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MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
"Ev noXkoi? rtKfirjptQii." — Acts 1:3.

MANY

Infallible- Proofs,

A SERIES OF CHAPTERS

THE EVIDENCES OF GHRISTIANITY,
OH,
The Written and Living Word nf Gnd.

BY
ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D. D.

1 The writing which is written in the King's name, and sealed
with the King's ring, may no man reverse." — Esther viii: 8,

CHICAGO:
F. H. Revell, 148 and 150 Madison Street.
Publisher of Evangelical Literature.
3

Knt'-rcl according to Act of Congress, in the year iS36, by
FLEMING H. REVELL,
in the ©ITice of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

To
Charles Buncher, Esq.,
of Detroit, Mich.,
to whose
intelligent sympathy, unselfish friendship,
and appreciative hearing, much ox
the inspiration of my best
efforts, both with.
tongue and
pen are
due,
I most gratefully inscribe
this volume.

4 CONTENTS.^

INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER L PASS.
Weighing the Proof, g
PART I.
the volume of the book.
chapter ii.
The Prophetic Seal, 29
chapter iii.
The Prophecy of the Ruin of Jerusalem, 48
chapter iv.
Miracles ; Are They Possible and Probable? - 79
CHAPTER v.
The Witness of the Bible to Itself; Its Scientific
Accuracy, - 109
chapter vi.
The Scientific Proof of the Word of God, 127
chapter vii.
The Moral Beauty of the Bible, - - 145
chapter viii.
The Moral Sublimity of God's Word, - - - 163
PART II.
the divine person.
chapter ix.
Christ in the Old Testament, - - - 185
chapter x.
The Person of Christ, .... 2I^
chapter xi.
The Mystery of the God-Man, - ¦ . 234
chapter xii.
Christ, the Teacher from God, .... 265
chapter xiii.
The Originality of Christ's Teaching, - - - 283
CHAPTER xiv.
The Power of Christ's Teaching, .... 2^-j

INTRODUCTORY.

A WORD PRELIMINARY.

The writer of these pages once found himself
getting into the deep darkness of doubt. Begin
ning at the foundation, he searched for himself,
till he found the proofs ample, that the Bible is
the Book of God, and Christ the Son of God. It
was like finding one's way out of a dense wood
into the full light of day. Others are still in the
dark, and these chapters are the blazed trees that
mark the path by which one man got out of the
forest; perhaps some one else may try the same
route, with a like result.
Arthur T. Pierson.
Philadelphia, Pa., November, 1885.

CHAPTER I.

WEIGHING THE PROOFS.
The importance of the study of the Evidences
of Christianity, which establish the claim of the
Religion of Christ, as the one and only Divine
Religion, cannot well be overrated, or overstated.
All knowledge is good, desirable in itself and
desirable for the sake of the power which it adds
to character; but especially is knowledge neces
sary, when it helps either to create or to confirm
our faith in the great truths of our holy religion.
The teachings of the Bible are at once so peculiar
and so important, that it is one of our first duties
and privileges to attain a certainty of conviction
as to the divine origin of the Holy Scriptures,
and the divine character and mission of Jesus
Christ. Such certainty ought to be attainable. If any
human ruler should address to his subjects the
most ordinary proclamation, touching their duties
as citizens, those subjects have a right to claim
good plain proofs that whoever may have written
or composed that proclamation, it is by the King's
authority, and that he is its proper author. No
subject should be satisfied unless the grand royal
signature and seal are found upon the decree;
otherwise it might prove the device of some
traitor or enemy to mislead and betray subjects,
and even to overturn lawful rule.

10 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
If therefore God has given to mankind a reve
lation of His will upon matters of the first mo
ment, there can be no doubt that it is in some
plain, unmistakable way marked by His hand:
it has on its very face God's signature and seal:
there are many infallible proofs to satisfy honest
doubt. We need not fear to take strong ground and
it is especially necessary in these days. Principal
Fairbairn, in his recent address before the Union
Seminary, remarked that an entire change has
become necessary in conducting the defence of
Christianity, owing to the change of ground on
the part of its enemies. The Deism of the last
Century conceded much, in admitting the claims
of natural religion. Now everything is denied,
and everything must be proved. But allowing
this to be so, everything true must be capable of
proof. God could not ask of us anything which
is not right and reasonable; and it would be
neither reasonable nor right to ask us to take it
for granted that the Bible is God's own Book,
simply because it says so, or somebody says so,
or even because any number of people honestly
believe it. God himself gave us reasoning powers
to weigh evidence with, and he means that we
shall test truth and falsehood, proving all things
and holding fast the good.
There is a kind of doubt that is entirely right,
and of that sort is the doubt of one who does not
believe what he has no reason to believe, and
what he has no proof of, as true. The mind is
endowed with powers of investigation, reflection,
reason, that we may carefully examine into evi
dence and so decide what is true and what is

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 11
false. He speaks to our reason, who gave us our
reason. He appeals to it even in his own Word.
He bids us be ready always to give an answer to
every one that asketh us a reason for the hope
that is in us. Such an answer implies knowledge.
God himself, then, asks of us no blind faith.
We should know what we believe and why we
believe it. Nothing is to be accepted unless
based on good evidence; to believe hastily may be
to blindly embrace error and untruth. Equally
certain is it, inasmuch as God gives the Bible for
the guidance of all men, that the proofs that this
is his Word will neither be hard to find nor hard to
see; they will be plain, like the signature and seal
on the royal proclamation, to be found and under
stood by the common average man.
This is a day of doubt. Scepticism is more
than ever widespread. It is in our books, in the
conversation of our friends, in the very air that
we breathe . It is finding its way quietly into
the very churches of Christ. We must be on our
guard. I. These proofs, if they are candidly ex
amined, will cure all honest doubt. Much scep
ticism is born of an evil heart of unbelief, that de
parts from God on account of a perverse and
wicked will opposed to God. Such doubts no
amount of evidence will remove unless the heart
is changed; such doubters would not be persuaded
though one rose from the dead.
But all honest doubt will yield before the
proofs of a fact or a truth; and so there is no
excuse for doubting, where we have the means of
knowing. It is wrong to be willingly ignorant.
Whatever doubts then do not spring from a

12 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
wicked heart and unwillingness to be convinced,
will disappear when the proofs are seen and ex
amined. There have been many candid doubters, but
never one who had carefully studied the Evi
dences of Christianity. Mr. Hume confessed
himself the prince of sceptics, as Voltaire was the
prince of scoffers, and dark indeed were those
depths of doubt into which his speculations
plunged him. He said of those speculations:
"They have so wrought upon me and heated my
brain that I am ready to reject all belief and reas
oning, and can look upon no opinion even as
more probable or likely than another." And yet,
though pretending to great diligence in the
search after truth, and using all his fine powers
and culture to destroy faith in the Gospel, he
confessed, as Dr. Johnson tells us, that he had
never read even the New Testament with atten
tion. Whenever an honest doubter comes to me, I
feel perfectly safe in calmly saying, to his face,
"you have never studied the evidences, and it is
likely never attentively examined the Bible."
And that arrow never misses its mark.
Some five years since, I was brought into
contact with a man, who took pride in his scept
ical opinions and made a boast of not being mis
led by the credulity of Christians. I ventured to
take the old arrow out of my quiver. I said, "you
have never thoroughly studied the Bible, sir. "
He turned my arrow aside, saying very positively,
"you are mistaken there; for I have been familiar
with the Bible from my boyhood." And yet
within ten minutes he had shown that he did not

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 13
know the difference between Job and Lot, but
thought it was Job that lived in Sodom and dwelt
with his two daughters in the cave!
If there is one candid doubter living who has
faithfully studied the Bible and the Evidences of
Christianity, he has not yet been found. Before
this course of argument is concluded, your atten
tion will be called to two prominent Englishmen
who agreed to assault Christianity; but in order
to conduct the assault the more successfully and
skilfully, they agreed also first to examine it
thoroughly; but when they began honestly to
search the scriptures, they could no longer doubt
that the Bible was the Word of God, and so Gil
bert West and Lord Lyttleton became converts
and defenders of that same faith they were about
to attack. II. A careful study of the evidences makes
intelligent believers.
A faith not firmly founded upon good evi
dence deserves not the name of faith, for the
basis of all true faith or trust is belief which is the
assent of the mind, or understanding, to truth sup
ported by adequate proofs. Some things we
believe on the evidences of the senses; other
things, on the testimony of others; and yet other
things, on the evidence of reason; in each case
there is, at the bottom of belief, some form of evi
dence or proof. To seek to make broader and
firmer the basis of knowledge upon which our
faith rests, is to show respect for our own power
to know, and respect for the Creator who honored
us by conferring such noble powers.
If He had intended us to be mere sponges to
be put asoak by our parents or teachers in some

14 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
sort of tub, full of their notions of truth and duty,
till we should take up all we could hold, He
would have made us into sponges. But He did
mean that we should have some better reason for
our faith and hope than the fact that our parents
had just such before us, and so He made us inde
pendent, reasoning beings, who naturally ask
why a thing is so, and whether what we have
been taught, is true.
We must not even be content to believe blind
ly, for blind belief makes bigots, that hold fast to
their way of thinking, whether wrong or right,
and will not bear with any who differ. All per
secutions come in part from blind belief, some
times of error, and sometimes of truth. Hence,
to believe blindly makes us liable to believe
wrongly, and so to prolong the reign of error.
How many honest Mohammedans would there
be, if every Mussulman should first take pains to
find out whether there be any good grounds for
being a follower of the false prophet? How many
honest Romanists, if every man and woman,
brought up in the Romish communion, should
take time and trouble to examine all those ques
tions which have to do with doctrine and practice?
Error is always afraid of the light. Hence, the
people are forbidden to read books that expose
the errors of these false or corrupt religions, and
especially is it esteemed a crime to read the Bible.
The consequence of searching the Scriptures
would be the ruin of false faiths.
You call yourself a Protestant; do you know
any good reason why? Are you such because
you were brought up to be, and is that all the
answer you have to give for your faith and hope?

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 15
Then I qo not see how you can be sure you are
not as wrong and as mistaken as any Mohammed
an or pagan or papist whom you condemn.
Intelligent belief makes firm faith. St. Peter
says that the things of the Bible which are hard
to be understood, are by the unlearned and the
unstable wrested to their own destruction. Who
are the unlearned and unstable? Those who are
unlearned are apt to be unstable, for that believer
who has no intelligent reason for his belief cannot
be stable; he cannot be sure that he may not
some day lose his faith altogether.
The sponge absorbs easily, but it also gives out
as easily under a little pressure. So do the
human sponges. They take up whatever doc
trine they chance to be dipped in, and are liable
at any time when put under pressure, to give
that up and in turn take in something exactly
different; and so you will find unstable souls, so
uncertain and changeable that they believe for
the time almost anything that others about them
do. One period of life, especially, tests any believ
er. I call it the period of transition. Every
young person, especially if engaged in reading
and study, comes to a time when the powers of
reason are growing fast, and habits of independ
ent thought begin to start inquiry. The growing
mind asks a reason for things; and so important
is this spirit of inquiry, that all discovery and
invention, and all human improvements are large
ly due to it. Luther and the Great Reformation
would never have been linked in history, but for
his earnest determination to know, by independ
ent search, what is truth?

16 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Suppose, now, that in this transition state be
tween the intuitive and the rational periods of
our development, one is without a knowledge of
the evidences of Christianity. He begins to say
of one thing after another which he may have
been taught, "that is not true! I cannot any
longer believe it." He begins to untie from one
stake, but has no other to tie to; and so drifts
away from all fastenings into a general doubt, if
not denial, of all truth. Faith suffers wreck.
III. Such intelligent and firm faith helps us
to a better service; it gives the tongue of the
learned and fits us to speak a word in season to
him that is weary.
The deeper our conviction and the firmer our
persuasion of truth, the more intensely shall we
be in earnest, and it is this grand quality of ear
nestness that convinces and persuades others. In
fact, the earnestness, born of clear, deep and un
changeable conviction, is the most moving, melt
ing force this side of God. It is a fire, to burn;
a hammer, to break; a sword, to pierce. It be
comes a contagious enthusiasm which is the
mysterious secret of eloquence. Others see and
feel when you know you are right and true, and
they begin to say, "I am afraid I am not right."
There is, therefore, intense meaning in our
Lord's words: "Every scribe, instructed into the
kingdom of heaven, is like unto a householder
that bringeth forth out of his treasure things new
and old." The knowledge of divine things, that
comes by faithful study and instruction, becomes
to its possessor a treasure out of which he brings
for the instruction of others, things new and old;
and a thorough mastery of the evidences of

WEIGHING THE PROOFS, 17
Christianity will accumulate an inexhaustible
fund of facts and arguments, with which one can
not be at a loss, when meeting the inquirer or the
doubter. It is true that many an ignorant disciple has
been both firm in faith and rich in service. But,
even he has studied one kind of evidences, and it
is his knowledge of them that makes him strong.
The evidences he has mastered are those which
are understood by experience rather than argu
ment. God has made it possible for even the
most unlearned to know that the Bible is His
Word, by finding it the power of God to their
salvation and sanctification. There are simple-
minded believers who know nothing of the proofs
from prophecy and miracle, who do know that
God is faithful to his promises, and see the miracle
of the new heart and changed life actually
wrought in themselves. Christ is a living Saviour
by that most infallible proof — what He has done
and is doing for them. He opened their blind
eyes to see their sin and need, and his beauty and
love; he cleansed the leprosy of their guilt, cured
the palsy of their helplessness, and the fever of
their raging passion, and cast out the demon
from their hearts. Jerry McAuley, at whose
burial thousands lately gathered, had, in his own
conversion, as great an evidence of Christianity as
though Christ's word had raised him from the
dead! What less than the power of God could in
a moment recover such a man from a life conspic
uous for every crime, and not only set him free
from the chains of his vices, but make him an
apostle of grace to rescue other perishing souls!

18 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
But, notwithstanding it is possible to know by
personal experience the truth of the gospel by its
power, is there any reason why the other depart
ments of evidence should not be studied? Is it
not important to satisfy others? and is it not
the peculiar quality of experimental knowledge
that it cannot be understood except by our
selves? Some experience misleads, and is not a safe
guide or test of truth, until it is itself tested by
the word of God. Mr. Wesley, in his day, found
many who claimed to have such experience of
grace as to be raised above all danger, even of
sin; but he says that not one in thirty of these
perfectionists held out or retained the blessing
they claimed to have.
We should understand both kinds of evidence,
whether from argument or experiment. Need
less ignorance is not right, on matters so import
ant. Are our convictions so firm that we should
not be glad to have them take deeper root? Can
not a human body stand on two legs better than
on one? Let us seek to establish our own faith like
the very cedar of Lebanon, and so help to make
others the firmer, by guiding the honest inquirer
to the light of truth.
For the sake, then, of all who are desirous to
know the truth, let us "write the vision and make
it plain upon the tablets. " For the sake of mak
ing the disciple stronger and abler to do good
work for Christ, taking the wise in their own
craftiness, meeting the objections of the sceptic,
who, however wise in science, is ignorant of
scripture and its august claims; for the sake of
creating or establishing faith, it is of the first im-

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 19
portance carefully and candidly to study the evi
dences of Christianity.
It is but a small part of the broad territory,
however, over which we shall be able to tread,
in this little volume. Prophecy and miracle con
firm the Word; Science and Revelation are co-
witnesses to the same God; astronomy hints
His eternity, immensity, infinity; natural philo
sophy tells of His omniscience, omnipotence, om
nipresence; physiology suggests His wisdom and
goodness; the beginnings of life, of consciousness,
of intelligence and of conscience, are miracles
which cannot be accounted for without Almighty
power, and ought to make both Atheism and
Pantheism alike impossible; while the heart of
man and the history of man unite to witness to a
need and a craving never filled except by Christ
Jesus. Yet, while these firm persuasions root them
selves in the very fibers of our being, in dealing
with those who find candid doubts and difficulties
in the way of faith, we must not take too much
as granted. Without assuming much, it behoves
us to begin at the beginning, and feel our way,
step by step, guarding every statement with
scrupulous exactness, and testing arguments and
proofs with impartiality and candor.
The writer feels deep sympathy with honest
doubt, in which is found one mark of earnest
search after truth, and of which is born all reason
able and intelligent faith. He has no wish to
tilt the lance in the field of theological contro
versy, or take part in any war of words, or advo
cate any sectarian views, however popular. The
Christian religion sets up the most august claim,

20 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
yet it invites and challenges the severest and most
rigid test of proof. Let us accept the challenge
and apply the test.
Argument should be conducted calmly. En
thusiasm sometimes betrays into rash conclusions.
There is a white heat of earnestness, that comes
not of sound logic, but of mere sensibility and
emotional ardor and fervor. Persuasion differs
from conviction. Appeals to feeling often warp
the judgment; the eloquence of burning speech
sways the will and sometimes swings it to the
side of error and wrong. Conviction is wrought
of calm, cool reasoning: it waits upon sound ar
gument and rests upon logical conclusions: after
dispassionate address to the reason has produced
conviction, we may arouse the sensibilities and
mould the will into resolve. But, at the outset, the
doubter needs to be met as a doubter, with clear
analysis, exact statement and convincing proofs.
On what principles then should we study the
Evidences of Christianity?
First of all, in a truly impartial and scientific
spirit. Science is knowledge; it deals with what
is, or may be, known; compels a clear compre
hension of truths or facts; has little to do with
ingenious theories. Sometimes a shrewd guess at
truth is like a lamp, let down into the darkness, to
see whether it will show us what is in the depths;
but still a guess is a guess — a theory, a theory.
And, as much harm has been done to our Christ
ian faith, by infidels who take things for granted,
it is well not to weaken our position by assuming
even what is true.
We need not only to think on religious ques
tions with scientific exactness and accuracy, but

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 21
even to make careful statements. Daniel Webster
declared that not one man in fifty states a fact
exactly, without exaggeration or diminution; and
Burke said that every word in a sentence is one
of the feet on which it walks, and to lengthen or
shorten which may change its course.
Second, we need also concentration of atten
tion: in other words, to do with the mind what
we do with a burning glass, gather the rays and
focalize them upon one point. Without such
concentration, no acquisition of knowledge or
even application of mind is possible. If a subject
repays study at all, it rewards the most conscien
tious concentration of all our mental faculties.
Third, we need also discrimination, to learn
to distinguish things which differ, but which may
seem alike, such as facts and inferences, facts and
theories. Dr. Hopkins says, that men who are
"most reliable in observing facts are often least so
in drawing inferences. " You may depend on the
fact, but distrust the conclusions. Antecedents and
causes are not the same. Chill antecedes fever,
but does not cause it; so of blossom and fruit.
There is risk of forging artificial links. It is
alike unscientific, to join what belong apart, and
to part what belong together.
Fourth, it is absurd to demand the same sort of
evidence in Ethics as in Mathematics. The nature
of evidence is adapted to its object. Mathemat
ical evidence concerns quantity; Moral evidence
concerns the relations between intelligent beings.
You can prove, mathematically, that two and
two make four; can you prove, mathematically ,
that food builds up and fever kills, or that honesty
is a virtue. There are many truths capable of moral

22 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
demonstration, that defy the mathematical, yet
are none the less truths.
Fifth, we should cultivate scientific impartial
ity, not coming to the study of truth with a bias
of prejudice, or a preconceived theory, to hinder
impartial investigation and conclusions.
Robertson says, that critics inform Shakes
peare with their own notions, and then find in
his writings the sentiments they have put there,
as Munchausen's wolf ate into his horse, and,
was driven homeward in the horse's skin. The
Romanist comes to the Bible with a theory, and
warps its testimony to fit the crook of his dogma.
Sixth, we should avoid "begging the question,"
and therefore beware lest we assume things to be
true, which are false, or false, which are true.
Strauss, knowing that Christianity is based on
miracles, and especially the miracle of Christ's
resurrection, begins by assuming miracles to be
impossible; and says, that "whatever Christ did,
or was, he can have done nothing superhuman or
supernatural." Thus he starts by begging the
whole question at issue. To allow such an as
sumption, to begin with, compels us of course to
reject Christianity as a divine religion. It» very
basis would be fraud or at best a blunder.
A prominent pulpit orator says: "The trouble
with IngersoU, is this: he has selected the excres
cences of human life, as it has grown in churches,
and has represented the excrescences as the
essence of religion. Suppose a physician, wish
ing to get up a museum, representing the human
body in all ages and conditions, should collect
idiots and lunatics, with wens and warts all over
them. Suppose that the physician should gather

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 23
them into a museum, and say: "There's humanity
for you; what do you think of that?" That is what
IngersoU is doing in the religious world. He
says scores of true things, that have been said be
fore, but he doesn't know it. He is not widely
read in theology. I'm afraid he doesn't read his
Bible very much. What does he read it for? I'll
tell you, The doves, flying over the landscape,
see all that is sweet and peaceful, but when the
buzzard and the vulture fly abroad, the first thing
they see is a loathsome carcass, and, if it is any
where in sight, they don't fail to see it. IngersoU
sees what he is looking after. He is a turkey
buzzard ! "
Seventh, much depends upon our mental and
moral attitude, whether we are willing to be
convinced, or deliberately take a position of
hostility . Are we disposed to find harmony, or
disagreement, between the Bible and universal
truth? And if there be apparent discord, are we
willing to wait patiently, until, as in stereoscopic
pictures, we find the common focus, which brings
harmony and unity?
Goethe says: "Whoever reproaches an author
with obscurity, should first examine himself, to
know if all is clear within. In the twilight a
very plain writing is illegible."
Eighth, ridicule is not argument, and leads to
no safe conclusion. It is easy to appear to over
throw truth by ridicule. Voltaire has been com
pared to a school-boy, exciting laughter by pen
cilling a moustache on some fine antique statuary.
and IngersoU sets up a man of straw, and then
pelts it with ridicule ; and unthinking people
mistake the man of straw for a real image of the

24 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
religion of Christ, and ridicule for argument.
You might as well try to put out the stars with a
watering-pot, or cannonade Gibraltar with pop
guns and putty!
Ninth, perspicuity, both of thought and speech,
is very needful. Obscurity may mislead even an
honest man. To get hold of an idea clearly, and
then put it in the plainest, fewest words, is a great
triumph of brain and tongue. Some writers, as
Whately says in his introduction to Bacon's es
says, seem to think that it is a sign of a master
mind, when thought glooms faintly out, like stars
through a bank of fog. It is always possible, if
one has a thought worth anything, to put it in
plain words; and why not in good, homely An
glo-Saxon? At the twentieth anniversary of the installa
tion of Rev. Dr. Crosby, Rev. Dr. John Hall said
happily: "A minister ought to be a student of
the Bible, in the original languages in which it
was written; but, he should be careful to preach
in English, which his congregation can readily
understand. "
It is a sad fact that, so far as making them
selves understood is concerned, some writers
and speakers might as well be using an un
known tongue; they are, as Paul says, but as
a barbarian to the hearer. It is very foolish to
infer, when you cannot understand a man, that he
is too wise and learned to be understood. Wis
dom and learning are just what help a man to be
understood. Tenth, It is safe to distrust any argument that
insults common sense. What is called "meta
physics" is often only a beclouding of a hearer's

WEIGHING THE PROOFS. 25
mind by subtleties that are meant to confuse and
bewilder. A certain case at law turned on the
resemblance between two car wheels, and Web
ster and Choate were the opposing counsel. To
a common eye, the wheels looked as if made
from the same model, but Choate, by a train of
hair-splitting reasoning, and a profound discourse
on the "fixation of points," tried to overwhelm
the jury with metaphysics, and compel them to
conclude, against the evidence of their eyes, that
there was really hardly a shadow of essential re
semblance. Webster rose to reply: "But, gentle
men of the jury," said he, as he opened wide his
great black eyes, and stared at the big twin
wheels before him, "there they are — look at 'em!"
And as he thundered out these words, it was as
though one of Jupiter's bolts had struck the earth.
That one sentence and look shattered Choate's
subtle argument to atoms, and the cunning so
phistry, on the "fixation of points," dissolved as
into air. I have great confidence in the strong
common sense of an honest mind, feeling the
utter worthlessness of an argument, even when
unable to tell the reason why.
A christian physician, in a recent address be
fore a class graduating from a medical college,
remarked: "Doubtless some of you remember
reading, that it was the contemplation of a statue
of an illustrious member of our profession which
led Coleridge to this strong utterance, as to the
simian origin of the race: 'Look at that head of
Cline, by Chantrey. Is that forehead, that nose,
those temples, and that chin, akin to the monkey
tribe? No, no! To a man of sensibility, no
argument could disprove the bestial theory, so

26 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
convincingly, as a quiet contemplation of that
fine bust!'"
These are some of the principles upon which
we purpose to examine, at least in outline, a few
of the "many infallible proofs," that the Bible is
the Word of God, and that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. And, if no one shall find any new light,
the serene consciousness will, at least, be ours,
that we have tried to help doubting souls.

PART I

THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK.

CHAPTER II.

THE PROPHETIC SEAL.
Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, il
Peter i: 21.
What grounds are there for holding the Christ
ian religion to be of divine origin and supreme
obligation? This is the question, around which
all else clusters. The Bible is but the great
Book, and Christ, the great Person, of the Christ
ian religion.
Christian Evidences have, for convenience,
been divided into "External" and "Internal."
The Internal include the character of Christ him
self and of the doctrine and morality taught by
Christianity, its adaptation to human wants, the
unity and consistency of the Bible, and the marks
of truth, purity and sincerity in its various
writers. The External, or historical proofs, are
such as are found in man's need of a revelation
from God, and the corresponding presumption in
its favor as a fact; the authenticity and credibility
of scripture history, the argument from prophecy
and miracle as sealing and sanctioning such re
velation; the historical argument from the spread
of the gospel in the face of opposition, and from
the positive blessings it has conferred upon the
individual and upon society. From these we
shall select a few of the more prominent forms of

30 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
proof, which best suit our present purpose, and
the narrow space we have at disposal in a small
volume. Our examination naturally and properly starts
with the External proofs, for Internal evidence
largely concerns one's own experience, and can
not be appreciated, or in fact apprehended, with
out experiment. But, in order that one may be
disposed to "taste and see," he must approach
the subject from without. If the Gospel of Christ
is God's golden milestone, let me from outside by
some rational road find my way to it; then I can
stand at the milestone itself and from that, as an
inside point, take my survey.
If it can be shown that, starting from any
proper point, "All roads lead to Rome," — that
the external evidences all converge in the gospel;
that, for certain great facts and effects, no ade
quate cause can be found, except that God has
authoritatively spoken to man in the Bible and
through Christ Jesus; then how can we honestly
evade or avoid the conclusion that Christianity is
the divine religion and entitled to our homage
and obedience?
Among these external evidences two are es
pecially prominent: prophecy and miracle. Proph
ecy is a miracle of utterance. It prepares the
way for coming events or persons, and attests
them, in advance, as forming part of a divine plan,
reaching through the ages. Prophecy and Pro
vidence are, therefore, twin sisters. There is no
grander thought in this Bible than that, back of
all these apparantly capricious, conflicting and
accidental changes of human history, there is an
infinite God, whose omniscience and omnipresence

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 31
forbid that anything should escape his knowledge
or evade his power, and whose goodness assures
a benevolent design, even behind seeming disas
ter. How often do we look at human history and
behold only one awful tragedy!
"Right forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne!
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God amid the shadows, keeping watch above his own."
Prophecy, unmistakably outlining events be
forehand, shows that God is behind the curtain,
and that his hand controls and shapes the history
and destiny of men. The caprice is resolved into
a consistent purpose; the conflict is only the
apparent discord and disorder which are owing
to our partial point of view; the accident becomes
an incident in one grand, harmonious plan, where
no chance can occur. We have a Providence,
with its prevision and provision and presidence,
directing and arranging, permitting and decree
ing. But prophecy does more than assure us of
a Providence. It serves to outline the future, so
that we have glimpses of coming glory and tri
umph for God and godliness. It brings the past
and future into inseparable union with the present
and spreads the grand scene before us in its
unity. We are thus permitted to foretaste the
future: the ancient Hebrew, by the glass of Mes
sianic prophecy, beheld the Lamb of God taking
away the sin of the world, and so the cross of
Christ was borne backward through the ages, and
the atonement was a present and accomplished
fact to Abraham and David; and to us,
to-day, the prophecies of the New Testament
are the perspective glasses that bring nigh the

32 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Delectable Mountains of a completed redemption,
and make visible the towers of the celestial city!
Nothing therefore can be of more importance
to a Bible student than a mastery of the prophetic
Scriptures. Prophecies, already fulfilled, put the
clear broad seal of God upon the Bible; prophe
cies unfulfilled, serve to inform our faith as to
coming developments, and project us forward in
to the consummate wonders of the final day of
victory. Why does so much weight attach to the argu
ment from prophecy? Christian evidence is like
the holy city, which John saw, four sided, with
gates opening toward every quarter: why then
go in by one gate rather than others? We re
ply, there are indeed a score of paths by which
the advocates of the inspiration of Scripture ap
proach the heart of the theme; but the Scripture
itself makes this the grand highway of proof.
Hear the apostle Peter: "We have also a more
sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well
that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a
dark place, until the day-dawn and the day star
arise in your hearts; knowing this first, that no
prophecy of the Scripture is of any private inter
pretation (invention or suggestion) ; for the
prophecy came not in old time by the will of
man, but holy men of God spake, moved by the
Holy Ghost."
The Scriptures affirm that "the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them because they are
spiritually discerned." There are some sources
of proof, whose force can be felt only by a con
verted man. But here is an evidence which needs

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 38
for its examination only the reason of the natural
man. He is in the darkness of doubt; he has
not yet found, by faith, the personal and inward
knowledge of God. ' Here is the very light which
God gives him, to lead him to the rational con
clusion that the Bible is the Word of God, and so
prepare him for the higher guidance of faith.
Accepting the will of God and the way of salva
tion, as here revealed, he is led up to those
blessed mountain tops where the day star shines
and the day dawn breaks in a flood of glory.
The Bible presents as foremost the proof from
prophecy. Other arguments imply that we have
examined this — other proofs branch out from this
or fork from it; here is the foundation on which
other arguments rest. If the Scriptures issue from
the hand or mind of God, the seeker after truth
asks for his royal signature and seal. And
prophecy claims to be exactly this: the solemn
seal of God's own hand upon the sacred scroll.*
This, then, is the mode chosen by God to
make plain to man the fact that He has spoken.
He says to loyal subjects in His great empire,
"By this unfailing sign shall you know that a pro
clamation of my will is from my hand: through
my chosen messengers, I will shew you things to
come. " And this may well be the gateway and
highway to conviction, since it is so broad and
straight and plain that none need err. Men have
an instinctive conviction that when a future event
is clearly and closely foretold, so that no guess,
however shrewd, can account for it, and the event

* The appeal of God to fulfilled prophecy is found al'
through the Bible. Deut. xviii:2l, 22; Isaiah xli:2i to 23; Jere
miah xxviii:9; 2 Peter 1:19 to 21.

34 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
corresponds in every respect to the prophetic out
line, it is a proof of the working of some power
above nature. How natural that God should se
lect this intuitive sense as the basis of his appeal!
that he should say to men, "when I speak through
a fellow-man, he shall speak words, or do works,
plainly beyond the unaided natural power of man. "
Hence came both prophecy and miracle as the
double witness to our holy religion. These two
are closely akin. Prophecy is a miracle of utter
ance. Miracle is prophecy in action. Both im
ply supernatural power: one in words, the other
in works; and hence both carry the sanction of
God. To establish one prophecy is to carry the
whole fortress of the enemy by storm, for it
settles the inspiration of the Word of God. To
establish one prophecy of Christ is to settle not
only his authority as a teacher, but his divinity,
for it puts God's seal and sanction on Christ's
witness concerning himself. Mark his own appeal
to his prophecies: John xiv 129, "And now I have
told you before it come to pass that when it is
come to pass ye might believe."
The argument from prophecy must be a for
midable one, since the foes of our faith have di
rected their biggest guns against it. Porphyry
found such very startling correspondences be
tween Daniel's predictions and historic events,
that he saw no escape from conviction but in
denying the authenticity of the prophecy, arguing
that it was never written till events supplied the
material. Paine did not venture to deny the
authenticity of the prophecy, but simply denied
that in any proper sense it was fulfilled. Be-

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 35
tween these two scoffers, however, we have both
the authenticity and the fulfillment of prophecy
admitted. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ was so
distinctly foretold in the fifty-third chapter of
Isaiah, that Bolingbroke, in order to break the
force of the argument from this prophecy, was
forced to assert that Jesus brought on his own
crucifixion by a series of preconcerted measures,
merely to give the disciples who came after him
the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies!
You see how grand must be the power of an argu
ment, which compels infidels to invent such im
possible theories to evade the force of its mighty
appeal !
What is a prophecy? The primary idea of a
prophet is not one who foretells, but one who
"brings to light" or "makes manifest." A man
might be a prophet, while yet not foretelling any
future event. Elisha was simply an inspired
teacher, unfolding the hidden things of God.
The idea of foretelling is secondary: first, insight;
second, foresight. Very naturally God, in giving
to a man insight into His secret mysteries, might
grant insight into that future which has to do
with these mysteries; and such insight is fore
sight. Oftentimes a true insight into the present,
implies a foresight of the future as the key to
present problems.
Foresight was frequently granted to prophets,
in order to furnish additional evidence of their
divine mission and commission. But the prime
element in the prophet is capacity to teach spirit
ual truth. This discrimination is important, for
first, it leads us to look for evidence of the pro-

36 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
phetic office and authority in the very nature of
the truths he proclaims and teaches. In the
character of his message is often higher proof of
his divine calling than in miracle or prediction.
This was preeminently true of Christ, the greatest
of prophets. Secondly, this conception of the
true criterion of a prophet will lead to rejection
of any whose teachings are plainly unsound and
unscriptural, even though he might work apparent
wonders or predict future events. The Bible
teaches us to find prophetic credentials, first of all,
in this conformity of his moral and spiritual
teaching to a divine pattern. There must be
correspondence between his utterances and the
Word of God and the moral sense of mankind.
(Deut. xiii:3.)
In this law which demands, for prophetic
character and utterance, consonance with the
claim to inspiration, we find a grand factor in our
argument. God asks that His word be held to
be inspired, not only because prophetic writers
have wrought miracles or spoken predictions, but
because they spake as men would speak who were
moved by the Holy Ghost. Their teachings
present such conceptions of God and man and
their mutual relations as accord with the intuitive
convictions of man's moral being; the seal of God
is upon the very quality of their utterances.
We are prepared to follow the logic of this
position, and affirm that the prophetic office is
essentially perpetual. It may not be needful that
miracles be wrought or predictions spoken; but
he is a true successor in the prophetic office who
speaks according to the revealed word, and whose
utterance God seals and sanctions by the power
of the Holy Ghost.

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 37
For brevity's sake we confine our argument to
that aspect of prophecy which concerns the future,
and shall show how grand a confirmation of the
claims of the word of God is found in the obvi
ous foretelling of events. But first let us clearly
understand that it is not commonly the object of
prophetic prediction to inform us as to the de
tails of the future; but rather, after an event is
fulfilled, to shew that it all lay in the mind of God,
and was part of his eternal plan.*
This may explain the necessary obscurity of
prophecy. It presents a lock, for which only
subsequent history can supply the key. If pro
phetic details were clearly announced, wicked men
would be prompted, like Julian, to conspire to
defeat the prediction; or disciples might be sup
posed to combine to bring about a seeming ful
filment, in order to authenticate the prophecy.
When prophecy is fulfilled, it must be by no de
sign of men — better still, if against their design,
that it may be the more apparent that the fulfil
ment is wholly of God. For obviously, if fulfilled
by intent of man, it might be resolved into a sort
of mere collusion between prophet and those who,
jealous for the reputation of the divine oracles,
sought to bring about a correspondence with
events. The general purpose of prophecy, then,
concerns not the times in which it is spoken, since
it is yet unverified; but, when fulfilled, it proves
the God of prophecy and of Providence to be
one. It shews us Deus in Historia, a divine ad
ministration in the world; and seals, as inspired
and infallible, the teaching so attested.
* John ii:20-22, xii:i6, xiv:29, xvi:4, xx 131; Luke xxiv: 6-8,
xviii 134.

38 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
A prophecy is not confirmed as a proof of
revelation until fulfilled; and then it evidences
God's hand, in proportion to the extent and
accuracy of its predictions. A prophecy thus
unlocked by events, opens a door that no man
can shut, introducing us by a miracle of utterance
to the very presence of Him to whom all the
future is as the present, and compelling us to bow
reverently to hear what He will speak.
What now are the canons by which a true
prophecy is to be tested?
First, it must be such an unveiling of the future
that no mere human foresight or wisdom or
sagacity could have guessed it. Human beings
sometimes exhibit remarkable foresight and fore
cast, where no supernatural element exists. A
statesman might detect elements of corruption
which lead him to predict the overthrow of some
nation within a given time. Comparison of the
records of a series of years enables a weather
prophet to foretell storms, and even the compara
tive healthfulness of seasons. But back of
this there lies simply an induction from facts
and principles.
Secondly, the prediction must deal in details,
sufficiently to exclude shrewd guesswork. General
statements may be made with often a remarkable
forecast of events; but every definite, specific de
tail or description adds to the improbability of its
being an uninspired utterance, until the improb
ability becomes impossibility.
Thirdly, there must be such lapse of time, be
tween prophecy and fulfilment, as precludes the
agency of the prophet himself in effecting or
affecting the result. Otherwise the author of the

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 39
prediction might by secret, subtle means, bring
about apparent accomplishment.
When prophecy is by such marks attested as
genuine, its value as evidence is beyond words;
and the argument it furnishes is one of growing
force. The Christian faith supports its claim by
a vast number of prophecies pertaining to different
periods and persons. The argument from these
prophecies began to be of use when the first pre
diction was fulfilled; and every successive event,
which added a new feature to the profile, added
strength and weight to the argument. Prophecy
is thus at first a rill, receiving constantly tributary
streams, till it grows to a river whose grand
flood of evidence sweeps everything before it.
All through old testament times, the thous
and hints of prophecy were fulfilling. Then
Christ was born, and the most numerous and
striking of all predictions met and mingled in
Him, so that the apostles could boldly say, in
support of the august claims of the gospel whose
central figure he was: "To Him give all the
prophets witness. " No miracle, which he wrought,
so unmistakably set on him the seal of God, as
the convergence of the thousand lines of prophecy
in him, as in one burning focal point of dazzling
glory. Every sacrifice lit, from Abel's altar until
the last passover of the passion week, pointed as
with flaming fingers to Calvary's cross! Nay all
the centuries moved as in solemn procession to
lay their tributes upon Golgotha.
But that age of grand fulfilments was also the
age of grander prophecies. And so the evidence
goes on accumulating; the fulfilment of words,
long since spoken, confronts us to-day. The

40 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
histories of Assyrian lion, Medo-Persian bear,
Greek leopard, and Roman complex "beast;"
the existing facts of Tyre, Babylon, Egypt,
Nineveh; the remarkable dispersion of the Jews,
the most clannish of peoples, most attached to
their own land, rich enough to buy every acre of
Palestine with pearls, yet providentially kept out
of it till the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled —
all these, and a hundred fold more, furnish a
colossal argument for the divine origin of the
prophetic scriptures; and yet the power and
weight of this argument are growing still. Miracles
impressed the people who lived in the age of
miracles, with a power which is comparatively
lost on us by the distance of time. However
conclusive the argument from miracles, it cannot
impress us as it did those who witnessed the
works. But the prophecies, fulfilled and fulfilling
before our eyes, become a new miracle, more
conclusive and impressive every year, and adapted
to prove omsiscience as unmistakably as the
miracles of two thousand years ago proved omni
potence. Scripture is seen by us as a colossal
wheel, compassing all history with its gigantic
and awful rim, and full of the eyes that tell of one
who sees all things! You see the falsehood of the
cavil which sneers at Christian faith, as resting
on no better basis than the myths and marvels of
eighteen hundred years ago. We have before
our very eyes some of the most awe-inspiring
proofs of our holy religion. Disciples, who saw
his miracles and had evidence of the senses, left
us their witness to Christ. But, of many proph
ecies, they had only the record, while we have
the evidence of our very senses to their fulfil-

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 41
ment. Some unbelievers say, "could we see a
miracle we would believe. " But he who can see
prophecy fulfilled and not believe, is not to be
persuaded by any other miracle. "If they hear
not Moses and the prophets neither would
they be persuaded though one rose from the
dead." The Christian religion is the only religion that
has ever dared to rest its claim upon either
miracle or prophecy, The appeal to such super
natural signs is so bold, that its audacity is one
proof of its genuineness. The Old Testament,
which even the most captious historical criticism
concedes to have been in the hands of Jews at
least 200 years B. C, draws a clear, minute and
striking picture of future events, and calmly
stakes, upon the result, all its claims to a divine
origin. It challenges history, archaeology,
science, all the forms of human knowledge, to
show one instance in which prediction has failed.
This is divine boldness of appeal. There are
false faiths, like Mohammedanism and Buddhism,
that have tried to prop up their claims on pre
tended miracles, but even these have never ven
tured to frame prophecies.
Pagan religions claimed support from oracular
responses, but what a vast gulf divides them
from the oracles of God ! They were trivial in im
port and purport, not worthy to be the responses
of a divine being. The ends they served were
often personal and selfish. The influence which
secured them was unfit to move a god; it was
sometimes greed of gain, or even servile fear, to
which the appeal was made. They spoke because
the voice of authority compelled, or the offer of

42 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
gold persuaded. No poor or obscure man could
arouse the sluggish divinity. The utterances of
heathen oracles were never spontaneous, as
though inspired by a divine fulness of matter, but
were always reluctant, difficult to secure, rare and
costly. When demanded, delay was required for
preparation; and when the response was not
verified, a thousand apologies were framed for
the failure; there was on the part of the inquirer
some omission or blunder; there was some mis
take in the amanuensis who took down the re
sponse; or perhaps the Gods were not disposed
to answer. And when the best responses were
obtained they were ambiguous and equivocal.
The most famous oracles were so disgraced by
love of money that they became venal. The rich
or powerful seldom found difficulty in obtaining
favorable responses. Philip of Macedon by royal
influence and gold thus bribed the oracle; and
Demosthenes said, the Pythian goddess "Philip-
ised." A few examples may be given of the adroit
ambiguity of the heathen oracles which justified
Milton's famous line:
"Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding."
Before Maxentius left Rome to meet Constan
tine in that famous battle on the banks of the
Tiber, he consulted the Sibylline books. "The
guardians of these ancient oracles were as well
versed in the arts of this world as they were
ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned
him a very prudent answer, which might adapt
itself to the event, and secure their reputation,
whatever should be the chance of arms:"

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 43
"Illo die, hostem Romanorum esse periturum."
"On that day the enemy of Rome will perish. "
Whoever proved the vanquished prince became
of course the enemy of Rome. The defeat of
Maxentius was overwhelming; he himself, at
tempting to escape back into the city over the
Milvian bridge, was forced by the crowd into the
river and drowned by the weight of his own
armor. The general characteristics of oracles were
ambiguity, obscurity and convertibility, so that
one answer would agree with several various and
sometimes directly opposite events. To Pyrrhus:
"Aio, te. sEacido, Romanos vincere posse."
"I declare thee, O Pyrrhus, the Romans to be able to conquer."
Herodotus tells us that Crcesus, the sover
eign of Lydia, consulted the Delphic oracle as
to whether he should proceed against the Per
sians; and this was the reply, as Cicero renders it:
" Crcesus, Halym penetrans, magnam pervertet
opum vim. "
"By crossing Halys, Crcesus will destroy a mighty power."
He thought of course the kingdom would be
that of Cyrus; it proved to be his own. A third
time he consulted the oracle — anxious to be in
formed whether his power would ever suffer dim
inution. The Pythian answered:
"When o'er the Medes a mule shall sit on high,
O'er pebbly Hermus then soft Lydian fly!
Fly with all haste: for safety scorn thy fame,
Nor scruple to deserve a coward's name."
The catch was here : this " mule " was Cyrus, whose
mixed parentage had caused this opprobrious
epithet to be applied to him.

44 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Compare Shakespeare — the witch's prophecy:
"The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose."
These were mere tricks — like the veritable sign,
unpunctuated, over a barber's shop in London:
"What do you think
' I'll shave for a penny and give you a drink"
Read as an exclamation, it encouraged applicants
for a service that would cost nothing and pay
them with a dram beside. But when such gra
tuitous service was applied for, the shrewd barber
only repeated the words as a question.
What would be thought of the oracles of God
if they descended to the puerilities of an ambigu
ous riddle, that might be read both ways, and so
could not fail of accomplishment!
The extreme difficulty of framing a prophecy
which shall prove accurate, may be seen in that
familiar but crude rhyme known as "Mother
Shipton's Prophecy. " Some years .ago it ap
peared as a pretended relic of a remote day, and
claimed to have predicted the invention of steam
as a motive power, diving suits, balloons, a three
fold revolution in France; the rise of D'Israeli,
the Jew, as a figure in English politics, the erect
ion of a crystal palace, etc. After its first ap
pearance it was almost forgotten. Years later it
reappeared, with a few very slight changes in the
rhyme, such as to be scarcely noticed, and yet so
including recent events as to make this "proph
ecy" seem more startling. At times in arguing
with skeptics I was met by the statement that
here was an old ignorant woman who lived four
hundred years ago, and who had written an "un
inspired prophecy which was of undoubted an
tiquity, and however rude in shape, containing

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 45
several remarkable predictions. " So for years I
have been trying to unearth and expose what
seemed to me a huge imposture, and having suc
ceeded, here record the result. My first clue to
the forgery was the discovery that at least three
separate and different versions had been put be
fore the people. The changes or variations were
slight and sly, adroitly accommodating the pre
tended prophecy to the new developments of cur
rent history: till at last the whole thing has been
traced to Charles Hindly, who acknowledges him
self the author of this prophetic hoax, which was
written in 1862 instead of 1448, and palmed off
on a credulous public! It is one of the startling
proofs of human perversity that the very people
who will try to cast suspicion on prophecies two
thousand years old, will, without straining, swal
low a forgery that was first published twenty
years ago, and not even look into its claims to
antiquity !
The Christian religion challenges the severest
test — fulfilled prediction. It is easier to counter
feit a miracle than a prophecy; and yet this
method of confirmation, so certain to bring ex
posure to fraud, falsehood or impudent presump
tion, is the standard by which the Bible stands or
falls; on this golden strand of prophecy all these
divine precepts and promises are strung. Mar
vellous is their variety, extent and number, yet
no prediction has ever failed; and if those whose
set time has come have not failed, with what
assurance may we look forward to the sure
accomplishment of those prophetic words whose
full time is not yet!

46 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
There was a certain sublimity about that act
of the German astronomers who, at Aiken, S. C,
left the stone, on which their meridian circle rested
in observing the recent transit of Venus, to stand
for the use of those who, in June, 2004, shall need
to watch another transit. Think of it — the faith of
science in the inflexible order of nature! One hun
dred and twenty years hence — three times, at least
within that space a generation will have perished;
thrones will have been emptied of occupant after
occupant; empires will have passed away; changes,
whose number and gravity are too great now to
be conceived, will have taken place; nay, human
history may have come to its great last crisis and
the millennial march may have begun: but punc
tual to a second, without delay or failure, Venus
will make her transit across the sun's disc. So,
while scoffers sneer and doubters question, while
empires vanish and nations perish, prophecy
moves steadily onward, and nears its grand ful
filment. To a second of time and to the last
minute jot or tittle of detail, the prophetic word
shall be fulfilled.
The wise man will prepare for the sure future,
get ready and keep ready for the coming crisis.
Mr. Wiggins, in Canada, from study of the science
of storms and storm centers, winds, their circuits,
waves and tides, ventured to predict a great
storm on this planet beginning March 9th, 1883.
He made his prediction in September, 1882. He
declared that it would start in the northern Pa
cific on the morning of March 9th, strike this
continent from the south, sweep along the Atlan
tic coast on the afternoon of the 10th, traveling
westward south of the 45th parallel, and return-

THE PROPHETIC SEAL. 47
ing from the Rocky Mountain range, cross the
meridian of Ottawa, over the great Canadian
lakes, at noon of the nth. It was at best a
shrewd guess on the basis of probabilities.
Meteorology and kindred sciences are not suffici
ently reduced to a system, to enable such pre
dictions to be made with confidence. And yet
notwithstanding the doubt that overhung the
prophecy, wise men made prudent provisions
against possible disaster — the plans of thousands
were modified to meet the possible emergency
and avoid damage; ships put off their day of
sailing; excursions were deferred; exposed build
ings were sheltered and strengthened, that if the
storm should strike, it might find the people pre
pared. Such are the measures which human fore
sight and forecast suggest simply in order to be
on the safe side! What shall be said of the folly,
presumption, recklessness, that pay no heed to
the prophetic warnings of the Word of God.
That sure word of prophecy in clear terms fore
tells, beyond the certain day of death, a day
when time shall be no longer; when earth shall
be wrapped in a winding sheet of dissolving
flames; when earth and sea shall give up their
dead, and the great white throne shall flash upon
the gaze of countless hosts of our humanity —
when the books shall be opened, and the dead
judged! Have you made ready for that day?
In that storm whose thunders rend the earth and
shake the sky — whose floods sweep away the last
refuge of lies and sin — will your house stand, or
fall forever!

CHAPTER III.

THE PROPHECY OF THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM.
"And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when
it is come to pass, ye might believe. " — John xiv: 28.
One prophecy may be taken as a representa
tive of all, viz., Christ's predictions as to the
destruction of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of
the Jews. Fairly and firmly settle this, that
these words were literally or substantially spoken
by Christ before his disappearance from among
men; and we may safely risk the very fate of the
Christian faith upon the issue. For, from this
one passage of Scripture, with its parallel pas
sages,* may be demonstrated and vindicated the
existence of God, his moral government, his gen
eral and special providence, the divine inspiration
of the Holy Scriptures, and the divine character
and mission of Christ. Here, then, is the very
field on which to meet candid doubt. But in
order to a full and fair proof that history meets
at every point the demands of the prophecy, and
fills out the prophetic mould, it will be best to
call in as witnesses only the professed opponents
of Christianity, that it may not appear that the
claims of Christ and the gospel rest on the par
tiality of friends.
Any fair examination of this matter compels
us first to ask whether there be a reasonable cer-

*Matt. xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi.

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 49
tainty that these prophetic words were spoken or
written before the events occurred. This inquiry
is at the very threshold of the whole investiga
tion; to avoid it is to let everything else go
unproven. A candid criticism can the less evade
the issue, since it is forced upon us by the foes
of the Christian religion. Porphyry, in the third
century of the Christian era, made a desperate
attack upon the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
Finding in the book of Daniel a prophecy that
had been most minutely fulfilled, he first admitted
with the utmost frankness that in every particular,
history had verified the prophecy; and then
adroitly turned his admission into a weapon of
attack, arguing that a record so exact could be
made only after the events: Daniel played the
part of a historian in the mask of a prophet. If
Porphyry was the first to suggest this easy escape
from the argument of prophecy, he was not the
last. Voltaire, in modern times, has, in the same
way, admitted the wonderful coincidence between
those prophecies of the ruin of Jerusalem and the
wreck of the Jewish nation, and the actual facts;
but dexterously argues that the pretended proph
ecy was never spoken or penned until after Jeru
salem was destroyed.
As to Voltaire himself, any objection coming
from such a source has very little weight. A man
who could, in a letter to a friend, declare that
"history is, after all, nothing but a parcel of tricks
we play with the dead," and that, "as for the por
traits of men in biography, they are, nearly all,
the creations of fancy;" a man who, when asked
where he found a certain startling "fact" with
which he adorns one of his histories, replied, "It

50 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
is a frolic of my imagination ! " a man whose motto
was, "Crush the wretch!" and yet who called on
that same Christ in the dying hour; a man who,
after leading the host of sceptics and scoffers, as
the boldest of blasphemers, for sixty years, died
in agony and remorse so terrible that even the
Mareschal de Richelieu fled from his bedside,
declaring that he could not bear so terrible a sight,
and M. Tronchin affirmed that "the furies of Ores
tes could give but a faint idea of those of Vol
taire;" a man, who said to his attending physician,
"Doctor, I will give you half of what I am worth,
if you will give me only six months' life," and
who, when the doctor said, "Sir, you cannot live
six weeks," shrieked, "Then I shall go to hell,
and you will go with me!" and soon after expired;
— such a man does not add much weight to his
own objection. If a man does not feel the force
of his own argument, others can scarcely be
expected to give it much importance; and it is
but too plain that Voltaire was not an honest
sceptic, but a mocker, a jeerer, a sneerer — who,
seldom himself in earnest, invented any objection
which would serve his purpose. Yet, inasmuch
as an objection may be entitled to weight inde
pendent of its author, we shall briefly examine as
to the date of this prophecy.
If this charge of fraud could for a moment be
separated from religion, and looked at with calm,
cool judgment, without any bias of prejudice, its
inherent absurdity would be very plain. To sup
pose this prophecy to be written after the event,
is to suppose a deliberate imposture of gigantic
proportions, palmed off on credulous dupes, in
the sacred name of religion; a compound of hy-

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 51
pocrisy, forgery and perjury, such as would dis
grace even a monster like Nero. Think of it! A
man in league with two others, like himself, lays a
plot to prop up the claims of a mere pretender,
by secretly preparing a description of an event
already passed; and then by a series of lies, in
ducing men to accept it as a genuine prophecy!
Could men, who could do that, have written the
gospels? By the confession even of enemies of
the religion of Christ, these records abound in the
loftiest moral teaching, and the most sublime con
ceptions of God and duty. There must be some
consistency between a man and his work; and the
production of these gospel narratives by such
abandoned liars, is inconceivable. To believe
this requires more credulity than to accept the
Christian religion with scarce a hearing of its
claims. The supposition of intentional imposture
in the production of the gospels must be aban
doned as untenable; on its face it contradicts
great established laws of human nature; and it
supposes the whole body of believers to be im
posed upon.
The Jews were very jealous of their sacred
trust; considering it their chief advantage, that
" unto them were committed the oracles of God. "
The greatest care was used in compiling the canon.
The claim of a book to a place in the sacred col
lection was weighed with scrupulous nicety.
Many books are to-day among the "Apocrypha,"
regarded worthy of being bound up with our Old
Testament, so pure is their style, so exalted their
tone; and yet rejected as unworthy to rank as in
spired. How could Daniel's book have found a
place in the canon? The Jews must have be-

52 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
lieved in its inspired character. Had it come for
ward to prefer its claim after its so-called prophe
cies were fulfilled, the claim would have been
instantly rejected. If the book were offered to
the Jewish church as inspired before the events
which it foretold, it sustained its claim to pro
phetic character and divine authority.
Suppose something similar in our day. Let
some pious scoundrel who aspires to rank as a
prophet try the same mode of imposing on the
public. Let him write out a minute pretended
prediction of the War of the Rebellion, and at
tempt to make the world believe that he wrote it
by divine foresight a quarter of a century before
the war. How long would that pious fraud escape
detection! A thousand things would combine to
expose such a sham. Its author would have more
chance of being cannonaded as a fool or a knave,
than of being canonized as a saint. So many
features must combine to put upon such a plot
even the face of truth, that the detection of the
scheme would be morally certain. Men would
begin by asking what sort of a man is this, who
claims prophetic character? Is he a true man,
morally upright; is his word beyond a suspicion?
Is he a sane man, mentally sound, and not misled
by a delusion? Then if both his mental and
moral character were found consistent with his
claim, his prophecy would be subjected to micro
scopic scrutiny, whether it bears the internal
marks of such inspired utterances; and even if
this test were satisfactorily met, the author would
still be required to produce evidence satisfactory
to the common mind that his production was
written in advance of the events. About matters

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 53
of this sort we are not naturally credulous. The
natural jealousy of human nature makes us slow
to concede to others the high rank of prophetic
character; and we are more likely to resist the
proofs that God has chosen a certain man as a
channel of special revelation, even when the
proofs are ample, than to yield our homage to an
unworthy candidate, by a hasty admission of his
claims. Even if there were those who, within
the church, conspired to give such false prophet
a seat on the prophetic throne, their own charac
ter would awaken a suspicion of their partnership.
The exact year of the production of each of
the four gospels cannot be fixed. But the most
careful and scholarly modern criticism puts the
date of St. Matthew's record at about 38 A. D.,
and his record of this prophecy is the fullest, as
well as the first. Mark wrote A. D., 67 to 69.
Luke A. D. 63. John A. D. g5. The siege of
Jerusalem under Titus ended September 8, .70 A.
D. The earliest record of this prophecy was
therefore in writing more than thirty years before
the event, and the later records from two to seven
years before. John, the only one of the four who
wrote after the event, is the only one who makes
no reference to the prophecy , as though caution had
been used not to give occasion for the charge
that the event had given material for the proph
ecy. But a more convincing proof is at hand. The
first three centuries were centuries of both perse
cution and controversy. No weapon, whether
sword or pen, that could be used against the
cause of Christ, was left untried. Yet, although
these prophecies are familiarly quoted by early

54 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Christian writers, in support of Christianity, you
must wait till the days of Porphyry, when the
third century was in its sunset hours, before one
writer even questions the genuineness of the
prophecy! Controversy sifts, from the grain of
fact, the chaff of fiction or fancy; beneath the
eagle eye of searching investigation, prompted by
hostility, even the corruptions or perversions of
truth are discovered! Judge, then, whether a
pretended prophecy, never heard of till after the
event, would wait for three hundred years to be
called in question; while even a reasonable doubt
of its genuineness would have supplied its bitter
foes with an irresistible weapon against the Chris
tian religion! As well expect a mighty army,
under skilled leaders, to hold a walled city in
constant seige for three centnries, and not discover
weak places where the walls are propped by rot
ten timbers! God permitted those three centuries
of hottest hostility, with mighty foes arrayed
against the gospel, in order to show us that the
origin of Christianity was surrounded by no mists
of uncertainty or delusion. Her enemies, both
many and mighty, had to forge other weapons
of attack beside the audacious charge of fraud.
Some of the most remarkable of these predic
tions are even yet in process of fulfillment. For
eighteen hundred years since the tall of Jerusa
lem, the severe test of history has been applied to
this prophecy. Christ, with the audacity of one
who knew whereof he spake, challenged all the
coming centuries to break his prophetic word;
for his predictions reached far beyond the ruin of
the regal city of David. But, as the procession
of years, and even the more august centuries pass

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 55
on, like military leaders lifting their plumed hel
mets in presence of a world's sovereign, the ages,
in their turn, confess the divine character of the
prophet, who, so long ago, drew the awful lines
beyond which they even yet cannot pass. What
shall we say, then, of the crucial test of Time!
In this prophecy may the correspondence be
accounted for by accidental coincidence? To
answer this proper doubt, consider the law of
simple and compound probability. When a sin
gle prediction is made, about which there is but
one feature, it may or it may not prove true;
there is therefore one chance in two of its being
fulfilled. For instance, suppose I say, there is
going to be a very hot summer — it may be hot or
it may be mild — the chance of fulfillment is rep
resented by the fraction one-half. This is the
law of simple probability. If I introduce a sec
ond particular, I get into the region of compound
probability. For instance, suppose I say, with
out any scientific law at the bottom of my con
jecture, that June fifteenth will be very hot.
Here are two predictions; one is that there will
be extreme heat; the other, that it will be on a
certain day. Each prediction has a half chance
of fulfillment; the compound probability is one-
fourth, i. e., there is one chance in four that both
predictions will be verified. " A compound event
has therefore a chance only in the product of its
simple ratios." Every new feature added makes
the fraction of probability smaller.
In this prophecy, there is no vague general
prediction; but a startling array of minute par
ticulars. Our Lord draws the portrait of the
coming event in detail; time, place, persons,

56 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
marked circumstances, all introducing peculiar
features which leave no doubt as to our power to
recognize the event, if it shall look like its por
trait. We find some twenty-five distinct predic
tions, here, and, on the law of compound prob
ability, the chance of their all meeting in one
event, is as one in nearly twenty millions, i. e.
the fraction that represents the chance of prob
ability is one-half raised to its twenty-fourth
power or about one twenty millionth chance!
And yet every one of those features met in
the destruction of Jerusalem and never have com
bined in any other event! And in selecting ex
amples, we omit all those features about whose
exact meaning there is such doubt as to render
them unsafe guides, in our investigation. We
select only the plainer, bolder outlines which are
so strikingly fulfilled as to leave no reasonable
question of the correspondence.
One other remark should be made before we
enter on the closer study of this particular proph
ecy. There seems to be in Christ's words a
reference not only to the destruction of the city,
but to the end of the world; and so closely are
these two great events linked in these utterances
that it is a matter of doubt to Bible students,
where He ceases to speak of the lesser and begins
to speak of the greater. But need this seriously
embarrass us in studying this question? There is
a law of prophetic perspective, which all those
who scan the prophecies must understand. In a
landscape, a near range of hills may strikingly
resemble, in outline, a far more distant range of
mountains; so that, although there is vast differ
ence in their heights, and vast distance between

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 57
their ranges, the same lines would define and des
cribe them both. So in prophecy; one outline
may describe an event, near at hand, and another
of greater magnitude on the far horizon. Many
words may have designedly a double meaning,
referring immediately to some nearer occurrence,
and remotely to some other of which that is a
type; a reference here on a minor scale and there
on a major scale. Or we may call this the
law of prophetic shadows, a coming event beii»g
foreshadowed by another, the outlines of both
corresponding as do shadows and substance.
But this is rather an argument for, than against,
the divine inspiration of prophecy, since we have
a double prediction, with a double verification.
Surely if He speaks, to whom "one day is as a
thousand years and a thousand years as one day,"
we need not be surprised to find him using one
outline for events, between which there lies a
chasm of a thousand years; since to him such vast
ages seem but as a watch in the night, and all
time is but an insignificant tick in the great clock
of eternity! One very marked proof of God's hand both
in this prophecy and the history which fulfills it,
is found in the very autiiorities, who record the
fulfillment. The main account of the destruction
of Jerusalem, it it had been written purposely to
confirm the predictions of Christ, could not have
been more exactly correspondent. Its author
was the prince of the Jewish scholars of his day,
and a Jewish general who, at first, stoutly resisted
the Roman power, holding Iotapata, the strong
hold of Galilee, for forty-seven days, against Ves
pasian; in 6? A. D., he was taken captive, and

58 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
kept in bonds till Titus succeeded Vespasian in
the control of the Jewish war. He was present
at the siege of the city, and, after its downfall,
went with Titus back to Rome, where he wrote
his Annals; and Titus himself was so well pleased
with the accuracy of his history that he gave it
his formal approval and desired its publication.
This historian was of course Josephus. He was
certainly a competent witness, being very ac
complished as a man, and, about the person of the
Roman commander, having every chance for close
observation and exact information. Who will
venture to accuse a Jew, who lived and died one
of the straitest of the Pharisees, of partiality for
the crucified Nazarene or his prophecies? God
chose an enemy of the Christian faith to hand
down to us a most minute record of the fulfillment
of this most minute prophecy; so that the lead
ing though unconscious witness to Christ's pro
phetic character, is one whose testimony can
not be impeached by either Jews or Pagans!
Josephus traced no connection between the
terrible events he recorded, and the words of the
crucified Jesus; for he is constantly striving to find
some reason for the fearful judgments which be
fell his land and nation.*
Who are the other authorities, to be cited in
proof that our Lord's prophecy was exactly ful
filled? Tacitus, a Roman and Pagan historian;
and Gibbon, the prince of sceptics, the English
historian, who, even while writing to prove that
the success of Christianity might be accounted
* Comp. Wars, 754, P. vi. v. iv. where he accounts for the
ruin of the temple by the fact that the Jews had increased the
area of its courts by taking in desecrated grounds, etc., etc.

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 59
for by natural and secondary causes, was, despite
himself, compelled to record facts which prove
Christ a true prophet. Frederick the Great, on
one occasion said to one of his marshals, who was
a devout believer, "Give me in one word, a proof
of the truth of the Bible." "The Jews," was the
laconic, unanswerable reply.
Harmonizing the gospels in one complete re
cord, we find twenty-five distinct predictions, in
connection with the ruin of the Jewish capital.
We group them for convenience into classes.
I. Predictions as to pretenders to the character
of Messiah, i. They would be many; 2. Would
draw people to the desert, and secret chambers;
3. Would deceive large numbers, etc.
Before this time there had been no such thing
in Jewish history. After the crucifixion, false
Messiahs multiplied, such as Simon Magus, the
Samarian sorcerer; Dositheus, another Samari
tan; Theudas, who promised to part the waters of
Jordan like Elijah, and Josephus says, "by such
speeches deceived many. " The country was
filled with imposters who deceived the people and
persuaded them to follow into the wilderness,
where they should see signs; a great multitude
were led to the cloisters of the temple by false
prophets. "
II. Predictions of various signal calamities.
1. Wars. At the time when Christ spake,
peace prevailed both among the Jews and nations
round about. Even when Caligula's order to set
up his statue in the temple provoked resistance,
the Jews could not believe that war was imminent.
And yet Josephus says "the country was soon
filled with violence; disorders prevailed in Alex-

60 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
andria, Cesarea, Damascus, Tyre, Ptolemais and
all over Syria. " The Jews rebelled against Rome,
Italy was in convulsions and within two years four
Roman emperors suffered death.
2. Famine, pestilence, earthquake, etc. A
famine of several years duration caused suffering
in Judea, and there were famines in Italy, pesti
lences in Babylon, and only five years before the
ruin of Jerusalem, in Rome. Earthquakes are
recorded by Tacitus, Suetonius Philostratus; and
Josephus gives account of them in Crete, Italy,
Asia Minor, and one extraordinary, in Judea.
3. Fearful sights and great signs from heaven.
Josephus affirms that just before the war, "a star
resembling a sword stood over the city; and a
comet for a whole year," that a great light shone
round the altar; that the massive Eastern gate
which it took twenty men to move, opened of its
own accord; that chariots and troops were seen
in the clouds at sunset; that there was an earth
quake and a supernatural voice at Pentecost; that
a man named Jesus persisted in crying, 'Woe to
the city,' etc.
Tacitus records many prodigies that signaled
the coming ruin. Armies appeared fighting in
air; fire fell on the temples from the clouds; a loud
voice proclaiming the removal of the gods from
the temple, and a sound as of a departing host.
About the reality and miraculous nature of these
signs and sights and sounds, we cannot say; but
it is enough that both Jew and Roman were im
pressed with them as real and miraculous.
III. Signs within the kingdom of God.
1. Persecution. Did not Saul make havoc of
the church, before he was converted? Were not

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 61
Peter and John before councils and in prisons? Was
not Paul brought before kings, and he and Silas
scourged and put in stocks for their faith's sake?
Yet what wonderful power was given, before ad
versaries, to Stephen, to Peter, to Paul. None of
the apostles seem to have died a natural death but
John. About six years before Jerusalem fell,
there was at Rome a terrible conflagration of
eight days, of which Nero was believed to be the
author; and to turn the wrath of the people from
himself he put the blame of it upon the Christians;
thereupon began a persecution which even Pagan
pages blush to record. Nero drove his chariot to
the imperial gardens between rows of Christian
martyrs wrapped in their burning sheets of flame.
2. Mutual betrayal. Tacitus says at first those
who were seized confessed their sect, and then by
their indication a great multitude were convicted.
3. The gospel to be preached everywhere as
a witness. What a work to be done inside of
forty years — with no printing press to publish the
gospel, and no rapid modes of transit to make
travel easy; and foreign tongues to be learned!
And yet it was done. Pentecost, with its gath
ered representatives from all nations, hearing and
then going back to herald the good news; with
its miraculous gift of tongues, doubtless fitting
those first preachers to preach in foreign languages;
persecution, scattering the whole body of be
lievers, and setting them at work everywhere
making disciples; Peter going to the dispersed
Jewish tribes eastward — Paul to the Gentile world
westward — our Lord's words were again fulfilled.
Before the city fell, the gospel had been pro
claimed in lesser Asia, Greece and Italy — north

62 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
to Scythia, south to Ethiopia, east to Parthia and
India, and west to Spain and Britain. Tacitus
says that in the time of Nero's persecution, the
religion of Christ had spread over Judea and even
through the Roman Empire, and numbered so
many followers that a vast multitude was appre
hended and condemned to martyrdom.
IV. Signs pertaining to the city itself.
i. Jerusalem to be encompassed with armies.
2. The eagles were to gather as around a
carcase. When the Roman army drew nigh and
surrounded the city, above every floating stand
ard rose the silver eagle. Banners distinguish an
army — as its insignia; nations are known on sea
and land by their flags. The Romans are through
history so linked with this symbol that the Roman
eagles are as celebrated as Rome herself. How fit
ting as an emblem ! The eagle or vulture is marked
by three things, "strength, swiftness, ferocity."
How like vultures swooping down upon a carcase
were the Roman hosts — so strong, so swift-mov
ing, so ferociously cruel!
3. Destruction was to come as "lightning
shineth from east to west." Now, it might have
been expected, as the approach to Jerusalem was
from the seacoast, that the Roman army would
advance from west to east. Yet, as a fact, the
approach was from Olivet, on the east, and toward
the west; the lightning bolts of war which so soon
shattered the fair capital first shot from war-clouds
hovering on the eastern horizon, and their direc
tion was westward.
4. "The abomination of desolation standing in
the holy place" was a conspicuous token. Just
what this means we may not decide, but only be-

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 63
cause these words have more than one possible
fulfillment. St. Matthew's record may, by the
abomination of desolation, mean what Luke does
by the desolating Pagan army, with idolatrous
eagle standards, betokening desolation or destruc
tion, and standing on the holy ground — nay, ho
vering over the very sanctuary like unclean birds
of prey. The Jews, holding every idol an "abom
ination," besought a Roman general when he was
leading his army towards Arabia through Judea,
to go some other way, lest, by the very passage
of a Pagan host with Pagan emblems, the land be
defiled. Some things favor the reference of these
words to an army of zealots and assassins invited
by the Jews to defend them against the Romans,
and who literally stood in the temple courts and
profaned them; or, again, some think the "abom
ination" means a statute of the emperor set up by
Pilate, or of Titus set up by Hadrian, in the holy
place. 5. A trench and an embankment were to be
made around the city. Nothing seemed more
improbable and useless. In all the previous sieges
sustained by Jerusalem this had never been done.
The situation of the city and the physical features
of the country made it seem wasteful of time and
strength. The valleys that wound about the city
were a natural trench; the hills that round it rose
were a natural embankment. Yet Titus, against
the counsel of his chief men, actually built a wall
and trench five miles in circumference around the
doomed capital ; and the Jewish historian describes
the precise circuit.
6. Great tribulation was to mark the siege.
Hear Josephus: " No other city ever suffered
such miseries, nor was ever a generation more

64 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
fruitful in wickedness from the beginning of the
world. It appears that the misfortunes of all men
from the beginning of the world, if compared to
these of the Jews, are not so considerable. The
multitude who perished exceeded all the destruc
tions that man or God ever brought on the
world." It was at the Passover, when the nation
thronged its sacred capital. Nearly three mil
lions are estimated to have been in the city. The
famine was so severe that hunger drove men to
eat sandal straps, leather girdles, straw. A
mother brought to the maddened assassins who
were ready to do any violence to get food, a
half-devoured child, and bade them share with
her the lamb she had made ready! As Titus saw
the dead thrown over the walls into the valleys,
by hundreds and by thousands, he lifted his
hands to heaven to protest before God that all
this was not his doing. Josephus reckons that
130,000 perished and 97,000 were sold into
slavery. 7. The actual destruction of the city.
It was to be leveled to the ground.
Josephus tells us that three massive walls of
great strength encompassed the city; and the
garrison was ten times, in number, the beseigers.
Think of laying such walls even with the ground!
Yet, at the last, orders were given to " raze the
very foundations," and nothing was left but three
towers, and what little wall was needed, as a shel
ter to the Roman garrison, and as a specimen of
the strength of the defences, which Roman power
had laid low. The whole circumference was so
thoroughly laid even with the ground that nothing

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 65
was left to show it had been inhabited. Titus said:
" We have certainly had God for our helper in
this war. He has ejected the Jews out of these
strongholds; for what could men or machines do
toward throwing down such fortifications as these ! "
The hope of finding hid treasure moved the Ro
man army to tear up the very ground, till sewers
and aqueducts were uncovered, and a plowshare
was used to tear up the foundations of the tem
ple, thus literally fulfilling the prophecy of Micah
( 750 B. C.) "Jerusalem shall be ploughed as an
heap." The temple was to be included in this awful
destruction. The prophecy of its demolition is
the first link in this chain of predictions. After
our Lord uttered in the temple his lament over
his people who would not be gathered under his
wings, he said: " Behold your house is left unto
you desolate!" and immediately departed from
the devoted sanctuary. As they left it, his disci
ples, struck with the strange prophecy that such
a house could ever become desolate, called his at
tention, " See what manner of stones and what
buildings are here," i.e., structures even then go
ing on to completion. But he said, with more
particular utterance, " There shall not be left here
one stone upon another that shall not be thrown
down. "
This prediction was very unlikely of fulfill
ment. (a.) The walls enclosed over nineteen acres;
the east front rose to a height of one-sixth of a
mile from the vale, and immense stones, some of
them 65 feet by 8 by 10 wrought into its massive
structure.

66 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
(b.) It was beautiful and sacred, a monu
ment both of art and worship. It rose, like
a mount of gold and snow. Its carved portals,
alabaster porticoes, and golden sanctuary, won
the most rapturous praises from even Pagans. If
vandals and barbarians, in the sack of Athens and
Rome, would spare the Parthenon and Pantheon,
what might not be expected from the soldiers of
the first and grandest of Empires! Would they
not spare a structure which the proverb said, " If
you had not seen, you had seen nothing beau
tiful." (c.) It was built by Herod, a creature of Ro
man power and patronage, who was more loyal to
the conquering nation than to those with whom he
was connected, as himself a descendant of Isaac.
And he was a deferential and obsequious Roman
in spirit, who built cities to perpetuate Caesar's
name, and who tried to make Jerusalem a second
Rome. To prostrate Herod's fane, was to lay one
of Rome's very master-works in ruin.
(d.) And then Titus was mild, humane, cul
tured, a commander who would not be likely to
favor it, who in fact forbade such wanton destruc
tion. The temple was once put out by his orders,
but fired again when his back was turned.
V. Christ's predictions, however, assured the
safety of his disciples. " There shall not an hair
of your head perish."
The fact is remarkable enough that in such
universal slaughter not one disciple should perish;
but more remarkable that it was after the besieg
ing army should surround the city that they were
to have opportunity to withdraw. What a strange
signal for flight, when the hosts were already cut-

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 67
ting off every escape ! And yet this was Christ's
token to his faithful followers that desolation was
nigh, imminent. They should yet have chance to
flee, if done with haste; there would be opportu
nity, but it would be short.
Hear again the Jewish annalist: " Cestius
Gallus, after beginning siege, mysteriously with
drew, and without any reason in the world, and
many embraced this opportunity to depart; a
great multitude fled to the mountains." At this
crisis, as we learn from church historians of the
first century, all the followers of Christ took refuge
in the mountains of Pella, beyond the Jordan, and
there is no record of one single Christian perish
ing in the siege! As soon as the armies returned,
the city was surrounded by a wall, and all hope of
flight was now cut off.
VI. Prophecies respecting subsequent history.
i. The doom of the Jews; they should fall
by the edge of the sword, and be led captive into
all nations. Even before the city fell, an immense number
of deserters, falling into hands of the besiegers,
were sold with their wives and children. Nearly
100,000 from Jerusalem alone, were sold into
bondage. 6,000 choice young men from Tarichea
were sent to Nero, and 30,000 from the same
place sold beside. The tall and fine looking were
borne to Rome to grace the triumphal entry of
Titus: many sent to the public works in Egypt;
many more distributed through the provinces in
to all nations, to be slain by gladiators or by wild
beasts. And so it has been from that time until
now. The sword is not yet sheathed, nor are
the chains of their captivity broken.

68 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
2. The doom of the city: To "be trodden
down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gen
tiles be fulfilled."
Here are three particulars: desolation, by the
Gentiles, and continued until the Gentile world is
brought to the knowledge of the gospel and the
Jews are reclaimed.
To this day, the city has been trodden down
by the Gentiles; and though the Jews have made
desperate efforts to get control of their ancient
capital they have never been re-established yet.
About 64 years after their expulsion under Titus,
the city was partly rebuilt by the Emperor Had
rian, and a Roman colony settled there. On
pain of death Jews were forbidden to enter, for
bidden even to look from a distance on the city.
The suspicion that the holy place was to be de
filed by idol images provoked them to revolt, but
they were crushed with awful slaughter. Again,
in the time of Constantine, they made a vain at
tempt to regain possession. At last they felt
sure of success; for they had permission from
Rome to rebuild. Julian, the apostate, bound to
break down faith in this very prophecy, backing
up Jewish zeal with Roman arms, wealth and
power, undertook to restore the temple and ritual
and plant round it a Jewish colony.
To show how strangely this project was frus
trated, let us quote Gibbon.* "The vain and
ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore
the ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. As
the Christians were firmly persuaded that a sen
tence of everlasting destruction had been pro
nounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic
* 11 436. 9-

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 69
law, the imperial sophist would have converted
the success of his undertaking into a specious ar
gument against the faith of prophecy, and the
truth of revelation. He resolved to erect without
delay on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a
stately temple which might eclipse the splendor
of the church of the Resurrection on the adjacent
hill of Calvary; to establish an order of priests
and to invite a numerous colony of Jews. At
the call of their great deliverer, the Jews from all
provinces of the empire assembled on the holy
mountain of their fathers; and their insolent tri
umph alarmed and exasperated the Christian in
habitants of Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding
the temple has in every age been the ruling
passion of the children of Israel. In this propit
ious moment the men forgot their avarice and the
women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes of
silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and
the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk
and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal
contributions, every hand claimed a share in the
pious labor; and the commands of a great mon
arch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole
people. But the Christians entertained a natural and
pious expectation, that in this contest the
honor of religion would be vindicated by some
signal miracle. "An earthquake, a whirlwind
and a fiery eruption which overturned and scat
tered the new foundations of the temple are at
tested, with some variations, by contemporaneous
and respectable evidence. This public event is
described by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in an
epistle to the Emperor Theodosius; by the elo-

70 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
quent Chrysostom who might appeal to the mem
ory of the elder part of his congregation at
Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, who pub
lished his account of the miracle before the ex
piration of the same year. The last of these
writers boldly declared that this preternatural
event was not disputed by the infidels, and this
assertion strange as it may seem is confirmed by
the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus
Marcellinus." This philosophic soldier records,
that "whilst Alypius urged with vigor and dili
gence the execution of the work, horrible balls of
fire, breaking out near the foundations, with fre
quent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place
from time to time inaccessible to these scorched
and blasted workmen; and the victorious element,
continuing in this manner obstinately and abso
lutely bent, as it were, to drive them always to a
distance, the undertaking was abandoned." "Such
authority," adds Gibbon, "should satisfy a be
lieving, and most astonish an incredulous mind."
In a note, Gibbon attempts to explain all this by
a long confinement, in the grounds beneath the
temple ruins, of inflammable air, exploded by the
torches of exploring workmen, etc.
Jerusalem has emphatically been trodden
down of Gentiles. Not to speak of the destruc
tion, when Pagan hosts trampled it under foot
with the iron hoof of war, for sixty-four years it
was occupied only by a Roman garrison. Had
rian's partial rebuilding was designed as desecra
tion. He called it vElia Capitolina (a name
compounded of his own family title JEYms, and
Capitolina, a name applied to Jupiter from his
temple on Mt. Capitolinus). To Jupiter Capitol-

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 71
inus he consecrated the new city and built a tem
ple to that Pagan God over the sepulchre of Christ.
He set up a statue of Venus on Calvary — and the
marble image of a swine — the peculiar abomina
tion of the Jew, over the gate that opened toward
Bethlehem. The sacred site remained thus more than des
olate, and known by its pagan name till Helena,
the mother of Constantine, made a pilgrimage to
it in 326. Justinian, in the sixth century, repaired
and enriched its churches, founded convents, and
built a church to the Virgin on Mt. Moriah. But
all this, though acceptable to Pope-dom was pro
fanation to the Jews: the city was still trodden
down of Gentiles! In 610 A. D. it was stormed
and greatly damaged by the Persians, who for a
short time held it.
In 637, under Caliph Omar, the Saracens took
possession, and for more than four centuries the
Arabian, Turkish or Egyptian Mohammedans
continued to tread down the doomed capital. In
1073, the Selzookian Turks took it, whose cruel
ties to Christian pilgrims provoked the first cru
sade; and July 15, 1099, the crusaders taking it
by storm, made it the seat of a Christian king
dom, allowing only Christians there. In 11 87 it
was conquered by the Egyptian Sultan Saladin.
For upwards of half a century it was like a toy
tossed to and fro, between Christians and Turks,
till 1244, since which date it has remained under
Moslem sway, and the very fact of a mosque,
crowned with a crescent, rising where the temple
stood, is enough to show how profanely even
Moriah is still trampled under foot of Gentiles.
We appeal to' every candid mind, whether the

72 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
continued desolation of Jerusalem is not one of
the historic marvels, we had almost said miracles.
Consider the remarkable preservation of the Jew
ish nation — though scattered everywhere, still
keeping their national traits and unity as a peo
ple, mingling but not mixing with other peoples
— consider their religious tenacity and zeal for the
ancient city and demolished temple — consider
their great numbers and vast wealth, one family
of Jews controlling enough capital to buy all Judea
— consider that if any one thought and desire en
grosses the Jewish mind it is to be re-established
in the city of David — and can any human philoso
phy account for the fact that for eighteen centur
ies this desolation lasts!
VII. Our Lord's prediction limited the open
ing act of this drama of the ages to the lifetime
of the generation then living.
The days of our years are three score years
and ten, and it was seventy years after Jesus was
born when Jerusalem was destroyed: or if we
take thirty-five years as the average life time of a
generation, it was just about so long after these
words were spoken when their awful fulfillment
began. VIII. Christ foretold these as days of ven
geance (Luke xxi: 22), /. e., of avenging or
retributive justice. All should be plainly the
judgment of God upon the sin of Christ's rejec
tion and crucifixion. An attentive student of
history cannot but see God in history. There is
at times such a striking, startling correspondence
between the form of sin and the form and even
time of its punishment, that men are constrained
to say like Pharaoh's magicians: " This is the

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 73
FINGER OF god!" If the destruction of Jerusa
lem is to be recognized not as an ordinary calam
ity but a peculiar interposition of God, in just
visitation of the crime committed by the Jews in
crucifying his own Son, there will be some fea
tures about it which plainly exhibit its retributive
character. How is it?
The Jews put Jesus to death at the passover;
at the very season of that annual festival, thou
sands of them were put to death.
They clamored for the release of a robber and
murderer that Jesus might be slain; they became
the prey of robbers and murderers, in the siege.
They crucified Jesus, outside the walls; and
outside the walls they suffered crucifixion in such
multitudes that room was wanting for crosses, and
crosses for bodies.
They mocked and derided their Messiah, even
as he stood helpless before the tribunal or hung
in agony on the cross; they were crucified in
every conceivable posture, affixed to the crosses
in modes so various that it was as though "done
in jest." They reckoned Christ, the faultless one, a
malefactor, and their own dead bodies were flung
over the walls like the despised carcases of crim
inals refused an honorable burial.
To convict Christ, they procured false wit
nesses, who perverted his prophecy of his own
death and resurrection into a declaration of the
destruction of their temple; and the perjured tes
timony proved unconsciously prophetic — the tem
ple was destroyed. From Olivet, Christ uttered
the sad prediction, and from Olivet moved the
flock of 'eagles' to pounce on the carcase.

74 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Pilate sat in the court of the castle of Antony
to condemn Jesus to death; and from that very
point was made the last and successful assault on
the temple and city.
They intimidated Pilate by pretending great
loyalty to Caesar, whom they claimed as their
only king; and under his imperial sway their
nation was broken into fragments by the very
hosts of Caesar.
They rejected the true Messiah with his
mighty works as well as words; and lent them
selves as silly dupes to the control of Messianic
pretenders and false prophets.
When Pilate declared Christ innocent and
sought to release him, they assumed all responsi
bility, saying, 'his blood be on us and on our chil
dren,' and that very generation gave their blood
for his. Never was there any imprecation more
prophetic. An individual may have his retribution' be
yond this life, for he lives beyond this life. A
nation, however, is a temporal state, and its sins
must be avenged, if at all, in this world. "Insti
tutions are mortal: men immortal: the historical
temporal judgment is of institutions and of or
ganisms: the final judgment is of individuals,
each one giving account of himself unto God."
Can any candid mind consider the crime
of the Jews and the calamities that followed ex
actly in accord with prophetic predictions, and
see in these marvellous correspondences no sign
that God had their sin in mind in bringing on that
very generation such pathetic but poetic retribu
tion? This wonderful witness to the divine inspira-

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 75
tion of the gospels also attests the divine charac
ter of Christ, whose own words were: "And now
I have told you before it come to pass that when
it is come to pass ye may believe. " He claimed
Divine Sonship and Messiahship: and to verify
his claim, uttered a prophecy so minute that no
chance coincidence can explain it. How may we
evade conviction?
As Porphyry did with Daniel — even so we
may do with Christ, deny his prophetic character,
make both the prophecy and the history the fair
masks covering the most hideous and devilish
plot ever devised to ensnare the credulity of
men. We may, in other words, coolly and sneer-
ingly say, "the prophecy was never written till
Jerusalem was in ruins." But when men use such
an argument as this in answer to such a mighty
array of facts and truths, it must be because they
feel their cause to be desperate. They violate all
the common laws of historic criticism and evi
dence, for the sake of NOT being convinced. For
no adequate motive or reason can be assigned for
this wholesale and reckless denial of historical
testimony, but a determination to oppose the
Christian religion. Here is the argument, un
masked: "If this prophecy was recorded before
the event, Jesus Christ must have been a genuine
prophet. We are not willing to accept him as
such. Therefore these words were not written
until after the fall of Jerusalem!"
The same methods will make havoc of all his
tory and all testimony, leaving us certain of noth
ing — all the facts of the past become the fancies
of dreamers, or the fictions of liars. We are asked
to escape the credulity of faith by running into

76 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the trap of more credulous doubt and denial — for
the sake of disbelieving Christianity, to believe
that men wrote the most pure and faultless records
known, full of the sublimest moral teachings, and
died rather than renounce their faith; and yet
were only trying to get others to believe a cruci
fied and dead traitor to be yet alive — slyly manu
facturing prophecies of events already passed, in
order to prop up his claims to divine honors!
When Mephistopheles, in Faust, is asked his
name, he says he is the " spirit of negation " or
denial! Nothing is easier than to deny what you
cannot disprove; and proof, if it had on Mercury's
talaria, or the seven-league boots of yore, never
could overtake the spirit of negation. Suppose a
case: an astronomer announces to-day that he
has by means of a new instrument greatly superior
to the telescope in power, found inhabitants in the
moon. You deny it; pronounce it impossible,
because there is no atmosphere in the moon, etc.
But Prof. Watson or Peters has saiti so. You
reply, " I don't believe it." It is proved to you
that he said so. " I don't believe he is a thor
oughly competent astronomer. " It is proved that
he is. " I don't believe that he is honest; he is
fooling the scientific world; it's a hoax." It is
proved to you that he is incapable of trickery.
" Well, he is insane. " It is proved he is sane.
" Well, his new instrument fools him," etc. How
long would it take for truth to come up to such
reckless denial? Yet men affect surprise that be
lievers do not run after all the various forms of
denial which impeach the truth of the Bible!
Infidelity begins this race by a stride so monstrous
as to ask us to believe that a man that could write

THE RUIN OF JERUSALEM. 77
such a book as " Daniel " or the " gospels " could
be a perjured hypocrite, and attempt to concoct a
fraud, beside which Jo Smith's Mormon Bible is
nothing. This method of wholesale denial is one of the
conspicuous weapons of modern scepticism.
Nothing is easier than to discredit a fact or a
truth; to confound denial with disproof, and to
substitute unanswerable sneers or cavils for an
swerable arguments. We hold up such a prophecy,
and side by side its corresponding fulfillment. A
skeptic denies the fulfillment. If we prove the
correspondence between prediction and event, he
denies the prophecy; it was not written till after
the event. We bring witnesses to show that the
prediction preceded the event; he denies the
truth or competency of the witnesses, claims they
were mistaken; or, like Hume and Strauss, as
sumes miracles of knowledge or of power to be
impossible, and asserts that no testimony can
establish what is impossible! All argument be
comes impossible with such antagonists. Bacon
says: " I cannot reason with a man unless we can
find a common footing in agreement on first
principles. "
We have promised our reader to deal with this
theme calmly, as a surgeon in the dissecting-room
uses the lancet and scalpel, with scientific steadi
ness of hand. Perhaps we have not done it, but
it is because we cannot. The surgeon may be
pardoned if his head is hot and his hand trembles
as he uncovers the vital organs of his own child
to discover disease, especially if it is a living child
and not a dead body which he touches with the
keen blade!

78 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
The gospel of Christ we cannot discuss with
out deep feeling. All we have, or hope, in this
world and the next is bound up with it; he who
touches, even with irreverence, this sacred faith,
wounds us in the quick of our being; he who in
sults and assaults it, thrusts his steel into our
very vitals. And it is a mystery that any man,
whatever his own creed may be, can take delight
in demolishing faith in others, and even ruthlessly
blaspheming a name that is above every name to
them. It is perhaps the mark of current infidelity
that it makes its disciples malignant. Were one
speaking to an audience of Musselmen, why shock
them by insulting and blasphemous allusions to
their Koran and Prophet? Let hin ather calmly
conduct them to a better sacred Book and sacred
Person if he can. It is no sign that our faith is
feeble or our faith weak, if, when a ma- publicly
tears the Scriptures to tatters and spits in the face
of the Christian's God, and bows in mock homage
before the crucified One, we shrink and turn
pale. The believer cannot be indifferent to any
thing which concerns Jesus of Nazareth.
We have pointed to the burning bush of pro
phecy with its many branches, wonderfully bud
ding and blossoming into historic events. Well
may we remove the shoes from our feet; the place
where we stand is holy ground; that glory is the
glory of God. If the reader sees no radiant light,
let him ask himself whether he is WILLING TO SEE.

CHAPTER IV.

MIRACLES: ARE THEY POSSIBLE AND PROBABLE?
"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by
miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the
midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. " — Acts ii: 22.
What i$ a miracle? Definitions lie at the basis
of all discussions, for they define or limit the
ground which argument is to cover; they set
bounds within which we both keep ourselves and
hold our opponents. This is of as much conse
quence in debate as it would be in a contest
between athletes to settle the rules of honorable
championship. Much importance attaches to a definition.
Carelessly to accept a false premise may compel
us to admit a false conclusion. A whole building
is made unsafe by a treacherous foundation. If
we begin with a wrong or faulty definition, we
unsettle our whole argument.
If a miracle be defined as a " natural impossi
bility," how shall we meet those who, like Hume
and Strauss, first assume miracles to be impossi
ble, and then ask triumphantly whether any testi
mony can establish an impossibility? It is very
plausible to start by assuming a miracle to be
a violation of natural laws; next, assert the uni
formity of those laws as a fact and a necessity to
the very stability of the system of nature; next,
to argue the absurdity and impossiblity of volun-

80 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
tary violations of those laws by the very Creator
who fixed them as ruling forces; and so conclude
that no testimony can establish a miracle.
A miracle, in a Scripture sense, is simply this:
A wonder and a sign. Its sole use is this, that
God appeals to it as a sign of His power. This
is the reason why it must also be a wonder.
Were there nothing in it that strikes the mind as
out of the common course of nature, or beyond the
power of man, it could not be used by God to
produce the impression and conviction of His
presence and power. It need not be on the
grandest scale; it need not call God's power into
its fullest exercise; that might be a waste. All
that is necessary is that the act or occurrence shall
be sufficiently wonderful to show that God's hand
is in it, and its end is accomplished. So must it
be wonderful, as out of the common course, that
it may arrest attention.
A miracle must combine both these elements.
It may be that you either mark a wonder which
is not a sign, or a sign which is not a wonder; but
neither is a miracle, because it does not meet both
conditions. For example, sunshine is a wonder,
and no familiarity with the daily mystery of the
morning and the evening can take away the ele
ment of the marvelous. A vast globe, fifteen
hundred thousand times the volume of the earth,
gives to it life and heat and motion, at a distance
of more than ninety millions of miles. If that
bush in the desert of Horeb was wonderful, which
burned with fire and was not consumed, what
shall we say of a sphere of fire which six thousand
years of unceasing combustion has not even re
duced in size! Yet we do not call the sun a mira-

MIRACLES. 81
cle, for God does not appeal to it as a special sign
to confirm His word or show His power in con
nection with human agency. The rainbow is a
sign, to which God appeals, as a token of his cov
enant with man that the flood of waters shall not
again deluge the earth. Yet we do not call that
a miracle, for it is not out of the common course
of nature, and does not arrest the attention of
men as showing a power above nature.
Let us then fix firmly in mind that when any
occurrence is sufficiently out of the natural or
usual order to indicate a sure interposition of a
power above nature and above man; and when
God points us to such an occurrence as a sign that
He is speaking by man, we have both conditions
necessary to a miracle. It must be above the
power both of nature and of man. Nature repre
sents blind, mechanical force, acting without intel
ligence. All nature's operations are marvelous,
but not miraculous, for they move in the line of
fixed laws. Man represents intelligent, intellect
ual force; all man's operations are marvelous, but
not miraculous, for they move in the line of fixed
laws — laws of mind as well as of matter. In order
to a miracle, a marvel which shall show the power
of God, there must be some proof of the inter
vention of an influence that is neither limited by
the laws of matter nor by the laws of mind.
How will such proof or sign be likely to be
furnished, if at all? There can be but one an
swer: There will be an interruption of those fixed
laws which we have seen to guide the movements
both of matter and mind. The objection urged
against miracles, as an interruption of fixed laws,
is not well taken. If there be a miracle at all, it

82 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
must invade the fixed order; otherwise, however
it might impress as curious or even marvelous, it
would become no sign of a presence or power
greater than those forces which obey the fixed
order, and which we call mechanical, because,
like the movements of a machine, they cannot act
outside of fixed limits.
Suppose an ignorant and superstitious savage
suddenly, as in sleep, transported to the very
centres of the highest civilization! He stands be
side a railroad track, and the iron horse rushes
by. He looks with amazement at the rapid revo
lution of the driving.wheels, and the majestic
movement of that symbol of mechanical omnipo
tence. He falls down to adore, but you arrest
him. You tell him that is not a God; it is simply
a machine; it moves according to a fixed law, and
within the limits fixed by the rails, which also
represent law. He cannot believe it. How shall
you convince him? There is but one way. Show
him that there is a power above the engine that
can change its course; invade what appears to be
a fixed order and a uniform law of its motion;
and, if he have mind enough to appreciate your
method of proof, he sees that the engine is a ma
chine, and nothing more. You show him how,
by the hand of the engineer, its motion is ar
rested; how, by the hand of the switch tender,
its very track is changed at will; how, by the
turn-table, its direction is changed; how, by
quenching its fires, it can be made motionless and
inert. Now, mark, you have given him a sign
that some power greater than the engine is pres
ent, by interfering with its ordinary and uniform
course. A very ignorant man knows that it is of

MIRACLES. 83
the nature of a moving body to move on in one
direction. When a moving body actually stops,
backs, turns about — when all its ordinary move
ments are reversed, we conclude there is a power
above the mechanical — and we call that power
intelligence. If God gives us a similar sign of
His presence, it must be in such a way as to show
a power, not only superior to blind mechanism,
but even to human intelligence; and that can be
done only by some process which seems to reverse
the ordinary laws both of matter and mind. We
say, "seems to reverse," for it is not necessary
that any law be either violated or suspended: let
it only be plain that the divine engineer is guiding
the engine, to convince me that he is present;
and my need is met, though I may not understand
the complex system of laws which has a place for
the miracle.
Let us take note that, after all, in even a mira
cle there may in fact be no real invasion of the
order of the universe. When the engine backs,
wheels about, changes track, it as truly obeys
law as when it moved on straightforward; there
is, however, an intelligence guiding the machine,
and bringing a new law to bear upon its motion.
How do we know that a miracle invades or inter
rupts nature's fixed order? What if it be the
engineer, the intelligence of the Creator, simply
bringing a new set of laws to bear upon the uni
verse? When the secret things are revealed, we shall
doubtless find that there are in this universe of
matter and of mind two planes for the operation
of law. One is the ordinary plane, the lower
level, where everything moves in a uniform line

84 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and method; another, the extraordinary plane,
the higher level, where the special intervention of
the engineer introduces, for wise reasons, a new
force not commonly in operation.
It may be safe to take still more positive po
sitions than these. Every act, by which intelli
gence voluntarily interrupts the working of me
chanical law, has in it the essence of the miracu
lous, on a smaller scale. For example, you
throw a ball through the air. I put out my hand
and catch it. It would have continued to fly,
till another mechanical law which we call gravita
tion, bringing it to the earth, had arrested its mo
tion; but a different agent has been brought to
bear; a voluntary, intelligent force suddenly puts
forth its energy and controls the working of a
blind, mechanical force. There is no disorder in
troduced into creation, but there is a new power
at work, which shows an intelligent agent.
What does God, in a miracle? Let us sup
pose it literally true that the sun stood still while
Joshua fought the Amorites, and that this is not
a poetic description, from "the book of Jasher,"
of a prolonging of daylight. The mechanical
law would require the continued march of the sun
through the heavens: but there comes in the vol
untary, intelligent force to control the working of
the blind and mechanical, and show the presence
of the divine agency. Is not this occurrence like
the other, but on a grander scale suited to prove
the power of God?
Lazarus died and was buried. The operation
of mechanical laws would bring decay; but a new
force, voluntary and intelligent, controls the me
chanical, and there is no decay. At the word of

MIRACLES. 85
the Son of God the breath returns. Man cannot
restore the dead; yet he can revive a body out of
which breath has fled, where there is no pulse,
and where even animal heat is scarce left, as in the
recovery of one who has been drowned. The liv
ing embraces the lifeless, warmth goes from one
body to the other, breath passes from one to the
other. All this could not be accomplished by
mere mechanical force. Leave that body to the
operation of natural law, and there will be no
breath nor pulse. But bring a voluntary, intelli
gent force to bear in time, and the decree of
death, ordained by mechanical law, is reversed.
We do not bring the resurrection of Lazarus
down to the level of the resuscitation of one who,
after apparent death from drowning, is brought
to life. Our object is to show that, in our ordin
ary experience, the will of an intelligent being
arrests and reverses the action of mechanical law,
proving the presence of a superior agency, with
out any violation of the real order of nature. And
may not a miracle simply be, on a scale suited to
the grandeur of God's activity, the will of an in
finite intelligence, arresting and reversing the
action of mechanieal law, proving the presence
of a superior and supreme being.
Dr. William M. Taylor has happily illustrated
the consistency of miracles with the uniformity of
law by a reference to the Holly system of water
works. The engine, which furnishes the pressure
for the water supply, is so arranged that the de
mand regulates the supply. According to the
rapidity of the discharge at the hydrant, is the
rapidity with which the pumping engine works.
Then, when a fire in the town subjects the appa-

86 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ratus to a very unusual tax, a signal in the engine
room, acting automatically, causes the engineer
to gear on some reserve power, always ready for
use; and so, even in an emergency, there is pro
vision for ample supply. And yet all this is a
mere triumph of mechanics. Now let the ordin
ary working of the machinery represent the com
mon course of nature: and the intelligent, per
sonal intervention of the engineer, in an exigency,
the personal interposition of the sovereign of the
universe in the crises of affairs; and you have
almost an analogy, refuting the objection on a
scientific basis.
Lacordaire, in his conferences, finely satirizes
this modern scientific doctrine of the helplessness
of God. A woman cries out from the slums of
Paris for light and help. God answers, " I would
gladly help you but I cannot. I have established
a fixed order of things and I have limited myself
to its working. Prayer is of no use, you must
submit to the fixed order."
If this view of miracles be sound and sensible
it knocks away the prop from the main objection
urged against miracles. Sceptical persons say:
"I can't believe that God would first make laws
for nature and set them in motion, and then go
on and violate His own laws. What would be the
use of making them, if He himself would break
them or so easily suspend or set them aside?"
We meet the objector on the very threshold, and
honestly dispute his position. Is a miracle a
violation of the laws of nature, or is it only such
an interference with the established course of
things, as infallibly shows us the presence and
the action of a supernatural power?

MIRACLES. 87
I have a watch here — when wound up it runs
straight forward until it needs winding. By a
fixed law, in conformity with the very structure
of the time piece, its hands move only in one di
rection, while they move at all. Yet, when I find
that it is too fast I move the hands backward; I
interrupt the usual movement, but I violate no
law. The watch could not have turned back its
own hands and corrected itself, bnt a superior in
telligence interferes for a proper end. Have I
suspended or violated any law? or have I simply
brought a new law to bear which, though not in
ordinary operation, is entirely consistent with the
laws which govern the movements of the watch ?
As I examine more minutely into the structure of
this delicate piece of mechanism, I observe a re
markable fact: the maker of this watch has made
provision for just such a rerersal of that law, by
which both minute and hour hands move only
forward. He has provided for a backward move
ment, when the intelligent owner chooses, with
out any interference with this exquisite arrange
ment: while I turn back the hands I disturb no
wheel, and there is not even one tick the less: and
yet, left to itself, the hands of that watch never
could change their direction of movement. Who
is competent to say that, when God reverses the
hands on the great dial of nature, He has made
no provision for such reversal?
II. If we may concede the possibility, may
we not also, the probability of miracles?
These two questions are by no means the
same, even in substance. Many things are possi
ble that are not probable. God has power to do
things, without number, which he never did and

88 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
never will do. He never acts without a reason.
He does not waste power by useless expenditure
of omnipotence. If, however, there is such a use
to be made of miracles as amply justifies the put
ting forth of such power we are prepared to find
them actually used.
In the natural world we find wonderful marks
of design. Wherever there is a socket there is a
ball to fit it and make the joint complete. If you
discover any apparent lack, something wanting
to render nature's arrangement and adjustment
perfect, further search will always reveal some
thing else exactly adapted to supply the want.
Years ago, in the astronomical world, it was
found that certain changes are taking place which
threaten the very existence of the order of the
universe. For example: the orbits of the planets
are inclined to each other by an angle which does
not remain uniform. From the earliest ages the
inclination of the earth's equator to the ecliptic
has been decreasing, say about half a second a
year. Should this decrease continue, in about
85,000 years the equator and ecliptic would coin
cide, — the order of nature would be entirely
changed, and the succession of seasons would give
place to one unchanging spring. But in fact, by
and by this decrease will reach its limit, and the
angle of inclination will then increase, and so the
seasons will keep revolving, and seed time and
harvest time shall not fail. God has provided a
compensation for what at first seemed a disturbing
cause, and as by the chronometer balance in a
model time piece, regularity of movement is
insured, in the end. The action of this compen
sating law may consume two hundred milleniums,

MIRACLES. 89
but this shows nothing more than the vast scale
on which this machine is constructed.
So as to the changes in the angles under which
the planetary orbits are inclined toward each other.
Should these inclinations increase, the stability of
the system would be impossible ; order would give
place to disorder, and the cosmos finally return to
chaos. Even such men as Humboldt have been misled
into the prediction of a universal catastrophe. In
his Cosmos he predicts the end of all things as
surely coming, however remote from our day.
The balance would be destroyed, wheels become
dislodged, and the whole'grand mechanism grind
itself to atoms by its own collisions. Even
astronomers and philosophers stood aghast at the
prospect of such a final wreek and ruin. But the
eyes of science continued to watch and search.
And lo, it was found by Lagrange that these
changes are like the movements of a pendulum
which swings to the end of its arc and then swings
back again, never once passing its proper and
prescribed limits. How grand this conception!
Think of a clockwork so magnificently vast and
complicated that every tick of this pendulum rep
resents millions of years! Yet what confidence it
inspires in the Maker, when we find that, for
every disturbing force, though, for periods too
vast to be measured by time, it may seem to be
driving the universe toward ruin, God has placed
there another force or law to restore equilibrium
and keep harmony!
So in the spiritual world we shall find no lack
unsupplied. As surely as there is a need for
miracles, the need will be met. Can we forsee

90 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
that there would be need? Remember that a
miracle is an occurrence so marked in its depart
ure from the usual order of things as to be to men
a sign of God's special power.
Let us suppose that we are all now living in
the very year when Jesus Christ first appeared
among men as a public teacher. The old Jewish
church is corrupt and virtually dead. Even its
beautiful forms of faith and worship are like the
radiant skin of the serpent, when the living ani
mal has cast it off and gone elsewhere; or like
the " dead leaf retaining the form of its former
self but performing none of its functions," a mere
skeleton without the currents or even colors of
life. Men grope in darkness and groan for light.
The wise men of the East are waiting and watch
ing for a star which may guide to the day dawn.
Let us suppose that God is purposing to give
to men some clear and complete knowledge of
His will. He might do it by a human teacher,
like Plato ; but how would mankind know that it
is God who speaks? There have been many men
who claimed to speak for God, and among them
all we find it not easy to choose. All of them
say something worth hearing, and perhaps some
thing which is not unworthy to be a word from
God; but even in the best of these teachers so
much is at best uncertain, that it cannot be the
utterance of Him who never makes a guess at
truth or duty.
Now if God does speak to man, as to the
grandest themes to which man can give heed, it
is all important to hear and recognize God's voice,
and know that it is God. Man has no right to be
satisfied without proof that God has spoken; for

MIRACLES. 91
he may be imposed upon and so misled into error
and wrong doing. If anything is plain it is that
I have a right reverently to ask for unmistakable
evidence that the God of the universe is address
ing me.
How shall He satisfy such honest doubt? By
any method which shews that it is He who is ac
tually revealing himself. If He shall choose to
come down, as on Mount Sinai, and in a voice of
thunder speak, till in terror we cry out, "Let not
God speak to us lest we die ! " we shall be satisfied
that it is He. If He shall choose to appear, as to
Moses, in a flame that burns a bush without con
suming it, His whisper will be as convincing as
the thunder was before; for we shall know that
something more than a flame must be making that
bush radiant and glorious. It is the fact of marked
departure from the ordinary course of things,
which arrests the mind and impresses it with the
presence and power of God. There is an instinct
ive or intuitive conviction that where there is such
a departure from the natural and usual order, God
must be especially present and working. Nico
demus said to Christ, "We know that thou art a
teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest except God be with him."
There is the argument for miracles, and from
miracles, in a nutshell. Where miracles are, we
feel that God certainly is. And to meet this nat
ural need of some clear proof that God speaks to
us, it is probable that if He does speak through a
man, that man will do such works as prove to all
candid minds that he comes with the authority of
God. Miracles are simply God's signs that authority

92 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
comes with his messenger- When a minister or
ambassador claims to represent the Court of St.
James, the first inquiry is for his credentials. He
may be a gentleman, scholar, statesman, hero —
all this does not secure his reception as the repre
sentative of a foreign court. Nor should it. It
is august business to stand in the stead of an em
pire that belts the world — on whose realm the sun
never sets — whose beck makes the world tremble.
When such ambassador meets our President and
Cabinet in council, it is as though the British nation
stood there in all the majesty of her greatness
and power; and therefore we rightly require of
such an ambassador credentials, so plain as to for
bid a doubt of his mission and commission.
Miracles are simply the credentials of God's spec
ial representatives, and their probability is estab
lished the moment we concede the grandeur of
the occasion when the Lord of the universe de
clares His will, and the imperative necessity that
we shall not mistake His true messengers.
This is the precise test which the word of God
authorizes us to apply. Throughout these sub
lime pages there is but one uniform testimony on
this subject. If any prophet arises, any religious
teacher claiming to speak in behalf of God, this
is the sign by which he is to be known: he shall,
in his words or works, or both, shew that a power,
beyond that of man, is moving in him and through
him. What kind of words will answer these con
ditions? Not words of wisdom, only, however
wise; for they would not prove that he who
speaks is more than the wisest of men: not words
of truth, only, for we cannot say how much truth
a mere man may be able to discover and declare.

MIRACLES. 93
But, if this teacher shall foretell future events; if,
like Elijah, he shall correctly prophesy a drought
of three years, to begin and end only according
to his word; men will say, this is more than human
wisdom. Thus Samuel, even when a child, and
after the prophetic fires had seemingly died out
on the altars of Israel, was established as a prophet
of the Lord — he declared, what no mere man
could foresee or foretell, the sudden and terrible
destruction of Eli's two sons: and when this awful
word was fulfilled, all Israel said, the Lord is with
him. So may a teacher from God shew his creden
tials in his works, by doing anything which plainly
shews a power above man. While the wonders
which Moses wrought at Pharaoh's court were
successfully imitated by the magicians, they car
ried but little weight; but when the rod was
stretched forth and smote the dust of the earth so
that it became lice in man and beast, and all the
power of enchantment could not even imitate the
miracle, even the magicians said unto Pharaoh,
" This is the finger of God!"
III. If on any basis, we concede that mira
cles are possible and probable, they may certainly
be most naturally expected, if the Son of God
actually comes among men. The evidence will
be on a scale correspondent with His dignity and
majesty. Now look at His miracles. The first of them
was the changing of water into wine at Cana.
Nature does that every season. By processes that
are the wonder of all ages, and a mystery even to
the learned, she gathers from air and earth the
secret of their moisture, and by the marvelous

94 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
action of roots and sap-ducts, distils it into the
grape; then by the aid of air and light and heat
and actinic ray, slowly changes the acid liquid
into delicious nectar. By no artificial process has
man been able to imitate the juice of the grape.
He must wait on the vine, as his laboratory.
When Jesus, by an instantaneous process, and
without approaching the pots, changed water into
grape juice, doing in a moment what nature does
only in months, and doing it without her appa
ratus for distillation, He showed to those present
that He knew nature's secrets and could, without
her aid, work the same results; and so He showed
himself the God of nature, and "manifested forth
His glory. " If you mark closely you will see in
His recorded miracles ^progressive character, and
a gradual unfolding of His real self. The second
miracle was one of healing and showed power
over disease; the third, the miraculous draught,
showed control over the animate creation; the
fourth, the casting out of the devil, showed His
power over demons; and so his miracles grow in
importance, till the rising of the dead proves His
control over death and decay.
Now, whatever may be said of miracles, as a
sign that God spake by ordinary men, if ever a
crisis justified them, it was when, last and best of
all, God sent His only Son. We are justified in
expecting that God's seal-ring will be on His fin
ger. And, so, when John Baptist from his cell
sent to ask him for signs of his Messiahship, He
replied by referring to the grand scale on which
he was wielding the power of God: "the blind
see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the
dead are raised up!" He wrought miracles, not

MIRACLES. 95
to gratify curiosity; but to satisfy the reasonable
demand for evidence that His power was divine.
Did His miracles give certain proof of the pres
ence and power of God? Let us see.
The famous clock in Strasburgh Cathedral has
a mechanism so complicated, that it seems to the
ignorant and superstitious almost a work of super
human skill. The abused and offended maker,
yet unpaid for his work, came one day and touched
its secret springs, and it stopped. All the patience
and ingenuity of a nation's mechanics and artizans
failed to restore its disordered mechanism and set
it in motion. Afterward, when his grievances
were redressed, that maker came again, touched
the inner springs and set it again in motion, and
all its multiplied parts revolved again obedient to
his will. When thus, by a touch, he suspended
and restored those marvelous movements, he
gave to any doubting mind proof that he was the
maker — certainly the master, of that clock . And
when Jesus of Nazareth brings to a stop the
mechanism of nature, makes its mighty wheels
turn back or in any way arrests its grand move
ment — more than all, when he can not only stop,
but start again, the mysterious clock of human
life, he gives to an honest mind overwhelming
proof that God is with him. For a malignant
power might arrest or destroy, but only He could
reconstruct and restore!
IV. The argument for the credibility of mira
cles is grandly conclusive and magnificent in the
scope of its horizon: in fact its very extent is
embarrassing; but the main difficulty is that it
must embrace in its wide range the entire ques
tion of the credibility of gospel history. If the

96 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
writers of the New Testament are to be believed,
then we are just so far on the road to believing
their accounts of miraculous works. If their
narrative is, for any reason, unworthy of credence,
of course the credibility of the miracles which they
record need not engage our attention. There is,
however, a general question that can be examined
without the extended argument on the credibility
of the Scripture history, viz., is the account of a
miracle, in itself, credible?
The foes of Christianity have wit and wisdom
enough to see that they may as well give up the
fight, unless they can break down the evidence of
miracles. Let them allow that one miraculous
work has been wrought, and there is a fatal breach
in their wall of defense; for, if one miracle has
been wrought, others may have been — if miracu
lous works, why not miraculous words? and so
prophecy, as well as miracle, is conceded. And
of what use to oppose a system of religion, but
tressed up by both prophecy and miracle! No
wonder the entire force of infidel argument, the
whole mighty host, is massed and hurled against
this giant fortress of our faith, and that every pos
sible weapon of wit and wisdom, ignorance and
learning, science and philosophy, sophistry and
fallacy, is forged for this combined assault. Here
is the Marathon, the- Thermopylae, the Waterloo,
of the ages.
And what is their grand plan of attack? They
boldly unite in this assertion: that no testimony
can prove a miracle; the)- attempt to undermine
and blow up the ver)- foundation of all arguments
for the credibility of miracles by claiming, as
though it were a self-evident truth, that a miracle

MIRACLES. 97
is incredible. This is a desperate measure, but
it is becoming to a desperate cause.
Where a man voluntarily assumes a position
like this, in order to make all argument impossi
ble, there is no more hope of convincing him of
the truth than of expanding or dilating the pupil
of the eye by pouring more light upon it; bigotry,
whether in believers or unbelievers, hates light,
and grows narrower and more contracted as the
light increases in intensity. But for the sake
of candid minds, in danger of being misled by
plausible sophistry, let us examine this infidel
position. Is there anything incredible in a miracle? Of
course, if it be established at all, it must be by
the evidence of the senses to immediate witnesses;
and by their testimony to others who do not have
the proof of the senses.
Are we to accept testimony on this subject?
All questions of historic fact must be settled only
by testimony: many matters of scientific fact
are settled by testimony, for thousands who have
no time, knowledge, opportunity for personal in
vestigation; and yet we feel certain of historic
facts and scientific discoveries.
Of course, if miracles wrought by Christ, and
by prophets and apostles, are to be made credible
to us, it can be by no other evidence than that of
testimony. On what basis, then, rests the asser
tion that miracles are not credible? Are they not
supported by testimony? Are there no witnesses?
Are the witnesses not competent or trustworthy?
If these were the ground of the attack, it would be
easy to show how unsafe and unsound it is; for if on
any subject, we have abundance of testimony and

98 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
that of the most credible sort, it is with respect to
miracles. No other religion ever dared to make its ap
peal to miracles, and to rest its appeal on miracles!
Where and when miraculous wonders have been
claimed, it has not been as decisive signal tests,
by which the claims of such religions should
stand or fall. It is one thing to challenge an un
believer to try a religion by its miracles, and quite
another to ask a believer to accept them as part
of a system in which he already believes. A man
may not marry a woman because of her poverty
or her fortune, or a wen on her neck, who will, if
he first loves the woman, take her with poverty
or wealth, and wen beside.
When a religion approacnes a man and boldly
says: " God bears me witness, both with signs
and wonders, and with divers miracles," it meets
him with a challenge; it bids him dispute its
claims if he dare, by first disproving its signs if
he can. But when a man has already become a
disciple, for example, of Mohammed, he is dis
posed to receive his miracles as genuine without
any witness but his word; and so the religious
system instead of being based on these miracles
as its proof, rather becomes the basis which sup
plies them with proof. But Christianity starts
by bidding us apply these severe tests. If we can
even disprove one miracle, the resurrection of
Christ, St. Paul confesses that the whole structure
falls; " our preaching is vain; your faith is vain."
The grandeur of this bold challenge to try the
Christian faith by the test of miracles, needs to be
appreciated. Mohammed did not claim miraculous powers,

MIRACLES. 99
though, centuries after, they were claimed for him;
and such marvels as he did impose on the credu
lity of his followers, he took good pains not to
make dependent on any other testimony than his
own. But see how audacious the challenge of
our Lord: " If I had not done among them the
works which none other man did they had not
had sin! " And none of these things were done
" in a corner," but openly, in temple courts, on
public streets, by lake shores, before thousands.
Mohammed might tell of Gabriel's night visits
and his own night journey; of the celestial deliv
ery of the divine book, in fragments, till the Mo
hammedan bible was complete; but who was there
to prove or disprove his testimony? But Christ
moved, during at least three years, among men
publicly, and every step marked by words and
works such as never before or since challenged the
faith of man. These miracles could not be as
cribed to natural causes; they were such as ad
mitted of the test of the senses; they were so
public as to command universal attention; and
they were of such various character as precludes
the notion of deception or delusion. Their num
ber, the instantaneous and complete character of
the cures he wrought, and the absence of one
failure in the attempt even to raise the dead, put
infinite distance between these miracles and the
pretended wonders of this or any other age,
where those who claimed to have been cured, at
sight or touch of sacred relics, were the few ex
ceptions to hundreds of disappointed applicants
for healing virtue.
No confirmation of the miracle of scripture
is more remarkable than the silence of ene-

100 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
mies; nay, we have more than silence — confession
of the fact that they were wrought. Let us re
member that, from the beginning, the founder of
this great religion was the focal centre of all the
intensity of human hate. All eyes turned to him
and subjected him to microscopic scrutiny.
Forgeries of any kind, though as well done as
the poems that Chatterton, feigned to have found
in old St. Mary's, are sure of detection sooner or
later. No forgery is so difficult as that of miracles,
especially when publicly wrought, under the scru
tiny of keen-eyed foes. Yet, though there was
every motive for overthrowing them if possible,
and although they were constantly appealed to as
known facts, they went unchallenged! In days
of persecution, thousands suffered torture and
death, where, to have confessed the miracles of
our Lord to have been impostures, would have
been deliverance, — and yet no disciple ever made
a confession such as this!
Most remarkable of all, even the Jewish Rabbis,
in the Talmud, acknowledge these miracles, but
pretend they were wrought by magic or by the
use of a secret charm which Jesus stole out of the
temple. Celsus, learned and able as he was
among the assailants of Christianity, both allows
the facts of the gospel history and concedes that
Christ wrought miracles, but ascribes them to
magical arts learned in Egypt. Hierocles, the
persecutor, does not deny these miracles, though
he ridicules the idea of worshipping Christ. Ju
lian, the apostate, confesses that Christ cured the
lame and blind, and cast out demons, but thinks
these works did not make him worthy of such
fame.

MIRACLES. 101
Modern foes of Christianity do not venture
often to attack our faith from this quarter; it is
too well defended. No, they put on the air of
gracious, condescending concession: they allow
the testimony to be honest and ample, but mis
taken. Mr. Hume's fertile and ingenious mind
suggests a short path by which to escape the ne
cessity of faith: "deny that any testimony can
prove a miracle," and it is done! And the modern
sceptic is tempted to ask with Isaac, when Jacob
got ready his venison so soon by making a tame
lamb from the fold answer for a wild deer from the
fields, "how hast thou found it so quickly, my
son!" It must be confessed that Hume's argument is
very plausible and subtle. "Nature's laws are uni
form; miracles imply a violation of that uniformity
— it is easier to believe a hundred men honest but
mistaken than to believe one such absurdity to be
possible!" No room remains for the exposure of
the sophistry of Hume's argument. Already it
has been partly answered by showing that a mira
cle is not a violation of natural laws. But a few
suggestions may be added.
One of the hinges of Hume's argument is this,
that a miracle is contrary to experience. Of
course if miracles were not contrary to our com
mon experience they could have no power as a
sign of divine interposition. But were they con
trary to the experience of those who witnessed
them? If I am to believe nothing that is con
trary to my experience, the door is shut to all
grand discoveries, and corrections of erroneous
opinion. The savage in equatorial Africa is justi
fied in denying that water is ever solid so that its

102 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
surface will sustain many tons, for it is contrary
to his experience: and if he sees the magnet lift
and hold a heavy weight without hands or visible
means, or a balloon inflated with hydrogen gas
dart upward with heavy ballast in the basket, he
is justified in disbelieving his own senses, for his
experience of the uniformity of nature's laws is,
that what is heavy falls to the earth. And here is
a suspension of the laws of gravity.
This objection argues absurdity: for it renders
incredible all exceptions to the otherwise uniform
experience of men. This is unfair. On a basis of
simple science, when any new fact contradicts our
hitherto uniform experience, instead of denying
the fact, we make our science broader, and look
for some new law or force, unknown or not under
stood before. Just this, God means we shall do
when we behold a miracle: stop and ask what
new force is at work, which is not found in the
ordinary uniform operation of mechanical laws:
and what means this intervention of a superior
hand to control and reverse nature's ordinary
movement. Hume's argument will have little weight with
those who understand Mr. Hume, and see how
he was forced by his own philosophy to this posi
tion. One of his unfortunate admirers acknowl
edged that the disposition to doubt everything
was so interwoven with his whole character, that
he seemed to be uncertain even of his own exist
ence. He was the modern Pyrrho, and not an
unworthy successor of that ancient doubter who
was not sure of anything — who did not know
anything, and was not sure he did not know —
who doubted whether even the world itself were

MIRACLES. 103
not an illusion, and whose friends accompanied
him in his walks lest he should doubt the reality
of a precipice and so walk off its edge to his own
ruin. Hume's arguments failed to satisfy his own
mind. Hear his own words speaking of his spec
ulations: "They have so wrought upon me and
heated my brain that I am ready to reject all be
lief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion
even as more probable or likely than another.
Where am I or what? From what causes do I de
rive my existence, and to what condition shall I
return? Whose favor shall I court, and whose
anger must I dread? What beings surround me,
and on whom have I any influence, and who have
any influence on me? I am confounded with all
these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the
most deplorable condition imaginable, environed
with the deepest darkness and utterly deprived of
the use of every member and faculty."
It partly refutes Hume's view of miracles to
show how he came to hold it. His theology com
pelled his scepticism; his denial of miracles was
necessary unless he gave up his philosophy. To one
who believes in a personal God, who may for good
reasons interfere with nature's ordinary processes,
miracles are not incredible; but an Atheist, Pan
theist or Deist must deny the possibility of mira
cles. For if, behind and above nature, there be
no intelligent, divine, controlling hand, the very
existence of the universe depends on the abso
lute uniformity of nature's laws and processes.
Mr. Hume was a Deist. He traced the various
effects of nature to a uniform series of causes: no
interruption could be supposed to occur, for there

104 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
would be nothing to restore order and harmony.
It is well to have provision for that extra pressure
in the water works, if there be an intelligent per
son there, to determine when to gear on the spare
machinery, and to disconnect it when the need of
it ceases: but, if the machine should have no
brain behind it, it would not do to allow such
extra pressure, for the machine cannot restore it
self to its ordinary and uniform working — and to
have fourfold pressure when the hydrants are
closed would destroy both machinery and dis
tributing pipes. For Hume to admit miracles
would be to admit a personal God — back of a
nature's enginery, an engineer whose power and
intelligence first fixed the uniformity of nature's
ordinary workings, and who if he chooses to
bring some new force to bear, can disconnect it
when his purpose is answered. Hume's argument
against miracles was not simply the result of can
did reasoning, but a manufactured theory invented
to fit into his deistical philosophy.
I am prepared to prove that his dishonesty
in the matter lies even deeper, in a deliberate de
termination to oppose the claims of the religion
of Christ. I quote his own words, that it may
be seen how he contradicts himself. After
boldly saying that "a miracle supported by any
human testimony is more properly a subject of
derision than of argument,'' he says, "I own "that
there may possibly be miracles of such a kind as
to admit of proof from human testimony;" and
then imagines a case of miracle, so attested by
competent witness that philosophers ought to re
ceive it as certain. And then mark how he sneaks
out as by a trap door, lest he be caught in his

MIRACLES. 105
own admissions. "But should this miracle be
ascribed to a new system of religion, men in all
ages have been so imposed on by ridiculous
stories of that kind that this very circumstance
would be a full proof of the cheat! "
Verily, a Daniel come to judgment! Here is
a learned man, a prince among sceptics, who says
in one breath that "no kind of testimony for any
kind of miracle can possibly amount to a proba
bility, much less to a proof:" then, in another
breath, concedes that "there may be miracles of
such a kind as to admit of proof from human
testimony, and be received by philosophers as
certain;" and, yet in another breath, hastens to
say that if such miracle be used as a sign of a di
vine religion we must again reject it!
The jewel of consistency evidently burns very
dimly in the diadem of this deist: a miracle can
not possibly be credible, yet it may be credible;
and again even a credible miracle may be also
incredible! The fact is Mr. Hume was bound to
overthrow Christianity, and he would hesitate at
no violation of logical consistency, or moral can
dor, to avoid giving the religion of the Bible a
show of support. If one should descend to such
unfairness in dealing with religious doubts and
difficulties, he would be met, and deserve to be,
by a pelting hail of hisses.
Let one guard be put about what has been
said, to prevent perversion. Some, in arguing
for the truth of Revelation, start by proving mir
acles to be credible, and inferring the doctrine to
be divine because so sanctioned. But this is by
no means the whole truth. Our Lord himself
did not seek to force a faith or even conviction

106 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
upon the minds of men whose hearts were hostile
to Him and his work. If a man, by his bondage
to his philosophy, or to an accusing conscience, or
to selfish interests, is predisposed and determined
not to see that Christianity is of God, no amount
of evidence will convince him. Sight does not
reach a shut eye, which is for all purposes of see
ing, a blind eye. The heart makes the theology.
If a man comes to the Bible with open eye he
will find two influences operating together to pro
duce conviction. First he will find such truth and
such a person there as dispose him to expect di
vine credentials: and then he will find divine cre
dentials disposing him to believe the truths and
the person to be all that they claim, essentially
divine; the written word and the living word of
God. And many an examiner of Scripture scarce
knows which way conviction first takes hold of
his mind, that Christ must be a divine being;
whether from his teaching and life; or because
His wonderful works reveal His divinity. You
stand in sunlight and you are at the same moment
dazzled by its brightness and thrilled by its warmth.
Whether you were conscious of light or heat first,
you scarce know. You approach the Bible; there
breaks upon you a sense that you are walking in
light: if there be truth anywhere it is here. You
find a record of miraculous signs, confirming the
teachings of the book of God. Whether the
signs lead you to look at the truth, or the truth
leads you to expect the signs, you cannot tell.
"It becomes easier to believe in the miracles,
because of our personal faith in Him as a being
of whom such extraordinary deeds might be rea
sonably expected, than to believe in Him primarily

MIRACLES. 107
on the ground of His having exercised miraculous
powers." Some have been drawn to the cradle
of this wonderful child by seeing His star in the
east, and being prepared to find the holy One, by
the signs that herald him. Others first found Him
at the cross, and, when the precious drops fell on
them with cleansing, healing power, could well
believe the story of the magi.
We have no hope of convincing a sceptic sim
ply by miracles. But, if in a candid spirit any
man will search the Scriptures, he shall find that
they testify of Christ, that Christ is a witness
unto Himself. There have been those who, like
Gilbert West and Lyttleton, have started to lay
hands on Him as an impostor, but who approach
ing Him through the paths of Scripture study
have, when their eyes rested full on His blessed
person, seen the divinity flash forth even through
the veil of humanity, and, like the soldiers in the
garden, have gone backward and fallen to the
ground. They started to oppose: they stopped
to espouse and embrace.
Every study of the Bible is a study of the
evidences of Christianity. The Bible is itself the
greatest miracle of all, and the Son of God more
wonderful than any of the wonders that confirm
His claims. The believer feels this in every fibre
of his being. Rob me of miracles and of proph
ecy: you have not robbed me of Him. Before
Him I bow, because of what He is. The morn
ing star pales and fades at sunrise. There is a
glory, in the presence of which all else is dim.
And if you will come and stand in the radiance
of that presence, with eye unveiled by wilful hos
tility to light, and wait there until you are bathed

108 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
in the glory, filled and thrilled by the love and
life that come in the same beam with the light,
you shall need no starry miracles to herald the
morning, and assure you that He, who can impart
to you the knowledge of God and the peace of
God, can be no other than the Sun of Righteous
ness!

CHAPTER V.

THE WITNESS OF THE BIBLE TO ITSELF — ITS
SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY.
"Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." — Psalm
cxix : 89.
This sublime assertion of the eternal stability
of the Word of God is "Luther's text. " He had
it written in charcoal on the walls of his chamber,
and wrought in embroidery on the dress of his
servants. Earthly changes reach not the heavenly
sphere; and there the Word of God is settled, far
beyond the reach of disturbing causes. Even
progressive Modern Science, which has unsettled
the notions of centuries, is unable to prove the
testimony of God's Word to be false.
The Bible is a very remarkable book, from
whatever source it has come. One of the princes
of men, the light of the fourth century, whose
oratory gave him the name of Chrysostom, "the
golden mouth," and whose virtues made him the
admiration and terror of the corrupt court of
Eudoxia — such a man, himself one of the fore
most scholars of his day, has given to the Bible
its very name, "'H Biblos" — the Book!
In every work we see the workman — his skill
in handling tools, his inventive genius in planning,
his taste in arranging and adorning. The artist
breathes in his canvas and speaks in the marble.
If there be a work of God, we expect it to express

110 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and exhibit him. You go to St. Peter's Cathe
dral; you stand beneath that vast dome, prepared
to feel a sense of awe at the grand proportions
and exquisite decorations — for Michael Angelo
designed and adorned it. And when, in the hush
of midnight, you look up into the dome of heaven
and see thousands of lamps that burn for whole
milleniums unconsumed, and shine at a distance
beyond calculation — when you remember that that
streaming banner of light, the "Milky Way," is
myriads of stars, in close ranks, like countless war
riors, so that you see only the lines of light flash
ing from their silver helmets, you are prepared to
believe that God planned that concave, and wrote
his own name on it in letters of light. "The heav
ens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
sheweth his handiwork. "
So, if this book be the Word of God, we shall
find in it proof and mark of a divine mind and
hand. There will be a grandeur in the sweep and
span of its teachings which reminds of the arch of
the firmament — a glory about its facts and truths
which suggests the radiance of suns and stars;
there will be that which is too high for our attain
ment, and too broad for our measurement. God
will compel us to say, "Hath not my hand made
all these things!" The Bible asks you to try it by
this test: Does it bear marks of a more than hu
man mind? If there be nothing in it inconsistent
with a merely human origin, it is idolatry to call
it the Word of God — to treat it as of divine origin,
and yield it divine honors. But if there be here
such a gigantic structure of truth as that not even
a race of Titans could have built it; if its basis is
laid deeper than man ever dug, and its pinnacles

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BI3LE. Ill
rise higher than man ever reached, how are we to
escape the conclusion and conviction that its au
thor and maker is God?
The Bible has always been the focal point of
all controversy; for it is the very key of the whole
system of Christianity. To carry this by storm,
or undermine it, is to take Christianity at its cen
tre; and the outposts follow the fortunes of the
main defenses. Of late, the form of attack and
the tone of assault have changed. Infidelity is
rarely insulting, contemptuous. It is rather plaus
ible, patronizing. It used to pound the Bible
with denunciations; now it pats the Bible and
says, "Really a very fine book, but by no means
faultless!" Dr. Pressense says of Renan: "He
very skilfully undermines Christianity while pro
fuse in its praise; he buries it in flowers. He comes
to the tomb of the Saviour not to weep and wor
ship like the women of the gospel, but to stifle
with perfumes and spices any lingering spark of
life in the religion of Jesus. He does not deal a
blow with a sharp sword; no, he embalms. But
the result is the same as though he made a violent
attack. "
Modern scepticism, with the lofty air of pro
found learning and philosophic doubt, approaches
the Divine Word. Under pretense of a careful,
conscientious, impartial investigation, as though
reluctant not to believe that the Bible is all it
claims to be, it applies its strictly scientific tests,
and, like a physician who feels a feeble pulse,
sounds a decayed lung, or tests a diseased heart,
turns away with a sigh of disappointment and an
ominous shake of the head. And yet the more
we see of scientific and philosophic scepticism,

1?.2 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the more we are satisfied that, like Lord Nelson,
it covers the only sound eye, and declares it can't
see with the blind one. Underneath all this as
sumption of judicial coolness and fairness we
detect voluntary suppression of the truth, partial
pleading, desperate corruptions of the doctrines
and perversions of the facts of Scripture, and the
same hot hate of the religion of the Bible, the
same passion to overthrow it, the same resolute
hostility to everything supernatural, as in the
bolder and more defiant forms of attack. You
may find this plausible scepticism in the sanctum
of the editor, the silver tongue of the orator, the
chair of the university professor, and even the
pulpit of the nominal preacher. The Bible is, by
the confession even of sceptics, the best of books,
and, on the whole, most marked by all that gives
permanent value; but they would have us believe
that it is scarcely abreast with our advanced age,
and that its claim to infallibility is absurd.
But the Bible accepts no patronage, no hesi
tating homage, no qualified encomium. Submit
the Word of God to any and every test which is
possible and proper — intellectual, moral, philo
sophical, ethical, literary, or scientific. If, onany
rational ground, it does not stand the test, it must
fall; if it has no granite buttresses, it is folly to
attempt to support its tremendous claims to divine
authority by any rotten props of our own.
Of all tests, the scientific is the most unprom
ising; for here, if at any point, we may expect to
find the Bible weak, exposed to successful assault.
That is a grand fort which has no angle which its
guns do not fully command. Even firm friends
of the Bible show some little apprehension when

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 113
we talk of applying scientific tests; when science
comes, as with crucible and lancet, to try its se
vere processes on the Word. But even at this
weakest point, God's Word is too strong for the
combined strength of all its foes. From this an
gle, as well as every other, its guns command the
approach and make a clean sweep; and every
candid doubter may find abundant proof, even on
the scientific side, that a more than human mind
has produced the Bible. It is a Gibraltar, and
they who attack it, like the waves that sweep
against that giant rock in the Mediterranean seas,
do not break or even shake it, but only cleave
themselves asunder!
The argument from the side of science is the
more conclusive because the Bible is not, and can
not be, in the nature of the case, a scientific book.
In history, any matter of science touched upon
would be only casual, and whatever scientific er
rors or inadvertencies might occur would not im
pair its value as a narrative of facts. So a treatise
on mathematics would not be the less trustworthy
as a guide in working out difficult problems,
simply because there might be words misspelled,
or inaccurate statements about geography. Every
book is judged by its main purpose; all else is
incidental. The object of the Bible is not to teach science,
but moral and spiritual truth. Scientific facts and
truths may be discovered by the intellect and in
dustry of man; and hence no revelation of them
is needed. But our origin and destiny, our rela
tions to God, the way of peace and purity, the
link between the here and the hereafter — the high
est wisdom of man has only guessed at these

114 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
things; and here comes the need that God shall
speak. We are therefore to judge the Word of God
by its professed purpose, and if, in the unfolding
of moral and religious truth, scientific errors or
inaccuracies appear, which have no relation to
spiritual truth, they may not make the Bible un
worthy of acceptance as a guide to the knowledge
and practice of duty. Lord Bacon, from a strictly
philosophical point of view, has said that the
"scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to
express matters of nature in Scripture, otherwise
than in passage, for application to man's capacity
and to matters moral and divine." It was no part
of the design or mission of inspired writers to tell
us scientific truth. Hence it was natural that, in
referring to the Kingdom of Nature, they should
use the language of appearance, as we do now
at an age of the world far more advanced in sci
entific knowledge. We know that the sun is the
centre of the solar system, and that the earth
moves around it; yet we talk of the sun as rising
in the east, setting in the west, and revolving
about the earth. We speak of the dew as descend
ing from the heaven, as though distilled in the far
depths of space, while in fact the atmosphere
gives up its vapor at the touch of a colder surface,
as an ice-pitcher collects and condenses the moist
ure from the air. When, therefore, sacred writers
use forms of speech which fit appearances, not
realities, and accord with popular impressions,
rather than scientific discoveries, "the absence of
scientific accuracy by no means involves any real
discrepancy or contradiction."
Had the language of Scripture been scientific,

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 115
instead of popular, it would have been a blemish
and a hindrance, because it would have arrested
attention and diverted it from the grander truths
that the Bible was meant to unfold, and created
controversies on matters of little consequence.
Suppose, for instance, that in the opening chap
ters of Genesis, Moses had accurately announced,
in plain terms, all the discoveries of modern geol
ogy and astronomy; had given this globe a great
age, even prior to the creation of man; had made
the six days of creation six periods of vast length;
had described the vast vegetation of the carbon
iferous age, and the marvellous process by which
it was converted into coal; had told men of the
original chemical or "cosmical" light and heat that
preceded the appearance of the sun — of the mighty
monsters that sported in the waters and roamed on
the land; had recorded the tremendous convulsions
that rocked the earth as on the bosom of a vast
crater — what would have been the effect?
First, scientific discovery would have been an
nounced prematurely, before mankind was fitted
to understand or use it. Secondly, God would
have been contradicting himself by communicat
ing directly to man knowledge which He had de
creed man shall dig out for himself. Thirdly, men
would have forgotten the more important spiritual
truths, that are the main matters of revelation, in
discussions of subordinate questions, for which
the race was not yet ready. Fourthly, the effect
would be to discredit the whole revelation — to
make Moses appear either as a madman or a
dreamer, and thus to defeat the grand end for
which the Inspired Word was given! And yet,
if the Bible is God's Truth, it ought not, even by

116 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the way, to affirm what is actually untrue. We
cannot imagine the infinite God as telling man the
grandest truths on spiritual themes and surround
ing them with many little falsehoods, simply be
cause man was not mature enough to understand
the full facts.
Was there any way by which all desirable ends
should be met? One only suggests itself. God
might lead inspired men to use such language,
that, without revealing scientific facts in advance,
it might accurately accommodate itself to them,
when discovered. The language might be so elas
tic and flexible as to contract itself to the narrow
ness of ignorance, and yet expand itself to the
dimensions of knowledge, like the rubber bandage,
so invaluable in modern surgery, which stretches
about an inflamed and swollen limb, yet shrinks
as the swelling abates. If there be terms or phrases
which, without suggesting puzzling enigmas, shall
yet contain within themselves ample space for all
the demands of growing human knowledge; if the
Bible may, from imperfect human language, select
terms which may hold hidden truths, till ages to
come shall disclose the inner meaning, — this would
seem to be the best solution of this difficult prob
lem. And when we come to compare the language
of the Bible with modern science, we find just
this to be the fact.
I. Take, for example, astronomy. How bitter
has been the battle between undevout astrono
mers and the Word of God!
We are told that the Bible term, "firmament,"
is an ancient blunder, crystallized. Modern sci
ence, taking a dignified stand, says: "Ye have
heard it hath been said by them of old time, there

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 117
is a solid sphere above us which revolves with its
starry lamps; but I say unto you that this is an
old notion of ignorance, for there is nothing but
vast space filled with ether above us, and stars are
suns varying by infinite distances, and the earth
turns on its axis. "
But look closer at this word "firmament."
While Mr. Goodwin declares it "irreconcilable
with modern astronomy," and timid apologists
venture to suggest that Moses simply made a mis
take, or may be pardoned for speaking after the
manner of men, we find that the original term
rakiya means that which is spread out, or over
spreads — an "expanse." Now, read the word ex
panse where firmament occurs, and there is not
only no contradiction as to the facts of astronomy,
but perfect harmony. If Moses had been Mitchell,
he could not have chosen a better word to ex
press the appearance, and yet accommodate the
reality. He actually anticipated science. And
this is one of the "Mistakes of Moses."
Another error of them of old time was that
of the revolution of the heavenly bodies around
the earth; and after Copernicus, Kepler and Gal
ileo taught the true law of the solar system, men
raised an outcry against the Bible. And yet the
Bible is found to be entirely consistent with the
discoveries of science, that the earth is not flat,
but a sphere, and that it moves with perfect uni
formity on its axis.
Take such expressions as these: Job xxvi: 7 — He
hangeth the earth upon nothing. Job xxxviii: 8 —
Who shut up the sea with doors when it rushed
forth and came out of the womb; when I made
the cloud its garment, and thick darkness its

118 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
swaddling-band? and established my decree upon
it, and set bars and doors, and said hitherto shalt
thou come, but no further, etc. Job xxviii: 12 —
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy
days, and caused the dayspring to know his
place? How beautifully this language adapts itself to
the scientific facts not then known — that a relation
is established between land and sea, by which the
waters cannot overwhelm the earth; that this
globe is not supported on any other solid sub
stance, as the Pagan mythologies even now teach,
but held in place by invisible forces of gravita
tion; that the revolution of the earth upon its
axis is so absolutely regular that, as LaPlace says,
it has not for two thousand years varied the one-
hundredth part of a second; so that the dayspring
never fails or lingers in the eastern sky.
Jeremiah xxxiii :22 — "The host of heaven can
not be numbered, neither the sand of the sea
measured. "
The fact of the vast host of stars is a fact of
modern discovery. Hipparchus, about a century
and a half before Christ, gave the number of stars
as 1,022, and Ptolemy, in the beginning of the
second century of the Christian era, could find
but 1,026. We may on a clear night, with the
unaided eye, see only 1,160, or, if we could sur
vey the whole celestial sphere, about 3,000. But
when the telescope began to be pointed to the
heavens, less than three centuries ago, by Galileo,
then for the first time men began to know that
Jeremiah was right when he made the stars as
countless as the sand on the sea-shore. When
Lord Rosse's instrument turned its great mirror

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 110
to the sky, lo, the number of visible stars increased
to nearly 400,000,000! and Herschel compares
the multitude of them to glittering dust scattered
on the black background of the heavens. When
John Herschel, at the foot of the dark continent,
resolves the nebulae into suns, and Lord Rosse,
as with the eye of a Titan, finds in the cloudy
scarf about Orion "a gorgeous bed of stars," and
the very milky way itself proves to be simply a
grand procession of stars absolutely without num
ber, — how true is the exclamation of Jeremiah, 600
years before Christ, 2,200 years before Galileo:
"The host of heaven cannot be numbered!" Who
taught Jeremiah astronomy?
II. When the modern science of Geology be
gan to unwrap the earth's coverings and read the
records of the rocks, timid faith grew pale and
trembled for the Word of God. A vast age was
revealed for our globe, and what must we do with
the "Mistakes of Moses?" How came these fos
sils or organic remains in the rocks? and in such
quantities that coral reefs represent countless mill
ions of zoophytes, and mountain masses are com
posed of shells not larger than a grain of sand?
The Tuscan hills are built of chambered shells so
small that one ounce of stone contains over 10,-
OOO; and the dust that falls from the chalk at the
blackboard under the microscope proves to be
fossils! And what enormous periods were re
quired for living creatures to build such masses
as these! Some attempted to account for the deposit of
these fossils by the convulsions attending the del
uge; others suggested that God built the world
out of fossils, in which life had never dwelt, so

120 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
that the rocks, after all, really lie to us. Others
have been ready to thunder anathemas against
science, because they could not reconcile it with
Scripture, after the fashion of the Brahmin who,
when the microscope showed him the folly of his
pagan notions and practices, rid himself of his
doubts by dashing the microscope into fragments!
But surely the Bible cannot need such methods of
defense. If truth be divided against itself, how,
then, shall his kingdom stand?
The correspondence between the Mosaic ac
count of creation and the most advanced discov
eries of science proves that only He who built the
world built the Book. Note a few instances:
I. The order of creation.
Geology teaches a watery waste, whose dense
vapors shut out light: Moses affirms that, at first,
the earth was formless and void, and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. Geology makes
life to precede light, and the life develops beneath
the deep: Moses presents the creative spirit as
brooding over that great deep, before God said
"Let light be." Geology makes the atmosphere
to form an expanse by lifting watery vapors into
clouds, and so separating the fountains of waters
above from those below: Moses affirms the same.
Geology tells us that continents next lifted them
selves from beneath the great deep, and bore veg
etation: Moses also declares that the dry land
appeared, and brought forth grass, herb, and the
tree, exactly correspondent to the three orders of
primeval vegetation! Geology then asserts that
the heavens became cleared of cloud and the sun
and moon and stars appeared: Moses does not
say that God created all these heavenly bodies on

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 121
the fourth creative day, but that they then began
to serve to divide day from night and to become
signs for seasons, days and years! Geology then
shows us sea monsters, reptiles and winged crea
tures: Moses likewise reveals the waters bringing
forth moving and creeping creatures and fowl fly
ing in the expanse. Geology unfolds next, the
race of quadruped mammals — and so Moses makes
cattle and beast of the earth to follow, in the same
order and on the sixth day of creation. Geology
brings man on the scene last of all, and so does
Moses. Geology makes the first light and heat
not solar but chemical or "cosmical." Moses
makes light to precede the first appearance of the
sun, by the space of three creative days!
2. Look at the order of animal creation!
Geology and comparative anatomy combine to
teach that the order of creation was from lower to
higher. Fish, proportion of brain to spinal cord;
2 to i. Reptiles 2j^ to l. Birds, 3 to i. Mam
mals 4 to i. Man 33 to 1. Now this is exactly
the order of Moses. Who told Moses, what mod
ern comparative anatomy has discovered, that fish
and reptile come below birds?
And these are some more of the "Mistakes of
Moses!" Here is a record of creation, produced
fifteen or twenty centuries before science unveiled
these modern facts and truths; and yet there is
not one scientific blunder or error, and the coin
cidences and correspondences are so many and so
marked, that a modern scientist has confessed,
that if one should sketch briefly the celestial
mechanism of LaPlace, the Cosmos of Humboldt
and the latest system of geology, no simpler and
sublimer words could be found than those of
Moses!

122 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
3. Again geology shows us that the vast
plants of the great coal age are such as never
grew in sunlight but in long continued shade;
they are such as must have fed upon an atmos
phere full of vapor — and their wood is not hard
ened as it would have been under sunshine. Who
taught Moses to put the growth of that earliest
vegetation in the period preceding the first ap
pearance of the sun in the sky!
4. Geology teaches six periods of creation,
extending through ages. Moses appears to teach
six days of 24 hours each. But again on exam
ining closely, we find the Hebrew word, Yom,
means a period of time, and is often used of in
definite periods or seasons! In the first chapter
of Genesis, sceptics triumphantly say, it makes
creative periods to be measured by 24 hours; and
yet in Gen. II: 4, it is used of the whole time
occupied in creation! In Psalm xcv: 8, "in the
day of temptation," it means forty years. We
use the English word with the same looseness of
application — a "polar day" means six months —
the day of grace, the period of probation. Ori
gen and Augustine, long before science suggested
that day might mean a period, maintained that
the Hebrew word was indefinite; and when the
Bible declares that "one day is with the Lord as a
thousand years," it gives a clew and key to its
own interpretation.
Again you will notice that of these creative
days Moses said "and the evening and the morn
ing were the first day. " If the solar day is meant,
why begin with the evening? the solar day ob
viously begins with sunrise. To account for this
curious feature in the Mosiac record by the fact

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 123
that the Jews reckoned their day from sunset to
sunset, is to reason in a circle, for it was from this
first chapter of Genesis that such an unnatural
mode of reckoning proceeded. Now when we
turn to geology and find that each creative period
began in an evening and developed into a morn
ing — light developing out of darkness and order
out of confusion — we see why Moses was guided
to make each day to begin with evening.
5. The Deluge, as recorded in the days of
Noah, has been thought to be irreconcilable with
modern science. The grand point where objec
tions center is that of the universal character of
the flood. As the human race then occupied but
a small part of the globe, to submerge the whole,
so that even the loftiest mountains should be more
than covered seems a needless waste of divine en
ergy; especially as it may well be doubted whether
the entire atmosphere, condensed into rain, would
suffice to lift the seas to such a height; and there
are believed to be many evidences, in certain
parts of the earth, that no universal flood has
prevailed within the last 6,000 years.
To these objections it is only necessary to re
ply that the moment the Bible record is inter
preted with reference to the inhabited world, all
difficulties vanish. Such phrases as "the whole
earth," "under the whole heaven," etc., are fre
quently used in Scripture of so much of the earth
as was peopled; or even of Palestine, and the
lands lying about it. Terms of a universal char
acter are to be interpreted not literally, but by
the design and end of the writer. When we are
told that "all countries came into Egypt to buy
corn" — what do we understand? Are we to sup-

124 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
pose that, if there were inhabitants in Britain,
they journed to Egypt for grain? It would take
about as much time, in those days, to get there
and back, as it would to secure a new harvest.
But if we understand that Egypt became a gran
ary — a house of bread, to all the district, over
which the famine prevailed, the record is plain.
Now, in the account of the deluge, Moses is
writing of God's awful judgment upon the sin of
the race. His judgment fell upon the earth, for
man's sake and only so much of the earth as was
the scene of man's sin, was necessarily concerned.
If then we understand the whole earth to refer to
the entire inhabited surface, the flood is still rela
tively universal, i. e., universal as to mankind;
and the usage of similar terms in other parts of
Scripture justifies such interpretation! Hugh
Miller has shown that all the phenomena of the
flood might be produced by the gradual sinking
and rising again of that part of the earth's sur
face known as the cradle of the race; and this
would produce the very effects, so graphically de
scribed by Noah, "breaking up of the fountains
of the great deep and the returning of the waters
from off the earth." It ought to be added that
tradition even among the Pagans confirms the
fact of the flood and the resting of the ark on
Ararat. Haywood W. Guion of North Carolina has
suggested a theory of the Deluge, which both
harmonizes all the discoveries of science with the
record in Genesis, and may yet displace all pre
vious conceptions of the subject. He takes lit
erally the statement of St. Peter, "the world that
then was, being overflowed with water, perished."

SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 125
In Genesis we read — "let the waters under the
heaven be gathered together unto one place and
let the dry land appear. " In both passages there
is no hint of more than one continent or more
than one sea. The dry land or earth seems to be
by itself in one grand elevation above sea level,
and the waters gathered in one place. This would
imply, as any scientist knows, certain peculiar
conditions. This solitary continent, rising in one
mass from the midst of one sea that surrounds it,
would present no great inequalities of surface,
though there might be elevations that, compared
with the rest, would be hills or even mountains;
there would be a great uniformity of climate and
temperature, no rains or clouds, but heavy mists
constantly keeping the earth moist; and conse
quently vast vegetable growths, very luxuriant
and abundant, making animal food unnecessary
either for man or beast — there would be a para
dise of verdure, and one perennial spring. This
Mr. Guion holds was the case. At the time of
the deluge this huge dome, that rose out of the
water, was shattered by volcanic explosions and
a great earthquake, and its grand roof fell in and
became the bed of what is now the Pacific ocean,
while its shattered and irregular rim was tilted up
into the great mountain ranges, that line the east
ern boundaries of the Pacific; and the bed of this
original ocean was lifted into the continents of
our eastern and western hemispheres, while the
sea rushed into the new bed formed by the sub
mersion of the original continent. This would
give us in the new order of things great mountain
ranges, with marked inequalities of climate and
temperature — and all the phenomena of the chang-

126 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ing seasons, winds, clouds, storms of rain and
snow; and consequently the first rainbow. Ani
mals inhabiting barren districts would be driven
to devour animals weaker than they, and animal
food would become necessary to man. This theory
makes the whole original world to be submerged
and all the high hills covered. The gigantic ani
mals of that primeval continent engulphed in the
foaming waters and afterward buried beneath the
superficial mass of shifting soil, would furnish the
remarkable remains found in so many places,
shewing that the creatures they represent were
overtaken in some universal catastrophe.
Mr. Tullidge says: that "with the advance of
discovery, the opposition, supposed to exist be
tween Revelation and Geology, has disap
peared; and of the eighty theories which the
French Institute counted in 1806, as hostile to
the Bible, not one now stands. " Not only so;
but among the mightiest advocates of God's Word
are many of the masters who have explored his
works. Their united testimony is, that we have
no occasion to fear for the Bible notwithstanding
the oppositions of science falsely so called. For
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word
shall not pass away."

CHAPTER VI.

THE SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD OF GOD.
"Thy word is true from the beginning." — Psalm cxix: 160.
That is, "from the first word." The enthusi
asm of the unknown writer of this Psalm knows
no ordinary bounds. He sets out to rear a mon
ument to the Word of God, and it is like a solid
shaft of marble, sculptured into twenty-two sides,
and each side bearing eight inscriptions. After
the fashion of ancient acrostics, each side is ap
propriated to one letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
and each of its eight inscriptions begins with that
letter, as though all the resources of language
would vainly be exhausted in endeavoring to de
scribe the wonders of the Scriptures. He con
cludes this twentieth section by declaring that,
from the first word on, every word is true. Re
suming the argument of the last chapter, let us
look at
III. Cosmogony . How grand a fact it is, in
favor of the Bible, that not one scientific error,
blunder or absurdity has ever been found there !
Can the sacred books of other religions endure
that test? Apply this touchstone to the Koran,
the Shasta, the Zendavesta, or the teachings of
the wisest and best of uninspired men. Compare
Moses with Zoroaster and Confucius, Seneca and
Socrates, Plato and Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and
Aristotle — when the ancient religions or philoso-

128 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
phies touch the Bible-theme of creation, they
abound in sheer absurdities! Put the first chapter
of Genesis beside the Hindu idea of the universe,
which we might write out thus:
"Millions upon millions of cycles ago, this
world came to be. It was made a flat triangular
plain with high hills and mountains and great
waters. It exists in several stories, and the whole
mass is held up on the heads of elephants with
their tails turned out, and their feet rest on the
shell of an immense tortoise, and the tortoise
on the coil of a great snake; and when these
elephants shake themselves, that makes the earth
quake." Suppose the Bible had made such mistakes as
Plato, who held that the earth is an intelligent be
ing, or Kepler, who affirmed it a living animal!
or the old sages, who taught that the Milky Way
is a path over which the sun used to journey and
showing the marks of his footsteps; or a band of
solid substance joining the two parts of the globe,
etc. What if the old notions, that brutes are hu
man beings in changed shapes, that there are fish
in the sea with horses' heads, that the fabled phce
nix was a real bird, and that thunderbolts come
from three stars, specially Jupiter, — were found
in God's own Book! Who guarded this most an
cient volume from the superstitions that corrupted
astronomy into astrology and chemistry into al
chemy? Who taught the writer of the 104th
Psalm to compose that grand poem on the won
ders of the created world, and yet introduce not
one of the scientific errors current in those days;
so that even Von Humboldt was compelled to
confess that "in a lyrical poem of such limited

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 129
compass, we find the whole universe, the heavens
and the earth, sketched with a few bold touches!"
IV. Natural Philosophy. Modern discov
eries as to the nature of light make the descrip
tion of Moses divinely grand. He does not
represent this mystery that vibrates so strangely
through space, as being made, but "called forth"
— commanded to shine.
In Job xxxviii: 13, 14, we read of the day-
spring, that it "takes hold of the ends of the
earth; it is turned as clay to the seal, and they
stand as a garment. " In Babylon cylindrical
seals were used. As they rolled over the clay,
they left an impress of artistic beauty. What
was without form, before, now stands out in bold
relief like sculpture — and so, as the earth revolves,
and brings each portion of its surface successive
ly under the sun's light and heat, what was before
dull, dark, dead, discloses and developes beauty;
and the clay stands like a garment, curiously
wrought in bold relief and brilliant colors. Take
that, either as science or poetry, and where, in
any other book of equal antiquity, can you find
the like?
And how exquisite is that phrase "takes hold
of the ends of the earth!" The Hebrew word
conveys the idea of the rays of light bending like
the fingers of the hand, to lay hold, and this is
spoken only of the ends of the earth. The direct
ray of the sun falling upon its surface, comes,
straight as an arrow; but, when the sunlight
would touch the extremities of the earth, it is bent
by the atmosphere so as to come into contact, and,
but for this, vast portions, out of the direct line
of the sun's rays would be dark, cold and dead.

130 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Who taught Job, 1500 years or more before
Christ, to use terms that Longfellow or Tennyson
might covet, to describe refraction!
Job xxxviii: 7. "When the morning stars
sang together" has been always taken to be a high
flight of poetry. And when in Psalm Ixv: 8, we
read, "Thou makest the outgoings of the morning
and evening to rejoice," the Hebrew word means
to give forth a tremulous sound, or as the voice
in vibrations — to sing. Modern science flings a
ray of discovery across these poetic expressions,
and scientific truth seems hidden or wrapped up
in them. Light comes to the eye in undulations
or vibrations, as sound comes to the ear. There
is a point at which vibrations are too rapid or
delicate to be detected by our sense of hearing;
then a more delicate organ, the eye, takes note
of them; they appeal to the optic, instead of the
auditory, nerve — and as light and not sound.
Must not light then also sing? The lowest tone
we can hear is made by 16.5 vibrations of air per
second; the highest so shrill and "fine that noth
ing lives 'twixt it and silence," is made by 38,000
vibrations per second. Between these extremes
lie eleven octaves; C of the G clef having 258 ^
vibrations to the second, and its octave above
5171^. Not that sound-vibrations cease at 38,000,
but our organs are not fitted to hear beyond those
limitations. Were our ears delicate enough, we
could hear even up to the almost infinite vibra
tions of light. And so it is literally true that
"the morning stars sang together." We miscon
strued this other passage in the Psalms, which we
could not understand and dared not translate as
it stood in the grand old inspired Hebrew, till

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 131
"science crept up to a perception of the truth that
had been standing there for ages uninterpreted,
waiting for a mind that could take it in." And
now we dare to read it as it stands — "Thou makest
the outgoings, or radiations of light — of the morn
ing and evening, to sing, i. e., to give forth sound
by vibration." Were our senses fine enough, we
could hear the separate key note of every individ
ual star. Shakespeare wrote unconscious truth,
when he sang,
"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,
But in his motion, like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
Stars differ in glory and power; and so in the
volume and pitch of their song.* In the future
life our senses will doubtless be so delicate and
refined that we shall be able to hear not only the
separate key notes, but the infinite swelling har
mony of these myriad stars of the sky as they
pour their mighty tide of harmonious anthems
into the ear of God. Then shall we be able to
understand the truth of the hymn:
"In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
Forever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine!"
The music of the spheres is not monotonous.
Stars draw near each other and make a light that
is unapproachable by mortals; then the music
swells beyond our ability to endure. They recede
far away, making a light so dim that the music
* Dr. Warren: Recreations in Astronomy, p. 27.

132 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
dies away so near to silence that only spirits can
hear it. No wonder God rejoices in His works.
He sits in the midst of a universal orchestra — that
pours into His ear one ceaseless tide of rapturous
song. He dwells in the midst of light; to us it
is only ineffable glory; to Him it is music!
Job xxviii: 25. "To assign to the wind (at
mosphere or breath) its weight, and to the waters
their just measure. " If there be anything which
seems without weight, it is the air — the breath
that rises as it issues from the mouth. Aristotle
and even Bacon knew not that there was weight
to the atmosphere! The discovery of the gravity
of the air was reserved for the great Florentine
astronomer, Galileo. And yet Job, at least thirty
centuries before Galileo, declared that God as
signed weight even to the atmosphere!
There is danger of pressing the words of the
Bible into a positive announcement of scientific
facts, so marvellous are some of these correspond
ences. But it is certainly a curious fact that Sol
omon should use language entirely consistent
with discoveries as to evaporation and storm-cir
cuits.* Some have boldly said that Redfield's
theory of storms is here explicitly stated. With
out taking such ground, we ask, who taught Sol
omon to use terms that readily accommodate the
facts, that the movements of the winds, which
seem to be so lawless and uncertain, are ruled by
laws as positive as those which rule the growth of
the plant; and that, by evaporation, the waters
that fall on the earth are continually rising again,
so that the sea never overflows!

*Eccles. 1:6, 7.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 133
V. Entomology . If any department of science
Si ience may be considered complete in its re
searches it is that which classifies the insects so
completely that it has found 70)0°0 varieties of
beetle alone. Solomon can hardly be considered
up to modern level, and some have considered
his mistake as quite too bad to be admitted into
inspired writings, when he represented the ant
as "providing her meat in summer and gathering
her food in the harvest. " The scientific sceptic
affirms that the ant being a carnivorous insect,
could not gather her food in the harvest, and that
the very nature of that food would prevent it from
being laid up in store; and that Solomon commit
ted the blunder of many amateurs, in mistaking
the white cocoon of the ant-pupae, properly known
as ant-eggs, for grains housed for future use. But
what becomes of Solomon's inspiration? If he
blunders in science he may have blundered in
theology. Nor can we defend him, on the ground
that the word translated, ant, should be otherwise
rendered; for the word not only means, ant, but
Buxtorf says it means a seed-eating ant.
When, however, we study the ants of Pales
tine, we find among them some species which not
only feed on seeds, but harvest them; and if
their stores are wet by the heavy rains, to prevent
their sprouting, they bring them to the surface
and dry them in the sun. More than this, late
discovery shows that the agricultural ant not only
stores grain but prepares the soil for the crop,
plants the seed, keeps the ground free of weeds,
and reaps the harvest; so that all Solomon says
of the ants of Palestine, as exemplifying fore
thought and economy, is more than justified by

134 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
facts! and so here is another of the "mistakes"
which Solomon did not make. What becomes of
the inspiration of the scientists, who charged him
with blunders!
For what has Modern Science more earnestly
contended than for the Reign of Law throughout
the creation of God ! Yet mark the stress laid by
the Bible on this fact, that even those things,
which seem most capricious and uncertain, are
under the control of fixed order. The rain obeys
a decree and the thunder and lightning move obe
dient to law — the sea can go but so far, and the
wind returns according to his circuits. Sir John
Herschel was so much impressed with the har
mony between the facts of physical science and
the Word of God that he remarked: "all human
discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose
of confirming more strongly the truths that have
come from on high and are contained in the sacred
writings. "
VI. The Bible proves consistent with mod
ern discoveries in Physiology, Comparative Anat
omy and Chemistry. Physiology is a marvel
ous commentary on the exclamation of David,
"I am fearfully and wonderfully made." The
science of anatomy can find no error in the nar
rative of our Lord's crucifixion; and a living phy
sician was probably saved from infidelity by
observing the unconscious truthfulness of the
evangelists, in their account of the crucifixion, as
to anatomical facts, then entirely unknown to
science.* Eccles. xii: 6, is a poetic description of death.
* Phelps on Preaching, 153.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 135
How that silver cord describes the spinal marrow,
the golden bowl, the basin which holds the brain,
the pitcher the lungs, and the wheel, the heart!
Without claiming that Solomon was inspired to
foretell the circulation of the blood, twenty-six
hundred years before Harvey announced it — is it
not very remarkable that the language he uses
exactly suits the fact — a wheel, pumping up
through one pipe, to discharge through another?
VII. Ethnology. The Bible unquestionably
teaches the unity of the human race. Is this
reconcilable with the discoveries of ethnology?
It has been urged that there must have been
more than one original stock from which the race
has sprung; that the varieties of color and form,
brain-development, and physical type, cannot be
accounted for by climate, food, and habits of life;
that the negro, at least, belongs to another spe
cies. Some, disposed not to contend for the unity
of the race, and yet to defend the Bible, take a
middle ground, that the Bible gives the history of
only one of the races — that, through whom came
the redemption — forgetting that if the whole race
has not sprung from Adam, the unity of the race
both in sin and redemption is gone!
It is unfair to say that the Bible and anthro
pology or ethnology are at war. First, because
the scientific facts are not yet settled. The men
who have most diligently studied these subjects
do not agree among themselves. Blumenbach
insists on five varieties — Caucasian, Mongolian,
Ethiopian, Malay, American; Cuvier makes three
grand divisions; Prichard affirms seven races,
Luke Burke sixty-three, Retzius two, and Dr.
Pickering eleven, which he thinks may be reduced

136 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
to one! Camper insists on the facial angle as the
basis of division. Cuvier adopts as the basis, the
comparative areas of the cranium and face sawed
vertically on the median line. While scientific
men are not agreed as to the facts, why need we
seek to make their theories fit its doctrine? When
one well-ascertained fact is found to be irrecon
cilable with the Bible, then, and not till then, may
there be ground for alarm.
Almost all this outcry of hostility between
science and God's Word is based upon specula
tion. Some infidel thinks he has found out some
new fact, and makes haste to announce it. He
crams it into his gun and then fires, and expects
to see the defenses of the Christian faith totter
and tumble under the tremendous shock of his
artillery. But, lo, the fortress stands, and there
is not even a hole or breach in the wall. And
when we come to examine, what was it that the
great scientist hurled against the walls? Some
huge, solid shot of fact? No; a mere paper- wad
of his own fanciful theory, that took fire from his
own powder!
Again we say, show us one undoubted fact, re
vealed by scientific studies for two thousand years,
that cannot be harmonized with the word of God!
Not only can there be shown no conflict between
the facts and the Bible doctrine of the unity of
the race, but the whole drift of discovery, so far
as it becomes clear and positive, is toward the
confirmation of that unity. In man, the world
over, we find the same grand physical character
istics: the same number of teeth and bones and
muscles; the same system of respiration and cir
culation, digestion, secretion; nerves, veins and

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 137
arteries are arranged on the same type. Man is
everywhere capable of living on all kinds of food,
in any climate; liable to the same diseases; grows
to maturity slowly, and lives to the same average
age. Dr. Prichard contends for the unity of the
original stock from the fertility of the race in off
spring. "Nature abhors hybrids," and varieties
produced in the vegetable or animal world, by the
crossing of species, speedily run out; and hence
the fact that, after six thousand years, intermar
riage between individuals of different varieties is
still fertile in offspring, proves one original species.
Dr. Prichard traces all existing varieties of the
human family to secondary causes, and finds
among different tribes or nations no permanent
lines of division.
Man, and even animals, when subjected to a
change of climate or manner of life, change color,
hair and form. Dr. Carpenter instances the Mag
yar race in Hungary, known to have belonged to
the Asiatic stock. About a thousand years since,
they came from the cold north of Asia to the
sunny south of Europe, and not only have their
habits of life all changed, but even the type of
cranial formation from the pyramidal or Mongolian
to the elliptical or Caucasian; and, with their im
proved physical stature and feature, there is just
enough of the Tartar cast to give a hint of their
origin. And so as to the Lapps and Finns; Dr.
Carpenter says that, though from one common
stock with the Magyars, the most marked differ
ences have developed even in cranial characters,
and general conformation, stature and propor
tion. In India, Persians, Greeks, Tartars, Turks and

138 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Arabs, all white men, and without intermarriage
with the Hindus, in a few generations become
marked with the deep olive color natural to the
climate, almost as dark as the negro; and the
Portuguese, in three hundred years' residence
there, have been dyed black as Kaffirs. Rev.
John Campbell, years ago, observed that, as he
moved from the southern cape toward equatorial
Africa, the people uniformly grew darker; and
the colony of Jews on the coast of Malabar are
now as black as the natives of the coast. If cli
mate may produce such marked changes in one
direction, who is competent to say what changes
all combined causes may produce during thou
sands of years? Von Humboldt, after stating the
arguments for diversity of origin, gives his opin
ion that more weighty reasons favor unity; and
certainly he will not be accused of superficial sci
ence or of undue bias toward the Bible.
Even the diversity of language, once thought
to favor diversity of stock, is no longer an argu
ment against the Word of God. The new science
of comparative philology is grouping these tongues
into families, and tracing them back by affinities
and resemblances to one great root; and Klaproth
illustrates the universal kinship of languages by
the bricks with which Bagdad is built, and which
bear the cuneiform legend of Nebuchadnezzar
stamped upon them — showing that they are frag
ments of old Assyrian cities. Even so, modern
tongues exhibit the fragments of an earlier prim
itive language. And so physiology and philology,
and psychology and ethnology, all witness to that
grand old conception of the Bible, that all men
sprang from one original pair.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 139
As to the antiquity of man, science has not
presented one clearly established fact to show
that the human race existed on earth earlier than
the accepted chronology of the Bible places man's
creation. Most so-called proof is simply wild con
jecture, jumping at conclusions; and sometimes
the jump is such a big one that such science has
been called "grasshopper science," or "kangaroo
science. " It claims to present the results of orig
inal investigation, though, as Park Godwin says,
"the originality is apt to surpass the investiga
tion." The facts which seem to argue a greater an
tiquity for the human race are simply mysteries
that await interpretation. For example, bones
have been found, cut and polished, in deposits
which seem to have been immersed in water since
man dwelt on earth, yet so finely cut and polished
as, in the opinion of many, to prove human skill,
aided, tob, by instruments of rare perfection.
Sir Charles Lyell, however, ventured to put among
the beavers in the zoological gardens in London
some bones similar to those discovered, and, after
leaving them for some time, recovered them, cut
and polished by the beavers, so nearly like the
others as to leave no doubt that in both cases the
same agency had been employed. So, in this
case, the pre-Adamite man proved to be a beaver,
and the perfect tools, which argued such high civ
ilization, the beaver's teeth!
VIII. As yet we have not touched that broad
field of Archceology where some of the richest,
ripest harvests have been reaped for the confirma
tion of the Word of God. We present two or
three, out of the immense mass of constantly ac-

140 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
cumulating facts, which show that God is taking
the wise in their own craftiness. Sceptics have
been confident that, from the discoveries brought
to light by the archaeologist and paleontologist,
the Word of God would be proved at best a harm
less fable; but lo, while we hold our peace, the
very stones cry out in confirmation of the Word.
We read in ancient history that the King of
Babylon at the time of its destruction was not
Belshazzar, but Nabonadius, or Labynetus, and
that he was neither captured nor killed, but es
caped, and that after the taking of the city he
fought a battle outside the capital, was beaten,
made prisoner, and subsequently a satrap under
the conqueror, living in luxury and dying in peace.
And so the scientific sceptics laughed at the cre
dulity of the simple souls who take the Bible as
their guide, though it asserts that Belshazzar was
king when Babylon fell, and on the night of its
capture was slain. But over twenty y ears ago,
from the mounds that mark the almost forgotten
site of the great city, there was dug up a great
cylinder, inscribed with curious records, and from
these we learn that Belshazzar was the son of Na
bonadius and a regent under him; and now the
inconsistency is explained. Belshazzar, sharing
the throne of his father, was slain at Babylon.
His father, Nabonadius, escaped and survived the
fall of his capital. Out of the ruins of buried
cities rises a new witness to the Word.
Again, as to the Deluge. Assyrian tablets
now in the British Egyptian museum, dating 660
B. C. , copying and preserving an older record
1700 B. C, contain a pagan description of the
flood, declare it to have been decreed by God on

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 141
account of man's wickedness, and record the fact
of a great ship being built, birds being sent out,
an altar being built, etc.
St. Luke calls Sergius Paulus the proconsul
of Cyprus. Historians insisted that his proper
title must have been procurator; yet even an in
accuracy could not be tolerated in the evangelist's
record. But lately ancient coins have come to
light bearing the image of Claudius, and apply
ing to the representative of Rome who governed
Cyprus the very name, proconsul, which Luke ap
plies to Sergius Paulus! The further modern in
vestigation goes, the more is Holy Scripture
established; every new discovery among the mon
umental records of antiquity adds a new witness
to God's blessed book. Wonderful, indeed, that
the Bible should be so framed and worded that,
though never clearly announcing scientific facts,
"in advance of the science of the age," it proves,
when correctly interpreted, to be always "abreast
of the science" of any age.
With a lofty air of papal infallibility, a scep
tical writer declares that "every step that science
takes leads mankind farther away from the idle
hopes and fears of Christianity toward the calm
of eternal truth. " Whereupon Dr. Stebbins, him
self a Unitarian, and an advocate of "liberal"
views, dares a flat denial: "I affirm most deliber
ately, after nearly fifty years' study of science as
well as theology, with the ardor of a lover, that
there is not a single discovery or accepted fact of
science which, in the slightest degree, militates
against the teachings of Christianity as revealed
in the gospels."
The Word of God cannot be demolished by

I 42 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the ridicule of its foes. Voltaire may have many
disciples who follow his method, and seek to cover
God's Word with caricature as a modern "smart"
boy disfigures with charcoal the face and form of
some antique Apollo. But as the statue remains
in its ideal perfection when the mischievous mark
ings are washed away, so the pure celestial beauty
of the Word survives all attempts to invest it with
blasphemous absurdity. Nor can scientific as
sumption and presumption upset the certainties of
a divine revelation. A falsehood is no more true
because loudly spoken, and with gesticulation that
attempts to pound conviction into the hearer. As
Mr. Lincoln assured Mr. Bates that "calling a
sheep's tail a leg does not make it so," we insist
that even the sanction of a great name does not
necessarily establish the verity and accuracy of a
statement. Many a man who is very safe in the
department of investigation, and perfectly trust
worthy so long as he confines himself to the sim
ple results of observation and experiment, is as
unsafe whenever he ventures into the department
of philosophy or logic, and attempts to draw in
ferences from his investigations; his conclusions
may be as inaccurate and unsound as his experi
ments are careful and exact. The fact is, investi
gation and induction belong to different depart
ments; and we are not always to adopt the infer
ences even of the most accurate investigator.
Scientific men are not always intellectually
honest and candid. Biased in favor of a certain
scientific creed, or religious system, they become
intellectual squinters; they see only what they
want to see, and array facts and figures adroitly
on the side of preconceived opinion or notion.

SCIENTIFIC TRUTH OF THE WORD. 143
What, then, shall we do with the Bible? It
comes before the tribunal of reason, and asks for an
impartial judgment. It may be the best of books,
yet by no means be the book of God. Yet how
can it be simply the book of man? Even its ap
parent contradictions, when closely examined,
reveal a deeper law of harmony, like the lines of
the Doric column — once thought to be vertical
and parallel, but now found to incline and con
verge, so as to meet if carried upward to a point
above the column.
The witness which the Word contains within
itself is what Chalmers called the "portable evi
dence" of Christianity. And it has this grand
advantage: if within the Word, it may be found
there by the diligent seeker. They say the shell
sings of the sea; you may easily test it — put it to
your ear and listen. Does the Bible speak of its
own divine origin? then you have only to put it
to your ear and hear; shut out other voices — the
clamors of prejudice and pride, wilful unbelief
and waywardness of heart — and you shall hear
the music of the celestials.
And so we ought to "search the Scriptures,"
as did the noble people of Berea, with readiness
of mind to find their hidden testimony; and there
fore many of them believed! But it must be
search, and not the careless, cursory glance which
unveils and reveals nothing. Remember the
famous jewel in the green vaults at Dresden; the
egg with its silver white, its golden yolk, within
the yolk a precious gem. The best is farthest
within, always, and he .whose hand touches only
the shell finds not the treasures that lay hidden from
the common, careless eye, as in "drusic" cavities.

144 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Let us learn of the bee. See him alight on
the flower and linger there, thrusting his trunk
down into the heart of the bloom, where the sweet
juices lie in a flask fairer than alabaster. Honest,
earnest, studious searching of the Scriptures, lin
gering on the heavenly blossoms, the patient and
prayerful penetration which touches the heart of
the Word of God, is our great need. He who
sucks the honey needs no other proof that the
flower-cup holds the nectar! He who has stored
the symmetrical cells of memory and heart with
the treasures of God's truth, and has found full
satisfaction and delight in it, needs no other proof
He exclaims:
"How sweet is thy Word unto my taste!
Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE.
"I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment
is exceeding broad." — Psalm cxix: 96.
Everything human has a limit to its apparent
perfection. Trace it far enough, or examine it
thoroughly enough, and you will find defects if
not deformities. Everything born of man or pro
duced by him is faulty, mixed up with error. Our
watches we correct by the chronometer and the
chronometer must be regulated by the sun; for
"beneath the stars nothing goes right. " But God's
law reveals no defects. It has no limit to its per
fection. There was in the Roman Forum, a gilt pillar
erected by Augustus, and known as "Milliarium
Aureum" or "the golden milestone." There, all
the principal Roman roads centered and termin
ated; and thence radiated to the remotest verge
of civilization, running in all directions, as far
as the silver eagles had triumphantly borne the
standards of the empire!
The Bible is the Golden Milestone of the ages.
It has been for thousands of years the grand cen
ter of all the noblest thought, purest love, and
holiest life of the world. All roads converge
here. The great highways of human progress
radiate from this shining center. From this great
book proceeds the inspiration of the best litera-

146 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ture, the most unselfish philanthropy, the most
faultless morality, which the world has ever known.
Whence came the Bible? Is this the accidental
point of all this convergence; or is it the designed
focus of all this light, love and life? Was this golden
pillar erected by one infinitely more august than
the foremost of the Caesars, to be the center and
source of all human progress? Did God put the
Bible in the very Forum of the nations, that by
all paths men might, in the honest search after
truth, find in this their goal; and that, from this,
as a starting point, every true lover of God and
man might proceed in his noble career of service?
This is the decisive test. No literary excellence,
no scientific accuracy, no perfection, as a book,
could atone for one vital error in ethical teaching
or moral precept, in a volume which claims the
high dignity of being a guide to the human soul,
in matters of faith and life, doctrine and duty!
Suppose that no revelation of God's will had
ever been made to man, through any such chan
nel; but that, in some way, we were led to look
for a written communication from God. What
sort of a book would we expect? We would sure
ly be warranted in anticipating in such a volume,
the following characteristics: i. It would be in
telligible, a clear revelation, and capable of being
understood by the average man. 2. It would be
consistent, that is, its testimony would be essen
tially one, united, harmonious witness. 3. It
would be transcendent, far surpassing all human
teachings in the tone of its precepts, and bearing
the impress of a divine mind and heart in its
whole structure. 4. It would be practical, touch
ing the actual needs of man, at the most vital

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 147
points of contact. We cannot imagine even the
human channel of the divine communication as
seriously affecting the result. After making lib
eral allowance for human imperfection, and the
imperfection of human language, we insist, on
God's behalf, that whatever claims to represent
his will shall in all these particulars correspond
with the high claim. If the Holy Ghost shall
pour the light of heaven into the dark chambers
of this world, no necessary imperfection in the
window panes through which it streams, can es
sentially diminish its glory. It may suffer some
absorption or refraction or take some hue or tint
in its passage, but it will still be recognized as
light from above.
I. The Unity or consistency of the Bible is a
grand argument in its favor. It is a collection of
books, written at different times, and by different
persons, at intervals through some sixteen cen
turies. In the style and character of these books,
there is surprising variety and diversity; some are
historical, others poetical; some contain laws,
others lyrics; some are prophetic, some symbolic:
in the New Testament we have four gospels, one
historic narrative, and twenty-one epistles fol
lowed by a symbolic poem in the most oriental
imagery. And yet this is no artificial arrange
ment of fragments. We find "the Old Testament
patent in the new; the new latent in the old!"
The various books of the Bible are entirely at
agreement. There is diversity in unity and unity
in diversity; "e pluribus unum. " There is some
times apparent divergence, at first; but further
search shews real harmony. As in a stereoscope,
the two pictures sometimes will not come together,

148 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
but as we continue to look, and the eye rests on
some particular point, one view is seen; so in the
Word of God. The more we study it, the more
its unity and harmony appear. Even the law and
the gospel are not in conflict. They stand like
the cherubim, facing different ways, but toward
each other; and the four gospels, like the cherubic
creature in Ezekiel's vision, facing in four different
directions, move in one. All the criticism of
more than three thousand years has failed to point
out one important or irreconcilable contradiction
in the testimony and teachings of those who are
farthest separated — there is no collision, yet there
could be no collusion.
In such a book there would not be likely to
be unity; for all the human conditions were un
favorable. No other book was ever com
posed or compiled in circumstances so disadvan
tageous to a harmonious moral testimony and
teaching. Here are some sixty or more separate
documents, written by some forty different per
sons, scattered over wide intervals of space and
time, strangers to each other; these documents
are written in three different languages, in differ
ent lands, with marked diversities of literary style,
and by men of all grades of culture and mental
capacity from Moses to Malachi; and there is in
them great unlikeness both in matter and manner
of statement; and yet in not one respect are their
doctrinal and ethical teachings in conflict; from
beginning to end, we find in them a positive one
ness of doctrine, which amazes us. Even where,
at first glance, there appears to be conflict, as be
tween Paul and James, we find, on closer exam
ination that, instead of standing face to face,

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 149
beating each other, they stand back to back,
beating off common foes. And, most wonderful
of all, this moral unity could not be fully under
stood till the book was completed. The process
of preparation, like a scaffolding about a building,
obscured its beauty — even the workmen upon it
could not appreciate its harmony — but, when
John added the cap-stone and declared that noth
ing further should be added, the scaffolding fell,
and a grand cathedral was revealed.
To appreciate this strong argument for the di
vine origin of the Bible, try this test in a supposed
case. Imagine another book, compiled by as
many authors, scattered over as many centuries!
Herodotus contributes a historic fragment on the
origin of all things, in the fifth century before
Christ; a century later Aristotle adds a book on
moral philosophy; two centuries pass and Cicero
adds a work on law and government; still another
hundred years and Virgil furnishes a grand poem
on ethics; in the next century Plutarch supplies
some biographical sketches; two hundred years
after, Origen adds essays on religious creeds and
conduct; a century and a half later, Augustine
writes a treatise on theology, and Chrysostom a
book of sermons; then seven centuries pass away
and Abelard completes the compilation by a mag
nificent series of essays on rhetoric and scholastic
philosophy. And between these extremes, which,
like the Bible, span fifteen centuries, let us imag
ine all along from Herodotus to Abelard thirty or
forty other contributors whose works enter into
the final result, men of different nations, periods,
habits, languages, and education; under the best
conditions, how much moral unity could be ex-

150 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
pected, even if each successive contributor had
read all that preceded his own fragment?
Have you heard Thomas' grand orchestra?
See how, as that baton rises and falls in the hand
of the Conductor, from violin and bass viol, cornet
and flute, trombone and trumpet, flageolet and
clarinet, bugle and French horn, cymbals and
drum, .there comes one grand harmony! You
have no doubt, though the conductor were
screened from view, that one master mind con
trols all the instrumental performers. But God
makes His oratorio to play for more than a thou
sand years, and where one musician becomes
silent another takes up the strain, and yet it is all
one grand symphony — the key is never lost and
never changes, except by those exquisite modula
tions that show the composer; and when the last
strain dies away you see that all these glorious
movements and melodies have been variations of
one grand theme! Did each musician compose as
he played, or was there one composer back of the
many players? "one supreme and regulating
mind" in this Oratorio of the Ages? If God was
the master musician, planning the whole and ar
ranging the parts, appointing player to succeed
player, and one strain to modulate or melt into
another, then we can understand how Moses'
grand anthem of Creation glides into Isaiah's ora
torio of the Messiah, by and by sinks into Jere
miah's plaintive wail, swells into Ezekiel's awful
chorus, changes into Daniel's rapturous lyric, and
after the quartette of the Evangelists, closes with
John's full choir of Saints and Angels!
How can it be accounted for? There is no
answer which can be given unless you admit the

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 151
supernatural element. If God actually superin
tended the production of this book, so that all
who contributed to it were guided by Him, then
its unity is the unity of a divine plan and its har
mony the harmony of a supreme intelligence and
will! We are told of the temple, first built upon Mt.
Moriah, that it was built of stone, made ready
before it was brought thither, so that there was
neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron
heard in the house, while it was in building. The
stone was cut, squared, polished and fitted to its
place in the quarry, before it was brought to the
temple platform — the beams and boards, were all
wrought into the desired form and shape in the
shops; and when the material for the temple was
on the ground nothing was necessary but to put
it together. What was it which insured symmetry
in the temple when constructed, and harmony be
tween the workmen in the quarries and the shops,
and the builders on the hill? There must have
been one presiding mind that planned the whole.
There was one brain or intelligence that built that
whole structure in ideal before it was in fact. The
builders built wiser than they knew; they were
putting together the ideas of the architect wrought
in stone, and not their own ideas!
In some such way alone can we account for
the singular unity of the Word of God. The Bible
is a structure planned and wrought out in the
mind of a divine Architect, who, through the ages,
superintended His own workmen and work. Mo
ses laid its foundations, not knowing who should
build up after him, or what form the structure
should assume. Workman after workman fol-

152 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
lowed; he might see that there was agreement
with what went before, but he could not foresee
that what should come after would be only the
sublime carrying out of the grand plan. And yet
what is the case? No one disputes the singular
unity of the structure; and yet, during all those
sixteen centuries, through which the building rose
toward completion, there was no sound of axe or
hammer, no chipping or hacking to make one part
fit its fellow. Everything is in agreement with
everything else, because the whole Bible was built
in the thought of God before one book was laid
in the order of its construction!
You cannot look on that cathedral at Milan,
whose first stone was laid March 15, 1386, and
which, after these five centuries, is yet incomplete,
without instinctively knowing that it must have
been the product of one mind, however many
workmen may have helped to rear its marble walls
and pinnacles. Its unity of design cannot be the
result of accident. No, the workmen were notthe
architect. Every stone was shaped and polished
to fit its place in the plan. And so of the Bible:
that cathedral of the ages! Whoever the work
men were, the Architect was God!
This unity appears the more marvellous when
we observe the progressive development of rev
elation. One of the finest scholars of Britain, in
one of the grandest books of the century, has
devoted the powers of his master-mind to tracing
the "Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament. "
He shows that, although there could have been
no such intent or intelligence in the writers' minds,
and although the books of the New Testament
are not even arranged in the order of their pro-

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 153
duction, that order could not, in one instance, be
changed without impairing or destroying the sym
metry of the book, and that there is a regular
progress in the unfolding of doctrine, from the
Gospel according to Matthew to the Revelation.
A wider examination will show the very same
progress of doctrine from corner-stone to cap
stone; from foundations first, then story after
story, pillars on pedestals and capitals on pillars,
and arches on capitals, till, like a dome, flashing
back the splendors of the noonday, the Apoca
lypse spans and crowns and completes the whole,
glorious with celestial visions.
The unity of the Bible is organic. Now the
unity of a building is not organic. It is a unity
of plan, of construction, of material, but you may
take down the spire of a church and put up an
other; replace the windows by memorial windows
making each a crystal monument of some de
parted friend; and change all the wood work in
its interior; and yet the unity and completeness
of the building are not affected. But if a human
body loses an eye, a finger, or a joint, it is maimed;
its completeness is gone; its unity violated; and
nothing can ever supply the lack of that lost por
tion, however insignificant.
The Bible is a unity in this, that not one of
all its books could be lost without maiming the
body of truth here contained. Every book has
a place which it fills. You may not at a single
glance discover its use, or see why it is necessary
to the plan of the book, but it is the fault of your
ignorance; each book fills a place in the great
plan; God's stamp is on this organic unity.
Take one example. The book of Esther has

154 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
been thought by some unnecessary to the com
pleteness of the canon. Why, it is said, "It does
not even contain the name of God. " But that
book critically studied proves a singularly com
plete exhibition of the Providence of God. It
teaches an unseen hand behind humaa affairs;
certain ultimate awards to the evil and the good;
it exhibits this providential rule in the uncertainty
and unsatisfactoriness of the prosperity of the
wicked, and in the prosperity that ultimately
comes to the good even out of their adversities;
it shows how retribution is sometimes poetically
exact in the very forms of punishment. And
that we may not confound God's Providence with
a bald fatalism that takes away human freedom
and responsibility, it shows us how the prayerful
resolution and action of God's servants and the
unbiased freedom of His enemies, are consistent
with His overruling sovereignty; and how all
things work together to produce all grand results.
We see the ministry of most minute matters in
furthering Providential plans. The book that
thus exhibits God's Providence — His universal
sovereignty, the universal harmony, divine retri
bution and human responsibility, does not once
contain the name of God; for it is meant to teach
us of the Hidden Hand that, behind the scenes,
unseen, moves and controls all things.
Cuvier has brought out into grand scientific
statement the unity of organized being. He finds
that, in every case, it forms a whole — a complete
system, all the parts of which mutually corre
spond. None of these parts can change without
the others also changing; and consequently each
taken separately indicates and gives all the others.

MORAL BEAUTV OF THE BIBLE. 155
For instance, the sharp-pointed tooth of the lion
requires a strong jaw; these demand a skull, fitted
for the attachment of powerful muscles, both for
moving the jaw and raising the head; a broad,
well-developed shoulder-blade must accompany
such a head; and there must be an arrangement
of bones of the leg which admits of the leg-paw
being rotated and turned upward, in order to be
used as an instrument to seize and tear the prey;
and, of course, there must be strong claws arming
the paw. Hence, from one tooth the entire ani
mal could be modelled, though the species had
perished. So the unity of the Bible is the unity of one
organism, where each part demands all the others.
The Decalogue demands the Sermon on the Mount.
Isaiah's prophecy makes necessary the narrative of
the Evangelists. Daniel fits into the Revelation
as bone fits socket, or as those strange bones in
the vertebral column naturally form the axis of
the neck. You cannot understand Leviticus with
out the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Psalms ex
press the highest morality and spirituality of the
Old Testament and anticipate the clearer beauty
of the New; they link the Mosaic code with the
divine ethics of the gospels and the epistles. The
Passover foreshadowed the Lord's Supper, and
the Lord's Supper interprets and fulfils the Pass
over. Even the little book of Jonah makes more
complete the sublime Gospel according to John;
and Ruth and Esther prophetically hint the Acts
of the Apostles. Nay, look more closely, and
after following the course of history, gospels and
epistles, when you come to the last chapter of
Revelation, you find yourself mysteriously touch-

156 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ing the first chapters of Genesis; and lo, as you
survey the whole track of your thought, you find
you have been following the perimeter of a golden
ring; the extremities actually bend around, touch
and so blend that no point of contact is detected.
You read in the first of Genesis of the first crea
tion; in the last of Revelation, of the new crea
tion — the new heavens and the new earth; there,
of the rivers that watered the garden: here, of
the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal;
there, of the Tree of Life in the first Eden: here,
of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the
Paradise of God; there, of the God who came
down to talk and walk with man: here, that the
Tabernacle of God is with men. There we read
of the curse that came by sin — of the serpent
whose trail is over all human joys; here we read,
"and there shall be no more curse" — "nothing
shall enter that defileth or maketh a lie."
II. If the Bible be the Word of God, it will
be clear and intelligible; else were it no Revelation.
It must be clear to the average man — nay, to the
lowest level of a complete manhood must a rev
elation from God descend. The Bible claims to
be God's message to man as man. It unfolds a
plan of redemption which reaches just as far and
wide as the condemnation. The rescue must be
as complete as the ruin; the salvation must touch
at every point the sin. That is no restoration
which cannot repair the whole ruin. And, inas
much as all men are in sin and need salvation,
the gospel must be so simple, plain, that any one
who is capable of sinning may be capable of un
derstanding and appropriating salvation. Now,
we find that wherever there is a human being who

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 157
has passed the first stages of infancy and child
hood, and is not imbecile or idiotic; wherever
there is a complete set of faculties, however unde
veloped, there may be voluntary sin, and so re
sponsibility. But if there be one human being
who can sin and yet cannot receive the saving gos
pel, by sheer incapacity to understand it, there is
ground for doubt that the gospel is of God.
The world has had many wise and good teach
ers of morals, and some of them have been centers
of grand influence. But every one of them has
spoken to a class of men. The great masses have
been shut out from their select circle by the very
character of their teachings. The word mystery
is of Greek origin, and means "a revealed secret"
which only the initiated could understand; and
these were mysteries to the common people,
and remained such because they demanded a
measure of intelligence and capacity not possessed
by the average man. By necessity, the philos-
pher addressed the few. Aristotle originated the
word metaphysics. He wrote first on "physics,"
then "meta-ta-phy-sica," "after the physics;" and
what better expresses those subtleties which lie
beyond the common mind? Suppose Aristotle's
"Organon" contained the secret of salvation, how
many sinners could from that find out the secret?
Pythagoras was a great teacher; but he did not
attempt to get a hold upon the masses. He wel
comed those who desired to be taught his myster
ies, and held them on probation till he should dis
cover who were able and worthy to be pupils;
and they were the only ones to whom he attempted
to reveal the hidden things of his philosophy.
Hence came the distinction between the exoteric

158 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and esoteric schools. These facts hint the drift
of all merely human teaching upon moral an '
spiritual truths. Had it been complete in all other
respects, here was a fundamental fatal lack: it did
not reach and touch, it could not move and mould,
all men; it was not fit for man as man.
We open the blessed Book, and one of the
first things which arrests our attention is the di
vine simplicity that is mingled with its awful sub
limity. The way of holiness is a plain and straight
highway, not a narrow, obscure, crooked byway;
"the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err
therein." The vision is written plain upon the
tablets, so that he may run that reads it. A child
in years and understanding can understand all that
is necessary to salvation. One of the first things
which childhood shows is "trust," and trust is the
soul of faith. Any child who can understand what
it is, upon a dark and stormy night, when he had
lost his way, to give up to a stronger arm a bur
den which he cannot longer carry, and give his
hand to another hand, to be led to a home which
he can no longer find, can understand what it is
to let Christ bear his sins and guide him to heaven.
Well might the Saviour of sinners set a child in
the midst of men and bid them become as little
children, for the learned and wise in this world
of sin scorn and scout the gospel for its simplicity.
And yet is it no sign that the true salvation is
here, that we need not go up to heaven in order
to bring a Saviour down, nor into hades to bring
a Saviour up from the dead? God asks of us no
such practical impossibilities, but only to believe
in the heart and confess with the mouth. But,
you ask, are there no mysteries in the Bible — no

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 159
things "hard to be understood," high as heaven,
deep as the abyss? Certainly there are; and were
there not, would that not argue against the Bible?
Does not the power wholly to comprehend the
work of another hand or brain imply a certain
equality? The very fact that there is about the
product of another's genius what you and I cannot
understand is a proof of genius — i. e. , of a supe
rior order of faculties. I need do no more than
hear Edison's phonograph repeat my sentences, to
be convinced that the man who invented that ma
chine is no ordinary man. And a glance at the
statues of Michael Angelo is enough to show me
that that man was a prince even among artists!
So the very mystery of God's works shows that
they proceeded from no human hand. Let any
man explain how a blade of grass grows, taking
from earth, air, light and dew, just what it needs
for its own structure, and building these elements
into itself! The Word of God must show the God
who inspired it. There must be thoughts above
our thoughts, and ways above our ways, or it may
be after all only a man's work!
How can God's Word be at once intelligible
and unintelligible, within our capacity and above
it, clear and yet obscure?
We need not stop to draw such subtle lines of
distinction as that of Coleridge, between "appre
hension" and "comprehension." A thing may at
the same time be sublime and simple. The pil
lar of cloud and of fire was a mystery. Who can
tell, even now, how a cloud can move with a su
preme intelligence — now going before to lead the
way, now resting to indicate a halt, and again go
ing behind to hide God's host from the pursuing

160 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
foe? How can a cloud herald the night-shade by
burning with a glory that midnight cannot quench?
And yet the cloud led Israel, and nothing could
be more simple than to go where it went, and
stay where it stayed. Whatever was mysterious
about the cloud did not interfere with its office as
a guide. The "secret things" belong to the Lord
our God, but the "revealed things" belong to us
and our children, even all the words of this law!
There are mysteries, but they are speculative;
there are revealed things, and they are regulative;
i. e., while God does not answer our questions,
"how?" and "why?" he does answer "what?"
We never ask; Lord, what wilt thou have me to
do? without a plain, prompt answer, not clouded
by mystery or shadowed by obscurity.
Mystery? Yes; and it would be a greater
mystery if in a revelation from God there were not.
Edward Irving compares the man who, with his
finite knowledge, expects to understand all the
deep things of God, to the little blind mole, run
ning his tiny galleries underground, undertaking
to interpret the marchings and countermarchings
of mighty armies overhead ! There are deep things
about God, but none of them touch duty! You
know not the mystery of motion — how the will is
linked to the nerve, nerve to muscle, muscle to
bone; and yet you can lift your arm and move
your leg at will. And so, whatever mystery is in
the Word, it does not becloud duty, or prevent
us from walking in the path of obedience. This
blessed Book acknowledges clouds and darkness
to be round about Him; yet it never admits that
clouds and darkness are round about the way that
leads to Him.

MORAL BEAUTY OF THE BIBLE. 161
You gaze up at Mont Blanc; it is dim with
the distance, and clouds wrap its summit as in a
white shroud. But the clouds belong about lofty
peaks; that is their natural home, and they make
the mountain look grand and sublime. They are
fitted to catch a thousand hues from the sunbeam,
and wrap the awful peak in rainbow colors; they
leave the snow and ice far up toward heaven,
which, as they melt, distil pure, cool water for the
springs far below. But, though clouds invest
these summits thousands of feet above, there are
no clouds about your pathway at the mountain's
foot; here your path is plain and clear. And all
this shows that you were not meant to live on that
higher level. Those grand peaks are, like the
stars they seem to touch, meant to look at and
admire — to strike awe into your soul; but you
could not abide up there; you would get lost.
Those are slippery heights, whence many an am
bitious climber falls to his own hurt. The air is
too rare up there; you breathe with difficulty,
and the cold is too intense, But here you walk
safely, and your feet do not stumble. At this
level everything is fitted to feed and nourish your
life. Is it not so with the Bible? It is like some
tall peak whose awful form, resting on the earth,
reaches the stars. Its heights are infinite, distant,
dim, enveloped in clouds, but glorious in their
obscurity and mystery. Those heights were not
meant for mortal feet to tread. Only angels can
breathe that etherial atmosphere, or venture to
explore the high and deep things of God. For
you and me, those sublime heights are meant only
that we may gaze, admire, adore. That is where

162 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the Bible touches God and heaven; we must only
look and be lost in the glory. But where the Bi
ble touches the earth it touches our level; here
are no clouds or darkness; all is light and plain
and clear, because here lies the path of duty.
True, we may, as we become more and more
familiar with God's truth, climb higher, get more
extended prospects, truer views of the relation
between the here and the hereafter; but even then
we shall only be overwhelmed with the depths of
the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God, and exclaim, "How unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past finding out!"
When we get as high as mortal can tread, we shall
only say with Paul that there is a height and depth,
a breadth and length, which pass knowledge.
Blessed is he who is content to understand the
way of duty, and who, in these divine mysteries
which have to do with the higher things and
deeper things of God, sees only an additional ev
idence that the Bible is of God. Because it is of
God, therefore does it rise so high above the
earthly level as that its shining summit is shrouded
in the clouds, and too glorious for our eyes to
behold!

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD.
"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my
path." — Psalm CXIXH05.
Do the moral teachings of the Bible accord
with its claims? This is the most searching ques
tion of all. Even prophecy and miracle would
fail to satisfy us that the Bible is of God without
correspondence between the moral truths there
revealed and those faculties of our being to which
such truths are addressed.
The scientist boldly infers that light was meant
for the eye, and the eye for the light, because
light is pleasant to the healthy eye, and painful
only to the diseased. On scientific principles, we
as boldly say that the Bible was meant as a light
to the moral nature of men; and here is the broad
basis of our induction. The men most free from
moral corruption — men, like Plato, of pure mind
and clear moral judgment — when brought in con
tact with the moral teachings of this book, most
delight in them; and only so far as men grow
corrupt morally, and the eye of the soul becomes
diseased by vice and crime, do they turn from the
pure Word of God.
It is commonly a mark of moral profligacy
that men antagonize the Bible ; and generally the
degree of moral degradation is shown by the vio
lence of such opposition. There is a man who has

164 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
for years been conspicuous as the enemy and tra-
ducer of the Christian faith; yet his life was said to
be exceptionally faultless in its morality, and his
character singularly without blemish. This seemed
strange, for his opposition to the religion of the
Bible is peculiarly reckless and malicious. But
further investigation disclosed the fact that his
conversation, when unrestrained by the conven
tionalities of society, is impure and contaminat
ing. I heard a gentleman of the highest probity
say that, when by a severe snow-storm he was
shut up with that man in a hotel, hemmed in by
snow-drifts, so shocking was his foulness of speech
that he preferred the cold and snow without,
rather than expose his helpless ears to such defile
ment. It is the old story of hating the light, com
ing not to the light, lest one's deeds be re
proved. Let us give to this moral test its fullest weight.
Some would have us receive the truth simply on
the ground of its authority, whether it fits our
inborn ideas of right and equity and humanity or
not. There are a few who tell us that we are not
to presume to judge as to right and wrong; that
God's will makes right and wrong, and that what
would be vice if done by our choice alone, be
comes virtue if done at His word.
Are there, then, no eternal laws of right and
wrong which lie, back of God's will, in the very
nature of things? Was Kant, the philosopher,
wrong when he said that "the two things that filled
him with awe are the star-sown deeps of space and
the deeper gulf between right and wrong?" Why
did God give us faculties capable of judging wrong
and right if He meant that we should dare no judg-

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 165
ment? It is one of the awful things, that as God
made man capable of sitting at the telescope, and,
in the invisible scales of science, weighing the
stars, so He has made man's moral nature capable
of weighing even Him in its balances. As the
child recognizes his father by a certa'in likeness —
a look, expression, attitude, gait, tone of voice,
grasp of hand, nay, even in darkness by something
not to be described — so are we to recognize God
because He corresponds to our inner sense of what
God must be; because He fits with divine exact
ness into the strange void of our spiritual being
as nothing else can.
We cannot conceive of any array of miracles
that would force upon mankind a belief contrary
to the teachings of reason or the promptings of
conscience. Bishop Clark affirmed that if "it were
written with letters of fire on the midnight sky:
'God is unjust, God is cruel,' there is that within
us which would say, this is an illusion of the senses
or the work of some malignant power hostile to
God. He cannot be unjust."
If the Bible be the Word of God, we may be
assured that it will contain nothing essentially op
posed to our moral sense; for that moral sense is
given us to perceive truth and recognize light.
This is the argument from correlation, or mutual
adaptation — an argument worthy to fill vol
umes. Nature is full of wants with corresponding sup
plies; of appetites or cravings with their gratifi
cations and satisfactions. The wing of the bird
tells of the air on which it may float; the fin of
the fish, of the water through which it may glide;
the ball of the joint, of the socket; the eye is a

166 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
prophecy of the light, and the ear of sound. So
universal is this correspondence that wherever we
find a craving, an adaptation, or a lack, we look
with unerring certainty for something else filling
the craving, meeting the adaptation, supplying
the lack. Emerson closed a protracted argument
with a literary sceptic in these forcible words:
"Sir, I hold that God, who keeps his word with the
birds and fishes in all their migratory instinct,
will keep His word with man. " And Bryant, in
his "Lines to a Waterfowl," with great beauty,
points out the lesson taught by this wonderful cor
respondence and correlation, in these lines:
"He who, from zone to zone.
Guides, through the boundless sky, thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread aione,
Will lead my steps aright !"
If man craves and needs an infinite Being, in
whose strength, wisdom, power and love, human
weakness, ignorance, feebleness and affection may
find perfect refuge and rest, it will be the only
exception to universal facts if no object exists to
meet this conscious need. The Bible declares and
exhibits just such an object, exactly adapted to
fill and fulfil all this need.
It is our solemn duty to apply to the Word of
God these moral and spiritual tests, in order, first,
to ascertain whether indeed it be the Word of
God, by its essential correspondence with our own
moral instincts and needs; and, secondly, to ap
preciate more fully its real worth and beauty.
Chamfort, the Parisian wit, says: "I heard, one
day, a devotee speaking against people who dis
cuss articles of faith, say naivement, 'Gentlemen,
a true Christian never examines what he is ordered

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 167
to believe. It is with that as with a bitter pill: if
you chew it you will never be able to swallow it. ' "
Behind the witticism is a covert sneer; the light
word is a sharp sword, meant to thrust at all gen
uine religious faith. But it is not so; the Bible
asks no such absurd, blind faith, no such unrea
soning, unthinking, mechanical acceptance!
In the uncovered mounds of Nineveh, you see
only fragments of that departed glory — broken
slabs, shattered pillars, grandeur and magnificence
and splendor lying in ruin. How do you recog
nize Nineveh? You have from history and art
formed an idea of Nineveh as it was when the
crown of empire was upon its brow, and you com
pare the conception with these remains. They cor
respond; and you have no more doubt that the
ancient city is uncovered than though you saw it
now in all the pride of its supremacy. Somewhat
thus, does God mean that we shall test his Word.
Among its first declarations is this: "God made
man in his own image." It is very plain that the
image is shattered and man is a ruin. Yet if we
compare the Bible idea of true manhood with the
ruined fragments of the original man, we shall
see a correspondence. And the more closely we
compare the Word of God with human nature
and needs, the more plainly will appear a simi
larity between the utterances of that Word and
the highest utterances of the soul of man. This
has been observed and confessed even by pro
fessed infidels, and it is a fact which no human
philosophy has yet explained, and which, on the
basis of sceptical philosophy, defies satisfactory
explanation. Happily, the foes of Christianity furnish us a

168 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
starting-point in their own concessions and con
fessions. So few are the exceptions that it is fair
to call it a universal verdict that no book ever
known among men compares with this. The
praises of the Bible, drawn from the lips of infidels,
and left on record by their pens, might be mis
taken for the adoring words of saints, or even an
gels. Yet the Word of God does not court the
favorable opinion of men. With divine indiffer
ence, it hews its way into the very heart of man.
It begins by telling him that his wisdom is folly,
his righteousness filthy rags; it assaults him from
every side with the most humiliating exposures;
and yet it challenges his admiration. Reville, the
advocate of French Rationalism, says: "One day
a question was raised in an assembly what book
a man condemned to life imprisonment would best
take with him, and from Roman Catholic, Protest
ant, philosophers and materialists, came alike the
one reply, to which all agreed — the Bible!"
As H. L. Hastings quaintly intimates, this Bi
ble is a "book which has been refuted, demol
ished, overthrown and exploded more times than
any other book you ever heard of. Every little
while somebody starts up and upsets this book;
and it is like upsetting a solid cube of granite.
It is just as big one way as the other; and when
you have upset it, it is right side up, and when
you overturn it again, it is right side up still."
I. One element which enters into the ethical
perfection of the Bible is its impartiality. All
human biography is more or less one-sided. Bos-
well's Life of Johnson has been pronounced the
model biography, yet it is, more than anything
else, along-drawn-out and highly-flavored encom-

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 169
ium — a worshipper, bowing before his idol, and
obscuring his idol's features by the clouds of in
cense with which he invests him. Boswell breaks
on Johnson's feet the alabaster box of ointment;
and the book is filled with the odor of his spike
nard. Human biography belongs largely to the
heroic, and sometimes approaches the fabulous;
and it is not unnatural. When men are prompted
to prepare such books, it is commonly from pro
found admiration for the character they are to
portray. They approach their work as an artist
begins a portrait or a bust, with an ideal image
before him — and in the artistic the natural is often
lost; there is a likeness, but it is a transfigured
likeness — a portrait untrue to life! Cromwell said
to the younger Lely, who was about to paint his
portrait, "Paint me as I am; if you leave out a
scar, a wrinkle, a freckle or a pimple, I'll not pay
you one shilling!" But if all human biographies
were paid for upon this basis, their authors would
not get rich; all of them more or less discredit
the truth by a suppression of vices and faults.
In Bible biography mark the rigid ethical im
partiality — rigid indeed, but never frigid! You
do not feel that there is any effort or willingness
to represent the subject of the biographical sketch
either with a bias of prepossession or of prejudice,
but to be exactly true to nature and fact. But no
man is held up as perfect, except the one perfect
man. Caleb and Joshua, Nehemiah and Daniel,
are not presented on the faulty side of their char
acters; yet they are not put before us as faultless,
crowned with a diadem almost divine. And, on
the other hand, Noah, who was "perfect in his
generations and walked with God," is still exhib-

170 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ited in his drunken sleep, and, though his sons
went backward and cast a cloak over him to hide
his nakedness, the impartial historian does not
even cloak his sin by silence, far less, apology.
We find Moses indulging in unrighteous anger
and unholy pride, and there is no concealment lest
we should think less of the glory of his face who
talked with God as a man with his friend. David
was "after God's own heart" — the great king, the
saintly psalmist. How the pen of the uninspired bi
ographer even now falters when tracing that part of
his history which records two of the highest crimes !
And yet how unhesitatingly the pencil of the Holy
Ghost adds to the beautiful portrait the ugly and
repulsive feature that belongs there, for the truth's
sake! The Gallery of Battles at Versailles immortal
izes no defeats. You walk through those vast
corridors, and you understand the inscription over
the portal: "A toutes les glories de la France."
The galleries of paintings are so extensive that if
these pictures were placed in a row they would
cover seven miles. The subjects of the historical
paintings range from the Crusades to the last Ital
ian war, including incidents in the career of Na
poleon I, by David; more recent Algerian battle
scenes, by Horace Vernet, and Yvon's Crimean
and Italian scenes. But it is noticeable that not
one defeat is pictured forth.
Turn now to the Word of God; let us enter
God's historical gallery. Here the ages are in
cluded from Adam to Abraham, Moses to Malachi,
and from John Baptist to John the Apostle. Peter was
to the New Testament church what Abraham or
Moses was to the Old, and yet he, whose noble

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 171
confession was the rock on which our Lord built
His church, was also pronounced a Satan, an offense
unto Christ, because he savored not of the things
that were of God, but those that be of men. If
the Bible would have spared any one, surely it
would be the disciple whom Jesus loved, and
whose head lay in his own bosom; and yet there
is not even a golden gauze to veil his impatience
and intolerance, his jealousy, ambition, vindici-
tiveness! These men are not ideal men, but real
men — men of like passions as ourselves, even the
foremost of apostles, like Paul, or of prophets,
like Elijah! There is no Greek idealism here.
II. This Book has never been found in a sin
gle particular to teach immorality; and the most
exalted positive morality and spirituality are taught
here. Where can be found such exhibitions of
the deformity and enormity of sin? Where such
lofty laws of thought, feeling, purpose, endeavor?
Some try to rob God's word of its moral value
by subtle hints that it is not original. We are
told that the law of Forgiveness is no new thing,
that the Hindoo proverb long since enjoined it
even toward enemies, and beautifully compared
the forgiving spirit to the sandal wood that im
parts it fragrance even to the axe which cuts it to
the heart. We are told that the Golden Rule is
as old as the Chinese sages, and that Confucius
530 B. C. wrote it in a negative form; "Do not
unto others what you would not have them do
unto you." But suppose all this to be true — and
overlook the fact that the negative form of this
precept is at best but a silver, not a golden rule —
does it prove anything against Christianity that
some of its grand precepts have been anticipated

172 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
by Plato or Pythagoras, by Hindoo or Chinese
sages? The moral system of the Bible is to be
tested as a system. You may find tropical plants
in a hot house — but to find them in their native
soil you must go to the tropics! — there they are
parts of the vegetable system, not exotic, but in
digenous — they belong to the flora of the country.
And the question is not whether certain of the ten
commandments can be found in pagan codes, or
some precepts of the sermon on the mount, in the
sacred book of Buddha; but where do we find the
higher laws of life and love, amid surroundings en
tirely consistent and correspondent? Here is the
native soil, in which celestial plants naturally
grow and thrive and bloom! It is this divine sys
tem of morality which makes the Bible stand
apart and alone, alike without superior or rival.
Daniel Webster said, "there is always room at the
top." Thus far, the Bible stands confessedly at
the top: still there is room for any better system
of morality; and even if the Bible is like the top-
stone of the pyramid that leaves no place for any
above it, the common verdict of mankind will
heave it from its place if a better can be found.
"The progress of human reason in the paths of
ethical discovery is merely the progress of a man
in a treadmill, doomed forever to retrace his own
steps," and we feel no fear that any human sys
tem will ever be able to improve in one particular
upon this sublime ethical teaching!
There is a tradition of the descendants of Seth
living on the summit of so lofty a mountain as to
be able to hear and join in the song of the heav
enly host. The Bible is that mountain: its peak
pierces beyond the clouds into the sublimest ele-

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 173
vations and atmospheres. Where the Word of
God en/s, Heaven begins. The conceptions of
things human and divine, found here, surpass in
grandeur and magnificence all the dreams of the
ages and of the sages.
III. Where did the mere mind of man learn
such moral conceptions of God? In a previous
chapter the Bible account of Creation was con
trasted with the absurdities of the best pagan cos
mogonies. Take the Greek conception of God,
at the summit of ancient culture, and compare it
with the idea of the divine nature here unfolded!
Jupiter, father of gods and men, the Omnipotent,
the Thunderer, was the Son of Saturn, who had
dethroned his father, and devoured his own chil
dren at birth. His wife, however, succeeded in
saving Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto — and they be
came gods respectively of earth, sea and hell.
Jupiter held court at Olympus, and the court of
the most licentious of French sovereigns was not
more infamous. Lust, rage, jealousy, hate, in
trigue, combined with power, wisdom, majesty
and love in impossible mixtures. As Geiger well
says, "Gods were a turbulent aristocracy — one
mightier than the rest but not almighty. " Juno,
Jupiter's wife, put him to sleep during a battle of
the Greeks before Troy. So angry was he with
her for raising a storm to impede Hercules that he
hung her from the vaults of heaven by a chain,
tying anvils to her feet, and when her son Vulcan
interposed he flung him down head first: he landed
on Semnos but broke his leg in the fall and has
limped ever since. Jupiter had a severe head
ache, and Vulcan was summoned to relieve his
distress, and at a blow from his hammer, out

174 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
sprang Minerva, full-armed. These are a few
specimens of Greek mythology.
Think for one moment of the Bible conception
of God — all powerful, but good; all-knowing, yet
merciful; all-present, yet not the God of Panthe
ism, inseparable from his works; but a personal
God. Think of His infinite holiness, of purer
eyes than to behold evil, yet graciously planning
for the salvation of sinners; exalted to the highest
heaven and yet condescending to the weakest and
the humblest. Where did the writers of the Bi
ble get such conceptions of the one God, while
the foremost nations were worshipping dumb idols !
while Egypt bowed to the crocodile, and Athens
gave 60,000 women to the licentious rites of Ve
nus, and Rome was adoring the bloody God of
War, and the riotous God of Wine! while even
the Parsee got no higher than to turn his face
eastward and adore the sun!
IV. The Bible is alone in the full, clear exhi
bition of the majesty and dignity of man; putting
an infinite distance between the lowest of men
and highest of animals. Look at the inversions
of truth in history! See Egypt in her palmy days
worshipping, as divine, the calf and the crocodile;
man bowing before the animal; then read Genesis,
and see how grand a difference and distance are
there put between the loftiest level of animal life
and the lowest level of human being.* The
highest order of animal is only creeping thing,
but man is made in the image, after the likeness
of God, out of the dust of the earth, but with an
inbreathed soul and spirit the direct inspiration
of God's breath.
*Gen. i : 26, 27, 28.

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 175
Mark — when man is to be created — the crown
of all creation — there is a council among the sub
lime persons of the Godhead: "Let us make
man." He was to be in God's own image — intel
lectually independent, with powers of reason and
reflection and intelligent communication. Hobbes
finely says that man differs from all other animals,
"rationale et orationale, " by the gift of reason and
speech. Man alone was made in God's likeness
— in intellectual capacity. Let modern science
exalt the animal creation as it will, and try to
evolve man from the monkey: but here is a great
gap which no evolution can bridge. The capacity
for development in the animal reaches a limit be
yond which it cannot be carried. Man's capacity
for growth no science has ever yet bounded or
measured. The monkey is after six thousand
years essentially the same. Improvement by the
most painstaking process is only like the swinging
of a pendulum within a very narrow limit — it
never goes beyond the extremity of the arc. Is
man what he was even a thousand years ago?
Look at the new-born infant — no animal is at
birth so helpless as he; not even an instinct of
self-preservation except that which enables the
infant to attach itself to the mother's breast. No
knowledge of the use of eyes or ears, hands or
feet. The new-born pup is ahead of the new
born babe in intelligence, sagacity and power of
self-preservation. But how soon the child will be
training the dog, asserting his superiority!
There was a boy at Dr. Richards' private asy
lum in New York, who seemed utterly animal, irra
tional and without the self-helpful instincts of a nor
mal animal. He would lie on the floor, his tongue

176 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
lolling from his mouth, absolutely without appar
ent thought and almost without sensation. He
was called the "oyster-boy!" For months they
tried to awaken a single sign of conscious life, or
impress upon him one idea. One day Mrs. Rich
ards dropped her thimble on the floor, and it fell
with a metallic ring that started or startled the
boy's idiotic mind into feeble action — and he
turned slowly, as Bottom would say, "to see a
noise which he heard," and then back his intellect
retreated into the idiotic darkness, as a snail with
draws into its shell! But like the faint streak of
grey in the east, that simple sign meant the awak
ening of consciousness! It was the first tint that
tells of the dawn of day. And, on the morrow,
again the thimble was dropped, and again the
oyster-boy moved, and looked, this time a little
more quickly and intently — and so, little by little,
the darkness gave place to the dawning light, till
the tongue no longer hung from the mouth, but
began to learn the mystery of speech.
By-and-by a shoemaker was brought and made
a shoe before his eyes, fitting it to his foot, and
then Dr. Richards, laying his hand on the shoe
and then on the workman would say, "Shoemaker
makes shoe." And so a tailor and a coat. Dr.
Richards then desired to arouse at once the men
tal and moral faculties by introducing to this
awakening intelligence some conception of God.
But how should he select an object great and
grand enough to convey such a conception! It
was a summer morning — and the glorious sun was
just pouring his flood of light into the bay win
dow. Dr. Richards took the boy to the casement,
reverently pointed to the sun and said with holy

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 177
awe: "God made the sun!" and the boy, catching
the tone and the thought together, repeated "God
made the sun!". And Dr. Richards left him gaz
ing. He returned two hours later, and that oys
ter-boy still stood reverently gazing and saying,
as though his whole soul were overwhelmed,
"God made the sun!" Bishop Potter afterwards
heard that boy, Sylvanus Wheeler, repeat the
Lord's Prayer, and with a voice choking with
emotion he said, " For thirty years I have repeated
that prayer, but never like that!"
Is man indeed only an educated monkey?
When the noblest specimen of all the animal crea
tion is found capable of even such development
as that, it will be time enough to doubt that
man is more than the animal. No, between that
oyster-boy helpless on the floor and the highest
style of animal life, there is the fathomless gap of
the infinite! How does the gap widen when we
remember to what illimitable extent the edu
cation and development of that mind and heart
may yet be carried ! Try and follow that intel
lect and heart, so slow to wake into a true life —
as year after year, and, beyond this narrow sphere,
age after age, and cycle upon cycle revolve — the
oyster-boy has left all the scholarship and learn
ing of the centuries behind, as the soaring lark
leaves the twig of the shrub to greet the sun high
up where clouds rest, or as the sun in noonday
leaves the dim glory of the dawn. He has gone
far beyond Aristotle and Plato, and Bacon; the
learning of philosophers he despises as the full-
grown man puts away the prattle of childish ig
norance. He has attained unto the knowledge
of the cherub and the affection of the seraph. If

178 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
man has his descent from the oyster, how comes
this ascent above the oyster!
The image of God in man is the moral like
ness also — the power of judgment, discriminating
between right and wrong. Man has a conscience,
and if we measure fully the grandeur of its au
thority and the majesty of its decisions, we shall
be constrained to say with Dorner, that "con
science has the man. "
And so has the man the image of God's immor
tality. He is fashioned not like the beasts that
perish, after the law of a carnal commandment,
but after the power of an endless life. What
wonder that God is said to have breathed into
man's nostrils the breath of lives, so that man be
came a living soul — mark, became, not had a liv
ing soul. It is the soul that is the man, and
therefore God made man to have dominion over
fish and fowl and cattle — the whole creation.
It is because of the exalted moral and spirit
ual character of the Bible that it has successfully
resisted the assaults of four thousand years! It
is too strong in itself and in its hold on the hearts
of men, to be overthrown; as well attempt with
popguns and putty to demolish Gibraltar — or to
root up by hand one of the cedars of Lebanon.
The Bible is too high to be successfully assaulted;
as well try to throw water against the firmament
— or to dislodge the stars with arrows; or, as Dr.
Breckinridge said, "as well attempt to plant your
shoulder against the burning wheel of the mid
day sun, and roll it back into night!"
The second Psalm represents God as seated on
his exalted throne, and derisively laughing at the
impotence of human rage against Him and His

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 179
rule. So may we say of the Word of God — it
laughs at the malice of its foes, at the impotence
of its most gigantic adversaries, for, like the
throne of God, it rests on eternal foundations?
Some reader perhaps smiles at such enthusi
asm, and thinks within himself that it is very
strange if the Bible is such a wonderful Book,
that the sceptical objector does not find it out. A
man may look into the Bible with an eye open
only to objectionable features. The unconverted
man loves objections, as the condemned man at
court is glad to detect a flaw in the argument
which is directed against him, though the flaw
may not at all affect his guilt or the real conclu
siveness of the testimony. A mind disposed to
scepticism opens the Word, if at all, not to find
moral beauty, but to hunt for something on which
to hang a new objection; and hence, most infi
dels never read the Bible, but take their objec
tions at second hand. Let two examples be
given. "And he brought forth the people that were
therein, and put them under saws, and under har
rows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made
them pass through the brick-kiln: and thus did
he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon.
So David and all the people returned unto Jeru
salem"* This has been violently assailed as a
proof of the cruelty of David — the man after
God's own heart, who nevertheless took the peo
ple of Rabbah and sawed them in twain, or drew
over them iron harrows, or clove them with axes,
or roasted them in brick-kilns. But what if it
refers only to the work at which he set them?\
*2 Samuel, xii: 31. {Angus' Bible Hand Book.

180 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
An infidel paper in Boston devoted a column
of ridicule to the "quail story,"* estimating the
bushels of quails piled up over the country, and
showing that each of the 6,000,000 Israelites
would have 2,888,643 bushels of the quails per
month, or 69,629 bushels for a meal. But the
Bible says no such thing as that they were piled
two cubits high over a territory forty miles broad;
it simply means that the wind that brought them
from the sea, swept them within reach, or about
three feet above the ground, not out of reach as
they would have been over head. If you should
say you saw a flock of birds as high as a church
spire, even an infidel would ridicule any one for
supposing they were packed so high.
V. There is one fact, worth more than all ob
jections, and overbalancing them all. The Bible
somehow works moral revolutions in character.
Find any other book that has wrought such won
ders. Men have studied natural philosophy, as
tronomy, botany, geology, read novels and
histories and poems, works on law and medicine
and philosophy; who has found these books re
straining lust, curbing sensual appetites, inspiring
noble aims, exposing sinful propensities, moving
one to be a truer son, better husband, kinder
father? But, somehow, from the day men begin
systematically to read the Bible, they begin to be
sensible of a new power at work in mind and
heart, working most of all for righteousness. I
would put higher value on one chapter of God's
Book than on all other books put together, to re
strain from evil, and constrain to good; and for
more than twenty-five years I have been watch-
"Numb., xi: 31.

MORAL SUBLIMITY OF GOD'S WORD. 181
ing this book as it has touched other men and
women in the quick of their being, with the thrill
of a divine life. I have seen men of no secular
culture grow grand under the educating influence
of this book — their minds expanding under the
influence of its elevating, ennobling, inspiring
ideas of God and man, of duty and destiny; I
have seen them grow to beauty of character and
conduct, sweetness of temper and disposition,
transformed, transfigured.
These results demand a cause efficient and suf
ficient to produce such effects; and that adequate
cause can be found only in the fact that God is
in the Bible by the breath of His inspiring, trans
forming Spirit.
"This little volume," said the venerable
Schliermacher, holding up a Greek New Testa
ment before two English students, "contains more
valuable information for mankind than all the
other writings of antiquity put together. " This
book is really the foundation of all the literature
that is worth preserving. Not less than two hun
dred thousand volumes have been written to ex
pound and illustrate the Book of books. It is
thus the central sun of a constellation of glories;
and more and more as the ages pass, do the no
blest of human thoughts, both borrow their
lustre from its glory, and wheel into reverent or
bits about this as a centre?
Let the infidel assault it — let men blaspheme
and ridicule. It is God's lever and it is moving
the world. Science turns its microscopic eye
upon it, but it cannot be convicted of essential
error. The moral philosopher examines its ethi
cal code; but the inspiration of all virtue is there.

182 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
The hungry soul that craves food for a starving
heart, finds here the full feast of fat things satis
fying every craving. Who will turn from this
divine book, to gratify his evil heart by a fatal
plunge into the darkness of unbelief!

PART II

THE DIVINE PERSON.

CHAPTER IX.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
"In the Volume of the Book, it is written of me." — Psalm
XL, 7. The argument from prophecy we have put
foremost, because God Himself does. This is
the very seal and signature by which the Holy
Scriptures are certified by Him, as of divine ori
gin and authority. The author of this Book of
Books attached to the volume clear credentials,
open to examination, easy of investigation, con
clusive in attestation. Other signs of supernat
ural origin and character there are, which can be
appreciated only by prolonged and diligent study,
disciplined intellect, varied acquirements; but
here is a sign, a seal, a sanction, which lies upon
the very face and surface of the document, appeals
to the common mind, carries its own verification
within the lines and limits of the Word itself.
The most ordinary reader may examine the curi
ous predictions of the Messiah's person and work
found in the Old Testament; follow the gradual
progress of these revelations from Genesis to
Malachi, and trace the prophecies as they descend
into details, more and more specific and minute,
until at last the full figure of the coming One
stands out, as the figure of the Corsican corporal
stood out upon the Column Vendome; nay, if he
will not only read but search the Old Testament

186 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Scriptures, he may trace the Messiah from his
birth in Bethlehem all along through his career of
suffering and of conquest, as he might follow the
career of Napoleon in those memorial reliefs along
the spiral bronze that wraps that column. Then
with this image clearly fixed in his mind's eye,
he may turn from the Old Testament to the New;
and beginning with Matthew, see how the historic
personage, depicted by the Evangelists, corres
ponds and coincides in every particular with the
prophetic personage, portrayed by the prophets;
let him, after this new image has reached its full
outline also, take the New Testament profile of
the Christ and lay it over the Old Testament pro
file of the servant of God; let him note how fea
ture coincides with feature, even to the most mi
nute particular; how in every respect the history
fills and fulfills the prophecy. There is not a dif
ference or divergence, yet there could have been
no collusion or contact between prophet and nar
rator, for they are separated by from four hundred
to fourteen hundred years. Observe, the reader
has not gone outside of the volume itself: he has
simply compared two portraits; one in the Old
Testament, of a mysterious coming one; another
in the New, of one who has actually come; and
his irresistible conclusion is that these two per
fectly blend in absolute unity, No reasoning is
required: instinctively, intuitively, he leaps to the
conclusion, by the quick logic of common sense,
that one hand drew the image in the prophecies
and moulded the portrait in the histories, and that
hand must have been divine!
Mark also that this conclusion is a double one:
it compels the candid reader to accept the pro-

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187
phetic Scriptures as infallibly inspired, and to
accept the historic Christ, toward whom these
glorious fingers of prophecy point and in whom
all these rays of light converge, as a divine per
son. The apostles and Christ Himself laid great
stress upon this argument from prophecy: it was
not only the main, but almost the sole argument
employed, in the discourses outlined in the New
Testament. There was then no need to prove
the facts of our Lord's life, death and resurrec
tion: these things were "not done in a corner,"
as Paul boldly said to Agrippa. The history
needed vindication and verification, no more than
day dawn needs announcement. Even the foes
of our faith dared not dispute the facts, set forth
by the evangelists. An overwise and overnice
'higher criticism' may at the distance of eighteen
centuries challenge us to prove to a mathematical
certainty that Jesus rose from the dead, but it is
noticeable that, during the first three centuries of
hot contest, when every step of advance on the
part of Christianity was marked with blood, it
was not necessary for apologists to defend the
fact of the resurrection which even the enemies
of the cross had not the boldness to dispute.
As in those days the facts were plain, it was
only necessary to show their marvellous corres
pondence with the Old Testament prophecy, in
order to carry prompt conviction to every fair
mind; and so this was the common method of
preaching the gospel, the solid but simple rock-
base of argument upon which rested all appeal.
Our risen Lord Himself, walking toward Em
maus with two disciples, "beginning at Moses and

188 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
all the prophets, expounded unto them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself. " They
had been despairing at his death, and incredulous
at his resurrection; yet he showed them that both
his dying, and his rising on the third day, were
anticipated for centuries in the prophecies, and so
he rebuked at once their despondency and their
unbelief, by exclaiming, "O fools and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken !
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things
and to enter into His glory?" that is, was it not
necessary that all this should be, in order that the
Scripture should find its glorious fulfilment!
On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached a
sermon which overwhelmed three thousand hear
ers with immediate conviction. The entire basis
of his argument was simply this: that in the
death and resurrection of Jesus — nay, in their
very crucifixion of Him, the prophecies, read
every Sabbath day in their synagogues, were ex
actly fulfilled! He showed them how David,
foreseeing that Christ should rise, had uttered the
mysterious words of the sixteenth Psalm; how
that Joel, foreseeing the outpouring of the Spirit,
had long ago written of the very Pentecostal
blessing they were then witnessing. And it was
by this appeal, in which prophecy and history
met in one burning piercing point of conver
gence, that those thousands were pricked in their
heart. We trace Peter's discourse in Solomon's porch,
and in the palace of Cornelius; Stephen's address
before his stoners; Paul's speeches and sermons,
in the synagogue at Antioch, in Persia, and in
Thessalonica, where "three Sabbath days he rea-

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 189
soned out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging
that Christ must needs have suffered and risen
again from the dead," and that this Jesus whom
he preached was the anointed one — we follow this
same Paul till he comes before Agrippa; his ap
peal still is, "Believest thou the prophets?" And
when we get our last glimpse of him at Rome, he
is still "expounding and testifying concerning the
kingdom of God, persuading concerning Jesus,
both out of the law of Moses and out of the proph
ets, from morning till evening. " And so it was
with Apollos, the golden mouth of Alexandria.
Accomplished as he was in all the oriental learn
ing, he chose this one all-convincing theme, and
"mightily convinced the Jews, publicly shewing
by the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ."
Why was this argument from prophecy then
so common, so mighty, — now, alas! so seldom
used with real force and power — why was this
great argument chosen, out of all the armory of
weapons, to defend an assaulted faith and com
pel the very assailants to surrender? Because
this argument is unanswerable; because it is per
petual in its force, and because it is applicable
always and everywhere. And that we may all
feel its mighty suasion, let us patiently enter some
what into particulars.
The prophecies and references to Christ in
the Old Testament, which are expressly cited
in the New, either as predictions fulfilled in
Him or as previsions applied to Him, num
ber three hundred and thirty-three. These are
passages of scripture, some of which contain
in themselves a little group of predictions, includ
ing several particulars, so that they stand out in

190 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the firmament of prophecy, not like single stars,
however bright, but like constellations in which
are clusters of radiant suns.
These prophecies may be divided into two great
classes: first, those which portray Christ in His
human nature, His lineage, career, sufferings and
glory; in His successive manifestations until the
end of the world; secondly, those which de
scribe His character and offices, human and di
vine. Each class may be divided again into some
twenty subdivisions, covering with astonishing
fullness and exactness the most minute particu
lars; the audacious pen of prophecy, with the
calmness and boldness of conscious inspiration
and infallibility, adds feature after feature and
touch after touch and tint after tint, until what
was at first "a drawing without color," a mere
outline or profile, comes at last to be a perfect
portrait with the very hues of the living flesh.
This mysterious coming One is to be the seed of
the woman, born of a virgin; He is to be of the
family of Noah, and branch of Shem; of the race
of the Hebrews; of the seed of Abraham in the
line of Isaac, through Jacob or Israel; of the
tribe of Judah, the house of David. He is to be
born at Bethlehem, after a period of seventy
weeks* from the issue of the decree to restore and
rebuild Jerusalem; His passion or sufferings, His
death on the cross, His embalment and entomb
ment, His resurrection on the third day, His as
cension into the heavenly glory, His second ap
pearance in glory at the "regeneration," and His
last appearance at the end of the world, are all

*Properly heptades, or divisions of seven.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 191
included in the delineation of His humanity and
human career as the Son of Man.
The second grand division of these Messianic
prophecies includes His double character as the
Son of God while yet the Son of Man; as the
Holy One or Saint; as the Saint of Saints, the
righteous or just One, the Wisdom of God, the
Oracle or Word of the Lord God, the Saviour or
Redeemer, the Lamb of God, God's servant, the
Mediator, Intercessor, Advocate or Daysman,
Shiloh or Apostle; Prophet like Moses; Priest,
High-Priest like Aaron ; King like David ; Prophet,
Priest, King in one, like Melchizedek; Chief Cap
tain or Leader like Joshua; Messiah, Christ or
Anointed; King of Israel and God of Israel;
Jehovah, Lord of Hosts, and, as though all titles
were exhausted, as "King of Kings and Lord of
Lords." I. The first class of predictions which arrests
our attention is Direct Prophecy concerning the
august personage known as the coming Messiah.
The gradual unfolding of this flower of Messianic
prophecy is marked by three stages or periods of
development. The first ends with Moses, and
may be called the Mosaic; the second centers in
the reigns of David and Solomon, and may be
termed the Davidic; the third closes with Ma-
lachi, and may be called the properly prophetic,
and, because here prediction rises to its loft
iest altitude, the climacteric. These three periods
correspond, in plant life, to seed, bud, and full-
grown flower.
I. The Mosaic period gives us the great germ of
all that unfolds, afterward, into the perfect and fra
grant bloom in the rose of Sharon, the lily of the

192 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
valley. In Genesis iii: 15 we are told that the
seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.
To feel the full force of this germinal prophecy,
we must stand where our first parents stood. The
awful fact was before them that the serpent had
fatally stung humanity at the very heart, and
brought death into the world, and all our woe.
Eden was lost, God's favor forfeited, and inno
cence forever gone. That deliverance could come
at all was wonderful; that it could come by the
seed of her who led the way in the first sin was
more wonderful still; that it should not only
bring healing to lost man, but a crushing blow to
the very head of the serpent-tempter, was most
wonderful of all. Yet all this was mysteriously
wrapped in that first enigma of Messianic predic
tion. There was to be a triumph of humanity
over the evil principle represented in the serpent,
and exhibited in the fall.
And now this seed-prophecy, puts forth its
slender blade, and begins to branch out into par
ticular predictions. The general, vague promise
narrows down; the deliverer is to come of the
posterity of Shem; later still the promise grows
more specific, and limits this deliverer to the de
scendants of Abraham, then of Isaac, then of Ja
cob, then of Judah, and finally of David. The
prophecy thus branches out into more and more
minute particulars, until the ramifications of the
prophetic tree reach the tiniest twig; and yet,
with each new descent or ascent into particulars,
the prophecy becomes the more impossible of ful
filment if no divine purpose and power are be
hind it.
The prophecies of the Mosaic period branch

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 193
out into other particulars beside those oi pedigree.
Not Abraham's seed alone, but all the families of
the earth are to be blessed in this coming One.
He is to be a Shiloh, the peaceful or pacific One,
and unto Him, as a sceptred Ruler, the people
are to gather. He is to be a prophet like unto
Moses, yet clothed with higher authority and
gifted with higher wisdom — Lawgiver, Leader,
Ruler, Redeemer — Rex, Lex, Lux, Dux.
2. The second stage of Messianic prophecy
has been called the Davidic. Here, he who was
to be a leader and a lawgiver like Moses, is to be
a king of war like David, yet a prince of peace
like Solomon; only his kingdom is to be without
succession and without end, which could be true
only of some order of royalty, higher than hu
man. In the Messianic Psalms, various aspects of
the dignity, royalty and divinity of this coming
King are set forth. He is God's anointed Son.
His sceptre sways even the heathen: redeemed
humanity constitutes his chosen bride and the day
of the nuptials is the feast day of the universe.
Psalms ii, xiv, lxxii, etc.
His empire is to be as wide as the world, as
long as time, yet it is to be spiritual, conferring
peace by righteousness. He will be the friend of
the poorest and most obscure. Like rain on the
mown grass, His rule shall distil blessings that
make the barren soil fertile. Liddon sees in these
prophecies in which his name is represented as
enduring and propagating, a hint that He him
self shall be out of sight, ruling invisibly in his
church. His people are clad not in a panoply of
steel but an armor of beautiful holiness, serving
willingly. This King is also a priest, anointed

194 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
with the oil of celestial gladness, fairer than the
children of men, yet himself a son of David.
3. Messianic prophecy soars to its summit
in the third and properly prophetic period, repre
sented by Isaiah, whose writings furnish us the
"richest mine of Messianic prophecy in the Old
Testament. "* From the fortieth to the sixty-sixth
chapters, inclusive, we have one continuous Mes
sianic poem, a most wonderful production even
for an inspired pen. This sublime song is not a
mere rambling rhapsody, without link or joints
of connection, but a continuous symmetrical dis
course in poetic parallels, setting forth for future
ages the complete character and career of this
'servant of God.' The first five verses of the for
tieth chapter contain the germ of truth unfolded
in the whole poem, viz: the pardon of iniquity,
the revelation of divine glory, and the ultimate
blessing to all flesh, which are to come by this
mystic Servant of Jehovah. The discriminating
reader may within the compass of this poem find
Christ in his three offices, prophet, priest, king;
will behold, crystallizing about the atonement, all
the great truths of Redemption, and may trace
in outline all the future course of redemptive his
tory. A singular refrain, repeated in the same
words, "there is no peace, saith my God, to the
wicked, " and at the very close of the whole poem,
repeated in more terrible terms: "their worm
shall not die," etc., divides the poem into three
cantos or sections; and in the very center of the
middle book, to mark the very jewel which occu-

*Liddon, "Divinity of Christ," p. 83.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 195
pies the innermost shrine, what do we find? that
fifty-third chapter , in the compass of twelve verses,
fourteen times declares the truth oi vicarious atone
ment, that this man of sorrows bore our griefs,
carried our sorrows, was wounded for our trans
gressions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastise
ment laid upon Him brought our peace, and the
wales on His back assure our healing. Observe,
we advance just half way from that fortieth chap
ter to the sixty-sixth, and in the very heart of
the Messianic mine, we find one glorious central
chamber, blazing with rubies — it is flooded with
light, but the light is blood-red! The Spirit is
conducting us to the doctrine which is central
both in prophecy and history, that Jesus died to
save sinners.
Around this central chapter cluster many
other subordinate but starry glories. This Ser
vant of God, called from his mother's womb, upon
whom God puts His spirit, is anointed to preach
good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive. The
Jews have always narrowed down salvation to the
chosen seed, but He is to be a light to the Gentiles,
and salvation to the ends of the earth.
Under his rule, "the wolf also shall dwell with
the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
kid, and the calf, and the young lion and the fat-
ling together, and a little child shall lead them."
There is to be a transformation even of disposi
tion, that very stronghold of sin within us. Coarse,
rough, savage, cruel natures are to be changed,
to the gentle, tender, mild and generous. Wolfish
rapacity and ferocity, leopardlike cunning and
treachery, lionlike violence and cruelty, are to be

196 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
subdued; and the childlike spirit is to reign in
human hearts.
A prolonged study alone can reveal the mi
nuter beauties and glories of this last and greatest
period of Messianic prophecy. Yet with what
boldness does the inspired pen tell us how He
who poured out his soul unto death, bared his
back to the scourge, was led as a lamb to the
slaughter; and even depict him, standing before
his judges, dumb as a sheep before the shearers.
This is only Isaiah. But after him, in the sac
red canon, stretch three hundred years of proph
ecy, adding new and startling particulars to these
direct predictions, until Micah elects Bethlehem
as the one among the thousand cities and villages
of Judea, where the coming one shall be born;
and Daniel tells us that it shall be after seventy
weeks from the going forth of the commandment
to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, an enigma now
of easy solution. The decree of Cyrus dates 457
B.C.; add the thirty-three years of Christ's min
istry and you have 490 years, just seventy hep-
tads of seven years each.
We are not surprised when Liddon trium
phantly affirms that the human life of Messiah,
His supernatural birth, His character, His death,
His triumph, are predicted in the Old Testament
with a minuteness which utterly defies the ration
alistic insinuation that the argument from proph
ecy in favor of Christ's claims may after all be
resolved into an adroit manipulation of more or
less irrelevant quotations. No amount of cap
tious ingenuity will destroy the substantial fact
that the leading features of our Lord's human

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 197
manifestation were announced to the world some
centures before He actually came among us.*
We have barely touched upon the outskirts of
the theme: the vast field lies yet before us.
II. The testimony of indirect prophecy is
even more wonderful. We must be content with
only a glimpse, leaving our readers to explore for
themselves, while we indicate only which way lie
the openings to these galleries of wonders.
What we have termed indirect prophecy may
include: I. Poetry not primarily or apparently Mes
sianic. 2. Ceremony, in which are typical foreshad-
owings of Christ.
3. History, in which we can now see a hid
den allegory; or historical personages, types of
some aspect of Messiah's character.
4. Paradoxes, which only the facts of Mes
siah's history can unlock.
5. Undesigned coincidences which are acci
dental, so far as man is concerned, yet providen
tial. 1 . Prophetic Poetry. Take, for instance, the
Psalms. Where such a man as William Alexan
der, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, has left his
footsteps like prints of gold, we may well hesitate
to attempt, within such narrow limits, even an
outline of argument. In his "Witness of the
Psalms to Christ and Christianity," the Bampton
lectures for 1876, he has given a magnificent spec
imen of both expository and apologetic litera
ture. With the peculiar insight of a Christian

?Liddon, p. 95.

198 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
scholar, he first applies six grand criteria as tests
of single prophecies: i , Known prior promulga
tion; 2, Sufficiency of correspondence; 3, Re
moteness, chronological and moral; 4, Non-iso
lation; 5, Characteristic, but not over-definite
particularity; 6, Worthiness of spiritual purpose.
Then he divides the Psalms into the subject
ively, objectively and ideally Messianic, and then
shows how our Lord's character and life are there
delineated, and how the character of Christian
disciples and of the Christian church is clearly
portrayed in poems that antedate Christ's coming
by a thousand years.
As a specimen of the Witness of the Psalms
to Christ, let us take Psalm XXII. There is noth
ing here, as in direct prophecy, to hint its de
signed application to the Messiah. It is, on its
face, simply the wail of some sufferer abandoned
to the malice of his foes. Yet set Jesus within
it, and, like a blazing light in a cavern, he makes
it all literally radiant with meaning. The open
ing cry: "My God, my God, why hast thou for
saken me!" was the last of seven sentences ut
tered on the cross — "that voice of utter loneliness
in the death-struggle, which the noble-hearted
rationalist, Schenkel, confesses to be 'that entirely
credible utterance, because it never could have
been invented. ' "*
Who is this forsaken one? Observe the pe
culiarities of his position, circumstances, charac
ter, sufferings, and see what key fits this compli
cated lock. Five particulars arrest attention,
which closer study might increase again five
fold^ * Alexander, 19.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 199
i. He is abandoned, scorned, abject, and
crying out from anguish — a reproach of men.
2. He is surrounded by enemies, fitly typi
fied by bisons, strong ones of Bashan, lions, and
dogs. 3. His suffering somehow involves fierce
thirst. 4. Death is its consequence and finale.
5. There is a piercing of hands and feet
which suggests, if it does not compel, the cross,
which was not a Jewish mode of punishment, and
had no parallel in the times of David.
A closer view multiplies the particulars of
correspondence. This sufferer is laughed to scorn;
passers-by shoot out the lip and shake the head,
saying, "He trusted in Jehovah, that He would
deliver him; let Him deliver him, seeing He de
lighted in him;" and we recognize the exact an
ticipation of what took place at Golgotha.
His sufferings are described in language that
would not fit any Jewish mode of punishment.
"I am poured out like water, and all my bones
are out of joint! my heart is likewax; it is melted
in the midst of my bowels. I may tell all my
bones; they look and stare upon me. They part
my garments among them, and cast lots upon my
vesture. "
We must leap the gulf of a thousand years to
find, at Calvary, the solution of this poetic enigma.
The psalmist, probably unconsciously, was draw
ing a picture of a crucified Christ for future believ
ers to interpret. It is the hanging by those pierced
hands and feet that disjoints the very bones; the
Roman spear-thrust that lets the heart melt in
the midst of the bowels like wax, and the blood

200 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and water pour out from the riven side; it is the
stripping off of the raiment that leaves the dying
nude sufferer to count his very bones, made more
prominent by the extension of the crucified body
and the wasting pangs of crucifixion; and when
they parted His garments, casting lots for the
seamless robe, the last correspondence was unwit
tingly added to complete the fufilment of proph
ecy. The scholarly bishop calls attention to another
feature of that twenty-second psalm, which oth
ers have overlooked. It is a psalm of sobs. The
anguish of the sufferer shows itself by broken
cries, and the gifted writer asks, "Who can con
strue a sob?" The very grammatical structure of
the psalm hints that He who hung in mortal ag
ony was too exhausted to speak, save in fragment
ary sentences. The Hebrew is full of pathos.
"My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?
Far from my salvation ! . . . . Words of my com
plaint!" ....
And yet the agony of this sufferer is not all.
He who is thus brought into the dust of death is
yet to declare Jehovah's name unto his brethren,
in the midst of great congregations to praise
Him; and, stranger still, that sorrow is somehow
linked to the ends of the world, and a people yet
to be born are to be blessed by that vicarious
agony. Will any candid reader say that the cru
cified Saviour is not mysteriously set forth in that
psalm? Christ is everywhere found in the Old Testa
ment, as the scarlet thread is everywhere found in
the cordage of the English navy, cut it where you
will.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 201
The Bible may be divided into four depart
ments, as to the matter contained therein, viz:
Prophetic, Poetic, Didactic, Historic. We have
already found Him to be the great theme of proph
ecy. Beginning at Moses, to Him give all the
prophets witness. Even the minute details of His
life are anticipated in prophecy; but that He
should be found elsewhere in the Word is a dou
ble marvel. Yet in Luke xxiv: 44, He Himself
told His disciples, "All things must be fulfilled
which are written in the law of Moses, and in the
prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me. "
As these three popular divisions comprehend
the whole Old Testament, the Master's words as
sure us that not only in prophecy and poetry, but
in the law, we shall find prophecies of Him. The
whole Old Testament is the book of Christ and
His salvation.
Take the five books of Moses: Genesis tells of
the ark saving from the flood of wrath; Exodus,
of the passover, in which the sprinkled blood
brought deliverance; Leviticus, of sacrifice, the
day of atonement, the year of jubilee; Numbers,
of the serpent lifted up for a look of faith to bring
healing; Deuteronomy, of refuge from the avenger
of blood. Not only are all these symbols of
salvation and types of Christ, but there is a con
stant development of doctrine. These types be
tray an order — a progressive unfolding of the
truth. First, there is salvation from wrath — it is
by blood, by sacrifice of substitute; then it both
puts away the penalty and the guilt of sin; then
it ends in the jubilee of cancelled debt and release
from bondage. A step further and we learn that
it is all conditioned on a believing look of faith,

202 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and provides escape from pursuing justice. Sac
rifice ends in atonement, and atonement in ju
bilee. The indirect prophecies foreshadowing the
person and work of Christ cover far more ground
than direct prophecy or devout poetry. In fact,
open where you will, you may begin at that same
scripture and preach Jesus.
2. The rites and ceremonies of the Levitical
economy are comparatively meaningless until you
set Him in the midst of them, to interpret them.
The cross was a center of radiance, and casts its
beams backward to the first sacrifice, and forward
to the last supper.
A single example of the foreshadowing of
Christ's sacrifice in the Levitical rites may be given
from the Day of Atonement, in Lev. xvi. Here
the main central figures are two kids of goats, so
nearly alike as to be practically identical, and dis
tinguished, as some say, by a scarlet cord or rib
bon tied about the neck of the scapegoat. One
is offered for a sin-offering; the other is presented
alive; over his head, while the high-priest's hands
are laid heavily upon it, the sins of the people
are confessed, and then he is led away far into the
wilderness, that he may never find his way back
to the camp. He is called " Azazel" — i. e., re
moval. Even a child may see here a pictorial
presentation of the twofold result of Christ's aton
ing work: first, the expiation of guilt; secondly,
the removal of our offenses as a barrier to fellow
ship with God, as though even the memory of
them were annihilated; and the two goats are, as
near as may be, alike, because both represent dif
ferent aspects of one reconciling work.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 203
A studious examination of Old Testament
rites, in their relation to the atoning work of our
Lord, prepares us to understand the mysterious
words of the Apocalypse, and why it was that
the Lamb which had been slain was the only be
ing in the universe found worthy to open the book,
and to loose the seven seals thereof. * It is a trib
ute to the interpreting power of the blood of
Christ. The Lamb slain is the only key to un
lock the mysteries of inspired poetry and proph
ecy, sacrifice and symbol. The whole book is
seven times sealed up, till we apply to it the blood ;
then the seals are loosed, and the mystic signs
may be clearly read.
3 . Even the historic books are indirect proph
ecies. First, because they prepare for and point
toward Him. They tell of a chosen man, family,
tribe, nation, out of whom, as the consummate
flower of this historic elect race, comes a divine
Leader and Lawgiver, the Founder of the Church
of the world. The centuries are marshalled by
an invisible Power, and take up their march
toward the cross of Christ; there they all find both
their rallying and radiating center. Reading his
tory in the light of the cradle at Bethlehem and
the cross of Calvary, all its pages are illumined
with new significance.
In hundreds of instances Old Testament his
tory seems designedly typical. Events have a
double meaning — one apparent and present, an
other hidden and future. Paul himself says of
the record of Sarah and Hagar, "which things are
an allegory" — hinting that, behind the actual nar-
* Rev. v: 5.

204 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
rative of facts, there is a prophetic finger pointing
to the future. Scripture biographies, like those
of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Da
vid and Daniel, reveal so many points of corre
spondence between these men and the Redeemer,
that we cannot but regard them as typical char
acters, who foreshadowed Christ in the various
aspects of his many-sided character. The three
reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, each of forty
years — that sacred number — unmistakably fore
cast the three periods of church-history — the
Jewish, ending in apostasy; the Christian church
militant; and the Christian church triumphant in
the millennial reign.
Can any careful reader avoid seeing Christ in
the paschal lamb? When the lamb was roasted,
a spit was thrust lengthwise through the body,
and another transversely from shoulder to shoul
der; every passover lamb was transfixed on a
cross. When Moses lifted up the serpent, it was
not on a pole, but on a banner-staff — i. e., a
cross. Our Lord himself teaches us to see in Jonah —
sacrificed for the salvation of the ship's crew, and
for three days borne down into the depths in the
belly of the great fish, and then thrown out upon
the land — a typical prophecy of His own death,
burial and resurrection. And so full does Old
Testament history seem to be of Christ, that there
is a risk of carrying this perception of resemblance
and analogy to a fanciful extreme, like those who
in the Greek word for fish, ix^v ?, find the ini
tials of a redemptive sentence, Itjgov? xpicros
deov vioi ffoorr/p.
If Christ be patent in the New Testament, He

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 205
is as surely latent everywhere in the Old. There
are, as far back as Genesis, hints of at least a du
ality of persons in the Godhead; and as the doc
trine oi one God was the great ark that God's peo
ple bore through the ages, this cannot be a relic
of polytheism. What means this joining of a sin
gular verb to a plural noun — Elohim; the consul
tation over man's creation, "Let us make man;"
the threefold blessing by the priests in Numbers;
the threefold rhythm of prayer and praise in the
Psalter; the adoring chant of worship to the Most
Holy Three in One by the cherubim in Isaiah?
May there not be occult as well as explicit refer
ences to the Trinity? *
When we read of one supreme Angel of Jeho
vah, in whom was the Holy name of God; the
Angel of His Presence, who saved His people;
a personified Wisdom of God, who so mysteri
ously corresponds to the Logos in John — we claim
the privilege of seeing at least a dim and cloudy
image, sometimes taking on more distinct and
definite features of the Christ whom we adore,
and whom, having not seen, we love, and seem
to see forevermore from Genesis to Malachi; so
that every page becomes like an album-leaf — glo
rious with some new portrait of the Son of God.
4. Special attention ought at least to be
called to the Paradoxes of Prophecy, in some
respects most remarkable of all the witnesses to
Christ to be found in the Old Testament.
A paradox is a seeming contradiction; no real
absurdity is involved, but it presents an enigma
which, without the clue, may be impossible of

1 Liddon, 48.

206 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
solution. The Old Testament abounds in para
doxes about the Messiah, which were, and still
are, absolute mysteries, except as the New Testa
ment helps to solve them.
This coming One was to be son of God and
yet son of man; born of a virgin yet his birth
holy and immaculate; his form one of transcend
ent beauty and loveliness, yet he was without
form or comeliness, his visage marred; he was
to be a man of sorrows, acquainted with griefs,
yet anointed with the oil of gladness above his
fellows; he was to be the son of David yet
David's Lord; the king of war, yet the prince of
peace, etc.
If his garments were parted among the sol
diers what occasion was there to cast lots on his
vesture, to determine to whom it should fall? The
crucifixion scene solves the problem — they did
part his raiment, but when they came to the seam
less robe, they assigned by lot, what they were
ashamed to destroy by rending it.
These paradoxes abound in all parts of the
Old Testament prophecies. Sometimes they are
grouped so closely and in such plain terms as to
remind us of oriental puzzles, like the oracular
responses or the mystery of the sphynx. For
instance in Isaiah ix, 6, this Messianic personage
is first called a son, born to Israel; and yet what
a fourfold name is applied to him? the wonderful
— or miracle, — counsellor, the Mighty God, the
Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace! A child,
born as a son to a family of Israel, yet having in
finite Power, and Wisdom; and this son of time
is the Father of Eternity, this weak babe is the
God of All Might.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 207
The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah presents the
most startling of these paradoxes. In fact they
seem designed to present a prophetic enigma
which only the person of Christ can solve.
He was cut off from the land of the living, a
young man and without offspring, and yet he
shall prolong his days, and shall see his seed, and
they shall be so numerous that even his great
soul shall be satisfied. He is to be put to death
as a despised malefactor, to make his grave with
the wicked, and yet the sepulchre of the rich is
to be his tomb. He is to be scorned and rejected
of men and yet to justify many, and though him
self treated as a transgressor is to make interces
sion for the transgressors.
If one can imagine a series of paradoxes
more completely perplexing than these, what
would they be! The solution, furnished in the
double nature of the God-man, seems to us now,
simple enough. But let us put ourselves by an
effort of imagination back two thousand years in
history and with the eyes of a devout Jew read
these prophetic problems. How utterly hopeless
all effort to explain or reconcile such contradic
tory statements. In fact the later Jewish doctors
had recourse to the invention of a double Messiah
as the only clue to these mazes.*
He was to be emphatically overwhelmed in
adversity, and in mortal sufferings pour out his
soul; and yet to see the pleasure of the Lord
prosper in his hand; and while himself a victim,
a worm crushed under the feet of his persecutors,
he is to triumph over his victors, and divide the
spoils like a universal conqueror.
?Liddon, 86.

208 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
This divine riddle waits seven hundred years
for an interpretation. Then, at the time and
place indicated, a babe is born of a virgin, being
conceived of the Holy Ghost; in the flesh hewas
a man; in the spirit, hewas God; in outward sur
roundings lowly, poor, obscure; in essence having
the glory, dignity, riches of God; a man of sor
rows yet filled with the unfathomable peace of
God; David's son according to the flesh, yet the
Lord of David according to the spirit. Dying
on the cross, yet a young man, he travailed in
soul and brought forth a seed so numerous that
they shall outnumber the sands of the seashore;
died as a criminal, and as a criminal his body
would have been flung over the walls to be burned
like offal in the fires of Topheth: but when his
vicarious sufferings were finished, no further in
dignity could be permitted even to the lifeless
body, and so it was tenderly taken down, wrapped
in clean linen by gentle hands, and laid in a rich
man's sepulchre, wherein never yet man was laid.
Only a virgin womb could conceive, only a vir
gin tomb receive, the body of God's immaculate
son. The lines of an Ionic column were once sup
posed to be parallel: but it was found that if pro
duced to a sufficient distance above the capital,
they at last touch. These prophetic paradoxes
are like stately Ionic columns in the structure of
Revelation. Their lines seem parallel, and we
seek in vain any point of convergence. But pro
jected into the centuries, they meet at last in
Jesus of Nazareth, the only solution of their seem
ing contradictions,
How is it that, with such overwhelming proof

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 209
that Jesus is in the Old Testament, any candid
mind can escape the conclusion that a divine peti
traced the prophecy and a divine person fulfilled
the prophetic portrait. It would seem that in
spite of a criticism that is destructive of every
thing yet constructive of nothing; in spite of a
scepticism that would take away our Lord so that
we know not where they have laid him, every
honest man must say, the Scriptures could not
have foretold the Christ if they were not inspired
of God; and the Christ would not have been so
foretold, the center of such converging rays of
glory, if he had not been all he claimed.
The sad fact is that we have yet to meet the
first honest sceptic, or even destructive critic, who
has carefully studied the prophecies which center
in Christ. There is an amazing ignorance, if not
indifference, as to the whole matter. Whatever
attention is given to the Scriptures by such minds,
is directed to the discovery of errors or blemishes,
as though an astronomer should be so absorbed
in the spots on the sun as never to consider the
sunlight that floods creation and makes the spots
visible. The discovery of an error in transcrip
tion, a mistake in names, figures or grammatical
construction, is heralded from pole to pole; while
it never occurs to these critics and sceptics, that
this book must be a miracle in itself, since its
slightest blemishes can attract the microscopic in
spection of the scholars of all the ages!
"But," says some wise owl, "perhaps, after all,
these multiplied correspondences are only acci
dental. " Accidental? Do such objectors under
stand the laws of simple and compound probabil
ity? If one prediction be made and that only a

210 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
general one, it may or may not be fulfilled, i. e.,
the chance of its fulfilment is represented by one-
half. Th, m. ment another particular is added,
each of the two predictions having one-half a
chance of fulfilment the fraction representing the
probability of both proving true is ^x^ = i^.
We have passed from simple to compound proba
bility. Now the possibility of a thousand partic
ular predictions, centering in one person at one
time, is as ]/% raised to its thousandth power: a
fractional probability too small for figures to rep
resent. Some ways of meeting the argument from
prophecy are so unfair and uncandid that they
deserve a reference, only to show how desperate
is the hatred of evil hearts toward the Word of
God. Porphyry found such remarkable proph
ecies in Daniel, that while he admitted that his
tory had accurately verified them, even in the
slightest particular, he resorted to the trick of
suggesting that so exact a record could be written
only after the events ; and Voltaire used the same
trick to evade the proof from New Testament
prophecy. In this case, God has not left even this needle's
eye for such camels to squeeze through. For
there is a gap of four hundred years between
Malachi and Matthew. God permitted the spirit
of prophecy so early to die out, and the Old
Testament canon to close centuries before our
Lord was born. There was a design in it. He
meant that there should be no chance of collusion
between the Old Testament prophets and the
New Testament evangelists. There must be a
long period of absolute silence between the utter-

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 211
ance of prophecy and its fulfilment, that there
might be no doubt as to the inspiration of the
prophecy and the divine character of the Son of
Mary. Bolingbroke resorted to a more cunning, but
not less dishonest evasion. He admitted that the
death of Christ was distinctly foretold in Isaiah
liii; so distinctly and with so minute detail that it
forced him to believe that Jesus, by a series of
preconcerted measures actually brought on his own
crucifixion merely to give disciples who came
after Him the triumph of appeal to the old proph
ecies. Modern criticism tries another way of break
ing the force of this evidence, viz. by taking each
individual prediction and saying of it, this is sim
ply a chance coincidence, and worthless in itself
as an evidence. As though one were buying a
huge hawser, to hold a ship at her moorings, and
should untwist it, take up strand by strand and
break it with his fingers and then say to him who
would sell the cable, "it is worthless: there is not
a strand in it that would hold a ship a moment. "
Just so, but the strength of a cable is the strength
of its strands braided together; and the strength
of prophetic evidence is the united testimony of
all these predictions. Any one might be insuffi
cient: all in one, irresistible!*
Before we leave this astounding argument
from prophecy, let us take one more rapid glance
of review over the whole field of the evidence.
At first, one germinal prediction, that branches
out into minutest ramifications till the tiniest twig

*See Gibson's "Foundations."

212 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
is reached, each minute particular increasing, in
geometric ratio, the impossibility of a chance ful
filment. Jesus of Bethlehem is born and as every
particular of his history corresponds with every
particular of the prophecy, every branch and twig
of the prophetic 'plant of renown' grows radiant
till the plant becomes a Burning Bush, and like
Moses we loose our shoes and veil our eyes, for
the place is holy ground.
"In the volume of the Book it is written of
me. " Yes, there is only one Book, and only one
person — the Book manifestly written for the per
son; the person manifestly before the Book, to
inspire it; after it, to crown and complete it.
There are, as Luke said to Theophilus, "many
infallible proofs." Among all external, historical
proofs, prophecy is the unanswerable argument.
Among all internal and experimental proofs, the
one all-sufficient is the person of Christ. Abra
ham saw His day afar off, and was glad; Moses
wrote of Him, David sang of Him, and all this is
so plain that, as our Lord said, "if they believe
not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded though one rose from the dead. "
Even history was prophetic. "Each victory,
each deliverance, prefigured Messiah's work; each
saint, each hero, foreshadowed some separate ray
of His personal glory; each disaster gave strength
to the mighty cry for His intervention. He was
the true soul of the history, as well as of the po
etry and prophecy, of Israel." *
Sir Joshua Reynolds closed his splendid lect
ures on art by saying: "And now, gentlemen, I

* Liddon, 93.

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 213
have but one name to present to you: it is the
incomparable Michael Angelo." And so all the
prophets and poets, priests and historians, of the
old covenant, seem to stand in reverent homage,
pointing to the manger, the cross, the rent tomb,
and the opening heaven, and uttering one incom
parable name.
God has set His "golden milestone" in the
forum of the world, and all roads of prophecy and
history terminate there.
There are those who call themselves Christians
who, instead of feeding on the pure milk or strong
meat of the Word, are devouring the chaff or im
bibing the poison of an unsatisfying, godless sci
ence or sceptical philosophy, or who pay a modern
antichrist to retail the blasphemies and sneers of
Voltaire and his age, in their ears', and yet they
wonder at their own doubts. Nothing seems cer
tain. They question whether the Bible be not,
after all, the work of man, and whether Jesus be
not at best only a myth or a mystery; whether
death be not a leap in the dark, and heaven a
dream of excited fancy. Poor, deluded souls!
As though a disciple could grow strong and walk
erect in the conscious confidence of an unshaka
ble faith, who breathes only the stifling atmos
phere of a prayerless life, and feeds on husks fit
only for swine, while God's manna, every morn
ing fresh, may be gathered in the fields of the
Word. The sovereign cure for all doubting dis
ciples is to immerse themselves in the Word of
God, as a vessel is dipped in the sea till it is filled
and overflows. Nothing but God's own truth can
displace the uncertainty of scepticism.
How sublime is the attitude of our Lord him-

214 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
self! Standing forevermore with his hand on the
Jewish canon, He calmly looks both opponents
and disciples in the face and says: "Search the
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal
life; and they are they which testify of me." *
? Liddon, 96.

CHAPTER X.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
"Truly, this was the Son of God." — Matthew XXVIH54.
"Go a little deeper," said the wounded soldier
of Napoleon's body-guard, as the surgeon was
probing to find the ball lodged in his breast; "go
a little deeper, and you'll find the emperor. "
In the study of Christian evidences, having
considered the witness of prophecy and of mira
cle, the harmony of the Word of God with science,
and with our moral nature, we now go a little
deeper and touch the heart of the whole body
of Christianity — the Person of Christ. Here
is the focal center of all Christian evidence; when
we reach and touch that heart, feel its divine throb,
and know its divine love, our intellectual doubts
vanish, and we are constrained to confess: "Truly,
this is the Son of God. "
Nearly nineteen centuries ago, in an obscure
town in Palestine, an event took place which has
had more influence on the history of the world
than any other since time began. A child was
born — surely not so rare an occurrence as to
awaken in itself any great interest. This was no
son of distinguished parents, no heir to riches or
royalty, no scion of a noble house, no prospective
ruler of a world's empire. He was born in a sta
ble and cradled in a manger, because in the inn
there was no room for the mother even in the

216 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
crisis of the sorrow of her sex. Yet, about that
natal hour, that lowly cradle and that humble child,
the thought, love and life of millions have, from
that day to this, been centred.
The universal verdict concedes to Christ at
least a grandly complete manhood. Pilate stands
as the typical judge, saying, as he points to Jesus,
"Behold the man!" Christ seems to represent
humanity, in its broadest range and in a very spe
cial sense, as a man, and, in its ideal perfection,
as the man.
We have space to touch this grand theme only
at a few prominent points:
i. We notice about Jesus no narrow limits of
individuality. James Watt suggests the inventor;
Benjamin West, the painter; Napoleon, the war
rior; Columbus, the discoverer; Pitt, the states
man. Men of mark stand out from the mass with
sharp, individual traits, as, in the apostolic com
pany, we think of Peter's impetuosity, Paul's en
ergy, John's love; and these traits both distinguish
and separate certain men from others.
But Christ's peculiarities did not isolate him
from other men. Nothing stands out so promi
nently as to draw some to him from a sense of
sympathy and similarity, and drive others from
him by a feeling of natural antagonism. He is
not so allied to any peculiar temperament as to
impress others with a lack of power to understand
their individual cast of character. Yet there is
no lack of positiveness in this perfect man, like a
coat fitting everybody, yet fitting nobody; no
such elasticity of character as stretches or contracts
to suit every new demand; but such a common
fitness as tells of something in common with every

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 217
man; a beautiful fulfilment of the scriptural figure
that "as in water face answereth to face, so the
heart of man to man." Any man, whatever his
tastes or temperament, his type of mind or heart
or disposition, finds in Jesus something answering
to his need — a sympathizing brother!
2. Nor was our Lord — this perfect man — lim
ited to a narrow nationality. How marked is the
profile of national character! Demosthenes is al
ways the Greek, Cicero the Roman, Hannibal the
Carthaginian; the Jew is always and everywhere
the Jew; he scarcely associates, never assimi
lates or amalgamates, with any other people.
Try tq weave him into history; he is the iron for
ever/unmixed with the clay; the scarlet thread is
seen all through the fabric — never lost sight of
amid the other colors of the woof. And yet Jesus
was a Jew, and yet less a Jew than a man.
Paul could say, "I am a Jew;" but Jesus said with
profoundest truth, "I am the Son of Man" — not
so much Hebrew as human, filling out the grand
motto of Terence, "Homo sum — et humani a me,
nil alienum puto!"
3. Christ represents the generic man, and you
will remember that the term "man" probably
includes the woman as well as the man. "God
made man in His own image. In the image
of God created He him; male and female cre
ated He them. " The ideal man combines and
includes the womanly graces with the manly
virtues; that which is gentle and tender with
that which is strong and firm. The king of
birds has not only the stern eye, the firm beak,
the strong talons, but the soft, downy breast as
well; and the king of men will be a woman also,

218 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
in the qualities of heart which make her the radi
ant center of the home. Christ had the kingly
majesty and the queenly grace; none could be
manlier than He; yet, without being effeminate,
He was feminine; without being womanish, He
was womanly, also; and it is no marvel if woman
showed toward Him all the reposeful trust she
loves to exercise toward one on whose strength
she may lean, and yet have all the intimate, sym
pathetic devotion which she exhibits toward her
own sex; and no marvel that
"She, when the apostles fled, could danger brave,
Last at His cross, and earliest at His grave. "
We are at a loss to say which predominated in
Jesus, the manly or the womanly virtues. He who
flamed with righteous indignation at the desecra
tion of His "Father's house," till every cord in
His scourge burned like lightning and snapped
like thunder, could graciously and gratefully ac
cept the kisses and caresses of a sorrowing sinner,
bestowed on His feet; and He whose grand words
of warning and wisdom have for two thousand
years moved the world as great winds heave
ocean waves, could melt the heart of a woman by
one word, "Mary," so that her tone of impatience
gave place instantly to a rapturous, adoring ex
clamation, "Rabboni!" — "My dear Master!" Ro
manism makes a mistake in the Coronation of the
Virgin, Queen of Heaven, as though the human
heart needed another object of worship in whom
the womanly graces should crystallize. Jesus has
in Himself all that beautifies womanly character.
4. Jesus Christ was certainly most remarka
ble in the perfect balance of opposite, or, rather,

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 219
apposite qualities. We observe that few human
characters combine the sterner virtues with the
softer graces. You find gentleness, generosity,
mildness and meekness in one class of men,and firm
ness, frugality, positiveness and energy in another;
but how seldom do they meet and mingle in one
character. Disraeli speaks, and you marvel at
the polish and politeness of his dissection of his
adversary's argument; but you detect, beneath all
that suavity, the ferocity of a tiger; or you
think of the anaconda, that licks his prey all over
with his slimy tongue, preparatory to swallowing
it! Can you, even in the most scorching re
bukes and denunciations of hypocrisy, and of rob
bery of the poor, even find one trace of a savage,
hateful, vindictive spirit in the perfect man?
Have you never remarked that the highest hu
man purity is generally like a soaring alpine peak,
cold and chilling? It suggests whiteness as of
virgin snows, and transparency as of ice-crystals,
undefiled by earthly elements; but it suggests
distance. Purity may be attracted by purity, but
impurity, even when coupled with penitence, is
repelled; it cannot, dare not approach. There
must have been something peculiar about the pu
rity of the Christ. He moved among men freely;
sat down to eat with publicans and sinners; yet
His garments took as little stain as the light in pass
ing through an impure atmosphere. And, though
His very presence forbade the touch or whisper
or breath of that which is defiled, the veriest out
casts of society were drawn to Him by resistless
attraction, lavished tears of sorrow and kisses of
love upon His feet, and broke flasks of precious
ointment on His person! What a mystery ! A pur-

220 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ity beside which even the snow is no longer clean,
mingled with a compassion and sympathy to which
the vilest sinners run for refuge .as to the downy
breast of some majestic bird! There was a di
vine quality in that purity that reminds one of the
light, so pure, so incorruptible, yet falling on the
sterile sand and slimy pool to call forth fair and
fragrant blooms; or of the dew falling from above
to rest alike on the most wholesome and the most
noxious growths, and leave everywhere its impar
tial benediction.
5. It is a grand fact that even the long test of
nineteen centuries, and the close, severe, search
ing and microscopic criticism of these days, can
not find any flaw, not to say vice, in the Christ.
How difficult it is for the generation in which
a man lives to form a fair judgment of the man!
Sometimes prejudice heaps faggots about him, and
his true features are hidden by the smoke of mar
tyr fires; or, again, popular admiration or adora
tion burns incense before him, and his real self is
obscured by clouds of excessive praise; and so
we have to wait until the martyr-fires or the altar-
fires go out, to see the real man; and what is the
result? We often see the hero fade into a Nero,
or the wretch rise into the saint.
Wendell Phillips says, "If you penetrate the
halo of military glory which surrounds the Duke
of Marlborough, you will find the most purchasa
ble and infamous scoundrel of the age. " Nearly
two milleniums have passed since Jesus was mov
ing among men. Whatever praise or blame,
friends or foes attached to Him in those days, we
are able at this remote time to form a fair judg
ment of His character and career. And the ques-

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 221
tion rings out, "What think ye of Christ?" Has
any man ever dealt a successful blow at the blessed
one, whom the reviling tongue calls the "Chris
tian's idol?" Point out one vice, one real blem
ish, in that character or life! Examine as with
microscopic eye, but the more minute the exam
ination the greater the disclosure of beauty.
6. What magnanimity there was in this per
fect man! Even King James could send a petty
gift of five shillings to rare Ben. Johnson — humil
iating the foremost poet of the day because his
poverty forced him to live in an alley, and pro
voking the retort, "Go tell the king his soul lives
in an alley!" But in Jesus you see no trace of
narrowness — even of Jewish exclusiveness and
prejudice; no small or mean sentiment; no selfish
feeling; a broad catholicity without laxity; a gen
erous impartiality without indifference to truth and
right. A great, grand soul as ever tabernacled in
a human body! And yet nothing in His sur
roundings to educate Him into magnanimity; for
the whole tendency of His age was toward narrow
ness and bigotry!
This greatness of Christ's soul, this singular
unselfishness and purity of His love, arrests the
attention even of the most casual observer. The
best and noblest men often betray, in the crises
of life, a lingering self-love, and sometimes an
idolatry of self-interest. Burke, a keen observer
of human nature, has said that if you do a man
a favor, and put him under lasting obligation to
you, you sow in him the seeds of dislike. It hum
bles him to think that he owes promotion to any
thing but his own merits, and his pride is rebuked
whenever he meets you; and so he becomes, un-

222 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
consciously perhaps, alienated from you. Roche
foucauld has remarked that there is something in
human nature which permits us to get a certain
sort of satisfaction even from the misfortunes of
our friends — a remark whieh is unhappily illus
trated when those who have been eminently suc
cessful experience the disaster of failure.
Such frank confessions show the opinion which
sagacious students of humanity form of the com
mon selfishness of the heart, to all of which Christ
presents an exception, so unique, so conspicuous,
so original, that our philosophy is at a loss to ex
plain it. Satan said of Job, "All that a man hath
will he give for his life" — boldly judging that to
preserve his life, even a good man will make every
other sacrifice; but how cheerfully did Jesus accept
even a cruel and shameful death for the sake of
His enemies! Well might the world stand amazed
before His cross when the dying sufferer prays,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do!" and be dumb at sight of self-sacrifice,
which was for the sake of service. And right here
is, perhaps, the enigma of Christ's character.
Whence came the inspiration of such self-sacrifice?
All miracles of power are eclipsed by the miracle
of His passion. In the agony and bloody sweat at
Gethsemane, and the anguish and awfulness of the
shameful death at Golgotha, there is something
more overwhelming than in any of His mightiest
works; and it was when He was "lifted up" that
He "drew all men unto Him." Not what He did,
but what He was in Himself, presents the most
astounding miracle !
An oriental fable represents a crowd of idlers,
thronging the market-place of a Syrian city, and

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 223
looking contemptuously upon a dead dog, with a
halter around his neck, by which he had been
dragged through the dirt. A viler, more abject,
more unclean, more repulsive thing does not meet
the eye of man, and those who stood by looked
on with abhorrence. "Faugh, "said one, holding
his nose, "it pollutes the air!" "How long, " said
another, :: shall this foul beast offend the sight?"
"Look at his torn hide," said another; "one could
not even cut sandal-straps out of it. " And a fourth
spoke of his ears, draggled and bloody: and a
fifth declared "he had no doubt been hanged for
thieving. " But there stood, among the throng,
one, a stranger, who had, as they flung their jeers
at the dead dog, drawn near; there was a strange
light about his face, and in his whole mien a
strange dignity and grace. Looking down com
passionately upon the dead animal, he said:
" Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth. "
Then the people turned to him with amazement,
and said among themselves: "Who is this? This
must be Jesus of Nazareth; for only He could find
something to pity and approve even in a dead
dog!" And in shame they bowed their heads be
fore him, and went each on his way.
How easy, how human, to say satirical things;
to see only the repulsive side of character; to
taunt the heedless and trample on the fallen!
How strangely humane was He; how benign and
merciful; how marvelously penetrating, seeking
the beautiful amid the ugly, and finding what is
attractive amid what is repulsive; detecting the
germ of the saint in the chief of sinners, the out
cast woman and the hated publican! Like the
benignity of Nature, that uses her elemental forces

224 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
to bring beauty out of deformity until the clay
crystallizes into the blue sapphire, the barren sands
into the burning opal, the defiling soot into the
radiant diamond, the foul water into snow-flakes
and ice-crystals that rival the most exquisite gems
for beauty of form and richness of luster; so He,
with a divine condescension that makes even the
lowliest great, beams upon poor, defiled, corrupt
human nature, until a beauty develops that fur
nishes gems for the very crown of heaven's King —
gems lustrous as stars!
7. The Christ of the Bible stands alone in
His sublime law of self-renunciation. At the very
gate of the new life we are met by this motto:
"Deny Thyself!" There is a beautiful fable of
Poussa, the Chinese potter — that he was required
to produce a work for the emperor. He summoned
to his aid all his genius and taste and skill; exe
cuted one after another task in porcelain, each a
masterpiece, yet none worthy to be presented to
his sovereign. His last work was in the oven, for
the finishing process; but, in despair of ever be
ing able to produce anything of sufficient merit to
adorn the imperial table, he threw himself into the
furnace, and lo! there came out the most beautiful
and perfect porcelain ever known — before it, after
it, nothing to be compared with it.
The Chinese sages wrote wiser than they knew.
For the first and only time, this blessed Book has
framed into a law the heroic principle of self-sac
rifice, teaching us that no work is so precious in
His eyes as that which is made complete and beau
tiful by the offering of self — illustrating this law
by a life, such as no uninspired mind ever drew
even in outline. This precious Book tells us of

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 225
one who resigned the throne and crown of heaven,
exchanged the radiant robe of the universal King
for the garment of a servant, descended to earth,
condescended to human want and woe and wick
edness, lay in a lowly cradle in a cattle-stall at
Bethlehem, and hung upon a cross of shame on
Calvary, that even those who crucified Him might
be forgiven. Can you span the chasm between
the throne of a universe and that cross? a crown
of stars and a crown of thorns? the worship of
the host of heaven and the mockery of an insult
ing mob? When you can bridge that gulf, you
may know something of the divine grandeur of
such self-sacrifice. Whence such a conception of
heroism? There is nothing like it in history, not
even in fable; poets and philosophers have not
approached it; the highest unselfishness is selfish
beside it. Could it be the invention of impostors,
or the wild dream of deluded fanatics? Is there
any supposition that meets the case save this —
that it was first a divine fact, expressing and ex
emplifying the divine idea?
8. When we endeavor to picture Him to our
selves, no beauty of face, form, figure, can do jus
tice to His perfection. Put the "brow of Jupiter
on the form of Apollo," and you have not ap
proached the beauty with which imagination in
vests His person. Give Him "Luther's electrical
smile, opening the window in a great soul," and
you have nothing yet to express the divine charm
of His winning grace, which, notwithstanding His
majesty, drew little children to His arms. Give
Him the wisdom of Solomon and the profound
ness of Aristotle, and the originality of Bacon;
and all this cannot explain the words of Him who,

226 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
by the confession of enemies, spake as never man
spake, and who, in dealing with truths the most
sublime, never forgot to be simple, even in the
forms of His illustrations!
Here is the ideal of manhood, in mind as well
as body. What thoughts, inspiring what words
and works! What sublime conceptions, convinc
ing argument, wise counsel, powerful persuasion,
perfect illustration, grand discrimination!
What a heart — so pure, so noble! Was ever
love so charming in its fervor, its sincerity, con
stancy, generosity, unselfishness? — nothing but a
look of gentle reproach for the disciple who de
nied Him, and no word of bitterness even for the
apostle who, with a kiss, betrayed Him. He left
all ideals behind, in His reality. We think no
more of the Roman notion of heroic virtue,
the Greek notion of culture, the Italian idea of
beauty; in presence of Jesus, all these fade, as
stars grow pale at morning.
"How, then," says Dr. Porter, "can it be ex
plained that forth from that generation came the
loftiest and the loveliest, the simplest, yet the most
complete ideal of a master, friend, example, Sav
iour of human kind, that the world has ever con
ceived; an ideal that, since it was furnished to man
in the record, has never been altered except for
the worse; a picture that no genius can retouch
except to mar; a gem that no polisher can try to
cut, except to break it; able to guide the oldest
and to soothe the youngest of mankind; to add
luster to our brightest joys, and to dispel our
darkest fears? Whether realized in fact or re
garded only as an ideal, the conception of Jesus
is the greatest miracle of the ages!"

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 227
This humble Nazarene taught the race a new
law of progress, viz: Self-oblivion. And since
that cross was set upon Calvary, every grand step
of advance for the race has been "from scaffold to
scaffold, and from stake to stake. " He led the
way in helping men to live, by himself dying, and
the ideas he embodied have been ever since "fight
ing their way against the original selfishness of
human nature. "
9. It is evident He was more than man.
There is that in the PERSON OF Christ which has
won almost involuntary homage from even scep
tical minds. Daniel Webster, who was the Doric
pillar of New England, as Edward Everett was
its Corinthian column, drew up, just before his
death, the following Declaration of Faith. As his
was confessedly one of the few massive master
minds of history, it has double significance:
"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." "The
philosophical argument, especially that drawn
from the vastness of the universe in comparison
with the insignificance of this globe, has some
times shaken my reason for the faith that is in me;
but my heart has always assured me and reas
sured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be
a divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount can
not be a mere human production. This belief
enters into the very depths of my conscience; the
whole history of man proves it. "
We set, side by side with this, the testimony
of one other man, by common verdict one of the
most remarkable of the race — the first Napoleon.
While in banishment at St. Helena, conversing
with General Bertrand, who contended that Jesus
was simply a man of great genius and power to

228 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
command and control, the exiled emperor said:
"I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is
not a man! Superficial minds see a resembl?nce
between Christ and the founders of empires and
the gods of other religions. That resemblance
does not exist. There is between Christianity
and whatever other religions the distance of in
finity! We can say to the authors of every other
religion, 'You are neither gods nor the agents of
the Deity. You are but the missionaries of false
hood, moulded from the same clay with the rest
of mortals. You are made with all the pass:ons
and vices inseparable from them. Your temples
and your priests proclaim your origin!' Pagan
ism was never accepted as truth by the wise men
of Greece, neither by Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato,
Anaxagoras or Pericles. Paganism is the work
of man. One can here read but our imbecility.
What do these gods, so boastful, know more than
other mortals — these legislators, these priests?
Absolutely nothing!"
When we study the marvelous history of those
thirty-three years, we stand in presence of the
most significant period of all history, folding in
its bosom the most precious facts ever cherished
in the heart of man. The existence of Jesus
Christ is the pivot upon which turn the history
and destiny of the world. This one man, born
in poverty and bred in obscurity; without rank,
wealth, culture, or fame; who could call no spot
home, and no great man his friend; who was
hated by the influential men of church and state,
and died as a criminal, by their united verdict;
even whose tomb was the loan of charity, to save
his body from being flung over the walls to the

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 229
accursed fires of Topheth — this one man somehow
sways the world ! We date our very letters and
papers, not "Anno Mundi" — the year of the
world — but "Anno Domini" — the year of our
Lord; and even he who, from his dark chamber
of doubt and disbelief, sends out his assaults upon
Jesus of Nazareth, still dates his pen's production
"Anno Domini" — unwillingly bowing to Christ's
Lordship, even of the world's calendar! Even
creation is forgotten, as the epoch from which all
is to be reckoned, since that babe was born in
Bethlehem of Judea — as though all history had
a new birth then. Kings are anointed in His
name; the grandest cathedrals unfold their white
blossoms of stone to bear perpetual witness to
His glory and beauty. Millions of believers offer
Him the myrrh of their penitence for sin, the
frankincense of their prayers and praise, the gold
of their costliest offerings of gratitude and service;
and even the profane swearer rounds his oath
with the precious name of Jesus, while no other
name is spoken with such reverence by the pure
and good!
What shall I do then with Jesus? However,
I may account for His existence or explain His
character and career; whatever I may think of
His being born of a virgin and begotten of the
Holy Ghost — whatever I think of His words and
works, as divine or human, He is Himself the
miracle of history! Science and philosophy vainly
try to account for Him or interpret Him.
He stands absolutely alone in history; in
teaching, in example, in character, an exception,
a marvel, and He is Himself the evidence of
Christianity. As Bishop Clark says, "He authen-

230 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ticates himself. " "The most natural solution of
His life is the supernatural. The truths which He
uttered were not truths which He had learned.
He was the truth!"
It is therefore no marvel that the Word of God
is full of this wonderful personage. In the Brit
ish navy-yards, where all the cordage, from the
huge hawser down to finest strands, has braided
into it a peculiar scarlet thread, you cannot cut
an inch off without finding it marked. So every
where, woven into and through the word you
may find the scarlet thread — and beginning any
where, preach the blessed Christ.
One of the most sublime facts in connection
with this wondrous PERSON OF CHRIST is the
strange hold He has upon millions of believers at
this remote age. After eighteen centuries have
passed, a large proportion of the human race, the
most intelligent and the most lovely, can say of
Christ, with Paul, "Whom having not seen we
love. " Everything connected with His personal
life on earth has perished. We can only guess at
the spot where he was born, the place where he
lived, the site of the cross and the tomb; and yet,
millions are living for Him, and would die for
Him. They believe that this unseen presence
inspires their faith, hope, love, life; that with this
unseen Saviour they hold daily communion; they
go through the valley of tears, leaning on His
arm; and they fear not the shadow of death,
cheered by His smile. This fact is absolutely
without a parallel, and it impressed the great Na
poleon more deeply than anything else about this
mysterious person. He looked back through the
centuries and saw the blood of Christian martyrs

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 231
flowing in torrents, while they kissed the hand
that, in slaying them, opened the door to Him.
"You speak," said he, "of Cassar, Alexander; of
their conquests; of the enthusiasm they enkindled
in the hearts of their soldiers; but can you con
ceive of a dead man, making conquests with an
army faithful and entirely devoted to His mem
ory? My army has forgotten me while living.
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself, have
founded empires. But on what did we rest the
creations of our genius? Upon force! Jesus
Christ alone founded His empire upon love: and
at this hour millions of men would die for Him.
I have so inspired multitudes that they would die
for me — but, after all, my presence was necessary
—the lightning of my eye, my voice, a word from
me — then the sacred fire was kindled in their
hearts. Now, that I am at St. Helena, alone,
chained upon this rock, who fights and wins em
pires for me? What an abyss between my deep
misery and the eternal reign of Christ, who is
proclaimed, loved, adored, and whose reign is
extending over all the earth!"
And so it is. A public life of three and a
half years, ending with a death of shame at thir
ty-three; yet to-day swaying a world's history
and destiny!
Simple as was His speech, even yet His words
move and mould the world! Theremin insists
that "eloquence is virtue" — or, as Emerson puts
it, "there is no true eloquence unless there is a
man behind the speech," or as Carlyle adds, "he's
God's anointed King, whose simple word can
melt a million wills into his!" All the conditions
of the most powerful and persuasive utterance

232 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
meet in Him! Behind the speech, lay the perfect
man — the divine soul; and with an indifference to
the lapse of time which reminds us of the indif
ference of the telegraph to the stretch of space — at
this remote day, his simple word melts millions of
wills into His. He says 'follow me!' and on
through flood and flame, over land or sea, move
the true hosts of God's elect, in obedience to His
word. We have referred to Christ's birth as attract
ing the gaze of the world. But if such interest
gathers about His cradle, what shall be said of
the interest that gathers about His cross? It was
a cursed tree indeed, yet the tree of knowledge
of good and of evil, which is associated with the
first sin and the original curse, has on Calvary
been transformed into the tree of life, whose very
leaves are for the healing of the nations — and
whose fruit is abundant and perpetual! That
cross of shame is the most precious object that
the eye of faith rests upon. It is the focal point
of history — toward that, all lines converge from
the creation, and from it all lines diverge and ra
diate until the end of the world.
Again we ask what then shall we do with
Jesus who is called Christ? We calmly and rev
erently say, there is no middle ground. Here is
a gigantic fraud, in comparison with which, all
the dishonesties, perjuries, and villainies of men
sink into insignificance — as mole-hills are forgot
ten under the shadow of colossal mountains; or
else here is the one gigantic fact of history, the
one grand personage of all the ages and eterni
ties, the God-man — creator, ruler, judge of all
mankind, the Anointed Messiah, and only Re-

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 233
deemer. No middle ground! and yet you dare
not call Him an incarnation of fraud — reason and
conscience alike forbid; and only when men have
ripened or rotted into the most daring and des
perate blasphemy, apostates both from God and
a right mind and a pure heart, have they dared to
hint that Jesus Christ was a deceiver! And when
a man does venture such self-evident blasphemy,
his own companions in scepticism shrink back
from him as himself as great a fraud as he makes
the Nazarene to be.
And yet there is no middle ground — you
must curse him as a wretch or you must crown
him as the King. If you claim to hold neutral
ground and cast no vote, remember He has said,
"he that is not with me is against me." If He
be a gigantic deceiver, you cannot be guiltless,
unless you do all you can to meet gigantic impos
ture with gigantic resistance; you are bound
therefore to be a pronounced foe. If He is the
King — your only Saviour, your final judge — your
guilt is awful and your exposure terrible, if you
simply withhold yourself from His service, or
above all lend aid or comfort to His foes! You
are, by obligations of the highest sort, bound to
be a pronounced friend, and to do your best and
utmost to lead others to see and confess His
beauty. And so, the voice of truth and duty calls on
you, in tones of thunder, to choose this day,
what you will do with Jesus! You cannot, dare
not be indifferent to the issue. He is or He is
not the way, the truth, the life. If He be, then
better you had not been born, than to wander
from this way, deny this truth, forfeit this life.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN.
"He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on
Him the seed of Abraham." — Hebrews ii: 16.
The mystery of the God-Man! Such a mys
tery implies both glory and obscurity; and a care
less, irreverent handling of such a theme only less
ens the glory and deepens the obscurity. No
human philosophy can clear away the cloud which
has ever hung about Christ. Concede the truth
of the Bible portrait, the accuracy of the script
ural representation, that Jesus Christ was "God
manifest in the flesh;" that He, for the first and
only time in history, exhibited in Himself the
union of the human and the divine natures in one
person; that He was a proper Son of God and
proper Son of Man, and you have necessary mys
tery. We are so constituted that we can under
stand nothing which is not in accord with our ex
perience. Everything that is new to us is com
prehended only by the aid of that which is old;
we find in it a combination or arrangement which
is novel, yet the principal elements, which are
combined and arranged, are more or less familiar.
What we call "invention" or "discovery" does not
proceed by huge strides or leaps, but step by
step. Some new feature is added to that which
is already familiar. An old machine is put to new
uses or takes a new form; a common agent is

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 235
linked to new and perhaps strange appliances, as
when steam or hot air is employed as a motive-
power; two or more long-known appliances are
united, to accomplish what neither could alone;
but, in a peculiar sense, "there is nothing new un
der the sun. " Even such a startling marvel as
Edison's phonograph is simply the application of
certain facts and principles, well understood in the
scientific world, viz: that sound, like light and
heat and color, is a mode of motion; that the
differences in sound are due to the varying rapid
ity of vibrations of air; that these vibrations may
be made to impress and record themselves upon a
sensitive surface, like tin-foil; and that, under
proper conditions, the impressions so recorded
may again reflect or reproduce vibrations similar
to the first, as the stereotype casts made from
type may be used to mould new type. "New in
ventions "are simply improvements upon the forms,
methods, modes of appliance, or combinations
and conditions of elements and principles already
known. We rise to the height of each new dis
covery upon the step furnished by that which pre
ceded; and so we are prepared to understand
what is new and strange. If to-day some entirely
new principle should be revealed, which should
contradict all previous notions and revolutionize
our whole theory of mechanics — effecting combi
nations before believed to be impossible, and by
means and modes hitherto unknown — it could be
to all of us only a mystery. Men skilled in me
chanics and in science and philosophy would sim
ply confess, "We do not comprehend this;" and
it would only be when familiarity with the fact of
its reality had destroyed its novelty, that we should

236 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
be able to think of it without surprise and
wonder. Admitting that Jesus was indeed the God-man,
the hope is vain of either escaping or explaining
the mystery which invests Him; for he presents
the phenomenon of history, original, unique, sol
itary; no being like Him, before or after. Here
is a combination heretofore supposed to be con
tradictory and impossible! God is infinite; space
cannot contain Him, nor time limit Him. Man is
finite, fenced in by definite bounds. How can
the unlimited and limited combine and unite? All
our previous notions of things are contradicted in
the God-man. God is omnipotent; yet here is
God, submitting to the laws and limits of a hu
man body, which can occupy but one place at any
one time, and must, by the law of locomotion,
take time for a transfer from place to place. God
is omniscient; yet here is a being claiming equal
ity with Jehovah, yet affirming that there are
some things which as a man, and even as the
Messiah, He knows not. God is omnipotent; yet
the God-man says He "can do nothing of himself,"
and that it is God dwelling in Him that "doeth
the works. "
How can we understand or explain this sub
lime and stupendous mystery? We cannot. Allow
the fact to be true ; concede and confess the reality;
the gospel itself attempts no solution of the
enigma, because we can interpret that which is
new only with the aid of that which is old; and
here no aid can be gotten from that which is old.
Christ is wholly new — a man with human infirm-
ties, without human sin or sinfulness; poor, yet
having at His disposal universal riches; weak and

MYSTERY OF THE GOD MAN. 237
weary, yet having the exhaustless energy of God;
unable to resist the violence and insults of His
foes, yet able to summon legions of angels at a
word or wish; suffering, yet incapable of anything
but perfect bliss; dying, yet Himself having nei
ther beginning of days nor end of years. Can you
or I understand a being who in Himself presents
such a combination?
What is there in our experience or observation
to help us in the interpretation of a mystery so
profound as that of the God-man? Nothing —
absolutely nothing? Should we start with the faint
est hope of removing or penetrating the cloud sur
rounding Him, we should only be proclaiming our
own folly, and not only so, but degrading this sub
lime personage to the low level of our common
humanity; for the expectation of fully understand
ing and comprehending Him implies another ex
pectation — that we shall find in Him nothing
essentially above the plane of purely human char
acter and career. To admit that He may be more
than man is to admit that we may find in Him
what we cannot explain. But mark, that the very
mystery which- invests Christ, and of which we
cannot divest Him, is an argument for His reality
as the God-man; for, as we could not understand
such a being, neither could we, of ourselves, im
agine or invent a God-man.
This important thought needs to be expanded
and emphasized. We have seen that we can un
derstand only what accords with our experience.
So does our experience assist us in all creations
even of imagination and fancy. What we call
original conceptions are only original forms or
combinations of older ideas. A painter may use

238 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
a brush to represent a scene, the like of which
never existed; but he is putting together things
which he has seen. Even a crazy artist, who
might paint trees with feathers for foliage, and
mountains with ice-fields at their base and tropical
gardens at their summits, or men with eyes in
their feet, and hands growing out of their heads,
would only be putting together, in grotesque
shapes and strange union, things which he had
seen. And so man never conceives anything ab
solutely new; without his experience to aid him,
he could invent nothing new, or if he did, it
could be only absurdity and contradiction.
Among the fabled creatures of mythology were
the centaur, faun, mermaid. The centaur was a
monster, half man and half horse, said to have in
habited a part of Thessaly. But such creation
involves an absurdity; for the arms of the man
correspond to the forelegs of the horse, and a
compound like this involves a double set of bones
and muscles and organs, such as pertain to the
upper part of the trunk. The faun had the legs,
feet and ears of the goat, with the rest of the body
human. But here again is absurdity; for a goat
is a grass-eating animal, and man is not; and
there are constitutional differences that defy com
bination. The mermaid was half woman, uniting
to the human head and body the tail of the fish.
But the fish is anatomically a different creature,
with totally different habits; the fish breathes in
the water, where man drowns. And so all these
inventions of fable are absurdities. When man
tries to form a new creation, even of fancy, by
combining things which do not exist together, he
blunders into grotesque absurdities.

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN 239
Now, whence came the idea of the God-man?
There was nothing in man's experience to suggest
it, and yet, with all its mystery, there is no ab
surdity. The person and character and career of
Jesus are exactly what might be expected if God
actually became man; and yet there was no ex
perience to help even in the forming of such a
new and harmonious conception. Men had often
imagined the "gods as coming down, in the like
ness of men;" the pagan religions are full of such
incarnations; but they are not at all like the mys
tery of the God-man, for they represent God as
taking on Him a human form only; they are man
ifestations of God. Here is the only true incar
nation of God — God in a human body, with a
human soul; and yet there are no absurdities. It
is not two beings somehow united, nor two per
sons with two minds, two wills, two conflicting
existences, wedded in impossible bonds; but one
being, harmonious, symmetrical, consistent — not
God in man, or God and man, but the God-
man. We ask again, whence came such an idea and
ideal? Deny the reality, and your denial com
pels you to account for the conception! The at
tempt to escape one mystery involves you in one
even greater. Here is a labyrinth; you are lost
in a maze of perplexing paths; you may flee from
the perplexity of the God-man to the denial of
His reality, but neither path leads you out of the
labyrinth. And there is but one path that does.
Here is the clue: admit that Christ was an abso
lutely new being, the union of the divine and the
human in one person, and that the evangelists
simply give an honest portrait of this marvelous

240 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
personage, without attempting to explain the pro
found mystery which hangs about Him, and you
have a plain, straight road out of the labyrinth!
Here, as the innocent Irish maid said, is "the en
trance to get out at. " And the only possible or
rational solution of the enigma is faith in the wit
ness of the Word to Christ, and in the witness of
Christ to himself; for if the reality did not exist,
the conception is more marvelous, mysterious,
miraculous, than the person of the God-man him
self! While confessing the mystery of the God-man,
and having no design or desire to attempt the ab
surd task of clearing up the mystery, into the
depths of which "angels desire to look," there are
many things about the person of Christ and the
whole subject which may be seen in much clearer
light than they commonly are.
There is a wide difference between mystery
and mist; and, while standing in awe before an
impenetrable mystery, we may penetrate the mist.
In other words, false or partial conceptions, or half-
truths, make the mystery needlessly greater, and
involve us in useless doubt, and tempt us to dan
gerous denial and disbelief of truth and fact.
Let us then seek to pierce, or rise above, the
mist of vague, partial, mistaken notions, with
which we often surround the God-man, and get
clearer views at least of the mystery itself. And,
if we still find, that He soars, like a mountain, far
above our sight or thought, into altitudes so sub
lime, that even on wings of imagination we can
not follow him; perhaps we may still get near
enough to see the mountain, without needless

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 241
mist or haze, or even the dimness of distance be
tween. There is an old fable of 'the Knights and the
Shield.' Some proud old baron had exalted a
shield by the roadside, as the pious monks of
Germany set the crucifix in shrines along the
routes of travel, that the devout passer-by may
tarry to pray before the sacred symbol of his
faith. One day two brave knights of yore met
at a castle, near by where the famous ancestral
shield stood. And one said to the other, "Have
you seen the baron's shield?" "I have." "And
how do you read the inscription?" And he gave
the words, as he had been able to read the half-
worn motto. But the other insisted that he was
wholly wrong: he had himself read it carefully
and it was entirely different. And then they
grew angry and would have fought, but a stran
ger passing by, and hearing their contention,
counselled them to go together and examine the
shield once more. And lo, they found that the
shield had two sides and each side its own motto.
They had approached it from different directions,
and each read the side that faced him. Each was
right, because he told the truth; each was wrong,
because he told but the half-truth which was all
he knew. In all that follows, let us bear in mind that
here is a being to whom there are two sides or
aspects. Whether we see one side or the other
will depend on the direction from which we ap
proach, and the point of view we occupy. And
if we do not wish to be misled by half-truths, we
must look at both sides; and, in all our study
of the God-man, keep in mind both the divine

242 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and the human elements so mysteriously mingled.
Only so shall we prevent adding to mystery our
own misapprehension.
The Bible is confessedly the most remarkable
book of the ages: and Jesus Christ is confessedly
the most remarkable person of the ages. And
this book and this person are so remarkably con
nected, that the mysterious link which unites
them is not less wonderful than the book and the
man themselves.
On close examination and comparison of the
Holy Scriptures and the Holy Child, we have
found that he bears to them so close a relation
that they actually contain a minute history of Jesus
centuries before his birth. Here is a biographical
sketch, a kind of portrait of a man, prepared,
without doubt, hundreds of years previous to his
advent. The very year and place of his birth,
his life and death, his crucifixion and resurrection,
with many of the most marked features of his
character and career, even to the beast on which
he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and
the treacherous bargain by which a disciple be
trayed him, the exact sum which was the traitor's
hire, the insults that were heaped upon him at his
trial, the mockeries that derided his dying agon
ies, and the peculiar facts of his burial: these and
many other minute matters, are recorded long
before one of the events either happened, or could
have been foreseen by the most sagacious con
jecture. Take a man of intelligence, a stranger to the
Christian religion; place before him the Jewish
Scriptures, calling special attention to the portrait
which they furnish of one whom they call "God's

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 243
Servant" or "Anointed." Then ask him to note
that the Old Testament writer lived more than
three centuries before the Christian era; and that
we have historic proof that these Jewish Scrip
tures, in their complete form, were in the hands
of the Jews for three hundred years before that
era began. Then place before him a copy of the
Christian Scriptures, and ask him to read the
gospels, and note that they were never in exist
ence till at least four hundred years after the last
Old Testament writer laid down his pen. And,
without suggesting any divine or supernatural
element, either in the writings, or in the person
of Christ, leave him to compare the two. With
what amazement would he find all the main facts,
recorded in these gospel narratives, long before
anticipated in these writings? The fact of this
correspondence is so familiar to us, that its force
is greatly lessened. But imagine an instance in
our own day. It seems but yesterday that Mr.
Lincoln died by the hand of an assassin: and
his history, from his lowly beginnings as the child
of poverty, up to his heroic end, as the martyr of
liberty, is familiar even to our children. But
what if, in the works of Francis Bacon, there
were found an exact and minute sketch of this
coming President, three hundred years before;
not one particular of which failed to correspond
with the facts! and how would our amazement
increase, should we find a score or more of writers
in different centuries and countries, long before
Bacon, supplying other and equally important
material for this prophetic biography! With what
august wonc'er would we compare the facts, so
well known to us, with the forecast of them in

244 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
these writings of the by-gone centuries! and with
what candor would we inquire for an explanation !
II. Of this mysterious correspondence be
tween the Jewish Scriptures and the person of
Christ, those Scriptures themselves give a solu
tion. They declare that this wonderful person is
the Son of God and the Messiah, anointed of
God for the salvation of men; and that, so im
portant was his advent, that the holy men of old
were inspired of God to tell, in advance, the
story of his life and death!
Let us again suppose this unprejudiced stran
ger, who has with amazement traced the history
of Christ in the prophecy of the Old Testament,
to meet, in those very Scriptures, this explana
tion. Would he not be disposed to regard this
as a rational solution of the problem? It is an
accepted canon of criticism, that if an hypothesis
supplies a satisfactory basis for the harmonizing
of facts or truths, it is not worth while to look
further: we may accept it as the truth. Thus
Kepler, after repeated trials, struck the real law
that rules in the solar system; and, as that law
which was at first only a supposition, has so far
reconciled all known facts, and solved all appar
ent difficulties, we do not hesitate to call his guess,
a discovery! Certainly, there is about the exact
fulfilment of the prophetic portrait in the person
of Christ, a problem demanding a solution; and,
if the solution, afforded by the Scriptures them
selves, proves a satisfactory one, why should we
hesitate to accept it?
Does the Person of Christ then correspond to
this Bible basis of solution, viz: that he was son
of God as well as son of man, and anointed for a

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 245
special office, namely, to fulfil the law in a perfect
life, and then atone for sin by a vicarious death?
It is proper to examine this great question in
a scientific spirit. We have already considered
Jesus Christ simply as an historic personage, a
man of singular symmetry of character, who
towered above the level of ordinary men as the
peaks of the Himmalayas tower toward the stars;
and now we look at him as the Messiah of Scrip
ture, and as claiming to unite in himself both the
divine and human natures.
How shall we explain the mystery of this
complex person and character, on a Bible basis?
The solution is given us by Paul, Romans i,
3, 4. "Concerning His Son Jesus Christ who was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh,
and declared to be the son of God with power,
according to the spirit of holiness by the resur
rection from the dead. " Accept this solution,
and the problem is solved. Not that this Incarn
ation of God in human nature, this mediation
between the finite and the infinite, the union of
God and man in one person, is without mystery;
not that we can distinguish the divine from the
human — define their boundaries and determine
their limits; say just where one ends and the
other begins; not that we claim to be able to an
swer the question how two natures can combine
in one person, and not destroy individuality and
identity. I am a mystery to myself. I see a
body; a mind, or thinking power; a heart, or
loving power, united in myself; each capable of
individual activity, and yet all making one man.
I do not dispute the fact while I cannot penetrate
the mystery. Even so, "I bow before the mys-

246 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
tery of His complex person, and do not ask to
have it resolved!" For if I know that there com
bine in me two natures, the physical and the
spiritual, and the complexity is still a perplexity,
is it reasonable to reject the fact of Christ's com
plex person because I have no philosophy for the
fact? III. The Scriptures boldly present both sides
of the God-man. The son of man appears every
where — there is a human mother, and a human
birth — a human nature and growth in wisdom and
stature — he has needs like men; feels weakness
and weariness, hunger and thirst, craves human
companionship and friendship, sympathy and love
— is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief,
touches humanity with the tenderness of conscious
brotherhood; indeed as we, following his career,
behold him growing, weeping, suffering, dying,
there is so much of the man in all this — such ex
perience is so intensely human, that it veils and
obscures the divine element. And yet the Bible
does not hide these human infirmities, but makes
them a necessity to his completeness as the God-
man. Philip, ii: 7: "He took upon him the form of
a servant," and the fashion of a man. "He emp
tied himself" of his divine glory, and laid his di
vine attributes, omnipotence, omniscience, omni
presence, under temporary voluntary limitations;
it was a part of his humiliation, that he conde
scended to human infirmities, to accept as his lot
human want and woe, so far as consistent for a
sinless man; that he might be a brother to man,
the representative man himself, and a "merciful
and faithful high priest, "able to sympathize with,

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 247
and succor, the tempted, because himself having
been tempted or tried. This is the Book's expla
nation of the person; and of the perplexing prob
lem of his double nature as the God-man.
Yet he boldly affirmed concerning himself the
essential quality with God which left him free to
lay aside, even as he had assumed, the form of a
servant. "I have power," said he, "to lay down
my life" — that, any martyr might say, choosing
to die for the truth's sake: but he added, what no
created being could say, "I have power to take it
again." As we turn over page after page of the sacred
book, we get a glimpse now of his humanity and
now of his divinity. It is like a dissolving view,
now his human nature is clearly seen, and again
his divine appears with equal clearness; and one
melts into the other, so that we cannot say where
one ceases, and the other begins, to appear. We
are constrained to say, He is divine. Yet this
strange personage weeps at the grave of his friend
Lazarus, proving himself "of like passions" as
ourselves, of active, tender, personal sympathy,
uniting a perfect humanity with his divinity; not
God in a human body, but God with a human
soul. The divine speaks sublimely, "I am the
resurrection and the life;" "Thy brother shall rise
again;" "Lazarus, come forth!" The human
speaks, in groans within himself; in tears of con
scious bereavement; in the question, "Where have
ye laid him?"
And how consistent with the grandeur of the
God- man is the sublime majestic reserve which he
manifested. A human being, conscious that he
was about, in the exercise of divine power, to re-

248 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
store the dead to life and to the weeping sisters
of Bethany, would have approached the sepul
chre with the excitement of conscious prerogative,
with evident emotion and expectation — but the
Lord Jesus moves as calmly and composedly as
though calling the dead to life were as simple and
as common as to speak the most ordinary words
of a master to a servant. There is no pompous
flourish — no show of needless energy. Angels
might have been summoned to remove the stone
— but man could do that, and so he simply said
"take ye away the stone;" and then used the life-
giving word to accomplish what man could not.
How like a man is the human element in all this:
yet how unlike a man is that other element,
which links the Christ to the invisible, omnipo
tent, eternal!
IV. That there is not only a mystery but a
paradox, in this complex person, we are quite
ready candidly to confess. But the contradiction
is, after all, only apparent. Project your parallel
lines far enough, and they converge.
Our main difficulty lies in forgetting that this
personage is wholly unlike any other. Of God,
we have some conception to guide us in interpret
ing His words and works. Of man, we have a
more complete knowledge, to aid us in understand
ing man. But here, for the first and only time in
history, appears one who asserts of himself, "I
am the Son of God," "I am the son of man," in
whom "dwelt all the fullness of the God-head
bodily;" yetwho "took on him the seed of Abra
ham. "
In all your progress through the apparent con
tradictions of the Bible portrait of Jesus, this idea

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 249
of His complex person needs to be borne in mind;
for it is the key that unlocks all perplexities. You
expect to see now the human element madeprom-
inent, and, again, to see the divine equally con
spicuous; and it is a very notable fact that in the
Gospel according to John, which most completely
gives us Christ's witness concerning himself, He
twelve times calls himself "Son of Man," and just
as many times "Son of God," as though himself
pointing us to both sides of the shield, and by
repetition impressing the necessity of avoiding
the falsehood which really lies in a half-truth.
No part of the problem of Christ's witness
concerning himself has caused more perplexity to
Bible-readers than His contradictory declaration
as to His equality with God. At one moment we
hear Him say, "I and my Father are one," — and
that the Jews understood Him to mean the unity
not of mere sympathy, but of equality, is plain;
for "they took up stones to stone Him" for the
blasphemy of making himself equal with God.
And yet He said, "My Father is greater than I;"
and to unravel this tangled skein of perplexity,
men have suggested that He was only a created
being, or an inferior order of divine being — Di
vinity, but not Deity.
Is it well to resort to a solution that itself pre
sents a new problem, demanding a new solution?
If Christ were a creature, then His testimony to
himself is false; if an inferior order of divine be
ing, the unity of the Godhead is lost, and we have
not only polytheism, but different grades of gods!
But we are perplexed to know how a being can
be divine and yet not have divine attributes; yet,
if omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, can there

250 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
be degrees in omniscience, etc.? Can one God
know all and do all and be everywhere, and an
other know and do more than He, or be any
where where He is not? If we are going to hold
such absurdities as these, let us admit that the
bulls of the Irishman afford us a good type for
doctrinal and theological statements.
On matters which perplex the wisest, it is with
becoming modesty that one ventures even a sug
gestion. Absolute equality may co-exist with rel
ative inequality, and absolute inequality with
relative equality; and these terms imply no real
contradiction. We venture an illustration, with
the caution that an illustration is not an analogy.
An analogy is supposed to fit at every point; an
illustration only at the precise point at which it is
applied. What we seek to illustrate, is the state
ment that absolute equality and relative inequality
are consistent, and conversely, but we are not
illustrating the mode of the divine existence, etc.
A firm is composed of three men, who are ab
solutely equal in amount of capital invested, in
capacity for business, in share of profits; if you
please, in culture, social standing and personal
worth. Yet they agree that in all the purchase of
goods no one shall act on his own responsibility,
or except by instructions; or it may be agreed
that one man shall keep the books or hire all
clerks, in which case either of the others may
properly say, "I have no authority in this matter."
Or, again, a college faculty, composed of men
every way on absolute equality, may consent that
one shall act as president, and may put in his
hands the entire control. Here is absolute equal
ity, with relative inequality. On the other hand,

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 251
a father sets up three sons in business as partners.
They are of different ages, grades of culture and
capacity; yet they are to share alike in privileges
and profits. Here is absolute inequality, with
relative equality — and no inconsistency.
These illustrations do not even touch the mys
tery of the Trinity and the double nature of the
God-man; yet if we but understand our Lord as
speaking at one time of that which is divine in
himself, and again of that which is human — now
in terms absolute, and now in terms relative — all
difficulties are at least relieved, if not dissolved
and dispelled! In the capacity of a man, He was
inferior to God; in his character and office as Mes
siah, he was under subjection to Him that "sent
him;" as a Son, he owed filial obedience to the
Father. Now, if such terms as these express His
essence, His whole nature, His complete self, then
to apply to Him divine titles, offer Him divine
honors, or pay Him divine worship, is certainly
idolatry. But if these terms express not His sub
stance and essence, but His office and relation,
then we are justified in looking back of these in
ferior titles to find His essential self. And the
careful search into the Scriptures will show us a
glory, like that of the sun, behind the veil of
His humanity. He was on one occasion instantly
transfigured so that His face shone as the sun, and
His raiment was white as the light, and no human
eyes could look on His glory.
V. But why should He, if true God, decline
the homage of men, saying to the young man who
addressed Him as "good Master," "Why callest
thou me good? there is none good but one; that
is God?" This seems the more perplexing since

252 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
He allowed disciples to hold Him by the feet and
worship Him, as well as to address to Him the
most unmistakable words of homage.
We must consider that Christ's true God
head was not understood by the common multi
tude, who saw in Him simply a remarkable man.
To receive such homage as belongs only to God,
from one who regarded Him as only a man, would
be to encourage virtual idolatry.
The good caliph, Haroun Alraschid, was wont
at night to go in citizen's dress, disguised, through
the streets of Bagdad, in order to learn accu
rately what wants among his subjects needed to
be relieved, and what woes redressed. And the
Emperor Joseph II. , of Germany, went incognito
on extensive tours through Hungary, Bohemia,
France, Spain, Holland — his true self not being
suspected. It is very plain that for these rulers, while
in disguise, their true character unrecognized, to
accept from a citizen-subject any homage or obe
dience, due only to the caliph or king, would be
to encourage treason ! The fact that the person
in disguise was the sovereign, could not change the
disloyalty of the act while the subject did not
know him as such.
If on such occasions, officers of state had to
the disguised king breathed state secrets, they
would have been arraigned for treason; although
the king had the right to receive the communica
tion, the officer had no right to communicate to
one whom he did not know to be the king. If
Joseph II, while hearing such a traitor speak, had
said, "Why do you breathe this in my ear? none
should hear this but your sovereign," we should
see no inconsistency.

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 253
It was part of Christ's humiliation that while
in disguise, he should not accept unintelligent
homage. To those who saw his true self — whose
eyes pierced the veil of his humanity, he never
said, "Why callest thou me good?" etc., but, with
the calmness of the divine majesty, he permitted
Peter to say, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God;" and then declared that, upon that
confession of his divine Messiahship, he would,
as on a rock, build his church, against which the
gates of Hell shall not prevail!
We repeat that we are not concerned with the
mode of the divine existence or the union of two
natures in one person. The question is, were
there marks of the true man and the true God,
apparent in Christ? if so, is not his own solution
the rational one? And, without abandoning scien
tific calmness and candor, we have only to lay
aside all bias of prejudice to see that here is the
only perfect solvent, leaving behind it no residuum
of difficulty. VI. There is a subtle argument deftly used
by such as Strauss and Renan, against the super
natural element in Christ Jesus, which may be
easily seen to be sophistical and fallacious. It is
said that, if Jesus were indeed the son of God,
there would be about his whole character and life,
as well as his words and works, a plain supernat
ural aspect; that the very naturalness of the
whole story shews the work of man's hand. It
is all just as a good and great man would be like
ly to be and do, but not on a scale befitting the
God-man. If God really came down to dwell
among men why did not the very light of his eye,
his form and feature, his very tread, proclaim the

254 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
divine Creator, and Lord? But all this life is in
tensely human.
This very fact and feature of Christ's life and
its record, afford a grand argument, for the truth
of the gospels. Had impostors been at work,
fabricating a story of God manifest in the flesh,
to impose on human credulity, we should have
had no such simple, natural portrait. The infant
Saviour would have been represented as, from
birth, a perfect prodigy of unnatural and super
natural wisdom and power. Whenever the hu
man mind has tried to construct a superhuman
childhood, there have been extravagance and ex
aggeration; as in the myth of Hercules, who,
while yet an infant in the cradle strangled two
huge serpents with his tiny hands. And in those
apocryphal gospels, which pretend to supply the
defects of the true narratives, the years of our
Saviour's infancy and boyhood are crowded with
marvels and miracles. Dumb beasts and even
dumb idols bow in adoration before the child, as
he is borne down to Egypt to escape the sword
of Herod, and trees bend to do him homage;
and, while yet a boy, less than seven years old,
he amuses his play-fellows by transforming balls
of clay into flying birds, bids the running stream
become dry, changes his companions into goats,
works all manner of miracles through the magical
power of the bed on which he slept, the towels
which he used, and even the water in which he
was washed! now using his divine energy to ex
cite the curiosity, and now to arouse the fears, of
his playmates.
When the inspired evangelists draw the por
trait of the infant Saviour, we have a truly human

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 255
child, born indeed of a virgin, but increasing in
wisdom and stature, like other children, accord
ing to the laws of human growth; at twelve years
of age, in the temple, hearing the Jewish doctors
and asking them questions, and surprising them
by his understanding and answers. "There is
nothing premature, forced or unbecoming his age,
and yet a degree of wisdom and an intensity of
interest in religion, which rises far above a purely
human youth. "* What was it that restrained the
evangelists from adding to the portrait of the
God-man, features obviously fanciful and ideal.
We have only to suppose that God's own son
did take upon him not only the form, but the na
ture, of man, and did live purposely as far as
possible on the level of humanity, that he might
shew man how to live; and nothing can be more
beautifully natural, than the recorded life of
Christ. We can see how there came to be that
rare blending of the high and humble, the sub
lime and simple, the divine and human, which
marks this portrait in the gospels only. Had
men invented this history they would have pre
sented us with the human aspect or with the di
vine, alone; or, if the union of the two were
attempted, we should have "a mass of clumsy
exaggerations" or absurd contradictions.
Concede that the evangelists had the reality
before them, and everything appears natural and
consistent. Does it, therefore, follow that with
out the reality before them they could be thus
natural and consistent? Reason may approve many
things which it cannot prove; that which, when

? Schaff, "Person of Christ.'

256 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
presented before us, may commend itself as per
fectly reasonable and consistent, we might have
been unable to devise or discover. A problem
that perplexes us for years may have a solution so
simple that, when known, it seems no problem at
all; but that is a child's way of judging. What no
man could invent may, when God unfolds it, seem
eminently simple and natural. It is therefore a
fallacy to argue that, because these gospel narra
tives are so natural, therefore they are fabrications
of man! For thousands of years mankind has
been working at, but never working out, this prob
lem — trying to invent a satisfactory incarnation,
to get God manifest in the flesh. The Greek, Ro
man and Hindoo mythologies are full of these
attempts; but men even among those very pagans
say these must be myths; "they are unnatural,
contradictory, inconsistent. " At last there is a
true incarnation, and now the wise owls of modern
scepticism squint and wink at the God-man and
say, "All this is so simple and natural that it must
be a myth." Truly, the men of this generation
are hard to suit; pipe for them a joyful strain and
"they will not dance;" play a mournful melody
and they will not "lament." If an incarnation is
unnatural, it is mythical; if natural, it is mythical.
God solves the problem over which the race has
been studying for four thousand years, and the
solution seems so simple that the wise men deny
that there was any problem, after all.
Yet in sceptical essays it is a favorite argu
ment against the Bible doctrine of vicarious sac
rifice for sin, that there is nothing in it that needed
the divine mind to frame it. It is simply an in
nocent man suffering for the guilty, and so illus-

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 257
trating the inviolability of law and the grandeur
of voluntary self-sacrifice.
Suppose this were all the deep meaning there
is in the death of Christ. How happens it that
all the pagan attempts to devise a way by which
the guilty soul might escape, and yet divine jus
tice be satisfied, have been confessed failures!
Men have planned to save the sinner, while the
plan has not saved God from complicity and com
promise with sin; or they have planned a salva
tion from penalty without a salvation from guilt.
God tells us how all desirable ends may be com
passed. Justice and mercy may be harmonized,
as the cherubim on the ark, though looking in
opposite directions, faced each other; and the sin
ner is saved from the punishment of his sin, and,
better still, from sin itself.
It is both absurd and dishonest to say that,
because the gospel scheme of salvation is so sim
ple and satisfactory, it bears traces only of a hu
man hand. As well say that because the sun's ray
brings us at once light, heat and life — just what
earth needs, and all in one sunbeam — the sun is
a human invention; that the problem is so simple
in solution that it bears no marks of a divine
mind. God is always simple, even amid the most com
plex mystery. It is man "who darkens counsel
by words without knowledge;" who cumbers his
words with affectation of learning and logic, and
his works with pompous pretension. Only the
grandest of men learn the divine art of artless
ness — of perfect naturalness and simplicity.
VII. At thispoint,the external and internal evi
dences of Christianity touch so closely that it be-

258 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
comes notonlycontact,but almost coincidence. In a
previous chapter the proof of miracles was consid
ered; but there is a moral argument which may
be drawn from the miracles of Christ. The wit
ness which miracles furnish must largely hinge
upon their character. If they are mere displays of
power, gratifying the popular greed for novelty,
appealing to curiosity, serving mainly to supply
stimulus for those who, like the "Athenians, spend
their time in nothing else but either to tell or to
hear some new thing," the whole character of the
miracle-worker is degraded by his pandering
to this insatiate appetite for what is new and
strange. If the Son of God should to-day, for the first
time, appear on earth in human form, with signs
and wonders as the proof of the divinity that veils
itself in His humanity, we should look for signs
such as become so august a person. Mere dis
plays of power, such as descend to a level with
the trivial tricks of a juggler, however they might
puzzle us to explain, would not impress us as
worthy of the Lord of all. It was said of Her
cules, god of physical force, that "whatever he
did — whether he stood or walked or sat or fought —
he conquered." That fine conception has in it an
artistic finish as exquisite as the touch of a mas
ter sculptor, like Praxiteles; it suggests that a
true god will always carry the air and mien of a
god. With or without his crown and scepter,
robed in glory or clothed in sackcloth, awake or
asleep, speaking or silent, in work or war or rest,
he will still be divine. And if Christ were the
God-man, everything He did must have been con
sistent with such a character.

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 259
Now, look at His miracles. When men
crowded about Him, asking for a sign, pretending
that they desired Him to work wonders to con
vince them of His divine mission, He calmly but
firmly refused to degrade divine power to the low
level of human curiosity. He would not harness
the fiery steeds of Omnipotence, which roll the
very suns through space, to the petty chariots of
a race-course, to make dull eyes stare with idiotic
amazement. What signs did He furnish, to satisfy the hon
est heart that would find the God in the man Christ
Jesus? "The blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear;
the dead are raised up." (Matt. xi:6.) Not
mere works of power, but works of love, attest
ing indeed divine authority, but revealing also
divine sympathy; such works as a Father would
be likely to use to reveal to His estranged and
erring children His Fatherhood. When Jesus
Christ undertook to show to men the sealed cre
dentials of His mission as the Messiah, in what
sublime characters they were written! They had
about them the handwriting of God; they shone
with a light and luster like that of suns and stars.
But as we look closer, they seem to be written also
in blood and tears. There is in these displays of
divine power a divine tenderness and gentle
ness more impressive than the miraculous ele
ment itself; they are moral miracles, and the
purest and most loving nature most feels their
force. Christ might have spent the three years
of His public ministry tearing up sycamine and
cedar trees by the roots and hurling them into the
sea, by a word; commanding mountains like Her-

260 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
mon to be removed from their place; causing the
sun to veil his shining face, and then uncover it
at his bidding; making the sea to raise itself up,
and stand like a column. These would have been
grand displays of the power and authority of God,
but they would not have unfolded the divine love
and sympathy. What did He do? He wrought
such wondrous works as showed men, in all con
ceivable circumstances of human want and woe,
a divine readiness to give help and hope.
Behold the divine Christ come down from the
mount, where he had spoken that imperial sermon
of our holy religion ; and what was His first work,
proving and approving His right to teach with
authority, and not as the scribes, who only referred
men to a higher authority? Among the multi
tudes that followed Him, there came a leper and
worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean. "
"And Jesus put forth his hand and touched
him, saying, T will! be thou clean!' and imme
diately his leprosy was cleansed!"
Here was divine power indeed, so grandly ex
ercised that we are reminded of Him who, in the
profound gloom of primeval darkness, said, "Let
light be! and light was!" who "spake and it was
done; who commanded and it stood fast." But,
least of all, was this a word of power: it was a
touch of Love! A leper was a loathsome wretch
— a living corpse, an exile from human society,
whose presence was uncleanness, and whose touch
was contamination. Leprosy was regarded by a
Jew as the awful incarnation of sin, its power and
its penalty — a living, breathing, walking parable
of death and judgment. A leper wore his lep-

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 261
rous robes that even his dress might distinguish
him: and, lest he might come into actual contact
with humanity, he went everywhere crying, "un
clean! unclean!"
Observe the pathos of that phrase, "touched
him. " Christ's word was enough, even at a dis
tance! but that poor leper had been wont to have
human beings shrink from him and bid him stand
afar off. It may have been many years since he
had felt the sympathetic touch of a hand, un-
cursed by this scourge of God! and therefore the
man of sorrows "put forth his hand and touched
him." He wished to show that leper that, back
of the divine power that healed, was a divine
Love. That touch is the key to Christ's miracles:
they told of a throbbing heart, that combined
the unspeakable strength and tenderness of a
father's and mother's devotion.
On one of the battle fields of the late war, a
young soldier was wounded so badly that no hu
man skill could assure recovery. He grew rapidly
worse, and in his delirium called piteously for his
mother. The gentle surgeon, at the hospital,
telegraphed her at once, and she arrived at mid
night. He met her at the entrance of the ward,
and restrained her impatient feet: "Madam, your
son hangs between life and death; a moment of
excitement, and there ma" be no hope. You
must not see him now."
For three long hours she waited outside the
ward, near enough to see her darling boy, though
dimly, and catch with the quickness of a mother's
ear, each groan of pain. At last she laid hold of
the surgeon's arm: "Doctor, I shall die if I stay
here, Let me go in and sit beside him. I will

262 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
not speak : only let me do what the nurse is doing,
soothe his brow and smooth his pillow." The
nurse was called, and the mother took her place
by the cot, once more enjoined by the surgeon to
do nothing by which she might be recognized.
She sat in silence — the face of the dying soldier
turned to the wall. He groaned feebly. She, to
quiet him, laid her hand on his hot forehead. In
stantly he turned himself about, and said, "Nurse,
how like my mother's hand!" Even to that de-
lirous lad, there was that, in a mother's touch,
which no stranger could counterfeit. And so in that
touch of Christ, upon that loathsome leper, there
is revealed all the Fatherhood of God! That was
like the Father's hand, it was the Father's hand!
We lay no undue stress upon the moral force
of Christ's miracles! To overlook this, is to fail
to see the most important and powerful feature of
the divine manifestation in Christ; and to fail to
feel the weight of that grand logic which speaks to
the hearts of men! In proportion as the human
nature approaches the divine, it responds sympa
thetically to human sorrow and suffering. When
God came down to men, the most touching proof
he gave of his presence was found in the tender
ness of his ministry to human want and woe. And
even his works of power were most remarkable
for their exhibitions of a divine heart throbbing
through a divine hand!
Did the Star in the East guide the magi to the
manger where He lay? The whole Bible — the
book of the ages, is but the Star to shine for him
and guide to him; the light in the deep darkness
to move across the heavens, and over his cradle
to rest, then to fade into a paler glory, before

MYSTERY OF THE GOD-MAN. 263
the day-dawn. The whole Scripture testifies to
Christ, leads to Christ, rests in Christ, and fades
before Christ as before a superb splendor — a
greater glory obscuring the less. But that star
guided only the magi — and them only for a sea
son — this Word is the star that waits on Him, and
will never cease to burn or shine as the guide to
seeking souls, till the last of those who look anx
iously for a redeemer shall find the place of his
cross and empty tomb!
The question which Pilate asked, each of us
is compelled to answer: "What shall I do with
Jesus?" No formal disclaiming of responsibility
can wash our hands clean of responsibility. If
Jesus is the Christ, the anointed of God, the
Saviour of men, he that despises or rejects him
crucifies him afresh. The Jews took the respon
sibility from which Pilate shrank, and said "His
blood be on us and on our children. " What a
prophecy lay in that awful prayer. For eighteen
hundred years his blood has been upon them and
their children. The fire, the sword, the pelting
hail of human hate, the scourge of hostile law
and popular scorn, have pursued them everywhere
from pole to pole and from the rising to the set
ting sun.
The question "What think ye of Christ?" even
scepticism finds it equally hard to evade or to an
swer. Even could we explain miracles by some
ingenious natural theory, the greatest miracle of
all is the person of Christ. If he were a mere
man, we know not how to account for his words
or works; his relation to the Hebrew Scriptures
and his relation to the Christian church. If he
were the God-man, all is easily explained, but

264 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
such an admission must be fatal to the whole fab
ric of scepticism. On the one hand the sceptic
cannot explain Christ, on the other he cannot de
fend himself. For if Christ be more than man,
to reject his words, and rebel against his authori
ty must imply guilt and peril.
The God-man ! The 'daysman betwixt us both,
who can lay his hand upon us both,' because he
is of us both ! The way of God to man — the way
of man to God; the true Jacob's ladder between
heaven and earth. God above it, to come down
— man beneath it to go up! The God-man, in
himself our pledge that as God in Christ became
a partaker of the human nature, so man in Christ
becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Born
of a woman, made like unto us, that we might be
born of God and be made like unto Him! The
God-man is not only a mystery and a miracle, but
a prophecy and a promise. He tells us what man
shall be, when by faith in Jesus, he is for ever
more made like unto the Son of God.
They used to say of Mozart, that he brought
angels down; of Beethoven, that he lifted mor
tals up. Jesus Christ does both, and here lies
the central mystery of the God-man, a mystery
which is blessedly revealed to him who by faith
has personal experience of his power to save!

CHAPTER XII.

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD.
"Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher, come from God. —
Jno. hi: 2.
John calls Jesus, the "Word of God." What
is a word? It is the invisible thought taking form:
Wordsworth says, "Language is the incarnation
of thought." Spoken words are sounds, articu
late and significant: sounds in which there is soul.
Written words are visible signs of intelligence
and intellect; thought has determined their exact
form, order, relation.
God is represented as pure Spirit, and cannot
be known by sense. He would communicate
with man, and so puts his thought and love in a
visible form in Christ, who is therefore beautifully
called the living 'Word of God.' As God does
everything perfectly, we are justified in looking
for such an expression of His mind and heart in
his incarnate Son as shall excel all other revela
tions of himself. In Christ, as the Word of God,
we may properly expect to find the clear and un
mistakable stamp of the divine mind. In his
teaching there must be a divine authority, majes
ty, originality, spirituality, vitality, essential
worth and practical power, such as no merely hu
man teaching could display. Let us candidly ap
ply the test.

266 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Even the wisest and best of human teachers
have dealt largely in such words as "if" and "per
haps;" have spoken with doubt and hesitation on
great moral questions, reasoning that "it might be
so," or, sometimes with deeper conviction,
"it must be." But Christ, with an authority
that in a mere man would be audacity,
says, with unfaltering tongue, on the most per
plexing questions, "It is so!" Never once does
He hesitate in unfolding the mystery of the divine
being, the present life, the future state. To Nic
odemus he calmly but firmly declares the necessity
of the new birth; of a character and a life built
from the foundation on godly principles, and He
does not even stop to answer the question, "How
can these things be?" To the woman at the well,
He speaks of the spirituality of God, and that all-
pervading Presence which makes every spot a
place where the soul of man may come near to
Him. To the unbelieving Jews He affirms His
equality and identity with God the Father, and His
power to raise the dead and pronounce that judg
ment on human character and destiny, from which
there is no appeal. He dares to challenge men
to "search the Scriptures," and find them, from
Moses to Malachi, witnessing to Him ; affirms that,
in whatever disguise of law, prophecy or psalm,
rite, ceremony or historic event, the careful reader
may still see His features clearly revealed. And
yet He was but thirty years old, and the Script
ures were fifteen hundred! He not only said
"Moses wrote of me," but "your father Abraham
saw my day, and was glad;" and when the as
tounded Jews replied, "Thou art not yet fifty
years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" He,

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 267
with the calmness of divine certainty, said, "Ver
ily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was,
I am!" Mark the exact words — not "I was, but
"I am;" for the Eternal One knows no tenses;
past and future are present to Him who is both
without beginning and without end. At the sep
ulchre of Lazarus He said, "I am the resurrection
and the life;" and when He says, "Lazarus, come
forth," it is as when, out of the sepulchre of eter
nal night, God bade light come forth! Even be
fore Pilate and Herod there is the same command
ing bearing, yet it is not the vanity of conceit; it is
the sublimity of conscious omnipotence volunta
rily held in suspense. "My kingdom is not of
this world;" "Thou couldst have no power at all
against me if it were not given thee from above;"
"Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my
Father, and he shall presently give me more than
twelve legions of angels?" " Hereafter shall ye see
the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power,
and coming in the clouds of heaven!" Nay, even
amid the anguish and agony of dying, He turns
to the penitent thief, and with still unfaltering
tongue — himself no longer having even a gar
ment to cover His person — promises him the in
heritance of eternal bliss: "Verily, I say unto
thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in para
dise." I. Authority appears to have been the first
impression made, if not the last impression left, by
Christ's teaching. Matthew completes his report
of that "Sermon on the Mount," which inaugu
rates Christ's public ministry, by adding these sig
nificant words: "When Jesus had ended these say
ings, the people were astonished at His doctrine

268 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
[i. e. , teaching] ; for He taught them as one hav
ing authority, and not as the scribes. " The scribes
were the transcribers of the law; the pen in their
hands was the printing-press of those days for the
multiplication of copies of the blessed Word.
Their necessary familiarity with the letter of the
law — "Scriptures," literally so called — gave them
a certain right to teach, but not with authority.
They referred their hearers to the law; their lan
guage was, "Thus saith the law." But Christ's
habitual language was, "I say unto you." He
taught as a teacher having authority, original,
ultimate, underived; as one who had himself made
and could modify the law. He expounded the
Scriptures not as a commentator, but as the au
thor. Hear his sermon on the mount! With what
calm, firm hand he lifts from the law of God the
huge mass of human tradition and interpretation
which had covered and hidden it, as God would,
by an earthquake, upheave some buried monu
ment, or with one breath, as by a tornado, brush
away from it the sands of centuries!
Lord Northwick brought from Italy a fine pict
ure of St. Gregory, by Annibale Carraci. To se
cure its safe delivery, he hired a mere dauber to
paint over it, in body color, an imitation of some
inferior artist. On exposing the canvas, his friends
saw nothing but a rude and repulsive daub; but
he took a sponge, and, as washed the colors from
the surface, the masterpiece was gradually revealed
to enraptured eyes. Somewhat so, carnalism and
literalism had during centuries glossed over the
holy Word, till what scribes and Pharisees taught
men to revere as God's law was largely the tradi
tions and commandments of men. And, with the

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 269
calmness of divine authority, Jesus boldly wipes
away these glosses of false comment and perver
sion, and makes the law to be seen once more in
its true spirit and intent. "Ye have heard that it
hath been said by them of old time" — that is the
human daub; "but I say unto you" — that is the
divine original!
This authority lifts Christ above all other
teachers. Even the great Greek philosophers dis
claimed all original right to teach. When Leon,
charmed with the silver tongue of Pythagoras,
asked him wherein lay his highest excellence, the
great teacher could only reply, "I am in nothing
a master, but only tpiXoffopos" — a lover of wisdom;
and hence came the word "philosopher. " An old
legend tells how there came to be seven sages in
Greece. The priestess of Apollo had awarded a
golden tripod to the wisest of the Greeks. It was
sent to Bias, who said, "Thales is wiser;" and so
it was sent to Thales, and passed through the
hands of the seven, each claiming that the other
was wiser than he, till, simply because no master
could be found to claim it, it was sent back to
Apollo's temple. God's golden tripod waited four
thousand years for one to claim and hold it; none
of the wisest ever dared to assume the right to
teach with underived authority, until He came
"who was found worthy to open the Book" of God
and "loose the seven seals."
If human teachers wield influence, their teach
ing must commend itself and command attention;
if it has not the authority of truth, they can add
to it no authority. Even prophets could only de
clare, "Thus saith the Lord." But Christ spake
as never man spake — "I am the truth."

270 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Such authority could not exist without inde
pendence. The sneer of enemies expressed the
fact: "Master, thou teachest the way of God in
truth; neither carest thou for any man: for thou
regardest not the person of men." No bait of
applause could turn Him aside, nor pelting hail
of human hate drive Him into a politic silence.
Burke said to the electors of Bristol: "I conformed
to the instructions of nature and truth. I main
tained your interests against your convictions!"
But even such fidelity was but a feeble reflection
of that absolute candor that made the name of
Jesus the synonym of loyalty to right and truth.
To the reluctant and the willing ear alike, whether
met by fervent love or by fierce hate, He, with
unfaltering tongue, told the truth.
With what audacious positiveness He grasps
the grandest themes, which even the foremost of
philosophers have touched but hesitatingly and
tremblingly. Plato thought the soul must be im
mortal, but he spoke not as one who knew.
Cicero said, "There is, I know not how, in the
minds of men a certain presage, as it were, of a
future existence; and this takes deepest root and
is most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and
most exalted souls. " This was as far as mere hu
man teaching ever got. But not so speaks the
Bible. Job, I 500 B. C, could say, "I know that
my Redeemer liveth;" Paul could say, "We know
that if our earth house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, an house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. "
Life and immortality were brought to light by
Him who, on the most delicate, difficult and per
plexing questions, spake with authority, and who

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 271
gathered up in one bold affirmation the substance
of all Bible-teaching on the immortality of the
soul: "He that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and be
lieveth in me shall never die." Such boldness and
calmness of utterance, on the most difficult and
doubtful questions, could mark but one of two or
ders of mind — either a mind seized with an insane
fanaticism, or a mind inspired by the certainties
of conscious knowledge. Christ was certainly
neither a fool nor a fanatic. There are about Him
the proportions of a giant, and yet the perfection
of symmetry, and the firm and fearless tread of
conscious power!
Truly, "never man spake like this man!" An
impostor he could not be; for whence came such
a life? It is, on the loftiest scale, pure, noble,
heroic! — -the one peak that soars to the stars and
defies the approach even of an impure atmos
phere! A fanatic or enthusiast he could not be;
for his wisdom, self-poise, intellectual and moral
perfection, are inconsistent with a lack of balance!
The firmness of his tread, the weight of his
words, the justness of his decisions, the clearness
of his judgment, the profoundness of his ethics,
the faultless beauty of his life, leave no room for
doubt that he could neither deceive nor be de
ceived. II. Sublimity. Christ can be accounted for
as a teacher on no merely human theory. The
Jews had scores of intelligent teachers, such as
the scribes, rabbi, doctors of the law, Pharisees,
learned members of the Sanhedrim; but none of
them taught like Christ. To prevent errors in
copying the Scriptures, or intentional additions

272 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and corruptions in the sacred text, the Masorites
counted and recorded the words and letters, nay,
even the points and accents, and noted literally
every jot and tittle. So minute was the accuracy
insured, that the verses of each book and of each
section were numbered and recorded.
The interpretations of scripture, and the rules
and maxims of these teachers, had become sim
ilarly minute and trivial. They worshiped the
letter and forgot the spirit; they taught a hollow,
shallow, heartless, lifeless creed, cumbered with
cerements of technical trifles and empty forms.
Nothing is more surprising than the puerile ab
surdities over which the various schools of rabbi
quarrelled. Think of writing learned treatises on
this question: "If a man should be born with two
heads, on which forehead must he wear the phy
lactery?" The school of Shammai taught that
an egg laid on a festival day could be eaten, while
the school of Hillel remonstrated against such a
breach of propriety; and the Pharisees had long
and learned controversies over such unimportant
questions as, whether a stream, made by pour
ing water from a clean into an unclean vessel, is
itself technically clean or unclean, and whether
touching the holy Scriptures could make the hands
unclean, in the Levitical sense. We need not
marvel, therefore, at the petty exclusiveness which
forbade a Jew to shew an uncircumcised traveler
his lost way, or point him to a spring where he
might quench his thirst; nor at the hair-splitting
nicety which discriminated between swearing by
the temple, and by the gold of the temple — the
altar, and the gift upon it.
The foremost religious teachers of that day

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 273
descended to what was puerile and trivial. Be
lieving the prophetic spirit withdrawn, they tried
to make up for its absence by a system of petty
rules, tithing herbs and washing cups, and for
getting justice and love and purity of heart. In
place of a morality, based on love of the right,
they devised the most "frivolous casuistry ever
known," loaded men's memories and consciences
with countless rules so trifling that they rival the
paltry regulations of the Koran; and then left
the grandest duties to relax their hold on the
human heart, by putting these trifles in their
place. In what school did Christ learn to teach on a
scale of such grandeur, majesty, dignity and au
thority? Who revealed to this obscure Nazarene
who died at thirty-three, who had no scholastic
training, and at whose ignorance of letters his
enemies laughed — who taught him to insist upon
great vital truths and grand first principles, that
lifted him infinitely above the superficial trifles,
over which the whole Jewish church wrangled?
Christ, as a teacher, is a marvel. The whole
Hebrew church was corrupted by the leaven of
Pharisaic Ritualism and Sadducean Rationalism:
the blind were leading the blind, and all alike
falling into the ditch. Out of a village, so mean
and low that to hail from it was a reproach, there
comes this young man, trained neither in Greek
schools as at Tarsus, nor in Hebrew schools as at
the feet of Gamaliel; He comes forth from a car
penter's shop, where, like all other well-trained
Hebrew youth, he had learned his father's trade,
and his first public utterance is the most original
and revolutionary address on practical morals

274 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
which the world ever heard. It overturns the
whole existing system of both Pagan and Hebrew
ethics and religion. It plants a huge lever under
neath formalism, ritualism, rationalism, hypocrisy,
immorality, insincerity; the aristocracy of blood,
birth, wealth; all mere outside propriety and false
distinctions of society, and announces that all are
to be demolished — and if you ask where he is to
rest his lever, where to find his nov gtgo — you see
that he already has his fulcrum in the instincts of
the human conscience, for wherever, then or now,
might may lie, right is on his side, and must tri
umph. We are spell-bound before the magnitude
and magnificence of his moral teaching, as we
stand in awe before Mt. Blanc, pillaring the skies
upon its white brow; yet we are as much amazed
by the simplicity as by the sublimity of his teach
ing, and know not which seems most divine.
Such wisdom the world waited four thousand
years to hear; yet there is not a sign of pedantry.
It requires no great learning to take his meaning,
no trained mind or memory to classify and retain
his precepts, no subtle logic to follow his argu
ment. There is no studied method, no tedious
analysis, no wearisome division and sub-division.
There is no aim at rhetoric: the thought, not the
word, absorbs him; yet the word just fits the
thought. His illustrations suggest no great
knowledge of history, philosophy, science — they
are simply windows to let in light, and, that they
may let in the more light, are not cumbered with
elaborate framework, nor dimmed, as with stained
glass. You do not see the window, but only find
yourself in the light. His language is the Ian-

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 275
guage of the common folk, and there is not a
taint of self-seeking in it all. Yet all the love
and the wisdom of the ages have never been the
golden setting to such a jewel as that simple dis
course enshrines. As Augustine says: "His life is
lightning; his words are thunder!"
To say that Christ's teaching was wise is to
speak tamely: in Him are 'hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. '* How wide the range
and scope of his teaching! What revelations of
divine love and goodness! how broad his basis of
morals! how profound and penetrating his insight
into human conduct and character. Samuel John
son wrote as the epitaph of Oliver Goldsmith:
"He left nothing that he did not touch, and
touched nothing that he did not adorn!" But
whatever Jesus touched he left gilded with glory,
transfigured! And yet he adapted himself to the
lowest and lowliest of his hearers; and, with the
highest skill, gave his teaching the form best fitted
to the place, time, object, occasion and audience.
Yet though he condescended, he never descended;
never forgot his lofty character, his heavenly
themes — instead of taking a lower level, He lifted
his hearers to a higher one.
Who could as lawfully hold God's golden tri
pod, as he who spanned the breadth, pierced the
height, sounded the depth of infinite truth?
While human teachers taught forms, he, the spirit;
they, ceremonies, he, affections; they, conduct, he,
character; they, details, he, duties; they, petty
practices, he, grand principles! While they would
frame a code so complete that the smallest matter
should have its rule, as though man were a ma-
*Col. ii: 3.

276 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
chine and must have an iron track to run on — He
would fire the soul with that enthusiasm for God
and goodness which makes duty delight, and
service to God and man, the prompting of Love.
And so the spirituality of Christ's teaching
constitutes its sublimity. It lays stress first of
all on what is within! not outward act, but in
ward motive. Down into not only the deep
things of God but the deep things of man, his
teaching went, into the secret soul where charac
ter is born and cradled; beyond the impure act,
to the look, and the lust — beneath the blow to
the hate — beneath the word profane to the irrev
erent heart, beyond the act of revenge to the vin
dictive feeling.
With the calm confidence of the eagle, whose
wings tire not with the longest, loftiest flight, and
whose eye dares, undazzled, the noon-day sun,
Christ spake of the grandest themes, dissected
the very character of God, denied errors that had
the authority of antiquity, and revealed truths
hitherto wholly unknown.
Christ so magnified and glorified the Scrip
tures, so interpreted aud unfolded their deep
meaning, that his evolution of new principles
compelled a revolution both in ideas and practices.
Their righteousness must exceed even that of the
acknowledged leaders of the people, if they would
enter into his kingdom, for no correctness of out
ward life could compensate for the lack of inward
love to God and man. Back of the white front
of the Pharisee's life he shewed the dead men's
bones of a lifeless creed, and the uncleanness of
a heart full of corruption. Beneath the graceful
mound of grass and flowers, the outward beauty

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 277
of alms and prayers, he shewed the grave where
love lies buried, and righteousness is in decay.
As the Lord of temple courts overthrew the
tables of money changers, so he overturned the
common notions of morals and piety, and brought
men back to right laws of holy living: while as a
faithful executor of the law he declares that to
the last, least jot and tittle it shall be fulfilled,
like a law-maker he assumes the right to modify
and repeal the law itself, wherever, as with the
ceremonial code, its object was temporary.
"Where the word of a King is, there," said
Solomon, "is power!"* Here was the power of
a King's Word: and it called the spirit of God
back into the dead forms of the law, and then
called the reanimated law from its sepulchre as
Lazarus from the dead! And we can only remem
ber his own majestic words, as he was about to
ascend to heaven: "All power (eSovffia) is given
unto me in heaven and on earth !"f
Judged even by a literary standard, where
can such teaching elsewhere be found? such par
able and poem, such doctrine and discourse, such
philosophy and theology, such simplicity and sub
limity? Here is the teaching both of the idea and
the ideal, precept and practice. He tells men
how to live, and then he, by living, shews them
how to live. No such ideal was ever imagined,
no such heroism ever before became historic; in
words and works alike no blemish is seen, no
beauty is lacking.
The sublimity of Christ's teachings has over
awed even those who dispute his divinity. As
well look on the soaring summit of Chimborazo,
*Eccles. viii: 4. fMatt. xxviii: 18.

278 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and feel no emotion of sublimity, as to study his
teaching without an impression of the moral sub
lime. Christ, in any aspect of his character, re
calls Goldsmith's famous lines:
"As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
III. Flexibility is another marked peculiarity
in the teaching of Christ — its ready adaptation to
every new phase of character or need of society.
Systems of rules for conduct have often been
rigid. Christ saw that conduct, even when con
formed to the right, is not always exactly the
same. Human relations and conditions change,
and so must human laws and human life; but
principles never change; and hence, if Christ
planted the great germ of holy principles in men,
amid all changes of conditions and relations these
unchangeable principles would beget right prac
tices. In this, Christ's teaching was wholly unique
and peculiar. The age in which he lived was
marked and marred by fearful forms of social
sins and crimes; the whole body politic scarred
by old wounds or festering leprosy. Polygamy,
infanticide, legalized prostitution, capricious di
vorce, bloody and brutal games, death and pun
ishment by torture, unjust and cruel wars, caste,
and slavery; these are some of the awful vices,
that existed more or less distinctly as social usages
during Christ's public life and ministry. Yet only
one of them all does he name and directly re
buke and denounce.
Did the great Teacher approve these immor-

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 279
alities and criminalities? The whole drift of his
teaching, with the momentum of a moving glacier
was grinding and ploughing the very structure of
society into new form; but Christ, instead of at
tacking even gigantic wrongs, sought to put be
neath the whole fabric of society, one all conquer
ing, controlling love of law — and law of love. He
knew that right principle to be the true lever of
Archimedes, that could and would move the
world; and this inflexible devotion to right and
righteousness is yet strangely flexible, accommo
dating itself to every new condition of society.
God uses a strange substance to confine and
restrain the ocean's flood. It is sand, yet sand is
peculiarly characterized by mobility: the mighty
wave that dashes against and pulverizes the rock-
cliff, moves the sand before it and as it recedes
washes it back to its place; and so the sea-beach,
always changing, never changes: that soft, mo
bile sand that yields to your footstep, and that a
ripple moves, banks in and bounds the sea.* And
so the holy principles with which Christ surrounds
and restrains the individual and society, accom
modate themselves to all fluctuations of social
condition, yet eternally abide and imperatively
say: "thus far, and no farther!"
IV. Vitality. Christ's teaching had life-giv
ing power; it was vital and vitalizing. It hum
bled the heart, wrought deep desires after God
and godliness, and transformed and transfigured
human lives. And all other teaching is only pre
paratory to his — even the law is our schoolmaster
to lead us to Christ: its precepts are but the sign
board at the crossway of duty and inclination,
?Jerem. v: 22.

280 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
truth and error, with the index finger pointing to
him in whom all the glories of prophecy and his
tory center and meet.
We are told of men "whose words shook the
world;" and we think of that humble monk who,
in the opening of the sixteenth century, came
from convent gates at Erfurth, and on the door of
All-Saints' Church nailed up his theses — at the
blow and echo of whose hammer the whole fabric
of the Papacy shook and trembled. But what
power in the words of Christ! Here is eloquence
indeed. When men heard the silver-tongued Cic
ero they said, "How beautiful his speech!" When
men heard Demosthenes they said, "Let us go
and fight Philip ! " When that great orator was
asked what are the three requisites of power in
the orator, he answered, not 'action, 'but iHivr]0ii' —
that which moves people to act; that which gives
motion and stirs emotion. Here we have the di
vine Kivr)6ii — the power to move and mould.
Men heard Christ, and they not only said "never
man spake like this man," but they said, like
Joshua, "As for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord," or, like Thomas, the doubter, "My
Lord and my God!"
Well might Mary Magdalene cry, with the
mingled rapture of joy and tears, "Rabboni!"
Rab was a Hebrew title, meaning a great one, and
applied in Jewish schools to acknowledged teach
ers and masters. Rabbi is more emphatic, "my
master," and marks a higher dignity — the com
parative degree. But "Rabboni" was the super
lative, "My great Master," — most honorable of
all, and applied to but seven persons, all of whom
were pre-eminent in the rabbinical schools. In

CHRIST THE TEACHER FROM GOD. 281
that word, "Rabboni," Mary surrendered her very
self to the authority and supremacy of her risen
Lord. And blessed are they who, prostrate at
his feet, join her in adoring, loving self-sur
render. To accept Christ as a divine teacher, as the in
carnate Word of God, solves the mystery of his
person and his teaching. Indeed, the person can
not be separated from the teaching. Character
and utterance must correspond. Theremin is
right; "eloquence is a virtue;" the ultimate power
to move and mould men by the wonderful gift of
speech, is the power of a soul filled with knowl
edge, and fired with love of the truth. Those
mighty floods of conviction which overwhelm
others with similar conviction; those mighty floods
of emotion that sweep all obstacles before them
and compel persuasion, imply the correspondingly
great channel of a great mind and heart. The
highest, grandest influence of eloquent speech is
the influence of character, felt through speech;
the power to convince and persuade is the power
of being convinced and persuaded. A tongue that
talks divinely must be taught by a heart that
throbs divinely. Great things are spoken by great
men; great thoughts are born of great minds;
great love grows in great hearts; great teaching
is the fruit of great natures. And, as Ruskin
says, "they cannot be mimicked but by obedience;
the breath of them is inspiration, because it is not
only vocal but vital, and you can learn to speak
as these men spoke only by becoming what these
men were."
Christ, the living Word of God, the Divine
Teacher, invites all to accept and obey his teach-

282 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
ing. He is a tender, fraternal, cherishing teacher,
guarding the pupil of his charge as the pupil of
his eye. The disciple is won not only by his wis
dom, but, infinitely more, by his love.
When Plato came to Socrates to be taught
wisdom, Socrates had a dream. He thought a
pure dove, white as the snow, flew to his bosom
and took refuge there, amid the soft, warm folds
of his tunic. He thought he watched it from day
to day, and saw its feathers grow and its wings
develop, until it suddenly expanded its pinions
and soared away till lost from sight among the
clouds of heaven. And that dove, Socrates said,
was Plato, taking refuge in his bosom only to give
his own wings time to grow, and then, in the sub
lime flights of his pure and lofty philosophy, soar
out of sight.
Jesus takes his docile pupil, like a timid, trem
bling dove, to his own bosom, and there, hidden
under nurturing and cherishing care, he learns to
fly. Blessed, indeed, are they who learn of Him,
who in Him find, like a wandering dove, a rest,
and who, under His loving discipline, learn to
soar and sing, like the lark winging its way toward
the sky! "Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING.
"Never man spake like this man." — Jno. vii: 46.
Originality conspicuously marked Christ's
teaching: it was novel, even in its repetition or
resurrection of old truths; as he himself said,
they were "new and old," at the same time: old,
because all truth is eternal; new, because the
form, dress, illustrations and applications of truth
were exactly suited to existing needs. A piece
of spar, held in your hand, seems dull and
opaque; but if you turn it till the light strikes it,
at a certain angle, it shews lustre, beautiful and
brilliant colors. This divine teacher took even
the sterner and more forbidding attributes of God
and turned them around, that the light might so
strike them as to shew the glory and beauty.
Who has not been repelled by the prevailing
notions of divine wrath, common to all human
religions ! Anger in God was only an ugly human
passion, in a gigantic growth, and called by di
vine names. It meant revenge, backed by the
power that none can resist, and armed with all
the tortures that infinite wisdom can devise — it
meant malice and malignity and hate — dwelling in
the bosom of the deity. Men could understand
divine wrath only by their experience of human
wrath, which is vindictive and cruel.

284 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Christ turned the dark attribute around, till it
exhibited its glory, its lovely aspect. God's an
ger was seen to be, not a passion, but a principle
— the eternal hatred of wrong, which corresponds
with the eternal love of right, and which is only
another aspect of love. The magnetic needle
swings on its delicate axis: it attracts at one end;
it repels at the other: attracts at one end because
it repels at the other. In the light of Christ's
teaching, we see in the one attribute, Benevolence,
a divine magnet, with two poles — love of holi
ness, hate of evil — both equally essential to its
perfection; and so we learn to love God because
He hates sin. His wrath is not an impetuous and
changeable passion but an eternal and unchange
able principle, not malevolent but benevolent, not
so much destructive as constructive, not retalia-
tive but retributive, not vindictive but vindicative.
It is one of the two equal pillars, on which rests
the very arch of the divine government — a neces
sity to the very law and rule of God. Here is
wrath, perfectly consistent with love; that hates
not the soul, but the sin, and hates the sin for the
soul's sake. " Amat errantes,odit errores." God's
wrath is but the certainty of ruin to the evil doer,
who prostrates himself across God's track. Shall
He move aside from the straight path of truth'
and right to spare the wilfully wicked? this would
make God become a transgressor for the sake of
saving the transgressor.
Jesus taught us that wrath in God is the un
changeable perfection of holiness; and that holi
ness is love to the holy and wrath to the guilty.
The same fire that warms and cheers, that refines
and purifies, also burns and blasts, tortures and

ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 285
consumes; it all depends on our relation to the
fire, whether it be our friend or our foe. We our
selves, by our sin, create the repulsion, with
which we often find fault in God.
"In Retsch's illustrations of Goethe's Faust,
there is one plate, where angels are seen dropping
roses down upon the demons who are contending
for the soul of Faust. But every rose falls like
molten metal, burning and blistering wherever it
touches. God rains roses down, but our sinful
hearts, meeting divine love with hate, and grace
with stubborn, wilful disobedience, turn love into
wrath; and what dropped from His hand, a flower
beautiful and fragrant, becomes, when it touches
the ungrateful and unloving soul, a live coal.
All purely human notions of God are neces
sarily imperfect, and bear the stamp of their ori
gin. What is beyond our experience we can
conceive only in accordance with our experience,
i. e., our notions must be qualified and limited by
what we have seen and known. If we think of
eternity, it is only time indefinitely prolonged.
If we try to imagine pure spirit, we give it invol
untarily a bodily shape, form and features. We
build our heaven out of earthly pleasures and
elements. God himself reminds us of our infirm
ity, in framing conceptions of Him: "Thou
thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as
thyself." Our highest idea of God, independent
of the help of the Bible, would be simply man on
a grand scale.
If Christ was a teacher come from God, there
will be in his portrait of God, features not at all
human. If he be, himself, God, and speak as one
who knows what Godhood is, though he may

286 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
have to use imperfect human terms, he will im
part superhuman ideas of God. And is it not so?
When we think of eternity we do not drop the
idea of succession, which belongs to time — we
talk of a present, a past, a future. But Christ
teaches that God's eternal existence has no past
nor future. "Before Abraham was, I am." No
man would talk in that way; man would say,
'before Abraham was, I was;' but while man is,
was and shall be, God can only say, "/ am;"
for all the past and future are present to Him.
Christ has introduced both new words and
new ideas among men. "Humanity is a word
you look for in vain in Plato and Aristotle: the
idea of mankind as one family, as the children of
one God, is an idea of Christian growth; and the
science of mankind and of the languages of man
kind without Christianity would never have sprung
into existence."
In the Greek, there is a word which means
humility: (Tot7tsivo<ppoGvvr)v) but this humility
meant, with rare exceptions, meanness of spirit,
the cringing, fawning spirit of the conscious
slave. Christian humility is a virtue, a noble con
descension, which, in its very lowliness is lofty.*
What new conceptions Christ gave us of the
dignity and worth of the human soul! Man has
speculated upon the relation of mind to matter,
and could arrive at no certainty. The body might
be like a harp, and the thoughts and feelings, sen
sations and perceptions, like the harmony of the
harp. But how came the harmony? is the harp
like the a^olian, that you set in your window, for
the chance breeze to fan into music, or is there,
•Trench on Words, 45, 46.

ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 287
aside from the instrument and the vibration of its
chords, a master hand that sweeps the strings!
Christ shewed men the human spirit, the true self,
made in God's image; as Joseph Cook says, be
side the harp and the harmony, the harper, pre
siding at the harp and making the harmony. And
he taught us that the harmony may be no longer
heard and the harp itself be shattered, and yet
the harper survive, exchanging the earthly harp
for the heavenly, and with fingers trained to di
vine skill, evoking such melodies and harmonies
as earth never hears or knows!
Christ Jesus taught us a new philosophy of
sorrow and suffering.
The old pagan idea, which largely permeated
and penetrated the Hebrew people, was that all
suffering is the penalty of sin, and a judgment of
God. Hence when any calamity came upon a
man, a family, a nation, something must be done
to appease the anger of a revengeful deity. Of
ferings were brought to the temple to buy God's
favor, victims poured out blood in rivers to make
reconciliation for sin; the first born of the body
was sacrificed to please and placate the awful
chastiser and avenger.
Of course there is much suffering that is penal
or punitive or retributive; the judgment of God
upon evil doing, and the sign of His providential
and moral government in the world. Terrible as
these judgments are, they awaken profound grat
itude: for by them wickedness is both rebuked
and checked; and "the inhabitants of the world
learn righteousness. " What a fearful abode would
this world be, if God had withdrawn from its
active control; and left it to the unaided struggle

288 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
between right and wrong, and to the might of a
simply human arm! Thankful, indeed, ought, we
to be for God in history, although his presence
on the throne be, at times, revealed in flames of
fire such as consumed Sodom, or floods of water
such as overwhelmed the old world, or signal
wars such as destroyed Jerusalem, or such
plagues and pestilences as the black death that
swept millions from the earth.
There is much suffering that is not judicial
retribution but organic penalty; it comes by a
natural law of cause and consequence: as for ex
ample, the bodily pains that follow neglect or
violation of laws of health, or the pangs of re
morse that follow crime.
But while this divine Teacher did not deny
both these offices of suffering, he taught men a
higher use of sorrow, viz. , to discipline and de
velop the soul. "Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away: and every branch that
beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth
more fruit. "* The husbandman comes with his
knife to cut off dead branches and burn them —
here is retributive judgment: he comes also to
prune even the living and fruitful branches, that
they may bear more fruit: surely that is not re
tributive suffering, it is rather corrective, educa
tive, to purify, beautify, glorify.
Our views of the power and office of sorrow
are very partial and imperfect. Jesus teaches
that suffering is not always a penalty, either judi
cial or organic: it is designed to purge away our
faults and follies, perfect our character and enlarge
our capacity for service. This original and glo-
*John, xv. 2.

ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 289
rious conception of the discipline of sorrow, is in
various forms elaborated and illustrated in the
New Testament. God has an "inheritance in the
Saints," and He sets a high value upon it: and in
order to complete and perfect that inheritance He
subjects his saints to sorrow and suffering, as a
proprietor plows up his land and pulls down his
homestead that barrenness may give place to fer
tility, verdure and flowers, and the old house be
reconstructed in a new and more beautiful form:
he is simply improving his inheritance!
Captain Lott used to say that a head-wind,
which seems to hinder, helps the progress of the
ocean steamer; it "makes the furnaces draw."
What a solace would God's sorrowing saints find
in their very trials, could they but see in them the
means of speeding their spiritual progress!
Some virtues and graces depend on sorrow
for their very life and growth. Patience is a flower
that blooms only at night, and fully only at mid
night; it implies something to be patient about —
something borne. The heavenly mind is acquired
only by that process that refines away the worldly
mind. We must be weaned from the temporal and
perishable; the wine must be poured from vessel
to vessel: otherwise it will settle on the lees, and
take their taste. The assurance of hope comes
only after hope's anchor, tested by the gale, has
held us fast and firm to the rocks of promise.
And how shall we get capacity to comfort oth
ers until we have ourselves been comforted of
God? What trials the filthy rags undergo before they
emerge in the pure, white paper! Torn to pieces,
ground to pulp, bleached with chlorine and lime

290 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and alum, washed again and again till the levi
gated stuff is white as flakes of snow, shaken to
and fro till fibre crosses fibre and gives firmness to
the fabric, ironed by hot cylinders till made smooth
and even; how like the divine discipline by which
our filth is cleansed; how like the tribulation out
of which the host come up whose robes are washed
white in the blood of the Lamb!
How much the beauty of the pottery depends
on furnace-fires! Even to the dull, dead colors,
the heat gives character and quality; the very
paint must be fused at white heat, and melt into
the substance of the vase or vessel. Even then
the pottery must not cool too quickly, and the
bloodstone must burnish and polish the decorated
surface till it is brilliant and radiant!
Christ taught Paul to "glory in tribulation,"
because "it works patience, and patience experi
ence." And what is experience but the mark of
the divine assayer of the precious metal, who,
when he sees that all alloy is released and his own
face is reflected in the purified gold, stamps it
"Approved?" Yet how many of God's suffering
saints cry, not like Paul, "All things work together
for good," but like Jacob, "All things are against
me," or, like Rachael, weep for their loved ones
and "refuse to be comforted because they are not."
Under Christ's tuition, sorrowing saints learn to
rejoice in affliction, like the blind girl who thanked
God for blinding the outer eye, that He might put
telescopes to the eye of the soul, and bring celes
tial glories near. The "diamond of the first water''
is recognized by retaining its brilliancy under wa
ter where other precious stones lose their lustre.
And our Lord teaches that a part of the office of

ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 291
affliction is to show how the radiance of the true
disciple is undimmed beneath the deep waters of
sorrow. Passing through the valley of tears, he
makes it a valley of springs and streams.
The greatest of poets only echoed the teach
ing of Christ when he wrote:
"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."
In the shipwreck of worldly joy, the disciple casts
out the four anchors of faith and hope and love
and patience, and, swinging from them, waits and
wishes for the day!
Is sorrow, then, the furnace-fire,
The fuller's soap, the vale of tears?
It still fulfils my deep desire —
God's image in my soul appears!
Christ both taught and lived a new law of self-
sacrifice. And, to this day, the unselfish use of
a love that accepts even death for the sake of the
lost is, to all unrenewed souls, a mystery. Satan
said of Job that he did not serve God for naught,
and declared that a man will give all that he hath
for his life. But Job's life proved that to be a lie;
he was moved by a love of holiness that no man
can understand if it does not move him also! The
men and women who, from Christian lands, go to
China to convert pagans — who toil and suffer, dare
poverty and defy death, without any motive of
self-interest — are to the most intelligent Chinese
simply a marvel. "The Mandarins may compre
hend Confucius, but not Christ."
There is a story of a poor sot, rejected by the
maiden whom he loved, because he was a slave
to drink. She one day saw him lying asleep in

292 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
the gutter, and, averting her tearful eyes from the
repulsive sight, dropped her white handkerchief
over his bloated face, to hide his shame. He woke,
drew the handkerchief away from his face, and
saw her name wrought in its fabric. He rose
from the heavy sleep, resolved yet to be worthy
of a love that stooped so low in pity for his sin.
And many a lost sinner has been first won to God
by the thought of a divine love, so unlike the
noblest human affection that it is bestowed most
lavishly upon the least worthy. Christ taught
this new law of love: "A new commandment I
give unto you, that ye love one another as I have
loved you." Love was not new, but such love
was. It had been said by them of old time,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine en
emy.'' The love of men is prone to be selfish
and exclusive. Thales, best and wisest of the
Greeks, thanked God that he was "born a man,
and not a brute1' — "a Greek, and not a barbarian.''
Outside of Greece all were brutes and barbarians,
to whom he owed no debt of love. Demosthenes'
noble motto was, "Not father or mother, but dear
native land." But this rose no higher than pat
riotism. Even the Jews, trained under a divine
faith, had "no dealings with the Samaritans" — not
so much as to show a lost traveler his way, or give
a drink to the thirsty. Christ first taught man
kind a true philanthropy — the love of man, as
man, wherever found. Until Christ came, this
grand truth of the universal brotherhood of man
was even more obscured and perverted than the
universal Fatherhood of God. Schiller, and even
Wordsworth, have suggested a contrast between
the Pagan and the Christian faith, and hinted that,

ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 293
however divinity might be on the side of the re
ligion of Jesus, the humanity rather appeared on
the side of the old gods of Greece. We confess
surprise at such a disparaging and unjust compar
ison. Christ and Christianity brought not only a
new theology, but a new philanthropy. And
"after that the kindness and philanthropy of God
our Saviour toward man appeared,* etc., for the
first time, the world was taught to see in every
human being a brother, and, as such, to love him.
Christ adopted the old maxim, "Thou shalt love
thy neighbor," but gave that word, neighbor, a
new and grand meaning. "Who is my neighbor?"
Let the parable of the Good Samaritan answer.
Not he who lives next door, my fellow-citizen and
fellow-countryman, but whosoever is made of one
blood with me, who shares my humanity, and,
most of all, who, by poverty, misery, want or
woe, is most in need of my gentle, generous
offices. If, by chance, I pass that way, and even
my enemy lies naked and wounded across my
path, I am to go to him and bind up his wounds,
put at his service my precious healing-oil and
strengthening wine, and walk that he may ride,
caring for him, and providing for his wants. Did
Greece or Rome, even in their golden ages, under
Pericles and Augustus, ever teach such doctrine,
or exemplify such practice? See the old worn-
out slave, and even the aged, helpless parent,
turned out to die of starvation and neglect! See
the captives taken in war glutting the savage thirst
of the lion and leopard in the arena! Go through
these two grandest empires of the ancient world,
* Titus iii : 4.

294 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
and look in vain for an asylum or hospital for the
deformed, the diseased or the dying! And yet
we are told that the pagan religions outshine the
religion of Jesus in their teaching or practice of
humanity and philanthropy! Christ has made all
men neighbors, by the delicate and etherial bond
of an unselfish sympathy; his disinterested benev
olence is like a telegraph-wire whose starting-point
and battery were at Calvary, in the throbbing
heart of Him who died with the unselfish prayer
for his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." That bond, reaching
from the cross and round the world, establishes
between all members of the human family a sym
pathetic communication, and makes all men neigh
bors. The heart of Christendom feels the pulse of
the heart of Pagandom, and beats in responsive sym
pathy. Famine pinches the human brotherhood in
India,China and Persia,and ten thousand miles away
are felt the sympathetic gnawings of hunger; and
out through the arteries of commerce the Chris
tian heart pulses its life-blood. Ships hoist their
sails, and trains blow their whistles, to bear food
to perishing brethren! Knowing their spiritual
famine, even while they do not fully realize it, we
send to them the bread of life. Our missionaries
are met with coldness and even persecution, die
of fever, hunger, exposure, violence; and yet to
the unthankful and the evil they continue to go,
moved by a love like the perfect love, until in fifty
years more than six hundred saintly men and
women fall asleep in Jesus, and find a grave in In
dia alone! Can such love as that be found, such
humanity, such philanthropy, among the ancient
pagans? Did Greece or Rome ever send a mis-

ORIGINALITY OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 295
rionary to the outside barbarians? And yet Lon
don alone encircles the globe with her missionary
bands! They cross the Sahara, and pierce the
Dark Continent; they dare the Arctic snows and
bergs; they face the tigers in the jungles of India,
and the cannibals of the southern seas. From the
equator to the pole, and from sunrise to sunset,
the missionaries London alone has sent out have
borne and planted the cross, as a support for this
telegraphic circuit of love which binds all men in
one brotherhood. And while London is doing
all this abroad, she builds within her own borders
more than one hundred hospitals, asylums and
¦houses of shelter for the victims of poverty, de
formity, disease and misfortune!
0 Schiller, O Wordsworth ! poets you may be,
but you are scarcely philosophers if you cannot
see that Christ taught men a new commandment,
and set them a new example, of love; a true phi
lanthropy, unselfish, catholic, impartial; not lim
ited by family circle, nor wider circle of state or
church. Here is a benevolence of which the most
ample almsgiving is but one expressson; a benev
olence which means not an act or a feeling, but a
spirit and law of life; that sends out angels of
mercy on divinest errands to the ends of the earth;
not to gather gold or gems to feed the greed of
gain; not to learn facts for history or science, or
frame theories for philosophy; not to find delica
cies and dainties for the palate; but to lift man
kind to a higher level for this world and the next;
to break down the middle wall of partition be
tween man and man, till, by the simple force of
love, no barrier be left, though it had been high
as mountains or broad as seas; till there should

296 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
be neither "Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian,
bond or free, male or female, but all one in Christ
Jesus." This love teaches us to find our "neighbor" not
only in him who is most remote, but even in our
enemy. Even the publicans and pagans love
their friends, but we are taught to love those who
hate us; to love what is unattractive and even re
pulsive, for the sake of making lovable, because
love ennobles and elevates, blesses and saves!

CHAPTER XIV.

THE POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING.
"Where the word of a King is, there is Power." — ECCL.
viii: 4.
De Quincey has drawn a beautiful line of
distinction between the "literature of knowledge
and the literature of power." "What," he asks,
"do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at
all. What do you learn from a cookery book?
Something new, something you did not know be
fore, in every paragraph! But would you there
fore put the wretched cookery book on a higher
level of estimation than the divine poem? What
you owe to Milton is not any knowledge of which
a million separate items are still but a million of
advancing steps on the same earthly level; what
you owe is power, that is, exercise and expansion
to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the
infinite, where every pulse and each separate in
flux is a step upward — a step ascending as upon
Jacob's ladder, from earth to mysterious altitudes
over the earth. All the steps of knowledge from
the first to the last carry you farther on the same
plane, but could never raise you one foot above
your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first
step in power is a flight, is an ascending into an
other element where earth is forgotten. !"
Now in the teachings of Jesus, we have both
the literature of knowledge and of power, and

298 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
both of the highest order. There is such a thing
as lustre without weight, even as there may be
weight without lustre. Here we have both: the
most glorious moral radiance with the weightiest
moral dignity, worth, sublimity!
Christ's teaching bears marks of Divine In
spiration. Here are "thoughts that breathe and
words that burn. " These are living words, there
is about them a vital breath and a celestial bright
ness; compared with them all literature is dead.
How fragmentary are the works that survive
the lapse of centuries! we have but a few relics,
saved from the ruins of ancient letters. But
Christ's words, recorded by a few unlettered men,
according to his own prophecy do "not pass
away;" they are thus far immortal. Kingdoms
perish, thrones crumble, nations drop out of his
tory, but firmer than the eternal hills, Christ's
words live, and they live simply because they
cannot die; there is in them the undying spirit of
God. The Word of Christ proves itself to be the
Word of God by its living energy, and its pene
trating power. "It is living and powerful, sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart." This is the
language in which the Bible itself expresses the
power of God's Word; and if Christ were the
living word, his teaching must correspond. Mark
the beauty of the figure. Here is a Damascus
blade, skillfully shaped and sharpened, bright as
a mirror, keen on both edges and burning at the
point. Behold the Titanic warrior wield it, with

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 299
a strength and skill so terrible that it pierces
through the very body of the foe, burying itself
to the hilt, dividing the joints and cleaving to the
marrow, and laying bare the very vitals. In such
hands the sword becomes a living thing — the coat
of mail can neither stay nor dull its edge; from
the crest of the helmet to the skirt of the kilt, it
is ripped asunder, and by the same blow the body
of the victim is cleft in twain.
Had the word of Christ any such power? Let
the history of nearly two milleniums tell us. For
eighteen centuries it has proved itself a living
sword, cutting through all obstacles, piercing to
the inmost soul, with convicting and converting
power; cleaving through the hardest mail of big
otry, prejudice, superstition, self-righteousness;
and revealing the secret thoughts. And all this
the word of Christ is doing to-day.
I. That peculiar power in Christ's words which
we call "Penetration" is well expressed by the
symbol of the sword, keen-edged, sharp-pointed.
His teaching somehow pierces to the depths of
consciousness and conscience, and reads and re
veals the thoughts and the intents of the heart;
so that there is no created being that is not
searched by it. Christ's words shew that he knew
by divine insight, "what was in man."
Have you never seen yourself revealed to
yourself in the Word of God? the secret springs
of your conduct exposed? What a revelation of
human nature, of familiarity with the human
heart! The sermon on the Mount dissects the
very soul of man: it is both an exponent and an
expositor of the secret life.
The enigmas of human character and conduct

300 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
find there a master solution. Note a few exam
ples. How moral philosophers have puzzled over
the almsgiving of a selfish soul. Christ explains
it by the love of applause. You marvel why the
Pharisee parades his prayers, for you feel that
secrecy and devoutness go together. Christ
tells you it is prompted by the lust of notoriety;
the prayers are to man not to God. You are
perplexed because some, who are blind to their
own faults see, with uncommon clearness, the
faults of others. Christ tells you that the beam in
the eye of one man makes him see a mote in his
brother's. Hence the pharisee condemns osten
tation, the bigot denounces intolerance, the hyp
ocrite rebukes insincerity, and the backslider, in
consistency. Your simple soul is surprised
because the faultfinder pecks at you in your
very effort to please. Christ shews you that a
heart, ill at ease with itself, vents its unrest in
snapping and growling at others.
You ask, how can the same man be lax in
some things and severely rigid in others? Christ
answers, that it is the effort of self-righteousness
to make up for laxity one way, by severity an
other; as when one feasts six days and fasts the
seventh, or compounds with his conscience for
sensual sins by bodily penance; or cheats his
neighbor all the week but would not black his
boots on Sunday; or gives money away to atone
for getting it unfairly!
You are again perplexed to find enthusiasm
and apathy in the same character — this divine
teacher accounts for the strange mixture by insta
bility of character, a life of impulse instead of
principle.

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 301
Marvellous indeed was Christ's insight into
human nature. With divine delicacy, yet with
divine certainty, he lays his hand upon the heart
of the moralist who, boastful of his prim pro
priety, triumphantly asks "what lack I yet?"
and touches instantly the sensitive spot. "Go sell
that thou hast and give to the poor. " In that
fair life there was a secret weakness — the greed
of gain, and it corrupted all the rest. He, with
out hesitation, touched at once the hidden idol,
and the fair life withered into deformity.
The penetration of Christ's words struck his
most gifted foes dumb. Pharisees and Herodians
forgot their hostility and conspired to catch him
in his talk: "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cae
sar or not?" "Render unto Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are
God's. " Then the Sadducees sought to entangle
him in a question on the resurrection: but again
his wisdom put them to silence. Then the Phar
isees returned to the assault and cunningly tried
to entrap him into giving some one command of
God undue prominence. And when again he read
their hearts and so majestically eluded their
snare, from that day they "dared ask him no more
questions!" Fouque has a fable of a magic mirror, so won
derful that he who looked in it might read his own
character, history and destiny. Goth and Moor,
Frank and Hun came from far to see their past and
future unveiled.
Here is the true magic mirror — this keenest
sword is also a polished blade: it not only cuts
deep, but it reflects character. Nothing is more
plain, in Christ's words, than an insight and a

302 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
foresight, far beyond man. Here, as in the brook,
is the inverted image, which shews how deep is
our degradation — but it tells of our possible ele
vation and salvation — even as the stars are no
deeper down in the reflection than they are high
in the heaven.
Go look in this mirror, see your own thoughts
revealed, your concealed chains of ambition, ava
rice, appetite. Self-deception is without excuse;
he who tries himself by Christ's standard of duty
may learn himself — what he is and what he may
be. Blessed indeed to the true man is a true in
sight into himself. He can devoutly pray with
Burns, "O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!"
But what is it not worth to see ourselves as God
sees us! Ah, blessed mirror of the Word,
Thine image is not dim nor blurred.
Looking in thee, myself I see
As God's Omniscient Eye sees me!
II. The adaptation of Christ's words to every
want of every soul is, even more than their pene
tration, the secret of their power and the proof of
their inspiration; indeed they pierce, not to
wound, but to cure; not to hurt, but to heal.
They are for all alike, the child, the man, the
ignorant, the cultured, in all ages and climes, at
all times of life. To the infant in the cradle, and
to the aged, at the doors of the tomb, you whis
per the same precious words: they guide the
doubting, solace the troubled, assure the timid,
and encourage the penitent. The very blade that

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 303
pierces so deep, bears on its point the balm of
Gilead, and it is to carry the balm that it thrusts
so deeply. It is half the cure to know the disease.
And the divine teacher helps us to the knowledge
of ourselves that we may feel our need and find our
cure. He does not apply the soothing ointment
until he has first cut out the fatal cancer; and he
shews his skill just as much in the use of the
blade as in the use of the balm.
The convicted sinner and the afflicted saint
alike testify to the adaptation of Christ's words.
One keen-edged utterance strikes home to the
heart, penetrates to the conscience, and makes it
smart as though under the hot iron. Remorse so
keen and cutting that it drives him to the verge
of despair, fills the sinner with agony. His guilt
seems beyond pardon. The sword has gone
deep, the soul and spirit almost seem divided
asunder. But had the truth been less penetrating,
it would not have suited the sinner's case; any
milder thrust would not have pierced the joints of
his harness of hard habit and indifference. And
when the deep wound heals under the balm of
gracious promise, and the anguish of penitence
gives way to the peace of faith, the sinner sees
the adaptation of Christ's words.
So too the sorrowing saint finds in them the
very solace he needs. The sharp dart of afflic
tion seems to part the very soul in twain, but the
sorrow goes no deeper than the solace. It is be
cause Christ's words penetrate so deep that they
make the words of man seem so hollow and shal
low. Here only is the celestial branch which
sweetens the bitter water of Marah. Christ's
teaching presents a perfect system of truth.

304 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
III. He set up no claim as a philosopher:
yet where will any philosophy be found worthy
to compare with his teachings?
Among all the systems which gave rules for
the conduct of life, two stand in the front rank,
viz: Epicureanism and Stoicism.
Epicurus sought to frame a scheme of morals
with happiness as its end: and his conception of
happiness was not a low one: it must be virtuous
and enduring. Yet it was a mere passionless or
impassive state after which he taught men to
strive. The happiness of the gods, he said, is
repose, they neither take nor give trouble, and
have no care about our affairs. And so the chief
end of the wise man is to get to this state of apathy.
Stoicism taught that the wise man must be
self-contained, have all the elements of happiness
within, and be indifferent to pleasure and pain,
sickness or health, wealth or want; and as all ac
tions are from within, he may commit deception,
suicide, or even murder, at a proper time and in a
virtuous character. The virtuous stoic was like
cold marble, proudly superior to pain and pleas
ure, smothering his own sorrows and repressing
pity for the sorrows of others.
Set beside these systems the pure teaching of
Christ, which puts man's happiness in holiness,
union with God by faith, hope, love: puts in the
place of self-indulgence for pleasure's sake, self-
denial for the sake of humanity. It makes men
neither passionless nor impassive, but teaches us to
rule all impulses by reason and right, and to open
hand and heart to every sufferer. Man's chief
end is to love and serve God, and bless his fellow-
man. The presiding law of all life is love.

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 305
When philosophy has reference to God, it is
theology. Can any system of human theology
compare with the teaching of the Son of God? In
most cases human systems are marred by grotesque
absurdities and fanciful follies.
Mohammedanism boasts 150,000,000 of ad
herents. It says sublimely, "There is one God;"
but if you take away what it has borrowed from
Judaism and from Jesus, what have you left? An
absurd fatalism, which denies all moral freedom;
one-sided views of God, all power, no love; a
sensual paradise whose black-eyed houris and vo
luptuous pleasures make heaven only one vast
harem! There is Hindooism, hoary with age, having
500,000,000 followers, offering the choice between
all God and no God, pantheism or atheism; teach
ing transmigration of souls, and full of moral
abominations. It is an insult to Christianity to
talk of comparing the teaching of Jesus with Budd
hism or Brahminism.
Pass all others by and stop a moment with that
which leads all the rest by right of worth, viz:
the system of Socrates and Plato. Here we find
a Supreme God, Creator, Ruler, arranging and
upholding the universe, fountain of all truth, beauty
and goodness. First principles of morality are
his laws, not to be broken with impunity; good
ness and truth are the end of true living.
Socrates urged men, at risk of life, to be vir
tuous; lived himself in voluntary poverty, and
died a martyr to his integrity. Yet even Socrates
taught only doubtfully the immortality of souls,
and with his last words ordered a cock to be sac
rificed to Esculapius; yes, even he sanctioned

306 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
"some kinds of the most horrible licentiousness;
he was only a philosophical reformer. "
Beyond Socrates and Plato we need not go;
for men of purer doctrine and life the pagan world
has not produced. Yet Plato owned that what he
and the Greeks knew of the Gods they learned from
the Israelites; so that Socratism is only a scion
grafted on Judaism. Rousseau confessed that
"if Socrates died like a philosopher, Jesus Christ
died like a God!" And just this we may say of
their life and teaching: If Socrates lived and taught
like a philosopher, Jesus lived and taught like a
God! From all human systems we turn to the teach
ing of Jesus, and even the pure but partial reve
lations of the Old Testament appear, as John
saw in Apocalyptic vision, a waning moon
beneath that New Testament gospel which,crowned
with twelve stars, is clothed magnificently with
the sun — that orb of glory before which stars fade
and even the moon grows dim. From all the long
search of centuries we come to end, at the cross
of Christ, our pilgrim path. We have found him
who is the way, the truth and the life. We are
willing to sit at his feet and learn of God — the one
God, a Spirit, infinite, unchangeable, eternal,
almighty, holy, good; his dwelling, immensity, his
life-time, eternity. Here we learn of man, sinful,
responsible, immortal; of the hereafter, with its
sure reward and retribution. Here only do we
learn of a way of salvation both from the penalty
and power of sin. By faith in the God-man, we
become one with God and fit for heaven. Here
we are taught true humility, a charity that
reaches its arms around even one's enemies, a self-

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 307
sacrifice which is simply sublime; and to all this
theory is added an example which, if possible, is
grander than the theory. All this pure and per
fect teaching is illustrated by one single and sin
gular life; all these ideas of snow-white purity,
magnanimous forgiveness and holy love, are made
manifest in the flesh; the thought of the Divine
Artist flashes forth in the colors of a living pan
orama, and we are challenged to make trial of the
power of this teaching, whether it does not hide
the life of man in God, and reveal the life of God
in man. The teaching of Christ marks an era, an epoch
in human history, which is like the flash of light
upon the eternal night. Truths but faintly fore
shadowed, if at all, in the best of human systems,
are here taught clearly and fully. Christ is the
Sun; all that move about him become luminous.
But withdraw him, and even the light is darkness.
IV. Power. The actual practical power of
Christ's teaching vindicates his claim to divine
honors. I . It has satisfactorily solved the problems
of the soul. All through human history there has
run a dark thread of religious doubt. There are
certain absorbing questions over which the world
has been working, like a school-boy over the puz
zling mysteries of mathematics; and these prob
lems every great system of philosophy or theol
ogy has tried to explain. These are no minor
questions either; they touch life at vital points.
What is God? What is man? — whence came he? —
whither goes he? How did sin come to be, and
how is it to be put away? How was the universe
made? What is death, and what is after death?

308 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
What answers have been given by even the
best and purest schools of human thought? How
unsatisfying — how absurd! Think of the shock
ing and monstrous errors into which mankind
have been betrayed in seeking peace with one's
self and with God! Idolatry, with human sacri
fice and consecrated sensuality; pantheism, athe
ism, materialism — every form of error in doctrine
and evil in practice have been linked with the name
of religion. Now turn to the Christ of God; has he
thrown the light of heaven on these dark ques
tions? Think of that cross which is the central
and focal point of history, toward which all lines
converge from creation; from which all diverge
to redemption completed in heaven. Look at
Calvary, and in the speechless anguish of the
Lamb of God behold every problem forever solved.
Do you ask, "What is God?" Here you learn
He is love — too just to redeem the sinner without
a ransom; too pure to admit him to heaven with
out holiness; too good to leave him to certain
ruin. Do you ask, "What is man?" Look again
at Calvary. Man must have been sinful, else why
should the sinless One suffer in his stead? Man
must have been immortal, for there would be
no such sacrifice simply to save him from
temporal woe. Man must be free and responsi
ble; otherwise, both guilt and faith would be im
possible. Do you ask, "How came sin?" Read
the answer in the shadow of that cross; for had
not sin come through man, God would not have
needed to become man in order to expiate it.
The race, which in the first Adam died, in the sec
ond Adam may be made alive. Do you inquire,

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 309
How is man to be reconciled to God? That
cross answers: The God-man is both a sacrifice
and example; if we appropriate by faith the
merits of his death, and by obedience the merits
of his life, both pardon and purity become ours.
The divine Teacher brings the wisdom of God
to solve the problems of the soul. Questions over
which the brightest and best of men have vainly
studied, one solemn hour of dying agony has fully
and forever answered. Amid the darkness which
might be felt, there is this one spot where light is
to be found. The cry that rent in twain the tem
ple's vail opened to view the holy of holies, with
its glory everlasting. The smile of peace which
shone on his face when he said "It is finished,"
and gave up the ghost, cleft the darkness of a
world's despair with the ray of reconciliation, and
to this day no soul needs walk in the gloom. To
follow this gleam is to come into the light of life.
2. A still more severe and decisive test of
the power of Christ's teaching remains to be ap
plied. How does it actually affect human con
duct and character? Is it a reforming, transform
ing power in the soul and in society? Complete
as a philosophy, it meets man's cravings; com
plete as a revelation, it solves man's problems;
does it, complete as a vital force, regenerate hu
man life? Does it prove itself the truth of God
by being the power of God? Paul declared that
for this reason he was "not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ;" not ashamed to preach it as a chained
prisoner at Rome, the center and focus of pagan
culture, because it was "the power of God unto
salvation. " His chains clanked as he preached it,
but the chains fell from souls as he preached.

310 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
Note his word, "power" — dvva/xi?; the gos
pel is the divine dynamic force in human history.
Practical tests are far more severe than theoretical.
Whatever may be said of Epicurus and his phi
losophy, his followers became, after a time,
selfish and sensual; appetite became their idol.
And the word "epicure" is a sad witness of the
low level of gluttony, intemperance and debauch
ery to which Epicureanism sank.
The adherents of Stoicism were known as cold,
hard men — cold even to cruelty, hard even before
want and woe. And the Platonist, purest of all,
only dreamed of virtue, and, with a high ideal
before him, was practically a cypher!
Now, go back eighteen hundred years and start
with Christ's gospel, as it enters on its historic path.
It enthrones and enshrines itself in a few humble,
unlearned men, and their lives burn with its beauty
and end with voluntary martyrdom. Follow the
gospel of Christ as it marches down the centuries,
and what do you see? Hard hearts, cruel with
crime, that no human love could soften, no hu
man power impress, are broken into contrition
and love. Weak women, timid and trembling,
are fortified by it to dare the scourge, the rack,
the stake, the cross, or face without fear the fierce
Numidian lion in the arena. Millions of martyrs,
under no compulsion but the sweet constraint of
love, welcome the agonies of torture, and from
all the grades of society come up to the coliseum
and soak its sands with their blood, rather than
utter one word to disown or dishonor Him whom,
not having seen, they love.
The world can furnish no parallel to this! Men
have died for a principle, and that principle an

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 311
error; for a religious faith, and that faith a
falsehood; but self-sacrifice so perfect, so pure
and so repeated, is peculiar to the followers of
Christ, and it has challenged the wonder and ap
plause even of the enemies of Christ!
The teaching of Christ has been for eighteen
centuries the leaven and the lever of society — the
leaven to pervade, the lever to uplift. At first a
handful of disciples in the humble homes of Pal
estine; then that handful flung by persecution
broadcast over the surrounding countries, till from
Jerusalem the gospel spread to Antioch and Rome
and Alexandria and Constantinople. The cross
of a crucified criminal at Calvary is the nucleus of
a world's illumination and reformation ! The fame
of gospel triumphs spread beyond the fields of
conflict, and as the lines of influence lengthened,
and their circles reached round new centers of
power and wickedness, in fear men cried out, "It
is turning the world upside down!"
The little army of Jesus, with no badges or
banners, no weapon but truth and no force but
persuasion, in the face of fearful persecutions,
grew mightier year by year. The blood of the
martyrs was the seed of new churches; it fell like
fertilizing dew on a barren soil. Met with vio
lence, the followers of Christ used no violence;
though they kept silence with respect to social
sins and vices which had taken the form of in
stitutions, yet they did not tolerate evils with
which they forbore. The gospel overcame evil
with good. First making the man anew, through
each follower it reached out to grapple with cor
rupt society. Gathering strength, like volcanic
fires beneath the surface, it heaved social life like

312 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
an earthquake, bringing to the dust its palaces of
iniquity in high places, and its thrones of regal
wrong. Without a loud denunciation of pagan
usages, it has gone nowhere except to march over
ruins of those nine social evils, polygamy, infanti
cide, legalized prostitution, capricious divorce,
bloody and brutal games, death and punishment
by torture, unjust wars, caste and slavery. The
pure heart and true conscience of believers were
the channels through which Christ undertook to
overturn existing wrong. And yet mark the re
sults. Some of these evils ceased to be common
practices and became secret sins; some disap
peared entirely; some were borne with, as doomed
and decaying; and to this day, wherever Christ,
the divine Teacher, goes by his gospel, in propor
tion as that prevails, these corrupt social usages
shrink like owls of the night before the growing
glory of the day-dawn.
M. Guizot says that he himself was a ration
alist in religion until he undertook the preparation
for the press of an edition of Gibbon. The inves
tigation necessary to prepare notes for the edition
led him to accept Christianity as a system that
could not be explained by purely human forces.
Look at English history! About fifty years
before Christ's birth, Julius Caesar landed at Deal
only to meet a brood of barbarians living in huts,
and half hiding in skins their painted bodies.
About 600 years afterward Christianity's golden
prow touched the sands of Britain's island beach.
And after twelve centuries of conflict and con
quest, we see a grand Christian nation, with scarce
a remnant of pagan social sins, empress of the
seas, mistress of the world, with a band of empire

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 313
reaching round the globe, Christianizing India
and civilizing the inexpressible Turk; in the wake
of her vessels and the very path of her armies
carrying a blessing to the nations!
Four hundred years have not passed since this
continent was thrown open to civilization; yet to
day sixty millions of freemen are here gathered;
from hill and vale Christian churches lift their
spires. The gospel of Christ set foot on New
England shores and took up its march across the
continent, and where in its track do you find these
nine social evils? Polygamy hides in a corner,
farthest removed from the New England that cra
dled our American Protestantism; infanticide ev
erywhere a concealed crime; legalized prostitu
tion almost unknown; capricious divorce encour
aged, for the most part, only in irreligious com
munities; bloody and brutal games to be seen only
in subterranean holes; death and punishment by
torture a relic of antiquity only — we never saw a
rack, a cross, a hurdle; cruel wars, all wars, giv
ing place to peaceful arbitration; caste unrecog
nized, and even slavery now no more existing
among us.
For nearly a century the State and the Church
seemed half asleep to the fact that human bond
age cursed our land; but God, in the late civil
conflict, which was the fruit of slavery, marshaled
the forces of our nation against this the last of our
great national wrongs — this relic of a barbarous
and pagan past!
Christ's words are not only vital but vitalizing.
We are prone to think there is little power in
words without a voice, the magnetism of the man
behind the speech. We think the world must be

314 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
roused as Luther woke Germany, by the trumpet
tongue. But the tongue that taught on Judean
hills has been silent now for fifty generations, and
still the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth. You read
these words, and there is life in them — a soul in
them speaks to your soul. You read the words
of men, and you feel in rare cases that you are
communing with master minds — you read Christ's,
and you feel the thrill of the life of God.
Account for this inspiration if you can on any
human theory! Who was it solved these prob
lems of the race, brought life and immortality to
light, taught man his origin, nature, interest and
destiny! Who was he who reformed the soul and
transformed society — who by his simple gospel
still marches through the centuries with the tread
and trophies of a conscious conqueror! Whose
words are these that break hard hearts and yet
heal broken hearts, that subdue the strong but
nerve the weak, and to-day are turning the world
upside down! Yes, mere words, with no mag
netic voice to lend them power, no personal pres
ence, yet before them vice and wrong, error in
doctrine and evil in practice, tremble and totter
and fall as before an earthquake.
Once again, what think you of Christ? Con
sider the teaching of Him who spake as never
man spake. Surely the author of the Cosmos
and of the Logos must be one and the same: for
in both the Works of Creation and the Written
Word we find the same inherent symmetr)' and
beauty, grandeur and glory: the same marks of
the infinite mind!
Full weight has never been given to the ex-

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 315
perimental proof, the witness of those who have
subjected the gospel of Christ to that most de
cisive and conclusive of all tests, a personal trial.
Somehow the teachings of Christ have found
their way into the actual life of the world, to an
extent wholly unequalled by those of any other
person. The whole fabric of society is interwoven
with them: they give shape to our laws and lives,
our habits and customs, our ideas and ideals, our
feelings and our faith. Our literature is so af
fected by Christ's teachings that one-half of it
revolves about the cross, and two-thirds of it is
permeated or modified by the influence of Chris
tianity. Henry Rogers supposed that suddenly and
miraculously, on some given night, every verse
and line of Holy Scripture should be blotted or
bleached out of human literature, so that every
copy of the word of God should become a blank
book, and every quotation from it or paraphrase
of it, wherever found, should disappear — and it
was astonishing to find how vast the number of
books that would be rendered worthless! Our
poetry, history, oratory, philosophy, science, are
all inseparably linked with the truths which Christ
taught. This supposition of Mr. Rogers suggests the
kindred question which stirred Sir David Dalrym-
ple to a strange task. At a Scotch dinner where
he was present, the inquiry was raised whether if
all copies of the New Testament had been burned
before the end of the third century their contents
could have been recovered from the writings of
the first three centuries. Dalrymple's antiquarian
mind naturally took up such a task, and in course

316 MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS.
of two months he found and indexed in the writ
ings of the first three hundred years nearly every
verse of the New Testament; and he was satisfied
that a new search would discover the rest.
Julian the apostate, and other foes of our faith
who tried to burn out from human history all
marks of Christianity, tried in vain. God had
wrapped the very language of this divine teacher
about the thoughts and hearts of men, as the del
icate nerves wrap round our veins and arteries;
and human literature must be destroyed in order
to destroy the Bible — yes, human society must
fall into ruins, and human history be blotted out,
before Christ and Christianity could be withdrawn
from this world. To this grand fact it behooves
us to give heed. There must be some divine es
sence, where you find divine attributes. Here is
a gospel first taught by a Nazarene, of thirty
years; and it has proved itself practically omni
scient, revealing even the thoughts of the heart,
practically omnipresent, manifesting its presence
everywhere, and practically omnipotent, turning
the world upside down. For every effect science
and philosophy unite to demand a cause, an
efficient and sufficient cause. And for this ef
fect there is but one cause that is sufficient, viz:
a divine force must be hidden in this gospel: the
secret of its energy is both mysterious and mirac
ulous, and God is in it. Volcanic heavings must
be explained by volcanic fires, mountain waves
must be traced to those mighty winds that sweep
across great seas; the lightning's bolt that shivers
and shatters the very pyramids, tells of electric
batteries so vast that they can be formed only by
masses of cloud that cover the whole sky. And

POWER OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 317
when you see a gospel like this of Jesus, heaving
the very world, moving the great souls of society,
shattering the giant monuments of superstition
and ancient error, you must look for the deep
fires, the mighty breathings, the celestial energies
of God. Some of us know that in the teaching
of Jesus all these are to be found and felt, for we
have found and felt them. To the proud, self-
righteous pharisee it may still be a stumbling
block; to the wise and self-sufficient scientist it
may still be foolishness; but in the face of a scorn
like that of the Jew and a sneer like that of the
Greek, we are not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation.

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HELPS IN BIBLE STUDY.

Notes and Suggestions for Bible Readings. Twenty first
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Acknowledged to be the very best help for Bible readings in
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This is a book which every Bible student should possess. Those
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Giving a plan of Bible reading, with fifty verses definitely as
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The True Tabernacle. A series of lectures on the Jewish ".' iber
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