreme Being, the relation in which His crea- 
 tures endowed with reason stand towards Him their 
 Creator, the final destination which eventually 
 
 awaits them, and the conditions which are to 
 
The Bible and Science. 67 
 
 determine the place of each individual in the 
 adverse portions of that destination. Now, what 
 necessary dependence has the revelation of these 
 matters upon. science as applied to natural 
 objects, whether astronomical, geological, or any 
 other department of human research? With 
 respect to any of the above-mentioned points so 
 deeply interesting to mankind, can it be said to 
 signify whether the earth turns round the sun, or 
 the sun round the earth; whether the earth is 
 millions of years old, or only six thousand? Is it 
 not true that the Bible conveys to our under- 
 standings a distinct view of the things essential for 
 the salvation of our souls? Can anything be more 
 sublime than the idea it presents of God? Any- 
 thing more effective for the government of our 
 thoughts, words, and actions, than what we obtain 
 from that source? What was the language of our 
 blessed Redeemer to the Sadducees when they 
 sought to embarrass Him with their questions and 
 remarks? ‘Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures 
 and the power of God!’ 
 
 Returning to the Mission of Christ, and His 
 
 identification as the true Messiah and Son of God 
 F2 
 
68 Necessary Character of the Scriptures. 
 
 by reason of the leading evidences taken in their 
 connection with each other, are we not warranted 
 in holding as light the sceptical objections to 
 Christianity in comparison with the mass of proof 
 afforded by those evidences? A divine revelation, 
 unless it be made by a flash of light or by a hand- 
 writing on the wall, must be brought to the con- 
 viction of mankind by the instrumentality of 
 human agents. As a necessary consequence of our 
 original constitution all human agency must be 
 more or less imperfect. Does it not follow that 
 whatever comes to us through that medium must 
 be liable to the effects of its inherent weakness ? 
 If this be so, we cannot with reason wonder that 
 even the Holy Scriptures should not be entirely 
 free from verbal errors or critical difficulties. Per- 
 fection in those respects would be unnatural, and 
 inspiration may fairly be held to answer its legiti- 
 mate purpose if it serve to secure the conveyance of 
 essential truth to our minds. Supposing a dozen 
 persons had witnessed an accident occurring in 
 some public street, and they were examined one 
 after the other as to the fact. Surely their agree- 
 
 ment on the main point, if there were no reason to 
 
Concluding Remarks. 69 
 
 suspect collusion, would outweigh any conceivable 
 difference in their respective reports of the par- 
 ticulars. The evidence may be more satisfactory, 
 the conviction more intense when there is a total 
 absence of discrepancy; but are we entitled to 
 require a more thorough concordance in the proofs 
 of spiritual truths than we commonly accept as 
 sufficient to settle our judgment. in matters of 
 secular concern ? 
 
 It is now time to draw towards a conclusion. 
 Let the whole of what precedes be candidly con- 
 sidered. However defective in point of treatment, 
 it surely exhibits a wonderful instance of that 
 circumstantial connection, that convergence of 
 numerous testimonies to a common centre, which 
 for reasons already stated was hardly to be 
 expected and which we do not require for belief 
 and direction of conduct in ordinary cases. Con- 
 sistency in all the links of a chain of evidence 
 carried through the whole extent of time, from the 
 very beginning of history to the present hour, is 
 almost a miracle in itself, and certainly without a 
 corresponding example in the annals of mankind. 
 ‘Such evidence will appear more strikingly peculiar 
 
70 Concluding Remarks. 
 
 when we take into view the variety of its component 
 parts, the liability to personal weaknesses in some 
 of them, the general candour of the fundamental 
 narratives, and the spirit of hostile scrutiny which 
 has attended its progress throughout. 
 
 What in vernacular language we designate as 
 spots in the sun are ascertained by astronomers 
 to be vast tracts of inferior lustre or of downright 
 opacity, yet do we not the less acknowledge that 
 glorious orb to be the centre of light in our system, 
 a nurse of life in all its planetary dependencies and 
 a source of vivifying heat, the extinction of which © 
 would plunge us into irrecoverable destruction? 
 Supposing a far brighter luminary—the sun of 
 salvation—to be extinguished in our minds, whither 
 should we turn for a hope, however small, for a 
 glimmer of hopeful light, beyond the cold, dark 
 goal of our earthly existence? If we reject that 
 wondrous series of evidences, some single portions 
 of which go far to settle a Christian’s belief, and the 
 whole of which may truly be said to leave infidelity 
 without an excuse, what can the unbeliever offer to 
 make up for so immense a sacrifice? Senses, 
 
 faculties, affections obliterated for ever, our nature 
 
Conclusion. 71 
 
 degraded almost to a level with the beasts that 
 perish, our motives of action reduced to vanities, 
 appetites, and earthly interests —a forfeiture, in 
 short, of every promise for which saints have 
 toiled, crusaders have fought, the hermit has courted 
 poverty, and the martyr has died intortures. Such 
 and no other are the substitutes he would have us 
 accept for all the consolations, the spiritual sup- 
 ports, the ennobling convictions, and the pro- 
 spective glories of our faith. He would renew the 
 fall, and annul the redemption of our race. The 
 exchange he proposes has too much the stamp 
 of loss to engage my assent. The evidences I 
 have enumerated satisfy my reason, and the 
 hopes they warrant sustain my spirit. In them I 
 find a comfort and a strength, which in Christ’s 
 name and with God’s assistance I would fain 
 hold fast unto the end, 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 SPOTTISWOODE. AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
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