-'•^sl 
 
 16911 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Prof. C. H. Hull 
 
FAITH : 
 
 TRUE POSITION IN THE LIFE OF MAN. 
 
 A DISCOUESE, 
 
 Preached Noveinber 22d, 1874, 
 
 IN THE CHAPEL OF 
 
 RUTGERS COLLEGE, 
 
 By S. M. WOODBRIDGE, 
 
 \ssor of Church History in the_ Theological Seminary of the Reformed 
 Church at Nem Brunswick, N. y. 
 
 }iri i^lfriXo(pp6vsi, aXXa. qjoftov . 
 
 New Yoek: 
 iD OF PUBLICATION REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH OF AMERICA. 
 
 1875- 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031450947 
 
*' And thou standest by faith."— Rom. xi. 20. 
 
 ^r OME of you may have met with a Mohammedan legend^ 
 ^Y wrought out in a form of no little beauty by an English 
 poet, of a spirit who for some minor offence had been banished 
 for a time from Paradise, and who during the period of his exile 
 came to dwell upon this earth. While sojourning here, he became 
 the witness of an instance of oppression so fearful that he deter- 
 mined to carry the case to the throne of Allah, and make an appeal 
 against the merciless oppressor. But how was he to find his 
 way to that throne ? He discovers a column by which he is as- 
 sured it stands, and hedetermines to follow it in its ascent into the 
 heavens until he shall attain to the dwelling of the great judge. 
 With swift wing he begins his flight, but ever as he ascends the 
 mighty pillar stretches beyond him, still upward, piercing the in- 
 finite heights ; his efforts are vain, discouragement creeps over 
 his heart, his wearied wings droop, he sinks like a wounded bird 
 to the earth. At length hope revives again, and now he deter- 
 mines to descend into the deep, if perchance he may find the 
 dwelling-place of Allah there. Downward with swift wing he 
 plunges ; again the periods of time cease to be counted, and still 
 the shaft of light shoots far away out of sight into the abyss^ down 
 into infinite depths, and, sorrowing and despairing, the searcher 
 makes his way' back to our world. But now the tidings reach 
 him that those angels who fell from their first estate are acquainted 
 with a word which, as an all-powerful talisman, will open the 
 gates of light, and that there is one of these angels who can be 
 visited by the inhabiters of this world. To this angel the spirit 
 finds his way, sees in the mist of darkness a form upon whose 
 face rest the marks of an infinite sorrow, demands of him the 
 
powerful talisman. The wondrous word is breathed forth, and 
 that word is Faith. With speed the joyful spirit emerges from- 
 the gloom into the light of day, ascends toward the blue heavens, 
 utters the talismanic word faith, and lo ! in a moment the throne 
 stands revealed. 
 
 The whole substance of this conception is borrowed fi'om 
 Christianity, as indeed are all the great things of Mohammedan- , 
 ism. The very Allah of the Moslems is but the Eloah of the 
 Old Testament, divested, alas ! of some of His most glorious 
 perfections ; and always has it been held as a fiindamental doc- 
 trine among Christians that he who cometh to God must believe 
 tiiat He is, and that He is a rewarder of such as diligently seek 
 Him. Before Homer or Hesiod wrote, the prophets of Israel 
 had said : " If I ascend into heaven, Thou artjthere ; if I make 
 my bed in hell, behold Thou art there." Say not in thine heart 
 who shall ascend into heaven ? or who shall descend into the 
 deep ? for the word is nigh thee in thy mouth and in thy heart. 
 With Christianity, faith is more than any talisman ; it not only 
 moves mountains, and summons into view the heavenly king- 
 doms, but it binds the soul in living union to the Son of God, and 
 brings it to the embraces of the Everlasting Father. Every 
 reader of the Holy Scriptures knows the high place faith is made 
 to occupy by Jesus Christ, and by His apostles and prophets ;, 
 indeed, it is so interwoven with the whole system of the revelation 
 of God to man, that for us both must stand or fall together. That 
 faith as a principle should therefore, be assailed by the enemies- 
 of Christ need not surprise us, for the destruction of faith in a 
 man is, in effect, for him the annihilation of the objects which it 
 discerns, even as the destruction of the sight is for the man who 
 suffers it the annihilation of the ligh't itself, 
 
 I desjre to set before you to-day the true position of faith in 
 our whole life here, believing that if you have right views upon, 
 this one subject you will have over you a shield through which 
 no weapon of infidelity can possibly pierce, that you can walk, 
 amid the perils of these and of all times with safety, and though 
 
s 
 
 your path should hi through the fires, they will not kindle upon 
 you. Thou standest by faith.' Paul wrote the passage to the 
 Gentile Christians, who had been ingrafted into the Church of 
 Christ in place of the Jews who for unbelief had been rejected, 
 but for all ages, and to every man, it remains true, tAou standest 
 hy faith. It is not my purpose to discuss any speculative objec- 
 tions of infidelity in this discourse, but there is one dangerous 
 error which is so manifestly extending its destructive influence, 
 unconsciously to most, in our land, and especially among our 
 young men, that it demands special notice, and this notice will 
 prepare the way for the consideration of the subject before us. I 
 refer to the doctrine of the positive philosophy ; that there are 
 three ages *of mankind, as there are in the life of every indi- 
 vidual: first, the age of childhood, that is of faith, of credulity; 
 second, the age of youth, that is of inquiry, of reason, of philos- 
 ophy. Then follows the age of manhood, that of knowledge, 
 when mankind accept nothing which is not demonstrated, 
 analyzed ; nothing which does not come within the scope of the 
 intelligent faculties, nothing which cannot go into the crucible 
 ■or under the microscope, or in soma way be taken to pieces and 
 thus subjected to empirical investigation. In this age of man- 
 hood, knowledge takes the place of speculative philosophy and 
 ■oi faith. 
 
 Let us now proceed to consider 
 
 I. The position of Faith in our entire Life here. 
 
 II. Its position specially in our Religious Life. 
 
 I. What, then, is the position faith occupies ? It is evident 
 you would not have come to this chapel to-day without faith. 
 You had faith that the building was here, that it would be opened 
 for service, and that the service would be conducted. This was 
 not knowledge, for knowledge has in it always the element of 
 certainty, and many events might have occurred which would 
 have prevented the service ; and besides, knowledge never pene- 
 trates one hand-breadth into the future. You believed, and 
 
therefore came. If you had not believed you would not have 
 come. Your return from this sanctuary must be founded on 
 faith ; you cannot take one step except in faith. You must con- 
 fide in the solidity of the earth you tread on, and in the strength 
 and obedience of the limbs which sustain you, and in the guar- 
 dianship of human law to protect you. 
 
 All the industries of life are based entirely on faith.. The 
 farmer sows his seed in faith; he does not know that one grain 
 will spring up ; the drought may kill, or the rains cause it to 
 decay, or if it spring up, the insect or the worm may devour it. 
 It is plain that if the farmer had not believed he would not have 
 sowed his seed. All the industries of life regard the unknown 
 future and the unknown present as well ; all beheve that nature's 
 laws will remain permanent, partly from the evidence of the past 
 and partly from a natural confidence which does not reason ; 
 nevertheless, in any case it is faith. The mercantile operations 
 of the world are founded on faith. The insurers of life and 
 property have only the testimony of two or three witnesses, per- 
 haps not even of one survivor, that the vessel upon which and 
 upon whose voyagers they pay their many thousands has been 
 wrecked or consumed with fire. All historical knowledge, so- 
 called, is based entirely tin faith. We have never seen the events 
 nor the great characters which make up the past — Alexander, 
 Paul, Augustine, Charlemagne. We have never seen the authors 
 whose thousands of works fill our libraries. The whole of this 
 vast history which makes the past of any interest to us, which 
 makes any past at all for us, must be received entirely on faith. 
 Nearly all our books oi Natural Science are built up on faith. We 
 approach, for example, the author of some famous volume upon 
 this subject, and say to him, " We perceive that in your book 
 you refer to South America and Africa ; have you ever visited 
 these countries?" "No," he replies, "that is by no means 
 necessary. I have the records of reliable men." " But how do 
 you know they are reliable ? Can you read their hearts ? You 
 refer to Sir Isaac Newton and La Place, have you ever seen 
 
these men or verified their experiments ?" So entire is his faith 
 in the truthfulness of these men and of others that he proceeds 
 as confidently to build up his system as if he had been an eye 
 witness of what is now transmitted to him by their records. And 
 thus it is, if you strike out of the greatest volume of science all 
 that is necessarily accepted from the past, all cumulative infor- 
 mation which can be received by faith alone, and leave only the 
 residuum of the man's personal knowledge, you find it 
 shrink into a little tract, and that meaningless for want of his. 
 tbrical connection. Nor have we yet reached the end, for even 
 this little residuum of knowledge is based altogether on faith — 
 on faith, namely, in the truthfulness of man's faculties. Your 
 knowledge is only that which you perceive with your senses and 
 other powers, but ^ack of ill that you must have faith in these 
 faculties, otherwise you will not use them. You confide in them, 
 and upon the ground of that confidence you act, and assert that 
 you know. The results of the overthrow of the principle of 
 human faith would, therefore, be the cessation of all the indus- 
 tries of the world, the downfall at once and forever of all his. 
 tory and all learning, the abolishment of all libraries, the reduc- 
 tion of all accumulative science to a paltry handful of experi- 
 ments, and even these to be received only by the man who per- 
 forms them, or the few witnesses who may stand by, but who 
 can communicate nothing to others. The destruction of the 
 principle of human faith would be an arrest put upon all social 
 progress ; there would be no future, no hope, no reliance on 
 one's own powers, and of course on those of any other man's. 
 We have an illustration in the scene that follows the shaking, or 
 even the suspicion of the insecurity of the ground of commercial 
 confidence. The whole nation feels the shock — the world feels 
 it. How infinitely more terrible would it be if you struck the 
 entire principle of faith out of hfe here 1 What imagination can 
 picture the scene of horror ? Instead of faith, therefore, being, 
 what some would make .it, a thing of minor importance and the 
 peculiar possession of childhood, it enters entirely into our life — 
 
8 
 
 it is the very atmosphere which we breathe'; we live and move 
 and have our being in it ; it is the grand power that moves the 
 world of mankind in the first ages and in all ages. It is the 
 necessary condition of activity, ;and of progress in art or science, 
 and in all plans for the improvement of the race. Hence it is 
 that the liar who assails this human confidence is justly regarded 
 as the enemy of mankind, because he strikes at one of the 
 necessary foundations of society, and the last stain of dishonor 
 cast upon any man is want of confidence in his word and charac- 
 ter, as all over the world it is the glory of a man that you can 
 trust him without fear. Now, the perversions of faith, the fact 
 that men deceive and are deceived, that they believe in error, no 
 more affects the principle, than the perversion of any faculty 
 affects its necessity or its proper use. Surely no man would 
 cease to use his ear, nor deny its usefulness, because he had mis- 
 understood the words of a friend, nor repudiate the reason be- 
 cause it had assented to a wrong judgment. How often, soever, 
 men may be led astray in the search after truth in nature or 
 among men, they still come back to faith that truth is somewhere, 
 even if " hidden in a well." We may be told, you are here con- 
 founding the objects of faith with those of knowledge. Not so, 
 my friends J we are distinguishing between them. We are ' 
 simply giving to Faith her own possessions, which knowledge has 
 too long usurped ; and it is quite time the distinction should be 
 made, when men are using the treasures they have stolen from 
 her treasure-house for her utter destruction. In ordinary times 
 it could matter but little, but not now can we allow positivists to 
 take one shoe-latchet from the possessions of faith — not now, 
 when these men are seeking to rob us of our all, even of our 
 final Rock of confidence, and to convert this universe, blaizng 
 with divine glory, into a vast mausoleum or house of death, and 
 the constellations into funerallamps to light us to the grave; to 
 put out every light of hope, and every inducement to progress; to 
 make all action a struggle for life, in which blessed is the animal 
 who is the strongest, and woe to the poor beast who is the weak- 
 
est. Thomas Carljle employs language not one whit too strong 
 when he represents the heavens and the earth to the atheist as, 
 the two jaws of a devouring monster closing over him. 
 
 Monstrum horrendum ingei)is cui lumen ademptum. 
 
 As the glory of the universe is gone wih the departure of God> so is 
 the glory of the soul gone with the departure of faith. We would 
 be willing to leave the subject here, and appeal to every auditor, 
 who are right ? The men who deprecate faith, who seek to tear 
 her from her throne and trample her in the dust ; or Jesus of 
 Nazareth, who exalts her as the queen of all the graces, and pro- 
 claims faith to be the central power in the soul and in the life of 
 man? 
 
 II. Let us now consider the position of faith in religion. No 
 distinction has been made hitherto in this discourse between the 
 diiferent kinds of faith, because the substance of all kinds is the 
 same, namely, confidence. A brief investigation will convince us 
 that in all the faith which enters into our life, it accepts nothing 
 but upon what seems to be sufficient testimony ; and we easily 
 ■ discern three kinds of evidence upon which we are constantly, 
 often unconsciously but always necessarily, believing and acting. 
 
 I. The historical, by which we receive the records of the past, 
 and without which we are cut off forever from the past, as much 
 so as individually we should this day be severed from our former 
 life if memory were destroyed. How do we know that Alex- 
 ander the Great ever lived ? His name and influence pervade 
 all the later Grecian history ; there are cities called after him ; 
 the mighty impulse he gave to literature remains ; the downfall 
 of Alexander, as a historic personage, would be (he downfall of 
 ten thousand other historic incidents, and would shake the faith 
 of mankind in all the records of history. How do we know that 
 Plato ever ,existed ? We have the Platonic schools,, the Platonic 
 literature, the Platonic dialogues, the mighty influence of the man 
 seen in all succeeding philosophies, in shaping thought or in ex- 
 
citing antagonisms. These imperatively demand a historic origin. 
 Great ideas originate in individuals, not in schools. An attempt 
 to prove that the disciples of Plato invented their master would 
 simply excite the derision of the world. How do we know that 
 Jesus Christ ever lived among men ? We have His institutions, 
 His society numbering now about three hundred and fifty mil- 
 lions. His order of preachers, His baptism in the name of the 
 Trinity, His holy supper with its simple bread and wine, a Chris- 
 tian literature pouring like a river through the centuries and 
 traced up to its professed source. His sayings, the most striking and 
 altogether remarkable ever known on earth. All these things and 
 others demand imperatively a historical origin, and no a priori 
 assertions, and no reasonings of men, can make them converge 
 anywhere else than upon a living historic person. There is this 
 difference in the power of the historic evidence of Christianity, 
 namely, it has so accumulated by the researches of its subjects 
 that if it were ovei thrown, it would in effect carry down with is 
 all the history of the world ; it can only be destroyed by the com- 
 mon destruction of all the foundations of historic faith. Yet we 
 must never suppose that this evidence, powerful as it is and uiK- 
 answered as it has been, can in any case support the Christian 
 religion. If these testimonies were all, Christianity would die 
 out of the world in a century. ' 
 
 2. Another kind of evidence equally discernible is the rational, 
 that is, the evidence which springs from reasoning upon the facts 
 connected with the history or the system. Through all our life 
 we reason, even as we believe, constantly, yet often unobservant 
 of the processes of our mind ; we do not cross the street, nor sit 
 down, nor rise, without a mental process and conclusion. We 
 accept as true the inductions and deductions of the mind, and 
 the results oi correct reasoning are felt to be ascertain as the facts 
 upon which they are based. For example, as applied to Chris- 
 tianity, we see a religion originating with a poor Jew, going forth 
 according to his prediction, itself most improbable of fulfilment 
 to take possession of the world by the mere force of its teachings. 
 
It is professedly the universal religion, and its purpose is to 
 gather all the nations into one great brotherhood, and to make 
 every man a son of God. That its disciples were illiterate and 
 uninfluential speaks all the more forcibly for its moral power. 
 It has opposed to it the natural and long-cherished inc inations of 
 the human heart ; the mighty passions which had ruled the- world ; 
 the tremendous power of human government when Force was 
 concentrated, personified, deified in the Empire of Rome; the 
 gathered wisdom of mankind in those systems of philosophy 
 which have made the name of Greece illustrious; and the art 
 also in which the beautiful conceptions of the Greek mind shone 
 forth in a hundred forms ; the passion not only of the mighty 
 idolatries, whose altars flamed in all cities and countries, but of 
 the learned Rabbis who gloried m their descent from the father of 
 the faithful, and also in their relation to Him who is higher than the 
 highest. -And yet the religion of Jesus moves on, simple in its 
 teaching, subduing nntion after nation, subordinating or over- 
 turning philosophy after philosophy, living in all climates, at home 
 among all classes, carrying along with it the blessings of the purest 
 civilization, and displaying the light of a new and magnificent 
 charity. Reason concludes by just processes that such a religion 
 has in it a divine life. Reason assents to the sentence of Ga- 
 maliel, if this thing be of man it will come to nought, but if it be 
 of God ye cannot overthrow it. Faith accepts the evidence and 
 the conclusion. These rational arguments are exceedingly 
 numerous, as are the signs in nature from which reason infers a 
 • divine intelligence. The successive steps of the great economies, 
 the one transmitting to the next its treasures ; the monotheistic 
 language, with its fixed roots through all forms, and each with its 
 doctrinal idea like a nail fastened by the master of assemblies ; 
 the unity of the grand system of Scripture arising from what were 
 apparently disjointed parts — ^these are but specimens of arguments 
 vtfhich fill volumes, and in which unbelieving men have been able 
 but here and there to discover a weak point. The argument of 
 Lord Lyttleton — and by which that distinguished writer was won 
 
from skepticism to the faith — upon the conversion of St. Paul, 
 has never been answered. The attempt of one as eminent as 
 Prof. Max Miiller to show a historic unity in the oriental re- 
 ligions, like that of Judaism and Christianity, has been a signal 
 failure. Yet it must never be forgotten that Christianity does not 
 depend for support upon reasonings. Conclusion after conclu- 
 sion may be reached by processes no one can gainsay ; by line 
 after line of argument, which the logic of man can never break 
 through, may Christianity be walled about, and yet die in the 
 midst of her impregnable fortifications. No unprejudiced reader 
 can doubt that in the great Deistical controversy in England the 
 Christians had beyond all compare the better in the argument ; for 
 the chief work of the Deists was to pick flaws and to criticise, 
 always easy both as regards the works of God and man, and yet, 
 with all their splendid array of intellectual might, and strokes like 
 those of Titans, and which make some of us of this century feel 
 that we are a degenerate race, the Christians were beaten in the 
 field, and Deism swept like a desolating fire over the nation. 
 Then suddenly among the poor and neglected laborers was heard 
 the sound of Christ's Evangel^ and George Whitefield and the 
 Wesleys arose to reannounce the forgotten cry of the prophet, not 
 by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit saith the Lord. 
 
 Both the kinds of evidence we have mentioned are useful, 
 and, indeed, necessary, but they never can sustain the religion of 
 God. 
 
 3. There is another kind of evidence upon which we. constantly 
 rely and unhesitatingly act, and that is the intuitional; by which we 
 accept as true many things which have nothing to do with history 
 nor with reasonings, but are directly discerned by the mind. 
 Many would prefer to call these discernments knowledge, and 
 they may with all fairness be classed with the sight of the eye 
 and the hearing of the ear, but we here regard them as evidence 
 to be accepted by the faith of the soul. They are self-demon- 
 strating ; and as they cannot be verified by any other evidence, 
 
13 
 
 they must be accepted at once as true by faith, or they cannot 
 be accepted at all. Such are the axioms of mathematics, such 
 are the primary truths of mental philosophy ; the moment you 
 begin to reason upon these you envelop them in a mist, ,you ex- 
 cite doubt, and that because you are using reason for an ille- 
 gitimate purpose; you must confide in these intuitive perceptions 
 at once, or you must deny them as true ; but in that denial you 
 contradict your own nature, stultify your own actions, and sweep 
 away all the foundations of knowledge. For if you destroy faith 
 in the truthfulness of these authoritative assertions, how can you 
 rely upon your senses, or the conclusions, or even the processes 
 of your reason, or how can you utter an authoritative sentence, 
 or declare anything to be true or not true ? The appeal to the 
 judge within us is final. You may bring arguments to prove to 
 a blind man the existence of light, and the idealistic philosopher 
 will bring as many to prove that light has no existence out of the 
 mind, and upon the whole the idealist has the better arguments ; but 
 let the blind man receive his sight, and the reasonings on both sides 
 are equally worthless, because the man has the witness in him- 
 self. All the testimony of the world, and of every kind, will add 
 nothing to conviction produced by direct discernment; and on 
 the other hand, all the testimony of mankind can never disturb 
 that conviction, nor prevent his acting upon it. Thus, the mind 
 sees directly that design implies a designer, motion a mover, 
 effect a cause, and through our whole life we are compelled to 
 act upon these intuitions. Now, there are certain moral truths 
 which are perceived directly by the soul of man, or they are 
 never seen at all. You may bring volumes of historic evidence, 
 and whole systems of logically arranged reasonings, but they 
 only play around the morally-blinded spirit like colors about the 
 eyeballs of the blind. The discernments of a distinction between 
 right and wrong, truth and falsehood, of moral obligation, the 
 duty of gratitude for favors, of ill-desert, of sin, are never attained 
 by reasonings ; the man must be conscious that he is a sinner, or 
 he is necessarily precluded from all discernment of that truth. 
 
He can no more perceive sin by the reasoning faculties than he 
 can light by the ear. Each power in man has its own specific 
 office, and cannot do the work of any other power. The mastery 
 of the Christian religion over the world lies in its se'f -demons trat- 
 ing power ; the man who believes on the Son of God hath the 
 witness itl himself; as his religion is not based upon nor upheld by 
 logic, so neither can it be overthrown by logic; even as the man 
 perishing with thirst, when he drinks the reviving water which 
 quenches it, needs no reasonings of men and no evidence from his- 
 tory to prove to him that this is nature's supply. The fact is self- 
 evidencing ; he drinks and is satisfied. The sinner, his moral 
 nature aroused, coming to the consciousness of his obligations to 
 the Great Power who originated and designed and upholds this 
 universe, and himself conscious of the sacredness and justice of 
 that moral law he has violated, and of the irreparable wrongs 
 of which he has been the perpetrator; conscious of the shadows of 
 divine wrath, and of a coming judgment falling upon his soul, and 
 findmg no refuge in flight, and no forgetfulness of the past by 
 repentance, is arrested by the revelation of God manifest in the 
 flesh ; appearing upon the earth as a Saviour ; atoning for the 
 transgressions of men upon the cross ; taking upon Himself the 
 wrongs ot the guilty ; rising from the dead, that as a prince he 
 may give a robe of spotless righteousness to the sinner who 
 desires to approach the eternal throne ; granting, without money 
 and without price, repentance and the remission of sins ; meeting 
 with His love, His grace, His power, every conscious want and 
 distress of the soul ; the sinner, perceiving all this, accepts the 
 Lord and all He offers, by faith; and swiftly as the sunlight and 
 all the scenery of nature pour their streams of glory into the soul 
 of the restored blind man, so swiftly and surely does the peace of 
 God, which passeth understanding, pour into the soul of the 
 believer. In the one case it is the assurance of sight, in the 
 other it is the assurance of faith ; and the one is as strong as the 
 other, but as much higher as heaven is'above the earth. 
 
IS 
 
 It were as easy to show in detail, how in its hundred revela- 
 tions the Christian religion manifests its self-evidencing power. 
 Out of a multitude let us select one. Can it be doubted that 
 among a.11 the inhabiters of this world, and especially among 
 those who reflect upon man's condition and destiny, or upon 
 whom there fall with peculiar heaviness the unexplained sorrows 
 of life, there is a consciousness of orphanage ? Impelled by this, 
 the earnest men of the world have sought after God, and the sad- 
 dest sight in all history is the great Plato gazing upward toward 
 his unapproachable idea, and hearing no voice nor answer to call 
 a gleam from the face upon which for years upon years no man 
 saw a smile. The aged face would have shone with light if Plato 
 could have seen and heard and believed in Jesus Christ of 
 Nazareth, or if at any time in his solitude, when there came upon 
 him the consciousness of an endless want, the longing, indestruct- 
 ible, and forever unsatisfied, there fell a still, small voice, like that 
 which came to Elijah upon the mount, when he wrapped his face 
 in his mantle, " I am thy Creator and Father. Beside me there 
 is no other. My goings were of old, even from everlasting. I 
 made the heavens, and also the earth, by the word of My power, 
 and I adorned them with light and beauty, that so they might re- 
 flect My nature. This is My glory which radiates from the land- 
 scapes and the constellations, and which unfolds in the panorama 
 of the seasons, and in all the processions of the universe advancing 
 toward its destiny. I am not hidden away in My inaccessible 
 heavens, but I am with thee every mon.ent, and as thou askest 
 for Me, I also ask for thee, for the faith and the love of thy 
 heart. As thou art made for reverence and adoration, so am I a 
 Being of boundless majesty; as thou art a creature of dependence, 
 so am I unchangeable and almighty ; as thou art created for grati- 
 tude, so am I infinitely beneficent ; ^ thou art guilty, so have I 
 provided for thee an atonement ; as thou art immortal, so am I 
 inexhaustible in resources, forever causing to shine forth before 
 My sons new forms of beauty and power ; as thou seekest a 
 resting place, so am I a Father, higher than fate, dwelling with that 
 
i6 
 
 man who is of an humble and contrite spirit, and who trembles 
 at My word. " The man who receives that message by faith falls 
 upon his face with mingled reverence and gladness, to cry, 
 Jehovah, He is God. That presence is self-demonstrating, and 
 the soul was no more conscious of its poverty, than it is now that 
 it has regained its lost possession. Every believer can echo the 
 language, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand 
 are pleasures forevermore; every believer finds rest on the 
 bosom of the infinite God." It may be said all but believers are 
 thus cut off from the highest and most convincing evidences of 
 Christianity. And this accords with the assertions of Scripture, 
 "The natural man cannot know the things of God, because they 
 are spiritually discerned." How, then, is the natural man respon- 
 sible ? plainly for rejecting evidences which ought to arouse his 
 moral nature and his sense of obligation. He is like a sick man 
 to whom is brought a remedy which has -given relief to all who 
 have taken it, yet the highest testimony for him can only be in the 
 healing itself, while from this he is necessarily precluded if he 
 declines to take it ; and if he dies, all the world will pronounce 
 him a self-destroyer. 
 
 I. The subject shows us how groundless are the fears of some 
 that Christianity will perish. God has one awful hold on all 
 mankind, and that is through the indestructible conscience, 
 which forces on man the recognition of moral distinctions and of 
 obligations and of accountability. The religion which quickens 
 the soul to these moral intuitions, and which meets the tremen- 
 dous demands they occasion, will take possession of the world, 
 and all attacks upon it are idle as the winds. The Lord has 
 set his true disciples, the learned and the unlearned alike, in a 
 sphere in which they as serenely repose amid the assaults of 
 worldly logic as they once did amid the fires of martyrdom ; nor is 
 it improbable the assaults are permitted that the thoughts of many 
 hearts may be revealed, and that all who do not stand by faith 
 may fall. 
 
17 
 
 2. The subject shows us the mistake of attempting to uphold 
 'Christianity by scientific methods. It is of the last importance 
 that we discriminate between the kinds of evidence, and what 
 each is designed to uphold, and only to uphold ; nevertheless, 
 Christianity does not stand by the wisdom of men, but by the 
 power of God, and every Christian 'stands by faith. It may be 
 asked, Why, then, contend for the truth of the records of Scrip- 
 ture ? Why for its inspiration ? Why for its canonical books ? 
 Sirriply, because the Bible is the cup which conveys to our thirsty 
 souls the water of life — a cup mirvellous in its structure, and 
 adorned with mkny precious jewels from the heavenly treasury, and 
 radiant with divinity. We contend for miracles, not because they 
 will ever, as proved historical facts, convert any unbeliever from 
 his sins, nor because the obligation to repentance would be any 
 less if miracles were swept out of the world, but because the Lord 
 wrought them, and we see in them His greatness and power and 
 love. At the same time we know they ought to produce faith, 
 and the treatment they receive from unbelief is such as is bestowed 
 lipon no other clear, consistent historic records upon earth ; and 
 that the reception this history meets with clearly reveals the feel- 
 ings of the heart toward Christ. 
 
 3. The error is seen which assigns religion to the sphere of the 
 feelings. On the contrary, it rests precisely where science does, 
 and all human activity, upon faith. The scientist is glad 
 when he makes a new discovery in nature, and the Christian is 
 glad when he discovers a new beauty in God and in the things of 
 God. It is true, science and philosophy lay claim to only a part 
 of the nature of man ; religion to the whole nature ; but that re- 
 ligion, by claiming the affections, exempts the intellect and even 
 the bodily powers, is no more true than that the claims of a 
 mother to the love of her son exempt him from, obligations 
 to obedience. The intuitions are no more necessarily in the 
 domain of feeling than are hearing or logical processes. Great 
 interests, exciting emotions, may be involved in any case. 
 
i8 
 
 4. Equally plain is the magnitude of the error which confounds 
 religious faith with the imagination. Imagination is the faculty 
 which weaves its own fabrics, creates its own conceptions ; faith 
 is the power which grasps the revelations of God ; the creations 
 of the imagination are phantoms changeable and evanescent ; the 
 things of God received by faith are substantial and eternal ; the 
 creations of the imagination are limited; the objects of faith are 
 such as transcend, neither have they entered the heart of man ; 
 with the imagination, man creates his God ; by faith he lays hold 
 upon the God who made man. We all have faith in the existence 
 of the City of Pekin ; no two of us have conceptions of that city 
 alike, yet, whether our conceptions conform more or less to the 
 reality does not affect our faith in the slightest degree. It is 
 freely admitted that in their efforts to attain to fellowship with the 
 infinite God in whom they believe, Christians have conceptions 
 always poor and inadequate. The anthropomorphitic representa- 
 tions of the Old Testament are given to help the struggling soul 
 on its way toward the spiritual, but every student of the Bible 
 knows how carefully Jehovah guards His people against the fatarl 
 error of giving Him form or shape, or of making a similitude. 
 In their oldest records, in Genesis and in Job, He is the Almighty 
 and Everlasting God, unlimited as He offers Himself to their 
 faith. As well might objections be made against the letters which 
 spell his name as against the symbols by which He, through ap- 
 peals to their own nature, teaches His ignorant children. 
 
 And well might it be asked here, whose was the mighty imagi- 
 nation which gave birth to the transcendent God of the Christian- 
 faith ? Who were the men in the distant ages who possessed so 
 profound a knowledge of the wants and aspirations of the human 
 soul, and such an immeasurable reach of thought? Not the 
 Egyptian nor Assyrian priests ; they were pantheists, and wor- 
 shipped nature ; not the philosophers, they never attained to this 
 height, and in all ages they touch only to mar the glorious sym- 
 metry of the perfect God. Was it Moses ? Was his the imagina- 
 tion from which came forth Jehovah, the Lord God, merciful and 
 
19 
 
 gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 
 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression 
 and sin — and that will by no means clear the guilty ? Is this the 
 man who, in the full light of the law— every statute of which 
 appeals to man's sense of justice and of truth, arouses like a trum- 
 pet note the moral sense, and reverberates through all the cham- 
 bers of the soul — is this the man, with his clear sense of right and 
 of truth, to stand forth the prince of deceivers ? He professes to 
 have received these sublime revelations from God, to have talked 
 with God. And now from age to age the promise by the lips of 
 Moses is fulfilling against ceaseless antagonism. "As I live, saith 
 the Lord, the earth shall be filled with my glory." The eternal 
 Jehovah of Moses is gaining the victory over the world. 
 
 5. The subject illustrates the folly of unbelief. Whenever 
 any man, instead of believing upon suflS.cient evidence, proceeds 
 to reason, there follows at once a confusion of the perceptions, 
 through which he is led into absurdest mistakes. -No one of us 
 can reasonably doubt the existence of Napoleon Bonaparte, yet 
 no one of us can read the little book of Archbishop Whately and 
 not doubt that existence; we cannot read Berkeley's Minute 
 Philosopher and not doubt whether matter exists; we cannot 
 reason upon sight without exciting doubts as to whether we see 
 at all. This is~ the vengeance taken upon us for abusing our 
 powers. The moment we pass the legitimate bounds of knowl- 
 edge the doom of skepticism falls upon us. Because of this 
 darkening of the mind it is that the systems of unbelief invari- 
 ably contain the elements of their own destruction, but which, 
 their authors fail to see. Thus, the skeptic says : "Nothing is 
 certain," then, that is not certain. A consistent skeptic cannot 
 utter a word ; he is shut up to everlasting silence. Thus, too, 
 Hume says : " You cannot prove a miracle, because human tes- 
 timony is uncertain, and cannot therefore outweigh the testimony 
 of nature's laws, which remain fixed through all ages." And how 
 does he know they have been thus fixed ? By human testimony I 
 
20 
 
 A distinguished scientist has just said that the Force of the Uni- 
 verse is unknowable ; how, then, can that predicate be made of 
 it ? Fichte, who denies an external world, proceeds to lecture to 
 classes, which exist only in his own mind, and carries on 
 with great power a controversy with his own thoughts, and has 
 his works published at Leipzic or elsewhere; nay, by the very 
 same arguments by which he idealizes the world he does away 
 with the mind itself. And now we have the revival of the 
 ancient doctrine of Democritus, that all varieties, air, clouds, 
 water, crystals, vegetables, animals, man, life, mind, are but the 
 different arrangements or dispositions of the monads, molecules, 
 or final atoms of nature. - And this the evolutionists will show 
 you by converting (at least they think so) gases into, water and 
 water back again into gases ] and 'Other gases and materials they 
 will turn into living substance, and thus show you (a few links 
 only being wanted and a few qualities unaccounted for) how 
 man emerges from the molecules with a free-will and a con- 
 science, and a something in him reaching out after an infinite and 
 eternal God. All this is done as easily as when a prestigiator 
 with a touch causes the orange to disappear and the lemon to 
 tate its place, and also reverses the experiment. And now you 
 ask the scientist, " How do you know there are any molecules ? 
 Have you ever seen them ? Have you detected them with your 
 instruments?" "No," he replies, "we infer their existence." 
 But stop a moment ; if we appeal to the mind we must accept 
 the decisions of this judge; and what are they.' That no man 
 can conceive of a final atom. The moment you conceive of an 
 atom you perceive that it is divisible, and each part can be sub- 
 divided, and so on indefinitely. The theory is, therefore, as 
 contrary to the laws of thought as it is to the empirical philos- 
 ophy. Who can tell what are the primordial elements, or what 
 subtle forces in nature interfere in visible experiments ? Who 
 knows what life ^is, or from whence it comes, as it manifests its 
 presence? Who can prove that it emerges from the substance 
 under experiment ? By what tribunal was it adjudged that sub- 
 
stances can confer gifts and qualities which they do not possess ? 
 And so men of intelligence have held to the eternity of matter, 
 contrary to the laws of thought, which only allow it to exist in 
 space and time ; and others that matter is self-created, that is, it 
 had power before it had existence. 
 
 Time would fail us in enumerating the follies of theories which 
 appear only to perish. Already signs are manifest that the 
 leaders of modern materialism are dissatisfied, and ere long will 
 swing over to idealism. And that will be a blessed day for the 
 men who have felt the pressure of this horrible nightmare, when 
 perhaps for half a century they will have their thoughts turned 
 to the glories of mind, and be permitted for that length of time to 
 associate with spirits instead of herding with monkeys. 
 
 6. How evident is the cruelty of unbelief — cruelty, gratuitous 
 and iijexcusable. There is no middle ground for a champion of 
 unbelief; he accepts the awful issues ; he declares war against 
 the Almighty God. That the interests of men should be disre- 
 garded accords with the whole purpose of the assailant, which is 
 purely destructive, namely : as he cannot reach the throne of 
 God, to destroy human faith in its existence ; consequently, in 
 obligation to obey the Sovereign of the universe . No soft words 
 will change the nature of the conflict. What can be the motive 
 of any man in thus assailing the foundations oi faith and virtue ? 
 Why this persistent attempt to destroy the religion of Jesus Christ? 
 Why do men conceive a purpose so horrible as to rob mourners 
 at the grave of all their consolations, and millions of our race of 
 all their hopes for this world and for eternity ? Professor Tyndal 
 admits the necessity of prayer for mankind ; why, then, seek to 
 destroy it ? What reason can men advance for breaking down 
 all the acknowledged moral restraints of society ( substituting no 
 others in their stead), and for sweeping away the proved induce- 
 ments for the elevation and culture of the race. They well 
 know that the Church of Christ, and by an influence emanating 
 directly from Him, sustains thousands of asylums for the 
 
22 
 
 orphans, the poor, the aged, the blind, and that its members pour 
 out their riches to relieve human misery ; they wall know that in 
 all Christian lands there are thousands, once under the power of 
 their selfishness and their vices, who are struggling after divine 
 virtue only by the help of the Lord Jesus Christ ; they well know 
 the purpose of each true Christian is to become like God, and of 
 the whole Church to exalt mankind in all intellectual and moral 
 and divine excellence. Why do they wish to put an arrest on 
 all this ? While at the same time, scientists equally capable with 
 themselves of discerning truth assure them that they are wrong, 
 and entreat them to pause in their destructive career. They tell 
 us it is the love of truth. Is there, then, but one kind of truth in 
 this universe ? Is there no moral, no intellectual, no aesthetic 
 truth ? Is there not truth here which defies your analysis ? Can 
 you put an induction into the crucible ? Did you find that among 
 the atoms? Is there no beauty in virtue? Can you analyze 
 the beauty of the landscape or the rose ? Apply to it your in- 
 struments and it disappears like a dream; but is it not 2, power i 
 Tell us, then, shall the man who has the true conception of the 
 truth of beauty take his stand by our city and proclaim : .' ' Your 
 buildings and your streets are not according to truth, and there- 
 fore I will apply to them the torch, and sweep them away in one 
 universal conflagration." What is a crime like that to the crime 
 of deliberately attempting to destroy the city of God, with all its 
 mansions, and leaving its millions homeless and in despair? 
 None the less wicked the attempt because it must fail. He that 
 sitteth in the heavens shall laugh ; the Lord shall have them in 
 derision. It is not for the city of God, with its ancient battle- 
 ments, against which armies and nations have dashed themselves 
 to their own destruction, we fear, but for you, my young friends, 
 lest the enemies of your souls should entice you from its gates, 
 and leave you, as- they will, to wander among the dark moun- 
 tains. The enemies of God are your enemies. God save you 
 from their deadly influence, and throw over you the mighty 
 
23 
 
 shield of faith ! God in His mercy save you from the hopeless- 
 ness and the horrors of infidelity, and grant that each of you, 
 amid all the vain reasonings of men, may hear the voice of a 
 Saviour whispering in his heart, Thou standest by Faith. 
 
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