338 ...LIBRARY 0? THE .'^Z':L (1: . 'Sunday-School. iiz^:::.:::" (?jw attendance to reading — 1 Tim. 4. is. Readers -are requested to handle tliis book carefully, and return it punctually. To injure a library book, or retain it unduly, is to do a wrong to others. Any one who loses or destroys one of these books will be expected to replace it, or pay the cost of a new one. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924075690226 r" i-ii^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 075 690 226 Faith Made Easy; OR, WHAT TO BELIEVE, AND WHY. A Popular Statement DOCTRINES AND EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN RESEARCH AND SOUND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. BY JAMES H. POTTS, M. A.. D. D. "We also believe, and therefore speak." — 2 CoR. iv, 13. "That ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." — CoL. iv, 6. CINCINNATI: CRANSTON AND STOWE. NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT. 1S88. °0 one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved or sus- tained by the Spirit of the universe, but growing in its grave ; and he mourns, until he himself crumbles away from the dead body. RiCHTER. . What is Faith? what especially is religious Faith? It is an old, old question ; and yet like the oldest questions it is ever new. For the word Faith, like the words God and Truth and Life, does not stand for one fixed, defined, dead idea. It sums up all the experience which men have gained of a vital power. Wbstcott. Faith is the subtle chain That binds us to the Infinite ; the voice Of a deep life within, that will remain Until we crowd it thence. Elizabeth Oakes Smith. ''^^ELIEVE, and show the reason of a man ; Believe, and taste the pleasure of a God ! Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb. Through reason's wounds alone thy Faith can die ; Which dying, tenfold terror gives to death. And dips in venom his twice-mortal sting. YOUNO. Copyright, Cranston & Stowe, 1888. P5EF^c?:e PRONOUNCED theological ideas among the common peo- ple is a special need of the present time. Leading laymen need to give attention to the evidences of Christian truth, and think ont for themselves the fundamentals of the faith they profess. Without some such auxiliaries to the clergy to steady the popular belief, we may, by and by, find our Christian pop- ulation " quaking in secret at phantoms of doubt, which they dare not speak of, and yet can not get rid of. Infidels are cen- tering their attack upon the ministry. They are trying to create popular prejudice against all religious tenets on the score that preachers are interested in them in a secular way. Laymen must be prepared to come to the rescue when the hour of peril arrives. They must be prepared to say. We know for ourselves that these things which you assail, because you can not discern their import, are true, and we are ready to assign the reason for the faith that is in us." Besides the advantage of intelligent faith as a defense from unbelief, we need it as a principle of action. The believers are the doers. The men who do something are the men who be- lieve something can be done. Doubt always drags ; Faith leads forward. In war, faith is always in the forefront of battle, charging upon the foe ; Doubt is in the rear, inciting to retreat. Faith fights for what it believes ; Doubt believes nothing, and can muster no courage for the fight. In civil life, faith is the principle of success. Nothing believe, nothing venture ; noth- ing venture, nothing win. The successful business men of to- day are great believers in the business possibilities of their age. 3 4 PREFACE. They lay large plans for trade and traffic, and execute those plans with dauntless courage, heroic confidence, and tireless perseverance. So with our advancing civilization and great philanthropic movements. The men who lift the whole race up into clearer light and larger liberty and nobler thought and brighter civilization, and who seek, with all their power, to ac- complish the more perfect amelioration of the woes and sorrows of mankind, are the men who believe in man and in all the glorious possibilities of manhood. And the men to lead for- ward the hosts of God, and carry the flag of redemption, with " the swing of victory," to the ends of the earth, are the men who believe with " all the ardor of a quenchless conviction," that divinity is behind the movement, and that, in spite of the opposition of earth and hell, the conquering Son of God will claiip all the kingdoms of this world for his dominion. " If the people of God," says Rev. Dr. Horatius Bonar, " are to do their true work on earth, they must often remind themselves of the Master's precept, ' Have faith in God.' For their mission and office are connected with that which faith only can know. We are to be witnesses for the truth in a world of error; examples of faith in an age of unbelief ; upholders of the integrity of the one true Book amid the storms of a crude and reckless criticism. We are to be men of progress; but it is to be apostolic progress — increase in the knowledge of Him whom to knoAV is life eternal. We would be advanced thinkers, too ; but our thinking would be in deepening sympathy with the mind of God, and fuller understanding of his never-obsolete Word. We would be progressive theologians, only not at the expense of truth and soundness. Just as progressive scientists do not think it needful either to forget or abjure Newton's Principia, so we see no necessity for a surrender of ancient landmarks, or a desertion of long-accepted creeds." Nothing is more desirable in the Christian life of the indi- PREFACE. 5 vidual than a firm faith. " If I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me," said Sir Humphry Davy, " I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing ; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay ealls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and shame the ladder of ascent to paradise ; and, far above all combination of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions, palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blessed, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, and anihilation." In the hope of inspiring faith in some, and of quickening faith in many others, we have prepared the following pages. They con- tain outline statements of the fundamental doctrines and morals of Christianity, formulated in the light of true reason, and sup- ported by adequate proofs from the sacred writings, and numer- ous citations from the very best uninspired authorities. We have sought to produce a work in the perusal of which all true Christians may find confirmation and comfort, all unregenerated persons encouragement and help, and all doubting persons in- struction and friendly admonition. Ever keeping in view the truth, as we understand it, that faith in the doctrines of Chris- tianity is not only reasonable, but perfectly natural to enlight- ened persons, we have earnestly endeavored so to present those doctrines that the most ordinary minds can comprehend them, and the most undevout see in them the light and beauty of God. True, none ihere on earth may hope to have a faith as clear as sight shall be hereafter. As Keble wrote : " Till death the weary spirit free, Thy God hath said, ' 'T is good for thee To walk by faith, and not by sight.' 6 PREFACE. Take it on trust a little while ; Soon shalt thou read the mystery right In the full sunshine of his smile." Champions of denominational peculiarities will, we trust, find little to contend over in what we have herein presented. Truth is given as against practical and willful error ; faith as against radical unbelief; broad, evangelical Christian doctrine as against the plausible deceptions of cunning skeptics, and the blind delusions of thoughtless irreligionists. While we can not hope to have escaped all errors of statement, we do indulge the belief that the Christian institutions, religious principles, and theological tenets set forth are in keeping with the teach- ings of God's Word, and sustained by a sufficient array of evidence to prove acceptable to all unprejudiced and thoughtful minds, j. h. p. eoi^TE^TS. Part I. WHA.T TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. PAGE. 1. Christianity Securely Founded, 15 2. Christianity its Own Proof, 21 3. Christianity a Life 23 4. The Power of Christian Testimony, 25 5. Christianity God's Plan for saving the World, 27 6. The Benign Effects of Christianity, 29 7. Christianity conquering the World, 34 8. Christianity not a Failurie, 36 9. Great Believers in Christianity, 39 10. Christianity and Science 45 11. Testimonies Respecting Christianity and Science 53 12. Modern Missions, 54 Part II. ■WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 1. How the Bible was made, 59 2. Development of our English Bible, 62 3. How the Bible is inspired, 65 4. The Old Testament 72 5. Are the Four Gospels Trustworthy ? - ., 73 6. By whom were the Gospels written ? 74 7. The Epistles, 81 8. The Bible for the World and to continue Forever, 83 9. Why not have a New Bible ? 86 10. Power of the Bible 88 11. Scientific Accuracy of the Bible, 90 12. The Bible not out of Date, 98 13. What the Bible is and does 100 14. Proof from Miracles, • • • 101 15. Proof from Prophecy 114 16. Experimental Proof, 120 8 CONTENTS. PAGE. 17. The Bible Self-evidencing 126 18. Personal Reasons for believing the Bible, 128 PART III. ■WHA.T TO BELIEVE WITH RESPECT TO THE DEITY. 1. The Great First Cause, 133 2. The Argument from Identity, 135 3 Universal Belief in God, 140 4. Heathen Ideas of the Creation, 143 5. The Inspired View of Creation, 144 6. Scientific View of the Inspired Record of Creation, 145 7. What Denial involves 148 8. Knowledge of God not Dependent on Learning, . . 149 9. Pure Morality Dependent on Belief in God, 151 10. How Best to know God, 154 11. The Atheist, ' 155 12. " The Fool hath said," 155 13. "No God," 157 14. Is there no God? 158 15. Accountability for Belief, 158 16. Proof of God's Existence Unnecessary, 159 17. God Intuitively Recognized 160 18. Consciousness of God 161 19. The Atheist an Orphan, 161 20. The Trinity, 162 21. Attributes of God, .... 171 (i.) Natural Attributes: (1.) Eternity 171 (2.) Unity, 172 (3.) Self-existence, 172 (4.) Spirituality 173 (5.) Immutability, 173 (6.) Omnipotence, 173 (7.) Omnipresence 174 ^ (8.) Omniscience and Presicence, 17(5 (ii.) Moral Attributes : (1.) Holiness 178 (2.) Goodness 180 The Eternal Goodness, 183 (3.) Glory, 184 (4.) Love 186 (5.) Wisdom, 187 (6.) Justice, -. 188 CONTENTS. 9 I PAGE. (7.) Mercy 189 (8.) Truth 190 22. Jesus Christ, 191 (1.) The Historic Christ, 192 (2.) The Divinity of Jesus 198 (3.) The Humanity of Jesus, 204 (4.) The Personal Appearance of Jesus, 206 (5.) Eminent Witnesses, 207 23. The Holy Ghost: (1.) Who is the Holy Ghost? 211 (2.) Personality of the Holy Ghost, .213 (3.) Bivinity of the Holy Ghost, 215 (4.) Work of the Holy Ghost, 217 (5.) The Sin against the I^oly Ghost, -218 24. Divine Providence, 222 25. God's Providence and Human Suffering, 236 Part IV. WHA.X TO BELIEVE CONCERNINQ REDEMPTION. 1. Morality : (1.) Intellectual Basis of Morals, 239 (2.) First Principles of Morals, 241 (3.) The Moral Law, 243 2. Adam's Fall, 247 3. Human Depravity, 248 4. Sin as it is, 250 5. The Atonement, 252 6. How we are Saved, 259 (1.) A Good Confession, 262 7. Repentance, 263 8. Faith 270 9. Various Testimonies, 276 (1.) Faith, in its Meaning, 279 (2.) Faith, in its Results ... 280 10. Justification, 281 1 1 . Regeneration, 285 12. Adoption, 286 13. Witness of the Spirit, •289 14. Entire Sanctiflcation, or Holiness : (1.) What is Holiness ? 291 (2.) The Motive to a Holy Life 292 (3.) Holiness— Ideal and Real, 294 (4.) The True Standard of Holiness, 295 10 CONTENTS. PAGE. (5.) Did Jesus teach the Doctrine of Holiness ? 297 (6.) St. Paul on Holiness 299 (7.) St. James's Testimony, 304 (8.) St. Peter's Teaching, 305 (9.) St. John's Ideas, 307 (10.) St. Jude adds a Word 309 (11.) How is Holiness distinguished ? 310 (12.) A Glimpse of Personal Purity, 312 (13.) Representative Testimonies, 314 (14.) Certain Passages quoted as against Holiness, 316 Part V. WHA.X TO BELIEVE IN REOA.RD TO PRAYER. 1. Origin of the Idea of Prayer, 319 2. The Law of Prayer, 323 3. Natural Provision for Prayer 326 4. How True Prayer is offered, 327 5. The Answer to Prayer, 330 fi. Prayer confirmed by Christian^ Experience 333 7. Importunity in Prayer, 336 8. Why Prayer is not Visibly Efficacious,' 338 9. Prayer should be a Habit, 339 10. The Lord's Prayer, 340 11. The Praying Spirit, 341 12. Various Facts about Prayer, 343 PART VI. WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH REFERENCE TO THE SABBATH. 1. Meaning of the Word Sabbath, 34,5 2. Man's Need of Repose, 345 3. The Sabbath Rest commended, 346 4. Must Sabbath Rest be Absolute? 347 5. The Jewish Sabbath Law, 347 li, Peculiarities of Jewish Sabbath-keeping 348 7. The Sabbath Law still in Force, 349 8. The Moral Law 35O 9. Do Christians respect the Sabbath Commandment ? 351 10. How the Jews came to fix upon Saturday 352 11. The Original Sabbath-day 352 CONTENTS. . 11 PAQB. 12. Did the Jews change the Day? 353 13. Changes under the Christian Dispensation, 355 14. When did Christ arise from the Dead ? 356 15. Prophecy of the Lord's-day, 357 16. Our Lord's Example and Teachings, 358 17. Example and Teachings of the Apostles, 360 18. Teachings of the Post-apostolic Fathers, 362 19. Early Sabbath Legislation, 366 PART VII. WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 1. Worship 367 2. The Church, 37O 3. The Condition of Church Membership, 374 4. The Duty of Church Membership, 378 5. The Ministry, 384 6. Baptism, 386 7. The Lord's Supper, 387 8. Creeds, 388 (1.) The Patriarchs' Creed, 388 (2.) The Apostles' Creed, 389 (3.) The Nicene Creed 390 (4.) The Ten Commandments 391 (5.) The Ten Commandments of the New Testament, .... 391 9. Marriage, 392 PART VIIL WHAT TO BELIEVE RESPECTING CHRISTIAN DUTIES AND GRACES. 1. Duty to our Neighbors 395 2. Love to God 396 3. Fear of God 398 4. Submission, 399 5. Humility, 400 6. Hope, 402 7. Trust, 403 8. Prayer, 404 9. Perfect Obedience, 405 10. Strength to Stand, 406 11. Christian Activity, 407 12 . CONTENTS. PAGE. 12. Perseverance, • • • 409 13. Unworldliness, 410 14. Constant Consecration 412 15. Spirituality 414 16. Beneficence, 417 God's Financial System, 418 17. The Devotional Spirit, 419 18. Christian Courage, 421 19. Patience, 423 Christian Patience, 425 20. Brotherly Kindness, 426 21. Charity, 427 22. Self-control, 428 23. Self-denial, 430 24. Self-culture 431 25. The Consummation, 435 Part IX. WHAT To BET^IEVE CONCERNINQ THE EUTURE STATE. 1. Death, 437 2. Immortality : (1.) All Men believe the Soul Immortal, 442 (2.) The Chinese and Immortality, . . 444 (3.) Old Testament Suggestions of Immortality, 445 (4.) Immortality as Christ revealed it, 446 (5.) Continuous Existence, 447 (6.) Incorruptible Existence, . 448 (7.) The Murmur of the Soul, 449 (8.) Immortality indicated by Experience, 452 (9.) Life's Wretchedness demands Immortality 454 (10.) The Lesson of Life, 456 (11.) Proofs from the Power and Brevity of Life, 456 (12.) The Balmy Effulgence of Morn, 458 (13.) Importance of the Christian Belief, 459 (14.) Personal Expressions of Belief 460 3. The Second Advent, 461 4. The Millennium, 464 5. The Intermediate State, . 466 6. The Soul Conscious in the Intermediate State . 467 7. The Resurrection, 471 (1.) History Substantiates the Resurrection of Christ 474 (2.) How are the Dead raised up ? 478 CONTENTS. 13 8. The General Judgment : page. (1.) The Last Day, 484 (2.) The Judgment Certain, 485 (3.) The Time Unknown 486 (4.) Design of the Judgment 486 (5.) Christ Himself the Judge, 487 (6.) Principles of the Awards 488 (7.) Circumstances of the Judgment, 490 9. Hell: (1.) Derivation of the Word, 492 (2.) What Hell is, 493 (3.) Reality of Hell, 493 (4.) Duration of Hell, 494 (5.) Old Testament Teaching, 494 (6.) Pre-Christian Teaching, 495 (7.) New Testament Teaching, 495 (8.) Testimony of the Early Fathers, 496 (9.) Objections 499 (10.) Punishment One of Degrees, 500 (11.) A Second Probation, 502 (12.) Satan, 505 The Devil, , 510 10. Heaven : (1.) Heaven as a State, 511 (2.) Heaven as a Place, 512 (3.) The Song of the Children, 516 (4.) Degrees of Happiness, j 517 (5.) Future Eecognition 518 (6.) Angels, 521 (7.) Angelic Ministrations, 521 PART X. WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT UNBBLIEK. 1. The Nature of Unbelief, 523 2. Manifestations of Unbelief, 525 3. Causes of Unbelief, 527 4. Unreasonableness of Unbelief, 531 5. Remedy for Unbelief, • • 534 FAITH MADE EASY. Part J. WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. CHEISTIANITY SECURELY FOUNDED. CHRISTIANITY rests upon a sure foundation. It is deeply planted in the soil of truth, underneath which is Christ the living Rock. As the name implies, it is a religion which proceeds from a person, and which is, as a whole, a personal product. Its Founder dwelt on earth. History proves that he lived in Palestine. The exis- tence of Christians can be traced to within a few years of the date of his death. This is fact. It is not supposition, or guess-work, or tradition, or mere belief; it is fact. This ground has been traversed a thousand times. The ablest scholars of every century have gon» carefully over it. Every page of history, profane and sacred ; every hint and scrap of information in the dead and living languages, likely to have any bearing on the truth, pro or con, has been studied, weighed, and bal- anced by the profoundest intellects of the past nineteen centuries ; and the result is something definite, fixed, and sure. In early times no one demanded proofs of this truth, far less sought to prove it an un- truth. It was an accepted verity, so cliBar, so plain, that even its enemies regarded it as unquestionable. When determined opposition at length arose, plenty of able men stood by the records, and were faithful to their own confirming experience. Others who candidly in- quired into Christianity, like Justin Martyr, who was born at the close of the apostolic age, that is, the beginning of the second century, and who had often heard the Platonists calumniate the Christians, were unable to resist. They renounced all for Christ. They rejected all other philosophy for the truths of redemption. Their own consciences became so saturated with the truth that they could not and would not deny it even in the face of death. So powerful were the evidences 15 16 FAITH MADE EASY. for the Christian doctrine when it came fresh into the world that men were fairly compelled to believe, when believing they boldly testified, and when this involved them in danger and death, they resolutely, calmly, conscientiously sealed their testimony with their blood. More- over, when it became evident to the early Christians that written statements of the truths of Christianity would be necessary in the long and bloody contest with heathenism, they set about this task with assurance and fortitude. Many of these early writings are lost, but the fragments of them which are preserved show the clearness with which these primitive fathers set forth the facts of our Lord's life and work. Thus Quadratus, Bishop of Athens in the early part of the second century, and probably the first to present to the heathen a written defense of Christianity, a passage of whose writings is pre- served by Eusebius (Vol. I, p. 230), says: "The works of our Savior were always conspicuous, for they were real ; both they which were healed and they which were raised from the dead ; who were seen not only when they were healed or raised, but for a long time afterwards ; not only while he dwelt on this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good while after it ; insomuch that some of them have reached to our times." (Rawlinson's Historical Evidences, p. 213.) It has been truthfully observed that from the writings of Justin Martyr, to whom we have just referred, and whose "Apology" was presented to Marcus Aurelius and the Roman Senate, there ' ' might be collected a tolerably complete account of Christ's life, in all points agreeing with that which is delivered in our Scriptures." (Paley, Evidences, Part I, ch. vii.) Dr. H. B. Hackett, an accurate and bright Ameri- can scholar, who edited Professor Eawlinson's " Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament," concurs with the learned author of that work in the following statement as the mature result of the most rigid, im- partial, scholarly, and critical examination of the Biblical records : "The religion of the Bible, unlike almost aU other religions, has its roots in the region of fact. Other religious systems are, in the main, ideal, being the speculations of individual minds, or the gradual growth of a nation's fanciful thought during years or centuries. The religion of the Bible, though embracing much that is in the highest sense ideal, grounds itself upon accounts, which claim to be historical, of occurrences that are declared to have actually taken place upon the earth. That Jesus Christ was born under Herod the Great, at Bethlehem ; that he came forward as a teacher of religion ; that he preached and taught and performed many ' mighty works ' in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea during the space of some years; that he was WBAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHlilSTIANITY. 17 crucified by Pontius Pilate; that he died and was buried; that he rose again from the dead, and ascended before the eyes of his dis- ciples into heaven — these are the most essential points, the very gist and marrow of the New Testament. And these are all matters of simple fact. And, as with the. New Testament, so, or still more strikingly, with the Old. Creation, the paradisaical state, the fall, the flood, the dispersion of nations, the call of Abraham, the deliver- ance out of Egypt, the giving of the law on Sinai, the conquest of Palestine, the establishment of David's kingdom, the dispersion of Israel, the captivity of Judah, the return under Ezra and Nehemiah — all these are of the nature of actual events, objective facts occurring at definite times and at definite places, conditioned, like other facts perceptible to the sense, and fitted to be the subject of historic record." "It is cbbsolwtdy certain,'' says Dr. George B. Cheever, "if any thing in this" world can be, that God has given us the means of ascer- taining all the truths necessary for our immortal well-being, and of detecting and exposing the falsehoods that put us in danger of eternal evil." He does not require from man a blind and unreasoning faith. He has providentially secured to believers in every age the evidences necessary to the certain arrival at fundamental truth. Candid con- sideration of these evidences will inspire faith ; and faith its own ex- perimental confirmation. Thus says Bishop F. D. Huntington: "Seeing from abundant signs that I myself and the universe I live in must have had a personal Maker, and instructed by my own soul that he must be a Father, I find it to be antecedently probable, if not a moral necessity, that he should speak to his children, disclosing to them his character and his will. Christianity declares of itself, explicitly, repeatedly, and in terms and a tone befitting the majesty and tenderness of the message, that it is such a revelation ; and nothing ^as been said or done in the world since it appeared, to negative that august claim, or to weaken its force. The undeniable eflfects of Christianity on national, domes- tic, and individual progress, wrought through the organization, min- istries, and missions of the Christian Church, in knowledge, virtue, order, freedom and mercy, testify not only that the God of truth revealed it, but that the God of history is with it and within it. Christendom is accounted for only by Christianity, and Christianity broke too suddenly into the world to be of the world." President W. F. Warren, of Boston University, being asked why he believed Christianity, replied: "I do not know that I can furnish a more truthful answer than thb: I believe Christianity to be a rev- 2 X8 FAITH MADE EASY. elation, because it has made me incapable of any contrary belief. When- ever I undertake to think my way into the one system or the other, or into any of the non-Christian religions of the past or present, I find that Christianity has so broadened my outlook th^t no philosophy of being, or of history, or of destiny, can satisfy me but Christ's. It has so illuminated and quickened my conscience that no moral ideals can satisfy me but Christ's. It has so renovated and intensified my emotional nature that I can rest in no love short of that which is evoked and nourished and strengthened by living communion with Christ." In response to the same question. Rev. A. P. Peabody, D. D., formerly preacher to Howard University, gave this reply : "I believe Christianity to be divine : Because I am conscious of its adaptation to my nature, of its having made me whatever I am morally and spirit- ually, and of capacities and needs infinitely beyond my present at- tainments, for which it has ample resources; because in the history of the world it is the only cause of all that has been best and noblest in humanity since the advent of Christ ; because I can trace under its influence a constant and unintermitted progress, of which there is no other assignable cause; because the phenomena connected Avith the earliest stages of the existence of Christianity are such as could not have been, had there not appeared on the earth a being specially endowed, inspired, and empowered by God, and had not this being actually arisen from the dead." The late Chancellor E. O. Haven once expressed his views of Christianity in these graceful sentences: "The strongest evidence of the divinity of the religion of Christ is its own character, its subjec- tive power over the human soul. It is precisely adjusted to man. It generates the holiest, noblest ambition. It develops humanity most harmoniously, most perfectly. It is adapted to all circumstances, to all ages, to all conditions. It ennobles man ; it adds to the beauty and influence of woman. It individualizes men. It shows every human being how to make his own general life sublimer than the most splendid epic poem. The grandest conception of the most gifted poet, embodied in his greatest hero or heroine, is not equal to what every human being may become under the light and guidance of Christian truth and the Holy Spirit. This is what the world needs ; it is -all it needs : Power for every one — whatever his condition — to fill out the measure of his own noblest aspiration. A young woman fiill of promise and earnest hope qualifies herself for usefulness, and just as her promise is about to ripen, disease seizes upon her and WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 19 announces the dreadful doom that soon death will hurry her away. What says Science ? ' Her life is a failure. There has been a vioV tion of some law of nature. She must die. All must die. Why mourn for her ?' What says Keligion ? ' Her life need not be a fail- ure. Christ is her Savior. Let her trust in him, and you shall see in her short remaining years, or months, or weeks, such serenity, such hope, such love, as will show you what that spirit will ripen into in heaven.' O, that I could communicate to all what I know of the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit to supply all the wants of human nature and human life !" Professor Miner Kaymond, D. D, LL. D., one of the most distin- guished of American theologians, in the Spring of 1885, closed one of his profound discourses with this childhke statement of his Chris- tian faith: "A word or two why I am a Christian., I have this Testameiit, these Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and especially the Epistles, (the Epistle to the Romans, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle, to the Corinthians, etc.) ; and the fact that these are here is historical: and positive proof that within twenty-five years after the death of Christ there were established Christian Churches in all the main, cities of the Mediterranean, and substantially of the then known Ro- man empire. These Churches had been planted and established by the preaching of the apostles, most of which consisted in affirming.! that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and the Savior of man. They went preaching this in the midst of persecution and self-sacrifice, and for no worldly gain, and they sealed their testimony by their blood. People by hundreds and thousands believed this, and Churches, to ■whom these epistles were directed, were established within twenty-five. i years after the death of Christ. Now, it is impossible for me to think that these historical events could occur, that these apostles preached, with such results under such circumstances, such a doctrine, unless they possessed indubitable evidence that it was true. The apostles , believed that Jesus Christ rose from the dead; and I say it is impos- sible for me to come to the conclusion that the facts occurring in ■ history could occur unless Jesus Christ did rise from the dead. It is j ust as preposterous to doubt whether Julius Caesar was emperor of Rome as to doubt whether Christ rose from the dead. If he did rise from the dead, then he is what he professed to be^ — the Son of God, the Savior of man. This is the record of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Gospels are a true record of his life — of what he said, did, and required. In the time of Christ and his apostles the Old 20 FAITH MADE EASY. Testament was substantially as we have it, and they perpetually quoted the Old Testament as of divine authority. Therefore, I ac- cept the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, as a divine book, and the authorized standard of faith and practice. "I have selected from the long catalogue of Christian evidences, as a reason why I am a believer in the Christian religion, the histor- ical evidence that Christ rose from the dead. I have selected this be- cause it may be briefly stated. I select another for the same reason. It is this : The Christian religion seeks the greatest good. Even our enemies being judges, if there be an everlasting life the honest, faithful Christian has good hope in his death; but the gospel has promise of the life that now is as well as that which is to come. Let any one conceive the best condition possible to man in his earthly life — best as to his physical, mental, moral, social being, best every way, and he will conceive precisely that condition which the Bible .seeks to produce. Paint the brightest picture of human life that im- agination can devise, then look into the Word of God, and you will find that inspiration has surpassed you. The picture there is perfect in outline, complete in finish, and all aglow with heavenly and divine truth. ■ , "Efiligion seeks man's good. For seventy and more years it has done me good, and never ill. Not a bad thing has come of it, blessed be God ! Good, and only good, I find at the feet of my Savior; and there are numberless souls who may say truthfully the same when speaking of themselves. They can truthfully say: 'Come, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul. I waited patiently for the Lord ; he heard my cry and brought me out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and placed my feet upon a rock, and put a new song into my mouth, and estab- lished my going. I was blind, but now I see ; I was deaf, but now I hear; I was wounded, but now I am whole; I was sick, but now I am in health ; I was dead, but now I live ; and the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God. Once I was in bondage through fear of death, without God, and without hope in the world ; but now my soul hath daily sweet communion with the Invisible Spirit of life, my Heavenly Father.' Thou God of heaven and of eternal life, glory be to thee 1 Of the Christian religion I confidently say, there is some- thing in it, and by the grace of God I propose to hold fast whereunto I have attained while I live." The resurrection of Christ is the foundation-stone of Christian faith, and it is firmly laid. "Ransack all history," says an able WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 21 writer, " and you can not find a single event more satisfactorily and ' clearly proved tban the resurrection of Christ from the dead." And says another, a distinguished jurist: "If human evidence ever has proved, or ever can prove any thing, then the miracles of Christ are beyond the shadow of a doubt." And yet the miracles and resur- rection of Christ prove his divinity; and as Napoleon said: "His divinity once admitted, Christianity appears with the precision and clearness of algebra; it has the connection and unity of a science." CHRISTIANITY ITS OWN PROOF. Christianity is its own proof. Its marvelous character proves its marvelous origin. If not in itself a miracle, it is more like a miracle than any thing else ever done or known on earth. Take into account its origiti, its early history, its present prestige, and its flattering prospect of ultimate triumph over all opposition, and we have a gigantic fact that will be hard to account for except by acknowledgr ment of the miraculous. "Is Christianity an inspired faith or not?^ asks Wendell Phillips. " Shakespeare and Plato tower above the in- tellectual level of their times, like the peaks of Teneriffe and Mont Blanc. We look at them, and it seems impossible to measure the in- terval that separates them from the intellectual development around them. But if this Jewish boy, in that era of the world, in Palestine, with the Ganges on one side of him and the Olympus of Athens on the other, ever produced a religion with these four elements, he towers so far above Shakespeare and Plato that the difference be- tween Shakespeare and Plato and their times, in the comparison, becomes an imperceptible wrinkle on the face>of the earth. I have endeavored to measure its strength, to estimate its permanence, to analyze its elements ; and if it ever came from the unassisted brain of one uneducated Jew, while Shakespeare is admirable, and Plato is admirable, this Jewish boy takes a higher level. He is marvelous, wonderful ; he is in himself a miracle. The miracles he wrought are nothing to the miracle he was, if at that era and that condition of the world he invented Christianity. Whately says, ' To disbelieve is to believe.' I can not be so credulous as to believe that any mere man invented Christianity. Until you show me some loving heart that has felt more profoundly, some strong brain that, even with the aid of his example, has thought further and added something important to religion, I must still use my common sense and say. No man did all iJiis. I know Buddha's protest, and what he is said to have tried 22 FAITH MADE EASY. to do. To all that my answer is, India, past and present. In testing ideas and elemental forces, if you give them centuries to work in, 'success is the only criterion. ' By their fruits' is an inspired rule, not yet half understood and appreciated." How could Christianity even begin its work in the world without ■credentials that would silence the gainsayers? Men do not take kindly to new religions, especially to such as are unselfish and spiritual. A Frenchman, named Lapaux, thought he had discovered a new re- ligion, and complained to Talleyrand of his trouble in introducing it. "I am not surprised," said Talleyrand, " at the difficulty you find in your eflTort. It is no easy matter to introduce a new religion. But there is one thing I would advise you to do, and then, perhaps, you might succeed." "What is it? what is it?" asked the other, with eagerness. "It is this," said Talleyrand; "go and be crucified, and then be buried, and then rise ag-ain on the third day, and then go on working miracles, raising the dead, and healing all manner of diseases, and casting out devils, and then it is possible that you might accomplish your end !" And the philosopher, crestfallen and' confounded, went away silent. Theodore Parker considered himself the pioneer of a religion that would last a thousand years. He was possessed of one of the finest intellects of this century, and in many respects was fitted by nature to lead' and teach. Living, he proclaimed himself equal to Christ, and dying, he referred to what he had done for mankind. But what had he done, and where are the fruits of his labors to-day? His con- gregation is scattered, and the men of thought, atheists, deists, pan- theists, fatalists, spiritualists, skeptics, and secularists, who gathered around him and espoused his cause, have no organized following in the name of Parkerism. The truth is, religions that sweep the earth and bless mankind must carry with them indubitable proofs of di- vinity, else man in his progressive enlightenment spurns them from his presence, or crushes them down. That Christianity has, through the long centuries of its history, withstood this crucial test, is proof of its superhuman origin. That it has not only lived, but flourished, waxing great and strong with the roll of centuries, is evidence that behind it is the power of the living God. As an effect, Christendom is too large for mortal cause. Even without a written revelation, the Christian era requires belief in the Incarnation. Even without a Church or a creed or a clergyman, enough may be seen of the Christian element on earth to dumfound the adversaries. "Let a man WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 23 think what he will of Christians, there is a reality, a solemn truth, behind all he sees, higher than he knows. The very beUs that toll, tell of life, of death, of soul, and of God. . . . Look over the world, and draw a line between the souls that pray and the souls that do not pray. On which side of the line would you rather be?" Search out all other religions, and combine their best features, and still they fall infinitely short of that one feature of Christianity which gives it power — its efficacy to save the soul. No other religion pro- vides as this does for man's moral and spiritual nature. No other religion enables man to make the best use of the world, a success of his life, and " turn his little life's poem into a beautiful and interest- ing epic." No other religion enables him to meet the temptations of life when they come, and to rise superior to his surroundings. No other religion teaches him, as this does, to bear afflictions, endure hardness, and to bear the cross as a condition of discipleship. No other religion prepares him to meet grim death, and triumph over it, lying down, as it were, in quiet sleep, wrapping the drapery of his couch about him, and passing away in gentle dreams. And no other religion promises any thing after death. "None but Christ has pen- etrated the vale of death, though many have vainly tried to do so. The Christian faith illumines the future, and .throws a mantle of splendor over it, satisfies the longings of our nature, and ennobles our present existence." CHRISTIANITY A LIFE. Christianity is a life. It is a life entirely distinct from the natural life. It is a life begotten of God in the new birth. It is a spiritual life, and those who receive it are subjects of a spiritual kingdom.' " My kingdom," Christ himself said, " is not of this world." Its origin was not here. One of his disciples described it as "coming down from God out of heaven." John the Baptist called it the "kingdom of heaven." It is heavenly in its spirit and effects. It makes of the human heart a little heavenly temple, where God himself deigns to dwell. Men can not see it or find it. It cometh not with observation. " Behold," said Christ, "the kingdom of God is wiMn you." It is God's rule, sway, and command over the human soul. Whosoever has this kingdom is free from the dominion of sin, is a recipient of grace, and an heir of glory. "And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." This record being proved, as Dr. Luther Lee has observed, "the whole Gospel must be true; therefore every believer has the witness in himself that the 24 FAITH MADE EASY. Gospel is true. This witness is the sum total of Christian experience, the whole of which is in harmony with the teaching of the Gospel. " 1. There is felt a conviction of sin, a sense of guilt and condem- nation before God. All feel this in a greater or less degree. 2. There is a felt sense of pardon, and a removal of guilt and condemnation. 3. A felt peace of mind and heart — peace with God. 4. A joy that was never felt before — a joy which rises from a sense of the divine presence and favor. 5. A hope never before realized — a hope which reaches beyond the grave and anchors in the land of immortality. 6. A felt and known change of heart, which changes the direction of the desires and aspirations, and the whole moral tone of the life. 7. This whole experience is crowned with the witness of God's Spirit, bearing witness with the believer's spirit that he is a child of God. "This testimony is rendered certain by the fact that it is all a matter of consciousness. This witness within testifies in consciousness. Consciousness is a knowledge of what passes in the mind, or the knowledge which the mind has of its own states and operations. When a person thinks, he knows that he thinks, and knows what he thinks ; when a person feels, he knows that he feels, and knows what he feels ; and when a person wills, he knows that he wills, and knows what he wills. This testimony is absolutely certain ; it can not be disproved. No witness can get behind it to contradict it. To contradict this witness in any man is to tell him he does not think, feel, and will what he knoes he does think, feel, and will. It is to tell him he is not sorrowful when he knows he is sorrowful, and that he is not joyful when he knows he is joyful." The argument places Christianity beyond the possibility of a doubt in the mind of a believer. He never thinks of denying it. He would as quickly deny the fact that he lives on earth as the better fact that he lives unto Christ. In attestation of this truth the mar- tyrs died. They counted not their (natural) lives dear unto them- selves, so that they might finish their (spiritual) course with joy. Infidelity and persecution have never shaken this citadel of the soul. It is the strong man armed. It is God in humanity, whom no power of earth or hell can dislodge. Every conflict which has raged around this central truth in ages past has ended in victory for Christ ; it will always be so. The men do not live, and can not be brought into life, who can gainsay this fundamental principle of the Christian faith, or break its force upon the convictions of the race. All evangelical Churches are herein agreed, and this is what distinguishes them from the world. They know, and do testify, that Christ has power on WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 25 earth to forgive sins, and institute in every heart that receives him the evidence of sonship. This is probably the best, because practically the most potent, ar- gument for the truth of Christianity. It was the argument which Christ himself employed. He saved men, and then appealed to the facts. When John sent for proofs of his Messiahship, he said: " Go and tell John what things ye have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor the gospel is preached." »When John's question invited Jesus to elaborate proofs from Moses and the prophets that he was the Messiah, he calmly appealed to his mighty works. The apostles followed the same plan. Their preaching was grounded in personal experience of the truth they -affirmed. The Lutheran Eeformation was a revival of th» doctrine of conscious salvation by faith. Luther taught the privilege of every believer to know by ex- perience that the Bible is true, and without that the devil would be sure to cheat him out of his faith. John Wesley, and all the Wes- leys, placed vital stress upon the experience of salvation, wrought and attested by the Holy Spirit. Calvin said : "It is preposterous to endeavor to produce a sound faith in the Scriptures by disputa- tions, proofs, reasons, etc. , which of themselves are insufficient with- out the persuasion of the Holy Ghost." THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY. We would not undervalue other forms of evidence. The argu- ment from miracles, showing how God has attested to truth by bring- ing to pass events varying from the established course of nature, may be made very strong and convincing; for these works were publicly wrought sometimes, as in the case of the Egyptian plagues, the de- struction of Pharaoh and his hosts, the feeding of the multitude with five loaves and two fishes in the presence of thousands of witnesses. No one disputed the fact of these miracles when they were performed. They could not deny the evidence of their own senses. When the dumb spake, they heard it; when the blind saw, they witnessed it; and when the dead sat up, they had unquestionable proofs of a gen- uine resurrection. Though some rejected the revelation which such miracles authenticated, they did not pretend to deny that the miracles occurred. Indeed, their number was so great, and extended through so many years, that skeptics were effectually silenced. The Old 26 FAITH MADE EASY. Testament contains the record of fifty-four miracles ; the Gospels con- tain accounts of forty of Christ's miracles, and St. John indicates (chap, xxi, 25) that these were only a fraction of the whole number actually wrought during his ministry. The miracles of which we have particulars were so various, wrought on such appropriate occasions, and so well attested, that to gainsay them is to overthrow every prin- ciple of rational historic evidence. So, too, in regard to the argument from prophecy. This is noth- ing but a " miracle of knowledge," forecasting an event which the highest human wisdom can not anticipate. These prophecies are so numerous in the Bible, and so completely interwoven in the entire sacred story, that they can not be separated from it without destroy- ing its credibility. Either the prophecies relating to the Jewish and other nations, to the Messiah and his spiritual kingdom, are literally true, else the Bible is false, and we are left in the world without a revelation or a religious guide. The same may be said respecting the Bible itself. The external, internal, and collateral evidences of its truth are so conclusive that the intelligent and candid mind can not resist them. To be a skep- tic concerning the truth of the Scriptures, man must first question or ignore the being of God and the existence in himself of a nature higher than that of the brute. The Bible and the Christian religion can not be rightfully put to the proper test of their own truthfulness without carrying with them overwhelming evidence of their divine origin and character. It is for this reason that we assert that the strongest proof of divinity in a human movement — the fact of God, the Bible, and man in co-operation — is the certified experience of saved hearts. When men can face their fellows and declare, by all that is solemn and sacred, by all that is virtuous and pure, by all that is rational and intelligible, that they have experienced a power within removing the sense of guilt and the disposition to sin, changing all their feelings, motives, and aspirations, that were before unholy, and giving them an inward peace, a holy quiet, an approving conscience, and a foretaste of heaven, and that they have the abiding witness in themselves that these things are from God and of God, they exercise a power to convince and win men over to the truth, such as can not otherwise be had. And do not men do this? Are there not thou- sands living to-day who are thus testifying? We answer, yes; and it is precisely this kind of evidence which is doing most to convert the world, and which should be more generally relied upon. The successful evangelists of the age, are not those profoundly versed in dogmatic WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 27 truth, or those who rely on cold and invincible logic, but those whose hearts are on fire with love and zeal, who can narrate a clear relig- ious experience, and who are so practically familiar with the way of life, that they can instantly direct the seekers who throng around them into the blessed experience of pardon and peace. The world needs salvation; sinful hearts are conscious of the need of pardon. Self, under the influence of Satan, and the chilling assertions of skepticism, may resist the dictations of conscience, but the dictations of conscience are nevertheless there, and when the few men of God are found who, can bring to bear upon these consciences the ever fresh and new experiences of their own redeemed spirits, the works of Satan are destroyed, and Christ is glorified in the salvation of men. "We are his witnesses of these things," said Peter, "and so is also the Holy Ghost." Other things being favorable, there is a power in pointed religious testimony which is irresistible. It is a power we can ever have by us ready for use. It is God's own appointed weapon for the Christian's defense, the overthrow of error, and the conversion of sinners. " What we have felt and seen, With confidence we tell, And publish to the sons of men The signs infallible." CHRISTIANITY GOD'S PLAN FOR SAVING THE WORLD. Men have had their plans for saving the world, but they have not saved it. Education has been tried, on the theory that if men are taught the bad effects of evil they will shun evil from merely selfish motives ; but the scheme does not work. Human nature is so out of joint that some men will do wrong if they know that death and destruction lie before them. The lives of drunkards and mur- derers are notable illustrations. Education is good, and important in its sphere, but it does not save the soul. Government has been tried, on the theory that laws of perfect equity and exalting tendency will secure in the subject perfect obedi- ence and perfect love. But nowhere has such a Utopian scheme been realized. It was tested in Rome, and proved there, as elsewhere, a signal failure. Paul's Epistle to the Romans is the most fearful portraiture of human life without the purifying influence of the gos- pel that can be drawn. You can not legislate men into virtue. Law is a restraint from evil, nothing more. It is a terror to evil-doers, but no particular inspiration to good workers. Laws are important. 28 FAITH MADE EASY. but their importance does not consist in any power they possess to regenerate the heart or purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. " For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the right- eousness of the law might be fidfiUed in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.'' Make a man spiritual by the grace of God, and he will keep the law ; purify his heart by the blood of the Son, and he will then grow in knowledge and attain to all the heights of truth and righteousness. This is God's plan. Man would save the soul by polishing the intellect and restraining the members of the body; God would first purge the heart of sin, and fill it with his Spirit, knowing that the highest wisdom and purest morality are certain to follow. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Purify the fountain, and the streams which flow from it will be pure also. Christianity is precisely the scheme by which God proposes to root sin out of the world and establish holiness in its place. He has his own methods of work ; some of these are not such as men would have adopted, even had it been possible for them to invent the Christian scheme. Most likely men would have employed angels to propagate the gospel, instead of themselves, when saved by the gospel. They would have supposed, from the superior powers of the angelic throng, that the world -could be more quickly saved by such instrumentality than by feeble human efibrt. Men are in a hurry ; they want to ac- complish things quickly. But God is wiser; he never hastes. He moves steadily forward, calling nations and Churches to wait upon his steps, and work diligently, but not to grow impatient or disconsolate or discouraged. It is said of Christ that he shall not fail or be discour- aged until he has set judgment in the earth. We look at missionary movements, and evangelical enterprises of* every sort, and suppose that by these the world ought to be converted in a few years, or a few generations at longest ; but God knows the condition of mankind, and the beneficial character of the agencies he has set in motion for the redemption of the world, and he considers the advantages which the Church derives from her own labors, and the discipline which in- dividual character receives by Christian efibrt, and he bids us work on, knowing that we ^hall receive good as well as do good. The distributors of the gospel are the beneficiaries of the gospel, as well as the beneficiaries the distributors. It is a rule which works both ways. God saves men, and fits them for the skies by inducing them to save others. In this particular we are co-workers together with him. WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 29 Angels could not have engaged in such a scheme. They could not have explained the plan of salvation to others, not having experi- mental knowledge of it themselves. It is said that they desire to look into it, but man is actually brought into it. Man has need of it, while angels have not. The man who has experienced the power of the gospel is best qualified to explain it to others, and urge its acceptance. THE BENIGN EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. The spiritual effects of Christianity are its chief glory, but its in- direct influences, in blessing and uplifting humanity, are worthy of its divine origin. Christianity has saved civilization, and been the crown- ing benefactor of the world. It has subdued the savage nature of man, and implanted in his breast a better view of his mission and destiny. It has shown him his true relation to his fellows, to God, and the future world. It has taught him the value of human life, the necessity of preserving it, and the duty of man to his fellow-man in times of danger and death. History abounds with illustrations of the utter savagery of men in uncivilized conditions when want or woe, famine or pestilence, sweeps the earth. As natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, so unchristianized men treat each other in seasons of great public calamity. When the great pestilence visited Athens, according to Thucydides, the people who felt them- selves attacked sank down in total dejection and despair, dying with- out a struggle, or even an effort to save themselves. Persons who escaped the plague were kept through fear from visiting the sick, and thus they died forlorn and destitute, of attendance, by which means whole families became utterly extinct. In some places the corpses lay stretched out upon one another, both in the streets and about the fountains, whither their rage for water had hurried them. The very temples, too, were full of the corpses of those who had expired there ; for men fell alike into a neglect of sacred and social duties, and to- tally disregarded the rites of decent burial. This pestilence, too, gave rise to the most unbridled licentiousness, for when men saw the rich hurried away, and those who were before worth nothing, coming into immediate possession of their property, they began to live solely for pleasure; and seeing a heavy judgment hanging over their headsj they thought it wise before it fell on them to snatch some enjoyment of life ; nor did they allow any fear of their gods, or respect for human laws, to be a check on their licentiousness. To the fullest 30 FAITH MADE EASY. possible extent they lived up to the old Epicurean adage, ' ' Let us eat and driuk, for to-morrow we die." Very different the conduct of the people of Alexandria when the pestilence smote that city in the third century. History presents no more impressive contrast to illustrate the peculiar influence of Christianity upon the characters of men. The external circumstances were very similar to those at Athens, and both were of such a nature as to call forth the unrestrained and undis- guised expression of real feelings ; the difference of them being en- tirely moral, and wholly attributable to the dissimilarity of religious sentiment. According to Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria at the time of the plague, there was no house where there was not at least one dead,- and the city was filled with lamentations, by reason of the multitude of corpses and the daily dying. Yet the people thought they ought not to consider it a calamity, but only an exercise and trial in no way inferior to those of wars and persecutions, from which they had recently suffered. " Most of the brethren," says Dionysius, "by reason of their great love and brotherly charity, sparing not themselves, cleaved one to another, visited the sick without weariness, and attended upon them diligently, administering to them in Christ, and most gladly dying with them. In this sort the best of our brethren departed this life : whereof some were presbyters, some dea- cons, and others laymen, held in great reverence ; so that this kind of death, for the great piety and strength of faith, seems to differ in nothing from martyrdom. Moreover, they took the bodies of the departed saints into their uplifted arms, wiped their eyes and closed their mouths ; carried them on their shoulders, and laid them out : they embraced them, washed them, and wrapped them in shrouds; and shortly after, these persons obtained the same kind offices from others, for the living continually traced the steps of the dead. But," he adds, "among the heathen [in the same city], all fell out on the contrary.- They drove the sick out of their houses as soon as the first symptoms of disease were observed ; they shunned their dearest friends and relations; they threw out the sick, half dead, into the streets; they threw their dead, without burial, to the dogs; thus did they endeavor to evade partaking in the general fate, which, notwith- standing the many expedients they used for that purpose, they could not easily escape." Thus we see how Christianity begets humanita- rian feeling, fosters love, leads to tenderness of word and action when tenderness is a boon, and throws around the couches of the sick and dying the atmosphere of true friendship and the halo of im- mortal hope. WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 31 " 1. Look at the influence of Christianity upon man's social condition. What were the homes of Greece and Rome in the days of their high- est refinement ? Reelting with every abomination, with no sanctity in the marriage tie, and woman utterly debased. Athens had become the corruptress of the world, and its shrines of consummate beauty Were sinks of litter infamy. Rome was a cesspool of impurity ; and even Juvenal pictures her as a filthy sewer, into which flowed the dregs of every Syrian and Achsean stream. But Christianity threw a purifying element into the fetid mass. It raised woman from the abysses of shame, and enthroned her a queen amid the sanctities of a well-ordered home, until even the heathen exclaimed, ' What women tiiese Christians have !' And how it widened human charity ! What deeds of cruelty and horror are recorded on the classic page ! The wandering Ulysses, landing in> Thrace, sacking a city and killing all the inhabitants, was but a type of the world at large, where plunder and murder were perpetual, and the words stranger and enemy were synonymous. Christianity sounded a condemnation of war, proclaim- it a revolt of brother against brother; and although the voice of Christ commanding peace has not been obeyed by all his followers, yet it has greatly lessened the barbarities of war, and on every mod- ern battle-field there files the Red Cross of Geneva, a flag which every nation is bound to respect — the symbol of that religion which, when universally received, shall give universal peace. Human life was everywhere held cheap. You have seen Gerome's picture of the Gladiatorial Fight. There is the crowded amphitheater, in the arena the two combatants; the conqueror standing with uplifted sword over the wounded athlete, waiting the signal to slay or to spare; the Ves- tal Virgins voting for his death ; the emperor, on whose nod a hu- man life is hanging, carelessly eating a fig; while a hundred thousand are enjoying the spectacle of a man 'butchered to make a Roman holiday.' Christianity, however, proclaimed human life a precious thing, and uttered a plea for the poor and weak. ' Our charity dispenses more in the streets,' says TertuUian to the heathen, ' than your religion in all the temples.' In our day it has covered the world with hospitals and asylums. Its spirit made Howard the prison reformer ; Wilberforce the slave emancipator ; Florence Night- ingale the Crimean heroine ; and Miiller the orphan's friend. "2. Trace its effects upon liberty. The slave, when Christ came, was a ' mere live chattel, an implement with a voice, a piece of prop- erty valued less than an ox.' Crassus, after the revolt of Sparta- cus, crucified ten thousand slaves at one time; and Tr^n made the J 32 FAITH MADE EASY. same number fight in the amphitheater for the amusement of the people, and prolonged the massacre one hundred and twenty-three days. At the root of this ' sum of all villainies' a blow was struck when our Lord said, 'All ye are brethren ;' and though he left the great world-despotisms untouched, yet he gave a moral force which did two things : First, it gave an inward spiritual liberty to the individual, whether master or slave; and next, it made the creation of new civil institutions only a question of time. The gospel is the nurse of lib- erty. Not only does she strike off the shackles from every slave, but she is ever the herald of national liberty as well. ' ' 3. See its effects upon science. Some of the wayward children of science, falsely so-called, who forsake their own domain to assault Christianity, and would like to banish God from his universe and set up their own crude speculations in the stead of his eternal truth, talk about the. conflict between science and revelation. There is no such conflict. There may be a conflict between divine truth and many of the theories of scientific dogmatists. But theory is one thing and scientific fact another. In the domain «f science we walk not upon adamant, but over a pathway strewn with the wrecks of vain specula- tions now utterly abandoned. So, many of the plausible theories of the day that, stand in imposing semblance of truth will end iu utter emptiness, and be recalled only with derision ; and men will wonder that they could ever have been accepted as established truth. True science can tell us nothing but facts, and true science and true relig- ion go hand in hand. Do you want the proof? Where but in Chris- tian lands has science found its widest sphere, its greatest welcome, and its most splendid victories? Where do we find the brilliant discov- eries of astronomy and geology, of chemistry and physiology? Where do we find the inventive genius that saddles the wind, bridles the lightning, harnesses, steam, constructs the telephone and the phono- graph, and makes the electric light an illuminating agent? Where? In Christian lands alone. "4. Trace its effects upon literature and art. How Christianity en- riches the human mind ! She touches with her mystic wand the rude, unlettered mind, and out springs the divine angel of thought. In- tellect is ennobled, and poetry, painting, music, architecture, litera- ture, and philosophy revive under her genial influence. The debt of mind to religion is like the debt of vegetation to the sun. Modern art is but the handmaid of religion. Greek mythology gives no more fascinating picture that than of the delicate and resplendent Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, who rose from the foam of the sea and WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CEBISTIANITY. 33 hastened with rosy feet to the land, where grasses and flowers sprang up beneath her tread. What is that but a fable of Christian art giving form and expression to its ideals of beauty in the glorious marble of the Pida, the divine sweetness of the Madonna, the halle- lujah chorus of ' The Messiah,' or the immortal verse of ' Paradise Lost?' "5. See what it does for commerce. Christianity creates a com- merce wherever it goes ; for it stimulates men to develop the resources of the earth, gives industry and peace, security to hfe and property, brands all dishonesty and meanness, and makes trade to be governed by honest and unselfish principles. Other systems of religion never sustain great commerce. Where are the white-winged ships of Asia and of Africa? There is no reason, except in religion, why the sails of those great continents never dot our waters. In short, Christianity develops manhood, and gives the highest type of character. Bacon attributes Britain's greatness to her breed of men. What but the in- fluences of Christianity have given that elevation of the race, that sturdy vigor which leads the World, and by which her little band of thirty thousand British in the heart of India holds up the banner of civilization against the mighty odds of two hundred millions ? " The Christian religion is the moving and inspiring power in our modern civilization. It is the foster-parent of enterprise, wealth, and scientific culture ; and behind the commercial, mental, and moral de- velopment of nations is this mighty power of Christianity, which has given us all that is noblest and most majestic in our civilization. "Can a religion which brings forth such fruit, which has contrib- uted so much to the advancement of the race, which rides on the highest wave of progress in science, and arts, and civilization, and purer morality, be a fraud and imposture? I know that the advo- cate of the naturalistic theory will deny that Christianity has had any thhig to do with human development, and will ascribe every thing even in advanced humanity to the cosmic forces of nature, and the influence of external circumstances. But this is no mere question of theories — it is a question of facts. Will any sane man deny that the world is different now from what it would have been if Christianity had not been revealed? Compare our condition with that of unchristian lands. ' Look on this picture, and on that.'. How is it that beyond the pale of Christendom all civilization is unprogressive ? We know what are the affinities of our holy religion ; how it combines with pure morality and chaste living, with learning, liberty, law ; we know its effects on domestic peace, industry, and comfort. We know, too, 3 34 FAITH MADE EASY. the affinities of infidelity, for Emerson has truly said 'that depravity is at the root of much of the freethinking of the day.' Hume, the greatest name on the roll of unbelief, was a defender of adultery, taught that suicide, and even murder, was lawful; for he said that there was no more crime in turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel than in diverting the courses of the Nile or Danube. We know the degradation of morals in England one hundred and fifty years ago, when the principles of infidelity were rife. We know the Eeign of Terror and of licentiousness in France, when the Atheistic Council abolished Christianity as a religion, and decreed 'There is no God, and death is an eternal sleep.' Society was disor- ganized ; a very hell was kindled ; the earth was drunk with the blood of four millions of the best citizens of the land; until, in terror, Robespierre called the Council together, and they issued the decree, 'The French nation believes in God and immortality.' "Once again, we hold you to the practical tests. Can that religion be a fraud, a stupendous lie, which, aside from the spiritual and eternal interests of men, fits them for the enjoyment of civil lib- erty, stirs up invention and enterprise, aids and carries forward civilization, extends science and art, renovates the moral nature of man, and multiplies the comforts and blessings of humanity ? Impos- sible. When the great discoverer of America entered the waters of Oronoco, one of the seamen said he had found an island. 'No,' re- plied Columbus, 'such a river can not flow from an island, it must drain the waters of a continent.' So this mighty river of Christianity which lights up the landscape with its brightness, and creates life wherever it flows, can not have any human origin. Its springs are far off in the everlasting hills of God." (Rev. Hugh Johnson, M. A.) CHRISTIANITY CONQUEEIISIG THE WORLD. And this religion is conquering the world. It was never more gloriously successful than now. Churches were never so numerous, communicants never so multitudinous and faithful. The Bible was never so widely read, and the Bible civilization never so wide-spread. Note the march of Christianity. "In the first 1,500 years of its history it gained 100,000,000 of adherents ; in the next 300 years, 100,000,000 more; but in the last 100 years it has gained 210,000,- 000 more. Please make these facts vivid. Here is a staff. Let it represent the course of Christian history. Let my hand represent 500 years. I measure off 500, 1,000, 1,500 years. In that length WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 35 of time how many adherents did Christianity gain? One hundred mill- ions. I add three finger-breadths more. In that length oftime how many adherents did Christianity gain ? One hundred millions. In the three hundred years succeeding the Reformation, Christianity gained as many adherents as in 1,500 years preceding; but I now add a single finger's- breadth to represent one century. How many adherents has Chris- tianity gained in that length of time ? Two hundred and ten millions more. Such has been the marvelous growth of the Christian na;tions in our century, that in the last eighty-three years Christianity has gained more adherents than in the previous eighteen centuries. These are facts of colossal significance, and they can not be dwelt on too graph- ically or too often. By adherents of Christianity I mean nominal Christians ; that is, all who are not pagans, Mohammedans, or Jews. At the present rate of progress, it is supposed there will be 1,200,- 000,000 of nominal Christians in the world in the year 2000." (Rev. Joseph Cook.) There is music and sublimity in the ocean wave as it breaks upon the distant shore. There is sublimity in the lightning's flash and the roar of the gathering tempest. There is grandeur in the onward flow of a large river to its termination. In the motion of the stars through infinite space there is something soul-inspiring. But the onward move- ment of the Church of Christ presents a scene more grand and sublime. Her conflicts and her conquests wake up in the. soul the most elevated emotions. How rich and harmonious are those passages found in the prophets, which refer to the coming and final triumph of the Messiah ! Noth- ing like them in all literature to awe the mind, and lift up the heart in adoration of our conquering Christ. " Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Doth his successive journeys run ; His kingdom spread from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more." Then cometh the blessed realization of Dr. Wm. M. Baker's "Etem&l Song:" " The day shall come when not a^ian By any shall be said, Lo ! here the wine-cup in his name, The sacramental bread ; For then by Christ's own hand the soul Shall be forever fed. 36 FAITH MADE EASY. Soon dawns the day when nevermore Shall the baptismal tide By any man, to babe or men, Be evermore applied, Because each soul as clean as God Forever shall abide. When not again from human lips Shall rise upon the air, Nor stir the soul to mutest speech. The faintest breath of prayer ; For then all things that God can give Its own already are. Our worship, born of earthly need, With earthly need decays ; Beginning ere the earth was made, Not measured by its days. This only shall endure of all, — The dialect of praise ! God's universal language this. The tongue which never dies. The simplest, sweetest speech of soul: Its accents let us prize, — Since, low or loud, our songs are but Eehearsals for the skies." CHKISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. Yet there are those who would have us believe that Christianity is a failure ; that what little faith there ever has been on earth is rapidly dying out. One single infidel in this country, confident that Chris- tianity has spent its force, has voluntarily assumed the modest task of destroying the remnant of it from the earth. Voltaire undertook the same work, but he died too quick to accomplish it, and confessed his mistake before he died.* Whether any nineteenth century infidel ■will succeed any better remains to be proved. *It has been a disputed point whether Voltaire, as the end of life approached, returned to the Christian faith of his childhood, and fully ac- knowledged the same. The question seems to be set at rest by recently published extracts from the diary of the late M. Bachaumont, who was well acquainted with Voltaire, his family, and surroundings. In this diary ia found the following confession of faith by the great philosopher and skeptic : " I, the undersigned, declare that I have been attacked, four days ago, by a hemorrhage, at the age of eighty-four years. Not being able to drag WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 37 Certain are we that Christianity is no failure. It is a glorious suc- cess ; it is influential ; it is growing ; it has inherent power. The world respects it, loves it, embraces it. It is converting the world. Bishop R. S. Foster, who has carefully canvassed both sides of this question, has been led to say : " Christianity is confessedly the greats est power in the world. This is so politically, commercially, intel- lectually, and morally. There are other faiths, as Buddhism, with a , more numerous following ; but none with comparable power. The powerful and ruling nations are Christian nations. The aggressive force, the elements of conquest and molding influence — wealth, learn- ing, enterprise, progress — are all in Christian hands. It is a signifi- cant fact that the political power of Christendom dominates almost entire paganism, whilst one-third of paganism is under the absolute sway of Christian rulers. Meantime the heathen nations are decadent and moribund. All the forces of modern thought are Christian. The eyes of heathenism are turned to the centers of Christendom. The heathen world, dissatisfied with its religion and civilization, not less than with its poverty and misery, is looking toward Christendom for help. Every thing is slipping away from it ; and its hope is in something which must come to it from Christian lands." No intelligent and candid observer of modern missionary move- ments, and especially of the heathen doors that are so rapidly open- ing wide to Christian undertakings, can doubt that Christianity, as against heathenism, is a victorious system. The foundations of heathenism are crumbling away before its triumphant onslaughts. And what about Christian faith here at home? Do the people believe in Christianity? Have they sufiicient confidence in its doc- trines to rest their hopes upon them ? That the majority of them ar» not professed Christians must be conceded. The narrow way never* was thronged. The founder of Christianity knew that it would myself to church, M. Le Cure de St. "Sulpice, having consented to add to his kindness to me that of sending to me the Abbe Gauthier, a priest, I have confessed to him, and that I die in the holy Catholic religion in which I was bom, hoping that the mercy of God will deign to pardon all my errors, and the scandal that I have brought to the Church, for which I ask the pardon of God and the Church. Voltaire. " March 2, 1778, in the house of M. the Marquis de Villette, in the pres- ence of M. the Abbe Mignot, my nephew, and of M. the Marquis de Ville- ville, my friend." Voltaire died about two months after, May 30; 1778. The paper and at- testation appear to be authentic, and seem to settle the question as to the faith of Voltaire at his death. 38 FAITH MADE EASY. not be. "Few there be that fiud it." Yet many more believe in the righteousness of the way than walk therein. At heart — that is, in sentiment and general belief — the vast majority of men are Christians. It is proved in times of great trial or calamity, and in sickness and death. The secularists and so-called infidels who are consistent with their pronunciamentos in the whelming tides of grief and affliction are few indeed. In a sense, nearly all men have faith. They can't lielp it. The infidel may jeer at faith as superstition, but he jeers at the inevitable. Religious faith is no more superstitious than scientific, or any other faith. It accepts truth on satisfactory evidence, and no more. Learned and profound men have honored faith. Says Parker : "To me faith, is reason glorified — the sublimest action of the soul ; the key that opens the gate of all great kingdoms and endur- ing empires, of both intellect and spirit.'' "Faith is the hand which lays hold on God." And thus faith honors reason, accepts the sever- est verdicts of honest criticism ; and having done this, faith enters a higher region, and finds there not a shelter only, but a home. Hooker says: "Faith is the highest exercise of reason." And this faith is growing ; it is compelling thought as never before. The mightiest books that issue from the press touch it at some point. Even phys- ical scientists can hardly let it alone. Whatever may be said of the status of traditional belief, we are sure that Christianity is keeping profound thought astir, and by her mighty problems and propositions, commanding the respect of the world's most reverential and erudite thinkers. Christianity is no failure! Or, if it be, then man is a failure ; the earth is a failure ; the race is defeated ; the government of God is tottering toward its downfall, and the universe will again be a chaos. ' Who says Christianity is a failure ? What does his saying amount to? "The man whose face is seamed and ridged all over with the fruits of vice says virtue is a failure ; the bloated, besotted, drivel- ing inebriate says temperance is a failure; the highwayman and the murderer say that the law is a failure ; the reckless violators of the law of health say the science of medicine is a failure ; Pope Pius IX said the civilization of the nineteenth century is a failure; the owl says light is a failure. Is it any wonder that men may be heard, then, to say Christianity is a failure? It is an old cry; every cen- tury since Christ it has been sounded out. But, somehow, this thing we call Christianity does not fail; and the charge of Christianity's failure never seemed quite so absurd as in the high noon of the nineteenth century. He only can make the charge who shuts his eyes to some WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 39 tremendous facts, and who is smitten with the notion that his own little world of doubt and cavil is the whole wide world of thought and feeling of to-day." Look at the churches going up; see the Christian schools being founded; mark the number of philanthropic societies, all organized on a Christian basis; contemplate the broader views taken of troublous questions by all the nations of the earth. Something is toning up the thought of the world, and swaying the population with marvelous influences toward a higher standard. What is it but Christianity? The United States may fail — though God forbid ! — the vilest out- croppings of society in Europe and Asia may continue to flow in until we are morally ingulfed ; but Christianity will ride on. If America prove recreant to her trust, God will choose other nations for a beacon- light in the world; he will never permit his gospel to be without representatives and witnesses. As surely as God is God, so surely will he take care of his truth. GREAT BELIEVERS IN CHRISTIANITY. The greatest proportion of the great men of the world have been believers in God and Christianity. Go among the philosophers. Hear Bacon say : "A little learning disposeth to atheism, but greater depths in philosophy bringeth the soul back to belief." Hear Locke assert his indebtedness to the Bible: "It has revealed unto me many a truth, the manner of which my poor reason can in no way make out." Hear Franklin, but a few months before his death, say, in a letter to President Ezra Stiles, of Yale College : ' ' Here is my creed : I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe ; that he governs it by his providence ; that he ought to be worshiped ; that the most ac- ceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children ; that the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting his conduct in this." Go among the great dis- coverers. There is Columbus, who gave humanity a new world, so devout, and so devoted in pious habits that it was said of him that he might have been taken for a member of some religious order ; his very monogram was a prayer to Christ and the saints. There is Liv- ingstone, who, as a missionary, penetrated the wilds of Africa, and "was as eager to convert men as to find the sources of the Nile." Go among the statesmen and rulers, the warriors and patriots. Atheists and infidels have never guided the destinies of nations, far less estab- lished kingdoms. "England has such a horror of atheism in rulers 40 FAITH MADE EASY. that she will not tolerate their presence in her councils. The United States never had an infidel President, and the majority of her chief magistrates have been profoundly religious men. Gladstone, the fore- most statesman of to-day, has written, like any bishop, upon the su- preme questions of theology — upon doubt and belief — and illustrates in the grandeur of his moral, as well as of his intellectual supremacy, the might of right and the nobility of a conscience swayed by relig- ious ideals." • Bismarck, the great German premier, keeps his Bible constantly before him. His literary amanuensis, Dr. Busch, reports a conversa- tion in which the renowned Prussian remarked : " I do not understand how people can live without a belief, and without a public confession of faith ; without believing in God as the Judge Superior, in a future life, and the duty of fulfilling one's mission on earth. If I were not a Christian, I would not remain at my post a single hour. If I did not believe in God, I would do nothing for human masters. Take away my faith, and you take away my love of country." George Washington, in his life and character, presents so much of the devout and prayerful spirit, that the student can not go amiss of it. In conflict he says: "Let us rely on our sword, and on God." In his resignation he says: "I now make it my earnest prayer, that God will bless my countrymen." No company could ever keep him from worship at the church at Mount Vernon. He was in the habit of reading the Bible and praying with his regiment. He was often found alone in prayer. In his farewell address he warned the nation against infidelity, saying: "Eeligion and morality are indispensable to human happiness. Of all despotism, skepticism is the worst. In vain is a man a patriot who disbelieves in God." John Adams, too, exemplified much of the spirit of a devout be- liever in sacred truths. In a letter to Benjamin Rush, January 21, 1810 (Adams's Works, IX, 627), he said: "The Christian relig- ion, as I understand it, is the brightness of the glory and the express portrait of the character of the eternal, self-existent, independent, benevolent, all-powerful, and all-merciful Creator, Preserver, and Father of the universe, the first good, first perfect, and first fair. It will last as long as the world. Neither savage nor civilized man, witA- (mt a revelation, could ever have discovered or invented it. Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Ar- minian. As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow-disciple with them all." Patrick Henry was thought by some to be in sympathy with WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 41 unbelief, but it was not so. In 1796, in a letter he wrote to his daughter, he said : "The view of the rising country, to my mind, is tarnished by the spread of deism ; but I have this consolation, that the relig- ion of Christ, though attacked by all sorts of foes, and its adherents persecuted, has triumphed, and will succeed. What is there of wit and wisdom in the writings of skeptics, be they Hume, Smollett, or Bolingbroke, though propped by Paine, but what is built on a totter- ing foundation, and therefore can not stand." Alexander Hamilton, whose ability both friends and foes have ac- knowledged, declared: "I believe the religion of Christians to be the truth ; that Jesus Christ is the Son of God ; that he made an atone- ment for our sins by his death, and that he rose for our justification." The testimony of Napoleon has often been referred to. It was made in a conversation with Count de Montholon, whilst at St. Helena. The Kev. Dr. David Bogue, of England, had sent the em- peror a copy of his "Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament," which Napoleon not only carefully read, but was con- vinced by its proofs of the divinity of Christianity. This is attested by eye-witnesses. It is also affirmed that another Englishman presented the unhappy emperor with a splendid copy of the Bible, which he spoke of with profound respect, and in which he read much. Napoleon said : "I know men, and I tell you that Jesus is not a man! The religion of Christ is a mystery which subsists by its own force, and proceeds from a mind which is not a human mind. We find in it a marked individuality, which originated a train of words and maxims unknown before. Jesus borrowed nothing from our knowledge. He exhibited in himself the perfect example of his precepts. Jesus is not a philosopher, for his proofs are miracles, and from the first his disciples adored him. In fact, learning and philosophy are of no use for salvation ; and Jesus came into the world to reveal the mysteries of heaven and the laws of the Spirit. "It was not a day or a battle which achieved the triumph of the Christian religion in the world. No ; it was a long war, a contest for three centuries, begun by the apostles, then continued by the flood of Christian generations. In this war all the kings and potentates on earth were on one side. On the other, I see no army but a mysterious force ; some men scattered here and there in all parts of the world, and who have no other rallying point than a common faith in the mysteries of the Cross. "I die before my time, and my body will be given back to the 42 FAITH MADE EASY. earth to become food for worras. Such is the fate which so soon awaits him who has been called the ' great Napoleon !' What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom ,of Christ, which is. proclaimed, loved, and adored, and which is extending over the whole earth ! Call you this dying ? Is it not living, rather ? The death of Christ is the death of a God !" Turn to the great writers that have made an impression on the world. The celebrated historian, Guizot, in his will, drawn Septem- ber, 1873, said: "I have examined, I have doubted, I have believed that the human mind had power enough to solve the problems pre- sented by man and by the universe, and that the human will had force enough to regulate human life according to the dictates of law and morality. After a long life spent in thought and action I be- came, and am still, convinced that neither the universe is competent to regulate its own movements, nor man to govern his own destiny, by means only of the permanent laws by which they are ordered. It is my profound conviction that God, who created this universe and man, governs, preserves, and modifies them by the action of general laws, which we call natural, and which, as wetl as the general laws, are the emanations of his free and perfect wisdom and his infinite power. , We are permitted to discuss the operations of these laws, and forbidden to understand them in their essence and design. I have, therefore, returned to the faith of my childhood. I am stiU firmly attached to the use of my reason and to the free will which are my gifts from God, and my birthright and my title of honor upon earth ; yet I have learned to feel myself in the hands of God, and sincerely resigned to my large share of ignorance and weakness. I believe in God, and worship him without attempting to understand him. I see his presence and his action, not only in the unchangeable laws of the universe and in the secret life of the soul, but in the history of human society, and especially in the Old and New Testaments, those records of revelation and of the divine action of our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of the human race. I bow before the mys- teries of the Bible and the Gospel, and I refrain from the discussions and scientific solutions by means of which men have tried to explain them. I have a firm faith that God allows me to call myself a Christian ; and I am convinced that when I shall, as will soon be my lot, enter into the full light of day, I shall see how purely human is the origin, and how vain are most of the discussions in this world concerning the things which are divine." Noah Webster is known the world over as the author of the most WRAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 43 popular dictionary of the English language, yet his biographer says of him: "Dr. Webster was a firm believer, during a large part of his life, in the great distinctive doctrines of our Puritan ancestors, whose character he always regarded with the highest veneration. There was a period, however, from the time of his leaving college to the age of forty, when he had doubts as to some of those doctrines, and rested in a different system. Soon after he graduated, being un- certain what business to attempt or by what means he could obtain subsistence, he felt his mind greatly perplexed, and almost over- whelmed with gloomy apprehensions. In this state, as he afterwards informed a friend, he read Johnson's Rambler with unusual interest ; and, in closing the last volume, he made a firm resolution to pursue a course of virtue through life, and to perform every moral and social duty with scrupulous exactness. To this he added a settled belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the governing providence of God, connected with highly reverential views of the divine character and perfections." " Come, now," says Dr. Charles S. Stockton, " to the great lawyers and jurists — men who are accustomed to penetrate fallacies, unveil sophistries, and sift evidence. If religion were a delusion, Christ an impostor, and Christianity a fraud, these are the men who would make discovery of the fact. But we hear Blackstone declaring that it would be sufficient to establish the truth of Christianity, simply to give it a common-law trial. We hear Chancellor Kent declaring that blasphemy was not only a great sin against Deity, but a crime against society, tending to undermine the security of the nation, which, with- out religion, would come to anarchy. We hear John Jay, our great chief-justice, declaring that he had a long life of usefulness to look back upon and an eternity to look forward to. " Direct your steps to the ranks of the great philanthropists, and inquiye among them for your famous infidels. We see Chris- tianity, from its very inception, calling into being hospitals, asy- lums, alms-houses, and orphanages, for the relief of all conditions of suffering, and continuing this work energetically at the present time. Evolution stands by to note calmly the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. Christianity goes to work to make something more fit to survive. How few are the colleges which infi- delity has founded by its gifts and supported by its endowments ! I do not now recall one, except the Girard College. But the Christian Church has dotted this fair land, from Maine to California, with its institutions of learning. From Howard, who, in the interests of 44 FAITH MADE EASY. humanity, visited all the noisome prisons of England and Europe, and died in a pest-house in the far East ; from Cobden and Bright, who contended that the people might have bread ; from Wilberforce, to whom the slaves of England owe their freedom ; from Miss Night- inga|le, nursing the wounded soldiers in the Crimea; from Peabody, leaving his millions to the poor of London to furnish them homes; from Slater, giving vast sums for the education of the blacks of the South ; from Cooper, leaving his splendid Institute behind him as a memorial and a monument — from each of these you would obtain an indignant disclaimer of atheism, and an assertion that religion was the inspiring motive to all their good deeds. "Finally, come among the scientists, the men to whom doubters and scoffers so fondly refer. It is my sincere conviction that science is destined to advance belief. As Paley used the science of his day to support his argument for a God, so are we to consecrate geometry and chemistry and biology for the defense of faith. And though many men who are scientists may proclaim themselves infidels, it is carefuUy to be inquired whether their science made them infidels, or whether they were so before and for other reasons; and whether a true belief might not have brought them nearer to the great Cen- tral Truth of the universe, whence they could better unravel all truth. " Mr. Darwin, indeed, confessed that there were twt) things of which he never had experienced the need — poetry and religion ; but does not this rather argue a defect in his constitution than that men should abjure all poetry and all religion thereafter forever? And Mr. Tyndall says that the continuance of religion is assured by the unquenchable emotions of the human heart. We have, indeed, some scientists to-day, like Huxley, who are not remarkable for faith ; but for one such there are a score almost, as eminent students of the same subjects, who are believers. And if we review the list of the scien- tists of former ages, we shall see, among religious men. Bacon, Coper- nicus and Galileo, Newton, Cuvier, Lardner, Faraday, Franklin, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Kepler, who cried : ' I think thy thoughts, O God!' We hear Carl Bitter, the great geographer, sending on his book to be one more note in the great choral anthem — the Gloria in Excdsis — which science must be ever raising if she would keep her integrity. We hear Hugh Miller calling his geological work ' Foot- prints of the Creator;' we hear Dana arguing for immortality, be- cause man has the promise of another world, in that this has been so magnificently fitted up simply to be his dwelling-place. We hear Asa Gray, the distinguished botanist, declaring that the tendency of WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 45 science is not toward the omnipotence of matter, but toward the omnip- otence of spirit. We hear Morse, the electrician, saying of his in- vention of the telegraph, 'It comes to me like an inspiration from God;' and, if we listen to the first words that were flashed over the wires stretched from city to city, they are these: 'What hath God wrought !' We hear Agassiz, on the island of Penikese, saying to his class, just about to commence the study of biology: 'Young gentle- men, before we commence to look into the secrets of nature, let us seek wisdom from nature's God. Let us pray.' And so I might summon Proctor and Wallace and Guyot and Mitchell and Winchell, all scientists of these times, who yet can maintain scientific consistency and accuracy without repudiating God and the Bible. If a few names of infidel scientists are on every one's tongue, it is simply be- cause their very rarity allows them all to be easily known." CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE. Science and religion are not opposites, like light and darkness, heat and cold, fire and water. There is no conflict between them. There may be want of harmony between a science falsely so called, and a theology that disallows of progressive interpretation. So there may be differences of views between theorists, both in true science and genuine theology. There are scientists that assail Christianity to their own shame, and theologians who dabble in science to their hurt. These things need not be. Science and religion are handmaidens, but each has a different mission in the world. The one has to do primarily with matter, and is cool, hard, calculating, and exact. The other has to do fundamentally with spirit, and is warm, zealous, tender, and persuasive. Both certainly may be true, and as far as they are true, are equally entitled to respect. The ascertained facts of natural science are as deserving of regard as the established truths of phi- lology or archaeology. As we accept those doctrines of the Church which are found to accord with every-day life and the highest forms of experience, so we ought to receive the indubitable results of scien- tific investigation and discovery. The Bible is the Word of God, and nature is the work of God, and there can be no permanent antago- nism between them. When they interpret each other, and prove their own concord, we should be happy ; and when they seem to differ we should wait calmly and confidently for clearer light. The principles of truth must harmonize. One truth can not successfully contradict another truth. No position in revelation can be true if it be contra- 46 FAITH MADE EASY. dictory to another truth, whether in revelation, science, or any thing else. Prof. Henry Drummond thinks that religion is just learning the true attitude and status of science, and that instead of fearing the results of scientific investigation, she is disposed calmly to inquire: " What good gifts are the wise men bringing now to lay at the feet of our Christ?" In one sense he thinks religion is independent of science, but in another it is not. For science is not independent of religion, and religion dare not leave it. Science has feelings. What she actually demonstrates as truth she thinks entitled to respect. It requires time to solidify new truth so that it is fit to be built into the eternal truth of the Christian system ; but true science wants to be respected, even though young, and sooner or later she unfolds good things which Christianity can utilize, and place as in a niche in the temple of God. Science has no secrets. Its facts can be seen and handled ; they are facts. In them men feel that they have something to believe in, independent of opinion, prejudice, self-interest, or tradi- tion. Its students are, therefore, vigorous, devoted, and intense in their faith. Christianity also has facts. , Her rapid spread in the world is attributable to the presentation of these facts. When her votaries long ago began to exhibit the evidence of the facts, instead of the facts themselves, they lost much of their impressiveness upon the human mind. The facts, ceasing to be their own warrant, had to be enforced by the establishment of judicial relations between Church and State. It is these intermediaries between the facts and the modern observer that stumble science. Its method is to deal with the facts direct, not with the custodians of, or necessarily with the opinions developed from, the facts. And this, Mr. Drummond thinks, is a right method. It is the method of all reformation. It was the method of the Eeformation. Luther revolted against intermediaries, and appealed to facts. "Critics in every tongue are engaged upon the facts; travelers in every land are unveiling facts; exegetes are at work upon the words, scholars upon the manuscripts ; skeptics, be- lieving and unbelieving, are eliminating the not-facts ; and the whole field is alive with workers." One result, now showing itself, of this adoption of the scientific method by many in the Christian Church is the turning from the old method of proving Christianity by the evi- dences to the plan of proofs by facts. "The evidence for Christianity is a Christian. The unit of physics is the atom, of biology the cell, of philosophy the man, of theology the Christian. The natural man, his regeneration by the Holy Spirit; the spiritual man, and his rela- tions to the world and to God — these are the modern facts for a scien- WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 47 tific theology." We must study conversion. We must invite candid scientists to a test of spiritual phenomena. These are just as real as any to be found in nature, and they will prove to be Christianity's most powerful witness. Careful observers will have noted that this is really the present plan of defense by the Church against the assumptions and assertions of skeptical men. Christianity is its own justification, and we are showing it. Without despising or forsaking the external evidences for revelation and miracle, we are turning to the nearer and more palpable evidence of the fact of Christianity at work in the world. We point to religion displaying itself in human life. We cite religious organizations in all lands, exhibiting a splendid unity of spirit, purpose, and endeavor. We show that there is a divine life in the world now, that miracles of spiritual healing and cleansing are yet being wrought, and that in the spiritual phe- nomena around us on every hand is an actual demonstration of the truth of Christianity. Science has confirmed many religious truths, and will confirm many more. Revelation has guided to scientific discovery, and will so guide yet again. Science will establish more religious tenets than it will overthrow, and those that it overthrows nobody wants. Chris- tian truth that science confirms ought to have double weight upon the minds of men ; and there is already enough truth so established to Christianize the world, and enthrone Christ as king in every heart. Thiis says President McCosh : "Science has a foundation, and so has religion. Let them unite their foundations, and the basis will be broader, and they will be two compartments of one great fabric reared to the glory of God. Let the one be the outer, and the other the inner court. In the one, let all look and admire and adore; and in the other, let those who have faith kneel and pray and praise. Let the one be the sanctuary where human learning may present its rich- est incense as an offering to God, and the other, the holiest of all, separated from it by a veil now rent in twain, in which on a blood- sprinkled mercy-seat we pour out the love of a reconciled heart, and hear the oracles of the living God." Many scientific theories are not yet incontrovertibly established. If they ever are, Christianity will be found progressive enough to adapt itself to them. Biblical interpretation is sure to keep pace with scientific investigation. Indeed, one embarrassment is that certain theologians feel needless alarm at scientific announcements, and hasten forward with explanations that in the end prove entirely unnecessary and harmful. When a scientific principle or discovery has stood the 48 FAITH MADE EASY. test of world-wide criticism for fifty years, there will then be time enough to co-ordinate to it an opposed religious dogma that has stood the test of a thousand. Least of all should ordinary thinkers be filled with consternation. The experts will take care of fine points, and see that no unnecessary concessions are made on either side. No danger that Christianity will sufier for want of untrained de- fenders! Our Christian schools are turning out men every year fully competent to meet the champions of skeptical science. Our scholars of to-day have met the enemies of German rationalism, and they are vanquished. "No need of the hypothesis of a God to account for the present condition of the universe !" said the rationalists of ten years ago. Religion was sneered at, and many feared that the Church would be overthrown. But, as Bishop Warren has observed, "the Christian colleges stood firm. The trained men they had put in the field- never flinched. The battle raged for ten years. Scientific thought was met on its own ground by Christian thinkers, and for years past every careful observer has seen that the battle has been won. Tyndall hedged; Spencer denied the interpretation put on his words; and last Summer's great meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found a Christian tone and a regard for sacred things pervading the discussions, and found a vast majority of itf3 members, actually members of the Christian Church, or regular attendants upon divine services. The clouds have rolled away, and the nineteenth century goes marching down toward its close, and every flag that flies in its van is blazoned with the cross of Christ." Christianity must continue to be Christian ; she must be warm- hearted; she must draw her inspiration from on high, not from the rocks or forests or earth-worms. She has her own field, her own mis- sion, her own defense, her own resources, and her own inherent power. She must simply keep humble, pray much, work diligently, and go forward. Yet she must be alert and watchful, wise and appropriat- ing. Whatever forces or methods she can enlist in her own cause, and use to pfermanent advantage, she must not despise. She is in the world to convert the world and bring it home to God. She can not be of the world, yet she must continue to command the respect of the world, and employ such processes and powers as will soonest and most thoroughly turn the world upside down, that it may be spiritually right-side up. This old earth was morally upset in Eden ; it is the mission of Christianity to restore it to its former equilibrium. Christianity must firmly adhere to all truths strictly within her own domain. Concessions here are not beneficial, but damaging. She WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 49 is the custodian and promulgator of some truths which pure science can never know. As Rev. H. Bonar has pointedly stated : "The cross of Christ is the true exponent of the supernatural. The only scien- tific religion that we acknowledge is the religion of the cross. A re- ligion framed by scientific men upon the principles of pure science, and scientifically eliminating all revealed truth from its articles ; a religion that will prove no stumbling-block to men of science, but rather com- mand their admiration and their faith ; a religion which can be taught in our universities without coming into collision with Scripture, and which will chiefly get credit to itself among the thinkers of our day by its skillful exclusion of the name of Christ; a religion which will really be the expression of distaste for all the prophets and apostles have taught — such a religion will not be that which Paul preached at Corinth, and of which he said : ' The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.' The idealists of our time ask for a scientific cross; but there shall no such cross be given. Our philosophers call for a philosophic gospel ; but there shall no such gospel be sent down from heaven. Our advanced thinkers and men of expansion demand a Christ for the nineteenth century ; but no such Christ has arisen, or shall arise. It must be either the First Century Cross, the First Century Gospel, the First Century Christ, or no cross, no gospel, no Christ at all. A cultured world now calls aloud for a cultured Christ, and refuses its allegiance to any other ; but there shall no other Christ be given but the son of the carpenter — 'He who was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; upon whom the chastisement of our peace was laid, and with whose stripes we are healed.' "- "But is it not generally understood that Christianity is unalter- ably opposed to the scientific theory of origins? that revelation and evolution can not both be true ?" It may be so, and the understand- ing may be correct too. The evolution hypothesis is by no means substantiated. Men of thought have come to feel that possibly its foundation is little better than a crust ; that the few old fossils it has picked up near the surface of things, and out of them ingeniously constructed " connecting- links," may after all crumble away and leave nothing but airy speculation ; in a word, that it needs just what it has not had, demonstration. The great naturalist, Louis Agassiz, never accepted the doctrine of evolution of distinct types of beings out of preceding and different types by the ordinary processes of nature. 4 50 FAITH MADE EASY. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, a. distinguished American author, who has given special attention to the most recent arguments of evolu- tionists, and who has embodied the results of his inquiries in a very philosophical treatise entitled, " Creation, or Evolution," says of the latter: "The result of my study of the hypothesis of evolution is, that it is an ingenious but delusive mode of accounting for the exist- ence of either the body or the mind of man ; and that it employs a kind of reasoning which ho person of sound judgment would apply to any thing that might affect his welfare, his happiness, his estate, or his conduct in the practical affairs of life." Learned men have begun to inquire how the craze of evolution started, and why it has startled the world, and what there is of it anyhow. Among these we find the great name of Max Miiller, whose famous "Lectures on the Science of Language," and other scholarly works, have such weighty bearing on important problems of philos- ophy and religion. He now speaks out plainly, telling that evolution has no truth at its basis or beginning, and that its recent prominence as a mode of thought is chiefly owing to a bold question, and not less bold answer, by a skeptical scientist recently deceased. We quote Mr. Muller's words entire : " Most ethnologists used to hold that, as each individaal begins as a child, mankind also began as a child ; and they imagined that a careful observation of the modern child would give them some idea of the character of the primeval child. Much ingenuity has been spent on this subject since the days of Voltaire, and many amusing books have been the result, till it was seen at last that the modern baby and the primeval baby have nothing in common but the name, not even a mother or a nurse. "It was chiefly due to Darwin and to the new impulse which he gave to the theory of evolution that this line of argument was aban- doned as hopeless. Darwin boldly asked the question, Avhose child the primeval human baby could have been, and he answered it by rep- resenting the human baby as the child of non-human parents. Ad- mitting even the possibility of this trandtio in aliud genus, which the most honest of Darwin's followers strenuously deny, what should we gain by this for our purpose; namely, for knowing the primitive state of man, the earliest glimmerings of the human intellect? Our difiiculties would remain exactly the same, only pushed back a little further. "Disappointing as it may sound, the fact must be faced, never- theless, that our reasoning faculties, wonderful as they are, break WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 51 down completely before all problems .concerning the origin of things. We may imagine, we may believe, any thing we like about the first man; we can know absolutely nothing. If we trace him back to a primeval cell, the primeval cell that could become a man is more mysterious by far than the man that was evolved from a cell. If we trace him back to a primeval pro-anthropos, the pro-anthropos is more unintelligible to us than even the anthropos would be. If we trace back the whole solar system to a rotating nebula, that wonderful nebula which by evolution and revolution could become an inhabita- ble universe is, again, far more mysterious than the universe itself. "The lesson that there are limits to our knowledge is an old lesson, but it has to be taught again and again. It was taught by Buddha, it was taught by Socrates, and it was taught for the last time in the most powerful manner by Kant. Philosophy has been called the knowledge of our knowledge; it might be called more truly the knowledge of our ignorance, or to adopt the more moderate language of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge." Other scholars have spoken just as strongly, especially as regards evolution and the human race. Dr. F. L. Fatten, of the Princeton Theological Seminary, puts his argument in a nutshell thus: "It is hard to see how the facts of Scripture in regard to the creation of woman, the descent of the human family from a single pair, the original righteousness of our first parents, their fall and that of their posterity through a single act of disobedience, the subsequent provisions of the economy of grace, in which Adam's representative character is presupposed, can be accounted for, except by believing in the special creation of Adam and Eve ; it would be farther than we have any right to go, to say that these facts can never be harmo- nized with evolution. We do not see how they can. And we see no reason for going in quest of any theory that will effect this reconcilia- tion, inasmuch as there is not the slightest evidence that contravenes the doctrine that man was an immediate creation of God." Yet it is only fair to say that many Christian scholars find noth- ing to stumble at in the hypothesis of evolution. They claim, and very plausibly too, that the Mosaic account of creation nowhere an- tagonizes the method of development to which true science adheres. They think, what Kev. J. G. Vaughn has very well expressed, that "revelation and science are agreed that the formation of the physical universe preceded every thing else. The crust of the earth has a his- tory which the geologist can read. As he begins to read its pages and pass downward in its depths he passes strata after strata at vast ?2 FAITH MADE EASY. intervals, and thus soon passes our historic landmarks. Time can not be reckoned very accurately by this process, but duration is marked rather by great intervals, such as the return of a continent to the bosom of the ocean, where it had been formed ages before. It mat- ters not how shallow our graves may be, we are doomed to rest in the dust of a departed world ; for as we descend downward ' ages fly by at every step,' and as we go on we soon pass all signs of human life, and then all the fossils representing the animals with which we are familiar, and are into a new world. In this new fossiliferous world we meet with the animals and reptiles long since extinct, whose remains we keep in our museums. Our journey is not a long one (if we measure distance instead of time), until animal existence is extinct, and in the vegetable kingdom no familiar plant appears ; only a few steps more, and the world is a great waste, without life or ver- dure. Who will compute the time necessary for these slow sediment- ary formations and changes, when he remembers that the last three thousand years have made almost no perceptible change upon the face of the earth ? This time seems long, however, only when we consider it in relation to ourselves, not when we consider it in relation to Him with whom 'a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years.' This is no proof for the eternity of matter; for science teaches an orderly succession in the formation of the world, and succession postulates a beginning and primal cause. No matter how far into the dim distance of the past science traces these successions, the orig- inal and primal cause back of this material universe is God." All that is necessary for the Christian believer to keep in mind is the fact before intimated, that there are two classes of scientists at work in the world — the ohe reverent and devout, the other irrever- ent, hasty and uncertain. The former are the true scientists, and in the end are certain to triumph. They deal with facts. The safest philosophy always reasons from what is known. Its method is in- ductive. It is in no haste to herald theory. It first proves, then pub- lislies. It plods along until sure of truthful discovery, and in the end substantiates its claims or withdraws them. It is modest as well as great. It can gracefully and frankly acknowledge its errors and de- fects. It does not wish to deceive. Between such science and revela- tion there is no conflict, and never has been any. Traced to its real essence, the real controversy is between belief and unbelief; and " when it reaches that point, neither the revelation of God in nature, nor the revelation of God in the Bible, is of any avail to convince the gainsay er." » WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 53 TESTIMONIES EESPECTING CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE. " Instead of stumbling at special and transient collisions, I have seen it to be true, as in all other healthy, open-eyed vision, that the worlds of matter and spirit, and the revelations of Scripture and science, gloriously supplement and interpret each other. As the body is organized to the uses of the spirit, and the shrine to its resi- dent divinity, so science is evermore unveiling the Temple which none other than the Triune God of Christianity can fill with his presence and crown with his glory. " The conviction of the truth of Christianity is greatly confirmed by the violent contrasts afforded by all other religions, by the miser- able failures the best of them achieve ; in their historical records, in their representations of God, of nature, and of man ; in their pro- visions for the needs of the human reason, conscience, or affection; in the relation of their cosmogonies to the results of modern science ; and in their influence upon human character and life, individual and collective." (A. A. Hodge.) " I am not aware that any of the leading authorities of physical science are opposed to what they believe to be Christianity ; and the lives of the best authorities of science have always been of a purity of which Christianity could not but approve." (Benjamin Peirce.) " What science calls the uniformity of nature, faith accepts as the fidelity of God. It is a wonderful sermon that science is all the while preaching to us from the text, ' God is faithful.' " (James Martin eau.) " How beautifully the idea of God falls in with the revelations of •science ! It is he who gives to the swallow its power of flight, its telescopic vision, and its sense of direction by which it finds its way over the trackless ocean. To the devout soul the singing of the birds is the very voice of God, and the vast circle of animated nature his handiwork. Spring is fragrant with his presence, the singing of the birds and the low cooing of the turtle-dove sound aloud his praise." (Rev. David Keppel.) Professor SUliman made this record: "Now, at eighty-two and a half years of age, still, by God's forbearance and blessing, possess- ing my mental powers unimpaired, and looking over the barrier beyond which I soon must pass, I can truly declare that, in the study and exhibitions of science to my pupils and fellow-men, I have never 54 FAITH MADE EASY. forgotten to give all honor and glory to the infinite Creator — happy if 1 might be the honored interpreter of a portion of his works and of the beautiful structure and beneficent laws discovered therein by the labors of many illustrious predecessors. For this I claim no credit. It is the result to which right reason and sound philosophy, as well as religion, would naturally lead. " While I have never concealed my convictions on these subjects, nor hesitated to declare them on all proper occasions I have also declared my belief, that while natural religion stands on the basis of revelation, consisting, as it does, of the facts and laws which form the domain of science, science has never revealed a system of mercy commensurate with the moral wants of man. In nature, in God's creation, we dis- cover only laws — laws of undeviating strictness, and sore penalties attached to their yiolation. There is associated with natural laws no system of mercy. That dispensation is not revealed in nature, and is contained in the Scriptures alone. With the double view just pre- sented, I feel that science and religion may walk hand in hand. They form two distinct volumes of revelation, and both being records of the will of the Creator, both may be received as constituting a unity, de- claring the mind of God ; and, therefore, the study of both becomes a duty, and is perfectly consistent with our highest moral obligations." MODERN MISSIONS. We believe that Christian missions form a part of God's plan for saving the world. Their progress in the past and their promise for the future indicate that God's hand is in them. There are now esti- mated 856,000,000 heathen, 170,000,000 Mohammedans, 8,000,000 Jews, 190,000,000 Eoman Catholics, 48,000,000 Greek and Oriental Christians, and 116,000,000 Protestants. Let none say that this showing is discouraging if it represents the only accomplishment of the Church in eighteen long centuries. It must be remembered that modern missionary effort began only three or four generations ago. All the great missionary societies of Europe and America were organized during the first quarter of the present century. Opposition to such schemes at first was strong, and not a few of the early promulgators of such ideas were laughed to scorn. The first missionaries went out largely on their own responsi- bility, and were generally regarded a& enthusiasts by the very Churches which they represented. Good men could not well argue against imparting to heathens that gospel which it was the business WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 55 of their own lives to teach ; but they deemed such plans as visionary, attempts to hurry the Almighty in, his own work, fraught with dan- ger to nationalities, and involving such outlays of time, labor, and money as would discourage Christianity itself. But the men who went forth stood firmly at their post. Some died in foreign lauds of climatic difiiculties, some were eaten by cannibals, but none wavered in adherence to their sublime endeavor. When converts began to be made, and the joy of heathenism was expressed at receiving the news of the gospel; when new fields opened up, and the ripened harvests everywhere awaited the reaper's sickle; in a word, when the entire feasibility of anissionary enterprises was practically demonstrated, then the Churches aroused, and committed themselves to an undertaking from which they can not desist until the false systems of religion which curse the earth are extirpated. Consider what Christianity has done in less than one century, or since she addressed herself seriously to the task of evangelizing the world. Within about eighty years, she has increased her missionary societies tenfold, i. e. , from seven to seventy; and her missionaries more than tenfold, i. e., from two hundred to twenty-three hundred; and her native evangelizing force from almost none to twenty-three thousand male helpers, with a great number of female workers, and her converts from heathendom from fifty thousand to nearly seventeen millions, ' and her contributions to this work twenty-five hundred per cent. The first signal triumph of missionary work took place in the Sand- wich Islands. The inhabitants were degraded beyond description. They fed on raw fish and the fiiesh of dogs. They used to excess a native intoxicant, and made themselves drunken. They ofiered hu- man sacrifices. They lived in the most extreme licentiousness. The family relation was unknown. Two-thirds of the children born were strangled or buried alive by their parents.' They preyed on each other and upon foreigners that chanced to pass that way in ships. Population was dying out as the result of desperate vices. In 1819 a little missionary party from Boston reached those islands. The missionaries introduced themselves to the drunken young king, and made known their purpose. Happily, no objections were raised, and the work began. The native language was studied. The king and his court were induced to take lessons in reading and writing. This gave the new teachers wonderful influence. Preaching commenced, and the truth of Christianity commenced to leaven the awful errors of barbarism. Baptisms were frequent. An old warrior chief embraced 56 FAITH MADE EASY. religion, and died a Christian. Churches and schools were estab- lished, and a Sabbath law was promulgated. Marriage was insti- tuted and the family relation founded. A temperance society was formed, one-third of the people attended school, and the whole pop- ulation came under the influence of religion. Within twenty years, Christianity became the accepted faith of the nation. The struggle be- tween virtue and vice was, of course, in many cases a hard one ; but as faith increased, morality also prevailed. The people becaipe quiet and industrious. They entered into Christian work for themselves. Young natives studied for the miuistry, and when they began to preach their own people supported them. The missionaries saw that their own work was done. The nation was Christianized. Fifty years from its opening the mission was closed, the entire cost being only about one and one-quarter millions of dollars. " Thus," says Robert Mackenzie, "at greatly less than the cost of one iron-clad ship- of-war this little nation was turned to God. A complete success it was, too. Heathenism utterly disappeared from the islands ; Christianity .-had come instead, bringing in its train security to life and property, peace, industry, education, arts, and general progress ; raising the wasteful and treacherous savage to the dignity of a God-fearing, law- abiding citizen, who bears fairly his part in contributing to the com- mon welfare of the human family." Another example : In 1816 a man named Johnson, went to Sierra Leone to find a thousand people rescued from slave-ships, represent ing more than twenty nations, unable to hold converse, but preying upon each other like wild beasts, given to worse vices, brutal and devilish. "He preached the simple gospel to them, devoutly praying for their salvation. In less than a year the woods were echoing with prayers of penitence, and the hills ringing with hymns of faith. Honest industries took' the place of thievery ; they built a stone house, and filled it with a crowd of worshipers, and surrounded it by all signs of an orderly, thriving. Christian state. Marriage sanctified their homes, a thousand children crowded their schools, heathen revels gave place to Christian rites. All this Mr. Johnson himself lived to see, though he died seven years after he landed." Those who assert that modern missions are a failure, lay them- selves open to the charge of culpable ignorance, if not willful perver- sion of the truth. Take the example of India missions, and listen to the words of Rev. D. Valentine, D. D. : " Eighty years ago the fires of Suttee were publicly blazing, even in the presidency towns of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, and all WHAT TO BELIEVE ABOUT CHRISTIANITY. 57 over India. Upon these fires the screaming and struggling widow — in many cases herself a mere child — was bound and burned to ashes with the dead body of her husband. " Eighty years ago infants were publicly thrown into the Ganges as sacrifices to the goddess of the river. Eighty years ago .young men and maidens, decked with flowers, were slain in Hindoo temples be- fore the hideous idol of the goddess Kalee, or hacked to pieces as the Meras, that their quivering flesh might be given to propitiate the god of the soil. Eighty years ago the cars of Juggernaut iwere rolling over India, crushing hundreds of human victims annually beneath their wheels. Eighty years ago lepers were buried alive; devotees publicly starved themselves to death ; children brought their dying parents to the banks of the Ganges, and hastened their deaths by fill- ing their mouths with sand and water of the so-called sacred river. Eighty years ago the swinging festivals attracted thousands to see the poor, writhing wretches, with iron hooks thrust through the muscles of their backs, swing in mid-air in honor of the gods. " For these scenes that disgraced the India of eighty years ago we may now look in vain. Every one of these changes for the better is due, either directly or indirectly, to the missionary enterprise. They were missionaries and the friends of missions who brought these tre- mendous evils to light. ' Branded as fanatics and satirized as fools, they ceased not until one by one these hideous crimes were crushed out by the strong arm of the legislature. Just so we will not cease to agitate until the accursed opium-trade and other evils cease to exist." A missionary, the Eev. Dr. Thackwell, says that India is as cos- mopolitan as Europe. Europe has one religion, the Christian ; India, also, has but one, that of idolatry. Along the lines of the railways lie the great centers of trade, and there the English language is spoken very extensively, so that travelers have no trouble whatever in passing through India. As an indication that the grip of caste has been relaxed, it may be mentioned that some of their temples, long lighted ^ith a rare perfumed oil, are now lighted with American kerosene. Many high-caste Brahmins have already been converted, and joined the Christian Church. There are many allusions in the Hindoo books to Christ, and a prophecy that the world will all be Christ's. The Hindoostanee appellation of Christ means, " One who is pure — free from sin." India now has a Christian lieutenant-gov- ernor, and the conditions for the spread of Christianity there are all favorable. Look at some other countries. Most people, well informed in missionary intelligence, have' heard of the China Inland Mission, 58 FAITH MADE EASY. but its remarkable history and wonderful success are not so generally known. Thirty years ago Mr. J. Hudson Taylor, a godly English Meth- odist, feeling impressed with the religious needs of China's millions, went to that country and labored alone for several years. In 1866, with six helpers besides Mrs. Taylor, he established the China Inland Mission. His plan was strictly one of self-support ; no guarantee of income to his missionaries ; no personal solicitation of money ; only using what was sent in voluntarily. The mission is non-denominational, and includes Churchmen, Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists. The work has steadily grown, and contributions have flowed in, until one hundred and sixty missionaries are at work, and the voluntary income is $90,000 annually. Twenty-five years ago, Madagascar had only a few hundred scat- tered and persecuted converts. Soon the draft of a treaty of amity and commerce was sent out from England to that country, and on the margin these words were written : "Queen Victoria asks, as a per- sonal favor to herself, that the queen of Madagascar will allow no per- secution of the Christians.'' A month afterward the treaty was signed in Madagascar, with the insertion of the following words: "In ac- cordance with the wish of Queen Victoria, the queen of Madagascar engages that there shall be no persecution of the Christians in Mada- gascar." Now the queen and her prime minister, with more than two hundred thousand subjects, are adherents to Christianity. The island is Christian. What was accomplished in these communities is being done in Southern Africa, South America, Japan, and other countries. The work is yet only in its infancy, but enough has been done to indicate the triumphs that are yet to follow. Every year increases the num- ber and power of the agencies employed. Faith in missions has grown broader and more intelligent. Christians do not now expect to see vast heathen territories occupied and time-worn systems of error and superstition overthrown iu a day. The world's evangelization is the work of generations, perhaps of centuries. But our share in it is none the less important and binding. If we serve our generation faithfully, and our children theirs, and our children's children theirs, and so on down through the future, God will bless the common en- deavor, and crown it with success. What matters it that our eyes behold not the end ? We shall open them again when the roll of the centuries is complete, and surely we shall be glad for the part we sus- tain in helping to spread millennial glory over the earth. Part II. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. HOW THE BIBLE WAS MADE. " r I "^HE BIBLE" is a name given to the Holy Scriptures by way J. of pre-eminence. It is from the Greek, Bi§\o<; (Biblos), " The Book." The name is appropriate; for, as Sir Walter Scott said in his dying hour, " there is but one book, the Bible." The Bible, as a whole, comprises sixty-six canonical (authoritative) books, of which twenty-two are historical, five poetical (written in Hebrew verse), eighteen prophetical, and twenty-one epistolary. These were written in three languages, at intervals during a period of sixteen hundred years, by no less than thirty-six different writers of every grade of culture, and moving in various spheres of life : "Two kings, one cup-bearer, one lawgiver, one judge, one scribe, and many prophets, one of whom was a king's chief minister, another a missionary, and a third a farmer's son; two fishermen, a tent-maker, a publican, a physician, and others." "Some were written in Asia, and some in Europe; some among heathen, others among true worshipers; two in Babylon, and one on a lonely island in the Mediterranean Sea." Unity, in such a variety, could not have been possible, except under the guidance of a Divine Mind. Only one type of doctrine and morality is unfolded in the entire record as suitable for man's adoption. This appears no less certainly in the glimmering symbols of Moses (B. C. 1450) than in the luminous codes of Paul and John sixteen centuries later. It is a mistake to suppose the books of the Bible appeared in the same order as written. The Book of Job is probably the oldest book of the Old Testament. The books of the Old Testament are said' to have been collected and arranged by Ezra, between 458 and 450 B. C. The books of the New Testament are believed to have come before the world in the following order : 1. St. Paul's epistles. 59 60 FAITH MADE EASY. 2. Epistle to the Hebrews. 3. The first three Gospels. 4. Epistle of St. James. 5. The Revelation. 6. Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude. 7. Acts of the Apostles. 8. Gospel and Epistles of St. John. Just when and by whom the books of the New Testament were collected together, is a disputed point. Some have argued that St. John did this work ; at all events it was accon^lished at an early- date. The list, as we have it, first appeared in the Canons of the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 364. The Apocryphal Books, "so named from anzoxpuTZTU) (^Apocrupto, to hide), because they were wont to be read, not openly and in common, but, as it were, in secret and apart" (Preface of Bible of 1539), were never admitted by the Jews as part of the Old Testament, nor are they ever quoted in the New Testa- ment. Wanting authority, and of doubtful origin, they are, there- fore, not included in the canon of Scripture. Like other uninspired writings, they contain much truth, and may be useful for edification ; but, as Jerome observes, "the Church doth not apply them to estab- lish any doctrine." Romanists, however, according to the Council of Trent, admit them as canonical. Some one has observed the proportions of Bible matter as follows: Of 1,000 pages in the Bible, the Old Testament has 764 pages; and the New Testament 236 pages. Of the Old Testament, the Law has 200 pages ; the Prophets have 200 pages ; and the Psalms 364 pages. Of the New Testament, the Gospels have 104 pages; the Acts, 31 pages ; the Epistles, 83 pages ; and the Revelation has 15 pages. Rev. J. G. Williamson, Jr., has said that "Christ, as far as we know, never penned a line nor told his disciples to. He simply sent them out, saying : ' Go, teach.' His sayings lived only in their memories. After his ascension, the danger of distortion or loss of Christ's words becoming evident, they recorded them in the Gospels. Soon after the Acts of the Apostles were added. Then, from time to time, epistles were written to the Churches. These ^yere generally written by scribes or rapid writers at the dictation of the author.' Only occasionally did the apostles pen them themselves. Once Paul said to the Galatians : ' See with how large letters I have written unto you with mine own hand,' calling attention to his bold hand. These New Testament writings were all in the Greek language. "The material on which the Old and New Testament books were first written was papyrus, a frail kind of paper made from the reeds of the Nile. This was easily torn and tattered. After a time the more durable parchment came into use, made from the skins of ante- lopes and calves carefully prepared. Both papyrus and parchment WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 61 sheets were wound on sticks and called rolls, or stitched together and called books. " None of the original Old Testament manuscripts or original New Testament manuscripts remain. They have all been lost or destroyed. Some say, How do we know, then, that we have the Old Testament or New Testament Scriptures? "I answer: The Old Testament manuscripts and New Testament manuscripts were intrusted to the guardianship of a class religiously set apart for the purpose. The text was sacred to them all. During the ages while the Jews were persecuted and downtrodden, they were guarding these manuscripts. All copies, too, were made under their direction, and with a most marvelous devotion to the letter. Iron rules were enjoined upon them. There had to be on each parchment so many columns, and so many lines in each column, and so many words in each line. The ink had to be of a certain kind. The vowels, consonants, and accents had to be marked. So careful were they that they reproduced even the mistakes of the' original manu- scripts with such minute accuracy the one hundredth copy was as good as the original manuscripts. "But more, we have hundreds of manuscripts of the Old Testament and hundreds of manuscripts of the New Testament. When we com- pare these manuscripts, some earlier, others later, copied by diiferent copyists, we find substantial agreement. The differences amount to nothing; so in this way again we know that we have the original manuscripts. "At a literary party in Edinburgh the question was asked : 'Sup- posing all the New Testaments in the world had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could their contents have been recovered from the writings of the first three centuries ?' No one could answer. Lord Hailes, who was present, on going home, took down from his library all the writings of those centuries and set to work to cull out all quotations from the New Testament from them. He kept at it two months, and at the end of that time he had gathered from them the whole New Testament, with the exception of seven or eleven verses. Although we do not have the original manuscripts, yet in many ways we know that we have the words of the original. What do we care for the yellow and musty old parchments or papyrus rolls so long as we have their contents?" It is probably a good thing that the original manuscripts were lost or destroyed. Such is the tendency of man to worship sacred things that if they were in existence they would be objects of idolatry. So 62 FAITH MADE EASY. » would the Bible, as we now have it, if it contained no marks of man's imperfect work upon it. We are to take the Bible for what it means, and this we can easily learn. The same blessed Spirit who inspired it will make it plain to every candid, diligent, prayerful student. DEVELOPMENT OF OUR ENGLISH BIBLE. The first translation of any portion of the Bible into the Saxon language was by Alfred in 761, consisting of the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, with the Apostles' Creed. Of the first printed Bible, by Faust, Chambers's Journal remarks as follows: " This mag- nificent work was executed with cut metal types on 637 leaves, some of the copies on fine paper, and others on vellum, and is sometimes called the ' Mazarin Bible,' a copy having been unexpectedly found in Cardinal Mazarin's library, at Paris. It is also called the ' forty-two- line Bible,' because each full column contains that number of lines ; and, lastly, Gutenberg's Bible, because John Gutenberg was associated with Faust and Schoeffer in its issue. It was printed in Latin, and the letters were such an exact imitation of the work of an amanuensis, that the copies were passed off by Faust, when he visited Paris, as manuscript, the discovery of the art of printing being kept a pro- found secret. Faust sold a copy to the king of France for seven hundred crowns, and another to the archbishop of Paris for four hundred crowns ; although he appears to have charged less noble cus- tomers as low as sixty crowns. The low price and a uniformity of the lettering of these Bibles caused universal astonishment. The capital letters in red ink were said to be printed with his blood ; and as he could immediately produce new copies ad libitum, he was adjudged in league with Satan. Faust was apprehended, and was forced to reveal the newly discovered art of printing to save himself from the flames." The first English translation of the Bible was that of Wicklif, about A. D. 1.S80-83. Here is a specimen : " If I speke with the tungis of men and of aungels, and I haue not charite, I am maad as bras sownynge, or a cymbal tynklynge ; and if I haue profecie and knowe alle mysteries and al kynnynge, and if I haue al feith so that I moue hillis fro her place, and if I haue not charite, I am nought. And if I departe alle my goodis into the metis of pore men, and if I betake my bodi, so that I brenne, and if I haue not charite, it pro- fitith to me no thing. Charite is pacient, it is benynge [i. e. benign]. Charite enuyeth not, it doith not wickidli, it is not blowun [i. e. puflfed up], it seketh not those things that ben hise own." . WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 63 In 1525 Tyndale translated the Pentateuch and New Testament into English. This was the first from "the original tongues into En- glish. When the papal legate said, " We had better do without God's laws than the pope's," Tyndale replied with indignation : " I defy the pope and all his laws. If God gives me life, ere many years the ^ plowboys of England shall know more of the Scriptures, than you do." To him King James's version owes more than to all others. After the invention of printing, various translations appeared, as follows : That of Miles Goverdale, A. D. 1535 ; that of Cranmer, 1539; the Geneva Bible, 1560; the Bishops' Bible, 1568, so-called from several bishops being employed in the translation ; this is the first English version divided into chapters and verses. The authorized version appeared in 1611 ; and the Revised Version, 1881-5. Several quaint and humorous titles have been given to certain old editions of the Scriptures: The "Bug" Bible was printed in London in 1551 by Nicholas Hyll. The nickname aroSe from the following: "So thou shalt not nede to be afraid for any Bugges by night." Now it is, "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night." The "Breeches" Bible was printed in Geneva in 1560, and is so-called from that word being used in Gen. iii, 7, instead of " aprons." The " Treacle " Bible was printed in 1568 by Richard Jugge. It reads, " Is there no tryacle in Gilead ?" In 1609 the word " tryacle " was changed to "rosin." " Is there no rosin in Gilead ?" The word " balm " was not introduced until 1611. The " He " Bible, printed in London in 1611 by Robert Baker, takes its nickname from a curious error in Ruth iii, 15 : " He measured six measures of barley and laid it on her, and he went into the city." In the same year, another and entirely dis- tinct edition was printed, in which the word "she" was substituted for "he," above mentioned, and hence the name "She" Bible was given it, to distinguish it from the "He" Bible. The "Vinegar" Bible of 1717 is so-called because the head-line of Luke, chapter xx, read, " The parable of the vinegar" instead of " the vineyard." The printer of this edition was one J. Basket, of Oxford, and because of the numerous typographical faults, it was sometimes called the "Bas- ketful of errors." As showing what our Bible would now be, had no revisions and changes been allowed since the appearance of the defective English versions, let us take the Lord's Prayer and trace it back through its various forms. Here it is as it first appeared in the King James Ver- sion, A. D. 1611 : " Our Father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy Name. Thy 64 FAITH MADE EASY. kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen. Glue us this day our dayly bread. And forgiue vs our debts as we forgiue our debtors. And lede vs not into temptation, but delieur vs from euil. For thine is the kingdome, and the power and the glory for euer. Amen." Here we have it as it stood A. D. 1582: " Our father which art in heauen, sanctified be thy name. Let thy* kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven in earth also. Giue vs to-day our supersubstantial bread. And lead vs not into tempta- tion. But deliuer us from evil. Amen." In A. D. 1300 it was like this : " Fadir our in hevene, Halewyd by hi name, thi kingdom come. Thi wille be done as in hevene and in erthe. Oure urche dayes bred give us to-day. And forgive us oure dettes, as we forgive our det- toures. And lede us not into temptation, Bote delyvere us of yvel. Amen." In A. D. 1258 it had this form : " Fader ure in heune, haleeweide beoth thi neune, cumen thi ku- neriche, thi wille beoth idon in huene and in erthe. The euerych dawe bried git ous thilk dawe. And worzif ure dettes as vi vorzifen ure dettoures. And lede ous nought into temptation, bot delyvor us of uvel. Amen." About A. D. 900, Alfred, Bishop of Durham, wrote a translation which read like this : " Our Father which art in heaven, be hallowed thine name come thy kingdom be thy Will as in Heavens and in Earth. Our Loaf supersubstantial give us to-day and forgive us Debts our so we Forgive Debts ours, and do not lead us into Temptation, but de- liver every one from evil — Amen." Here is a text from the Old Testament (Psa. viii, 5), viz. : Au- thorized Version: "For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." I. Wyclif : " Thou lassedest hym a litil lasse fro angelis ; with glorie and worshipe thou crounedest hym." II. Wyclif: "Thou hast maad hym a Htil lesse than aungels ; thou hast crouned hym with glorie and onour.'' The two specimens from Wyclif are from the catalogue of Sir Richard R. Madden, in the British Museum. Miles Coverdale: " After thou haddest for a reason made him lower the angels thou crownedest him with honor and glory." Cranmer : " Thou madest hym lower then ye Angels, to croune hym with glory and worship." Matthews: "After thou haddest for a reason made him lower the Angels thou crownedest WSAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 65 him with honour and glory." The Bishops' Bible: "Thou hast made hym somthing inferiour to Angels, thou hadst crowned hym with glory and worship." The Douay or Rheims (Roman Catholic Ver- sion) : " Thou hast made him a little less than the Angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor." English Book of Common Prayer: "Thou madest him lower than the angels; to crown him with glory and worship." Geneva (vulgarly called the Breeches Bi- ble) : " For thou hast made him a little lower than God, and crowned liim with glory and worship." As the result of applied scholarship the text of the entire Bible has undergone precisely such changes as these. HOW THE BIBLE IS INSPIRED. All evangelical Christians hold the Scriptures to be divinely in- spired ; that is, that the authors of the sacred writings were so con- trolled, or moved upon, by the Spirit of God, that they were enabled in general to do their work with infallible accuracy ; yet within this limitation there are widely different views as to the particular method by which truth was conveyed from the mind of God to man. Justin and the Fathers held that every word of Scripture, as well as every thought, was dictated by God, the writers serving only as amanuenses. This has been stigmatized as the mechanical theory, reducing the sacred writers to the position of mere machines. Nevertheless, the theory is held by the large majority of believers even at the present day. It is also defended by not a few scholars whose opinions are entitled to universal respect. Hodge pointedly inquires : " If God can control the thoughts of a man without making him a mere machine, why not also his language, rendering every man infallible in the use of his char- acteristic style? If the language of Scripture be not inspired, then we have the truth communicated through the discoloring and distorting medium of human imperfection." Wordsworth employs similar lan- guage to express his belief that the sacred writers were not left with- out divine guidance as to the form in which truth should be expressed. Gaussen says : "The Bible is not, as some will have it, a book which God employed men, whom he had previously enlightened, to write un- der his auspices. No ; it is a book which he dictated to them ; it is the Woi-d of God : the 'Spirit of the Lord spake by its authors, and his words were upon their tongues." Again: " It is always the inspiration of the book that is presented to us as an object of faith, never the in- ward state of him that writes it. His knowledge or ignorance nowise 66 FAITH MADE EASY. affects the confidence I owe to his words : and my soul ought ever to look not so much to the light of his understanding as to the God of all holiness who speaks to me by his mouth." Again : " Divinely in- spired words, having been miraculous, are also all of them the words of God. Our faith in every part of the Bible rests no longer on the illu- mination of the writers, but on the inspiration of their writings." Again : "God gave them always the words, and not always the thoughts. As for their thoughts, while they were in the act of writing, God might inspire them with ideas more or less elevated ; that interests my char- ity alone, but has no bearing on my faith. The Scripture — the Scrip- ture which they have transmitted to me, perhaps without themselves seizing its meaning, at least without ever entirely comprehending it — this is what concerns me. The sacred writers were sometimes inspired, but the Holy Scriptures were so always. Not one jot or one tittle of it shall pass away. There is doubtless an inspiration of thoughts as there is an inspiration of words; but the first makes the Christian, while it is the second that makes the prophet." Dr. Geo. B. Cheever says : "It must come to this, an infallible inspiration, or none at all. Revelation is worthless, if not written;^ if written, dependent on the words ; impossible to be written, except by inspiration from the Ke- vealer, guiding the writer. In this case, the words must obey and fol- low the thoughts, not the thoughts the words. The thoughts inspired of God are creators of the words, in order that the words may be cre- ators of the thoughts God intended to convey, in other minds, the truths necessary for the object of revelation. Inspired truths, involv- ing eternal consequences, can not be communicated infallibly, without inspired words." There are passages of Scripture which the defenders of this view of inspiration seem justified in quoting. For example, Paul, in 1 Cor. ii, 13, speaking of the things "freely given us of God," says: "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ;" " Holy men of old spalce as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" " If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy," etc. Never shall I forget an expression of the lamented President Jocelyn. In examining a class of young ministers, the question of inspiration arose, and the class were asked how far dependence might be placed upon the words of Scripture. Various answers were returned, and the doctor at length said, very emphatically : " Brethren, it is my profound conviction that every word of Scripture, when it is certainly obtained from the orig- inal, is the veritable word of God." WHAT TO BELIE rn: CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 67 Nevertheless, in the light of modern criticism, this view may justly be characterized as one extreme. There are many devout scholars who affirm it to be impossible for them to accept the Bible as of divine authority, if the only true theory be that every word must be accepted as divinely chosen. They declare some of the phraseology of Scrips ture to be " neither elegant nor exact," which could not have been the case if God had dictated it. Even authorities so eminent as McClin- tock and Strong array themselves against this notion, declaring that' "words, as such, are incapable of inspiration. They are either oral, consisting of certain sounds, or written, consisting of certain words on paper ; both material signs, of which a Scriptural element properly can not be predicated." "The suggestion of the choicest words to the minds of ihe sacred writers is incompatible with their free action, as evinced in the varie- ties, and even blemishes, of style. These are clearly the human ele-; ments, partaking of the imperfection and diversity inseparable from man's productions. To say that God makes use of them, is only evad- ing the point. He does not directly supply them, nor authorize them ; he only suffers them." On the other hand, we have the liberal view of inspiration, or that infallible correctness in regard to spiritual truth is secured in Scrip- ture, while errors in natural science, chronology, archaeology, geograr- phy, etc. , may and do exist. This view must be distinguished from the latitudinarian theory, which holds that inspiration is only a high style of religious fervor not unlike what is felt by poets and eloquent orators, and not inconsistent with mistakes both of doctrine and fact. The liberal evangelical theory has in it the essential element of faith in the Bible as the revealed will of God, as the infallible expression of the divine mind regarding man's salvation. Theorists of this class, hold the language of the Bible to be purely human and separate from divine agency. The germs of truth alone are suggested, and come to us through the defective medium of unaided speech. With them there is no inspiration or divine ordering of words, but always a divine breathing of truth. Inspiration is purely spiritual in their view, the, language being the mere shell, or outward and visible, and, possibly, always defective form, in which the absolute truth is conveyed to the minds of men. Midway between these wide extremes there is a golden mean, at- tractive. and safe, and held substantially by perhaps the majority of the best thinkers of the age, both living and dead. This theory is some times called the dynamical, and is held and thus stated by Smith: " With- 68 FAITH MADE EASY. out impairing the free use of each writer's owu natural powers,- the Holy Spirit so molded his views in regard to the subject-matter to be communicated to men, and, when necessary, in regard to the very lan- guage to be used by him, as to secure the communication in the Scrip- tures of that, and of that only, which, properly interpreted, is truth — the truth which, in its substance and form, is in perfect accordance with the divine mind and will. This theory holds that the inspiration of the Scriptures is perfectly consistent with their recording falsehoods uttered (e. g., by the serpent to Eve), unsound arguments and per- verted truths set forth (e. g., by Job's friends), mistakes, faults, and unholy contentiops, even of apostles and others whom God inspired to communicate truth, uninspired opinions and judgments (e. g., of Paul in 1 Cor. yii.) In such cases the inspiration has nothing to do with originally uttering the language, or exhibiting the conduct recorded, but is concerned in making an infallible record of the fact that such language was uttered,, such conduct took place in the given circum- stances, etc. This theory admits the occurrence in copies of the Scrip- tures of mistakes in transcribing, translating, and printing, which it is the business of Biblical criticism to investigate and determine." Ban- nerman's definition comes within the range of this theory: "Inspira- tion is a statement in speech or writing, made with infallible accuracy, through the supernatural operation of the Spirit of objective truth, re- vealed to man by God to be so stated." "If you inquire," says Professor Fitch, "in what sense the Bible is breathed forth from God, the true answer is : The whole book was prepared by his direction, in subservience to a scheme of redemption through Christ, which had been planned in his eternal wisdom, by men to whom he gave direct revelation, or imparted necessary wisdom and knowledge to guide them in their writings ; and that, consequently, the whole book has indorsed upon it his name and authority. While all other books are the books of men , this is the book of God. While all others are liable to err respecting truth and duty, this is infallible." Dr. Milton S. Terry maintains that "a particular divine providence secured the composition of the Scriptures in the language and form in which we possess them." "Divine wisdom guided the human agents in selecting such facts and reporting such truths as would best accom- plish the purpose of God in providing a written revelation for the world. We see no good reason for denying that the divine guidance extended to all parts and forms of the record." Knapp (who is also indorsed by McClintock and Strong) defines inspiration as " an extraordinary divine agency upon teachers while WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 69 giving instruction, whether oral or written, by which they were taught what and how they should write and speak." Of the manner of in- spiration he believes it necessary, in some cases at least, that the Holy ^irit should have communicated the very words in which the things re- vealed should be expressed ; as, for example, in certain numbers, or names of persons and places, which could not have been known ex- cept from revelation. This he considers the highest degree of divine influence, and that in other cases the sacred writers had no higher assistance than was necessary to guard them against error. "The authoritative language of Scripture," says Home, in his In- troduction, " argues the necessity of revelation, admitting the veracity of the writers. They do not present us with their own thoughts, but exclaim, ' Thus saith the Lord,' and on that ground they demand our assent." In regard to certain portions of Holy Scripture, Dr. Wakefield uses this expression : " We can not rationally suppose that in those commands, messages, and communications, which were delivered in the name of God, the writers were left to choose their own language ; but the very words, as well as the thoughts, mvd have been dictated by the Holy Spirit. This was evidently the case when they annojinced new and mysterious doctrines, of which they could have had no con- ception if the words had not been suggested to them ; and when they delivered predictions which they did not understand, the inspiration consisted soldy in presenting the words to their mind. That the proph- ets did not always understand their predictions is obvious from the language of Peter, who represents them as trying to search out their meaning : ' Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufierings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.' With regard to other parts of Scripture, consisting of histories, moral reflections, and devotional pieces, we would not contend for the inspiration of the language in the same sense. It is reasonable to believe that the writers were permitted to exercise their own faculties to a certain extent, and to express themselves in a natural manner ; but we have no right to suppose that, even when they were most at liberty, 'they were in no degree directed by a secret influence in the selection of words and phrases." The nature of Christ is sometimes referred to as a parallel repre- sentation of the strange blending of the human and divine in Scripture. Dr. Talbot W. Chambers says this is " one of the happiest suggestions that has ever been made on the subject. Christ was strictly and liter- 70 FAITH MADE EASY. ally human; he was also strictly and literally divine; the two natures co-existing in one person. And this is just what may be said of the sacred volume. It is throughout human, a boolc of man and for man, bearing on its face the tokens that it is earthly ; yet it is throughout divine, coming from God and leading to God, and hence separated by an immeasurable interval from all others books, of whatever character. A devout mind, therefore, is comforted amid the perplexities of the subject by the thought that the divine-human of the Scripture has a strict parallel in the diviue-human of his Lord and Savior." Theo- rists of the liberal school have inappropriately used this comparison. They hold that the human element in Scripture is defective, whereas Christ as a man was perfect. The fact of his human perfection is what stamps the atonement with infinite value. " For He who can for sin atone Must have no failings of his own." But this comparison is in entire harmony with the dynamical the- ory, which holds that the human element in inspiration was rendered morally and intellectually perfect, uniting with the divine, and form- ing the infallible Word of God. Unless the human in inspiration is perfect, or at least rendered so for the time being, the Scripture is not an infallible guide to faith and practice, and it can not be perfect if constantly blundering into erroneous statements. And that the Scrip- tures themselves accord with this view may be apparent from a few quotations, including those above given. " Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Here the Holy Ghost moved and men spalce, the two uniting to complete the Scripture "given by in- spiration of God." This refers to those prophecies which must neces- sarily have been the direct result of divine revelation. So Paul spake the things freely given him of God, in words taught by the Holy Ghost. David declares, ' ' The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his words were in my tongue." Paul refers to some utterances as his own, though conveying authorized truth: "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." We have the fullest confidence that God guided the sacred writers in the use of language in so far forth as was necessary to the absolute reliability of the truth revealed. There is a wide difference in what the Bible reveals and what it simply records. Stephen could easily have been mistaken in speaking of a fact of history, but if " being full of the Holy Ghost," he looked not up "steadfastly into heaven, and saw the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 71 glory of God, and Jesus on the right hand of God," then no theory of inspiration will save the Bible from the imputation of being fallible, even untruthful. Men make history, and can settle its data for them- selves, but only God can throw open the gate of heaven and allow a mortal to gaze upon its glories. It is fair to conclude that if he does this, he will see that the favored one either is silent as to the "un- speakable things," or else speaks in such a way as not to mislead. The Ten Commandments are generally accepted as " the very words" of God. Moses wrote as a preface to them (Ex. xx, 1): "And God spake all these words." They contain truth that man could not have known had not God revealed it. Further, the truth is of such a char- acter that its force depends upon the language employed to express it. Here, then, we take our stand. The Bible contains the "record of a revelation which God has given to the world." Every word contain- ing revealed truth — that is, truth which man could never otherwise have known, and which is essential to his salvation — is infajlibly chosen. Whatever else the Bible contains is of little comparative importance. The plan of salvation it does contain in language so simple that none need err therein, and yet so God-like that all who receive it may have the witness in themselves that this is the infallible record which God gave of his Son. This view is satisfying to true reason. No concession, within evan- gelical limitations, would satisfy the quibblings of modern infidelity. Infidelity is too cold, too dishonest, to accept any theory of revelation which gives indubitable authority to the fundamental claims of Chris- tianity respecting a new heart and a new life ; in others words, which requires unhesitating obedience to the commands of God, as literally construed wherever it is expressly affirmed that God speaks. It is not for the Christian to study what will please skepticism, but what is truth. The Scripture saith: "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." It is ours to know the truth — to understand the ground wherfon our souls' anchor may remain sure — and to endeavor to meet the earnest inquiries of our fellows with satisfactory responses. Is there any theory of inspiration more likely to answer the purposes of careful and honest criticism, and at the same time satisfy rational inquiry, than the one above designated ? In the whole round of our investigation we find none comparable with it. This view is also en- couraging to faith. How cheering the thought that in no particular, essential to man's well-being and happiness, does the Bible contain an erroneous or 72 FAITH MADE EASY. defective statement ; that in making known his will respecting man's character, conduct, and destiny, God carefully directed every utterance, that it might imply no more, and mean no less, than is expressly de- clared. He allowed the inspired writers freedom in so far forth as their freedom was consistent with the safety of their fellow-men throughout the ages of time. He breathed upon them, and they felt the thrill of inspiration. Their powers of thought and memory and will were aroused. They began to record • their impressions. God worked in them and with them. The human and the divine were in sweet ac- cord. God spake ; they listened. The words uttered were put down, and words were always suggested when words were necessary. Other- wise, the writers wrote as they were moved by the strange and powerful influence which was upon them. Thus, within a period of perhaps sixteen hundred years, with men of different ages, places, nationalities, training, and circumstances, God worked, until he had declared his will in various forms and divers manners, but always in substantial accord, and frequently with verbal similarity, so that in the end we have the Bible — the Book of books — the Word of God. Only one type of doctrine and morality is unfolded in the entire sixty-six canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. The same Infinite One, whose glory Moses saw, and whose words Moses heard on the holy mount in the long-ago, revealed himself to John on Patmos sixteen centuries later; and as Moses said cff the moral law, "All these words God spake,'' so John could say: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's-day, and heard behind me a great voice, saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send it unto the Churches." So Isaiah heard, wrote, and re- corded. So did Daniel, and Paul, and the rest. The believer can say : " The hopes that holy Word supplies — Its truths divine and precepts wise — In each a heavenly beam I see, And every beam conducts to Thee." THE OLD TESTAMENT. For more than a generation after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament was used by Christians, in their services and worship generally, as their Bible ; and it is still held by them as of divine authority, though from them has proceeded the New Testament. Christianity, therefore, rests upon the whole Bible, though the books of the New Testament may be regarded as more distinctively Christian than those of the Old. WBAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 73 There is no question of the authenticity of the books of the Old Testament. The first five books, usually designated as the Law of Moses,, were kept in the ark of the covenant as a witness. (Deut. xxxi, 9, 26.) Samuel wrote the manner of the kingdom, and laid it up before the Lord. ( 1 Sam. x, 25.) Solomon placed the books of Scripture in the new temple. The people are invited to "seek out of the Book of the Lord and read." (Isa. xxxiv, 16.) Moreover, in several places it is prescribed as a duty to recite the Scriptures pub- licly, which implies their being preserved and authenticated. Then, again, the different parts of Scripture bear witness to the rest — the later books to the earlier, the New Testament to the Old Testament. We may notice, too, such expressions as the following: "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." (2 Sam. xxiii, 2.) " Thus saith the Lord." (Jer. i, 6.) We know that the Jews were exceedingly careful of their sacred writings, and in re- membrance of the injunction (Deut. iv, 2; xii, 32) could neither add to nor take from the Written Word except under the manifest com- mand of the Spirit. That our Lord Jesus Christ recognized the authority of the Old Testament is evident from such passages as John V, 39 ; Matt, xxii, 29 ; Luke xxiv, 27, and others. The New Testament writers frequently quote from the books of the Old Testa- ment as the Word of God. By the side of this evidence from the books themselves may be placed the fact that a number of books, now collected in the Apocrypha, were in use among the Jews for cen- turies after the last of the prophets wrote, but were never regarded as sacred Scripture by the Jews of Palestine, nor by the New Testa- ment writers. After the time of the return of the Jews from Baby- lon synagogue worship prevailed, and copies of the sacred books became common. The persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B. C.) promoted the preservation of that which maintained the life of Judaism. From that time the books were put together as a single volume, and regarded as a Bible. (R. A. Bedford, M. A.) ARE THE FOUR GOSPELS TRUSTWORTHY ? From the very able writings of Prof. Henry Wace, D. D., of King's College, London, we extract an outline of proofs of the credi- bility of the four Gospels : "Nothing can be of more consequence to Christians than to know whether they have good reason for their belief that in the four Gospels they possess four faithful records of the life, the teaching, the death, 74 FAITH MADE EASY. and the resurrection of their Lord and Master. We are by no means, indeed, entirely dependent on those records for the grounds of our faith, since the Epistles of St. Paul, even if they stood alone, would afford strong testimony to the main facts respecting our Lord. But the Gospels alone afford us full information respecting our Lord's charac- ter and work ; and they must ever be regarded as the most precious and important of testimonies to his claims. "It is this, indeed, which has led the skeptics and unbelievers of this century to direct such persistent and fierce attacks upon the Gospels. It has been felt that if they are trustworthy records of what our Lord said and did, the chief positions for which skeptics have contended are at once overthrown. Christ himself bears witness in those Gospels to his own claims, to his supernatural powers, to all that Christians believe respecting him. In fact, all cardinal questions of religion are practically answered if the Gospels can be trusted. Our Lord there bears overwhelming testimony to the existence and character of God, to the fact that we are now under God's govern- ment, and shall hereafter be judged by him, and to the truth that he himself can alone save us from our sins and their consequences. Ac- cordingly, the simple facts of the Gospel history were from the ear- liest moment the sum and substance of the apostles' preaching. In the tenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we have a record of St. Peter's first address to a Gentile audience, and it is like a brief sum- mary of one of our Gospels. He tells Cornelius ' how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power ; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him . . . whom they slew and hanged on a tree ; him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly ; . . . and he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whoso- ever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.' Such has ever been in substance the message of the Gospel. The chief question which has exercised the minds of men in our own time is whether the four records we possess of that Gospel can be relied upon." BY WHOM WERE THE GOSPELS WRITTEN? Professor Wace continues : " If there is good reason to believe that they were written by apostles or intimate friends of apostles, the main objections to their credibility fall to the ground. But what do the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 75 books themselves say ? "We find upon their title-pages the statement that they were written by St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. That is the way in which, from the earliest date, the words 'according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,' were understood. No suspicion can be shown to have been entertained by any writer of the first -few centuries that these inscriptions had any other meaning, or that the meaning thus implied was untrue. Now, if in our own day a book appears with a name purporting to be that fcf the author on the title-page, and not a single doubt is expressed during his own life-time or the life-time of any of his friends as to the fact of his hav- ing written it, who would doubt that he had done so? "It is not merely with respect to modern books that this principle is acted upon; it is equally adopted with respect to ancient books. The works of Sophocles or Thucydides bear their names ; and as the authorship was never doubted in ancient times we accept it still, un- less positive external or internal objections to the contrary can be adduced. ' ' Now it so happens that although the authors of the four Gospels are singularly reticent respecting themselves, two at least of them have incidentally aflJbrded us significant indications of their individuality and positions. This is peculiarly the case in respect to the Gospel of St. Luke, and we begin our argument by considering the books which are attributed to him. For in this case we start with the ad- vantage that we have two books on which to base our judgment, instead of one. The book of the Acts of the Apostles opens by a reference to a former book by the same author, and that reference, combined with internal evidence, leaves no practical doubt that this book was the Gospel according to St. Luke. 'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus,' says the writer, ' of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up.' But the Gospel according to St. Luke treats of the subject thus de- fined, and it is similarly addressed to Theophilus. It is moreover generally recognized, even by some of the chief rationalistic critics, to whom reference will subsequently be made, that the two treatises are marked by a singular unity of style, idiom, and thought, that one mind conceived the two books and one hand wrote them. If we can determine who was the author of one of them, we know the author of the other. "Now, the authorship of the Acts of the Apostles is revealed by one of those pieces of incidental evidence which, in a matter of this kind, are sometimes more convincing than direct statements. In the 76 FAITH MADE EASY. sixteenth chapter the writer is describing one of the journeys of St. Paul, and at first he speaks of St. Paul and his companions in the third person. Thus, in the sixth verse, he says: ' Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, . . . after they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia ; but the Spirit suf- fered them not' A vision appeared to Paul in the night, bidding him go over to Macedonia ; and here the writer suddenly changes his ex- pression, and begins to speak in the first person. In the tenth verse he proceeds : 'And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeav- ored to go into Macedonia.' It is natural to conclude that at this point the writer joined St. Paul's company. He proceeds with him to Philippi ; but appears to have remained there when St. Paul passed on to Amphipolis, as he resumes the third person at the commence- ment of chapter xvii. But in the fifth verse of chapter xx, where it is described how St. Paul again passed through Philippi when going through Macedonia on his final journey to Jerusalem, the writer be- gins again to speak of what 'we' did. From that time he speaks as though he were constantly in St. Paul's company. He arrived at Jerusalem with him, and was received with him by St. James (xxi, 17, 18); and when St. Paul's imprisonment at Csesarea was terminated by his appeal to Caesar, the writer accompanied him on his voyage, suffered shipwreck with him, and arrived with him at Eome (xxviii, 16). " Now, from some references in St. Paul's Epistles, there remains no practical doubt who was the person thus associated with St. Paul. In Col. iv, 14, St. Paul sends a salutation from ' Luke, the beloved physician;' in 2 Tim. iv, 11, he says, 'Only Luke is with me;' and at the end of the letter to Philemon, the salutation of Luke is added, among others, to that of St. Paul. St. Luke, therefore, was an inti- mate companion of the apostle ; and there is no other known com- panion to whom the circumstances mentioned in the Acts are appro- priate. Thus the internal evidence which is furnished by the third Gospel, by the Acts of the Apostles, and by St. Paul's Epistles, is in complete harmony with the tradition that St. Luke was the author of both the Gospel and the Acts. A further piece of very striking in- ternal evidence is the fact that St. Paul speaks of Luke as a phy- sician, and the descriptions of our Lord's miracles of healing, in the third Gospel, bear traces of the hand and eye of a medical observer. " Thus the ancient tradition that St. Luke, the companion of Paul, wrote the third Gospel is corroborated by various convergent evi- dences of a very striking character. Skeptics themselves concede the fact. Whatever attempts they make to break down the claims of the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 77 supernatural element in the Gospels, they do not deny certain histor- ical facts. Thus, R6nan, the great French skeptic, says : ' It is known that each of the four Gospels bears at its head the name of a personage known either in the apostolic history or in the evangelical history itself. It is clear that if these titles are correct, these Gospels, without ceasing to be partly legendary, assume a high value, since they enable us to go back to the half-century which followed the life of Jesus, and even, in two cases, to eye-witnesses of his actions.' He continues: 'As to Luke, doubt is scarcely possible. The Gospel of St. Luke is a regular composition, founded upon earlier documents. It is the work of an author who chooses, curtails, combines. The author of this Gospel is certainly the same as the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now the author of the Acts seems to be a com- panion of St. Paul, a character which accords completely with St. Luke. I know that more than one objection may be opposed to this reasoning ; but one thing at all events is beyond doubt, namely, that ' the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts is a man who be- longed to the second apostolic generation ; and this suffices for our j)urpose. The date of this Gospel, moreover, may be determined with sufficient precision by considerations drawn from the book itself. The twenty-first chapter of St. Luke, which is inseparable from the rest of the work, was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, but not long after. We are, therefore, here on solid ground, for we are dealing with a work proceeding entirely from the same hand and possessing the most complete unity.' "The conclusion is, therefore, inevitable that the third Gospel was really written, in the form in which we now possess it, by St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul in several of his journeys, and par- ticularly on his last visit to Jerusalem and in his subsequent journey to Rome. Now this one point being established, it will be found that all serious objections to the belief of the Church respecting the authenticity of the other Gospels are practically obviated. For it follows that the claim put forward in the preface to the third Gospel is) completely justified. St. Luke was not indeed himself an eye-wit- ness of our Lord's life on earth ; but he claims to have had ' perfect understanding of all things from the very first,' or, as the revisers render the phrase, to have ' traced the course of all things accurately from the very first.' St. Paul, in his intercourse with the apostles, must have been fully informed of the teaching and the acts of our Lord during his ministry, and through St. Paul, St. Luke must have been similarly cognizant of them. But in his visit with St. Paul to 78 FAITH MADE EASY. Jerusalem, St. Luke himself must have been in communication with other apostles, as well as with many other disciples of our Lord who had ■ companied with them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them.' That visit to Jerusalem was about twenty-five years after the crucifixion, when those who had been the actual con- temporaries of our Lord were from fifty to sixtv years of age, in full possession of their faculties, with their memory still clear and their judgment vigorous. St. Luke must have had abundant opportunities in such company of following up, as he says he did, every thing from the very first. ' Many,' he says, had already taken in hand to set forth in order a narrative of the same facts ' even as they delivered them unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and min- isters of the word.' These written narratives he was in a position to test, to complete, and to arrange in better order, by personal inquiry of the same or other ' eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word.' "With the authenticity and credTbility of one Gospel thus clearly established, the inquiry respecting the authenticity and credibility of the other three is much simplified. Take the case of St. Matthew. The uniform tradition of the earliest ages with him, as with St. Luke, is that he wrote the Gospel which bears his name. Holtzmann, a rationalistic critic, says : " ' That the early Church must have had some ground in facts for re- ferring the first Gospel to this name must seem the more probable, since, with this exception, the person of Matthew is entirely in the back- groiuid in the history of the apostolic age.' " In other words, there was no reason why it should have been be- lieved that St. Matthew wrote the Gospel except that he did write it ; and therefore, as has been urged before, the tradition has, on the face of it, a claim to be believed in the absence of evidence to the contrary. But, in the first place, there is positive evidence to the fact that St. Matthew did write a work of the general character of our Gospel. There is one valuable piece of early Christian testimony preserved to us respecting the authorship of the first two Gospels. It is contained in a fragment of a work by Papias, who was bishop of Hierapolis, iti Asia Minor, in the first half of the second century, and who was a hearer of the apostle John. It is natural that we should have but lit- tle discussion of the authorship of the New Testament writings in early times, if they were really genuine. Christians in such case would ac- cept them without hesitation; and it would be only as time went on, and heresies arose, or the Church came into conflict with heathen culture, that doubts on this subject would be raised. The evidence WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 79 of Papias is therefore particularly welcome, and it has been scruti- nized, by believers and unbelievers alike, with the utmost keenness. With respect to St. Matthew, he is quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. Ill, 39) as saying that ' Matthew composed the Oracles in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted them as he could.' "Thus we have two positive facts — one, that our first Gospel was uniformly attributed to Matthew from the earliest times; the other, the express statement of a disciple of St. John that St. Matthew wrote a work of this kind. From these it is reasonable to accept the first Gospel as St. Matthew's work. We next inquire what positive evidence we have respecting the Gospel of St. Mark. " Here, again, there is absolute unanimity in the belief of the ear- liest times. No doubt was expressed for long centuries as to the truth of the title which attributed the second Gospel to St. Mark. This per- son is generally acknowledged to be the same as the ' John, whose surname was Mark,' mentioned several times in the Acts of the Apos- tles as well as in the Epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter. He was the cousin of Barnabas, and is called by St. Peter (1 Pet. v, 13), 'My son,' perhaps as having been converted by him. His mother was the Mary in whose house in Jerusalem the Christians are described as meet- ing in the earliest days after the foundation of the Church. (Acts xii, 12.) He accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey ; and though there was a temporary separation between him and St. Paul, he is afterwards mentioned by that apostle as one of his most valued attendants. At another time, as we have seen, he was with St. Peter, and Papias tells us that he acted as, St. Peter's inter- preter. He was, therefore, at least as much as St. Luke, in a posi- tion to ascertain the tr«th respecting our Lord's ministry. In his case also the tradition of antiquity is supported by the evidence of Papias. That writer related that ' the elder,' who was either St. John the apostle or a presbyter contemporary with the apostle, gave him the following account: " ' Mark, having become interpreter of Peter, wrote down accu- rately every thing that he remembered, without, however, recording in order what was either said or done by Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow him ; but afterwards, as I said [at- tended] Peter, who adapted his instructions to the needs [of his hear- ers], but had no design of giving a connected account of the Lord's oracles [or discourses]. So, then, Mark made no mistake while he thus wrote down some things as he remembered them, for he made it 80 FAITH MADE EASY. his one care not to omit any thing that he heard, or to set down any false statement therein.' "We now turn to the Gospel of St. John, and we find the pri- mary evidence to its authorship is peculiarly definite and direct. Irenseus, who became bishop of Lyons about 177 A. D., was a pupil of a famous disciple of St. John, Polycarp, who died as a martyr in the year 155 or 156. Irenseus tells us, in a letter of remonstrance he wrote to a fellow-pupil, Florinus, who had lapsed into heresy, how vividly he remembered Polycarp's instructions and conversation : " ' I distinctly remember,' he says, ' the incidents of that time bet- ter than events of recent occurrence ; for the lessons received in child- hood, growing -with the growth of the soul, become identified with it ; so that I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his in- tercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord, and about his miracles, and about his teaching, Polycarp, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures.' (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V, 20.) "Now when Irenseus thus tells us that Polycarp used to describe ' his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord,' and that ' whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord and about his miracles, and about his teaching ' he would relate ' alto- gether in accordance with the Scriptures,' he tells us nothing else than that what Polycarp had heard from John and from the rest who had seen the Lord was in complete agreement with,our present Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. That Irenseus used precisely the same Gospels as are now in our possession is disputed by no one; and these very books he says are in full agreement with what he heard from Polycarp and Polycarp heard from St. John. " Now this testimony to the first three Gospels is of immense weight, for it gives at all events the sanction of Polycarp, and goes far to give the sanction and recognition of St. John himself to those three books. But with respect to the Gospel of St. John it would seem overwhelm- ing. The one point upon which Polycarp was specially qualified to bear testimony to Irenseus, and on which he did bear testimony, was the teaching of St. John, and that apostle's account of our Lord's words and works." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 81 Such evidence as the foregoiug can not be rejected. Infidels may attempt to explain away the divine authority of the Gospels, but they are compelled to admit that all attempts to trace their authorship to a later age than that of the apostles, or in the main to other hands than those of their traditional authors, have failed. St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John were the real authors of the four books which bear their names, and they are faithful witnesses to what act- ually occurred. Renan says : "To sum up, I admit the four canonical Gospels as serious documents. All go back to the age which followed the death of Jesus." He gives his own opinion of their value; but his admission is sufficient, in the light of other evidence, to stamp his opinion as utterly valueless. As the late Chief-Justice Sharswood, of Pennsylvania, said: "No doubt can be entertained of what the de- cision of any tribunal would be upon the testimony of the evangelists if produced as living witnesses, and there can be as little doubt of the genuineness and authenticity of the writings in which their testimony is recorded." THE EPISTLES. The epistolary writings of the New Testament are just as authentic and credible as the evangelical narratives. Some of them have scarcely ever been seriously assailed by skeptical scholars. In his one hundred and seventy-second lecture in Tremont Temple, Boston, Mr. Joseph Cook dwelt at length upon this point. He proved very con- clusively that four of Paul's epistles are undisputed. He read, word for word, the recent testimonies and concessipns of learned unbeliev- ers showing this fact. Here is a part of his quotation from Renan : "The Epistles of Paul possess in their absolute authenticity an unequaled advantage in this history. Not the slightest doubt has been raised by serious criticism against the authenticity of the Epistle to the Galatians, the two Epistles to the Corinthians, or the Epistle to the Romans, while the arguments on which are founded the attacks on the two Epistles to the Thessalonians and that to the Philippians are without value." Following is the use he made of the latest and ablest rationalistic life of Christ, viz.: the celebrated work entitled "Jesus of Nazareth," by Professor Keim, of Zurich. He said: "I read this extract for two purposes : First, to show how reverent this author is concerning the facts of the New Testament ; and next, to show what his chro- nology of the New Testament literature is. ' The first Epistle of the () 82 FAITH MADE EASY. Apostle Paul to the Corinthians was written at the beginning of Easter, A. D. 58. This epistle points back beyond the year 5S to the year 54, and still further back to the year 39, to a date which was separated by only four years from the great events of the death and resurrection of Jesus.' " Mr. Cook then said : "According to Keim, the date of the crucifixion was 35. This rationalistic life of Christ carries back the testimony of Paul to within five years of the date of the crucifixion. The assertion of the infidels, not many years ago, was, that there is no testimony on record from those who were actually eye-witnesses of the miracles. All this is set aside by such a series of dates. It is admitted that myths can not grow up in, five years, nor in twenty-five ; and, therefore, the mythical theory as to the origin of the New Testament literature has been abandoned. The epistles which I am now discussing all came into existence, according even to these rationalistic critics themselves, within twenty-five years of the date of the crucifixion. " Keim says nothing of the inspiration of Paul. He is sufiicientlj' bold, sometimes atrociously unfair, in his discussions of the Gospels; but he is silenced by these four undisputed epistles, and he stands on them as historic authority. I would have you stand there, and feel that your feet are on adamant ; for you are standing on what has been attacked again and again in vain through eighteen centuries. "Let me now raise the question: What do these four disputed epistles, taken together, prove ? " In the first place they prove that, within twenty -five years of the date of the crucifixion, or, as Keim would have it, within considerably less, there existed a set of organizations called Christian Churches, ex- tending all the way from Jerusalem to Antioch and Corinth and Eome, throughout the whole breadth of what was then the civilized world. In the second place, these four epistles prove that, in the Churches, a body of doctrines was received and a series of facts believed that was identical with those which now constitute the basis of Christianity." Mr. Cook concluded : "A long line of rationalistic lives of Christ ends in this supreme concession. This author speaks after Strauss, after Baur, after Efinan, after Schenkel, and a score of others, who have endeavored by the acutest criticism to cast discredit upon the testimony of the New Testament Scriptures to matters of fact. This is an outcome of the freshest rationalistic research ; silence, conscien- tious reverence ! And, if you read the final pages of Keim, you will see there is something her,e like adoration. Keim was born at Stuttr WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 83 gart in 1825, and died at Giessen in 1878. He was a pupil of Ewald. He belonged to the school of Baur, but outgrew it. His final opinion is, that ' the person of Jesus is not only a phenomenon among the many phenomena of God ; it is a special work of God ; the crown of all the divine revelations.'" THE BIBLE FOR THE WHOLE WOELD AND TO CON- TINUE FOREVER. The Bible is the world's book. It treats subjects of equal im- portance to all mankind. One nation or generation is just as much interested in it as another. Its themes never grow old and its truths never die. The knowledge it reveals could have been obtained nowhere else. Science can tell us nothing of our souls or of our future state. Philosophy can devise no plan of salvation that saves. For what we know of God, redemption, and future rewards and pun- ishments, we are indebted to this old book. The same is true, to a large extent, of creation. Some infidels object to the Bible accouiit of creation, but they appear to find no better one. After all is said, we are compelled to choose between two hypotheses : either matter is eternal or self-originating, and all these wonderful systems of worlds with their marvelous plannings and adaptations, which devout science so much loves to trace, grew of themselves or bounded into being by chance ; or else there is a superintending God, all-wise and eternal, who planned the universe in all its parts, spoke it into being by his almighty fiat, and sustains it by his omnipotent power. Men sneer at what they call the " rib story," but whether is it easier to believe that woman was taken from the side and nearest the heart of man ? or that she sprang from an ape, a toad, a worm ? The account may be literal of allegorical, but in either case it is as reasonable as any infidel postulate. Infidels can deny that there is a God, but they can aflPect to believe that nothing created something. If you should tell a child that a locomotive came into being of itself, how it would wonder at your simplicity! But the atheist's theory of creation is just as stupid as this. He would have us think that these wonderful bodies of ours came into being of themselves, and that our mysterious souls are simply ingrowths of these accidental formations of clay. A child can learn more truth about itself from one page of the Bible than all the infidel philosophers of earth can teach. So of the story of the Flood. Men may ridicule this account, but they do so in the light of universal tradition as well as revealed truth. Every nation, 84 FAITH MADE EASY. civilized and barbarian, has its tradition of the Deluge. No fact of history, as old as this, is better authenticated. Profane authorities agree with the sacred record in every essential particular. Berosus of Babylon, the great historian who flourished about 250 B. C, and who compiled his works from the temple archives of Babylon, of which he was the keeper, and whose work was still extant at the time of Joseplms, gives an account of the Deluge strikingly in accordance with the narrative of Scripture. Another ancient writer, Abydenus, of whom less is known, but whose fragments of history are generally of great value and importance, also describes the Flood substantially the same as Berosus, and Eawlinson says of them both that their tra- dition could not have been derived either from the Hebrew record or from the foundation of that record, and that the many exact coinci- dences between the inspired and uninspired accounts could not have been the result of chance, but must have sprung from the facts of the Deluge itself. There are many other Bible truths that shallow infidels make light of, but which will stand the test of investigation. The Bible was not written to display the historic precision or scientific information of its composers, but solely as a spiritual guide; nevertheless its truths are found to harmonize with the indubitable facts of history and science as they are from time to time unfolded. The profoundest scholars never deride the stories of the Bible. Only the ignorant and .superficial skimmers of its pages rail at it. Those who ridicule most are either the most ignorant or the most shameless. Thoughtful minds find in the truths of the Bible a depth which they can not fathom. So far as the spiritual import of these truths is concerned they are easily comprehended, but they admit of exploration far be- yond this. No believer in the Bible has ever yet lived who felt that he had fully sounded the depths of this immortal book, and it is not likely that any Bible student will ever live who can truthfully say he has explored all the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the unknown truths which it contains. There can be little doubt that it will furnish food and light to the strongest and most progress- ive minds throughout the eternal years. Heaven and earth may pass away, but God's Word shall not fail. It is imperishable. As Dr. Luther Lee observes : "Its origin involves its imperishable character. The Bible assumes to be a revelation from God, and it can not be accounted for on any other ground than its own assumption. If the Bible was not written by the persons and at the times and in the places and in the circum- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 85 stances which it claims for itself, we have no account of its origin, and no one can tell by whom, when, and where it was written. Such a book could not have been written by any persons, at any time, in any place, and imposed upon the people, without the events which are interwoven with its history, and if these events did accompany its enunciation, it must be a revelation from God. It could not have been a fiction, written, concealed, and announced in an after age, as having occurred in former times. Such an introduction of such a book would have left a record, of which there is none. The only possible way in which such a book could obtain credence with after ages is to be found first in the hands of those who claimed to have received it as described, and who believed it, and who handed it down through generations who have believed it, with collateral records. This is just the manner in which the Bible has come down to us, and this makes its claim good. We may instance the ten plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the giving of the law, the forty years' miracle in the wilderness, the crossing of Jordan, and all the miracles of the New Testament, as some of the accompanying events. " The past history of the Bible likewise assures us of its inde- structibility. It is not the paper and the cover that is indestructible — many copies have been burned — ^but it is its living truth that can not be destroyed. Its past history is a pledge that it can not be de- stroyed. As it is the oldest record known, it is, from necessity, its own first historian. There is no older or contemporary record to con- tradict it. Its history covers more than four thousand years, and the first writer stood in the middle of this period, and commenced with the beginning of time, and wrote its history down to its own event- ful life, and his is the only rational account we have of the origin of the universe, and of our race. It was written before all other books, or if there were contemporary books, they have all perished, while the Bible has escaped the Vandal torch, has resisted the ravages of time, and is undimmed by the mildew of ages, and is as bright to-day as when it first came from the immortal breath of Jehovah. It has not been by the sufferance of the world that the Bible has survived ; a majority of the world has always been opposed to the Bible, and pow- erful special enemies have sought to destroy it, and still it has power- ful foes, who employ the pen, the press, the pulpit, and the forum to overthrow it, and yet it lives, and has gathered strength under every assault and every blow that has been aimed at its life. Unnumbered generations have drifted down the stream of time, kingdoms have been overthrown, empires have risen and fallen, thrones have been 86 FAITH MADE JJIASY. demolished, earth has been strewed with the scattered fragments of dishonored royalty, and the world's libraries have been burned up, and yet the Bible has come down through all these ruins, and to-day has a wider and stronger hold upon the hearts of men than ever be- fore. Such a book will live forever.'' WHY NOT HAVE A NEW BIBLE? " If God revealed himself to them of old time, why does he not reveal himself to us ? Why does he show partiality to any particular age? Why does he not give us a new revelation, a new Bible, one adapted to the wants of the present age, in place of the one so anti- quated ?" To which there is abundant reply. God is not partial to any period, generation, or nation. The Bible was composed by men of different nations, during a space of over fifteen hundred years, and its benefits extend alike to every age and every people. The plan of sal- vation which it unfolds possesses universal adaptability. Were we given a new Bible every year, it would not make more perfect the sys- tem of redemption. Christ died once for all. Those who lived be- fore any book of the Bible was composed were privileged to 'believe in the promised Savior and the coming kingdom. No doubt myriads of them did so believe. The Apostle Paul, in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, speaks of this ancient faith, and names some of the worthies who were saved by it. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, Barak, David, Samuel, the prophets, and others of whom the world was not worthy, all obtained a good report through faith, and died in hope of a better resurrection. These names are only representatives. They stand for a "great cloud of witnesses," " an innumerable company of angels," "the general assembly and Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven." God is not unjust. He has provided for the salvation of all men. No human being will say in the general judgment that he lived and died without a measure of religious light. Ours will be the deeper condemnation if we walk not uprightly in the fuller blaze of gospel light which now overspreads the earth. Certainly there is no neces- sity now for a new revelation. If any age is particularly favored it is the present one. But suppose a new Bible were written. Suppose that within fif- teen centuries, in different parts of the world, and by persons of va- rious standing and circumstances, as many more sacred books were composed as we now have in the Christian Scriptures, and were brought WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 87 together and published as a new Bible, designed to supersede the old one, who would accept it ? Suppose the book were ready to-day, and were now offered to us, how many would credit it ? How many Chris- tians would give up the testimonies of Moses, of Christ, of Paul, and John, for those of the modern seers? And how many of the unbeliev- ing and wicked, who now reject the prophets and evangelists, would accept the new Bible, turn away from their evil ways, and lead a new life? None at all. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." But it may be replied : " Let the new revelation be accompanied with new miracles to compel belief." Answer : Miracles can not compel belief. They never have, they never will. The human mind is capable of re- jecting any evidence. Souls are not converted by miracles. In the days of Christ wicked men became more and more embittered and desperate as they witnessed successive displays of divine power. Take the case of the raising of Lazarus. No grander miracle is on record. The body had Iain in the tomb four days, and decomposition had com- menced. Yet Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and sent him forth to be a living witness. This miracle was never denied. Did it lead the determined enemies of Christ to repentance? So far from it that they sought thereafter to murder both Lazarus and his Master to get rid of the evidence. (Read John xi, 53 ; xiii, 10.) Miracles were orig- iginally designed to build up a line of standing testimony in the great work of salvation. Our Lord wrought miracles to prove his words. History shows that these miracles did not tend very largely to produce the faith which saves individual souls. As the miracles of Moses did not soften Pharaoh's heart, so the miracles of Jesus did not overpower the malignity of the Jews. In spite of all his mighty works they took him and hanged him on a tree. Were a line of miracles repeated now, no better results would follow. Let wonder-working continue through the ages, and men would simply give themselves up to end- less controversies respecting the evidences. They have not stopped to this day questioning and denying the miracles of Christ. Calm re- flection will convince any man that standing revelation is the best method of rational conviction, far preferable to those extraordinary displays which some imagine would be so effectual. God has revealed one complete and comprehensive plan of salvation, and there will be no supplement. There can be none. God designs by the present plan to lodge his likeness in the human heart and make men like-minded with himself. His intent is that they shall not only receive the truth themselves, but go out and persuade others to receive it. "Let him 88 FAITH MADE EASY. that heareth say come." The plan under God is thus self-perpetuating. Men who are saved by it are to get hold of others and convert them. There are evidences and means already tested sufficient for this work. Nothing superior to them could be produced, and no attempt will be made in this direction. It would be unfair as well as futile. Paul was saved by the same faith that saved Isaiah, and Luther was saved by the same faith that saved Paul. We who live now have no ad- vantage as to the condition of salvation over the worthies whose names we cherish. Future generations will have no advantage over us. From the earliest dawn of redemption down to latest millennium glory, only one note shall be chanted in the ear of the sinner : "Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." The old Bible is the new one, and the new one will ever be the old one. Like its Divine Author, it is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. POWER OF THE BIBLE. How is it that so many illiterate men wrote with such transcend- ent ability? How did it come to pass that persons in the obscurest walks of- life were, unknown to each other, seized with various and mighty thoughts which they were moved to express in strangely beau- tiful and vigorous language, all of which, when afterwards grouped together, constitute a complete whole, the different parts harmonizing in every essential particular ? And what mysterious influence brought these books together and holds them there ? The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, and when these languages became obsolete it entered the living tongues, and is now read in over two hundred lan- guages and dialects. What power is this which thus holds the atten- tion of mankind ? More Bibles are printed and circulated to-day than of any other book. It is read by more people, quoted by more writers, admired by more critics, criticised by more skeptics, and revered by more cultured worshipers, than any other volume. It has repeatedly called together the world's scholarship, and held it in consultation and painstaking labor for many years, in the effort to reproduce exactly the original language of the sacred penmen. Surely the supernatural is here. When the great 'orators and statesmen of the world want a thought or sentence which they know will stand firm and command the homage of the human mind, they quote from the Bible. It was 80 with Lord Macaulay when he stood up in the British Parliament, or when he sat in his study writing the "History of England." It is so with Gladstone in our day, and will be so in the generations to come. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 89 Why is it that the uneducated fishermen of Galilee have more power than all the scholars of antiquity ? A German writer relates that at a literary gathering at the house of Baron Von Holbach, where the most celebrated infidels of the age used to assemble, the gentlemen present were one day childishly com- menting on the absurd, foolish things with which the Holy Scriptures, as they maintained, abound. But the French philosopher and infidel, Diderot, who had himself taken no small part in the conversation, suddenly put a period to it by saying : " But it is wonderful, gentle- men ! it is wonderful, gentlemen ! it is wonderful ! I know no man in France who can write and speak with such ability. In spite of all the evil which we have said — and undoubtedly with good reason — of this book, I do not believe that you, any of you, could compose a nar- rative so simple, and at the same time so elevated and so afiecting, as the narrative of the sufferings and the death of Christ — a narrative ex- erting so wide an influence and awakening so deep and universal feel- ing, and the power of which, after so many hundred years, would still be the same." This unexpected reflection fell upon the little circle like a thunderbolt. Its force was felt, and long silence fitly expressed the impression it made. In one of our Eastern colleges, fifty years ago, a number of young men, ambitious of unbelief, formed themselves into a society for the criticism of the Holy Scriptures. Their avowed aim was to find ob- jections, and arrange and classify them, thus arming and equipping themselves for war upon the Word of God. Once a week they met, a selected member of the club acting as reader, while the rest sat in judgment on what was read. One evening, as they were thus exam- ining Isaiah, a certain passage struck one of their number, and he said: "That is beautiful!" The reader went on a few verses, and another said: "That is sublime!" The reader proceeded again, till another exclaimed: " That is wonderful!" Once more the reader re- sumed, when the chairman smote the table before him, and cried : "Gentlemen, that is divine!" That was their last infidel meeting. Not long after a number of them stood together and vowed eternal fealty to Christ. And Dr. Joseph Cross, who tells the story, had it from the lips of one of the company, when he had a become a distin- guished preacher and the chancellor of a university. Take another view. These books which have, as if by natural at- traction come together, are cemented as it were, into a solid ball which is perfect in itsslf. No addition to it, or subtraction from it, appears to be among the possibilities. Its present solidity appears to 90 FAITH MADE EASY. ■fae by common consent of the centuries past and the living present. Professor L. T. Townsend has said that "no great council has ever agreed what writings to accept and what to reject, and neither the early Church nor the distinguished heretics of the day ever questioned the credibility of the books which had been pronounced canonical. Luther objected to the Epistle of James, and Calvin would have cast out Revelation, while Rome inserted Church traditions as having equal weight with the apostolic writings, but no such personal prej- udices invalidate the text. Pious monks saved these early copies from fire, sword, and pillage, until God saw ^t to bring the manuscripts from their safe seclusion and free them from the death-grip of two dead languages, the Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek. Since then, whether men have stabbed or embraced the Book, its truths have been marching boldly on." And wherever they go the same results follow; people give up their idolatry, and worship God ; discard their rude cus- toms and habits, and enter into the spirit, power, and pursuits of Chris- tian civilization. This end of revelation, as Canon Mozley has said, is the true test. " By the fruit of revelation we must judge, not by root, nor stalk, nor husk — surely not by smut or parasite." About three hundred millions of the race are distinguished from all others by the one mark, they have the Bible. " There are eight hundred mill- ions who have not the Bible. The Bible readers, then, are but a small minority of the whole race, and yet this small fraction is the dominant element in the affairs of the world. If it is not correct to say that Christianity has invented the railway and the steamboat, it is true that outside of Bible lands there is not, and there never was, a coun- try on the globe that possessed a railroad, a telegraph, a post-oflBce, a banking system, a free government, or wise public charities. Where the Bble has not been given to the people, civil liberty has found no air to breathe. The secular value of this book has never been recog- nized by those who have enjoyed benefits which ever follow in its wake. Viewed from a purely economic stand-point, the Bible and the religion it teaches are the best and cheapest safe-guards of the nation ; and the full payment of its unacknowledged indebtedness to the book would bankrupt the state." SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. The Bible was not written by professional scientists nor by renowned scholars in any field of thought. The authors of some at least of its books were uneducated men, whose only object was to make known WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 91 the mind of God in things pertaining to spiritual and eternal life. It is not probable that they even once considered that their utterances might at some time be subjected to severe scientific tests as to their accuracy, far less that their authority in things coucerning which they claimed inspiration would be called in question because they did not throw fuller light upon matters foreign to their purpose. Yet their writings hold good in every department of human investigation. In no particular have enemies succeeded in overthrowing them. It has not yet even come to pass that skeptics are more respected by the thinking world because they flaunt out their disbelief of the Bible. It has been remarked that the slurs which Tyndall and Huxley have cast upon the Scriptures have not increased their reputation with the scientific world. In every such fling these skeptics assume to pass judgment upon a book for whose interpretation they are wanting in fundamental qualifications. They lack spiritual sympathy with the primary intent of Holy Writ, and have no right to wrest its incidental statements from their moral bearings. Yet when they do so, they fail to crush a chapter or verse of the in- spired Book. Doubting geologists have tried their hands on the book of Genesis : skeptical astronomers have tried theirs on the book of Joshua ; and other unfriendly critics have done their best to break down other books ; but not one is destroyed, or broken, or bruised. The Bible stands to-day in solid integrity, challenging its foes to do their worst. That worst, hitherto, has been only to rail and blaspheme. These are the methods of the impotent scofier, and are powerless with the thinking classes. Some would have us believe that the study of science leads to skep- ticism, and that the Bible has ceased to be recognized as a revelation from God by those who are eminent in the scientific world. Dr. Will- iam Allen Miller, a distinguished scientist, in a discussion of this very subject, says: "The habit of scientific investigation tends naturally to develop and strengthen certain mental characteristics. Among these we may mention candor and caution, enforced by experience of the facility with which error may be mistaken for truth. The constant need of watchfulness against self-deception, and the logical training which scientific research requires, though hostile to credulity and su- perstition, render the mind only more alive to proofs of creative power and wisdom, and predispose it to acts of adoration and praise." This is a fair statement, and it shows how really great minds are guarded against loose expressions, which may be construed as in the interests of infidel philosophy. 92 FAITH MADE EASY. Misunderstanding, in some quarters, might have been avoided had men kept in view the sole province of the Book of God. " The Bible," says the late Bishop (better known as Chancellor) E. O. Haven, whose scholarly endowments placed him in the forefront among educators, "does not undertake to teach us the shape of the earth, nor its tex- ture. It does not teach mining or civil engineering, or navigation or agriculture. It does not teach the circulation of the blood, or the con- struction of the nervous system, or the origin or mode of transmission of the nervous force. It does not even teach orthography. It does not teach cooking, important as that is. It describes neither statute law nor common law, neither Parliament nor Congress. It teaches nothing that we can really ascertain and determine certainly without it. It is not its province to present to man the facts of material things or the laws by which material things are governed. It is not even its province to teach mental or moral science fully and sys- tematically. All those are left for man to explore and classify and comprehend, by an exercise of his own powers." The Bible confines itself to the affairs of human redemption. All its incidental allusions to scientific facts and principles are for the purpose of inculcating great doctrines, bearing upon character, condition, and destiny. Yet some of these are wonderful in their accuracy and full- ness. How oftec are scholarly men surprised at finding the very truth they have arrived at by scientific methods, unequivocally, and as sim- ple matter of fact, stated in the Word of God ! Thus, M. Guyot, one of the most eminent scientists of the present century, wrote and deliv- ered a course of lectures upon Creation, and afterwards found that he had unwittingly followed the order of the account in Genesis. His in- terest being aroused, he set about to do what others had attempted ; viz. , to harmonize scientific researches with the Biblical account. The re- sult was his famous work upon " The Creation." There are scientists not a few, whose study of nature and revelation has led them to the conclusion expressed by Dana in the closing chapter of his great work on geology, where, after comparing the Mosaic account of creation with that derived from the study of the rocks, he says: " The record of the Bible is therefore profoundly philosophical in the scheme which it presents. It is both true and divine. It is a declaration of au- thorship, both of creation and the Bible, on the first page of the sacred volume. There can be no real conflict between the two Books of the great Author. Both are revelations made by him to man — the earlier telling of God made harmonious, coming up from the deep past, and rising to their height when man appeared ; the later teaching man's WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 93 relation to his Maker, and speaking of loftier harmonies in the eternal future." Dr. Samuel Kinns, an English author, recently gave a series of lectures in the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy of England on " The Marvelous Scientific Accuracy of the Bible." The London Recm-d states that the last of these, which took place at the Earl of Shaftes- bury's, was attended by a large and very distinguished company. Dr. Kinns showed that the following order of fifteen creative events, as taught by science, corresponds with that given by Moses : Primarily, Science says that matter existed first in a highly attenuated gaseous condition, called ether, without any form, and nou-luminous. Moses says: "And the Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." 1. Science: Astronomical facts go to prove that other worlds were formed before the solar system. Moses : "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 2. Science: The condensation of ether formed luminous nebulse, which afterwards still further condensed into suns and worlds. Moses : "And God said. Let there be light." 3. Sdenee: On the cooling of the earth some of the gases which surrounded it combined mechanically and chemically to form air and water. Moses: "And God said, Let there be a firmament.'' 4. Science : On further cooling great convulsions took place, which heaved up the rocks and raised them above the universal sea, forming mountains, islands, and continents. Moses: "And God said. Let the dry land appear." 5. Scierwe : The earliest forms of vegetable life were Cryptogams, such as the algse, lichens, fungi, and ferns, on the land, which are propagated by spores and not by seeds. (Dr. Hicks has found ferns in the Lower Silurian of Wales.) Moses : "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass." (Literal translation : Let the earth sprout forth sproutage, which might be rendered tender herbage.) 6. Science : Next succeeded the lowest class of Phsenogams, or flowering plants called Gymnosperms, from having naked seeds, such as the Conifers. (Dana mentions coniferous wood being found in the Lower Devonian.) Moses: " The herb yielding seed." 7. Science: These were followed by a higher class of Phsenogams, or flowering plants, bearing a low order of fruit, found in the Middle Devonian and Carboniferous strata. Moses: "And the fruit-tree yielding fruit." (The higher order of fruit-trees appeared when " God planted a garden " later on.) 94 FAITH MADE EASY. 8. Science: The earth until after the Carboniferous period was evidently surrounded with much vapor, and an equable climate pre- vailed all over its surface ; afterwards these mists subsided, and then the directs rays of the sun caused the seasons. Moges : "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmanent of heaven, and let them be for signs and for seasons.'' 9. Science: After the Carboniferous period many fresh species of marine animals appeared, and the seas swarmed with life. Moses: "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly." 10. Science: In the New Red Sandstone footprints of birds are found for the first time. Moses: "And fowl that may fly above the earth." 11. Science: In the succeeding strata of the Lias, monster sau- rians, such as the Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, are found. Moses: "And God created great whales." (Should have been translated " sea monsters." 12. Science : Enormous beasts, such as the Megalosaurus, Iguano- don, and Dinotherium, preceded the advent of cattle. Moses: "And God made the beast of the earth after his kind." 13. Science: Cattle, such as oxen and deer, appeared before man ; some of them in the Post-Pliocene period. Moses: "And cattle after their kind." 14. Science: According to Agassiz, the principal flowers, fruit-trees, and cereals appeared only a short time previous to the human race. Moses: "The Lord God planted a garden: . . . and out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." 15. Science: The highest and last created form of animal life was man. Moses: "And God created man in his own image." Finally, Science: As far as our present knowledge goes, no fresh species of plants or animals were created after man. Moses : " God ended his work which he had made." Dr. Kinns then proved that the number of changes that can be made in the order of fifteen things is more than a billion — ^viz., 1,307- 674,368,000 — and, therefore, if Moses placed fifteen important cre- ative events in their proper order without the possibility of traditional help, as most of them happened millions of years before man was created, it is a very strong proof of his inspiration, for group them as one may, and take ofl^'a further percentage for any scientific knowl- edge possessed by him, still the chances must be reckoned by hun- dreds of millions against his giving the order correctly without a WRAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 95 special revelation from God. To lead his auditors to appreciate this, Dr. Kinns mentioned that a clock beating seconds would take over thirty thousand years to tick a billion times ; and that if any fifteen difierent eveuts could be written down once in every ten minutes, it would take tweuty-four millions of years to write all the variations that could be made in their order, writing them day and night without intermission, and further to illustrate it, he distributed slips of paper for each to write down the first fifteen letters of the alphabet in an order known only to himself, something in this order : g mh d ajb k cfeniol and not one corresponded with his. He told them that if all the people in the world were to try to imitate his unknown order, there would be still a thousand chances to one that the whole twelve hundred million attempts would be incorrect. Or, in other words, if all the people in a thousand worlds, each having a population equal to our own, were to try, there would still be a probability that not one ' list would agree in sequence with the unknown list. After this he asked. How will the skeptic explain the marvelous — nay, miraculous — accuracy in sequence of the Mosaic cosmogony? What is true of Moses is true of other sacred writers. Indeed, Moses has been the object of the most virulent skeptical attack, be- cause his writings were considered less impregnable than the rest. Nevertheless, when all his mistakes are summed up, and weighed in the balance of honest and intelligent criticism, there will not be found enough of them on which to hang a plausible objection. Eev. Bostwick Hawley, D. D. , has called attention to a letter writ- ten in 1855 by Lieutenant M. F. Maury, of the United States Navy, and one of the foremost scientific men of that time. Its essential points, which Dr. Hawley arranges, show the " distinct traces in the Old Testament of scientific knowledge, both of the winds and ocean currents.'' 1. " ' Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ?' Whoever wrote these pregnant words, it is con- ceded that he lived and flourished at a time somewhere between Abraham and Moses, long before science had assumed any definite and systematic form. Scientific theories were then unknown. Lieutenant Maury says : ' It is a curious fact that the revelations of science have led astronomers of our own day to the discovery that the sun is not the dead center of motion, around which comets sweep and planets whirl ; but that it, with its splendid retinue of worlds and satellites, is revolving through the realms of space at the rate of millions of miles in a year and in obedience to some influence situated precisely in 96 FAITH MADE EASY. the direction of the star Alcyon, one of the Pleiades. We do not Icnow how far off in the immensities of space that center of revolving cycles and epicycles may be ; nor have our oldest observers or nicest instruments been able to tell how far off in 'the skies that beautiful cluster of stars is hung whose ' influences ' man can never bind. In this question and the answer to it are involved both the recognition and exposition of the whole theory of gravitation. " The word Pleiades is from a Greek word meaning to sail, and is applied to these seven stars because Greek navigation began at the rise and closed at the setting of this cluster of stars. The Hebrew word means a heap, a cluster, especially a cluster of stars. Alcyon is the chief or central star of the group and may be the center of that por- tion of the stellar universe to which the solar system is more imme- diately related in its immense revolution. That this name is given to this star because of its importance and influence, finds an illustration in the Greek fable where the bird known as the king-fisher bears the same name. " 2. The lieutenant takes and well uses another saying of Job : ' He maketh the weight for the wind.' Quite equal to Galileo — who knew, but did not dare in prison to say, that the reason why a certain pump of that day did not lift water higher than thirty-two feet was be- cause the ' weight' of the atmosphere is only fifteen pounds to the square inch — Job thousands of years before him enunciated the fact in this brief sentence. " 3. The fact that the patriarch of Uz was somewhat familiar with the principle though not with the theory and definite laws of gravita- tion is seen in this peculiar expression : ' He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.' 'Here is another proof,' says Maury, ' that Job was familiar with the laws of gravitation, for he knew how the world was held in its place ; and as for the "empty place" in the sky, Sir John Herschel has been sound- ing the heavens with his powerful telescope and gauging the stars, and where do you think he finds the most barren part — the empty place — of the sky? In the north, precisely where Job told Bildad, the Shu- hite, the empty place was stretched out. It is there where comets most delight to roam and hide themselves in emptiness.' "4. As to the order and days of creation Mr. Maury was himself in harmony, and represented Moses to be with the latest and best theory of modern geology and cosmology. He says : ' The history of creation is written on the tablet of rock and in the Book of Revela- tion. In both the order of creation is the same ; first the plants to WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 97. afford substance, and then the animals; the chief point of apparent [and only apparent] difference being as to the duration of the period between the " evening and the morning." "A thousand years is as one day," and the Mosaic account affords evidence itself that the term day, as there used, is not that which comprehends our twenty-four hours. It was a day that had its evening and morning before the sun was made.' If the lieutenant means by made, created, we of course join issue. But if he means was made, or had become the source of light and the measures or rules of time to the then inchoate and cloud-enwrapped earth, we accord with him. "5. Coming down to a later time and writer, Maury affirms that ' Solomon in a single verse describes the circulation of the atmosphere as actual obseryation is now showing it to be. That it has its laws and is obedient to order as the heavenly host in their movement, we infer from the fact announced by him and which contains the essence of volumes by ather men : "All the rivers run into the sea ; but the sea is not full : unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again ;" a passage that somewhat obscurely refers to the evaporation from large bodies of water, particularly in the temperate and torrid belts, then rising to form rain-clouds which fall again in the rain, and also to the flow of streams, caused thereby, to the sea again for other and continuous evaporations and circulations. To investi- gate the laws which govern the winds and rule the sun is one of the most profitable and beautiful occupations that a man, an improving, progressive man, can have. The field of astronomy affords no subjects of contemplation more ennobling, more sublime, or more profitable than those which we may find in the air and the sea. Wayward and fickle as seem their movements, they are orderly and subject to laws. ' When the morning stars,' says Maury, ' sang together, the waves also lifted up their voice, and the winds, too, joined in the almighty anthem. A discovery advances ; we find the marks of order in the sea and in the air that is in tune with the music of the spheres, and the convic- tion is forced upon us that the laws of all are nothing else but perfect harmony.' " The revision of our English Bible, which was completed in 1885, is especially suggestive of its wonderful accuracy even in the smallest particulars. For fifteen years a large company of the most learned scholars and divines, both in Europe and America, in the light of modern developments of science, carefully weighed every word and phrase of the sacred text, yet not one doctrine or duty was obliter- ated or disparaged by the revision, and very few changes, even of 7 98 FAJTH MADE EASY. minor significance, were made. Such a result, in these times of con- flict and criticism, may well serve to strengthen the faith of men in the purity and authority of the written Word. It reminds us of the language of a certain Oxford professor, who died in 1874, and who began in very early life his researches into the exact and delicate meanings of the Greek tenses, moods, prepositions, and particles, and who in mature life displayed a complete mastery over the structure of the Greek language, and a pbrfect admiration for the strict truthful- ness of the Holy Gospels. We refer to Rev. Wm. Sewell, D. D., who gave utterance to the following: "A very minute investigation of the Greek of the New Testament, studied grammatically, with a careful consideration of the real and true meaning of every case, tense, and mood, of every particle, even of the very order of the words, so far as my knowledge of the niceties and exquisite discriminations of the language has enabled me to master the subject, has only served to deepen the conviction that the Holy Scriptures are indeed, in very truth, the Word of God, inspired by his Holy Spirit ; that they are in the original minutely, scrupulously, marvelously exact in every word, syllable, and letter. I can not express too strongly the awe and ad- miration with which I rise daily from this microscopic study of the New Testament. The more minutely I look into the force, the exact- ness, the deep meaning even, of single words, the profounder becomes my reverence,, the more awful my sense of the importance of every jot and every tittle of Holy Writ. Deeply and awfully convinced I am that the Scriptures are not merely the work of good, holy, inspired men, but that they are really the voice of God ; that we must ap- proach them, therefore, with the confidence, the reverence, the un- shaken belief in their correctness, truthfulness, depth, importance, and infinite wisdom due to words which issue from the mouth of God himself" THE BIBLE NOT OUT OF DATE. AH this talk about the Bible being out of date on matters of sci- ence is so much nonsense. Let us have done with it, then, and let us ask: How does the Bible stand its own ground? How does it accom- plish the object it sets before it? Is it out of date as a book upon sin, upon righteousness, upon salvation, upon God? All other books on these subjects, except those that have taken their inspiration directly or indirectly from the Scriptures, were either out of date at the time they were produced or became out-dated in a WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 99 very few years. Where are the ethical and religious productions of those who made their researches and recorded their researches apart from the Scriptures ? Where are the moralists and philosophers of Greece and Rome ? Their works, indeed, are on the shelf of every scholar in Christendom ; but in what capacity ? As authorities ? Not at all, but simply as monuments of eloquence and chapters of intel- lectual history. Who would ever think of giving to the question, " Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ?" this answer : "By taking heed, thereto, according to Aristotle's 'Nicomachean Ethics.'" And yet Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is the very best ever pro- duced on the subject without aid from revelation. Who would ever think of expecting a soul-satisfying solution of the problem, " If a man die, shall he live again?" by reading Plato's " Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul," glorious as it is ? Is there a single Greek or Roman classic on the subject of man's condition and prospects that would be of the slightest use to a soul burdened with sin or oppressed with the weight of this most solemn of all questions : " How shall a man be just with God ?" They are all out of date, cold monuments of genius, dead relics of antiquity, almost forgotten attempts to sound the mysteries of life and death. Does any one sup- pose that th« new " Data of Ethics," by Mr. Herbert Spencer, or the more recent "Science of Ethics,'' by Mr. Leslie Stephen, is likely to be the Sunday-school book for the next generation or require an im- mense society to supply the exhaustless demand for it ? And if those who are trying their hands at helping out the Bible and working along the same lines get so soon out of date, what shall we say of those who fight and write against it ? They go into still swifter and darter oblivion. Where are the authorities of our intelligent skeptical friends of the present day ? They are all amongst the writers of the last few years. What of all the race from Celsus and Julian downwards ? They are all out of date, and most of them can not be seen ; they have gone to Milton's limbo, where all vanities are said to go. Where is a skep- tical writer of two thousand, or one thousand, or five hundred, or fifty (and I am almost tempted to go down, like Abraham, to ten) years' standing, that our intelligent skeptical friends will stand by as we stand by Moses and David, and Matthew and Paul ? They are all out of date, and their works are to be found, if found at all, amid the dusty, decaying, and moth-eaten volumes of the past in the Brit- ish Museum, or on the antiquarian's book-shelf. Who will venture to predict a time when you will ransack a library to find a copy of the 100 FAITH MADE EASY. Books of Moses, or of David, or of Solomon, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or Matthew, or Paul, or John? These authors are all old, but they are always new. Why, their very words are as weighty, as powerful, as confidently appealed to now as ever,'and far more widely read than at any previous time. The path of the Bible is not, hke the path of the infidel book, a steep descent to dark oblivion ; but it is like the path of those who are justified by its faith, which " is as a shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." (Dr. Monro Gibson.) WHAT THE BIBLE IS AND DOES. "A nation must be truly blessed, if it were governed by no other laws than those of this blessed Book. It is so complete a system that nothing can be added to it or taken from it. It contains every thing needful to be known or done. It affords a copy for a king, and a rule for a subject. It gives instruction and counsel to a senate ; authority and direction for a magistrate. It cautions a witness, requires an im- partial verdict of a jury, and furnishes the judge with a sentence. It sets the husband as lord of the household, and the wife as mistress of the table ; tells him how to rule, and her how to manage. It entails honor to parents, and enjoins obedience upon children. Jt prescribes and limits the sway of the sovereign, the rule of the ruler, and the au- thority of the master ; commands the subjects to honor, and the servants to obey ; and promises the blessing and protection of its Author to all that walk by its rule. It gives directions for weddings and for burials. It promises food and raiment, and limits the use of both. It points out a faithful and eternal Guardian to the departing husband and father ; tells him with whom to leave the fatherless children, and in whom his widow is to trust ; and promises a father to the former, and a husband to the latter. It teaches a man how to set his house in order, and how to make his will. It defends the right of all, and re- veals vengeance to every defrauder, overreacher, and oppressor. It is the first book, the best book, and the oldest book in the world. It contains the choicest matter ; gives the best mysteries that were ever penned. It brings the best of tidings, and afibrds the best of comfort to the inquiring ^nd disconsolate. It exhibits life and immor- tality, and shows the way to everlasting glory. It is a brief recital of all' that is past, and a certain prediction of all that is to come. It settles all matters in debate, resolves all doubts, and eases the mind and conscience of all these scruples. It reveals the only living and true God, and shows the way to him ; and sets aside all other gods, and WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 101 describes the vanity of them, and of all that trust in them. In short, it is a book of laws, to show right and wrong; a book of wisdom, that condemns all folly, and makes the foolish wise ; a book of truth, that detects all lies, and confutes all errors ; and a book of life, and shows the way from everlasting death. It is the most compendious book in the world ; the most authentic and the most entertaining his- tory that ever was published. It contains the most early antiquities, strange events, wonderful occurrences, heroic deeds, unparalleled wars. It describes the celestial, terrestrial, and infernal worlds, and the origin of the angelic myriads, human tribes, and infernal legions. It •will instruct the most accomplished mechanic and the profoundest artist. It will teach the best rhetorician, and exercise every power of the most skillful arithmetician; puzzle the wisest anatomist, and exercise the nicest critic. It corrects the vain philosopher, and exposes the sub- tile sophist. It is a complete code of laws, a perfect body of divinity, an unequaled narrative ; a book of lives, a book of travels, and a book of voyages." (Anonymous.) PKOOF FROM MIRACLES. The proof from miracles is highly encouraging to faith. Yet it should be remembered that Christianity does not rest on miracle ; it contains miracle and has employed miracle for ends more or less im- portant. When the proof of miracles is denied to Christianity, 'as Chateaubriand observes, the sublimity of its morality will stUl remain, in the diffusion of its blessings, in the beauty of its ceremonies, to afford adequate proof that it is the most heavenly religion, and the purest worship which mankind ever observed. Christianity is perfect, ' and men are imperfect. Perfection can never issue out of imperfec- tion. Christianity, then, does not come from man. If it is not from man, it must be from God. If it is from God, it must have come to man by a revelation. Then Christianity is a revelation from God. "If we ask ourselves why we believe, we shall find the miracles occupying but a very small place among our foundations. We shall, after criticism has taken away all ihxt it finds defective, have left a history of beliefs and characters, of truths and holy men, of conflicts with toil and self sacrificing devotion, in which we unfeignedly believe. We shall also find in our hearts a force not inefiectually striving to make us better, purer, truer, manlier ; and this force we shall connect in our thinking with the man Christ Jesus. Here there are two immense foundation-stones — the old perpetuated faith of Abraham and Spur- 102 FAITH MADE EASY. geon, and our own humble personal faith. It is probable that on these all believers — real believers — have always rested during the Christian era."* Belief in miracles is not as taxing to faith as some people imagine. True faith expects just such occurrences. It would be more surprises without them than with them. "It seems to me,'' says George Mac- Donald, "that it needs no great power of faith to believe in the mir- acles ; for true faith is a power, not a mere yielding. There are far harder things to believe than the miracles ; for a man is not required to believe in them save as believing in Jesus. If a man can believe that there is a God, he may well believe that, having made creatures capable of hungering and thirsting for him, he must be capable of speaking a word to guide them in their feeling after him." But what is a miracle ? We must have an accurate definition, for much depends upon it. Skeptics define a miracle to be "a violation of the laws of nature." Then they proceed to show that those laws are never violated ; and, hence, miracles never happen, and are impos- sible. The definition is primarily at fault. Christians are as firm be- lievers as any in the stability of the laws of nature. They yield to no skeptic on earth in their conviction of the reign of law. But they have a difierent and a better view of the character of that reign, and a true apprehension of the power of the Lawgiver. Let us cite an authority or two as to the nature of a miracle. Arch- bishop Trench says: " We should term the miracle not the infraction of a law, but behold in it the lower law neutralized, and for the time put out of working by a higher ; and of this abundant analogous ex- amples are evermore going forward before our eyes. Continually we behold in the world around us lower laws held in restraint by higher, mechanic by dynamic, chemical by vital, physical by moral ; yet we may not say, when the lower thus gives place in favor of the higher, that there was any violation of law, or that any thing contrary to na- ture came to pass ; rather we acknowledge the law of a greater freedom swallowing up the law of a lesser. Thus, when I lift my arm, the law of gravitation is not, as far as my arm is concerned, denied or an- nihilated ; it exists as much as ever, but is held in suspense by the higher law of my will. The chemical laws which would bring about decay in animal substances still subsist, even when they are checked and hindered by the salt which keeps those substances from corrup- tion. The law of sin in a regenerate man is held in continual check by the law of the spirit of life ; yet it is in his members still, not » President D. H. Wheeler, D. D., LL. D. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 103 indeed working, for a mightier law has stepped in and now holds it in abeyance, but still there, and ready to work did that higher law cease from its more effectual operation. What in each of these cases is wrought may be against one particular law, that law being contem- plated in its isolation, and rent away from the complex of laws, whereof it forms only a part. But no law does thus stand alone, and it is not against, but rather in entire harmony with, the system of laws ; for the law of those laws is that where powers come into conflict, the weaker shall give place to the stronger, the lower to the higher." Robertson also sees in a miracle " not the contravention of the laws of nature, but only a higher operation of those same laws, in a form hitherto unseen. A miracle is, perhaps, no more a suspension or contradiction of the laws of nature than a hurricane or a thunder- storm. They who first traveled to tropical latitudes came back with anecdotes of supernatural convulsions of the elements. In truth, it was only that they had never personally witnessed such effects; but the hurricane which swept the waves flat, and the lightning which illu- minated all the heavens or played upon the bayonets or masts in lam- bent flames, were but effects of the very same laws of electricity and meteorology which were in operation at home." Miracles are the voluntary acts of a personal agent or being. They are not chance occurrences, if, indeed, there be any such thing. They are not the regular play, however sublime and wonderful, of the reg- ular forces of the universe. These may be quite as suggestive of the existence of God as the other ; but miracles, as ordinarily understood, they are not. They are well worth contemplating. " When we see the miracle of nature by which the death-like Winter is changed into the season of flowers and foliage and singing birds, of sunshine and rainbows, of zephyrs and sweet air at morning and evening, why should we doubt? Is He who works this miracle for things material and comparatively inconsiderable, unable to keep his promises with his own redeemed children ? Is it any harder to raise up a man from the dust, than to clothe the earth with verdure after ice and snow ? We are familiar with the one miracle, and not with the other : nothing less than Omnipotence can work either; and when we see that God is constantly working the one, we may be sure he can work the other also."* But the established order of the natural world is by no means as impenetrable to the touch of personal agents as may be at first sup- posed. There are exceptions real and numberless to the working of * * Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe, D. D., LL. D. 104 FAITH MADE EASY. natural causes, and these exceptions partake of the nature of the mi- raculous. "Every voluntary act," says Rev. Dr. W. D. Wilson, " every act that arises from spontaneity is of the nature of a miracle ; something unforeseen by science, something that can not be accounted for on scientific principles, if we insist upon using the words ' science ' and 'scientific' with exclusive reference to natwraZ science. Some- thing is done for a purpose and with a view to an end such as could not or would not be accomplished in the ordinary course of nature without the intervention of mind, whether by evolution or otherwise. Miracles are the acts of personal agents, and not the products of phys- ical forces. They are in their very nature relative ; when there was no living thing, growth and locomotion would have been regarded as both incomprehensible and miraculous, if there had been a crystal capable of intelligence to see and think about such phenomena. So, too, in a world of intelligent beings, where all are deaf the man that could hear would be all the time performing what would be regarded as miraculous. And even any of the phenomena of inanimate matter, if it should oc- cur only once, and we should be unable to assign to it any adequate cause or give it any satisfactory explanation, would be, in the estima- tion of all men, a miracle. Thus, if we look from mere matter up to animal life, or from the level of mere animal life up to the intelligent voluntary activity of man, we see in either case a region of miracles. Now, omitting for the present the element of rarity and novelty in the occurrence, what we find common to all the events that are or would be called miraculous, is the intervention of a force or being that is higher than that which is found to be active in the region below. What I want to have especially noted is that in all this, so far as we have thus gone, there is no contravention, suspension or violation of the laws of nature, in the phenomena which, as we have seen, would be regarded as miraculous in these various cases. In the phenomena of animal organization and life there is no violation or departure from the laws of chemistry and mechanics, but there is a new force at work combining the elements, and using the laws in ways that have not been before observed. So in human life and voluntary action, the laws of nature prevail. There is, however, a new force — the human mind — guiding them. And although it can not suspend or counteract those laws, it can give new directions and new combinations to their modes of activity, so that results that could not occur in nature with- out such an agent are all the while occurring with his presence, and constitute what we regard as the sphere of human action." * *"The Foundations of Religious Belief." (Page 276.) • WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 105 So, were it possible for man to rise from the sphere of human ac- tion into the realm of exclusively divine activity, could he enter into the counsels of the Infinite Mind and comprehend the workings of Omnipotent Power, the miracles which now astonish and perplex would seem as natural as the roll of the seasons or the multiplied activities and' productions of human life. What appears miraculous to one order of life may be very simple and natural to minds of another order. To a crawling insect the flight of a bird is a miracle ; to a bird the power of a horse is a miracle ; to a horse the construction of a loco- motive engine is a miracle ; to the constructor of the engine the crea- tion of the world is a miracle. Yet the creation of the world is a fact, and this fact gives us the existence of God as a Creator, and a miracle- worker. A miracle is an exception to the observed order of nature. Could we imagine miracle established into law, it would be miracle no longer. In like manner, were there no established laws, miracles would not be observed. God has chosen to govern the world by established princi- ples. He is not under the dominion of those principles or laws, be- cause he has established them, or given them a regular order. He can control them for special ends as well as if he had never set them up. To do so, however, is a miracle, pure and simple. Bible miracles are "exceptions to the observed order of nature, brought about by God in order to reveal his will or purpose. They are the wonders wrought in order to assure mankind that they who proclaimed the truths it was God's will to make known, were doing so by his command — that they had his full sanction for what they said and did." " The Bible," says Macmillan, " reveals to us the spiritual source of the physical world ; shows to us that the supernatural is not an- tagonistic to the constitution of nature, but is the eternal source of it. The miracles of the Bible are not only emblems of power in the spii> itual world, but also exponents of the miracles of nature — experiments, as it were, made by the Great Teacher in person, on a small scale and within a limited time, to illustrate to mankind the phenomena that are taking place over longer periods throughout the universe. All crea- tion is a standing wonder, but it needs other wonders to reveal it to our careless eyes and insensible hearts. It needs the sudden multipli- cation of the loaves and fishes at Capernaum to explain to us the mys- tery of the harvest of the land and the sea. It needs the miracle of Cana to show to us who it is that is gradually converting water into wine in every vineyard. It needs the virtue flowing from the hem of 106 FAITH MADE EASY. Christ's garment at the touch of faith, to disclose to us the souijce and the meaning of the medicinal virtue stored up, for bodies blighted by the curse, in many a soothing anodyne and many a healing balm. It needs the destruction of the walls of Jericho by the trumpet blast to convince us that the seen is governed by the unseen, that the moun- tain must yield to the action of cold and heat, and the stable rock and massive castle in the course of years be withered away and dis- mantled, stone by stone, by the subtle and invisible forces of the air. It needs the calming of the stormy waters of Gennesaret to satisfy us that the powers of nature, which seem so arbitrary, so destructive, so purely physical, are held in leash by Him who maintains the constant beneficent circulation of the elements. The philosophy of miracles is, therefore, just the revelation of the living God as the God of nature; the revelation of God, not as violating, but as maintaining the order of his world : a revelation sudden and startling, to show to us what could not be shown so effectually in any other way, what ' his hand is daily doing for the beautifying and glorifying of the earth and of life.' As Mr. Westcott says, in his thoughtful work on Miracles : ' The order of the universe has a spiritual root. The purpose of love which changes is also the purpose of love which directs it. He who can bind and loose the forces of nature has thus revealed the eternal purpose in which they originate.' " That the Bible miracles actually occurred is as true as history. They are matters of fact, sustained by the very best evidence which history can furnish. Bible miracles were not secretly wrought in dark- ened rooms, with closed doors ; they were done openly and before un- numbered witnesses, in many cases previous notice having been given that they would occur. See how public were the plagues of Egypt. The waters run into blood, the frogs and lice crawl about, the elements conspire in terrific furor, frogs and grasshoppers gather in myriads around, flies swarm in darkening clouds, fruits are destroyed, cattle perish, children die, and finally the very persons of the Egyptians be- come loathsome with lice, and painful with horrible sores. A little further on, see the miraculous opening of the Red Sea. The Israel- ites had gone to the extremity of their ability in seeking deliverance. They had done all that human power, actuated by faith, could do, and just when they expected destruction they found protection and help. With equal publicity were the miracles of the New Testament wrought, especially that at Cana, when freshest water turned into purest wine; and that in the desert, when more than five thousand persons partook of bread and fish apparently sufficient for the disciples alone. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 107 Why were not these miracles called in question at the time? Skep- tics then were just as wise and intensely bitter as now. They had every opportunity given them to investigate and satisfy themselves. The apostles invited the fullest investigation into the truth of their story. They were often brought before legal tribunals, where an ex- posure of either delusion or imposture would have been just the thing to expect. Our blessed Lord himself, after the miracle of the resur- rection, hesitated not to challenge the closest scrutiny: "That it is I myself, handle me and see." Thomas, you are the doubtful one ; come now and be convinced ; here in my side are the wounds of the spear, and in my hands the lacerations of the cruel nails ; reach hither thy hands and convince thyself. The truth is, men could not deny what they saw and heard. When the dumb spake, the blind saw, the dead sat up, the witnesses knew the facts occurred, and there was no chance for denial. For a series of years and under a great variety of circumstances these wonderful works of God were wrought. The cures wrought by Jesus, to say nothing of his other miracles, must be counted by thousands. Multitudes followed him everywhere, and we are told that he "healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." All the people had opportunity to examine and re-examine in instances where the deaf were made to hear, the dumb to speak, the lame to walk, the sick to be well, the insane to speak rationally, the dead and decaying to come forth, thrilled anew and sweetly with vigorous life. And there were no mysterious cere- monies, no blinding pomp and parade, accompanying these workings. Wealth and wisdom, power and prestige, were not the qualifications of those who performed them. Christ himself had no following of great friends, and his disciples who afterward worked miracles in his name had no powerful patrons. All was done in the simplest ways, a word spoken, a little act performed, something the mind could readily comprehend, alone preceded the mighty demonstration which followed. "Lazarus, come forth!" was the only mandate which fell on living ears and was equally powerful to startle the dead. "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk !" was the sole formula which resulted in complete body healing. Bible miracles are not more wonderful than revelation itself, and revelation is not more wonderful than creation. View creation as you will, it is a miracle of the highest order. It was a radical de- parture from the ordinary course of nature. The process which called all things that are, into being, was certainly completely different from that which was established to keep them out of being, or in their 108 FAITH MADE EASY. primary condition. " If," says Dr. Wilson, "the self-existent First Cause did not at the creation of the world, as it now appears, call matter into being from nothing, he certatinly did act to set its inert, and at that time inactive, atoms into motion and activity. From a state of ' uni- versal death ' and ' perfect equilibrium or rest,' he caused the atoms to begin to act directly upon each other ; and the result was molecules and masses, with heat and light, affinity and cohesiou, and gravity of masses, as ' mode of motion,' mere phenomena of their activity. This was a miracle in the very highest sense that we can attach to the word. . . . He acted on matter, moved and molded it to his wUl. Inert as it is, it does not appear to have any power of resistance or impenetrability as against him. It is as plastic and as yielding as if it were only his thoughts or volitions, as some philosophers have claimed, and he works in it and upon it. He has shown his presence and power, his agency and intervention in physical nature, whenever it was necessary to produce some new thing, the protoplasm of which all animal tissue is made, of the first pairs of all permanent species. And he made man; ' in his own image created he him.' Shall we hold that he works in nature in accordance with the physical laws, or rather in those laws in the inorganic world, and not in the mind of man ? He manifests his purposes, and works to do his will, in the instincts of animals ; does he not work also in the reason and conscience of man, the only rational being that he has created, that is within the sphere of our observation ?" God created man and has revealed himself to man. These are miraclls. Creation is a miracle of power in relation to physical law. The established order of nature was changed to suit the wishes of Jehovah. Revelation is a miracle of knowledge as well as power. It is a spiritual miracle, and hence of a different order from the mir- acle of the creation ; but it is none the less a miracle. Its object is to tell us things which we could not otherwise know. Some knowledge of the relation of the soul to God is absolute!}' necessary for our moral and spiritual well-being. Natural religion could not give this knowledge. We, therefore, find no difficulty in the belief that God who made us what we are, sin excepted, should intervene to teach us what we ought to be, sin having entered. " Why man is just what he is, and why the state of things in which he finds himself is what it is, we can not tell. We can only reason from facts as we find them. But man being such as he is, we assert that the world would be a failure without miracles; for either man would exist with- out a purpose, or, having been placed here for some purpose, he would WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 109 not have known with sufficient certainty or clearness what that purpose was, and, therefore, would neither have the means of effecting it, nor even any obligation laid upon him of trying to accomplish what his Maker had willed in his creation." But why, in the great miracle of revealing himself to fallen man, was it necessary to work other miracles ? Simply because in no other way could the manifestation of the Divine Power that dwelt in him who came, to save the world have been satisfactory. It is not sup- posable that God could reveal himself without accompanying his rev- • elation with conclusive evidence of its divinity. When Jesus said, " If I had not done among them the works which no other man did," they had not had sin," he simply declared the necessity of miracles iu order to justify the penalties of unbelief ; and when Nicodemus affirmed, " 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," he voiced the general conviction of the race that miracles are the adequate, fitting, and indispensable proofs of the revealed wiU of God. " The root idea of Christianity," says Rev. J. J. Lias in his excel- lent work on the Credibility of Miracles, " is the restoration of man's nature by one who is himself God and man. Could it be possible that God could have thus assumed the veil of humanity without some flashes of his majesty breaking out from behind it? Or, supposing that he willed to prevent such a betrayal of his divinity, would it then have been possible for man to have recognized it? Could we blame man for failing to discern it, in the confessedly disordered state of his moral and spiritual faculties? St. John says: 'We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father ; full of grace and truth.' It is for those who reject miracles to tell us how the divine Son of God was otherwise to have made himself and his missioil known, than by the manifestation of power as well as goodness." The life and work of Christ constitute " the great miracle placed in the center of the history of the world. From that fundamental miracle proceed, like radiant beams, all the particular miracles which illustrate the life of the Savior and his apostles ; and to that refer, as preparations for the oft-predicted and long-expected, all the miracles of the history of the ancient people of God." The attempt to explain away the divine character of the miracles of Christ on the ground that such a character as Jesus, viewed purely as a man — that is, a pure character and a great teacher — would natu- rally wield a wonderful influence over the nerves of the people, has proved utterly futUe since the consideration that many of his miracles 110 FAITH MADE EASY. ■were wrought in places at a distance from his own personal presence. When the Canaanite woman spoke to Jesus iu the vicinity of Sidon (Matt. XV, 21-28) about her daughter being possessed with a devil, that daughter was then far in the interior, yet from the very hour that Jesus said, " O woman, great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt," her da^ghter was made whole. So with the nobleman's son lying sick unto death at Capernaum while his father consulted Jesus in Galilee. (John iv, 47-53.) No sooner had Jesus uttered the man- date, " Thy son liveth!" than the servants around his couch, perceiv- ing his change for the better, ran to meet the father with the happy news that his boy would live. Note the record : " Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth : and himself believed and his whole house. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee." Jesus wrought other miracles than his cures, but some of these alone were of sufficient clearness and force to establish his claim to divinity. Take the case of the palsy-stricken man (Matt, ix, 1-8). The scribes accused Jesus of blasphemy, because he said to the sufferer, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," but he answered them, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or. Arise and walk ?" Of course, the effect of the latter words could be witnessed by the senses, and hence, was much easier ; therefore, Jesus added : ' ' But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." And he arose and departed to his house, while the mul- titudes marveled and glorified God. "The dramatic form of this scene," says Professor Godet, " which was evidently taken from life, and has been preserved identical in all the three Gospel narratives, proves that Jesus felt absolutely sure that he could cure the sick man who lay stretched on his couch, before the eyes of all present, immediately and completely. But could he have felt so if he had had nothing at his disposal, but some natural and even unknown power? Certainly not : a merely psychological effect always depends, to a great extent, upon the disposition of the sick. And let it not be overlooked, that, in speaking as he did, he risked bis whole position. If the sick man had not risen in perfect health from his couch, Jesus would, by his own words, have been convicted of lying and blasphemy, and his Messianic claims would have shrunk into an empty pretension." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. Ill We can not too clearly bear in mind the fact that aU Scripture miracles were wrought in fulfillment of a divine purpose, and differ completely in this regard from all alleged ancient miracles and the fictitious miracles of the apocryphal Gospels. God never acts save in the service of holiness and love. The miracles he wrought among his ancient people — the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan, giving the manna, causing water to issue from the rock, destroying the walls of Jericho — were all intended to authenticate and to further the mis- sion of his own designated servants, Moses and Joshua, and, hence, to wield the most momentous influence upon the history of the world. Such miracles combine all the features of a divine character; in other words, are worthy of God. So with the miracles of Christ. With one or two exceptions, they were works of mercy and love, and all were calculated to impress mankind with the truth that he was indeed the Savior. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, stilled the tempest when it endangered his disciples' lives, raised the dead, and did other things in keeping with his great office as Savior and Benefactor of mankind." Moreover, the miracles of the Bible are inseparably connected with its history. The history of the Exodus, and the history of Jesus Christ (the two distinguishing centers of the Old and New Testaments), can only be explained on the assumption of miracles. Miracles con- stitute a great part of the system of which they are the confirmatory seal. "It would be an interesting literary feat,'' says J. S. Blair, "to begin at Genesis and end with Revelation, eliminating all references to miracles in the sacred volume. One would like to see what sort of anatomy would be left. Why, the miracles of Scripture enter into the very warp and woof of the wondrous web. It is not arguing in a vicious circle to say that the history proves the miracles, and the miracles prove the history. The miracles prove the divine character of the revelation therein contained, while the history shows the mir- acles were performed." The history is made up of the testimonies of candid, competent, and numerous witnesses. These witnesses were put to the severest test as to the truthfulness of their utterances, and never failed in a single case. They " passed their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone, in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief in such accounts, and also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct." There is no satisfactory evidence that persons pro- fessing to be original witnesses of other alleged miracles ever acted in the same manner. The testimonies of these persons, so fully and 112 FAITH MADE EASY. uncorruptibly preserved, would be sufficient to establish any other truth, and they establish the truth of miracles. Persons who will not accept miracles on such evidence, would not accept them on any evidence whatever. But why have miracles ceased? Nobody knows that they have. The notion that miracles were all wrought in a huddle or most numer- ously at a remote period in the history of the world, is utterly false. We recognize the fact that none appear in our own day, but the same was true of many other generations at all periods of the world's his- tory. We must remember, first, that " miracles serve only as an ac- companiment to the Work of God for the salvation of the human race. That work was completed by Jesus and his apostles, and what is now left to be done is simply the individual appropriation of God's work. But for that purpose no miracle is necessary, or, rather, the miracle now retreats into the private personal sphere. Second, the alleged decrease in the series of miracles is absolutely false. In the most ancient epoch of the history of mankind (from Adam to Moses, comprising about twenty -five hundred years). Biblical his- tory does not record one single miracle, properly speaking ; for the divine apparitions accorded to the patriarchs belong in another cate- gory. The first miraculous acts in the domain of nature are the signs given to Moses at the moment he entered upon his office — illustrations of the name Jehovah, expressions of the absolute mono- theism founded by him. Then six or seven centuries elapse, and no miracle occurs ; but it reappears at the moment when the existence of monotheism is seriously threatened by the invasion of the grossest paganism, in the times of Elijah and Elisha. Again two or three cen- turies roll on without any miracle, until the period of the Babylonian captivity, when the reign of God seemed completely wiped off" from the face of the earth, and the truth of monotheism had to be vindi- cated in the most striking manner against the victorious power of paganism : it was the time of Daniel. Finally, an interval of four centuries separates this third epoch of miracles from the fourth, which is also the last, the most striking, and belonging to the full dawn of history — the epoch of Jesus and his apostles. If we now suppose that miracles are nothing but legendary fictions, why, then, are they con- centrated on certain decisive points, instead of being scattered uni- formly over the whole surface of Biblical history ? and why are they most numerous in that epoch which is near.est to modern times?"* The truth is, miracles are not ordinary, but extraordinary events, * Professor Godet. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 113 brought about by the great Ruler of the universe in the effort to secure the salvation of the race. Whenever the spiritual knowledge of mankind has been at a very low ebb, God has used miracles as a means of reviving it. Should such conditions ever arise again, no man knoweth but that God would resort to these extreme measures again. We do not believe they ever will. His people will serve him more faithfully than this implies; they will make his name known among all the nations, until all ends of the earth see the salvation of God, and miracles prove no longer necessary. Miracles, says J. Muller, naturally accompany a divine revelation ; the height of the revelation will be most full of miracles. This is cer- tainly true of the miracles of the Bible. Prophecies stand in the same relation to the spiritual realm as miracles to* the realm of nature ; hence they almost always have a symbolical character. They natu- rally ceased after the kingdom of God was firmly established. Proph- ecies are the miracles of knowledge ; they have the same relation to history that miracles have to nature ; but they do not disturb man's permanent and essential relations to history any more than miracles do his relations to nature. Their object is to strengthen faith, and to draw attention to the divine order and plan in history. The miracles of Christ are not evidences alone, but great lessons. They are not pictures of his power simply, but words of his wisdom, expressions of his love. They have each, if we are to study them, their own, and often their deepest meaning. Says Dr. Joseph Angus : " Nine of the Gospel miracles were wrought in nature. The water he made wine ; the tempest he stiUed; the sea he made as solid as earth, and walked upon it; twice he multiplied bread; twice he found in the miraculous draughts of fishes emblems of the work and progress of his kingdom ; once the fish supplied him, through Peter, with proof of his Sonship ; and once the barren fig-tree was blasted and withered as an emblem of the fate of the city near which he stood. The remainder of the miracles were all wrought in a nobler field. Twice he healed persons afflicted with leprosy ; four times he opened the eyes of the blind ; thrice he cast out devils ; thrice he raised the dead ; and many times besides he healed all manner of diseases. " If, after all, we set aside the evidence supplied by these miracles, we must then suppose a miracle greater than all. If Christ was not from God, we have then a Jewish peasant changing the religion of the world ; weaving with the story of his life the fulfillment of an- cient predictions, and a morality of the purest order, as unlike the tra- ditional teaching of his countrymen as it was superior to the precepts 8 114 FAITH MADE EASY. of Gentile philosophy ; anticipating and enduring, with most unearthly composure, intense suffering, and inducing his followers to submit to similar sufferings, and many of them to a cruel death, in support, not so much of opinions as of alleged facts, beginning with the miracle of his birth, and ending with the miracle of his resurrection. We have, then, these followers, " unlearned men," going forth and discours- ing upon the sublimest themes, persuading the occupiers of Grecian and Roman cities to cast away their idols, to renounce the religion of their fathers, to reject the instruction of their philosophy, and to re- ceive instead, as a teacher sent from God, a Jew of humble station, who had nothing earthly to offer but persecution and poverty, and who had himself been put to a shameful death. To receive this explana- tion of the admitted facts, is to receive a greater miracle than any which the Bible contains. PROOF FROM PROPHECY. One of the strongest arguments for the truth of the whole Bible i^ the fulfillment of its prophecies. If prophecy is shown to be from God, then the writings which accompany prophecy must also be from God, for these likewise claim divine authority, and " God would not allow his prophecies to be fastened up with the writings of Job and Deuteronomy and the Book of Psalms and other parts of the Bi- ble not belonging to the prophecies, if they were bad things, fake and lying impositions." Three conditions are commonly held as requisite to the divine truth of a prophetic writing: 1. It must lie beyond human sagacity or conjecture. It must be as truly supernatural as a miracle of power. 2. The prophecy must precede the fulfillment. It must not be his- tory disguised as prophecy. 3. A real fulfillment must be shown to have taken place. Where these conditions all meet in a prophecy, or a series of prophecies, we are warranted in regarding such prophecy as the seal of a divine revelation. Now, this is very simple matter. It comes within the comprehension of every mind. It is a question of fact, not of philosophy. We need only ordinary history to prove the ex- istence of a prophecy. And we need only ordinary history or obser- vation to show the fulfillment of the same. Now, if any man wants a better realization of the real wonders of Bible prophecy, let him sit down himself, assume the r61e of a seer, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 115 and predict a few things that will come to pass outside the regular order of common life. He need not attempt, as did God's ancient seers, to unroll the vista of coming ages, or even to forecast the events of the next century, but let him foretell things that will occur in his own community and within the compass of his own probable life-time. Let him predict facts, giving times, seasons, places, and circumstances, writing literal local history beforehand. William H. Seward, one of the wisest men of his time, made such an attempt. He said : " Tlie South will be conquered within thirty days. It will be a job that will be accomplished before breakfast." The war went on four dreadful years, and instead of its being a morning play-spell, it was the most bloody and terrible struggle known in history. But if a man would be a real prophet, let him make predictions re- specting things not yet inaugurated, or even suggested by the course of events. Let him describe things minutely and accurately hundreds and thousands of years ahead. Let him speak with all the clearness, simplicity, and certainty of a trained historian among the records of the past. Let his prophecies embrace miracles of knowledge in phrase- ology that a child can understand, and a regular system of truth at present unknown to men and beyond the power of human sagacity to calculate or comprehend. All this, and more, the inspired prophets did, not confining their predictions to one nation, one generation, or even one world. They were particular, too. They singled out individuals, outlined their fu- ture careers defined the boundaries of their habitations and the extent of their posterities. Take the case of Abraham. It was predicted that God would make of him a great nation, that his own name should be great, and that he should be a blessing to all the families of the earth. (Gen; xii, 1-3; xxviii, 13, 14.) He was to go to a place he knew not, and to men that knew not him. He obeyed, and God gave him the possession of Canaan. The possession was for seed he had not, and which in nature he was not likely to have. Yet in less than five hundred years his descendant David, in the Isaac and Jacob line, numbered the people and found that in Israel alone there were eight hundred thousand men, besides women and children. (2 Sam. xxiv, 9.) Here is prophecy fulfilled. Abraham's name is immortal; his pos- terity is as the sands upon the sea-shore ; and in the Christ, of David's line, all families of earth have been blessed. On the other hand, view the prophecies concerning the destruction of ancient cities. "I want you to remember," says that eminent preacher of Brooklyn, Dr. Talmage, "that Tyre and Nineveh and 116 FAITH MADE EASY. Babylon and Jerusalem were in full pomp and glory when these prophecies declared that they were going to be overthrown ; architec- ture in some of those cities that make your houses on Madison Square and Fifth Avenue utterly insignificant. And yet these prophecies were made at that time in regard to the destruction of those cities. Sup- pose now a man should appear in pur streets and say : ' The East River will overflow and destroy Brooklyn, the Hudson Eiver will over- flow and destroy New York, and then there will be an earthquake, and the two rivers will dry up, and there will be harvests of grain — corn — raised there ; and where Fulton Street and Broadway are, there will be pasture-fields. Why, the man would be pronounced insane. Yet these men, these prophets, stood right amid those glories of ancient times, and said they were all going to perish, and the city of Babylon was to become desolate. All proved true. Explore the place now. You can not find a particle of vegetation there, and the ground blisters the feet of the explorer. Thousands of years ago these things were foretold. Tyre, they said, should be destroyed right in the midst of its pomp and power, with a wall three hundred and fifty feet high and provisions for twenty years. The prophet says : ' This is all going to come down, and the fishermen will dry their nets where this city stands.' True to-day. If you should go this afternoon to its ruins, you would find fishermen drying their nets on the rocks. Turks, Tartars, and Saracens, who know nothing of the Bible, have been age after age fulfilling the prophecy." Take the prophecy as to the initial and ultimate course of the re- ligious training of mankind. A chosen man called out of Ur of the Chaldees, was to become the head of a chosen family, and his chosen family was to become a chosen nation, and out of that chosen nation was to spring forth a chosen leader, to found a chosen Church to fill the earth. These things are distinctly predicted here ages before Christianity appeared, and exactly those events have followed. "You may post-date the Pentateuch and the Psalms as much as you please," says Joseph Cook ; " but you can not carry that prophecy down to the time of its fulfillment. If there were but that one prophecy in the Holy Word, I should stand in awe before it; for I know that here is a movement in secular affairs exactly corresponding to the predictions in the Holy Word." Consider the prophecies relating to the Messiah. The first prophecy of the Bible (Gen. iii, 15) refers to him. All the prophets had some- thing to say of his coming. They foretold the time of his advent WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 117 (Dan. ix, 23-25) ; from whom he was to descend (Jer. xxiii, 5, 6) ; that he was to be born of a virgin (Isa. vii, 14), in Bethlehem of Judea (Micah. v, 2) ; that he was to preach first in Galilee (Isa. ix. 1, 2), enter Jerusalem in triumph (Zech. ix, 9); that he was to per- form great miracles (Isa. xxxv, 5, 6) ; that he was to suffer and die, the particulars all being given with wonderful minuteness (Isa. liii, 3-9 ; Psa. xli, 9 ; Zech. xi, 12, 13 ; Isa. 1, 6, etc.) ; that he should rise from the dead (Psa. xvi, 9, 10 ; John ii, 18-21) ; that he should send the Holy Spirit (Joel ii, 28), and that salvation should be through him alone (Isa. liii, 11; lix, 20; Psa. cxviii, 22). Now, every student of the New Testament knows that these prophscies were all literally fulfilled. Let us take a few examples of prophecies in the Old Testament, with their accomplishment as related in the New Testament. THAT THE MESSIAH SHOULD EISE FROM THE DEAD. Pkophecy : " Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [the separate state of departed spirits] ; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." (Psa. xvi, 9-10.) "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." (Isa. liii, 10.) Jesus Christ also foretold his own resurrec- tion : "And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. . . And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him; and shall spit upon him, and shall kUl him ; and the third day he shall rise again." (Mark viii, 31 ; and X, 34.) " Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day." (Luke ix, 22.) " Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of- the temple of his body. . . Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." (John ii, 19-21; and X, 17.) Fulfillment: "He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrec- tion of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell [Hades, or the separate state], neither his flesh did see corruption." (Acts ii, 31.) 118 FAITH MADE EASY. " Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." (Acts xiii, 35.) "And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye : for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here : for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." (Matt, xxviii, 5, 6.) "And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth they said unto them. Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He is not here, but is risen : remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee." (Luke xxiv, 5, 6.) "To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." (Acts i, 3.) "And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor. XV, 4.) So completely does the entire history of our Lord's life, death, and resurrection, as given by the evangelists, accord with the Old Testa- ment predictions, that the order might almost be reversed, making the history prophecy, and the prophecy history. Yet the prophets wrote and spoke in different lands and different centuries, unknown to each other, and all utterly ignorant of the ulterior purpose to be served by their unfoldings. Who does not see in these things the in- breathings of one ever-living Mind, the ordering of a superintending Power? So formidable is the one great truth of prophecy fulfilled again and again with individuals and with nations, in civil affairs and in the scheme of redemption, that the questionings and quibblings of skeptics respecting it go for naught. So of the prophecy of our Lord himself concerning the ultimate and universal success of Christianity. How great was the unlikelihood of any fulfillment! "No one can say that the prophecy here comes after the event; for the prophets feel that they have to contend rather with unbelief in their hearers, and call on the mighty power of Jehovah as alone equal to the extremity." "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, a light of the Gentiles." (Isa. xlii, 6.) "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." He is doing so. " The stone cut out of the mountain shall fill the whole earth." It is doing so. Who could have predicted that the cloud no bigger than a man's hand would cover the planet? This was predicted. This has come to pass. " Omitting every thing that is contested, these prophecies stand out WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 119 absolutely like the giant peaks of the Himalayas. They have indubita- ble appearance of predictions that have been fulfilled. Such predic- tions, thus fulfilled, can have come only from Him who guides the course of events. And if prophecy has occurred in one case, it may have occurred in others." The prophecies relating to the Jews, their subjection, their famines, their reduction and dispersion, all of which history has recorded, form a standing truth to which all the nations are perpetual witnesses. Principal Cairns affirms that there is not in all history a more pro- phetic word than this: "Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. The Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other." (Deuteronomy xxviii, 37, 64.) ' ' Go to-morrow through Chatham Street, New York, and see the fulfillment of prophecies uttered thousands of years ago. Why is it that a Jew in New York, or Brooklyn, or St. Petersburg, or Stockholm, or Vienna, or Paris, or Canton is always distinguishable? An Ameri- can goes to Europe and stays there a great while, and he loses his na- tionality. An Englishman comes to America and stays here a long while, and after two or three" generations you do not descry the feat- ures of the Englishman. The Norwegian loses his nationality in any other country, the Swiss loses his, the Frenchman loses his, the Italian loses his. The Jew never. Why? Because this Book thousands of years ago said the Jews should be scattered all the world over and separated." No wonder that when the king of England asked his chaplain to state the most convincing proof of the truth of the Bible, he should reply : " The Jews, your majesty, who, without a country for eighteen hundred years, have fulfilled the prophecies by retaining their distinct nationality, resisting all tendencies to assimilation or adoption." We close this chapter with one or two conclusions suggested by Principal Cairns as flowing from the consideration of this evidence in all its parts : "1. These alleged prophecies want the characteristics of such as are confessedly human. They are not trivial or connected with ordinary human interests. They are not mere divinations, designed to amuse, to startle, or to gratify curious prying into the future. They are not Delphic or studiously ambiguous ; for whatever of obscurity be in them, they bear the stamp of sincerity, and many of them are cheer- ingly, as others alarmingly, straightforward. They are not connected 120 FAITH MADE EASY. with any caste pursuing class interests ; for though the prophets are a body and succession, their unity is chiefly in suffering; and while their oracles awake to bright hopes, they call to stern duties. "2. Ordinary explanations are inadequate. 'Prophecy after the event' is so. It is discredited by the best rationalists. The act or habit is degrading to men who are still looked ou as the moral in- structors of the world. Any thing like it would not be tolerated in the journalist, the historian, the ethical teacher of modern times, and only in the poet with understanding of his license. Nor is ' coincidence,' pure and simple, an adequate cause. This has been seen to be so frequent, so startling, so like to design, that the argument from design applies ; and design here involves knowledge more than mortal. Nor, once more, can ' sagacious forecast of moral order' suffice. This is the most respectable solution short of inspiration. But it quite breaks down. What brooding on moral order could attain to such prophetic results ? How could Abraham thus know that his call would bless all nations, or David that the Messiah should spring from him, or the prophets that particular kingdoms and cities should be destroyed, or Christ that his religion should fail with the Jews and succeed with the Gentiles? The evidence must be taken in detail; and when it is seen how often the sense of insuificiency returns, this is the mark of a so- lution radically weak and abortive. ' ' 3. The Christian view of prophecy not only accounts for the indi- vidiud facts, but for the- whole. Prophecy is systematic, progressive, and all-inclusive. The theory of a revelation of redemption accounts for these features. Christ is then the center, and hence all is connected in him ; and at the same time the Messianic part of revelation is largest, most important, most like the heart in the economy of the whole. This accounts also for the progress that we have seen — a progress in all directions and towards all issues, but all conditioned by the approach of Christ and by the fullness of the disclosure as to his person and work and its consequences. And this accounts for the all-inclusive character of the predictions. The Gentile future must stand in the light of the Jewish past and be indebted to it. EXPERIMENTAL PROOF. There is a practical argument for the truth of the Bible which, with many, may be more conclusive than all others. It is based in part upon analogy, but mostly upon man's consciousness and knowl- edge of the facts of life. It recognizes God as the Author of the Book WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 121 of Nature, the Creator of the natural world, and the great Provider for the physical wants of all his creatures. It sees God's hand espe^ cially in the abundant provision made to supply the bodily wants of man — the soU, the air, the light, the heat, and other elements combin- ing to produce grains, vegetables, fruits, fibers, and the thousand other things which man appropriates to his comfort and enjoyment. But man has a higher nature than the physical, which stands in equal need of nourishment. As the body can not live without food, neither can the mind flourish without knowledge, the spirit without grace. Knowledge is to the mind what food is to the body. The physical nature craves for matter, the intellectual nature for information. Man is fired with constant desire to know the mysteries of his own being, and the mysteries of the world in which he lives. But this knowl- edge he can not gain from nature. Questions arise which can not be solved by any appeal to the air, the winds, the light, the heat, the sea, the forest, or the shore. Experiences come which are perplexing beyond measure, from which nature not only can not extricate us, but also which she neither explains nor causes to cease. What mean pain, weariness, sorrow, and misery? What mean sickness, decay, and death ? Nature can not answer. She has been questioned a thousand times, but furnishes no relief. A cold negative is the only response which poet and philosopher alike can elicit from her. " Tell me, ye winged winds, That round my pathway roar, Do ye not know some spot Where mortals weep no more? Some lone and pleasant dell. Some valley in. the west. Where, free from toil and pain. The weary soul may rest? The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low, And sighed for pity as it answered, ' No.' Tell me, thou mighty deep. Whose billows round me play, Knowest thou some favored spot, Some island far away. Where weary man may find The bliss for which he sighs, — Where sorrow never lives, And friendship never dies? The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow, Stopped for awhile, and sighed to answer, 'No.' And thou, serenest moon, That, with such lovely face, 122 FAITH MADE EASY. Dost look upon the earth Asleep in Night's embrace ; Tell me, in all thy round Hast thou not seen some spot Where miserable man May find a happier lot? Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe, And a voice, sweet but sad, responded, ' No.' " And, as man gets no helpful response from nature, not much more does he from reason and ^philosophy. The wisest man, like the fool and the beasts that perish, is subject to pain and sorrow and death. He may speculate and experiment upon the character and meaning of life, but he reaches no conclusions that satisfy the mind and heart. Life is a mystery, death an enigma, and the future unknown. Long centuries of investigation cast no light upon these strange realities. The living die just when they begin to learn, and the dead come not back to narrate their experiences in the land beyond the shadows, or even to tell us whether they live at all. And yet we desire to know. There is a keen hunger of the soul in this direction, which no prod- uct of nature can appease or dictate of science stifle. This hunger is general. It is characteristic of the race. Shall it be satisfied ? We see that the wants of the body are provided for. If we thirst, there is water to drink ; if we hunger, there is food to eat ; if we are cold, there is raiment to put on; if exposed to rain or heat, there are abundant materials for a shelter. God has provided well for our bodies; will he leave our minds to starve? He gave our bodies their appetites, and has provided food to satisfy them. So he gave our minds their aspirations and longings, will he not also revealHhe things they search after ? Is this not just what he will do ? Is it not the most natural thing in the world to expect ? What is so likely, rea- soning by analogy, as that God will speak to the race of the things which pertain to life and godliness, death and the future world, about which nature is silent? Surely if the comforts of the natural world are the gifts of his providence, we may confidently expect from his bountiful hand the comforts of the spiritual kingdom. It is under these circumstances that the Bible is given. It pur- ports to be a revelation from God, the all-wise and bountiful Being, to man, the ignorant and destitute creature. It solemnly alleges that it contains the revealed will of Heaven. Times without number it says, "Thus saith the Lord," and all its writers profess to have been moved by the Holy Ghost. It claims to be the only revelation, and pronounces a curse upon any who add to, or take from, the words of WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 123 ' its prophecy. Now, this is a momentous matter. While man is wan- dering in natural darkness seeking light, this Bible confronts him with the claim that its teachings are precisely what he desires and needs. What shall he do? How shall he regard such a book? It must cer- tainly be what it claims to be — God's book, full of comfort and knowl- ledge and blessing; or it must be a very bad book. It can not untruthfjilly set up such claims to human attention without being the very worst production ever inflicted upon suffering mortals. " It pro- fesses to record God's words and deeds upon the earth, to foretell the future, to describe the world to come, and to lay down the duty of man ; and all this it does in the name of God, with most impressive and appalling solemnity. Can such a book occupy any middle ground ? Is it not either from heaven or from hell ? from God who can not lie, or from Satan the father of lies?" It is either one or the other, and the momentous" issue of every life is to find out which. How shall it be done? There must be some natural way of testing the claims of this book, some means which will prove as satisfactory to the mind as the eating of food and the drinking of water are satisfactory to the body. This is certainly true if the Bible, like material nourishment, is the gift of God. Suppose we try the Bible from a human stand-point, apply it, test it by study, whether its contents prove the satisfactory portion we seek. This is the only proper method, and it is precisely the method which the Book challenges; " O taste and see that the Lord is good !" " Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life !" Let us, then, propound to the Bible the very questions we propound in vain to nature, and reason about to no purpose in science and phi- losophy. Let us ask it questions of the heart, and listen to its replies. We wish to know something of our own origin, and get an idea of our nature. Whence did we come, and what, if any thing, are we like ? Now, we are taught that the Bible is not given simply to gratify curiosity, but to important questions like this it ought to return an answer. And it does. Nature is silent, but the Bible speaks. Hear it : "And God said. Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness : and let them have dominion over . . . the earth. So God created man in his own image. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Gen. i, 26, 27 ; ii, 7.) Nothing is said here about the particular process of creation, whether it was the work of an hour, or of ages, but the fact is stated, and the an- swer, as a whole, is different from any thing we get elsewhere. How 124 FAITH MADE EASY. shall we test its truth ? By bringing it directly home to our con- sciousness and our knowledge of the facts of life. Do we not feel the answer to be true ? Does it not accord with our instincts, our aspira- tions, and ways ? Do we not realize every day that we are the " lords of creation," that we have dominion over the creature world, and that there is within us a power of thought and feeling and volition, which allies us with our Sovereign Head? We know it is so. We have not learned the lesson from the outside, but we are conscious of its truth. Thus the declaration of the Book and the conviction of our hearts are in perfect accord. Another question : These natures of ours appear to have a very bad tendency. Few lives are pure, and many are wicked. There is violence upon the earth — murder, rapine, crimes against virtue, and other fearful wrongs. Left to himself, man's life gravitates down- ward rather than upward. What explanation is there for this ? We find none in nature ; none in the books of worldly wisdom. But the Bible informs us that man has departed from his original state of purity, that he is not what he was when he came from the hands of his Maker. Listen ! " The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psa. xiv, 2, 3.) HoiW shall we prove this answer ? By an appeal to fact. Does it not ex- actly accord with what we feel, with what we observe around us ? We know the disposition of our own hearts. When we would do good, evil is present with us. We have only to look abroad upon society to discover the awful condition of mankind. There is something rad- ically wrong with the race, and the explanation of the Book is, that man is estranged from his Maker. What the Book affirms our natures confirm, thus proving the affirmation true. But there is a question more interesting still. Is there any cure for this evil ? Can the sinful tendencies of our nature be overcome ? Nature has no answer, science no remedy. Men have tried to legislate the race into virtue, and to promote morality by inculcating moral prin- ciples. Both experiments have been failures. No government under the sun can make a bad man pure. It never has ; it never will. Law is a restraint from evil, nothing more. Through fear of the penalty criminals may obey the law, but at heart they are criminals still. Nor does it help the matter much to educate the criminal classes. It makes them more powerful for evU. The culture of the mind does not improve the state of the morals. The educational WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 125 experiment has been tried on a grand scale. It was tried in ancient Kome. As to a result read the latter part of the first chapter of Eomans. There is a full-length portrait of educated Romans. No wonder that when Nero's father was congratulated on the birth of his son, he should respond with the warning : " What is begotten of such a man as I am, and born of such a woman as my wife, can not but be the ruin of the State." And it was so. Education is good, but it alone makes man morally no better. There is no help for him in this world. Nature grows many plants for physical healing, but none for moral healing. She has many fountains for bodily cleansing, but none for spritual purification. But the Bible supplies the want. It reveals a source of cleansing, even the fountain opened in the house of David. It points to the Lamb of God who taketh away the ains of the world. It reveals the presence of the Spirit, convincing the world of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come. It un- folds the plan of salvation so clearly that wayfaring men may all find the hidden treasure, even the pearl of a new life. Is not this just what we want? And has not the truthfulness of this good news to the fallen race been tested a thousand times ? Is it not being tested every day? Yes. And here is a method by which every man, woman, and child on earth may prove the record true. Try the Gos- pel plan of salvation. Kepent of sin, believe in Christ, forsake evil ways, follow after righteousness, and get the witness within that the Bible is true. This is precisely the evidence which good men have when they face infidels and declare by all that is solemn and sacred, by all that is virtuous and pure, by all that is rational and intelligi- ble, that they have experienced a work within them which settles for- ever the question of the authority of that Book which reveals the source of pardon. Their sense of guilt is gone ; the disposition to commit sin is taken away; all their feelings, motives, aspirations, which were before unholy, are changed to those of purity, giving an inward peace, a holy calm, an approving conscience, and a sfense of the presence of God. Such evidence is irresistible. Another question forces itself into human thought. What is to be the outcome of human life ! Does death end all ? Is the grave the full-stop of every mortal career ? Nature gives no answer. Study her processes as you will, only a guess, a faint indication of what may be, can be arrived at. Eeason reaches only the most unsatisfactory conclusions. All is darkness. Sorrowing man gropes in gloom for a solution of the problem of life. " If a man die, shall he live again?" This is the question Avhich for thousands of years had puzzled the 126 FAITH MADE EASY. wisest. But the Bible came with its gladdening announcement : " Thy dead men shall Jive!" It gave a reason for its hope: "Because I live, ye shall live also." " There shall be a resurrection of the dead." " Corruption must put on incorruption." Mortality shall be swallowed up of life. But is it true? Are the life and immortality which Jesus brought to light veritable facts ? Take the matter right home. Test it by an appeal to your own consciousness. Is immortality what you want ? Does the announcement of it meet your necessities ? Does it satisfy your hope ? If so, are you not satisfied of its truth ? Of the fact of sin and the reality of salvation, as taught in the Bible, you have a present, indubitable proof by experience. You can not have, while in the flesh, the same experimental proof of immortality, but you have proof of the symptoms ; and further, as the Bible fails you nowhere else, you need not fear that it will fail you here. The long eternity of life, so suitable to your wishes, your ardent longings, is certainly before you. And so of all the great questions bearing upon character, duty, and destiny. The Bible reveals satisfactory answers. It sheds light precisely where light is most needed. It anticipates the heart's in- quiries, and answers them with fullness and certainty. Where nature fails us, it comes to our relief. Nature leaves us weeping ; the Bible dries our tears. Nature hides the future ; the Bible withdraws the veil. Nature sees our sinfulness; only the Bible reveals pardon and sanc- tification. "The Bible," says one, "seems to know the whole range and compass of my nature and to meet me at eVery turn. It speaks the native language of my heart ; it talks of sin and sorrow, of guilt and tears, of mercy and hope, of immortality and heaven, in just such a way as convinces me th^t it is a provision for my soul, quite as really as bread and air and water are provisions for my body." Who, in the face of such evidence, can doubt that the Bible is of God ? THE BIBLE SELF-EVIDENCING. "The question comes, Who wrote this Book? Is it God's Book, or man's? Did bad men write it? Impossible; for ' like produces like.' ' Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit ?' Bad men write a book which enjoins all duty, exalts all virtue, is filled with sanctifying power, and loads with eternal infamy every ' hidden thing of dishon- esty I' Such a book bad men would not write if they could, and could not if they would. Then they were good men who wrote it; and if good men wrote it, it is true. Good men are not forgers a,nd WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 127 deceivers. They would not be found perjured witnesses of Jesus Christ, and say of the most stupendous fraud, 'Thus saith the Lord.' If this Book is not the inspired truth of God, then it is the grandest imposture the world has ever known, and its ' Hear ye the word of the Lord' is but the lying invention of fraudulent, designing men. If it is a bad book, how is it that bad men hate it, and good men love it ? I hold every skeptic to this position. ' The tree is known by its fruits.' If this is a bad book, why is it not found among bad men ? Why is it not found in all our drinking saloons, and in all the dens of gamblers, thieves, and debauchees ? If this is not a good book, why have all evil powers leagued together to extirpate it from among men ? Antiochus sought to destroy it, but the fidelity of the Jews frustrated his designs. Diocletian, in his bloody persecution, issued an imperial edict that all the Scriptures should be burnt ; cruel superstition has tried to blot it out, and boasting infidelity to demolish it ; but the Book has outlived all its enemies, and ' abideth forever.' This Bible preserved through all the ages is now printed in some three hundred languages or dialects. Thirty-five copies drop from the press each minute of every working day, and its total copies scattered broadcast over the earth are nearly two hundred millions. Men may hate it, resist it, but they can not destroy it. Lord Hales has found scattered through the writings of the Christian Fathers, to the end of the third century alone, the whole of the New Testament, with the exception of less than a dozen verses, and now it is so interfused into almost all the books on earth that if every Bible were annihilated it could be reproduced again from cur- rent literature with not a missing thought. To destroy the Bible you would have to destroy all the literature of civilization. The Sibylline leaves are torn to pieces and scattered, but this Book is imperish- able ; its voice has gone out to all lands ; it enters into all that we love and cherish ; it reigns over human thought and feeling, and is influencing the destinies that await the remotest generations. This revelation is divine. Escape the conviction you can not. Think of a Book standing in unapproachable greatness, lifting itself above the mightiest thought and intellect of every age, like the peak of Tene- rifie, or like Sinai, the Mount of God, above the level plain ; think of such a Book coming with falsehood to fill the world with honesty, coming with a conscious lie to teach consummate holiness, to inspire the afiTections, fill the soul with holy light, and hold the best hearts of the world through aU the centuries. You can not. "This Book has in it a self-evidencing power. You can not read it frankly without feeling the divine presence, and exclaiming, 'Lo! 128 FAITH MADE EASY. God is here!' Who has not heard about John Newton, the blas- pheming infidel, who one day was led to ask himself the question: 'What if, after all, the Bible should be true?' He Was induced to examine it, and came upon the passage which promises the Holy Spirit to them that ask for it. He applied the test, and found it true. The Spirit was given. He was awakened and converted. The raging profligate became a true believer, a holy, happy, experimental witness of the truth, and having lived a saint for fifty-five years, and having written some of the sweetest hymns that we sing, he died in the tri- umphant assurance of everlasting blessedness. Now am I addressing any who, from association with unbelievers, or who from reading brill- iant but skeptical periodicals, have begun to lose faith in the old Book that has lain neglected on the parlor-table or the bedroom stand ? Let me ask, Have you acted fairly toward a Book which pro- fesses to be the Word of God? Have you examined honestly and candidly its claims? If not, pause; though you have traveled far on the road of unbelief — stop. Read the Book — read it thoughtfully, with an open spirit, and the secrets of eternity will lighten upon your eyes ; read it earnestly, honestly, and just as sure as there is a God you will hear his voice, and feel the pressure of his hand. You will feel that God is a reality, the soul a reality, the eternal future a reality; and though the truth on which you have stood may have seemed before a fragile and storm-driven thing, at the mercy of the awful waves, you will realize that adamant is beneath your feet, and that the foundation standeth sure and immovable. When the wounded soldier lay dying in the hospital, and the tender mother, who had journeyed far, was denied the boon of seeing him lest the shock should prove' fatal, the kind nurse who sat beside the sleeping boy with her hand upon his forehead allowed the mother to slip quietly into her seat, and place her hand upon the fevered brow. No sooner did he feel that soft, familiar touch than, with eyes still closed, he murmured: 'That's my mother's hand! O, mother, have you come?' So shall you know the touch of the parent hand of God, and become a happy witness to the divinity and power of his Word." (Rev. Hugh Johnson, M. A.) PERSONAL REASONS FOR BELIEVING THE BIBLE. If I trace my faith to its birth, I must say that I believe in the Bible because my mother believed in it. As soon as I could under- stand any thing, I recognized in the Bible something peculiar and WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 129 divine. I inhaled this faith as I inhaled the air ; it was the atmo- sphere in which I was born and reared. I believed in the Bible as confidently as I believed in my mother's love ; yea, I learned to be^ lieve in the Bible because it was my mother's treasure. Nor is this explanation sentimental. Nothing in all this world is so jealous of truth and purity as motherhood. No mother wants her child to be deceived or depraved. And when Christian mothers choose the Bible as a parting gift to their sons and daughters, and commend it with their dying breath, that testimony is one not to be lightly regarded. I know there is a sneer against young men who are tied to their " mothers' aprons.'' I would there were more such captives ! For were we only all true to our mothers, we should be better men. I believe, with Carlyle, that we need to get back into our long clothes and our cradles. And, therefore, I am not ashamed to say that my faith in the Bible is the heritage of a Christian home. But that inherited faith has been abundantly confirmed. To the faith rooted in personal confidence, I have added the faith fibered on personal conviction. I have found that my mother's faith rested on a rock whose granite depth no hostile leverage can reach. My faith in the Bible has been confirmed by its faithful portraiture of human life. The Bible is true, because it is so truthful. It deals not in romance, but in facts. It pictures man and the world as they are. Its people are of like passions with ourselves. Its bad men are not wholly without moments of better impulses. Its good men are not without their blemishes, for which they are chastened, and over which they sorrow with bitterness. What I find in the Bible I see in the world to-day ; the same passions, fears, ambitions, sins, hopes. There is nothing artificial, fanciful, or strained. The Bible is a pho- tographic copy of human life ; and the fidelity of this delineation is very high proof of its uniform integrity. My faith in the Bible is confirmed by the purity and consistency of its doctrines and precepts. It proclaims the unity, the infinite ex- cellence, and the essential fatherhood of God, the universal brother- hood of man, and the living relation between holiness and blessed- ness. It is a great text-book of righteousness ; preaching that as the glory of God, the basis and security of moral government, the secret of the new heavens and the new earth. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount never came out of the fires of human meditation ; they have too pure a ring for any other than a divine origin. Holiness is the universal moral imprint of the Bible ; and that proclaims its origin, and attests its truth. 9 130 FAITH MADE EASY. My faith in the Bible has been confirmed by the fruits it has pro- duced. It has made good men and women. It has made motherhood sacred. It has made the cradle a sanctuary. It has purified the home. It has been the friend of the poor and the enslaved. It has recognized and respected the image of God, whether carved in alabas- ter, copper, or ebony. It has produced the grandest literatures. It has organized great and varied charities. It breathed new life into a dead world, whose corruption seemed hopeless, and it has produced the most glorious and fruitful of all historic civilizations. The tree is known by its fruits. My faith in the Bible is confirmed by the absence of even an at- tempt on the part of its enemies to surpass and so displace it. K it be only human, let the men' of our day, with all the accumulated cul- ture of two hundred generations, improve on the work of Jewish peasants and of Galilean fishermen. The sun will easily and certainly retain his primacy until some brighter luminary banish him from the skies. And there is only one way of subverting the Bible we have ; and that is to give us a better one. — A. J. Behrends, D. D. The Scriptures are the Word of God, and " the word of the Lord endureth forever." I am now well advanced in the eighty-fifth year of my age. The battle of life with me is over ; the storm-clouds have swept over me and passed away. I am sure that my unshaken faith in the divinity of the Christian religion alone could have supported and brought me safely to this calm evening hour. It is not a vain boast when I say that for sixty-five years I have not indulged a doubt of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Let whoever will, die an infidel ; cling ye, my friends, to the Gospel, which alone glows with the light and life of immortality. — Luther Lee, D. D. Fifty-five years ago I was sorely troubled by the objections of in- fidels against the morality of the Old Testament. About that time I heard of a remark made by Dr. Channing in private conversation. The remark was this: " I have so high an opinion of the character of Jesus Christ that I am ready to believe any thing and every thing which he says." This remark appeared reasonable to me. The per- fect heart of our Savior would have made his intellect perfect ; and his perfect intellect would have detected the real character of the Old Testament. If this character were not good, he would have detected it. and would not have indorse,d it. But he did indorse the Old Tes- tament in the fullest degree and in the most decisive terms. If I can not see the propriety of some of its statements, I believe that he saw it, and I bow down before his authority. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE BIBLE. 131 Again: The internal evidence of the Savior's instructions com- mends them to my faith. Now, his instructions are interwoven with those of his apostles. Believing in the Teacher, I believe in the men whom he taught. But the teachings of Christ and his apostles are interwoven with the teachings of the Old Testament writers. The Hebrew Scriptures reappear iu the Greek. When I was troubled by the objections of infidels against the Old Testament, I saw that the same obiections might be made, in some degree, against the New Tes- tament, against some words of the apostles, against some words of Christ himself. But nothing could shake my confidence in the truths which he taught, and in the sentiments which he breathed. I felt the perfect trustworthiness of his words, and this helped me to feel the perfect trustworthiness of his apostles ; and this led me to feel an entire confidence in the Old Testament, because the principles of the Old are incorporated into the New. — Professor Edwards A. Park, D. D. I believe in the Bible because Christ is in it, and because he gives to it the authority of his name. It is indeed a wonderful Book ; it has exerted an influence upon the world which is whoUy unique ; it meets the wants of my soul as no other book pretends to do ; but I believe that it is from Grod — I accept it as an authoritative rule of faith and practice — chiefly because Jesus declares that it is such. I believe that the Bible is the record, the interpretation, and an integral part of God's re'v^lation of himself in righteousness and grace — a rev- elation having for its object the redemption of men. — Rev. J. H. Mcllvaine. I know the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater depth of my being than any other book. — Coleridge. It is a belief in the Bible that has saved me, as the guide of my moral and literary life. — Goethe. To give a man full knowledge of true morality, I should need to send him to no other book than the New Testament. — John Locke. So great is my veneration of the Bible, that the earlier my chil- dren begin to read it, the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country and respectable members of society. — John Quiney Adams. The Bible is equally adapted to the wants of every human being. No other book ever addresses itself so authoritatively and so pathet- ically to the judgment and moral sense of mankind. — Chancellor James Kent. I do not believe human society, including not only a few persons in any state, but whole masses of men, ever has attained a high state 132 FAITH MADE EASY. of intelligence, virtue, security, liberty or happiness, without the Holy Scriptures. — Wm. H. Seward. The Bible is the only cement of nations, and the only cement that can bind religious hearts together. ^C^waiier Bimsen. I believe in the Holy Scriptures, whoso lives by them will be benefited thereby. Men may differ as to the interpretation, which is human, but the Scriptures are man's best guide. — U. S. Grant. WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH RESPECT TO THE DEITY. THE GEEAT FIRST CAUSE. IS there a great first cause of all things, or did the world cause itself? Are the things we behold above and around us the result of design, or did they spring into existence by chance? Does any thing come by chance? Is such a thing as chance at all conceivable? Chance is defined to be the utter absence of any cause. It really signifies nothing, for nothing can be conceived as existing where chance is. There is no chance. Men may be ignorant of real and defined causes, but no event happens without a cause. In his "Phil- osophical Dictionary" Voltaire himself said: " Chance is a word void of sense ; nothing can exist without a cause," Yet, as McDonald says : "A voice in the wind I do not know ; A meaning in the face of the high hills Whose utterance I can not comprehend, — A something is behind them : that is God." Let us reason along the old lines a little further. Either there is a great first cause of all things, or there is not. If there be not a first cause of all things, then all causes are the causes of themselves ; that is, they run in a circle and have no end, which implies that one cause passes into another cause, even into infinitude itself, which reason condemns as absurd. Finite causes never can become infinite, yet if finite causes have no end they do become infinite, and the proposition contradicts itself. There must be some one cause of all other causes, and this one cause must be the first cause of all things, and this first cause of all things must be eternal or else it was self-caused, which is to say that nothing produced something, which is another absurdity. 133 134 FAITH MADE EASY. Nor can there be more than one first cause ; for if we suppose many universal causes, either one must be before another or else all are parallel ; if all are parallel, then none of them can be first, be- cause there are others of equal causality with itself, and hence we have no first cause. But if we allow that one universal cause existed before another, then one must have existed before all the rest; and this leading cause must be the first cause, because all other causes come after it. Again, from the undeniable order and dependence of all causes upon one, we must conclude that the one first cause is eternal, or else concede that there is no eternity ; that is, that eternal changes and motions all come within the narrow compass of time, which is such a solecism that it needs no contradiction. But if the first cause of all things be eternal, he is the infinite first cause, and hence the cause upon which all other causes depend. This infinite first cause is God. Once more, we hold this infinite first cause to be supreme, for su- premacy is a perfection whereby we apprehend God. We can not conceive of him except as the Supreme Governor over all the world. If he be not the Supreme Being, then other beings are his equal ; and if other beings are his equal, there is no superior, and therefore no God at all. Only the being who is above all and before all is entitled to the name of God. If God is eternal, infinite, supreme, he is also omnipotent, and possessed of all other perfections which belong to God. He is able to do whatever can be done ; that is, whatever implies no contradiction. And if he is able to do whatever is possible to be done by any power, then whatsoever has been done by any power above the finite has been done by God, or by some superior intelligence which God has created. This thought is inseparably connected with the idea that God is one, for each of two separate beings can not be invested at one and the same time with the perfection of omnipotence. It we suppose two omnipotent beings coexisting, then whatsoever either one doeth is in its own nature possible to be done, otherwise he could not do it ; but that which either one doeth can not by any possibility be possi- ble to the other, else there may be two perfect and separate causes to one eflfect, which is a contradiction. Yet if there is a single thing possible to be done which God can not do, he is not omnipotent, and therefore not God, for God is omnipotent. It follows that there are some perfections which it is impossible for more than one being to have ; and if it be impossible for more than WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 135 one to have them, then only one being does have them, and the being that has them is the one absolutely supreme, self-existent, infinite, and eternal God. As TertuUian argued: " God, if he be not one, he is none ; for* whatsoever is not as it ought to be, we think better of it if we believe it not to be. But that thou mayest know that God should be but one, inquire what God is, and thou wilt find it can not be otherwise. As far as human reason can define any thing of God, I assert, what every one's conscience also acknowledges, that God is the chief and highest being in the world, eternal, unbegotten, un- made, without beginning," without end. Therefore he must needs be one only, because he is the chiefest, not having an equal, lest he should not be the chief." And Justin Martyr said that, "According to those who received their doctrine from God, and know the difier- ence betwixt God and a creature, there is but one God, unbegotten, according to both the senses of being unbegotten, who hath not any god or gods either before or after himself; having none co-eternal with himself; none subject or opposite to himself; having an incor- ruptible nature and irresistible power, the Maker of the whole world.'' This doctrine of the unity of God in no wise conflicts with the doctrine of the Trinity, for while we say of each person of the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — that he is distinctly God, we do not say that each is a distinct God. The divine persons are distinct in the divine nature, but the divine nature is not divided against itself. There is " one living and true God," and in this Godhead there are three persons ; one in substance, yet three in subsistence ; one in es- sence, yet three in the manifestations of their eternal glory and power. THE ARGUMENT FROM IDENTITY. Every man has a clear conception of his own being. He knows that he exists — that his sensations, feelings, conceptions, and the memory of them, are of actual intelligent life ; not mere phenomena of inert matter, or of matter plus what the scientists call Force. "I am !" This is the assertion of conscious personal identity, the intuitive declaration of every intelligent being. Lovers of paradox, quibblers of facts, questioners of Christian verities, may cluster philosophical subtleties around this intuitive certainty, but when they have done their best they have not advanced beyond the philosophy of " Topsy," in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," who, when first questioned as to the mys- tery of existence, solved it thus : "I s'pect I growed. Do n't know as nobody ever made me." * 136 FAITH MADE EASY. The law of our nature by which the conviction of our identity is impressed upon us, is simply irresistible. As a point of reasoning it is safe, clear, and secure. Standing here, every thinker is sure he is on solid ground, and will be to the end. "If any one," ^ys Locke, " is skeptical enough to pretend to deny his own existence, let him, for me, enjoy his beloved happiness, until hunger or some other pain convinces him to the contrary.'' This is the true method of dealing with such doubters. No use of words with them. Let them alone, and be sure to grasp firmly and insist strongly with your own self as to this intuitive certainty of your own existence. It will prove of service to you as an aid to faith in God and of your responsibility to him. In the language of Rev. Henry Footman it prepares us for the apprehension of Personality and Unity of Being above us. It helps us to grasp the thought of the permanence of mind. We feel that time and change do not destroy this personal identity. Every particle of my body may have changed ; there may not be a single particle in it which went to make it up thirty years ago ; yet I am the same ' I.' I stood upon that bridge, I entered upon that binding en- gagement, I uttered that passionate word. But not only so, thousands of thoughts have coursed through me ; many mental states have come and gone ; my ideas, my tastes, my very character may have changed again and again, but none of these changes aflTect in the least degree my personal identity nor the intuitive certainty which I have of that identity." Man's identification of himself is his persuasion that he is something more than a lump of clay, more than a plant, more than an animal. He feels within him that which the animal nature can not share. He is conscious of reasoning faculties and moral aspirations which find sympathy alone in the same endowments of his fellow-men around him. His free will gives him a sense of amenability to a higher power. He recognizes obligation, and definite relation to law. "This involves authority and government. Where is this authority lodged, and who exercises this government? No impersonal existence certainly, but a living, intelligent personality. A moral agent, he must have a moral ruler ; who is he, but God ?" Again : once fully conscious of the reality of his own existence, what man can conceive of that existence as self-caused or self-sus- tained ? And if not self-caused, how is it caused ? Who or what is the Power adequate to the production of such an effect as the exist- ence of an intelligent being? There must be a cause. "All finite and limited existence must have a cause." That cause must be WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 137 efficient. The effect is intelligent, therefore the cause must be intelli- gent; else non-intelligence creates intelligence, and hence nothing creates something. Furthermore, if the cause of man's existence is not the Supreme ,Cause of all created existence, then we instinctively seek the cause of the existence of the cause which is less than infinite. Man will do this. He is so constituted that he can not avoid it. The crav- ing of the mind finds no satisfaction until it reaches a Supreme Being, and an Infinite as well as transcendent and Intellectual First Cause. Here it rests. This conception stills it. The idea seems to it a worthy one. The old faith is the new and living and satisfying faith of all reasonable men. "It is He that hath made me, and not I myself." " He holdeth my soul in life !" Sure of our own existence, we should next seek to know what that existence is. This is the first principle of human knowledge. The old Greeks considered Solon's maxim, " Know thyself," a divine rev- elation. All the wise men of Greece and Rome held that the voice of consciousness was the end of all argument, whatever might be the question, and that to "look within " was the true beginning of wisdom. Our knowledge of ourselves is the proof of our capacity to know God. In a certain limited sense God is like us. The Bible distinctly declares this: "So God created man in his own image." As far as the finite can be like the infinite, man in his original state was like God. In his characteristics and attributes we may suppose that he bore the image of his creator. It is this fact which enables us to learn something about God. If we were not like him we could not know him, and the Bible injunction, " Know thou the God of thy fathers,'' would be simple mockery of human incapacity. But because we are created in the divine likeness we can know God, and are under obli- gations to study his character. Paul plainly teaches that even the heathen are without excuse for not knowing God, who has so clearly revealed himself in all his works, and in themselves. We who have the Bible are, therefore, doubly guilty if we do not acquaint ourselves with Deity. On every page of his Book he reveals himself as a con- scious, individual being, personal, self-acting, and intelligent. We can understand these traits, because they are like our own, and hence we recognize in God a conscious, individual Being like ourselves. In this we are all essentially alike. We differ in degree only. From feeblest comprehension of infancy up to the strongest powers of ma- ture age, we conceive of God as thinking, feeling, and purposing very much as we do. This conception gives to our ideas of God the sense of reality, and makes his name a power upon our emotions and affections. 138 FAITH MADE EASY. Once more : look around you upon the world. Observe the mar- velous skill with which it is designed to meet your wants, the wonder- ful contrivances, the adaptation of means to ends. What vast mind has been at work upon the construction of such a world ? Who but an infinite Architect could contrive such arrangements and order as we behold around us? The day, with its bright sun to make action pos- sible, to quicken vegetation into life, to give joy to every living crea- ture ; the night, with its provision for rest and sleep;, the frame of man, his hand, his eye, and, indeed his every part ; the relation of the sexes, the way in which animal and vegetable life is propagated and sustained, — all these are full of wonders of design, which fill a reverent mind with awe. "When I would beget content," says Isaak Walton, " and increase confidence in the power and the wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will walk the meadows by some gliding stream, and then con- template the lilies that take no care, and those very many other vari- ous little living creatures that are not only created, but fed, man knows not how, by the goodness of the God of nature, and therefore trust in him. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord." " He who can not see the workings of a Divine wisdom in the order of the heavens, the change of the seasons, the flowing of the tides, the operations of the wind and other elements, the structure of the human body, the circulation of the blood through a variety of vessels wonderfully arranged and conducted, the instinct of beasts, their tempers and dispositions, the growth of plants, and their many eflfects for meat and medicine, — he who can not see all these, and many other things, as the evident contrivances of a Divine wisdom, is sot- tishly blind, and unworthy of the name of a man." (William Jones, of Nay land.) It. is said of Dr. Samuel Spring's conversion in college: "His mind had been exercised, not a little, on the manifestations of the di- vine perfections in the works of nature ; and being called upon to ex- plain and defend the Cnpernican system, in the presence of his class, he became so overwhelmed with a sense of the Divine majesty that he burst into tears;" and of Rev. Wm. Robinson's: "As he was riding at a late hour one evening, when the moon and stars were shining with uncommon brightness, he was saying to himself. How transcend- ently glorious must be the author of all this beauty and grandeur ! and the thought struck him with irresistible force. But what do I know of this God ? Have I ever sought his favor, or made him my friend?" WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 139 But we do not look at nature rightly, nor can we interpret its mysteries clearly, except as we begin with ourselves. For manifestly we did not exist from all eternity ; we have a first cause and final end ; and certainly^ we must have a God as great and good as ourselves ; and if we, of course the universe of which we are a conscious part ; every thing must have its origin and design in a personal self-existent Creator. No mere order of events, system of law, or cosmic mechan- ism can take the place of God. Nor can it be shown that order or adaptation in nature is a mere subjective necessity of thinking with- out objective reality. The works of nature which require such great minds to explore them must have required a greater mind to create them. Besides, the mind of a Shakespeare, a John, a Paul, or the heart of a good mother, is itself more full of divinity than all the starry worlds. "Reverence that which is best in thyself." " It is sufficient for man to attend to the divinity within him." (M. Aurelius.) Even those who do not believe in a Creative Mind, when they dis- course of these things are forced to use phrases which rebuke their unbelief. They talk of the "provisions" of Nature, the "purpose" of an organ, the object which this or that part of the animal or plant is intended to fulfill. Men may laugh, if they like, at the argument that design implies a designer. They may cavil, if they please, at Paley's statement that if any one picked up a watch, and found, when he came to examine it — the ingenious way in which it was fashioned in order to record the progress of time — he could come to no other con- clusion than that it was the work of a being possessed of intelligence. Your would-be metaphysician may point out to you the metaphysical difficulties in which the hypothesis of a first cause will involve you. You need not be shaken from your- conviction. . He can show you, if he pleases, that equal metaphysical difficulties are involved in the fact of your own existence. You listen to him on that point, and when you have heard all he has to say you take leave still to believe that you exist. And so, too, you may trust that eternal intuition of the human mind which assigns to every efifect its cause, until it arrives at the First Cause of all, which is one aspect of the being of Him whom we call God. There is proof of God even in so insignificant a thing as a grain of sand. "Take it," says Rev. Dr. Townsend in his "Bible and Modern Thought," "take it, handle it, examine it: is there any evi- dence that that grain of sand has supreme will-power and intelligence ? But if in one grain of sand there is neither will-power nor intelligence, then there can not be will-power and intelligence in two grains of sand 140 FAITH MADE EASY. in combination, nor in any number of grains of sand, nor in all the sand of the universe. In a word, sand, even a grain of sand, and every grain of sand, must be eternal, all-powerful, able to plan and create, or at least to do purposely and intelligently its part in creat- ing the universe, including the making of the leaf of a tree, the wing of a bird, and the eye of a man ; or else the hypothesis with which we started ought to be admitted — namely, there is in the universe a Something which designs, a Something so distinct from man as not to be man, and appearing to be so distinct from pure matter as not to be matter ; a Something so constituted that we can not see it, nor by searching find it, nor finding, fully comprehend it. Either a grain of sand, or a supreme mind, is the God of this universe. Is it re- plied that it is not merely the grain of sand that is God, but that God is the grain of sand in conjunction with all other grains of sand, and in combination with force, law, evolution, and such other envi- ronments as are necessary ? Nay, but the grain of sand must know enough to make these infinitely skillful conjunctions and combinations ; or else back of the sand, the force, the law, and the evolution, there must be a Something that combines these elements and projects re- sults. Hence, we repeat, it is either a grain of sand or a Something else that is intelligence and the God of the universe. The common judgment of the world and of the ages pronounces in favor of the Something else — the Supreme Mind. Any other supposition will be forever at war with common sense." UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD. " The belief in a God is one .of the oldest beliefs of the human race — the most venerable tradition of mankind. It has come down to us through a long succession of generations, through the convic- tions and experiences of countless thousands of men, whose minds it has satisfied, whose hopes it has raised, whose hearts it has cheered and sustained in the midst of toil and sorrow, whose lives it has lifted from inaction and despair to activity and courage. All this, it may be said, does not furnish a reason why we should receive it to-day. But it certainly proves that there must be some deep reason and sub- stance of truth in the belief, which ought to bar out any hasty, ofi"- hand decisions against it. He, indeed, must be an arrant egotist who puts up his individual dictum and judgment against the verdict of the wisest and gravest men in all history, and he must be a veritable Don Quixote of skepticism who imagines that the product of the thought • WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 141 of ages is to be overthrown by the shock of his doughty lance. Who can tell whether it is more reasonable to accept a proposition or to reject it, until it is examined on which side lies the greater evidence? He is credulous and superstitious who believes where the fewer rea- sons are, and he is the liberal and advanced man who goes only with the preponderance of logic. Infidels are fond of using the epithets 'credulous' and 'superstitious' to characterize those who hold to the Christian faith ; but until they show that they have more arguments on their side than there are on the other, the adjectives more properly belong to themselves. To any other but himself, the belief of the atheist must ever seem wilder and more unsubstantiated and more un- natural than the most fantastic fables of the Arabian Nights." (Charles S. Stockton, M. D.) "Now," says a Cambridge professor, " if there be no God, how is it that the vast majority of mankind, from the earliest times, have agreed to believe that there was such a Being? Those who have made researches into the subject tell us that such ideas are found universally, if we except such tribes as have lost almost the very semblance of humanity. What becomes of that capacity for worship, that awe of the unseen, those devotional instincts which even an un- believer feels occasionally? How is it, if the idea be a gradual result of reflection on the phenomena of nature, that it finds such easy access to the mind of a child? Who that has spoken to a child in a fitting manner on subjects so solemn has not seen the expression of awe creep over the infant face, with a readiness which proves that, high as the idea of God is, it finds an immediate response even in an infant breast? Surely a universal consciousness implies an Object of that consciousness; the possession of certain instincts implies an Ob- ject to which those instincts may be directed. Some may say that they have no such consciousness. It would be far more true to say that for the time they had contrived to argue it down; while as for instincts of awe and tendencies toward worship, whether they be in accordance with reason or against it, they are indisputably a part of our nature. Auguste Comte, when he strove to invent a substitute for Christianity, proposed to satisfy the craving for an object of adora- tion by inventing forms of worship directed to the Idea of Humanity ; but who could worship the Idea of Humanity? As an abstract idea it has, of course, no real existence. Nevertheless, the attempt to pro- vide a Church, with rites and ceremonies, directed towards the worship of a nonentity like this, was, in truth, a very remarkable confession that there was a Something which man felt bound instinctively to 142 FAITH MADE EAS^. adore. Wiser than the would-be philosophers who quote him at second-hand, Comte knew well that he must provide men with an object of worship, or he would never be able to secure their allegiance. ' Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.' The disbelief in God may make men miserable, or it may make them wicked ; but it can never prevail in the end. Nay, even those who profess such disbelief will be fain to throw it aside in those great crises of our being which occur to most of us at some time or other of our lives, when we feel that existence without support from above is a load too heavy for us to bear. " The workings of conscience supply us with another argument for the being of God. What is conscience, and whence is it derived ? Professor Clifford tells us it is the ' experience of the tribe.' But in that case a man's conscience would but reflect the public opinion of the hour. But it is a matter of the most ordinary experience that this is just what conscience does not do. It is in obedience to the opinion of those around him that a man allows himself to be led into evil. It is when he is alone by himself that he finds something that will not let him rest. What is this mysterious monitor, which thus speaks to a man in the inmost recesses of his heart? What is it which thus, in the depths of his own being, arraigns, him before him- self, and passes judgment upon him in his own despite? What is it but the Spirit of the Eternal God, who thus penetrates to the inner- most chambers of the soul, and there reminds the oflfender of his broken laws ? Well might the Psalmist exclaim : ' If I climb up into heaven, thou art' there ; if I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' (Psa. cxxxix, 7, 8.) " One argument more we will adduce, and it shall be the last. We appeal fearlessly to the experience of Christian men. Was there ever one who trusted God and was deceived ? Did you ever know a man who had served God all his life, and found out in the end that lie had made a mistake ? Many have cast him off in their youth who have been fain to come back to him after many a year misspent, many a weary wandering after truth and peace. But those who have kept firm to him amid the temptations of early life have found him too ' present a help in trouble' (Psa. xlvi, 1), too firm a support in the hour of temptation, to abandon him in maturer years. As the days pass on, the vast landscape of the Unseen unrolls itself before their vision; the past as well as the future stands out distinct and clear. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. ^ 143 Where once all had been confusion and uncertainty they now discern the loving hand of a tender Father ; while the experience of God's constant presence, the remembrance of his answers to prayer, the gentle training he has given them in submission and humility, deepens their reliance on his all-wise protection, and ripens in them an ever growing conviction that God is the ' strength of their life, and their portion forever.' (Psa. Ixxiii, 26.) When we think of the uncertain- ties, the disappointments, the difficulties, the temptations of life, the weary tossings to and fro of uneasy souls upon its storm-tossed sea, we may well repeat to those who doubt whether there is a God the invitation of the Psalmist : ' O taste and see how gracious the Lord is ; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.' (Psa. xxxiv, 8.)" HEATHEN IDEAS OF THE CREATION. Mankind will believe something in respect to the origin of things. Even the heathen constitute no exception. "The ancient Persians believed in three gods, the greatest of which was Ormuzd, who made a perfect man with a giant head. An infinite distress caused his monstrous head to burst with terrible an- guish, when out stepped a beautiful woman. The head shrank to a natural size, and they became the first man and wife. The Greeks also believed the beautiful Minerva sprang from the head of Jupiter. "The ancient Hindoos believed a monstrous serpent coiled upon the ocean. Upon him Vishnu slept for long ages in inactivity, and died. Out of his departing spirit Brahma arose, who created man by the simple act of wishing. " The ancient Assyrians believed somewhere in their country was a beautiful garden, into which God came one night and gathered par- ticles of all kinds of dust, of which to make man. He fashioned him after his own image. When sufficiently dry to be handled without defacing, he placed himself mouth to mouth, hands to hands, and feet to feet, and imparted life to the image. Sleep had possession of the man. The god drew a glittering blade from his girdle, and, with in- finite quickness, took a bone — of the two hundred and forty-eight bones — from near the heart, and .placing the requisite female depend- encies around it, gave it to the man to become his wife. " The Aztecs believed that a princess, being ofiended at her hus- band, obtained leave of Deity to depart from paradise on condition that she would go to earth and populate it. She started on her long and perilous journey. When once in sight of earth, she drew from 144 . FAITH MADE EASY. her girdle a knife glittering with diamonds, and hurled it against the planets, breaking it into twelve pieces, which immediately resolved themselves into six knights and six princesses, from which sprang six races of men. "The ancient Egyptians believed two gods descended from the sun, and alighted on the flowery banks of a beautiful lake on a morn- ing, and planted the germ of a lotus plant, each kissing it on opposite sides. The plant grew, and ripened its fruits. The legumes burst, and a beautiful man and woman, like the ripe corn from the husks, stepped forth in spontaneous marriage. "The Asiatics of Egyptian descent believed in the center of a watery universe existed the Divine Power, which slowly and silently, for ages, collected a transparent shell about him, in which he slept. On awakening, by his own energies he burst the shell, and arose to the surface, an immense turtle, covering millions of acres. He again burst his shell, the fragments of which became earth, mountains, and rocks. The giant came from the mountains, and slept beside a placid lake. From his head sprang a noble race of thinkers; from his long arms, stretched by his side, a race of workers ; from his legs, a race of travelers ; and from his fingers and toes, the lowest race of all." How difierent all this from the Bible account of the origin of the world and of man ! THE INSPIRED VIEW OF CREATION. " ' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' This simple sentence denies atheism, for it assumes the being of God. It denies polytheism, and, among its various forms, the doctrine of two eternal principles, the one good and the other evil, for it confesses the one eternal Creator. It denies materialism, for it asserts the creation of matter. It denies pantheism, for it assumes the existence of God before all things, and apart from them. It denies fatalism, for it in- volves the freedom of the Eternal Being. It assumes the existence of God, for it is he in the beginning who creates. It assumes his eternity, for he is before all things ; and as nothing comes from nothing, he him- self must have always been. It implies his omnipotence, for he creates the universe of things. It implies his absolute freedom, for he begins a new course of action. It implies his infinite wisdom, for a kosmos, an order of matter and mind, can only come from a being of absolute in- telligence. It implies his essential goodness, for the sole, eternal, almighty, all-wise, and all-sufficient Being has no reason, no motive, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCESNINO GOD. 145 and no capacity for evil ; it presumes him to be beyond all limit of time and place, and he is before all time and place." (Professor Murphy.) SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE INSPIRED RECORD. From an interesting paper by Francis Peek, in the Contemporary Review for June, 1882, we take an extract showing that scientific attempts to account for the origin of the universe without the inter- vention of a Creator are utter failures, while the inspired account is in harmony with the facts : " Opening," he says, " the book of Genesis, we find it there stated that ' in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' We now know, by means of scientific investigation, that this statement has to be read as referring to the original creation, which took place many, probably millions of years before man became a living soul ; for geol- ogy has revealed a wonderful world that existed long ages before the earth assumed its present condition. This is proved by the fossil ruins which compose the coal of the subterranean mines and the strata of the lofty cliffs. The vast space of time that elapsed after the begin- ning is often urged as refuting revelation, but it is entirely consistent with it. ' In the beginning,' it is said, ' God created the heaven and the earth.' Here the first revelation closes, and a long pause ensues while the course of the earlier creation runs through its appointed ages and comes to an end; after which, as the narrative proceeds, we learn that at the time the second statement commences, ' the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of it.' The account given by scientific men of the state of the globe during what is termed the glacial period presents a striking confirmation of this further statement. At that time, they tell us, while deep down below lay the ruins of an earlier creation, the heat absorbed from the sun through many ages remained latent in the long since concreted vegetation, ^nd our globe, which was a formless mass covered with an icy shroud, lay void in the blackness of darkness. The investigations give us no clew to the cause of the change which then took place, but from revelation we learn that at that time of desolation the Spirit of God was brooding over the formless void, and that ' God said. Let there be light; and there was light,' with its accompanying heat, by which the world we now see was evolved. Science, still in perfect accord with revelation, tells us that at that particular period, from some unknown cause, the ruined world began to be re-formed, the 10 .146 FAITH MADE EASY. 'vast masses of ice with -whicli it was covered gradually melted, and in flaelting glided down from higher to lower levels, grinding into pow- der in their impetuous course the hard rocks on which they had rested, and, carrying the crushed material into the valleys and plains, enriched them with the fertile dibris. Science, as has been said, entirely fails even to suggest an admissible cause for this change, but from revela- tion we learn that the change was caused by the word of God, though the means by which it was effected are not revealed. It may be that then an alteration took place in the position of the earth as regards the sun, or otherwise; but whatever the secondary cause, both science and revelation concur in testifying that, in the beginning of the re- creation, light and heat made their influence felt upon the earth, the darkness ceased, the icy covering yielded beneath the sunny influence, and the soil became gradually fitted, by the operation of glacial ac- tion, for the vegetation with which it was by and by to be clothed. Then revelation makes known how, by the continued exercise of God's power, this earth was made to bring forth grass, and herbs, and trees, and fruit ; then came the lower animal creation ; and, finally, man was formed and fitted to occupy his prepared habitation. "It is urged by some that the account given of the separate crea- tions, on what are termed in Genesis the seven days, is refuted by Darwin's theory of the evolution of species, the famous hypothesis which has taken so great a hold upon the minds of men of science. But, kept within reasonable limits, there is nothing in this theory contrary to revelation, for that which is evolved from a created germ is not less the work of the Creator than the original production ; and if it should come to be absolutely demonstrated that the first created species were limited in number, but possessed within themselves the power of developing kindred kinds fitted for the various conditions of existence, such a fact is quite consistent with a reasonable acceptance of the teaching of revelation. " No more than just this degree of modification of view on each side is needed to enable us to say that thus far at least science and rev- elation are in harmony. From both we learn that at some point in the vast eternity the heavens and the earth came into being, and the things which we now see were formed of ' things which do not now appear.' Men of faith believe that this occurred through the operation of a first great Cause ; skeptical men of culture, that it occurred by the hap of chance ; and the question at issue is. Which of these views is the more reasonable? As regards the earlier creation, neither revelation nor science tells us any thing, but we find wonderful testimony to its gran- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 147 deur in the fossil remains of a majestic vegetation which lie beneath our feet, bearing witness to the existence of a beautiful world which, from some unknown cause, passed away. For there is evidence of a terrible catastrophe. The glorious primitive world became a ruin, and this globe remained through long ages void, while 'darkness was upon the face of the deep.' Then, while science is still dumb, revelation takes up the story, and sings to us in its beautiful Psalm of Creation the genesis of man's abode." CREATION. "Let there be light!" and chaos fled Back to his midnight cell, And light, the earliest gift of Heaven, On cradled nature fell. Earth from the encroaching waters rose. Strong ocean knew his place, Bold rivers forced their unknown ways, Young streams began their race. Forth came the sun, that monarch proud, And at his genial rays The springing groves and penciled flowers Put on new robes of praise. But when his weary couch he sought. Behold! the regent queen, Enthroned on silver car, pursued Her nightly course serene. And glorious shone the arch of heaven, , With stars serenely bright. That bowed to every passing cloud Their coronets of light. Life roamed along the verdant mead, Life glided through the flood, And, tuneful 'mid the woven boughs, Watched o'er the nestling brood. But then, with undisputed might, That Architect divine , His own immortal essence breathed Into a clay-built shrine ; And stamped the image on- the Man, And gave him kingly power, And brought him to a home of love In sinless Eden's bower. 148 FAITH MADE EASY. Then music, from undying harps, The young creation blest, And forth the flrst-born Sabbath spread Its dove-like wing of rest. It came with holy gladness fraught, With pure, benignant ray, And God bimself the lesson taught To keep the Sabbath day. ( Mrs. Sigourney.) WHAT DENIAL INVOLVES. Denial of the existence of a Supreme Mind leads to other absurd- ities. Thus says Rev. Dr. Luther Lee : "1. When infidels deny the existence of a Creator, they virtually aflSrm that nothing has produced something, which is an impossibility. If there had once been nothing, there never could have been any thing ; hence something must be eternal. " 2. When, to escape the above, they affirm that the visible uni- verse is eternal, they only increase the difficulty. Creation wears upon its face, marks of intelligent design, and there must have been an intelligent Designer. If there is no intelligent Creator, these marks of design have no cause, and nothing has produced something, or something exists without cause. Vegetable, animal, and human life exists in such a succession of lives, as proves there must have been a first life of each kind. " 3. When infidels affirm that these difierent degrees and forms of life are the results of nature's own spontaneity evolving the higher from the lower, they obtain no relief. Nature has never given any evidence of such a spontaneity, and never produces any thing without a germ, seed, or a scion. It leaves the beginning unaccounted for. Where did the first plant, first tree, animal, and first man come from ? It avails nothing to talk of a chain consisting of licks of men, monkeys, oysters, and vegetables. Where did the first link come from? This phantom folly has been chased far enough." Science has enlarged our conceptions of God beyond measure, ex- cept when it has lost sight of the Evolver in the thing evolved, and made the creation create itself out of hard, dry atoms and forces. It is receiving new and wonderful revelations of God in nature. Study the eye and ear. Apply the telescope and microscope. " I can no longer be satisfied with the orthodox conception of a God out of the world." (Lessing.) " Science is the study of the modes of the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 149 Divine work. When we see how a thing is made, we should not say that it was not made at all, or made itself." (Le Conte.) " We can not worship a law, however simple and fruitful it may be ; nor a force, if it be blind, however powerful and universal it may be ; nor an ideal, however pure, if it is an abstraction : we worship only a being who is living perfection, under the highest forms — thought, love." (Caro.) Professor E. D. Morris observes that " it was Coleridge who gave us the equation, World — God=0 ; and the correlative equation, God — World=Absolute Reality. If there be no God, no revelation, no future life, then this world, with all the science thereof and all the glory thereof, equals nothing- — is emptiness, utter and everlasting. All science without God is nothing. But if faith, with a wider horizon and a purer vision than science possesses, sees a Uving God, and in him sees a revelation given and eternal life assured, then, though the world be nothing, though all its verities and attainments fade out of sight forever, still the absolute reality survives, and the soul finds peace and rest eternal. Such faith knows Christ to be real and his Word to be true ; it finds abundant proofs where proof is needed ; it rises from probabilities to certainty, and Christ becomes to it at once true science and life everlasting. In the exercise of such faith, reason finds its own justification; and with such faith at the center, all the truths of science fall into their places, and are forever harmonized both with Christianity and with one another." We have never had a naturalist of higher scientific attainments and profounder insight into the works of nature than Agassiz, who wrote : "I will frankly tell you that my experience in prolonged scientific investigations convinces me that a belief in God — a God who is behind and within the chaos of vanishing points of human knowledge — adds a wonderful stimulus to the man who attempts to penetrate into the regions of the unknown. Of myself I may say, that I never make the preparations for penetrating into some small province of nature hitherto undiscovered without breathing a prayer to the Being who hides his secrets from me, only to allure me gra- ciously on to the unfolding them. KNOWLEDGE OF GOD NOT DEPENDENT UPON LEARNING. But the proof of God's existence does not depend upon knowledge of chemistry, nor of astronomy, nor of geology, nor of biology. Long before the rise of these sciences man had infallible proof of God's 150 FAITH MADE EASY. existence. The mind itself, with its marvelous power of thought, its tender susceptibility of feeling and the irresistible assertion of the law of duty, is the most convincing witness of Divine creative activity. It is comforting to believe that the physical sciences furnish additional arguments for the Divine existence ; but the foundations of our be- lief would not be disturbed if physical science should fail to add materially to the original arguments of natural theology. President W. F. Warren has said that " the knowledge of God is simpler and easier than the knowledge of nature. This is not the popular impression. Even among those who emphatically reject ag- nosticism, and contend that God may be known, there are thousands who have an idea that we must first protractedly study matter and force and life, and all their combinations, rising from one sphere of knowledge to another, strengthening our powers and enlarging our out- look at every step, until at last, having acquainted ourselves with all that the world offers, we are prepared to form a conception of that exalted Being whose existence seems essential to the rational explana- tion of the whole. Every such view of the knowledge of God in its relation to the knowledge of nature is a complete inversion of the true. I speak with strictest scientific precision when I say that I know far more of the nature of God than I do of the nature of a sand-grain. And I speak with equal soberness when I say that it is easier to give a child a right conception of the former than it is to give it a right conception of the latter. Furthermore, while a life-long study of cer- tain Greek books ascribed to Plato may make it very difiicult indeed for me to doubt that a man by the name of Plato once lived, and that he wrote these books, I can not, after all, properly know it; still less can I by this process ever come to personal knowledge of the man. The veriest boy who jovially spent a single half-day with him nutting in the woods of Attica obtained a personal insight into the real Plato such as a life-time of the most laborious study of his Dialogues can never give to me. The day for knowing Plato as old Athenian youths knew him is forever past. God's day, on the contrary, is from everlast- ing to everlasting. And the human child who desires to make his ac- quaintance is under no necessity to go to work as if the Heavenly Father had been dead some thousands of years, and was only to be known by painstaking inferences from certain books which he is said to have written, and from certain ruins of a grandly planned house which he is supposed to have built. The difficulties in the way of our knowl- edge of God, if any exist, are in ns, not in him. Even a pag^n could say, ' We are his offspring ;' and shall not a father be himself WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 151 more intelligible to a son than can be any vast, uninterpreted mecan- iqae cdeste -which that father may have builded? Even though he were not, when conceived of as passive, what is to prevent us from conceiving of this Father as active, and as taking delight in disclos- ing himself to every humble and filial spirit ?" PUEJE MORALITY DEPENDENT UPON BELIEF IN GOD. Without faith in a Higher Power man never rises above the level of superstition and base sensuality ; and, once exalted by true relig- ion to a higher plane, if he becomes faithless again he degenerates to the condition of a wretch. The approving smile of God is the nat- ural want of the human heart, and without this there is no adequate motive to holy living. " We investigate the instincts of the ant and the bee and the bea- ver, and discover that they are led by an inscrutable agency to work toward a distant purpose. Let us be faithful to our scientific method, and investigate also those instincts of the human mind by which man is led to work as if the approval of a Higher Being were the aim of life." (Jevons.) "If the demands of our moral nature are to be sat- isfied, we need not merely a power, but a person, who, by virtue of his personal qualities, will be able to judge us individually, alike with justice and with mercy." (Wace.) "The Eternal Power, not our- selves, that makes for righteousness." (M. Arnold.) "O Thou! The One ! Thou pure and everlasting Spirit that dwelleth in me as I know by my horror of a lie." (Ebers.) " There is but one solid basis of morality ; namely, the recognition of God, and a sense of accounta- bility to him." (O. P. Fitzgerald, D. D.) God is the author of that universally recognized monitor and guide to goodness, a Christian conscience. " When we speak of a sensitive conscience, it is well always to bear in mind that, apart from God's help, there is practically no such thing ; it is a gift which must come from him. He is wont to carry on his hidden dealings with the soul by means of what we should call very little things. Nothing is be- neath his watchful care, and he would have his law to be our guide in every word and look, as well as in the weightiest matters. He requires an absolute purity of heart in those with whom he vouchsafes to dwell, and a spirit of self-sacrifice which is ever ready to oflfer all things, however seemingly small, to him." (Guillorfi.) "All ye wanderers in lands of doubt and unbelief, where the har- vest will fail and where the grass will die under foot, the King asks 152 FAITH MADE EASY. you and your father and mother and friends to dwell in that part of the vale which is richest. Compare the realms of God and no God, and if in that of faith there flows a Nile whose waters never fail — a river which depends not upon the small clouds of an April sky, but upon the movements of a season, and the lakes and forests of a tropic world, then move into that world without delay. It will be, com- pared with the parched-up land of denial and doubt, a vale of paradise. For the Maker of the universe is kinder than Egyptian king, and asks the soul to pitch its tent in that part of thought's wide domain where there are the highest morals and the most inspiring hopes.'' (David Swing.) ' ' But a skeptic might say : ' I confess that religion and a God are useful for restraining evil, but I love truth so that I will proclaim it, no matter what results. Let the world go to moral ruin ; but if no God, say so.' Now, I would reply to that : A thousand times yes, my friend ; truth is so magnificent a thing, and so demands and de- serves our loyalty, that to die for it is not too much. But it is just be- cause we believe this that we believe in a God who stands behind truth, and gives it its value and grandeur. All over the world men worship moral greatness. Infidels, heathen. Christians, worldlings bow to moral qualities— rsincerity, truth, generosity, self-sacrifice. They consider the grandeur of these facts to be primary, intuitive certain- ties, beyond disputation, ' ringed with the azure world.' Now, my friend, ponder this argument. If you agree to this, you must believe in a personal, loving God, the author and possessor of these virtues — nay, in a future life, if you consider what they imply. For why should truth be followed though the heavens fall? Why should you, the skeptic, love it so, that, as you say, you are willing to follow it to the dreariest conclusions, and ruin your life ? It is all a delusion, a will- o'-the-wisp, if you and it came from nowhere, and go no whither. It would be as absurd for you to die for it as ' to die of a rose in aromatic pain,' or to die for the color in a picture, the expression in a symphony, or for a theory in chemistry. A thing must have a person behind it to give it supreme value. Gold would be useless un- less men were willing to buy or work it. A sailor values a light-house only because the whole nation seems to stand behind it, saying, ' Sail there.' If light-houses grew hap-haaard, what value would he place on them, then ? But am I not more logical than you ? I say. Yes ; miserably imperfect man as I am, I believe so thoroughly in moral truth, as having value in itself, and not being merely a useful fiction to restrain robbery and lust, that it throws one back necessarily on WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING ODD. 153 the fact that a God must exist who gave truth, and desires me to fol- low it. I can not believe that all virtue is in reality a phantom, a mi- rage, a useful, selfish cheat, and that one is talking secret foolishness when he says that sincerity, purity, honesty are good absolutely — good in themselves — as distinguished from useful. As much as I believe in the reality of this body of mine, which I touch — as thoroughly as I am convinced that parallel lines do not meet, or that twice two is four, so positively do I know-=-yes, know — that such a thing as purity, or self-sacrifice, or lofty principle has inborn in it a divine essence of righteousness, which has nothing to do with my opinion, or with yours, or with our forefathers' in its origin. Observe that men and nations may differ as to what is right and wrong. ' The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service,' said our Lord to his disciples. That is not the point at this time. The point is, that back of all that there is in the human soul an indestructible con- viction of the necessary difference between the ideas of right and wrong in the abstract, and of the inherent right of certain virtues, and wrong of certain vices, however we may dispute as to what constitutes them. And when we come to analyze, as far as we may, that conviction, we find that in its turn it logically implies God and a future life. If right be really right, and if the absolute truth is that, as even atheists con- fess, a righteous unfortunate man is a more desirable model to set be- fore our children than an unrighteous prosperous one ; if, once more, one ought, as even atheists confess, to die on the scaffold for principle rather than to mount a throne at the price of betraying it ; if this is as firm a conviction of an intelligent mind as any axiom, and not con- fessed to be 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying \ nothing,' then must there be another existence beyond ours to justify, to prove, and to complete all this. I leave those who accept these premises to work out any other conclusion. "Now, who holds the nobler, truer ground before the world — the unbeliever or the Christian? Compress the Christian idea again. We do not love virtue simply because it is useful or beautiful, as an agnostic must do ; but we believe that a thing so self-commended as virtue, so intuitively true, must be from God, and can not be false. Because we believe in virtue as absolute, it compels us to believe in God. For virtue in society is like law in nature, holding it together; and the Christian believes that so glorious a thing, so heartfelt a good, such a conserving principle, which alone prevents chaos — that this must have a purpose and cause behind it to make it true, and can not be from chance. Yes ; moral truth, however nations and creeds may 154 FAITH MADE EASY. differ as to its boundaries and definitions, is, in its last analysis, in- tuitively true — yet not without God. It is the salt and the salvation of the world — yet not without God. So it is that we believe not only that we can know God, but that we do know him. If that awful, yet loving, glorious, and holy Personal Cause does not exist, one can believe in nothing, the distinction between right and wrong disap- pears ; nay, there is no reality in cities or lands, or in this audience ; for I am very sure that these are no more certain to any one of us than is the statement that purity is to be always chosen rather than lust. Yet why? The agnostic, the secularist can not ignore that question as to the origin of moral truth. His first step in forming the future raises it. God will not be thrust out of the world he has made, either under the plea of a false humility, ' I can not know him,' or by the argument that it is all a useless problem, and that ' I do not know him.' It is the primary question of life." (Alexander Mackay Smith.) HOW BEST TO KNOW GOD. "All the knowledge of God we can acquire by the study of nature or of ourselves is very limited. Beyond a certain point our reasoning can not go. 'Who by searching can find out God?' It is impossible through science or philosophy to ' find out the Almighty to perfec- tion.' The respect iu which he is like ourselves is so limited that it no more than gives us a hint, a slight clew to the reality and person- ality of infinite intelligence. In our struggle for further light and knowledge of Deity we must come to the ' only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. He hath revealed him.' Short of this we may reason forever, and come no nearer the Christian conception of God than did the old Greeks, who, in feeling after him, could only raise an altar with this inscription: 'To the unknown God.' " Dost thou ask, 'When may I say that I have known God?' the answer is, When thou hast found him in Christ, through repentance and faith! Even Paul served an unknown God until repentance and faith in Christ taught him. And is it not ever just so to-day? Many a one believes that he knows God, while, nevertheless, he is serving an unknown God. When he opens entirely his heart to God, and in repentance and faith receives a new heart, then his heart is conscious that he now, fw the first time, has found his God ! Until then his knowledge of God was dead ; now it is living, true, saving through the spirit of sonship." (Theodor Christlieb, D. D., LL. D.) WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING OOD. 155 THE ATHEIST. " One has said, Who iu the world is a verier fool, a more igno- rant, wretched person than he that is an atheist? A man majr better believe there is no such man as himself, and that he is not in being, than that there is no God ; for himself can cease to be, and once was not, and shall be changed from what he is, and in very many periods of his life knows not that he is ; and so it is every night with him when he sleeps. But none of these can happen to God ; and if he knows it not, he is a fool. Can any thing in this world be more fool- ish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skUl of art is not able to make an oyster ? To see rare effects, alid no cause ; an excellent government, and no prince ; a motion without an immovable ; a circle without a a center ; a time without eternity ; a second without a first ; a thing that begins not from itself, and therefore not to perceive there is something from whence it does begin, which must be without begin- ning, — these things are so against philosophy and natural reason that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them. " This is the atheist. The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God. This is his character. The thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did ; saying that which is made is, and that which made it is not. But this folly is as infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or primitive nothing. But in this the devU never prevailed very far ; his schools were always thin at these lectures. Some few people have been witty against God, who taught them to speak before they knew how to spell a syllable; but either they are monsters in their manners, or mad in their understandings, or ever find themselves confuted by a thunder or the plague, by dan- ger or death." (W. F. D.) THE FOOL HATH SAID. "There is no God!" — an easy thing For any fool to say. The fool hath said it in his heart This many and many a day. "Prove this and that!" the fool demands. " Explain eternity ! Reveal to me that awful form Which mortals can not see !" 156 FAITH MADE EASY. Of microscope and telescope The limits we can find ; The limit of the human eye, The limit of the mind. What we perceive is all that is, The sodden fool insists; Beyond the limit of our ken Nothing at all exists. But any fool must still admit, If any fool reflects, That there are many things unknown Except by their effects. We do not know the life within The merest blade of grass, Nor can we see the vagrant winds That lightly come and pass. Nor form nor size the lightning has; We only feel the stroke. An unseen force, we hold and bind, And tame it to our yoke. We mortals boast of what we know, Exalting reason's throne, While there is far beyond our reach An infinite unknown. The lessons of eternal space The fool takes not to heart, And all the endless universe He gauges by a part. If he could pass his narrow bounds, And freely range abroad. He must confess that all he sees Are but effects of God. (Edward Willett.) " When reading the songs of the soul gathered into books, out of all ages and lands, we are impressed by the fact that the universal heart of man sings itself out in the same thoughts and words ; the old Latin hymns and the Greek, the psalms of David, the songs of Zion in every period of her story, breathe the same aspirations after God, with the same confessions of sin and of penitent sorrow, and again of faith, hope, and joy. It is this kinship in Christ of all his people: — one in him." (Dr. 8. Irenaeus Prime.) WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 157 "NO GOD!" "No God! No God!" The simplest flower That on the wild is found Shrinks, as it drinks its cup of dew, And trembles at the sound. "No God!" — astonished echo cries From out her cavern hoar, And every wandering bird that flies Reproves the atheist lore. The solemn forest lifts its head, The Almighty to proclaim; The brooklet on its crystal urn Doth leap, to grave his name. High swells the deep and vengeful sea, Along his billowy track. And red Vesuvius opes his mouth To hurl the falsehood back. The palm-tree, with its princely crest. The cocoa's leafy shade, The bread-fruit, bending to its lord In yon fair island glade ; The winged seeds that, borne by winds. The roving sparrows feed. The melon on the desert sands Confute the scorner's creed. " No God !" With indignation high" The fervent sun is stirred. And the pale moon grows paler still At such an impious word; And, from their burning thrones, the stars Look down with angry eye. That thus a worm of dust should mock Eternal Majesty. (Mrs. L. H. Sigourney.) "They that deny a God, destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys, likewise, magnanimity, and the raising of human nature ; for take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a god, or better nature; which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain. So man, when he resteth and assureth himself 158 FAITH MADE EASY. upon Divine protection and favor, gathereth a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not obtain ; therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty.'' (Lord Bacon.) IS THERE NO GOD? " There is no God," the fool in secret said ; " There is no God " that rules o'er earth or sky. Tear ofl' the bands that bind the wretch's head, That God may burst upon his faithless eye! Is there no God ? The stars in myriads spread, If he look up, the blasphemy deny; While his own features, in the mirror read. Reflect the image of Divinity. Is there no God? The stream that silver flows, The air he breathes, the ground he treads, the trees. The flowers, the grass, the sands, each wind that blows, — All speak of God ; throughout, one voice agrees, And, eloquent, his dread existence shows; Blind to thyself, ah ! see him, fool, in these. (Giovanni Cotta.) ACCOUNTABILITY FOR BELIEF. " In every Christian land, the youth and the manhood are account- able for their belief, because accountable for their use or their neglect of that inquiry by which the belief ought to have been determined. They have all, from their infancy, heard of God. Many have been trained to think of him, amidst a thousand associations of reverence. Some, under a roof of piety, have often lisped the prayers of early childhood to this unseen Being ; and in the often-repeated sound of morning and evening orisons they have become familiar with his name. Even they who have grown up at random, through the years of a neglected boyhood, are greatly within the limits of that responsibility for which we plead. They are fully possessed, if not with the cer- tainty, at least with the idea, of a great, eternal Sovereign. The very imprecations of profaneness may have taught it to them. The very Sabbath they spend in riot and blasphemy at least reminds them of a God. The worship-bell of the church they never enter conveys to them, if not the truth, at least an imagination of the truth, which, if it do not arrest them by a sense of obligation, will leave guilt upon their souls, though it be guilt against a God who is unknown." (Chalmers.) • WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 159 PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE UNNECESSARY. "Proof of the existence of God is to most minds superfluous. Tlie statement of the truth that he is, carries its own evidence. We weaken faith by offering too much proof. The knowledge that God exists furnishes a key to the universe ; it explains the mysteries of being; it puts all things in their right relations; it answers the queries springing up in the breast of peasant and philosopher. ' ' Nevertheless, if proof should be called for, it would not be far to seek. The world around us is full of thought; the crystals are constrncted by geometrical laws; the leaves are arranged upon the branches in accordance with arithmetical formulas; the atoms are combined in the molecules in mathematical proportions ; every thing shows that the power working in nature is a Power that thinks, for thought is expressed in all the operations of nature. ' If,' as one great writer says, ' we read a book which requires much thought and exercise of reason to understand, but which we find discloses more and more thought and reason as we proceed in the study, and contains clearly more than we can at present comprehend, then undeniably we properly say that thought and reason exist in that book irrespectively of our minds. . . . Such a book confessedly exists, and is ever open to us in the natural world. . . . That which requires thought and reason to understand must itself be thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or express must be itself mind.' Or, as another great writer has said : ' Unless it takes more mental faculty to construe a universe than to cause it — to read the Book of Nature tlian to write it — we must ever look upon its sub- lime face as the living appeal of thought to thought.' "Such evidence as this of the existence of the God whose mes- sage he brings, the preacher may find in the world about him. " In the order of history, also, not less than in the order of nature, "he finds such evidence; of that increasing purpose that runs through all the ages proof is not wanting. The facts of history are inexplic- able, save on the theory of an ordaining and directing intelligence. "In the soul of man to whom he brings his message from God there is also a clear witness that his message is true. The feeling of dependence, which is inseparable from the man's own consciousness, is met and satisfied when he is told of an infinite Power above him on whom he may depend. The feeling of obligation, that never de- parts from his breast, is not explained until he learns that there is an Almighty and All-perfect Being to whom his obligation is due. 160 FAITH MADE EASY. "By such reasonings as these, if reasonings are needed, the preacher may expect to win the assent of his hearers to the truth that God is. " He must tell them, then, that the voice within them which con- tinually admonishes them, saying to each, 'Thou oughtest to choose the right,' is the very voice of God himself. " He must tell them, also, that the retributive laws working them- selves out in their own natures when they -disobey this voice, causing each to reap corruption where he sows sin, producing moral infirmity, and decay, and misery, as the sure penalty of conscious wrong-doing, are God's laws, holy and just and good, that can never be repealed or suspended or evaded. " Every sin of man, the preacher must testify, is primarily a sin against God, and the penalties of sin are penalties which God himself has ordained." (Washington Gladden.) GOD INTUITIVELY RECOGNIZED. " 1. I recognize the obvious fact that my rational and moral in- tuitions, and the information they afford, are as valid as my sense per- ceptions and the discoveries they make of the material world. Per- sonality, freedom, moral responsibility — the eternal, ultimate, universal, and supreme obligation of the right, are to me the first and most sure of realities. ' ' 2. The light of my own personality, will, intelligence, and con- science, cast upon external nature, and upon the human society which surrounds me, reveals God. He is manifested in the exercise of my own consciousness, and in the phenomena of external nature, as the invisible spirits of our fellow men are visible in their persons and actions ; and I spontaneously recognize him as certainly as I recognize them. Intelligence, choice, and therefore personality, are everywhere visible in the successions of external nature ; and the presence of a presiding moral personality is witnessed to by the sense of responsi- bility and of guilt never absent from my own consciousness. To the extent to which science renders nature intelligible is the latter proved to be the product of an ever-present and acting intelligence. This God is discerned to be immanent in the external and internal world, as distributed through space and time, just as clearly as the phenom- ena themselves through the medium of which he is manifested. At the same time he is just as clearly and as certainly discerned as a moral and providential Governor objective to ourselves, transcend- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 161 ing all phenomena, and speaking to us, and acting upon us from without. " 3. As thus revealed, it is evident that this God has created me in his own image. Instincts, also, which can not be denied, testify that he is my Father. As a child of God, unassuageable instinct cries for union with him. As a subject of his moral government, I know myself to be justly exposed to his wrath because of sin, and that I must have a Mediator to make my peace, else I die. His treatment of the race historically, and of me personally, affords strong presumption that he will some time reveal himself to me, and redeem me from the ruin efiected by my sin." (Pres. A. A. Hodge, D. D.) CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD. "I am conscious of the being of God, just as I am conscious of the being of the external world ; and, living and acting in this con- sciousness, the being of God comes to me with even greater force. The cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments help me toward the knowledge of an all-wise, powerful, and righteous One, who made and rules the worlds ; but it is in Jesus Christ alone that I find the God who fills my heart. The largest and fullest word in that revela- tion which Christ brings to us of God I believe to be that word which is so continually upon his lips — the word Father. This conception of God as a Father, in whom are perfectly combined the reason and authority, the righteousness and love, the power and the pattern of goodness and life, I believe to be the highest and truest conception of the Divine character -which we are capable of receiving, absorbing and replacing all earlier and lesser revelations of himself." (J. N. Mcllvaine.) THE ATHEIST AN ORPHAN. " It would cause me less pain to deny immortality than to deny God's existence. In the former case, what I lose is but a world hid- den by clouds ; but in the latter, I lose this present world, that is to say, its sun. The whole spiritual universe is shattered and shivered by the hand of atheism into innumerable glittering quicksilver glob- ules of individual personalities, running hither and thither at random, coalescing, and parting asunder without unity, coherence, or consist- ency. In all this wide universe there is none so utterly solitary and alone as a denier of God. With orphaned heart — a heart which has 11 162 FAITH MADE EASY. lost the Great Father — he mourns beside the immeasurable corpse of Nature, a corpse no longer animated or held together by the Great Spirit of the universe — a corpse which grows in its grave; and by this corpse he mourns until he himself crumbles and falls away from it into nothingness. The wide earth lies before such a one like the great Egyptian sphinx of stone, half buried in the desert sand; the immeasurable universe has become for him but the cold iron mask upon an eternity which is without form and void. (Richter.) THE TRINITY. " We venerate one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confounding persons nor separating substance ; for there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and a third of the Holy Ghost. But of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, unique is the divinity, equal the glory, and coeternal the majesty. Amen." Such is the faith of Christendom, and such it ever has been. And not Christendom alone. The theological systems of nearly all pagan nations of antiquity acknowledged a kind of Trinity in the Divine nature. Among the Gentile kingdoms also the doctrine was univer- sally prevalent. Bishop Tomline says, that "the doctrine itself bears such striking internal marks of a Divine original, and is so very un- likely to have been the invention of mere human reason, that there is no way of accounting for the general adoption of so singular a belief, but by supposing that it was revealed by God to the early patriarchs, and that it was transmitted by them to posterity." The idea of the Trinity includes three subordinate ideas, viz.: 1. That there is only one God. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." (Deut. vi, 4.) "There is none other God but one." (1 Cor. viii, 4.) "The unity of God is as necessary as his ex- istence, since he is and must be infinite, and infinity excludes the itlea of rivalry. There can be but one Supreme Governor, and he is so perfectly one that no unity like his c*n be found outside of himself. All these points are patent, or yield to the researches of an inquiring intellect." " The doctrine that there is one living God is that to which thought has brought thinkers ; but the strange pre-eminence of the Bible lies in this being from the first unto the last the doctrine of which its whole teaching is full." (Charteris.) 2. That in this unity there are three personalities, to wit: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three are coequal, con- substantial, and eternal — the Father, who receives from none ; the Son, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 163 who is eternally begotten of the Father; and the Holy Ghost, who eternally proceedeth from the Father and the Son. This is the nature of the Infinite Being, that essential unity is shared by an essential Trinity. Each person is distinct, and endowed with all the attributes of personality. Each has in himself the whole Divine essence, so that there is neither superiority nor subjection, nor want of harmony. 3. That there are yet not three Gods, but one God — God the Father communicating the whole Divine essence in an eternal genera- tion to the Son; and the Father and the Son communicating the same essence in one act and by an eternal procession to the Holy Ghost. " This,'' says St. Bernard, " is a vast mystery. To scrutinize it is temerity; to believe it, piety; to know it, the way and the life eternal." " The Divine element," remarks Rev. Dr. John McEldowney, " includes God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. These three per- sons are essentially and inseparably one in all their infinite, eternal nature and being ; hence in the Scriptures the work of one is often in a very proper sense ascribed to another. Creation is ascribed by Moses to God the Father ; by John to the Son or Word ; by Moses and Job and David to the Holy Ghost. The manifested presence of one person of the Divine Trinity necessarily implies the real presence of the entire Trinity in its essential unity ; and yet for the purposes of man's salvation this distinction of persons is definitely maintained : God the Father, the Creator and Governor, whom no man hath seen or can see ; God the Son, the Redeemer and Savior, the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us, who became the man of sorrows, who died for our sins, rose for our justification, ascended on high, led cap- tivity captive, and received gifts for man, who ever liveth to make intercession foi* us; God the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier and Com- forter, the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father and the Son, the present abiding Deity of the Church." The emblems of the Trinity have been often designated. None of them are complete, but some of them are suggestive and helpful. "You believe there is such a thing as light, whether flowing from the sun or any other luminous body; but you can not comprehend its nature, or the manner wherein it flows. How does it move from Jupiter, to the earth in eight minutes ; two hundred thousand' miles in a moment? How do the rays of three lamps blend together aiid make one light? Explain this so I can comprehend it, and I will explain the Trinity." Take the sun itself, and you find three in one. "There is the 1 64 FAITH MA DE EA8 Y. louud orb, the light, and the heat. Each of these we call the sun. When you say the sun is almost nine hundred thousand miles in di- ameter, you mean the round orb. When you say the sun is bright, you mean its light. When you say it is warm^ you refer to its heat. The orb is the sun, the light is the sun, the heat is the sun." Three elements but one sun. Again : take the light. The light of the sun, the light of the moon, and the light of the air, are one and the same light. In sub- stance they are one, yet in manifestation three. The light of the sun being of itself, and from none other, may represent the Father ; the light of the moon, being from the sun, may represent the Divine Son ; and the light of the air being from them both, may represent the Spirit. The analogy is by no means perfect ; yet it shows what can be. "Say not, then, senseless man, that in this doctrine there is im- possibility. You are not qualified thus to pronounce judgment. To affirm that any thing is impossible we must have a clear and complete conception of the subject and as adequate a comprehension of the at- tribute, and a palpable evidence that this can not be predicated of that. Now the mystery of the Trinity is comprised in this: That there be one indivisible essence terminated in three persons instead of in one. So, tell me, mighty mind, you who so boldly prate of impos- sibilities and seem so little loath to charge a kindred intellect with belief in absurdities; tell me, I say, what is essence or substance? What is that which remains unchanged and invariable in every being, amidst all the modifications it may and can undergo, that which consti- tutes it what it is, and distinguishes it eternally from all other things ? Define ultimately substance ; acquaint me with its properties ; show me that you understand it clearly so as to be able to pronounce what is predicable of it and what is not ? After all, then, it is not so clear. But when you have solved this question, which the wisdom of the -world has never safely mastered, a still more perplexing query awaits you before you can give yourself the least credence as a witness against the Trinity' ; viz., what a person is. A complete nature only consti- tutes a complete nature ; but what is that peculiar degree of comple- tion which superadds to this principle of action and passion, that we conceive requisite to constitute a subsistency or a personality? An- swer me these two questions : What is a substance and what is a person? Thou canst not, little one ; and so it seems that far from un- derstanding perfectly both the subject and the attribute of the proposi- tion you call absurd and impossible, you understand neither. How WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 165 can you affirm a repugnance in terms the real meaning of which is shrouded in ohscurity? Have you no reason to suspect that there should be concealed somewhere in that obscurity a reason or recon- cilation between terms which to your superficial observation seem so antagonistic ? Poor little mortal ! Bat-blind aud flying in a fury at the sun, pick up your wee objection, and pass upon your dusky way, for philosophy is distrustful of you ; experience impugns your petty pretension ; and revelation, with its heavenly records, is against you. Philosophy distrusts you; for, not to search deeper into this intricate matter, we may observe this, that the more a man is a philosopher the more cautious he becomes of committing himself on a subject like this. Experience has here an invaluable suggestion. Son of Adam, look within yourself. You discern at once two distinct substances — a body and a soul. But do these conspire to efiect a single personality? So, you have experience of such a thing as two distinct substances in one person ; why, then, could there not be as well two persons in one sub- stance ? and if two persons in one substance, why not three ?" (Charles O. Reilly, D. D.) The doctrine of the Trinity is very important; it is vital to the Christian system. The atonement is inseparable from it. Destroy the one, and the other falls. Eev. Joseph Hartwell depicts this prac- tical truth: "God's law came from an infinite Being. The lawgiver determines the dignity of the law. If he be an Infinite Being, that stamps the law with infinite dignity and authority. None therefore but an infinite Being could atone for the infraction of such a law. If Christ be a created being, he is not infinite. If not an eternal being, he is not infinite. If not infinite, he is finite. If finite, he did not, neither could he, make an atonement meeting the demands of the law of an infinite Being. If he made no atonement, there was none made. If no atonement made, no salvation provided. If no salvation pro- vided, there is no possibility of being saved ; and the whole race must sink together. Rational foundation of hope is nowhere to be found." Then the theory that Christian character is changed from the man of sin is a delusion. Repentance, faith, prayer, testimony are tlie outcroppings of foolish self deception. Religious aifections — such as love, joy, peace, long-sufiering — are insane imaginings, without foundation in fact. The language of the Church must likewise be changed. If Christ be not God, no dying saint can consistently say: " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'' The Church militant can not unite with the Church tri- umphant in ascribing praise and dominion and glory and power to 166 FAITH MADE EASY. him. The Apostles' Creed must likewise be altered. " I believe in the Holy Ghost " has no meaning, if the Holy Ghost is not divine. The credibility of the Holy Scriptures is also very seriously affected if this doctrine be not true, for their tendency to mislead is obvious. Their pages are strewn with these three blessed names as the names of God. They make these names indicate personality with all the attributes belonging thereto, and all the relations in which they stand to each other, leaving to us no possible doubt as to their intent in the premises. Take, for example, John xiv, 16 : "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." Here the Son prays, the Father gives, and the Comforter abides. These are attributions predicable only of persons ; there is no room for cavil on the question of their distinction. Again, John xv, 26: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." Here the Com- forter is to "come" and "testify," the Son is to "send," and from the Father the Spirit is to "proceed." All these attributions are of persons acting in absolute harmony as essentially one. Again, the baptismal formula recognizes, and gathers its solem- nity from the recognition of three persons in one God. " Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.'' Now, either the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost here men- tioned are three persons or three qualities ; but that they are not three qualities of one and the same person the direct significance of the lan- guage and the scope of its common sense amply attest. "There are three, he saith, who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." " The natural interpretation of the baptismal formula," says Bishop Porteus, " is that, by being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we are dedicated and consecrated equally to the service of each of those three divine persons, and are conse- quently bound to honor, worship, and obey each of them equally. This evidently implies that they are equal in their nature, and that ' all the fullness of the Godhead ' d^yells in each." " This form .of baptism," remarks Andrewes, " while it proves the divinity of each person, proves also their unity in the Godhead. For wie hear in it but one name. We are baptized, not in the names, as of many, but ' in the name,' as of one : one name, and one nature, or essence." Then, again, the baptism of- Christ is best explained in all its cir- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNINO GOD. 167 cumstances by the theory of the Trinity. "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water : and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him : and lo, a voice from heaven, saying. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt, iii, 16, 17.) Here we have distinctly revealed the voice of the Father in pleased recognition of the Son, and the Holy Spirit actually descend- ing upon the Son. William Hanna observes: "The fall of man sealed the Father's lips in silence ; all divine communications after- ward with man were made through the Son. It was he who appeared and spake to the patriarchs; it was he who spake from the summit of Sinai, and was the giver of the law; but now for the first time the Father's lips are opened, the long-kept silence is broken, that this testimony of the Father to the Sonship of Jesus, this expression of his entire good pleasure with him as he enters upon his ministry, may be given." Once more, the benedictive formula is a clear recognition of the Divine Trinity. " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." (2 Cor. xiii, 14.) The grace of Christ comes first, for it is only by it we come to the love of God the Father. (John xiv. 6.) The variety in the order of persons proves that "in this Trinity none is afore or after other." The "communion of the Holy Ghost" includes both " the grace of Christ" and " the love of God." The three are insep- arable as the three persons of the Trinity itself. Even in the Old Testament Scriptures we find this doctrine clearly established. 1. A plural name is given to the Deity. The very first appella- tion is Elohim, of which the singular is Ehah. That Elohim is plural is evident not only from its form, but from the fact that it is con- nected with plural modes of speech. The first instance occurs in the very first passages of the Bible, and in twenty-five hundred other places. That God must have designed to prepare the way for the full rev- elation of this doctrine is indicated by the fact that there was a ten- dency in the minds of the patriarchs and Hebrews to embrace the prevailing polytheism, and God would not have interposed so great a risk to faith but for weighty reasons. The singular word Jehovah would better have fitted monotheism, and would doubtless have been employed had not God designed to foreshadow the doctrine of the Trinity so fully revealed afterwards. Hutton says that "the inter- 168 FAITH MADE EASY. trinitariaii relations are coeval with Godhead. God is not first soli- tary existence, then power in creation, then love to the created, then pity for the fallen — these latter being secondary effluences from a God who is in the first place self-centered. On the contrary, God is essen- tial and eternal Love. Love in exercise from eternity has laid the foundations of all that God is to his creatures, and especially to man. Hence the bearing of the doctrine of the Trinity upon that of the divine image. We are apt to take the word ' Father ' as meta- phorical in its application to God, a metaphor derived from human parentage." 2. The form of the priestly blessing, as given in Numbers vi, 24-27, answers clearly to the form of the apostolic benediction in the New Testament : "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Sub- stitute the names of the Trinity, and we have here the Father as the author of blessing and preservation, the Son as the author of grace, and the Holy Spirit as the author of illumination and peace. 3. The prophet Isaiah, in his remarkable vision (chap, vi.), heard the seraphim cry as they veiled their faces in the presence of the Most High : " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." This form of speech indicates that they worship before the triune God. Moreover, the question propounded by the infinite Voice, following the expression of worship, " Whom shall I send, and who will go for ms?" indicates plurality; and the answer, " Here am I, send me," is the response of the Son. This is not con- jecture. The Apostle John (chap, xii, 41) refers to this very vision in speaking of Christ: "These things said Esaias when lie saw his [Christ's] glory." Paul also makes application of the words to the Holy Ghost, thus completing the round of the Trinity: "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say. Hearing ye shall hear," etc. (Acts xxviii, 25.) In the plural form "us" in the repetition of the homage " holy," and in the declarations of John and Paul, we have the doc- trine of the Trinity unmistakably set forth. So, also, in the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the forty-eighth chapter of Isaiah the same truth is presented: "Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel;" "The Lord Ood and his Spirit hath sent me." Com- pare with this John x, 36, and it will plainly appear as a declaration that the Spirit combined with the Father in sending the Son. Any number of passages can be quoted showing that the three WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 169 persons of the Godhead are equal in their character and attributes. As the Father is called God, so is the Son: "His name shall be called . . . the Everlasting Father;" and so is the Holy Ghost: "Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." 1. Take the attribute of eternity. (1.) The Father. " The eter- nal God is thy refuge." (Deut. xxxiii, 27.) (2.) The Son. " Unto the Son he saith. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." (Heb. i, 8.) (3.) The Holy Spirit. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself," etc. (Heb. ix, 14.) 2. Omnipresence. (1.) The Father. "Can any man hide in se- cret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord." (Isa. xxiii. 24.) (2.) The Son. "Where two or three are gathered," etc. (Matt, xviii, 20.) (3.) The Holy Spirit. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?" etc. 3. Omniscience. (1.) The Father. " Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts xv, 18.) (2.) The Son. "Lord, thou knowest all things." (John xxi, 17. (3.) The Spirit. "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." 4. Omnipotence. (1.) The Father. "I am the Almighty God." (Gen. xvii, 1.) (2.) The Son. "All power is given unto me," etc. (Acts xxviii, 18.) (3.) The Spirit. "To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues ; to another the interpretation of tongues : but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." (1 Cor. xii, 8-11.) 5. Wisdom. (1.) The Father. "Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his." (2.) The Son. "Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- edge." (Col. ii, 3.) (3.) The Spirit. "The Spirit of wisdom and revelation." (Eph. i, 17.) 6. Inspiration. (1.) The Father. "All Scripture is given by in- spiration of God." (2 Tim. iii, 16.) (2.) The Son. "Of which sal- vation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you : searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which Avas in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the 170 FAITH MADE EASY. glory that should follow." (1 Pet. i, 10, 11.) (3.) The Holy Spirit. "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any pri- vate interpretation. For the 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." (2 Pet. i, 21.) 7. Sanctification. (1.) The Father. "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly." (1 Thess. v, 23.) (2.) The Son. " Where- fore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered." (Heb. xiii, 12.) (3.) The Spirit. " Through sanctifica- tion of the Spirit." (1 Pet. i, 2.) Indeed, we are told that all divine operations are attributable to the same Trinity. "There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." (1 Cor. xii, 6.) If any doc- trine is plainly taught in the Bible, it is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. But, you say, I can not comprehend this doctrine ; I can not under- stand how three persons can make one God. Well, you are not re- quired to understand it. You have nothing to do with the mode of it. You are required to believe only the fact itself — three persons, one God ; distinct, but not separate ; three persons in manifestation, but one in agreement. Thus exclaimed Daniel Webster: "I believe that God exists in three persons. This I learn from revelation alone. Nor is it any objection to this belief that I can not comprehend how one can be three, or three one." This doctrine exactly meets the re- quirements of the human heart. "It suits the actual states of most worshipers to turn in different moods to each of the three in one, and, according to its joy or need, to praise and entreat each with the whole heart — the Father as Creator and Providence, the Son as Redeemer and embodied Friend, the Spirit as the Dispenser of a diffused and sanctifying influence which permeates and comforts the sensitive soul." Charles Kingsley, poet and philanthropist, and chaplain to the British queen, had in his life-time given close and searching attention to this subject. He said to a friend: " My heart demands the Trinity as well as my reason. Th6 whole spiritual nature of man cries out for it." While he was dying his daughter heard him exclaim, " How beautiful God is !" He doubtless saw more clearly what he had seen before — the united work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to make him blessed. It is indeed a blessed truth. How strong it makes the Gospel! Spurgeon says : " Give me a Gospel with the Trinity, and the might of hell can not prevail against it ; no man can any more overthrow it than a bubble can split a rock, or a feather break in halves a mountain. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERN [NO GOD. 171 Get the thought of the three persons, and you have the marrow of all divinity. Only know the Father and Son and Holy Ghost to be one, and all things are clear ; it is the golden key to the word of God." So it is. Without it the Bible is an enigma, and its requirements are absurd. Without this, how can any man honor the Son even as he honors the Father ? Without this, how can the Spirit of God witness with man's spirit that he is a child of God? Surely, with Horace Bushnell, " we can wish the reader nothing more beatific in this life than to have found and fully brought into feeling the practical sig- nificance of this eternal act or fact of God, which we call the Chris- tian Trinity." ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. By the attributes of God we understand those several parts or perfections of his character which he has attributed to himself, and which in the very nature of things belong to the Infinite Being. Theo- logians divide those attributes into two classes, natural and moral. The natural attributes are those qualities or perfections of the Di- vine nature which inhere in himself, being entirely independent of any volition of the infinite will. The moral attributes involve the idea of moral action, and render the Divine character adorable and lovely. NATURAL ATTRIBUTES. The Scriptures teach us that there is one God, the creator of all things, and that in nature he is a Spirit. (See John iv, 24 ; and 2 Cor. iii, 17.) They further declare that, as all things were made by him, so he is before all things, the pre-existent, self-existent, independ- «nt Being, the ' ' I Am ;" eternal and unchangeable. This is the doc- trine of God's Eternity. — " Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." (Psa. xc, 2.) "I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days : thy years are throughout ail generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure : yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed : but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." (Psa. cii, 24-27.) There is nothing with which we can compare the eternity of God. Not only does it involve the idea of infinite duration, but of change- 172 FAITH MADE EASY. less stability. He lives by virtue of his nature, and is essentially un- changeable. He is " the fountain of life," subject to no decay or diminution. His being is absolutely perfect and blessed, ever was — aye, and ever shall be. "I might compare the eternity of God," says Rev. Chas. F. Thwing, "to the eternity of the sun ; for, above the mutations of time and the revolution of human affairs, it shines as of old ; but I know the sun was placed in his zenith by the arm of God, and that the same arm can dash it into dark nothingness. I might compare it to the eternity of the ocean, for the ocean touches every shore, and reigns supreme, careless of the flight of time ; I know that it was formed by God, that he moved upon the face of the waters, and that its waters shall melt with a fervent heat. I might compare the eternity of God to the solid earth, for it seems as lasting as time ; but I know that the day cometh when the earth shall be rolled through space a black ball of ice. I might compare the eternity of God to the universe of existence — how large, how magnificent beyond all thought! — but I know that the hand of God made every adjustment in this heavenly mechanism, and that he guides every movement. The eternity of God ! Thou, O God, wast; thou, O God, art ; and thou, O God, shalt be. No time when thou wast not; no time when thou shalt not be. O God, thou art the eternal One." ■ Unity. — The unity of God is set forth in such passages as the fol- lowing : " Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath ; there is none else beside him." " O Lord, there is none like thee, neither is there any God besides thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.'' " Ye are my witnesses, saLth the Lord, and my serv- ant whom I have chosen ; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he : before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after- me." "And Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is. Hear, O Israel : The Lord our God is one Lord." "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." "But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." (Deut. iv, 39; 1 Chron. xvii, 20; Isa. xliii, 10; Mark xii, 29; John xvii, 3 ; 1 Cor. viii, 6.) Self-existence. — When Paul stood on Mars' Hill, teaching the Athenians, he declared unto them, "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men's WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNmO GOD. 173 hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." (Acts xvii, 24, 25.) This is a complete dec- laration of the self-existence of God. When the apostle wrote his Epistle to the Romans he reiterated the same truth: " For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been his counselor ? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things : to whom be glory forever." (Rom. xi, 34-36.) Spirituality. — The spirituality of God was taught by our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who said : " God is a Spirit : and they that wor- ship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John iv, 24.) Immutability. — "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent : hath he said, and shall he not do it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless : and he hath blessed, and I can not reverse it." (Num. xxiii, 19, 20.) "But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me : and many such things are with him." (Job xxiiij 13, 14.) " For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." (Mai. iii, 6.) "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James i, 17.) Omnipotence. — God has power to do any thing which is not re- pugnant to his nature, or in itself absurd. He " can not lie," for this would be self-contradictory ; he is the very essence of truth. He can not make two parallel lines meet, for this would annihilate the change- less order of things which he has established ; but he can create a universe, and establish the numberless principles of nature and grace which we perceive to exist around us. He ii " the almighty God." (Gen. xvii, 1.) In him "is everlasting strength." (Isaiah xxvi, 4.) He "made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground." (Jer. xxvii, 5.) "He made the stars also." (Gen. i, 16.) " He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." (Dan. iv, 35.) " He has the keys of hell and of death." (Rev. i, 8.) "There is nothing too hard for him." (Jer. xxxii, 17.) " The things which are impossible with men are possible with God." (Luke xviii, 27.) There is no end in Scripture to the beautiful comparisons and striking illustrations of the omnipotence of God. Creation out of nothing is attributed to him, not as the crowning act of greatness, the extreme limit of omnific 174 FAITH MADE EASY. power, but as the natural and easy outflow of his strength. " He spake, and it was done ; he commanded, and it stood fast." Some de- scriptions of his power are terrible. "The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof; he divideth the sea by his power." " He removeth the mountains, and they know it not ; he overturneth them in his anger; he shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble ; he commandeth the sun and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars." His power and majesty are as great to-day as ever, and will ultimately be displayed in the eyes of all mankind. The closing scenes of this world will present an exhibition as resplen- dent and awful as that of the opening. The dead of all ages shall rise frorii their graves at his voice ; and the sea shall give up 'the dead which are in it. Before his face heaven and earth flee away, the stars fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven are shaken. The dead, small and great, stand before God, and in perfect order and passive submission receive their eternal rewards. Such sublime presentations of the omnipotence of God should in- spire us with reverence and trust. He is able to do exceeding abun- dantly above all that we ask or think. It is not possible for us to be in a position where he can not assist us. He has servants everywhere, and if those of earth are not adequate he can summon them from the skies. Omnipresence. — Man can not hide from the presence of his Maker. ' ' Whither shall I flee from thy presence ?" No wing of the morning can bear us beyond the sweep of his vision. No depth of the sea, or pall of the night, or precinct of hell, can cover us from his gaze. Unto him night shineth as the day, and the blackness of darkness as the blaze of light. When we were formed in secret our ^ubstance was not hidden from him, and when our members perish, the atoms of our dust Shall not escape the penetration of his eye. In his book all our members are written. When as yet there were none of them, they had form and shape in the divine plan. " There is an unseen Power around. Existing in the silent air ; Where treadeth man — where space is found — Unheard, unknown, that Power is there. And not when bright and busy day Is round us with its crowds and cares ; And not when night, with solemn sway, Bids -our hushed souls breathe forth in prayers ; Not when on sickness' weary couch He writhes with pain's deep long-drawn groan ; WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 175 Not when his steps in freedom touch The fresh green turf, is man alone." Such knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high ; we can not attain unto it ; but it is all perfect simplicity with him. He has beset us behind and before, and laid his hand upon us. Our paths and couches are compassed by him. He orders our steps and understandeth our thoughts. Even the wicked shall not escape. They may fly to their secret haunts, but omnipresence attends them and marks their impurity and violence there. " In proud Belshazzar's gilded hall, 'Mid music, lights, and revelry, That present Spirit looked on all. From crouching slave to royalty." In all the universe there is but one secret hiding-place, and that is known only to them that fear God and trust in him before the sons of men. "Thou shalt hide them," says the Psalmist, "in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man ; thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.'' .The good in every age have felt themselves within this sacred place, concealed, as it were, in the very goodness and glory of the Divine presence. They have known of a truth that God manifests himself unto them as he doth not unto the world. In peril and privation they have felt secure, and in the valley of shadows they have feared no evil. "Thou art with me!" is the comforting exclamation of the pious heart. " When sinks the pious Christian'.s soul. And scenes of horror daunt his eye. He hears it whispered through the air, A Power of Mercy still is nigh. The Power that watches, guides, defends. Till man becomes a lifeless sod ; Till earth is nought, nought earthly friends, — That Omnipresent Power is God!" God is the Christian's present help in trouble, and work, and re- sponsibility, and care. " Cast me not away from thy presence," is the prayer ever welling up from his heart, if not constantly dwelling on his lips. "If thy presence go not with me, carry me not hence," is the plea of his consecrated life. The man of the world has no appre- ciation of such a spirit. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him ; and he will show them his covenant. To the eye of sense 176 FAITH MADE EASY. the down-sittings and the uprisings of a God-fearing man are not diflerent from those of the despiser and wicked that perish ; but to the spiritual understanding, to the eye tliat God hath quickened, there is a difference as wide as the world. To dwell in God, and know that God dwelleth in us, is to dwell in security and peace and heaven. Come health or disease, joy or pain, life or death, persons in this state are comforted with the thought that all is well. "The best of all is, God is with us !" was the sublime testimony of the dying Wesley ; and he but voiced the experience of unnumbered millions more. This is our solace in sorrow, our comfort in distress, our strengthener in toil. " My presence shall go with thee." This is the precious thought, and, indeed, the sum of all thoughts, Avhich God whispers down into the ear of his trusting servant. Stimulated by it, that servant goes forth on his mission in this sinful world. As a missionary on foreign shores, as an evangelist in home land, as a common laborer in the Master's vineyard, he is found doing the Lord's will and resting his case in God's hands. Among friends, among foes, in youth or age, he counts not his life dear unto himself that he may rescue others and instruct them in the glorious secret which impels him. Eeader, this spiritual knowledge of a present God is the most blessed truth we shall ever know. While we are writing or you are reading these words, how precious the realization that God sees us, owns us, sustains us, and will never forsake us ! " The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes ; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I '11 never, no never, no never forsake ! Throughout this vale of tears and in the sunny land of joy, per- petual comfort shall be ours if we abide in this truth. We shall be tried. It is right that we should be. Our fitness for heaven must be proved. But, walking with God like Enoch of old, attended by him as was Moses, living to his praise as have all the good and pure, we shall come at last into his beatific presence and see what now we could not see and live. Omniscience and Prescience. — We certainly believe that God knows all things, those which to us are future as well as those that are past. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose lieart is perfect toward him." (2 Chron. xvi, 9.) "Foi: his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings." (Job xxxvi, 21.) WHAT ro BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 177 "OLord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising ; thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." (Psa. xxxix, 1-4.) "His understanding is infinite.'' (Psa. 147, 5.) "Thou knowest all things." (John xxi, 17.) "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts xv, 18.) These passages are sufficient to indicate that no limits are to be set to the divine omniscience. "As creation out of nothing argues a power which is omnipotent, so the knowledge of the possibilities of things which are not, a knowledge which, from the effect, we are sure must exist in God, argues that such a being must be omniscient." This attribute, of course, includes contingent future actions as well as fixed past events. We call it "foreknowledge" to accommodate the idea of a divine perfection to our modes of thinking, not that Jehovah, strictly speaking, regards things as future or past, as we do. With him one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He knows every thing as it is, not as it will be. The flight of time unfolds nothing new to him. His intelligence has no limit, his thoughts no order of succession. " Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv, 13.) God's knowledge influences nothing. No event comes to pass because God knows it, but God knows it because it comes to pass. Knowledge is not causation; even certainty of knowledge necessitates nothing. I may know, as far as a finite being can know any future thing, that somebody will read these lines, but this knowledge does not necessitate the reading. God's knowledge differs from man's only in that it is perfect. It has no more influence upon men's actions than ours does. It understands things as they are, but does not make them as they are, nor prevent them from being otherwise. "Some actions are necessary, such as breathing and sleeping, and others are free, and as such they are known of God. Had any thing been otherwise than it is, his knowledge of it would have been other- wise. Knowledge takes its form from the act, and not the act from the knowledge, as the impression from the seal, and not the seal from the impression. How God knows the future decisions of a free agent is to us a mystery, as are all the perceptions of the Infinite Mind." "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my trays, saith the Lord." 12 178 FAITH MADE EASY. The mistake of all persons who stumble over the doctrine of God's absolute prescience and man's absolute freedom, arises from the conception that such prescience of moral actions renders the actions necessary. They malie contingency to mean uncertainty, whereas they should make it mean simply freedom from necessity. A free action is a voluntary one, depending entirely upon the choice of the agent; but a necessary action is involuntary, and could not have been otherwise than as it is. A contingent action, therefore, is one which might have been otherwise; that is, was ijot necessitated, and the mere knowledge of its certainty does not change its contingency in the least. Hear Richard Watson: "Though an uncertain action can not be foreseen as certain, a free, unnecessitated action may; for there is nothing in the knowledge of the action to aifect its nature. Simple knowledge is in no sense a cause of action, nor can it be conceived to be causal, unconnected with exerted power; for mere knowledge, therefore, an action remains free or necessitated, as the case may be. A necessitated action is not made a voluntary one by its being foreknown ; a free action is not made a necessary one. Free actions foreknown will not, therefore, cease to be contingent." "The foreknowledge of God has no influence upon either the freedom or the certainty of actions, for this plain reason, that it is knowledge and not influence; and actions may be certainly foreknown without their being rendered necessary by that foreknowledge." MORAL ATTRIBUTES. Holiness. — "It is not the glory of God's infinite perfections which is most extolled in his own revelations, but the glory of his spirit-life and personal character. 'To whom shall ye liken me or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One.' ' Thus saith the high and lofty One whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place.' His throne is a throne of holiness; his habitation is a habitation of holiness. Take thy shoes from thy feet, for the place of his mani- festation, though it be in the depths of an Arabian desert, is holy ground. Perfect character is excellence, completeness. It is the highest perfection, and the perfection of loveliness. In the Creator of heaven and of earth that inherent immaculateness shines brighter than the brightness of a myriad suns. Nothing ever has or ever can dim its splendor. No stain nor spot ever crossed its disk or marred its radiance. Never did an impure thought, an unloving purpose, an unholy desire, an unworthy impulse harbor itself within the sanc- tities of Jehovah's heart. Essential, immutable rectitude belongs to WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEUNING GOD. 179 him forever. 'I, Jehovah, your God, am holy,' is his own brief and comprehensive testimony. Highest seraphim of heavenly spheres veil before him their faces and their feet, and seek with responsive chants to express the intensity of their profoundest convictions and adorations as they sing ' Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; all the universe is full of his glory.' In apocalyptic prophecies he sits on a throne spanned by an emerald rainbow. Out of that throne proceed lightnings and thunderings and voices, and before it is the crystal sea, and blaze the seven spirits of God. The countenance of the throned Monarch of eternity no jasper or sardine-stone of dazzling hue can represent. Myriads of glorified ones who rest not day nor night bend and shout before him, ' Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come?' " In every relation God sustains to men he emphasizes his holiness. Is he our Creator? 'I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel.' Is he the Ruler of that which he has made? 'God sitteth on the throne of his holiness.' Is he our Counselor ? ' Thus saith the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah, thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way thou shouldest go.' Or is He the Redeemer? ' Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One; kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, be- cause of the Lord that is faithful and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.' "Every personal manifestation of God also emphasizes his holi- ness. He is the 'Holy Father.' He is the 'Most Holy' of Daniel's prophetic song ; made flesh in the human personality of Jesus, who is the Holy Child; the Holy One of God — 'holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.' And he is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Eternal Spirit abiding among .his people and in them to carry on his redeeming and restoring work. "The essential pui-ity of Jehovah's nature is visible in all his works. 'He is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.' The universe as it sprang from his formative hand was perfect, and was an illustration to sense and spirit of his moral excellency as of his almighty power. Even now, when for man's sake the curse is upon all the earth, there is yet manifold proof of primitive normal excellence and design. " ' Not only doth the voiceful day Thy living kindness. Lord, proclaim; But night, with its sublime array Of worlds, doth magnify thy name. 18Q FAITH MADE EASY. Yea, while adoring seraphim Before thee bend the willing knee, From every star a choral hymn Goes up unceasingly to thee. Day unto day doth utter speech And night to night thy voice makes known ; Through all the world where thought may reach Is heard the glad and solemn tone : And worlds beyond the farthest star Whose light hath reached the human eye Catch the high anthem from afar "Which rolls along immensity.' "In moral laws and spiritual ordinances it is with yet greater clearness manifest that God is ' righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works. His revelations are holy Scriptures; his word is 'his holy promise;' his Sabbath is his holy day; his tabernacle or temple is his ' holy house,' the ' holy place,' ' the holy sanctuary ;' his sacrifices are ' holy offerings ;' his covenant is ' a holy covenant ;' the mountain of his presence and manifestation is his 'holy mount- ain,' ' the holy hill,' ' the holy city,' ' the holy Jerusalem,' ' the holy heaven.' Therefore must his service be a holy service. ' Worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness.' ' Holiness becometh thine house, God, forever.' In the types which were the figures of the true, every thing must be holy. The building itself — tabernacle or temple — was constructed of such materials and with such architectural designs as would make conspicuous the idea. The animals of the sacrifice must be ' clean beasts ;' the vessels, the ropms, the courts, the altars, must be made holy. Holy water, holy oil, holy tithes, holy sacri- fices — every thing is holy, holy, holy!" (Rev. J. W. Cornelius.) Goodness. — "Thou art good, and doest good." (Psa. cxix, 68.) "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." (Psa. xxxiii, 5.) "The goodness of God endureth continually." (Psa. lii, 1.) "The Lord is good to all : and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Psa. cxlv, 9.) "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.'' (James 1, 17.) These passages suggest a few thoughts in respect to the Divine good- ness upon which we may with profit dwell. God's goodness inheres in himself; it is goodness of nature ; one of his essential perfections, and not an accidental affection. One of the distinguishing names of God signifies "the gracious One," and imports goodness in the principle. God is good, benevolent, disposed to communicate happiness. Goodness is love in action, and hence we WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING ODD. 181 are told that God " doeth good." It was said of Jesus that he "went about continually doing good." Jesus was divine goodness incarnated. He was manifested for a purely good purpose — "to take away our sins." Man is utterly sinful, but there is not so much sin in man as there is goodness in God. Man's sin is finite; God's goodness is infi- nite. Man's sin is within the compass of time; God's goodness sweeps through the countless ages of eternity: it " endureth continually." It has no bounds ; the earth is full of it. God saw the works that he had made, that " they were good." They were perfectly good before sin entered to destroy. Sin did not emanate from the Divine good- ness ; it is the expression of hatefulness, the spirit of the evil one, tlie impulse yielded to by man which results in abuse of moral freedom. Sin has marred the expression of Divine goodness in the world. The naturally unfavorable circumstances in which man is placed, such as pernicious climates, liability to earthquakes, tornadoes, famines, pesti- lences, diseases, poverty, and the like, bear no comparison with the auspicious surroundings and beneficial contrivances which distinguish the earthly life. It is plain to every intelligent observer that in creating the human species God designed their happiness, and not their misery. As Paley says: "If he had wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment; or by placing us amidst objects so ill suited to our per- ceptions as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for example, every thing we tasted bitter, every thing we saw loathsome, every thing we touched a sting, every smeU a stench, and every sound a discord." The world abounds with contrivances for man's comfort and de- light, and every considerate mind perceives how, in their first and best nature, all these contrivances were designed for beneficial ends. The existence of evil, which has in so many ways subverted the natural plan, does not hide the benevolent intent of the great Designer. Teeth were contrived to eat, not to ache ; hands were made to handle, not to lose their cunning. No part of the human body was calculated to produce irritation, inflammation, paralysis, or pain. Even its liability to such annoyances is the result of perverted tendencies and sinful practices, not of natural endowments. The tender mercies of God are over all his works. Sin has played the mischief. Sin has resulted in the distressing disturbances which make life a burden to so many, and existence a curse. Suffering, care, social distraction, oppression, fraud. 182 FAITH MADE EASY. wrong, conflict, fighting, war, — these are the things which mar our happiness, and make us to doubt the benevolence of heaven. And yet their origin is not traceable to heaven at all. They are of Satan, Sa- tanic ; of perdition, hellish ; and of violated free-will, humanly sinful. And yet, out of all this distraction and. pain and death resulting from sin, the goodness of the Lord is still seen. He makes pain to teach us caution and vigilance, that we may enjoy health. For most dis- eases he has appointed the remedy. For the wounds of sorrow and bereavement he has made time the healer. Out of the necessity of labor comes the sweet sense of rest. Even untoward circumstances and inconveniences, which at first sight would seem intolerable, by familiarity and habit become bearable, or even pleasant. Surely in these alleviations of evil the Divine benevolence is displayed. But there is a still better view. God has provided for every in- dividual a way of escape from the ill eflPects of all existing evils. He has placed a "balm in Gilead " which cures the wounds of sin. He has sent his Spirit to guide us in the ways of truth. Every individual may avail himself of Divine help, cease to practice vice, and experi- ence the renewing effects of holiness. Being justified by faith, he may have peace with God ; being purified by the Spirit, he ma,y walk henceforth in newness of life, cheered by the hope of heaven. And what would be the sum total of evil left to be suffered by this indi- vidual, morally so restored and so regenerated? "No evils which are the consequences of personal vice, often a long and fearful train. No inward disquiet, the effect of guilty or foolish passions, another preg- nant source of misery. No restless pining of spirit after an unknown good, creating a distaste for present innocent enjoyments — he lias found that good in the favor and friendship of God. No discontent with the allotments of Providence — he has been taught a peaceful submission. No irritable restlessness under his sufferings and sor- rows — ' in patience he possesses his soul.' No fearful apprehension of the future — he knows that there is a guiding eye, and a supporting hand above, employed in all his concerns. No tormenting anxiety as to life or death — he has a lively hope of an inheritance on high.'' Only the common afflictions of life which he may feel but hot fear, knowing that they are light, and that they work out for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Into this state of grace every individual may be raised, and it is certain that all who attain to it will sooner or later, as they behold on every hand the contrivances of infinite wisdom for the effectuation of man's salvation and the perfec- tion of his character, be led to exclaim, ' ' O, thank the Lord for his WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO GOD. 183 goodness and for his -wonderful works to the children of men!" Re- ligion is always a blessed, blissful, glorious apprehension of the good- ness of God. It transforms slavish fear into adoring love. It dispels darkness, dissipates doubt, and irradiates and sweetens the soul. It reveals to all who have truly experienced it the benevolence of the Divine character, the graciousness of the Divine providence, and the wonderful symmetry and harmonious beauty of that great scheme whereby the Almighty proposes to exalt man to a life perfectly bliss- ful with his own. This is the only way to find out the meaning of life here below. The study of science and philosophy avails little, but the knowledge of God as a sin-pardoning Deity availeth much. It is the beginning of this wisdom in the heart of the Christian that leads him to exclaim with David of old, " O, taste and see that the Lord is good!" THE ETERNAL GOODNESS. I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within ; I hear, with groan and travail cries, The world confess its sin. Yet in the maddening maze of things. And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed state my spirit clings: I know that God is good! I long for household voices gone, For vanished smiles I long; But God hath led my dear ones on, And he can do no wrong. i know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life or death His mercy underlies. And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed he will not break. But strengthen and sustain. And so, beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar ; No harm from him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I can not drift Beyond his love and care. (Whittier.) 184 FAITH MADE EASY. Gloey. — By the term glory, as ordinarily employed, we under- stand brightness, clearness, effulgence; that quality in a person or thing which secures general praise or honor; that which brings or gives renown. By God's glory we understand all this, and more. His glory demands from us not only honor, admiration, and renown, but reverence, adoration, worship, complete confidence and trust. He has declared his glory, not fully and unqualifiedly — for no man could bear such a revelation — but subjectively, showing forth what could be borne and appreciated by mortal man, revealing as much of his essential character as finite intelligence could comprehend. This he did to Moses, who had said beseechingly: "Show me thy glory.'' God an- swered: "I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee ; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said. Thou canst not see my face ; for there shall no man see me and live." Here we are taught that the manifestations of Divine glory which man can bear, and be benefited thereby, are those of "goodness,'' " graciousness," "mercy," and the "name of the Lord." These are moral attributes, and the inference is that God es- pecially glories in these, rather than in his natural attributes — his power, wisdom, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity. But his earth- ward glory lies in his goodness, his moral excellencies, his justice, be- nevolence, holiness, mercy, forgiveness. Even these are too great for mortal vision. Mark what he says: "I will make all my goodness pass before thee." "Behold there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock ; and it shall come to pass while my glory [good- ness] passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand as I pass by." "And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-sufiering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." This was all — the goodness of God. Forgiving the penitent, meting out justice to the incorri- gible, rewarding the righteous, bearing with the rebellious, fulfilling his gracious promises to the trustful and confiding, — these are displays of the goodness of God, his benevolences under different phases, his only glory revealed to humanity while in the flesh. And this glory he shows to men now. Moses was privileged in his day, but not privi- leged above and beyond believers now. It is true that we may not behold God's glory in visible manifestation ; but, what is better, we may see it in gracious nearness, round about us, within us, filling us WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 185 with a gracious sense of favor and love. "I see," says John Foster, "a spirit passing before me; I hear his voice in the secret recesses; I find that there is a God, that he is near, that he stands in full view, with appalling indistinctness, so that I tremble, and the hairs of my flesh stand up; yet I can not discern the form. I know not what afirights, stops, impresses, crushes me. Company (in such an hour) I hate; for it neither dispels my sensations, nor harmonizes with them. Solitude I dread ; for the invisible presence is there seen, and the un- known God is there felt in all his terrifying influence. To deny that some one is acting upon me must be to deny that I see, feel, am anx- ious. Could I tell what, or who, I might call the wisdom of man to my assistance; but it is the unknowable, yet well known; the indis- cernible, yet surely seen ; the inc-omprehensible, intangible, yet fully understood and ever-present God, that supports my trembling frame, and meets the warmest wishes of my too daring mind, the resolute determinations, inefficacious exertions, and the stubborn submission of an unwilling soul. Ah! let this present Invisible encircle me with his mercy, defend me with his power, fill me with his fear, and save me by his almighty grace. Then, though I discern not his form, I shall be conscious of his presence, and the delightful consciousness shall fill me with reverence indeed, but not make my flesh to tremble. He shall soothe my sorrows, inspire my hopes, give me confidence in danger, and supplies in every necessity. The consciousness of his nearness, approbation, and mercy shall enable me to endure like Moses, as seeing him who is invisible." It has ever been so. Those who dwell in the consciousness of the Divine presence, who see with spirit eye the exercise of the Divine goodness, become subdued, yet confident ; humble, yet bold ; meek, yet courageous; solemn, yet happy; cautious, yet eager to sufiTer and do the will of God. Their hearts are cleansed, their spirits irradiated, their countenances shining as the light. God's glory has the same effect always and everywhere. When Moses came down from the mount his face was aflame. There was such a clearness, a brightness, a glory in his coimtenance, that the people could not look upon him. It was a sort of transfiguration, like that of Christ on the mount; when the glory of God appeared to him, his raiment was white as the light, and his face did shine as the sun. Gur visions of God's glory are not transfigurations, but they do often result in spiritual ecstasy. They thrill our souls, energize our spirits, fire us with zeal to work, and settle us stably in the life of God. See how Isaiah was afifected when he beheld the glory of God: "I saw the Lord, sitting upon a 186 FAITH MADE EASY. throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim, and one cried to another, and covered his face with his wings, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory." Isaiah was overcome. In de- spair he cried: "Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." This was a dis- play to the prophet such as he never witnessed before. Completely overpowered, he seemed unable to rally, till one of the seraphim came with a live coal from ofi" the holy altar, and touched his lips, saying : "Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Isaiah is now subdued. The wiU of God is his only desire, the glory of God his only aim. No sooner did he hear the voice crying, "Who will go for us?" than with meekness, yet eagerness, he exclaimed : " Here am I, send me." How much we all need such revelations, such new man- ifestations of God ! Love. — " God is love," saith the apostle. No writer in the Old Testament used 'an expressiijp equal in force to this. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love," and "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him," are not as strong as this: "God is love." It means not only that God is benevolent and com- passionate, a kind and loving Father, but that love is the very essence of his character. Such are the views of our most reliable commentators. Says Mr. Barnes : " The words mean that God 'is not merely Jenew- knt, he is benevolence itself.'" Says Prof. Cowles: "The statement is not that God is kind, afiectionate, evermore manifesting his good will ; but that he is Love itself, the very impersonation of love." Says Dean Alford: "The expression means that 'love is the very essence, not merely an attribute of God.' " Delitzsch explains the words as meaning that ' ' God is love in the deepest ground and entire circuit of his na- ture living itself forth." Luther quotes Besser as giving the exact force of the words : ' ' Love is not so much a quality which God has as rather the all-embracing total of what he is." Haupt explains the words as meaning that " the whole nature of God is love." Love in God is like the pure sunlight as it comes forth from its fountain, while what we term the moral attributes of God are like the prismatic colors into which that sunlight is resolved by the characters and circumstances of his creatures. God's love, like himself, is eternal. So sang the poet of five hundred years ago : "All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEMNING GOD. 187 The forms of men shall be as they had never been; The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green. The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song, And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long. The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills, And all the fair while flocks shall perish from the hills. The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox, The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks, And the strong and fearless bear in the trodden dust shall lie; And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die. And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more ; And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore ; And the great globe itself, so the Holy Writings tell. With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell. Shall melt with fervent heat: — they shall all pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye." (Bernard Eascas.) Wisdom. — The wisdom of God is a mingled stream of knowledge and benevolence. The knowledge is perfect, irrespective of human ways. God never grows any wiser. He is " the same yesterday, to- day, and forever.'' He " knows the end from the beginning,'' and with him there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning.'' These declarations and axioms show clearly that God knows the acts of men before they are performed ; and so the psalmist says, " He knows the thought of the heart afar off;" and the poet has expressed the same truth : " Ere the thought is formed within, Thou knowest the sense we mean." If God's knowledge of men is contingent upon what they do, then he is growing wiser every hour, will continue to do so forever, and never was or can be omniscient, and that attribute never did and never can belong to him. The Bible contradicts such a notion. " He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know?' "With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understand- ing." " If God's knowledge were not unchangeable, he might be said to have different thoughts or apprehension of things at one time from what he has at another, which would argue a defect of wisdom. And, indeed, a change of sentiments implies ignorance or weakness of un- derstanding, and this is utterly inconsistent with the perfection of the Divine mind. No defect can be applied to him who is called ' the only wise God.' " ( Ridgley.) God's wisdom is displayed in the accomplishment of such benevo- lent ends as are worthy of himself, and requisite for the revelation of 188 FAITH MADE EASY. his own glory. We see his wisdom in his creative works. "In wis- dom hast thou made them all." We behold his wisdom in his govern- ment of nations, and in his providence over the world. It is especially- prominent in man's redemption. In delivering man from sin, the apostle observes that "he hath therein abounded in all wisdom and prudence. Justice. — God is just. He can do nothing wrong. He can not swerve one bair's-breadth from the right. "Just and right is he." He has enacted righteous laws for the government of his creatures, and all his creatures are placed under these laws. Every one of these laws is righteously adapted to the condition of its subjects. Revealed law has its adaptation to enlightened minds. Those who have not God's revealed law, have a law "written on their hearts," and are "a law unto themselves." The whole world is under the primary and just law of obedience to God. God is by right entitled to the obedience of his creatures, and he is just in asserting that right, and in punishing the disobedient. God renders to men according to their works. He rewards the obedient and chastises the guilty. The reward is all of grace, for God is not a debtor to any of his creatures. But he is not a hard master. Having given man existence, he has done his utmost to make that existence perpetually blissful. Origi- nally, man's existence was amid the perennial blessings of paradise; and even after he had forfeited his right to the tree of life, God pro- vided for his salvation. From the original "Do and live," he has made the gracious change, " Believe and live." The reward of faith is just as great as the primitive reward of obedience. Indeed, the one is agreeable with the other, and in the Christian dispensation they go hand in hand. God is faithful with his creatures. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to ' cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Adam enjoyed no higher favor than we of this generation. God is just to the people of every age. But man's view of God's justice relates chiefly to punitive justice, which consists in the punishment of sins. This branch of justice renders the punishment of unpardoned sin as perfect a certainty as the reward of obedience. The guilty shall not escape. No soul shall be punished beyond its deserts, nor less than the extent of its unfor- given guilt. " For the work of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways ; yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment." Man has his existence under an administration of grace in har- mony with justice, so that he now enjoys the widest possible privileges, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 189 aud in the judgment of the great day all apparent wrongs will be righted. God will be able at the final reckoning to say to every man: "I do thee no wrong." We shall see that no principle of justice is violated in the infinite variety of circumstances and conditions in which man is placed. All can work out their salvation and make sure of heaven. "The Lord our God is the God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, mighty and terrible, which regardeth not persons, neither taketh rewards. He accepteth not the person of princes, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor, for they are all the work of his hands." Meecy." — We have heard it said that mercy is God's " darling attribute," his favorite trait of character. This idea has no warrant in Scripture. God is just. He will always do right. When it is right to be merciful he will show mercy, but he will never show mercy when it would be unjust. Justice is as much his darling attribute as his mercy is. He delights in wise and exact justice. It is sometimes merciful to be just, as well as just to be merciful. Human laws are based somewhat upon this principle. It is merciful to society to deal out justice to the offender. Mercy to criminals is often an injustice to society. God never errs in his disposition to pity the miserable. He forgives those who have done him wrong, when such forgiveness accords with their own penitence, faith, and future well-being. Such forgiveness is just. God is first of all just, and then the Justifier. AVere it possible for God to be merciful, irre- spective of justice, Christ had not died. Justice and mercy are parallel lines. Both run in the same direction and are of equal rank and value. Strictly speaking, mercy is not an essential attribute of God, but an exhibition of his goodness. The sacred writers set it forth by the expressions of pity and compassion.* "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she may forget;" it is possible, but not probable; but God can not prove unmerciful. He is the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. His mercy is above the heavens, is laid up in store for a thousand generations, and extends over all his works. He waits to be gracious, rejoiceth over us to do good, and crowneth us with his loving kindness. He is rich in mercy. Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved). His mercy is especially manifest toward us in "his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ." The offering of his Son is proof of his mercy. Our forgiveness through the merits 190 FAITH MADE EASY. of his Son is personal assurance of that mercy. The provision of the Holy Scriptures, the establishment of the Church, and the gift of the Spirit, are all evidences of the manifold mercies of God. Let us not despise that mercy nor abuse our privileges under it. To do so is to imperil our safety by challenging the just judgments of the Almighty. He is long-suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgressions, but he will "by no means clear the guilty." "The guilty" are the finally incorrigible, such as crucify the Son of God afresh by their harduess of heart, and sin against the Holy Ghost by their blasphemies and culpable neglect of solemn religious obligations. "We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O mau, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God ? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-sufTering ; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thy- self wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life : but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteous- ness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil ; of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good ; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : . . . for there is no respect of persons with God." (Rom. ii, 2-11.) Teuth. — Closely allied to God's justice and mercy is his truth. "His mercy is great to the heavens and his truth to the clouds." His paths are said to be " mercy and truth" — his words, ways, and judgments to be true and righteous. "He keepeth truth forever." It is impossible that God should lie. His veracity is absolutely per- fect. He is the faithful God which keepeth covenant and mercy : he abideth faithful. He accomplishes every prediction, fulfills every promise, and executes every threat which he has made. His knowl- edge is infinitely perfect, and he can not, therefore, be deceived. His holiness is absolute, and he can not, therefore, deceive others. His power is omnific, and he can not, therefore, want in ability to execute. In all his dealings with us he uses perfect sincerity, and represents things as they are, whether laws to be obeyed or doctrines to be believed. WSAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 191 In God's truth man can place constant and unqualified reliance. "There is something," says Dr. Guthrie, "dearer than life to me; and God held something as more precious than even the blood of his Son. I may part with life, but not -with my honor; and God might part -with his Son, but could not with his truth." He says again : " However awful the threatenings of his Word, if God is not true to these, what security have I that he will stand true to his promises? The rod which bends in one direction proves as supple in another ; and since the truth of a heaven stands on the very same foundation as the truth of a hell, the one resting on the promises, the other on the threatenings, and both alike on the simple word of God, why, then, the scheme which quenches the fears of the wicked extinguishes the hopes of the just. If he who believeth not shall escape condemna- tion, farewell — a long and sad farewell — to the confidence I have cherished that he who believeth shall be saved." But there is no danger that the Christian's hope shall make ashamed. The hypocrite's hope shall perish, but the confidence of the upright standeth sure. " We know what is true," says Watson, "as an object of belief, because the God of truth has declared it ; and we know what is faithful, and therefore the object of unlimited trust, because he is faithful that promised. Whether, therefore, we consider God's Word as declaratory or promissory — declaring how things are or how they shall be, or promising to us certain benefits — its absolute truth is con- firmed to us by the truth of the Divine nature itself; it claims the undivided assent of our judgment, and the unsuspicious trust of our hearts ; and presents at once a sure resting-place for our opinions, and a faithful object for our confidence." JESUS CHRIST. Jesus is the Word (the Logos), the Revealer of God. "No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John i, 18.) "No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father ; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son wiU reveal him." (iLuke x, 22.) The Word of God is the revelation of the thought of God; " its incarnation, as it were, in order to convey it to the mind of another. The word in the Greek is also the reason of any thing, the unfolding of its true nature and meaning to him who knows it not. Jesus Christ claimed to be the Revealer of the Father ; and this is best expressed by his title, the Word." 192 FAITH MADE EASY. Jesus came forth from the Father, and returned to the Father, and he is himself very God. "In the bosom of the Father from all eter- nity, he is yet personally distinct from him, the only begotten Son. In his work he is subordinate to the Father : he is sent by the Father ; receives his name, the symbol of his power and greatness, from the Father; ascribes his power to the Father. Yet he declares himself one with the Father and equal with him. The Father is in him and he is in the Father. Though on earth, he is in heaven ; though from the Father, he is yet self-existent." On the other hand, Jesus was a humau being. He became a par- taker of our nature that he might become a source of spiritual life to the world. This is the meaniug of the incarnation. " God is a Spirit, and it is difficult for man in his present state, certainly for most, to form a clear conception of a purely spiritual being. But God is not only a Spirit, he is infinite, everywhere present, at least potentially. In this sense at least he is boundless. If he is in one place more than in another, we know not where or how. In attempting to compre- hend God in his personality we find our idea of him vague and un- satisfactory. We would have something more comprehensible to our limited powers." This we find in Christ. As a God-man he could be seen and felt, talked with and listened to. His great truths en- tered into the human mind, and have lodged there. They were pre- cisely what humanity was longing for. Christ was the desire of the nations — the power of God aud the wisdom of God enshrined in es- sential human nature. "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." "In Him," that is, the visible person of Christ. Here, then, is his humanity, which the apostle calls, in another place, " the veil," or shrine, as it might be rendered : in this shrine the God- head dwelt, as a burning lamp within a glass, without being any more mixed with the shrine (or his humanity) than the flame is with the glass. Hence the doctrine of two natures in the person of Christ does not imply confusion, or mixture of natures, but only an inter- minable union. The Godhead, in the person of Christ, is precisely the same, in nature and dignity, as if it were not there, or as if con- sidered absolutely. And the humanity of Christ is perfect human- ity, pure and uncorrupted, precisely as if the Godhead were not united with it. The union of the two constitutes the Savior of the world. THE HISTORIC CHRIST. For nearly nineteen centuries a wonderfully clear idea of the per- sonal Christ has pervaded the Christian mind. All Christian nations have paid homage to this conspicuous historic figure. How can this WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 193 fact be accounted for, except on the ground that the personal Christ was just as real as Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, or Washington? Consider what early secular writers say by way of establishing the ground-work of the Gospel story. The opinion prevails in some minds that none but Christian writers refer to the life of Christ and the oc- currence of the crucifixion ; but this is erroneous. As for the cruci- fixion, both the event and its attending circumstances have been stated by pagans. There is Mara, who, in writing in the Syriac language to his son Serapion (A. D. 74), says : " For what benefit did the Athe- nians obtain by putting Socrates to death ? or the Jews by the murder of their wise king? Socrates did not die because of Plato; nor yet the wise king because of the new laws which he enacted." This is a very clear testimony ; but so is that of Dionysius, the Areopagite, who, being at Heliopolis, in Egypt, at the time of our Lord's cruci- fixion, exclaimed, when he beheld the midday darkness: " Either the God of nature suffers, or the frame of the world will be dissolved." (Blunt's Lectures.) There is Tacitus, too, the Roman historian (born A. D. 55), ^¥ho, speaking of the Christians whom Nero had slaugh- tered, says: "The founder of that name was Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under his procurator, Pontius Pilate." Gibbon says that the most skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this testimony of Titus. But there is Josephus, the Jewish historian (A. D. 93), who also says: "Now there arose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with gladness. He carried away with him many of the Jews, and also many of the Greeks. He was the Christ, and after PUate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross; his first adherents did not forsake him. For he appeared to them alive again the third day; the divine prophets having fore- told this and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of those called Christians, after him, is not extinct to this day;" Conceding what skeptics claim, that these words of Jose- phus may have been " enlarged or altered," it still remains true that they must have had foundation in fact. There is much other profane testimony of highest value to the life and death of Christ, which we can not quote. Had the New Testa- ment never been written, this truth would remain as clearly estab- lished as almost any other fact of two thousand years ago. Referring to the evidences from the writings of Juvenal, Suetonius, Pliny, Trajan, Adrian, and others who wrote in the century immediately fol- 13 194 FAITH MADE EASY. lowing the death of Christ, Canon Rawlinson says : " They declare these things to us, and establish, so firmly that no skeptic can even profess to doubt it, the historical character of (at least) that primary ground- work whereon the Christian story, as related by the evangelists, rests as on an immovable basis." But there is a multitude of early Christian witnesses, some of them very eminent as authors, who make such abundant references to the New Testament and to the leading facts which it records, that a tol- erably full narrative of the life and death of Jesus can be put together from this source alone. Justin Martyr, one of the Platonic philoso- phers who examined into the evidences of Christianity and was led to renounce all for Christ, in the end sealing his testimony with his blood, and whose narrative coincides with the canonical Gospels, alone gives enough Scripture truth to lay a solid foundation for the Chris- tian faith. St. Barnabas, St. Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and others who wrote in the first century, all substantiate the truth beyond dis- pute that the facts of the New Testament history were unquestioned in their time. Even the early adversaries of Christianity indirectly confirm what they attacked. Doddridge says that "an abridgment of the history of Christ may be found in Celsus," one of the Epicurean philosophers. Westcott cites the significant fact that the first quotation of a book of the New Testament as Scripture (Basilides's), the first commentary on an apostolic writing (Heracleon's), and the first known canon of the New Testament (Marcion's), all came from heretical authors. The catacombs of Rome, and other places of Christian burial, are also full of evidences to Gospel truth. These catacombs belong to the earliest times of Christianity. The fearful persecutions through which they passed compelled these primitive Christians to hide away in these secret caverns and gloomy galleries, deep below the earth's surface, the precious memorials of their dead. Here are several mill- ions of Christian graves, confirming ivhat Tacitus said of the Roman Christians, that they were "a vast multitude." Here we find the word "Martyr" very frequent upon the tombs, many phials which once contained blood, the emblem of martyrdom, innumerable in- scriptions of Christian import, and numbers of pictures represent- ing historical scenes from the Old and New Testaments, among them being the baptism of Christ, the raising of Lazarus, and Pilate washing his hands, all confirming the truth that the early Christians were fear- fully persecuted, just as profane history records, and that they held just as tenaciously to Bible truth as do the most orthodox Christians WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 195 of to-day. It has been said that monumental evidence is stronger, though not richer than documentary. Behold the monuments of Christianity ! The Lord's-supper is a perpetual memorial of the Lord's death. The Lord's-day, with its forms of faith and worship, is a standing monument of the Lord's resurrection. The Christian Church is an abiding and living monument of the Lord's triumph. Palestine to this day " is written all over with the names and relics of the places where the Gospel scenes were laid. Of about thirty-six Syrian and Palestinian towns mentioned in the Gospels, twenty-four have been identified, and probably five others.'' Thus the circumstantial evi- dence is as strong as the monumental. Judge Greenleaf observes that the New Testament mentions about thirty names of emperors, kings, high-priests, rabbis, Roman and Jewish leaders, of whom all but Theu- das and Barabbas are found in secular history ; also nearly fifty coun- tries or foreign cities — all accurarely. It gives, he says, a vast amount of circumstantial evidence. Its witnesses, if false, expose themselves to detection by the variety and minuteness of their details. But they bear to be cross-examined. "Give Christianity a commou-law trial," says Chief Justice Gibbon, " submit the evidence, pro and con, to ah impartial jury, under the direction of a competent court, and its verdict will assuredly be in its favor." In further proof of the life and character of Christ as a historical reality, we give a synopsis of the arguments which have been ad- vanced by Principal Cairns, LL. D. : "1. The historical truth of the Christ of the Gospels is vouched for by its transcendent wonderfulness and originality. It is not the Christian Church only that speaks thus; for even those on its outer verge or beyond its limits give back Christian language here with a strange echo. Rousseau's picture of Christ — almost incredible from a man of such life, though he always claimed to be a Christian — is wound up in these words : ' The Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor of it, would be more aston- ishing than the hero.' Nor can we say that Rousseau limits himself to the human side of Jesus, for he says, ' If the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God.' "It is a lower testimony that Mr. Stuart Mill delivers; yet though he takes exception to the proper deity of Jesus, as not claimed even by himself, he grants the originality of his character to be a proof of its historical truth. ' Who among the disciples of Jesus or among their proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings 196 FAITH MADE EASY. ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; as certainly not St. Paul.' The question then comes back on Mr. Mill, who it was that suggested to the evangelists the more divine features of Jesus, or those which have led the Christian world to take him for divine. Ac- cording to Mr. Mill himself, ' it is the God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or of nature, who, being idealized, has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind.' But if the evangel- ists could not have invented, as he grants, the human Christ, how much less could they have idealized him into God! A history which has led the vast majority of readers in all ages to feel that it was more than human, is confessedly beyond human construction. Chris- tian theology itself is baflBed when it tries to state in propositions the two natures of Christ, and the relation between them. The decrees of councils and the terms of creeds rather exclude error than grasp truth. Yet here admittedly, in the narratives of the evangelists, the impossible is achieved. The living Christ walks forth, and men bow before him. Heaven and earth unite all through ; power with gen- tleness, solitary greatness with familiar intimacy, ineffable purity with forgiving pity, unshaken will with unfathomable sorrow. There is no effort in these writers, but the character rises till it is complete. It is thus not only truer than fiction or abstraction, but truer than all other history, carrying through utterly unimaginable scenes the stamp of simplicity and sincerity, creating what was to live forever, but only as it had lived already, and reflecting a glory that had come so near, and been beheld so intently, that the record of it was not only full of 'grace,' but of 'truth.' . " 2. A second argument for the historical reality of Christ's life and character is found in the consent of so many separate and independent testimonies. One Gospel is a marvel ; what shall we say of four, each with its distinct plan — its enlargements and omissions, its variations even where most coincident, its problems as yet unsolved, but always yielding something to fresh inquiry, and only making more manifest the unchallengeable oneness and divinity of the history? The diffi- culties of the Gospels from divergence are as nothing compared with the impression made by them all of one transcendent creation ; and for my part, if I rejected inspiration, I should have reason to be still more astonished. Some slight mistake could so sadly have impaired perfection — or yet more easily lowered divinity; some careless hand- ling might have deranged the balance at the most critical point, or pulled down the structure in hopeless disaster. Yet, though we see WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 197 how different the plan of each Gospel is, there is not any such trace of failure. The long discourses are left out by Mark, but in action his Christ equals that of Matthew. Luke has his own type both of parable and miracle ; but the same inimitable figure starts up from all. The sorest trial to the familiar features comes from the fourth Gospel, without a parable and hardly a miracle like the foregoing, and with so great a flood of novelty, especially towards the end. But the unity in diversity is only the more marvelous. The Christ of the fourth Gospel is the Word of God ; but he is still the Son of man. He utters no Sermon on the Mount ; but he still preaches the king- dom of heaven. The sheep scattered abroad find in him stUl the good Shepherd. There is no exorcism ; but the prince of this world is cast out. There is no transfiguration, but his glory is throughout beheld; no agony in the garden, but his soul is troubled. Mary and Martha reappear, but attended by Lazarus. He does not say, ' This is my body,' but he gives his fiesh to eat; and words as heavenly, and in fuller measure, soothe the parting meal. He has the same night- watches. He sheds the same tears. He walks the same waters, and ascends up where he was before. His prayer in all the Gospels is in- tercession — in the last most prolonged and tender. He returns from the grave to breathe the Holy Ghost, and to connect that name with the Father's and his own. His presence is the final hope of the earlier Gospels ; his coming of the last ; and the closing charge but repeats all former calls: ' Follow thou me.' In the view of this vast and stu- pendous harmony, how small are all objections, as that the scenes in the fourth Gospel lie more in Jerusalem, though this also is met by the word in the other Gospels, ' How often would I have gathered you' (Matt, xxiii, 37) ; or that the chronology differs, though the last Gospel really aids us in solving chronological difficulties ; or that the style tends more to self-assertion in the face of unbelief, though this is part of the self-revelation that enters into the idea of this Gospel, and is abundantly prefigured in the great denunciation of the Phari- sees, and in the sad but lofty utterances of Capernaum : ' No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him' (Matt, xi, 27) — the exact parallel of the intercessory prayer : ' O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee ; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me' (John xvii, 25.) With all these data, then, and many others, of the Gospel records, which are not conjectures, but facts, the only rational conclusion is that they embody reality, the greatest reality ever trans- acted on the scene of time ; that the very diversities so often appealed 198 FAITH MADE EASY. to as an objection to this conclusion really strengthen it, and prove that writings which can so bring forth the one out of the manifold have in them not only truth, but inspiration ; and that the Christian Church stands in the center of all history, divinely planted there, when she still proclaims as from the beginning that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. " 3. A third argument in favor of the strict and literal truth of the Gospel views of Christ is the failure of recent attempts to set them aside. If the Christ of the evangelists were unhistorical, surely by this time some better reading of the story ought to have been estab- lished to the satisfaction of all. But as it is, the simple primitive records keep the field ; and ev^ry new scheme is only brought to birth to find a speedy extinction." There are, in fact, only two alternatives. As that great English scholar. Prebendary Row, says: " There are only two possible alterna- tives : the portraiture of the Christ of the Gospels is either the delinea- tion of a historical reality, or it is an ideal creation. The first of these alternatives satisfies all the historical conditions of the case ; the sec- ond, none. Nay, more, it involves a mass of hopeless contradictions and absurdities, in the possibility of which reason refuses to believe. It follows, therefore, that the. portraiture of the Christ of the Gospels is the delineation of a historical reality. This being so, Christianity car- ries with it all the consequences of being a divine revelation. These consequences I will sum up in our Lord's own words: "Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that beholdeth me beholdeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me may not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my sayings, and keep them not, I judge him not : for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him : the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I spake not from my- self; but the Father which sent me, he hath given me a command- ment, what I should say, and what I should speak. (John xii, 44-49, Revised Version.)" THE DIVINITY OF JESUS. We believe that Jesus Christ is, in ap absolute sense, a Divine person, and, as such, is to be received and adored. 1. Because the titles given to him by divine au.thority are' such as designate a Divine Being, and a Divine Being only. It is geuer- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 199 ally conceded that the Jehovah of the Old Testament, to whom are ascribed divine attributes and works, is none other than Jesus as he existed prior to the incarnation. " I am Jehovah, and there is none else; there is no God beside me." "Thou, whose name alone is Je- hovah, art the most high, above all the earth." Jehovah, then, is the peculiar and appropriate name of God; the name by which he is dis- tinguished from all other beings. "I am Jehovah, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another." This name is solemnly and repeatedly given to the Messiah, Jesus, the Christ. This was done by the disciples when they applied to him those passages of the Old Testament in which the Messiah is called Jehovah. Thus, Matthew (iii, 3) quotes Isaiah xl, 3 : " For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." The other evangelists make the same application of it, representing John as the herald of Jesus, the "Jehovah" of the prophet. St. Paul also (Rom. x, 13) says, "Who- soever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved ;" and this is almost an exact quotation from Joel (ii, 32), which reads: "Who- soever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered." The New Testament writers uniformly use the title " Lord," the equivalent to "Jehovah," in the highest possible signification, when they apply it to Christ. " My Lord and my God." " He is Lord of all." "King of kings, and Lord of lords." "The consequence," says Dr. Water- land, "is irresistible, that Christ is the same one God, not the same person, with the Father, to whom also the name Jehovah is attrib- uted, but the same substance, the same being — in a word, the same Je- hovah, thus revealed to be more persons than one." Jesus Christ is also called God, which conveys the ideas of infinite wisdom, power invincible, and all-sufiiciency, equally with the Father. "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." (1 John v, 20.) Here Jesus Christ is unequivocally called " the true God and eternal LIFE." This text is the foundation of Faber's beautiful poem, en- titled "Jesus is God." . " Jesus is God ! The solid earth. The ocean broad atid bright, The countless stars, like golden dust, That strew the skies at night. 200 FAITH MADE EASY. The -wheeling storm, the dreadful fire, The pleasant, ■wholesome air, The Summer's sun, the Winter's frost, His own creations were. Jesus is God ! The glorious bands Of golden angels sing Songs of adoring praise to him. Their Maker and their King. He was true God in Bethlehem's crib. On Calvary's cross true God ; He who in heaven eternal reigned In time on earth abode. Jesus is God ! There never was A time when he was not ; Boundless, eternal, merciful. The Word the Sire begot ! Backward our thoughts through ages stretch, Onward through endless bliss; For there are two eternities, And both alike are his ! Jesus is God! Alas! they say On earth the numbeis grow Who his divinity blaspheme, To their unfailing woe. And yet what is the single end Of this life's mortal span, Except to glorify the God Who for our sakes was man? Jesus is God ! Let sorrow come, And pain, and every ill; All are worth while, for all are means His glory to fulfill ; Worth while a thousand years of life To speak one little word, If by our Credo we might own The Godhead of our Lord ! Jesus is God ! 0, could I now But compass land and sea, To teach and tell this single truth. How happy should I be ! O, had I but an angel's voice, I would proclaim so loud, Jesus, the good, the beautiful. Is everlasting God ! Jesus is God ! If on the earth This blessed faith decays. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 201 More tender must our love become, More plentiful our praise. We are not angels, but we may Down in earth's corner kneel, And multiply sweet acts of love, And murmur what we feel." Jesus Christ called God bis Father, and proved his claim to that relation by his miraculous works. This was precisely the ground of the Jewish accusation against him, that he made himself "equal witli God." For this alleged blasphemy they took up stones to stone him. The disciples, however, and all other believers, recognized and acknowl- edged the validity of this claim, even as Peter confessed, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.'' All those passages which declare that "all things were made by the Son," and that God "sent his Son " into the world, may be considered as declarations of a Divine Sonship. "The very being of God," says Dr. Geo. B. Cheever, "is attested and sealed to men by such a Savior as the Son of God, one with God, and addressed and worshiped as God, for ever and ever; so that, if he be not God our Savior, there is no God. This is that profound, all-comprehensive declaration in Hosea xiii, 4: 'Thou shalt know no God but me, for there is no Savior beside me,' compared with the exact correspondences in Isaiah, chapters forty-two to fifty-five — no God else beside me ; a just God and a Savior ; none beside me. ' This is my name ; and my glory I will not give tO another. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.'" 2. Our belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ is grounded upon the further fact that divine attributes are ascribed to him. (1.) He is said to be eternal. He declared of himself, "Before Abraham was, I am." (John viii, 58.) Isaiah said he is "the ever- lasting Father." (Isa. ix, 6.) Paul said, "He is before all things." (Col. i, 17.) (2.) He is omnipresent. "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt, xviii, 20.) "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (John iii, 13.) Only an omnipresent being can be at the same time in heaven and on earth, as Jesus thus declares himself to be. (3.) He is omnipotent. "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." (Matt, xxviii, 18.) "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invis- ible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: 202 FAITH MADE EASY. all things were created by him, and for him." (Col. i, 16.) "The idea of the creation, as conceived by the Father, was committed to the Son for its accomplishment and realization." (Dr. Whedon.) (4.) He is omniscient. He has perfect knowledge of all things. This is shown by guch passages as, "Jesus knew their thoughts;" "He knew all men;" "He knew what was in man." 3. Jesus performed divine actions. (1.) He created all things. "By whom also he made the worlds." (Heb. i, 2.) "The world was made by him." (John iii, 10.) (2.) He saved the world. Paul says: "We trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe." (I'Tim. iv, 10.) He says again: "He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." (Heb. v, 9.) (3.) He forgives sins. This was the act which provoked the Phar- isees to accuse him of blasphemy. Jesus said to the sick of the palsy, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" whereupon the scribes declared, "This man blaspheme th ;" "Who can forgive sins but God only?" Then Jesus, to show his divine authority for the act, worked a miracle before their eyes: " But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then saith he to the sick of the palsy. Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house." (4.) He raised the dead. ','For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." (John V, 21.) " Jesus saith unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (John xi, 25.) This power to raise the dead our Lord actually demon- strated by the resurrection of Lazarus, and later by the resurrection of himself. So many separate divine acts are in the New Testament ascribed to Christ that, as General B. F. Butler once said: "He, in my judgment, who claims to believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God, and the New Testament is the history of the life of his Son, and then does not believe that that Son is divine, has given up the whole case, and he has but one step further to take to deism, and then but a single step to atheism, and the denying of the existence of God at all." 4. There are other important considerations. (1.) Jesus was sinless. Read John viii, 29-46; xiv, 30. Even infidels concede that the life of Jesus was above criticism. He was not vain, deceitful, or false in any of his pretensions. He was true, kind, faithful, pure, and good. He so impressed his character upon his earliest disciples, that they believed on him in advance of his WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 203 teachings and miracles (John i, 29-51); much more on those around him, whether friends or enemies, after they had become acquainted with him. (Matt, xxvii, 4, 19, 23, 54 ; Luke xxiii, 14, 41, 47 ; 1 Peter ii, 22 ; 2 Cor. v, 21 ; Heb. vii, 26, 27.) The wisest and best men since his day have found in him the ideal of all goodness. "In all other men we see opposing elements. In Christ the ideal and the phenomenal never contradict each other.'' (Neander.) "The person who could invent such a character would be greater than the actual hero of the narrative." (Rousseau.) "What artist could depict the character of Christ, if there were no reality from which to paint?" (Porter.) "The miracles recede into the past and suffer from its obscurity. Christ as a divine person comes to the foreground and gathers all the light of the opening years." (Bascom.) "Ah! if the purest morality, and the most tender heart — if a life spent in removing the errors, and relieving the sufferings of mankind, are attributes of the divinity, who can deny that Jesus Christ is God ?" (Chateaubriand.) (2.) Jesus spake words of infinite wisdom. "Never man spake like this man." " They were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority." Many of his answers to the cunning questions propounded by his enemies for the purpose of entrapping him, were so judicious and apt, that his enemies retired utterly dis- comfited, and often "durst not ask him any more." Prof Francis Bowen, speaking of the general teachings of Christ, says: "There is evidence enough for me merely in the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of our Lord, considered simply as uttered there and then, and by him whose whole life, character, and death, exemplified all that he taught, and showed that in him the fullness of the Godhead was incarnate ; for he spake as never man spalce." (3.) Jesus accepted the homage of worship. In no instance did he reprove those who worshiped him, as he must have done had he considered them as worshiping a mere creature. As Thomas Binney observes: "Since ninety -nine hundredths of all Christians, in all ages, have rendered divine worship to Christ, it follows that he is either entitled to receive worship, or he has, as a religious teacher, so failed in his mission as to lead nearly all his pupils into the idolatry of creature worship." This would destroy his integrity. (4.) Finally, the divinity of Jesus harmonizes with all our con- victions. We feel the doctrine to be true. God in Christ has made himself known to his children. "Those who love God best have dis- covered that God is man, with all tender sympathies for their temp- '204 FAITH MADE EASY. tations, and with all power to deliver them from evil. Flesh and blood have not revealed this to them. They have tasted for them- selves that the Lord is gracious. Having divested himself once of divine glory, and being now lifted up in our own nature, he is drawing all that is human and manly and true within us unto himself ' with the cords of" a man.' " We believe the doctrine, because it is the initial truth of every thing we believe. This or nothing. Who was it that shed his blood for the whole world on the cross? Who is it that is sitting on high to plead for sinners? Who is it that is coming again to judge the world ? If it is not the uncreated eternal Son of God himself, then the world is still lying in sin, unransomed, and without hope of sal- vation. We must believe that our Lord and our God is our brother man, or lose our glimpse of the invisible, and never hear another echo from the eternal world." (Wolcott Calkins.) THE HUMANITY OF .JESUS. Let us contemplate Christ as a man. We should know that he was none the less really and perfectly a man, because his manhood was mysteriously connected with the Deity. The great purpose of his incarnation would have been thwarted if by becoming a partaker of human nature he failed to assume any of the essential qualities of that nature. He was without sin, it is true, but sin is no part of man's nature : it is an after-intrusion, a subsequent blot upon it. Sin is a destroyer of manhood, and he who was without sin alone had a perfect manhood. We do not say he was man only, or man merely, but man really and perfectly ; as consciously a man as if he had not been God as well. He had a human body and a human mind. He sustained that body by eating and drinking like other men, and he developed that intellect by study and training during the long period of his subjection to his parents and his labors as a common artisan. By the time he entered upon his public ministry he had perfectly familiarized himself with the Scriptures and the best mfethods of argu- ment. This ability he used almost invariably in silencing his oppo- nents and dumfounding his adversaries. When hard questions were submitted to him, he seldom coined original answers, but appealed to the written word and indubitable facts of life, just as any other thor- oughly qualified teacher would have done. In contact with his fel- lows he exhibited all the human feelings in the most natural way. When he had healed the withered hand of the man in the synagogue on the Sabbath day (Mark iii, 1-5), and the Pharisees showed their WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 205 hypocritical spirit over it, the fires of a righteous anger flashed from his eyes as he looked round about on them, and the surgings of holy grief stirred his heart. When he returned to Bethany and found his dearest earthly friends stricken in sorrow over the death of Lazarus, whom he loved as well as they, he "wept" responsive to their tears, and " groaned in spirit" in answer to their sobs. Of all the mourners none were "troubled" more than he. (John xi, 33.) So humanly sincere were all the tokens of his lamentation that even the Jews were moved with pity, and exclaimed, " Behold how he loved him I" (John xi, 36.) No one who considers how Jesus was subject to weariness (John iv, 6); to temptation (Matt, iv, 2); to ignorance (Mark xiii, 32); to death (John xix, 33) ; and burial (John xix, 42) ; can doubt his perfect humanity. Eighty times in Scripture is he called the ' ' Son of man." He wa.s " made flesh " (John i, 14); made of woman — show- ing that he derived his human nature solely from his mother (Gal. iv, 4); bore the likeness of man (Phil, ii, 7, 8); grew in stature (Luke ii, 52); and in all things exhibited the marks of a child of Adam's race. As a son he was filial and obedient (Luke ii, 51); as a youth he was bright, respectful, docile (Luke ii, 47-52); and as a man pure, truthful, humble, patient, benevolent, prayerful, forgiv- ing, and tender of heart. He was a loyal and law-abiding citizen, teaching both by example and precept the duty of sustaining civil government. (Matt, xvii, 24-27.) His obedience to divine law was also exemplary. He did precisely what is required of us, and mani- fested to the world a full development of what perfect obedience to God's law is and does. "How like heaven," says one, " would this world be if men were once to obey God's law as Christ did !" God approved the spirit of the man Christ Jesus. He not only loved his eternal, co-equal Son, but his heart flowed forth in complacency, ap- probation, and affection towards the obedient Savior. And as God loved him, so should we. We should count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Without the taint of either inherited or actual sin, and therefore perfectly fitted to be- come our sacrifice, he stands forth as indeed the chiefest among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely. He is our matchless friend, our elder brother; suffering, yet patient; tried, yet through prayer and faith sustained. We see him weary at the noontide by the well, yet toiling on in the work his Father had given him to do, and the example inspires us to similar endeavor. In no practical aspfect does his example lie above the sphere of humanity ; so that the obligation to follow, and even attain unto it, should be the burden of every con- 206 FAITH MADE EASY. science, the plan of every life. Apart from the richer excellency his human nature may have had by intimate alliance with the divine, his example should ever lie in our view just where he left it, " who suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps." (1 Peter ii, 21.) THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF JESUS. Only a general impression of the personal appearance of Jesus can be gathered from the New Testament. "He was free from bodily de- fects (for so much is implied in the type of an unblemished victim under the law, and otherwise the people would not have recognized in him a prophet, while the Pharisees would have been sure to throw any physical deformity in his teeth); but his exterior could have pre- sented nothing remarkable, since Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener (John xx, 15), and the two disciples on the way to Etn- maus (Luke xxiv, 16), as well as the apostles at his last appearance by the sea of Genesareth (John xxi, 4), did not at first recognize him ; but his form then probably bore many permanent marks of his severe sufferings. The whole evangelical narrative indicates sound and vigorous bodily health. In look and voice he must have had something wonderful (John xviii, 6), but at the same time engaging and benevolent: his outward air was the expression of the high, noble, and free spirit dwelling within him." There are several ancient, but scarcely trustworthy, descriptions of our Lord's personal appearance, one or two of which may be sub- joined. The first is reported to have been composed by a Roman officer named Publius Lentulus, and when translated from the Latin, reads as follows: "A man of tall stature, good appearance, and a venerable countenance, such as to inspire beholders both with love and awe. His hair, worn in a circular form and curled, rather dark and shining, flowing over the shoulders, and parted in the middle of the head, after the style of the Nazarenes. His forehead, smooth and perfectly serene, with a face free from wrinkle or spot, and beautiful with a moderate ruddiness, and a faultless nose and mouth. His beard full, of an auburn color like his hair, not long but parted. His eyes quick and clear. His aspect terrible in rebuke, placid and amia- ble in admonition, cheerful without losing its gravity: aperson never seen to laugh, but often to weep." Tischendorf discovered another description of Jesus, said to have been written by Epiphanius (in Greek) as follows: "My Christ and God was exceedingly beautiful in countenance. His stature was fully WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 207 developed, his height being six feet. He had auburn hair, quite abundant, and flowing down mostly over his whole person. His eye- brows were black, and not highly arched ; his eyes brown and bright. He had a family likeness, in his fine eyes, prominent nose, and good color, to his ancestor David, who is said to have had beautiful eyes and a ruddy complexion. He wore his hair long, for a razor never touched it; nor was it cut by any person, except by his mother in his childhood. His neck inclined forward a little, so that the posture of his body was not too upright or stiff. His face was full, but not quite so round as his mother's ; tinged with sufficient color to make it handsome and natural; mild in expression, like the blandness in the above description of his mother, whose features his own strongly resembled." This latter description bears evident marks of being a later fabrication than the former. EMINENT AVITNESSES. Christ is the key to the history of the world. Not only does all harmonize with the mission of Christ; all is subordinated to it. When I saw this, it was to me as wonderful and surprising as the light which Paul saw on his way to Damascus. (Von Muller.) Jesus of Nazareth, the purest among the mighty, the mightiest among the pure, who with his pierced hand has raised empires from their foundations, turned the stream of history from its old channel, and still continues to rule and guide the ages. (Richter.) Whatever be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be sur- passed; his worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus. (Renan.) Alexander, Cresar, Charlemagne, and I, myself, have founded great empires ; but upon what do these creations of our genius depend ? Upon force. Jesus alone founded his empire upon love, and to this very day millions would die for him. . . . I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men; and I am a man: none else is like him! Jesus Christ was more than man. (Napoleon Bonaparte.) I suppose that seasons of religious doubt come to every man. But I have noticed this in my own internal experience, that the older I grow the less do I care about dogmas and theories, and the more do I care for the beauty and force that are a part of Jesus Christ. There is no possible means by which any man or any number of men 208 FAITH MADE EASY. could have created in fiction a character like his. It is the very high- est type of manhood, and the high ideal which any man feels he has a right to imitate, even though he knows he can not reach it. (James A. Garfield.) Just what the human heart everywhere most needs is met in and by the historical Christ. All the human sympathy and human ten- derness and fellow-feeling that could possibly be required by the low- liest children of the world in order to make them feel that he can be trusted, is found in Jesus. But that sympathy and identification on the part of Christ with our weakness would of itself be a poor offset to the vast needs of a sin-torn soul ! Without Christ's power to saj^ "Thy sins be forgiven thee," that best ethical system rising out of Ju- dean soil would never have swept into its support untold millions of the best life of the world during the Christian era. (F. S. Hunting- ton, D. D.) Personal immortality was brought to light by Jesus of Nazareth, and only by him. All religions and all philosophies had dreams of immortality, transmigrations, transformations, absorptions, vague and shadowy prolongations of existence; but personal immortality, the same man with identity of constitution and character, man hereafter as he is man here, is the resurrection, the life, a central fact in the teachings of Jesus. This form of immortality has its tap-root in Je- sus, and from it Spring the luxuriant branches of constitutional governments, under which the peoples of earth come to find shelter and marvelous growth. Does not a man whose teachings so impress the history and transform the principles of human government de- mand from the lightest and least earnest thinker serious investigation of his character and claims? How much more from the candid mind capable of earnestness? (D. C. Kelley, D. D.) I was born in a Christian family, and in a Christian Church. Par- ents and friends lived before me, from the beginning, lives which, in strong contrast with the character of the surrounding community, were unmistakably supernatural. Through the subsequent years I have seen innumerable individuals, of many nationalities, whose lives and deaths, in spite of all inconsistencies, possessed the same supernatural charac- ter. All these referred the mystery of their lives to the facts of an incarnation of God eighteen hundred years ago, and to the subsequent indwelling of a Divine Person in their hearts. The history of this stu- pendous event, and the promise of this indwelling, I found recorded in a Book, itself giving, whenever and wherever believingly received, equal evidence of supernatural origin and power. The Bible and the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO GOD. 209 Church thus present me with Christ. I find his person, life, words, death, and resurrection, and the consequences thereof, to be, when ac- cepted as intended by the evangelists, the key which gives unity to all history, or, on the contrary, when not so understood, an infinite anom- aly, neither to be reasoned away nor explained. The very God im- manent in nature and in conscience is revealed in this Christ with a satisfying completeness, solving all problems, and satisfying all needs — expiating human guilt, sanctifying human life, reconciling the Moral Governor to his sinful subject, and uniting the Heavenly Father to his child. This objective revelation of Christ in the Bible and in the Church, once accepted as genuine many years ago, has ever smce been developed and strengthened in my consciousness by a religious experi- ence, which, however imperfect, has proved continuous, progressive, and practically real, to this day ; a power in my life as well as a light in my sky. This confidence grows more entirely satisfying through every renewed examination I am able to make of the historical mon- uments by wliich the fundamental facts of Christianity are certified. The authenticity of the records, the definite certainty of the facts, the miracles wrought, and the prophecies fullfiUed, are among the best es- tablished events in history. If these be denied, there will be nothing left of which we can be sure. The supernatural birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Oodrwan, and the miraculous growth of the early Church, are all to me certainties, implicated in all rational views of the past or present state of mankind. (Professor A. A. Hodge, D. D.) Find us a better answer to the questionings of our spirits than Christ has furnished! Show us a better ideal of manhood than he has given! Bring us a better testimony to the life beyond the grave than he has borne ! Ah ! for four thousand years the world tried in vain to return to God, and now that he has come himself to be the way, we will not give him up for any negation. ("William M. Taylor, D. D.) A personal experience of fifty years gives me an absolute knowl- edge of the saving, uplifting power of Jesus. His word has a power to rebuke, to cleanse, to comfort, to uphold, to enlighten me, incom- parably greater than that of any other word which has ever reached me. The nearer I keep to him, and the more unreservedly I trust in him, so much the more tenderly do I feel the love of God redeeming, guiding, and sanctifying me. In the intimacies and friendships of these same fifty years I have found that the purest, sweetest, and no- blest of my friends were also those who kept nearest to Jesus. My 14 210 FAITH MADE EASY. reading of history leads me to believe that Jesus has exerted this re- deeming power from the beginning ; that it is he who has lifted the ■world out of the moral darkness and corruption of the Roman Em- pire ; that his w^ord has had a beneficent effect a myriad times greater than the teaching of all the moralists and sages of the countries of the East, or of Greece and Rome. In reading the four Gospels, I am ever more and more impressed with this fact: That the language ascribed to Jesus not only occasionally asserts his possession of author- ity far above that of Hebrew prophets and Grecian philosophers, but that it very frequently, unconsciously, undesignedly, betrays his ever- present consciousness that God was dwelling in him, and giving him a dignity, authority, and power which had not, at that time, ever entered into any other heart to conceive. (Thomas Hill, D. D.) Noah Webster, being asked if he could comprehend how Jesus Christ could be both God and man, replied, "No, sir," and added: "I should be ashamed to acknowledge him as my Savior if I could comprehend him — he would be no greater than myself. Such is my sense of sin, and consciousness of my inability to save myself, that I feel I need a superhuman Savior — one so great and glorious that I can not comprehend him." Among the last things which William Cullen Bryant ever wrote was an unfinished introduction to Dr. Alden's "Thoughts on the Religious Life." Here is one passage from it: "This character, of which Christ was the perfect model, is in itself so attractive, so ' altogether lovely,' that I can not describe in language the admira- tion with which I regard it ; nor can I .express the gratitude I feel for the dispensation which bestowed that example on mankind, for the truths which he taught, and the sufferings he endured for our sakes. I tremble to think what the world would be without him. Take away the blessing of the advent of his life, and the blessings purchased by his death, in what an abyss of guilt would man have been left ! It would seem to be blotting the sun out of the heavens — to leave our system of worlds in chaos, frost, and darkness. In my view of the life, the teachings, the labors, and the sufferings of the blessed Jesus, there can be no admiration too profound, no love of which the human heart is capable too warm, no gratitude too earnest and deep of which he is justly the object. It is with sorrow that my love for him is so cold, and my gratitude so inadequate. It is with sorrow that I see any attempt to put aside his teachings as a delusion, to turn men's eyes from his example, to meet with doubt and denial the story of his life. For my part, if I thought that the religion of WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 211 skepticism were to gather strength and prevail, and become the dom- inant view of mankind, I should despair of the fate of mankind ia the years that are yet to come." Jesus Christ was the incarnation, not merely of some parts or at- tributes of God, but of God himself. It was not merely the compas- sion of God that found expression in his character, but the severity of God as well. Even while he was here on earth he was not only Mediator, he was also Judge. Wherever he went, men parted, the sheep on the right hand, the goats on the left. As the old prophet said of him in his infancy. He was set for the fall, and the rising up of many ; for the fall of some, and the lifting up of others — that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed. Character was polarized whenever he appeared. " Now is the judgment of the world," he cried, at the moment when the wickedness of the world was beating in its wildest storm of madness and fury upon his unprotected head. "Never man spake like this man" — never man so graciously, never man so sternly. (Washington Gladden.) THE HOLY GHOST. WHO IS THE HOLY GHOST? The Holy Ghost is God. God is "spirit" in his very nature, and is revealed as "The Spirit," The word "spirit" stands also for the inner, and especially for the higher, life of man, as derived from God, particularly when this life is renewed by the Spirit of God. We must distinguish between man's natural spirit, man's renewed spirit, and God's Spirit. The personal Holy Spirit, in and for man, accomplishes the work of redemption. We must distinctly understand that it is God himself who works in us, but God in Spirit manifestation. "It is more than probable that the Indians in North America, when they pray to the Great Spirit, conceive by this of something more sensible and more alive than many of our preachers and writers of religious books, when they with great pathos style God a Spirit." (Ackermann.) " I conceive a man as always spoken to from behind, and unable to turn his head and see the speaker. In all the millions who have heard the voice, none ever saw the face. That well-known voice speaks in all lan- guages, governs all men ; and none ever caught a glimpse of its form. If the man will exactly obey it, it will adopt him, so that he shall not any longer separate it from himself in his thought; he shall seem to be it, he shall be it." (Emerson.) " ' He shall be in you.' In 212. FAITH MADE EASY. you ! a very little word, to be sure, but it characterizes a whole econ- omy." (Guers.) The Savior uniformly uses the personal pronouns, he, him, whom, himself, in designating the Comforter, or the Spirit of Truth — and al- though there are two or three passages in the English New Testament in which the neuter forms, itself and it, are employed in reference to the Spirit, yet everywhere in the Bible his personality is recognized and his Godhead asserted. "Why," said Peter to Ananias, "hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." " Whereof," writes the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us; for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord !" In the former of these quotations the terms "Holy Ghost" and "God," in the latter the terms "Holy Ghost" and " the Lord," are evidently used interchangeably to desig- nate the same Almighty Being. Mark how he is referred to in the following passages: "The Com- forter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (John xiv, 26.) "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, and he will show you things to come." (John xvi, 13.) " The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities ; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought ; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered." (Eom. viii, 26.) "The Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." (Eph. iv, 30.) Here he is designated as a Leader, a Guide, a Helper, and a Sealer, all active phases of work. "They make too little account of the in- ternal teacher, which is the Holy Spirit, and which does all in us. He is the soul of our soul ; we could not form a good thought or desire but by him. To what purpose would be the external speaking of pas- tors, or even of the Scripture, if there were not an internal speaking of the Holy Spirit itself, which gives all its efficacy to the other? They reason upon every thing ; they form to themselves principles of natural wisdom, and prudential methods for all those things, in which we might be better instructed by the way of simplicity, and a docility to the Spirit of God." (F^nelon.) "Carefully observe and cherish the motions of the Spirit of God. If ever thy soul get above this earth, and get acquainted with this heavenly life, the Spirit of God must be to thee as the chariot of Elijah." (Baxter.) The Holy Ghost is also called the Spirit of Christ, and Christ. He inspired the writers WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 213 of the Bible. He said to the Church at Antioch : " Separate me Bar- nabas and Saul, whereunto I have called them." He forbade Paul to preach the gospel in Asia, and suffered him not to go into Bithynia. He determined, for and with the first council at Jerusalem, what re- strictions should be imposed on the Gentile converts. He is associated with the Father and the Son in the final commission to the disciples, ' ' Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." "Without the Holy Spirit one may have the appearance, the ex- ternal show of Christianity, but he can not have its reality. With tlie Holy Spirit repentance is a holy pain, faith a conviction which seizes the whole being, charity a twofold flame leading us toward God and toward our brother; prayer is finally a sigh of the Spirit which descends from heaven and ascends again, bearing us with it." (Dhombres.) "It is intensely desirable," says Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, "that we should seek more to be consciously filled with the Holy Spirit. We get easily contented with a little spiritual blessedness. Let us grow more covetous of the best gifts. Let us crave to be endued with the Holy Spirit, and to be baptized in the Holy Ghost and in fire. The more we get of him the more assurance we shall have of heaven for our peace, the more foretastes of heaven for our happiness, and the more preparation for heaven in lively hope." PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. The Holy Ghost is a distinct personality. By personality is meant that which pertains to or constitutes a person, or distinguishes one person from another. It is said to be individuality existing in itself. A person is a self-conscious being, in whom resides intelligence, will, and affection. A person is capable of knowing, willing, and loving or hating. The Holy Spirit is such a being; hence, a person. "A person," says Locke, "is a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection." "By a person," says Dr. Isaac Barrow, "we are to understand a singular, subsistent, intellectual being." Boethius defines it as "an individual substance of a rational nature." J. Edmondson says: "Personality implies thought, reason, reflection, and an indi- vidual existence, distinct from that of all other existences ; and, there- fore, when we affirm that the Holy Ghost is a Person, we mean he has a distinct and individual existence as an intelligent and reflecting being." Dr. Joseph Parker has well said that " the Biblical writers them- 214 FAITH MADE EASY. selves did, rightly or wrongly, believe in the proper personality of the Holy Ghost ; and all the more so in the light of the further fact that precisely the same terms are apjJied to the Holy Spirit as are applied to the Father, so that the personality of the one stands or falls with the personality of the other." The Holy Ghost, then, is not simply an influence from the Father, coming upon the soul when alone in holy meditation, nor an influence arising from the presence of many believing hearts congregated in one place. Like the Father and the Son in the ever-blessed Trinity, he is an intelligent, thinking being, in whose name baptism and blessing are to be administered, and against whom willful blasphemy is unpar- donable. He is concerned for the welfare of Christians, may be seriously grieved, convinces men of sin, instructs them in all spiritual things, calls useful truth to happy remembrance, regenerates the heart, perfects the work of sanctification, witnesses with the saved soul, inspires to godly efl^ort, and abides with Christ's followers forever. We should speak of him as a personality, not as a thing. "In the Greek the word for Spirit, by the arbitrary law of language, is a word of the neuter gender, so that there follows it grammatically the neuter pronoun ' it.' But this is not always the case. In spite of the laws of a precise language, and violating its plainest rule, the inspired writers often refer to the Spirit with pronouns belonging to a person, as 'he,' 'him.' Our language has no such require- ment, so that we may, and we should, honor Him with all expres- sions of personality. Honor the Holy Ghost. He shall guide you into all truth." The Scriptures abundantly justify the ascription of absolute person- ality to the Holy Ghost. The Spirit speaks in a manner which can only be done by a person. Acts viii, 29: "The Spirit said to Philip, Go near and join thyself unto his chariot.'' Acts x, 19 : "Then the Spirit said to Peter, Behold, three men seek thee." Rev. ii, 9: "Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." He witnesses as a person. "The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit." Heb. ix, 8: " The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.'' Heb. X, 15: "Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us." He prophesies only as a person can prophesy. John xvi, 13: "He [the Spirit] shall show you things to come." 1 Pet. i, 11 : "Searching •what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the suflferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." The Spirit is said to strive with men, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 215 as only a person can do. Gen. vi, 3: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." He loves as only a person can love. Kom. xv, 30: " I beseech you by the love of the Spirit." He can be vexed, grieved, and pleased, which can only be said of a person. Isa. Ixiii, 10 : "They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit." Eph. iv, 30: "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." DIVINITY OF THE HOLY GHOST. We believe the Holy Ghost is divine, for reasons such as follow: 1. Divine names are given him by inspired writers. "We find," says Dr. Dewar, ' ' in several instances, that what is spoken of God in one part of Scripture is in another applied to the Holy Ghost ; from which circumstance we are surely warranted to infer that the Holy Ghost is God." Take this passage: "Now the Lord is that Spirit.'' (2 Cor. viii, 17.) Here it is directly affirmed that the Spirit is God. 2. The same attributes which are ascribed to God are ascribed equally to the Holy Ghost. (1.) Eternity. In Heb. ix, 14, the Holy Spirit is called "the Eternal Spirit." But the Almighty is called "the Eternal God;" making the two equal in eternity. (2 ) Omnipresence. This is an attribute of God. But it is also an attribute of the Holy Spirit. Psa. cxxxix, 78: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there." (3.) Omniscience. It is God who " declares the end from the begin- ning,'' and that "knows all things." But the "Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." (1 Cor. ii, 10.) "Even the things of God knoweth no one, but the Spirit of God." (4.) Holiness is an attribute of God. But the Spirit is called the "Holy Ghost," the "Holy Spirit," the "Spirit of Holiness." He is called the "Holy Ghost," or "Holy Spirit," in the New Testament, some ninety-three times. He is so called not only because he is abso- lutely holy, but it is his work to make human beings holy. (5.) Truth is an attribute of God. But the Spirit is designated the " Spirit of Truth." 3. The same acts which are ascribed to God are ascribed to the Holy Spirit. (1.) Oreation. "In the beginning God created." God alone can create. But while the earth was without form and void, we meet with this remarkable announcement: "The Spirit of God moved upon 216 FAITH MADE EASY. the face of the waters." Move, has the sense of hover, or " was hover- ing," or brooding. "The brooding of the Spirit of God," says Dr. Murphy, "is evidently the originating cause of the reorganization of things on the land, by the creative work which is successively described in the following passages." "It indicates a new and special display of Omnipotence for the present exigencies for this part of the realm of creation. Nothing but a creative or absolutely initiative power could give rise to a change so great and fundamental." "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Spirit of his mouth." (Psa. xxxiii, 6.) "The Spirit of God hath made me." (Job xxxiii, 4.) "By his Spirit he garnished the heavens.'' (Job xxvi, 13.) If creation is the work of God — if "all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" — then the Spirit who "moved upon the face of the waters," "garnished the heavens," and "made us,'' must be God. (2.) Miracles. He works miracles, which can only be done by a person. Rom. xv, 19: "Through mighty signs, and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God." It appears that the Spirit wrought miracles which were distinctively physical, as when Ezekiel says: "The Spirit lifted me up and took me away." The same is implied in the words which Obadiah addressed to Elijah: "The Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not." This same miraculous power is seen in the case of Philip. " The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more." The Holy Ghost has all the divine appellations, attributes, and perfections ascribed to either the Father or the Son ; he proceeds from them, and is one with them in constituting the Triune God. As Christ is one with the Father by eternal filiation, so the Holy Spirit is one with both by an eternal procession. Jesus said: "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." (John xv, 26.) Neither the Father nor the Son is sent by the Holy Ghost, but the Holy Ghost is sent by both. The Nicene Creed has this language : "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who, with the Father and the Son together, is worshiped and glorified." And the Athanasian Creed expresses the doctrine of the evangelical Churches of Christendom thus: "The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding." All evangelical Churches have adopted similar language as the expression of their belief in the third person of the Trinity. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 217 WORK OF THE SPIRIT. How faithful is the Holy Ghost in his office of convicting the world of sin ! From childhood np, he strives with us to turn us from evil and keep us in the pathway of duty. He is present with every soul, moment by moment, tenderly wooing and never forsaking, un- less grieved away by persistent and willful sin — literally driven off. Jesus knew how important this work would be in the scheme of re- demption, and hence declared to his disciples: "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come ; but if I depart I will send him unto you. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." At first hearing, this must have been hard for the disci- ples to believe. Expedient that their Master should leave them in the world alone ! He had been their instructor, their leader, their guide, their defense, their all. He had attached them to himself most strongly and tenderly. They believed in him as Israel's Redeemer. They had forsaken all, and had followed him. Now he says it is ex- pedient to go away from them. Love is never reconciled to separa- tion, especially when the prospect is only one of loneliness and sor- row. The disciples were not reconciled to the departure of their Lord. But he reasoned with them : " When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you." " He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me." As much as to say. My part in the work of redemption is nearly done, and when it is finished I will leave the world ; my tangible, visible form shall be withdrawn ; but I will send the Com- forter in my stead. He will do what I can not. He will be person- ally present with all men. He will be in their hearts and in their consciences. He will show them what I have done. He will per- suade mankind that I am the Redeemer, the only Redeemer, and will win them to my cause. This is just what the world needs, and my departure is expedient, inasmuch as otherwise it can not be. And Jesus was right. He went away, and the Spirit came. The Spirit has fulfilled the prophecy. He has not spoken of himself, but has glorified Christ. Jesus is the precious name of earth. It is the name to sinners dear, and to saints most sacred. It charms our fears and drives away our sorrows. It is the first upon our lips when we be- lieve and last in our thoughts when we die. But for the ofiice and work of the Holy Ghost it would not be so. The world is forgetful, and would forget Christ himself were the Spirit not here to keep alive his name and power. Because he is here, in our hearts, moving us 218 FAITH MADE EASY. to action, prompting us to labor, and shoVing us things to come, we can not forget. He is Christ's representative, his witness, his continued life. Through him Jesus fulfills his promise to every age and gener- ation: "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." Yet the soul is not conscious of the presence of two personalities. The Spirit comes clothed in the personality of Jesus, and his life is be- stowed through the manifestations which God makes of himself in his Son. This is the view of Dr. J. B. Walker in his "Doctrine of the Holy Spirit." He says: " The Holy Spirit gives to the soul, by influx through the susceptibility, a newer and higher consciousness of the Divine nature, which is love. But he is not a revealer of new truths, nor an exhibitor of his own personality. When he visits the pious mind, he does not lead that mind to think of himself, but of Jesus. He takes of the njanifestations of the Divine character, made by Christ, and gives them efficacy, by power and love, in the human soul. He comes to us through the Son, baptized in his humanities, as a ray of light takes the hue of the medium through which it passes ; and thus he becomes to the soul the Spirit of both the Divine and the human, as it was in Christ Jesus. The Son of God manifests the Di- vine mind ; the Spirit of God uses that manifestation to sanctify and save us. Hence, Christ and the Spirit are one to the soul, and one in the Church to the end of the dispensation." The departure of Christ was a trial of the faith of the disciples in the Holy Ghost. Had Jesus remained with the twelve, like many other believers they would not so much as have heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. But because Jesus promised the Spirit as his own representative and witness, they pleaded that promise and received the gracious baptism. So may we. Our faith will be tried somehow, but will be rewarded. He is faithful that promised. The Spirit is with the Church. , He is in the hearts of believers. He honors those with blessing who honor Christ with faith. He seems to work with no others. Religious organizations that ignore Christ are cold, power- less, dead. We must trust Christ. His blood is all our plea. We must submit ourselves into his hands and remain there. The Spirit can then use us, can work by us and in us the wonderful works of God. THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. The four evangelists agree in attributing to our Lord a very solemn and startling statement respecting the possibility of committing one sin that is absolutely unpardonable. Bead the following : "Where- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 219 fore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be for- given unto men : but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him : but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." St. Mark says : " Hath never forgive- ness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." (Matt, xii, 31, 32; Mark iii, 28, 30 ; Luke xii, 10.) The early fathers undertook to apply this passage to certain acts which they styled unpardonable sins. Irenseus regarded it as the rejection of the gospel of Christ, and applied it to the Gnostics ; Athanasius believed that it ^consisted in a denial of the divinity of Christ, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost is sent into the world to glorify Christ as God ; Origen thought that it was any mor- tal sin committed after baptism ; Augustine applied it to every one who died impenitently. Modern writers have expressed opinions in a similar way ; for ex- ample, the following : " When any man speaks against Christianity because he can not bear the purity of its Spipit, and the wisdom of its doctrine ;'' " when a man knows what Christianity is, and hates it for that very reason." "It is a sin which is committed, unhappily every day, but it is most certain that they who are afraid of having com- mitted it, are the persons, above all others, who must be innocent of it." (T. Arnold.) " Whatever special interpretation may be given to our Lord's awful announcement concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost — an announcement which stands out as an anomaly in the midst of his declarations of mercy — every devout mind must regard it as shedding a fearful penumbra of warning around the doctrine of Divine influence, and will admit an apprehension lest he should, by any per- version of that doctrine, approach the precincts of so tremendous a guilt, or become liable to the charge of giving occasion in others to unpardonable blasphemies." (L Taylor.) It is " a definitive unbelief, which absolutely challenges punishment, and for which no farther sac- rifice exists, and no intercession must be made." More thoughtful writers represent this sin as not generally a single word, expression, or act, standing out isolated and independent of other words and actions, but rather a moral condition, a sin which is " rooted deep in pre-existing depravity," unbelief, and wickedness. Eev. Dr. L. E. Dunn says : " It is the culminating act of a series of transgressions rashly persisted in for a longer or shorter period. It is a final act, which links itself to a long chain, and completes the work by which the soul binds itself to an endless perdition and 220 FAITH MADE EASY. irredeemable woe.'' Dr. Alford suggests that "the principal misun- derstanding of this passage has arisen from the prejudice which pos- sesses men's minds owing to the use of the words, ' The sin against the Holy Ghost.' It is not one particular act of sin which is here con- demned, but a state of sin, and that state a willful and determined opposition to the present power of the Holy Spirit." That there is great danger of a human being reaching such a con- dition of moral obtuseness, hardness of heart, and unpardonable wick- edness is evident from the fact that the sacred writers uttered several declarations and warnings similar to the awfully solemn statement of Jesus. Note what the apostle Paul says concerning a certain class of apostates : " For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted ot the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." (Heb. vi, 4-6.) Again : " For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trod- den under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace ? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb. x, 26-34.) The apostle John evidently has in view the same offense when he says: " If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death : I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death." (1 John v, 16, 17.) And Jude speaks in reference to the same character when he writes: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in un- awares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 221 men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear : clouds tlaey are without water, carried about of winds ; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots ; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame ; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for- ever/' (Jude 4, 12, 13.) Some facts in reference to the above passages should be carefully observed : 1. They bear heavily upon apostates and hypocrites. They dis- tinctly specify those " who were once enlightened," who have " received the knowledge of the truth," "ungodly men" "crept in unawares," etc. Such backsliders and hypocrites have "grieved the Spirit," "quenched" him, "crucified the Son of God afresh," "trodden under foot the Son of God," committed " the sin unto death." All apostates and hypocrites, however, are not thus given over to the wicked one. Some are tender of heart, feel the desperation of their own condition, and sigh for "the peaceful hours they once enjoyed." There is hope for such. 2. Under the Jewish economy there was a law of extremity, the violator of which knew no pardon, neither by blood nor sacrifice, but "died without mercy," so under the Christian dispensation it is pos- sible to so do "despite the Spirit of his grace" as to reap the unalter- able " vengeance" of God. 3. It is not said that such offenders are ordained to this terrible wickedness, but "ordained to this condemnation" as the result of their own ungodliness. The offense is voluntary, and the penalty justly falls upon their own heads. 4. The safe way for every human being to pursue is to follow after righteousness, to respect " the blood of the covenant," to become "a partaker of the Holy Ghost," to bear "fruit" unto God, and be ready for the day when " the Lord shall judge his people." "All unrighteousness is sin," and all sin is terribly dangerous. 5. Persons sometimes express fear lest they have already com- mitted the unpardonable sin. Their very fear indicates that they have not. Such offenders are "past feeling," "denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," " twice dead," " plucked up by the roots," "foaming out their own shame," and beyond the pos- sibility of being "renewed again unto repentance." The Pharisees, if they illustrate the class who are beyond the reach of mercy, were 222 FAITH MADE EASY. particularly offensive in persistently attributing the work of Christ to the spirit of Satan. ' ' Because, they said, he hath an unclean spirit ;" "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils." These sayings were but the expressions of their deep malignity and hatred of Christ. They deliberately premeditated and plotted to destroy him. They wanted to crush out his name, influence, teachings, and memory from the earth. Their sin was not a sudden act, an impul- sive, thoughtless word, but long-cherished malice against the Son of God, and settled resistance day by day against his authority which, before their eyes, had again and again been substantiated and proved divine. They were totally hardened, thoroughly depraved, and hope- lessly surrendered to the work of the devil. Hence our Lord ad- dressed them: " O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." (Matt, xii, 34.) No doubt there are many in the world to-day who have reached this fearful condition of heart and life. They are ' ' exceeding mad " against Christ, "foaming out their own shame," blaspheming God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, ridiculing religion, scoffing at the idea of conversion, slandering the Church and ministry, despisers of all sacred things, ' ' wandering stars " going from city to city cursing God and the Christianity he has founded on earth. We believe with Dr. Alexander that — " There is a time, we know not when, A point we know not where, That marks the destiny of men To glory or despair. There is a line, by us unseen, That crosses every path ; The hidden boundary between God's patience and his wrath. To pass that limit is to die.'' . . . DIVINE PROVIDENCE. "I believe in the providence of God. The Bible teaches it, and my experience confirms it." So might every experienced Christian say. As for Bible teaching, we find the doctrine of providence presented in such passages as teach — 1. Providence among men generally. "Know ye that the Lord, he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 223 liis people, and the sheep of his pasture." (Psa. c, 3.) "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." (Rom. xiv, 7, 8.) 2. Passages which represent God as King of the whole earth. "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him : right- eousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him, and burnetii up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world : the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory." (Psa. xcvii, 1-6.) "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power; to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominioQ endureth throughout all generations. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing." (Psa. cxlv, 9-16.) 3. Such passages as represent God's dealings in man's temporal affairs. "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty : for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine ; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all." (1 Chron. xxix, 11, 12.) "And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph ; doth my father yet live ? And his brethren could not answer him ; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither : for God did send me before you to preserve life." (Gen. xli, 3-5.) "The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich : he bringeth low, and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out 224 FAITH MADE EASY. of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory : for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness ; for by strength shall no man prevail." (1 Sam. ii; 6-9.) 4. Such passages as show God's hand in moral discipline. "In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider : God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him." (Eccl. vii, 14.) "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world." (John xvi, 33.) " For whom the Lord loveth he chas- teneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not ? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Fur- thermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live ? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure ; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." (Heb. xii, 6-10.) 5. Such passages as set forth God's special care for his people. These passages are legion. They are also very familiar. Who can not recite them without number? "The steps of the good man are ordered of the Lord." "The very hairs of his head are all num- bered." "The Lord preserved David whithersoever he went." "God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that ye always having all-sufiiciency in all things may abound unto every good work." "All things work together for good to them that love God." So that always, everywhere, in all things, the eye of the Lord is upon us. His ear is open to our cry. He is ready to put around us the ever- lasting arms — to shelter us under the shadow of his wing — to guard us as the apple of his eye ; to preserve us whithersoever we go ; to preserve us blameless through body, soul, and spirit until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ; to keep us from falling and to present us faultles's before his presence with exceeding joy. The Christian can ask no greater assurance of God's gracious care than can be found on almost every page of the inspired book. It is true that when we consider the extent of God's care over his creatures our minds are almost overpowered. The Psalmist seems to have struggled under WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 225 the same thought. "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man that thou visitest him?" It is estimated that there are fourteen hundred millions of human beings constantly on earth, going hither and yon, living under all kinds of circumstances, exposed to all sorts of perils, and requiring momentary succor and aid; and that through the course of time no less than one hundred and fifty thousand millions of people have lived under the eyes of God. Besides humanity, there are many other objects of Divine care. "Even the sparrow shall not fall to the ground without your Father." There are on earth six hundred species of quadrupeds, every species containing many millions of individuals. There are four thousand species of birds — over four hundred species of humming-birds alone — and every species containing its millions of individuals. There are three thousand species of fish, seven hundred of reptiles, forty-four thousand of insects, besides many thousands or millions of species in- visible to the naked eye. When we consider that the structure and modes of life of all these innumerable species are different from each other, and that all their various wants are provided for by Him who gave them life, we are lost in wonder at the thought. Then to think that not the earth alone, but unnumbered worlds throughout illimitable space, and throughout boundless duration, are all providentially cared for, and that this providence is never for one moment suspended, is to grasp an idea great enough to stagger any human mind. This providence is special, too. Some talk about a general provi- dence in a way to convey the idea that providence is always general, and never particular or special. The very contrary is true. But for particular providence there could be no general, any more than there can be genus without species, or a whole without parts. "Any man who believes in a providence at all, ought to have no difficulty in be- lieving that it is always special. In the conception of a providence, demanding, as it does, the idea of a personal God back of the play of all laws, and using them for his own ends, there can not be room for the thought that any thing can escape him, that even a sparrow can fall to the ground without his care. He permits it. The execu- tion can not take place in his dominions unless he signs the decree. Prove that the dead sparrow which you find upon the walk was a thing about which providence did not know, and you have made such 15 226 FAITH MADE EASY. a breach in the realm of providence as will easily make the rest con- quered ground." (Kev. John K. Allen.) "No, no!" says one, "this is not the view. Providence is noth- ing more than the reign of law. God governs every thing by im- mutable law. This law is the same everywhere, and for all time. There can be no special providence, therefore, because this law is unchangeable." Of course, we shall all have to admit that God governs this world by laws. This truth is taught by science as well as by revelation. The duke of Argyll, in his "Reign of Law," shows that so general is this law that contrivance was actually necessary in the creation of the world, and in the formation of every creature. God has adapted his creatures to established laws, instead of adapting natural laws to his creatures. But what is law? This same duke of Argyll says: "Law is the authoritative expression of will enforced' by power." Bishop Hamline says : " Law is the order of some planning mind." Dr. Ryder, a Universalist, says : ' ' God's law is simply the thought of God ex- pressed." Law is no more than a rule of action, and back of the law is the law-executor and the law-giver. Human law is the expression of human will ; Divine law is the expression of Divine will. The law we find in nature is no more than tlie rules established by the God of nature. Law is not greater than its giver, and no law has power to execute itself. Back of all law in action must be a power to put it and uphold it in action. Civil law, for instance, must have executive agents to enforce it, or else it is powerless to affect human conduct. So with natural law. Wherever you find natural law in operation, you must know that back of it is the Infinite Executor — the presid- ing Mind and Power. "You tell me," says Bishop Simpson, "it is the law that water shall evaporate and form the clouds yonder; that matter can not act of itself — there must be a power acting upon it; and just as sure as that water evaporates, and the cloud gathers in the sky, there is not only the law of its evaporation, but the Executor of that law there. God is where law operates. Tell me law operates in the distant parts of the universe, and holds the planetary worlds within its bounds ; it is God holding them as in the hollow of his hand, and law is merely the order he pursues in holding them. Tell me my heart beats ac- cording to law, and my lungs inhale and exhale according to law, and that my nervous system feels according to law, and I admit it all ; but it is the Executor of that law that reigns in me ; and when my heart WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 227 beats, there is not only the law of animal life, but the Giver of animal life ; not only the care of my system, but there is the God who takes care of my system. And show me law prevailing all through my frame, and I show you God dwelling in me ; and I rise from the con- templation of all, and it is in him I live, and move, and have my being. Show me the law, and I show you the presence of a law- executing power. So that the law to me is no blind fatality, and no blind order ; it brings God to me. And as I find law is the same in me, beneath me, above me, around me, and away out for millions of miles, and that all things are all the time working according to law, I see God everywhere — in the moss, in the drop of water, in the air, down among the rocks, up among the heavens — everywhere, until, lost in the midst bf the contemplation of his power, I feel that I am surrounded as by a vast sea, and I sink, held in and surrounded by the arms of omnipotent love. It is God's law that encircles me on every side." Granting, then, the universal reign and the unchangeable charac- ter of natural law as we behold it in action everywhere about us, what follows? Is God powerless to reach his creatures ? Has he shut himself hopelessly away from his creatures by the rules he has estab- lished in nature? Sorry would we be to think so. " Terrible, were it true, to be compelled to accept it as an established fact : God rules not over, cares not for, takes no interest in, is indifferent to, the fate, the lot, the destiny of this orb and its teeming population ! Dread- ful should be our state of feeling were we driven to accept the last results of so-called scientific investigation and induction, that Deity may have made and ordered all things, or may not ; that if he did, he interferes not with the course of nature; that ages beyond num- ber he, perhaps, impressed or inwrought certain forces and modes of action upon all that then was ; and, having wound up the mechanism, and touched into oscillation its pendulum, and let loose its wheels and springs, since then he has retired within himSelf, heedless of the evo- lutions of the gigantic machine ; beyond the reach of creature's cry, of spirit's song, of man's appeal ; self-absorbed and impassive ; a slave fet- tered by his own hands, gyved by his own laws ; a captive imprisoned within the walls " great and high" of nature and of force — walls whose foundation his own power laid, whose glittering turrets his own skill piled, whose immovable buttresses and battlements his own right arm upheaved, and whose perpetuated endurance dates back to the omnific fiat of his own decrees ; that not only can he not add a new law or suspend an old one, but that he is even denied the right to modify 228 FAITH MADE EASY. the action and effects of olden laws by special combination of two or more of them, so as to further an end grander, holier, than any effected by their undeviating or their remorseless and undiscriminating revo- lution!" (The late Rev. Thomas Guard, D. D.) This God is not our God. Our God is the personal administrator of the affairs of this planet and its inhabitants. He is interested in his people, and watches over them with tenderest care. He has not forgotten the race he has redeemed, nor cut off from himself the pos- sibility of special intervention in behalf of those that love him. " By his pre-arrangement," says President James McCosh, "God makes blind, mechanical, chemical, and vital laws fulfill his benevolent and righteous purposes. By this collocation rings inflexible in themselves are made flexible, and the fabric flts into the frame, covers it as a disk, and protects it as a coat of mail. The two, the general and the special providence, do not oppose or contradict each otherj they con- spire and co-operate. There is no inconsistency, even in appearance, between God working everywhere in nature, and the prevalence* of physical causes and laws. God accomplishes individual ends by causes and according to laws which he has appointed. A stone wiU fall to the ground if unsupported, and this by a law which can not be changed; but when it is falling from a high elevation, and might kill the person beneath it, another individual who is standing by turns it aside, and no injury is done. We say, and I think very properly, that all this is done by the providence of God, who gave to the stone its properties and place, and to the bystander his generous impulse." Here we have suggested a new principle at work. There are laws higher than the physical, and agencies without number which God can employ in the ways of his providence. And we think it true that ordinarily there is no necessity for in- terference with a single natural law in order to maintain the kind of special providence in which we believe. We are sure, at least, that God seldom does interfere with these laws. Here are two men. One is an infidel ; the other, a Christian. God's rain and sunshine fall upon each of their farms alike. Here are two travelers ; the one pious, the other impious. They are both on the same train. The bridge gives way and both share the same fate. It is God's law that attraction shall work, and the law of attraction knows nothing but matter. If a man places himself in the way of these laws he must expect to meet the consequence. " Our Lord himself never suspended a law of nature to save him- self. If he ate not he was hungry, and he never commanded the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNINO GOD. 229 stones to be made bread that he might eat. He wrought miracles lo substantiate his claim to Messiahship, but never to save his life ; nevertheless the angels had charge over him to keep him in all his ways, and he was from earliest life to latest a subject of his Father's care." Let us give up the idea that there can be no providence unless every body, especially the good, is saved from death. "'Tis not the whole of life to live, nor all of death to die." The disasters which come upon men may be beneficial to the race as a whole. It was Jonathan Swift who used this idea in defense of providence. "One argument," said he, " used to the disadvantage of providence, I take to be a very strong one in its defense. It is objected that storms and tempests, unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or troublesome animals, with many other instances of the same kind, discover an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier without them ; but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon — in short, the whole system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover and observe — are in the utmost degree of regu- larity and perfection ; but wherever God has left to man the power of interposing a remedy by thought or labor, there he has placed things in a state of imperfection, on purpose to stir up human indus- try, without which life would stagnate, or indeed rather could not subsist at all : ' Guris aeuuntur mortalia corda.' " Edward Eggleston has expressed a thought helpful in a similar way. In showing that providence controls all the events of our every-day life, he says: "A man's child dies, and he says, ' This is a mysterious providence.' Well, was it not a mysterious providence when the child lived? It is said: ' When a man was going along the street one day to his wedding, a brick fell off from a chimney, and struck him on the head ; and he was laid defl,d.' And the preacher will say : ' It was a strange and mysterious providence.' Well, there was another young man, on the same day, going through that same street to his wedding, and a brick did not fall and hit him ; was not that event just as much a providence as the other? You think that exclamation points are the whole of literature, and that only here and there an event which startles you is providential ; whereas ten thou- sand events, and combinations of them, are all proceeding on precisely the same plan ; namely, the working together of the soul and mind of God and the soul and mind of men. According to this plan, under the Divine guidance, myriads of results are worked out which 230 FAITH MADE EASY. you do not notice ; but now and then one steps out more clearly and dramatically, and you call tHat a providence. It is a providence, and there is a providence all the time. Good and bad, light and shade, joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity, things present and things to come, all alike are God's." There is providence in every thing. " I would, with special ear- nestness, beg you to believe that God is in little things. It is the little troubles of life that annoy us the most. A man can put up with the loss of a dear friend sometimes better than he can with the burning of his fingers with a coal, or some little accident that may occur to him. The little stones in the sandal make the traveler limp ; while great stones do him little hurt, for he soon leaps over them. Believe that God arranges the littles. Take the little troubles as they come; remember them to your God, because they come from God." (Rev. C. H. Spurgeou.) ' ' Men seem to limit providence to certain things and deny it practically in others. A man says : ' I meant to have taken that train which met with that awful accident, but got belated. There was a providence in it.' So there was — and it is well that he can rec- ognize so much. But it would have been just as much a providence if he had taken the train and his name had appeared in the list of the dead. Another cries with a kind of awe : ' The hand of God was in it. It was a mere chance that I missed that steamer that went down in mid ocean.' But does he mean to say that the hand of God was not in it when all those who did take passage went down ? Death stood at the helm when friends said farewell ; death reached out in front of the figure-head and pointed the way ; death was among her shrouds as she stood out to sea ; death screamed in the night-watches through her rigging ; but was she therefore God-forsaken ? A dismal belief in providence that ! "It is only in such a belief in a providence as makes it always special, that prayer becomes possible. It gives a rational ground upon ■which it can rest. If God's providence is not special every moment of our lives ; if he is only occupied with certain grand designs, and in the current of a man's life only juts out a particular providence now and then to turn its direction, every mouth would be rigidly shut. If, more than that, there is nothing but blind, dumb, immutable laws moving on irresistibly, the words of prayer would never mount to the lips. You can not pray to an Abstraction, nor bow the knee to an Idea. You can not pray to Summer suns, nor April winds, nor June showers, nor December snows, for daily bread. "We have no litany WHAT ro BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 231 with which to supplicate the law of gravity, bringing the earth around in the ecliptic; and we have no breath with which to call to the winds. Our soul thirsteth for God, for the living God — a personal God — not your pantheistic god, nor the god of materialism ; not your molten god, coming up from the heat of the crucible like Aaron's calf; we want a mind that thinks, an ear that hears, an eye that sees our distresses — the living God — and then our mouths are opened, and our tongues loosed. "Then, too, it becomes possible to be without carefulness. God's care for trifles was the ground on which Christ bade us take no thought. ' Behold the birds of the air !' The key-note of their song is the providence of God. ' Consider the lilies of the field!' Hearken to the language of the flowers : they speak, according to Christ ; they have a language — not the fanciful thing men sometimes imag- ine, but always the fact of God's providence. When a man comes back from contemplating the dreariness of a world from which a per- sonal God has been banished, and opens his ear again to a wbrld all voiceful of a superintending care, and listens to the voice that cries from the ground from between the petals of the thing his foot crushes, then, his heart full, it will be true that to him ' The meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.' " (Rev. John K. Allen.) " We are plainly taught in the Holy Scriptures that God by his providence and by the illuminatijag and strengthening power of the Holy Spirit aids his faithful children on earth. We may not see in the openecj heavens chariots and horsemen waiting to swell the army of righteousness. But we may believe that a power mightier than armies is now ready to help us, as may be wisest and best. The sun may not pause in his course to lengthen our day of battle, but he who made sun and moon and stars, and guides them in their courses is our Friend and Father, and will not abandon his people." (President James B. Angell.) " Those who have ever traversed the plains of Mexico have seen the Cactacese family. The cactus has an ungainly leaf, fat and thick and full of thorns, so that, when men see it growing, they say : ' It is a clumsy and hateful thing, that is ugly to look upon, and that pierces you whenever you touch it.' Wait. When at last that plant, which grows in arid places, where hardly any weed will grow, with thick and succulent leaves, and a tough skin, and which stands almost 232 FAITH MADE EASY. without root through the whole year — when, at last, it has come to the point where it is developed, is there in the whole kingdom of beauty a blossom that is, for exquisiteness of form and tint, equal to the cactus blossom ? It is the very perfection of beauty growing out of the very emblem of homeliness. And as it is with the vegetable kingdom, so is it with many developments of the Divine kingdom. God's providence looks like a cactus-leaf — like an arid plant growing uselessly in the wilderness. But wait till it blossoms, and see how glorious is its beauty.'' (Henry Ward Beecher.) We would have it remembered that most cases of what men call special providence are the result, not of changes in the laws of na- ture, but of the Divine control of the subjects themselves. ' ' Man has a higher nature than the physical, and while the one is subject to all the laws that govern matter, the other is free. It may be influenced in a thousand ways, and its determinations have much to do with the welfare of the body. In this way God has often cared for his' own without miracles. He has restrained wicked men who would injure the good. He has made the incendiary, the slanderer, the murderer afraid to execute their malicious designs. He has gov- erned the beasts of the forests, and, as in the case of Daniel, shut their mouths." (Bishop Simpson.) " When a good man reflects on the lives of men, he sees no other clew to the meaning of manifold events than is contained in the doc- trine of God's special providence. The ancient Greeks and Bomans, despite their paganism, saw the uncertainties, the seeming caprices thrown into the lives of men, and into the history of nations. Having no clear conception of a personal, all-regulating Deity, yet conscious of the operation of some unseen force, they attributed the»changeful- ness of things to Fortune, symbolizing her guiding influence by a rud- der, and her fickleness by a globe or ball. But the Christian, standing in the light radiating from his Redeemer's words, sees, not an imagi- nary goddess, but his Heavenly Father, working in what seem to be the inexplicable events in men's lives. He knows that He whose right- eousness is his chief pursuit is pledged through the lips of the Master to provide him with food, clothing, home, and all other things which his Father knows him to need. And knowing this inspiring truth, he nestles by faith in the everlasting arms, saying : ' I know, O my Father, that thou wilt always provide for me!'" (O. H. Warren, D. D.) It is wonderful how many instances may be found connected with every life which illustrate the blessed truth of God's care for his WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 233 people — instances, perhaps, which you and I would^hesitate to relate for fear of being charged with weakness, but which after all are very comforting to us. I do not know that the late Bishop Edward Thomson was in the habit of relating that remarkable instance of his own preservation when a child, but it shows how God's hand was in his life. His father came to America when he (Edward) was eight years old. A pirate boat overtook their vessel in the high seas. The first mate of the pirate, on stepping aboard the vessel, met the captain thereof, and inquired his name. He was startled to find the captain's name his own. A moment's conversation revealed the fact that they were brothers, met for the first time after a separation of nearly twenty years. As a result, the pirates were restrained from their intended work of death, and Thomson was spared to bless the Church and the world. We are told that John Knox, the Scotch reformer, had many en- emies, who sought to compass his destruction. He was in the habit of sitting in a particular chair in his own house, with his back to the window. One evening, however, when assembling his family, he would neither occupy his accustomed seat nor allow any body else to do so. That very evening a bullet was sent through the window with a design to kill him. It grazed the chair which he usually occupied, a,nd made a hole in the candlestick. It is related of Augustine that he was going on one occasion to preach at a distant town, and took a guide to direct him on the way. By some means the guide mistook his way, and got into a by-path. It was afterwards discovered that a party of miscreants had designed to waylay and murder him, and that his life was saved through the guide's mistake. Charles of Bala was once saved from death by what some would call a foolish mistake. On one of his journeys to Liverpool his saddle-bag was put into the wrong boat. He had taken his seat when he discovered it, and had to change at the last minute. At first he was vexed and disappointed, but he afterwards learned that the boat in which he intended to go was lost, and all its passengers drowned. Howard, the philanthropist, was once preserved from death by what some would call mere chance, but which was no other than a special providence. He always set a high value on Sabbath privileges, and was exact and careful in his attendance on the means of grace. 234 FAITH MADE EASY. That he might neither increase the labor of his servants, nor prevent their attendance on public worship, he was accustomed to walk to the chapel at Bedford, where he attended. One day a man whom he had reproved for his idle and dissolute habits resolved to waylay and mur- der him. That morning, however, for some reason or other, he re- solved to go on horseback, and by a different road. Thus his valuable life was preserved. "It is said that Fletcher, when a young man, was very anxious to join the army to go to South America. The vessel was ready to start, friends secured him an appointment, but the morning he was to have sailed the servant, in coming into his room at breakfast, stum- bled and spilled over him the boiliug coffee, and so scalded him that he was unable to go on his journey. He lamented the accident — was disappointed in all his plans; but the vessel was never heard from. Fletcher was spared to become a preacher of the Gospel, a man who wielded by his pen, as well as by his voice, an overwhelming influence upon the minds of men, and being dead yet speaketh. No miracle was wrought. Wesley, the little boy, is sleeping up yonder in the upper story of Epworth Eectory. It is on fire ; he is forgotten ; but suddenly a woman remembers there is a child asleep, and she calls, and the child shows his head at the window ; and a brave man, at the risk of himself being burned, mounts a ladder, and the little fel- low throws himself iuto his arms, and is saved, and Wesley is spared to enlighten the world. No law of nature is violated ; but O ! these suggestions, these thoughts that drop from heaven, that change and mold the whole sphere of our lives ! This breathing ! God breathed into man, and he became a living soul. Jesus, when he rose from the dead, breathed, and said: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' That Spirit of breathing, that spiritual influence— it comes down on the hearts of men, and may change, and fashion, and mold, and save; and yet all these laws of nature remain uniform and immutable." (Bishop Simpson.) "Some years since, when in company with some good Christian workers in Lambeth, I ventured to make a remark that I did not be- lieve that any Christian could be found who could not, in the course of his life, refer to some especial instance of God's gracious provi- dence being exerted on his behalf. This led to conversation on the topic, and to the recital, on the part of several, of their experience of the truth stated. One brother, a man with a large family, and a lim- ited income as a clerk in a banking-house in the city, and who found it a constant struggle to meet family claims, gave the following WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 235 instance of help afforded to him in th6 time of need. He said : ' Some time ago one of my children, a little girl about five or six years of age, was very poorly, and one morning she said to me : "Father, I wish you would stay at home to-day." ' The request not appearing to him as urgent, made little impression. She, however, reiterated her wish till his wife said to him : ' Well, my dear, as she so much wishes it, perhaps you had better remain at home.' The good brother, therefore, ad- dressed a letter to his employers, the bankers, apologizing for his absence on the score of family affliction. In the evening of the same day he received a letter from one of the firm, expressing their sym- pathy, and inclosing for his acceptance a forty-pound note. We may easily imagine with what grateful feelings this good brother would re- tire to rest that night, and how in the morning he would be further instructed in God's dealings with his people, for in the morning the child died. ' Blind unbelief is sure to err,' but one must be blind not to discern in such a case as this ' the providence of God asserted,' and lessons for life and godliness suggested." (John Corderoy.) It is true that we can not solve every problem, every mystery, but why should we seek to? We are not in this life promised the key to all unknown, but perhaps in the other life many now inscru- table mysteries will be explained. We are told that the mind of a pious workman, named Thierney, was much occupied with the ways J of God, which appeared to him full of inscrutable mysteries. The two questions, "How?" and "Why?" were constantly in his thoughts, whether he considered his own life, or the dispensations of providence in the government of the world. One day, in visiting a ribbon man- ufactory, his attention was attracted by an extraordinary piece of machinery. Countless wheels and thousands of threads were twirling in all directions; he could understand nothing of its movements. He was informed, however, that all this motion was connected with the center, where there was a chest which was kept shut. Anxious to understand the principle of the machine, he "asked permission to see the interior. ' ' The master has the key," was the reply. The words were like a flash of light. Here was the answer to all the perplexed thoughts. Yes ; the Master has the key. He governs and directs all. It is enough. What need I know more? "He hath also established them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass." " When my dim reason would demand Why that or this Thou dost ordain, By some vast deep I seem to stand. Whose secrets I must ask in vain. 236 FAITH MADE EASY. Be this my joy, that evermore Thou rulest all things at thy will; Thy sovereign wisdom I adore, And calmly, sweetly, trust thee still." GOD'S PROVIDENCE, AND HUMAN SUFFEKING. "If there be a special providence, why, then, is it good people suffer, and bad people oftentimes flourish and have enjoyment? Here is a good man, and he is poor — his family are oppressed; and there _ is a bad man rioting in luxury, living in wickedness. Here is a pious woman ; she is left a widow, her orphan children are crying for bread ; she has no house to shelter them — poor, forsaken, friendless. And there is one in vice living in pomp and luxury. Now, how can it be there is a special providence if all these things occur? I answer, if there were only this world, I could not explain it. If people lived only for this world, I think there would be no key to God's provi- dences; but when I consider this world as but a kind of school-house — if I may use the phrase — that we are away from home, and at school, and simply preparing for life, that other life may be an explanation to all this. Now, for instance, it may be that it might not be best that you and I should be well placed. It may be that if we were we would give way to wickedness, that we would forget God. Many have been estranged from him by the accumulation of wealth. Gaining power and influence, they have become proud, and forgotten the hole of the rock whence they were hewn, or the pit whence they were digged. It might be so with us ; and rather than have us lost, God strips us of those things we would like to have here. The question is. Shall we have the things we desire here, and lose heaven, or shall we lose those things here, and gain heaven ? I think if the question had been asked Lazarus the day before he died, lying at the rich man's gate, having no friend to wait on him, and the dogs licking his sores, he would have said: 'It is hard to lie on the ground, to lie at the rich man's gate, to have no friend ; it is hard that these dogs should come and lick my sores. In yonder house there is luxury, there are friends, there are comforts ; it is hard to lie here.' But the next day, when he was in Abraham's bosom, and angels that bore him upward stood around him singing songs of joy, saying, ' One soul more is safe,' was he sad then ? Ah ! the passage from the cold ground and the rich man's gate to glory was a joyful one. And then afterward, when he looked across the great gulf, and there was the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GOD. 237 rich man, was he sad ? The one on earth had his good things ; the other had them reserved for glory. One had them in time ; the other in eternity. "It is impossible for us to tell. It may be God's good pleasure that we should suffer, but there is this certainty : whatever way we go heavenward bound, it is the right way. It may be along the banks of the precipice ; there may be deep places to go down and high places to go up. Never mind, so we reach glory. The strait path God sees for us, and he is taking us through it ; and when we get inside of heaven and look back, we would not have traveled any other way for all creation. There may be flowers just outside the path : our pathway does not lie over the flowers. There may be a smooth walk : it is not for our feet ; it is not our pathway to glory. God guides us in the path that will land us safely there ; so that the other world oftentimes unlocks the mysteries of this. "Then, besides that, there is another view. We are joined to- gether here by a great many ties. No man liveth for himself. As parents, we affect our children ; and oftentimes there may come what is called disaster for the very purpose of doing good to our families, and benefiting the world more largely. I do not know how it would have been in the case of Wesley. I doubt whether the world would ever have been so much benefited if his father had been a rich man, and if his mother had known ease and luxury ; but his father was a poor minister, and his mother with her own hands providing for a large household, toiling and suffering, and yet showing a Christian heart and Christian syinpathies, and teaching her children, showing them a heroic life in the midst of poverty and toil, and almost wretchedness, implanted such heavenly thoughts in the minds of her sons that they rose to eminence, and they learned to sympathize with the toiling masses. They knew how they lived, and how to drop words of cheer and life and joy into their hear.ts. There are parents whose death at the time seems inexplicable, and yet it may have been the best thing that could happen to the children. The sons may have been left to struggle, and yet that very struggle may have been essen- tial to the development of their character. Who has not seen the sons of poverty rise to eminence ? They have had to hew their own way, and carve their names on the great temple of fame, while the sons of luxury and ease and effeminacy fight no great battles in the world, accomplish no great victories, manifest no great heroism ; they simply inherit, and do but little more. There are noble exceptions, here and there; but the law seems to prevail through nature, that those 238 FAITH MADE EASY. who struggle in infancy and childhood are those who are able to struggle all through life. So I say there may be reasons connected with the life and history and doings of our families that may solve the mysteries that surround us. There are good men who go down in the sea, who die in poverty, who bear life's evUs very severely, but it may be all for the best for them; God may see it is just the way in which they should be led themselves, and the way that is best for their families." (Bishop Matthew Simpson.) Part IV WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. MORALITY. INTELLECTUAL BASIS OF MORALS. CONSCIOUSNESS is a condition of all knowledge. It is the mind's recognition of its own existence, volitions, and experiences. It is inherent knowledge of our own intellectual phenomena. When I say, "I exist, I think, I feel, I will," I affirm what I know by conscious- ness to be true. These are not inferences drawn from observation, but facts of my own being given me by consciousness. And so of all knowledge. We know what we know by becoming conscious of it. If you have a sensation, you know that you have it by consciousness. All emotions, fears, hopes, joys, sorrows, desires, choices, doubts, judgments, affirmations, denials, are given us by con- sciousness. Every thing external to us is known only by impressions upon our minds, and these impressions are revealed by consciousness. Of the impressions we are always certain, and thus far our knowledge is certain, but of the causes of impressions we may be ignorant, and hence be liable to err. "When God spoke from heaven to his Son Jesus, the people who heard were conscious of the sensation upon the auditory nerve. Here was no mistake. But they mistook the cause. They said it thundered. So, in forming our various judgments and opinions, we may mistake, but when consciousness testifies that we do judge or form an opinion, in this we can not be mistaken." In revealing himself to man through the instrumentality of the written Word, God assumed that certain things needed no further state- ment; man's consciousness of them is sufficient. The Bible never attempts to prove the reality of human existence. Man's knowledge of his own existence is so absolutely certain that further evidence of it would be absurd. So of man's ability to do certain things. The Bible does not tell us in so many words that we are capable of choice, 239 240 FAITH MADE EASY. but it says, "Choose!" Our ability to choose it takes for granted. We know that certain faculties are oura — the power of thinking, feeling, willing. We know that these faculties are separate from each o'ther and admit of classification. The terms which philosophers give them we may not understand, but we do understand the things in- tended by the terms. We are conscious of possessing the faculties called intelligence, sensibility, and free will. We think, feel, and will, and therefore we know we have these faculties. We are con- scious of perfect liberty to choose in view of motives. Men may in theory deny their own freedom, but in practice they invariably assume that man is free to accept or refuse any object of choice. No theorist was ever known to excuse another man's crime against himself on the plea of natural compulsion. When it comes to the punishment of the murderer, thief, or other wrong-doer, men are consistent with their own consciousuess of free-will power. We know by consciousness that certain things are subject to our wills ; that there is a necessary connection betwixt volition and out- ward action. If I will to open my hand, it opens in obedience to my will. If I determine to walk abroad, my limbs are obedient to my determination. If I decide to strike a blow, my arm performs its ofiice in accordance with the decision. Whatever we can do at all, we can do by willing. Even thought and feeling are measurably subject to our wiUs. By the aid of objects of attention we may trans- fer our thoughts from one subject to another, and cause emotions to change in more or less regular order. K I am thinking of the value of money, and become subject to a feeling of avarice, I may take up a book, or engage in conversation with another person, on the brevity of life, the certainty of death, and my inability to carry gold with me into the other world, and thus induce a train of thought and feeling entirely different from that which had engaged me. It is true that some ideas are not easily dislodged. It is hard, says John Locke, to get the mind, narrowed by a custom of thirty or forty years' standing to a scanty collection of obvious and common ideas, to enlarge itself to a more copious stock, and grow into an acquaintance with those that would aflbrd more abundant matter of useful contemplation. It is hard, too, to change attention from beloved studies which the mind sticks to, to matters duller but more necessary. A man passionately in love can not bring himself with ease to think of his ordinary affairs ; nor can a kind mother, drooping under the loss of a child, bear a part as she was wont in the conversation of her friends. WITAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 241 When the fancy is bound by passion, the only way to set the mind free is to allay the passion, or counterbalance it with another. This is an art acquired only by study. "Those who find themselves apt to be carried away with the spontaneous current of their own thoughts, not excited by any passion or interest, must be very wary and careful in all the instances of it to stop it, and never humor their minds in being thus triflingly busy. Men know the value of their corporeal liberty, and therefore suffer not willingly fetters and chains to be put upon them. To have the mind captivated is, for the time, certainly the greater evil of the two, and deserves our utmost care and en- deavors to preserve the freedom of our better part. And in this case our pains will not be lost; striving and struggling will prevail, if we constantly, in all such occasions, make use of it.'' To a certain extent we hold ourselves, and each other, responsible for the character of our thought and feeling. Universal experience teaches that man is capable, indirectly at least, of banishing unworthy or wicked thoughts, and of cherishing good ones. To aid him in this. Revelation is given with its vast jange of ennobling themes, and grace is supplied to enable man to set his mind upon them. Again : We are conscious of possessing in our intelligence a fac- ulty called reason, or the intuitive faculty, by which we perceive and afiirm absolutely certain truths which carry with them their own evi- dence. This faculty gives us, when certain conditions are fulfilled, all necessary, absolute, and universal truths. It is so infallible and uni- form in its affirmations that whenever the terms of a proposition are understood, every reason in the world will affirm the same things ; for example, mathematical truths, as that two and two equal four, or things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. These affirmations are so absolute that the mind can not doubt them. Among these self-evident truths are the -FIRST PRINCIPLES OF lyiORALS, such as : "1. That there is such a thing as right and wrong, and that the difference between them is fundamental. 2. That the exist- ence of these implies moral law. 3. That men have moral character. 4. That moral character impliss moral obligation. 5. That moral ob- ligation implies moral law and moral agency. 6. That moral' agency implies natural ability. 7. That natural ability implies the existence of intelligence, sensibility, and free will ; that is, that moral agents act- ually know, feel, and will. The mind does not call for proof of these things, but affirms them as absolute verities, and the Bible thei"efore 16 242 FAITH MADE EASY. assumes them as true. It assumes that moral agents do actually know, feel, and will. 8. That moral character does not and can not belong to the constitution of either body or mind, since it is impossible that a moral being should be either praiseworthy or blameworthy for his constitution. But moral character is necessarily either praiseworthy or blameworthy. 'It can not thus belong to the constitution. 9. That the constitutional appetites, desires, and passions can have no moral character in themselves, since they are in themselves involuntary ; for example, the appetite for food. Suppose yourself hungry, and in the presence of food. The appetite will naturally demand it from the very constitution, and can therefore in itself have no moral char- acter. The same is true of desires and passions whenever you are in the presence of objects adapted to awaken them. 10. This intuitive faculty affirms, that on the will's consenting to gratify any of these appetites, desires, or passions under forbidden circumstances, there is sin. For example, when Eve saw the fruit, her appetite naturally craved it. In this there was nothing wrong, but when she consented to gratify her appetite, notwithstanding it was prohibited, this was su- preme selfishness. Had it not been prohibited, the gratification would have been proper, but being prohibited, it was sin. It is the same respecting the gratifying of any desire or passion whatever. 11. This intuitive faculty asserts that moral character can not belong to any invdluntary act or state of mind whatever, nor to any outward actions. If I stab a man, the moral character of the act does not belong to the dagger, nor to the hand which held it, nor to the muscles of the arm, nor to the volition which impelled the arm, but to the intention. 12. It also asserts that moral character can not belong to the states of the sensibility — that is, to the various emotions or feelings for these are necessary ; nor to the states of the intelligence. There is no virtue in the perception of truth. Devils, and wicked men, as well as good men, perceive truth, and doubtless think correctly yn many subjects, and their reason aflSrms moral truths ; but there is no virtue in this. 13. It also asserts that moral character can not belong to volitions as distinguished from choices, for choice or intuition necessitates volition for the time being. 14. But it does assert that moral character belongs to the ultimate intention of the mind. Intention is the choice of an end. The ultimate intention is the last end chosen — that for which every thing else is chosen or done. I will illustrate the diflference be- tween ultimate and proximate intention. Suppose a young man labor- ing, and you inquire what he is laboring for. He says: 'To get money.' This is one end. But ask again. What do you want of WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINQ BEBEMPTION. 243 money ? He says : ' To buy books.' This is another end. Ask again, What do you want of books? He says: 'To get knowledge.' This is another end. But continue the inquiry, What do you want of knowledge? He says: 'To preach the gospel.' This is still another end. But you may ask farther. What do you want to preach the gos- pel for ? He replies : ' To do good ; because the good of the universe is valuable in itself.' This is the last end — the ultimate intention, and all the previous ends are only means to this, or what are called proximate ends. But in this case the whole moral character of all the process belongs plainly to the ultimate intention. In this all eth- ical philosophers, worthy of note at the present day, agree. It is plainly the doctrine of the Bible, and thus the Bible and natural theology are at one precisely.'' THE MORAL LAW. " The Moral Law is that rule of action which has its foundation in the nature and relations of moral beings. It diifers from advice, in that it is obligatory in its nature. Advice may be good, but ad- vice creates no obligation. It is understood by the one giving and the one receiving the advice, that it may be followed or neglected with impunity. It differs from physical laws in that it imposes an ob- ligation upon mind, and not upon matter. It differs from mere local and positive enactments, in that it is universally binding, while the latter impose obligation only in particular circumstances. Thus the Ten Commandments are of universal obligation. But the internal policy of the Jewish nation — the rites and ceremonies required by their law, though binding on them, are of no possible obligation to others, because the reasons for these laws no longer exist. It differs from human laws in that it is positive in its character. It requires actual obedience, the obedience of the heart, while the latter are only negative, forbidding certain selfish acts. God's law requires virtue. Human laws forJ)id the practice of vice. Thus a man must love the law of God in his heart, or he merits and will receive all its penalty, even though he may be, in his outward conduct, strictly moral. But a man may heartily hate all the human laws under which he lives ; yet while he refrains from outward acts of disobedience, the law takes no cognizance, inflicts no penalty. So a man may intend to keep the spirit of human law, and yet may commit an act for which he will have to suffer its penalty, simply because the law looks to the act and the influence of the act upon the public mind, more than to the intention. And a man may also commit an act which 244 FAITH MADE EASY. seems inconsistent with the moral law and not be condemned because his intention was to obey the law, simply because this law looks to the intention and not to the act. In a word, moral law is the universal rule of right. It comprises the whole duty of moral beings towards God, and towards man. It is obligatory upon all moral beings, simply because they are moral beings. " It implies the existence of an intelligent, rightful lawgiver — one who knows what is adapted to the nature and relations of his sub- jects — and one who has a right to require obedience, and inflict the penalty due to disobedience. ' ' Law is the standard by which the character of men's conduct is tried. Thus the civil law is the standard of men's outward actions. To this standard all their conduct is brought, and by it they are ac- quitted or condemned. Without such a law there could be no stand- ard to which their conduct could be brought, and by which their character could be decided. So the moral law is the standard of sin and holiness, the standard by which our intentions are tried. By this law every thought and feeling of every moral being will be tried. And our character will be holy or sinful in proportion as we are con- formed to this standard or otherwise. " The moral law is divided into two great precepts — supreme love to God, and equal love to man. These two precepts embrace the whole. They are perfectly simple. And they require the love of dis- interested benevolence — towards all, irrespective of their moral char- acter — and of complacency towards the holy. This love must be a settled principle and not a mere emotion of the mind. The law has a double sanction — eternal life for the obedient, and eternal death for the disobedient. "The moral law is perfect. It requires just what is right, and nothing more, and admits of nothing less. The whole law is epito- mized by Jesus Christ thus : ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength ; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' This, as said above, embraces the whole. And this is required because it is just right. God is every way worthy of our supreme love. If the law required less than the love of the whole heart, it would require less than we actually owe to God. If it required more, it would re- quire what we are naturally unable to give. So we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, because he is just as worthy of love as ourselves, and no more so. If the law permitted us to love him less than we love ourselves, it would permit less than is actually his due. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 245 If it required more love than -we may exercise towards ourselves, it ■would require more than is his due, because he is just as good and no better than we are. The law then recognizes the equal brotherhood of man, else it would be an imperfect law. It requires us to love every moral being according to his actual worth. It is therefore a perfect law. " Every Christian should have the ground of his belief in the per- fect and permanent obligation of the moral law well settled, lest he be led into error by the false reasonings of those who maintain that faith in Christ abrogates or so fulfills the law as to render it no longer binding. " The law of .God is one of the things which can not be repealed. It has its foundation in the nature and relations of moral beings. Every moral being is capable of understanding the diflPerence between right and wrong — that he is bound to choose the right and avoid the wrong. Every moral Tjeing, also, is capable of perceiving his relations to other moral beings. Were they made otherwise — that is, were they made like the brutes with no knowledge of their nature and relations — no obligation could be imposed upon them. None can afSrm oughtness of a brute, or of any thing else except a being that has the power to perceive and to feel oughtness. Because man is made capable of knowing and obeying the law, it becomes a law to him. It needs only to be stated — supreme love to God, and equal love to man, and every moral being feels its rightfulness and its obligation. "Were the law some mere local precept, merely adapted to man in particular circumstances, such as the internal policy of the Jewish nation, it might be repealed when the circumstances which called it into being were changed. But it never was the creature of circum- stances, and it never can be affected by circumstances. "The Bible everywhere recognizes the law as of perpetual obliga- tion. ' I came not,' says our beloved Savior, ' to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.' ' Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' The Bible assumes the perpetual obligation of the' law, as the ground of its solemn arguments, and expostulations, and its appeals to man, as the data upon which it proceeds to convince and entreat men in respect to their duty. The giving of the law was attended by the most im- pressive scenes. The most unanswerable arguments and pungent appeals were made «to induce the Jews not to forget the Lord who brought them out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of 246 FAITH MADE EASY. bondage. The ceremonial law had no such scenes attending its announcement. Indeed it seems to be regarded as of little worth, except so far as it was a means to keep in mind and secure obedience to the moral law. Thus the Bible adds its impressive testimony to what may be learned without any Bible indeed, that the precepts of the law are by no means ever to be done away, that the strictest obedience to them is now and ever must be insisted upon, that it can never, be repealed. "The moral law has a sanction. This sanction is designed to secure obedience. It is a sanction equal to the importance of the law, and the law is just as important as God's character, the stability of his government, and the welfare of the universe are. The sanction comprehends all that is meant by motives to obedience. It includes all the rewards for obedience, and all the punishments for disobedi- ence. The penalty of the law is not punishment in this life, nor is it natural death, for then the sinner might demand an entrance to heaven, irrespective of the grace of Christ. When the penalty has been inflicted and exhausted, salvation is not of grace, but is due. A man who had served out his time in the penitentiary would not accept a pardon from the governor. He would claim release as a matter of justice. So when the sinner has endured the troubles inci- dent to this life, and has suffered natural death, he will not receive pardon, but demand a place in heaven in spite of God, and as a matter of right, if that be the penalty of the law. " Nor is the penalty spiritual death or sin. For that would be to make the sin and penalty the same, and would be almost as reason- able as for a human statute to decree that when a man steals he shall continue a thief all his life. "But it is eternal death. Sin is a violation of an obligation. The desert of the sin is proportioned to the magnitude of the au- thority violated. God's authority is infinite, for his character is infinite in all things. The authority violated, then, is infinite. And sin be- comes an infinite evil, not because it is committed by an infinite being, but because it is the violation of an infinite obligation. The penalty must be eternal, else it would fall short of that which is due. And, as all admit that death of some kind is the penalty, it must be eternal death. The sanction, then, is double — eternal life to the obedient, and eternal death to the disobedient. "This sanction is adapted to our nature as moral beings. All understand what is meant by being rewarded for a virtuous course. And all know that the reward has a tendency to perpetuate such a WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO REDEMPTION. 247 course. Peace of conscience, the harmony of the moral powers, the approbation of God, and the sweet rest of the soul — the reward of obedience to the moral law — has a tendency to perpetuate that obedi- ence. All know, too, what is meant by the penalty for wrong-doing. Who has not felt the rebukes of conscience, the war of the moral powers, the agony of conscious absence from God ? And who can not see that the proper influence of the penalty is to make men avoid sin? Let it not be said that the penalty has no such influence be- cause men do sin. They may sin in spite of it ; but who can measure the amount which, after all, is prevented by the penalty? Let the belchings forth of human depravity which were seen in infidel France, and which are uniformly seen when men's confidence in the veracity of God is shaken, answer. The penalty of the law may be a silent, unacknowledged power, but it is not unfelt. It tends to keep men steady in the absence of love to God. "The sanction wiU be eternal in its duration. This is plainly asserted Jn the Bible. And every good man has a conviction which nothing can disturb, that the joys he experiences here, in consequence of his steady purpose of heart to obey God, are only a foretaste of what he shall enjoy forever. He has a perfect and sweet and blessed assurance that his heaven has but commenced below, that the kind of joy he here experiences will be continued, and that its degree will be increased to eternity. And the wicked man knows that his remorse is only the beginning of those tortures which shall last forever. He has just as perfect though terrible assurance that he is but commenc- ing an anguish of soul that shall never end ; that, continuing in sin, there remains for him only ' a certain fearful-looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation.'" ADAM'S FALL. In the opinion of President S. C. Bartlett, LL. D., the,narrative of the first sin has not only a consistency that grows on the contem- plation, but ofiers the only solution of the dim traditions of the distant past. It has been not uncommon to question the fitness of the pro- hibition as a test of obedience, as though out of keeping with the magnitude of the occasion. But a moment's reflection shows that not only could the principle of a genuine obedience be tested as well in that mode as any other, but, what is more important, that some such method was the only one in keeping with the circumstances of the narrative, and, further yet, the only method practicable in those simplest conditions of early life. All the complicated relations of 248 FAITH MADE EASY. advanced civilization, and even of society, were wanting. Here were two persons in a garden of nature. Fraud, theft, adultery, arson, robbery, were impossible, murder as yet inconceivable, all overt acts of cruelty, if not impossible, yet without a possible motive. What other form of test could or can well be devised than just such as that adopted, standing thus related to their actual life and condition f To a profounder reflection it carries on its face the stamp of verisimilitude, and those more striking devices which the objection would require, would, in their inconsistency, brand the narrative as untrue. And while in some aspects mystery must hang over any speculation on the modes of the first human sin, our narrative offers perhaps all the help that can be given, when it traces the source of the seduction to an outer influence, distinctly explained in the New Testament, as "that old serpent which is called the devil and Satan," and when it couples with the persuasions of the appetite the specious inducement of a higher good — "ye shall be as gods" — and a pressure applied to the more emotional of the pair. And while the real agent is thus identi- fied" with Satan, I see— in accordance with a narrative which describes all as it appeared — no fair mode of escaping from the recognition of the actual objective appearance of a serpent, chosen for the reason suggested in the narrative, the subtlety of the movement that comes and goes so stealthily and unexpectedly, and the association thereby awakened. The one grave objection, that this is the concession of a miraculous transaction for the purpose of deception, is perhaps suffi- ciently answered by saying that to them it was no miracle — for there was no adequate knowledge of a settled course of nature — but an ordinary phenomenon. HUMAN DEPRAVITY. The rape of mankind is depraved. St. Paul tells us so in the first chapter of Romans. But were the Bible silent upon the question, the fact would still remain. "When a machine is out of order," says Beecher, "and the vari- ous parts grate and grind against each other, it is not necessary to say to one who hears the grinding, ' It is out of order.' Therefore no time is spent in the New Testament to prove that men are depraved. It is assumed to be a thing of universal consciousness — as it is." "If you should see a house with its gable end in ruins," says Hep worth, " with its broken pillars lying in heaped-up confusion on the ground, half covered up with trailing vines and moss, you would not WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 249 hesitate to say : ' This building has suffered damage at some time ; it was not like this when it came from the hand of the builder.' I say this of man. He is not in a normal condition.^' The doctrine of human depravity does not mean that every man is just as bad by nature as he can be. We know that a man may have many virtues and amiable qualities, yet his whole nature — mind, affection, and will — is still unresponsive to the great law of God: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Depravity is total. "The original image is marred and broken, every way defaced, and the divine purpose in man's creation destroyed; nevertheless, there is much remaining that witnesses of its heavenly origin, and, in itself, is entirely such as God would have it be. By the totality of man's natural depravity is meant that he is totally fallen from his first estate of holiness. What is naturally good in him is not lioly, because it does not spring from any principle of subjection to the Divine will. By nature men are totally fallen into a state in which they ' can not please God.' Even what is good in them fails to win for them the Divine favor, because it lacks the holy motive which alone can sanctify it. Totally fallen from God, the natural state of man is one in which the whole tendency in him is to depart from God more and more, so that without the intervention of recovering and renewing grace through our Lord Jesus Christ, all the progressive development of natural character is certain to be in the direction of evil." (Rev. Alfred Wheeler, D. D.) This doctrine does not mean that all men are equally bad. We know that some are worse by nature than others, but all are bad enough. The very best man does not by nature come up to God's requirement. Sin is universal. It is in every, life. It begins with life, and is as natural as appetite. Man would rather sin than not to sin, just as he would rather eat than not to eat. Sinning is the bent of his nature. As says Dr. Bayliss : " In going to a city, a man who has choice of several ways selects the best ; but in going to eternity, man naturally selects the road that is not the best. For this is the very nature of sin ; it is the spirit of disobedience ; it rejects authority ; it takes a wrong way be- cause it is wrong. It does not want to go by the right way. And this is God's doctrine about man. He does not say that every man is a murderer, but he does say every man is a sinner; he may revolt against robbery, but he also revolts against prayer ; he may not love violence, but neither does he love God. This is true of all men. Some are born with genius, but none with the love of God. Some 250 FAITH MADE EASY. are by nature hungry for knowledge, but none is naturally hungry for holiness. This is God's teaching, and is it not our own experience and observation?" SIN AS IT IS. Sin is the blackest fact of human history, and of human life. It darkens the moral world as with the great shadow of an eclipse. It shuts out much of the light of God, and truth, and hope, and heaven. Men fail to recognize great spiritual verities simply because of sin. Their understandings are darkened, and they lack spiritual discernment. Speculate as they please, and deny the fact of depravity as they may, the record is there — the great fact confronts them at every turn. They are sinners- — many of them unpardoned, unrec- onciled, hopeless, persistent sinners ; willfully, or at least voluntarily, violating God's law, and refusing conformity to God's holy will. This sin is their own. "It is not Adam's, though Adam sinned, but their own. Men inherit depravity, but they do not inherit sin. The de- pravity may be the occasion of sin, but it is not the cause of it. Adam was not guilty of our sin, nor are we guilty of Adam's sin. We are guilty for our sinful state, as well as sinful life. Sin is more than the outward violation of law. Sin is the willing tendency of the heart toward wrong. Guilt may exist without open transgression. He that would murder his brother if he could, and fails to do so only for lack of opportunity or strength or skill, is a murderer in the sight of God. All evil desires which are not gratified simply for want of opportunity are guilt-incurring. They render the soul as guilty before Heaven as if the acts were committed. Sin is more than an act. It is the assent of the mind to do .wrong, the yielding of the will to accept the propositions of Satan. A sinful life is Satanic bondage. The mind is ever thralled by evil tendency and aversion to purity — "a soul that, struggling to be free, is more enthralled.'' The sinful soul can not liberate itself. Like the vine that withers in the furrow where it grows, unable to build a trellis for itself on which to leap up, so the soul is helpless in its downward bent, each sinful act adding to the momentum of its swift career toward the pit. " They talk of the dignity of human nature. Alas ! there is no such thing ! There once was, when the nature was stainless ; but they for- get that the blight has marred its beauty, and has stricken its strength, and that the only moral dignity it can boast of now is the dignity of the criminal saved, by the monarch's clemency, from the doom of the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 251 headsman or the gallows. You may try the experiment in its varied aspects for yourselves. ' ' You may take a child in what you call its innocence and its sensibility, and deeming, with some among us, that all children are born good, you may assiduously instruct it in the principles of morals, and you may carefully exclude it from the contagion of evil example, and you may write upon its fresh young heart the benevolent affec- tions and the holy name of God ; and then you may watch gradually for the development of the nature that you have thus started and trained. Ah! but you were too late in the field. "You'deemed that your inscription was the first that was written there, but the enemy has been at work before you; the heart had been over-written before you had got to it. Let the passions play upon the opening mind, hold it iip to the lamp of opportunity, and, in hell's dark cipher, you can trace the blurred and misshapen char- acters of crime ; in the failure of your cherished experiment you dis- cover that even prime ministers, however cleverly they may wield the destinies of empires, are but clumsy theologians, and that there is an- other attestation to the truth of the declaration of the Bible, that man goeth astray even from the womb, and that every imagination of the heart is only evil continually." (William Morley Punshon, LL. D.) But there is hope. Christ lives to save. From the downward tendency and despairing thralldom of a sinful life he is able to de- liver. He alone can save. And he will save abundantly. All who have sought deliverance through him have found the freedom they craved. It was Wm. Wilberforce who, at the close of one of his busiest years, recorded in his journal this secret meditation: "If I have made any progress, it is in the clearer discovery of my own ex- ceeding sinfulness and weakness. Yet I am convinced it is my own fault. Let me not acquiesce, then, in my sinful state, as if it were not to he escaped from. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Yes, we may, I may, become holy. Push forward, then, O my soul! strive more vigorously; God and Christ will not refuse their help." This is true in every case. God and Christ are pledged to save seeking souls. They that seek shall find. Those that find not seek not. The finding is as certain as the earnest seeking. Let us seek freedom from the sin that enslaves us, that drags us downward, that robs of peace and happiness and heaven. Let us get on the upward grade, if we are not there now. Let us lay aside every weight, and with cleansed, sanctified souls make rapid progress toward the sinless land of heaven. 252 FAITH MADE EASY. THE ATONEMENT. We must give earnest thought to the doctrine of the atonement. It is the central idea of the sacred Scriptures, the corner-stoue of the Christian edifice. No other doctrine is so connected with the types, prophecies, promises, and declarations of the Old and New Testaments, and also with the experience and practice of the Christian believer in every age of the --world. Without it the light of ancient truth is clouded, the glory of actual religious experience shadowed, and the hope of immortality and eternal life placed upon a slender foundation. We shall not be able to comprehend every why and wherefore of this great doctrine. It has bearings that extend beyond man's power of understanding. Its truth we may know, and its power we may feel. It is with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness. The mind apprehends the truth, is impressed with the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the infinite condescension of God's love in devising the means of pardon, but the heart is chiefly affected in the work of salvation. Let us seek to understand the facts of redemption. Let us study them in the light of God's truth, and strive to appreciate their im- portance. The English word "atonement" is supposably derived from "at- one-ment," primarily signifying "reconciliation.'' As generally used, the word involves the idea of "expiation," "propitiation," "satisfac- tion," "price of redemption." In the Old Testament it is "the cover over" sin, or ground of reconciliation between God and man. It con- veys the idea of value received, or satisfaction rendered. Under the Mosaic economy atonement was provided by purchase, the price being the same to all. (Ex. xxx, 15, 16.) Other contributions were vol- untary, according to the ability or liberality of the offerer, but this one " offering to the Lord" was the "ransom" of their souls, and was one sum for all above twenty years of age. Those who refused it had no interest in the sacrifice, and were liable to visitation by the "plague." (Ex. xxx, 12.) In the Christian dispensation the blood of Christ avails as the purchase price of the soul's redemption. (1 Cor. vi, 20; Eev. v, 9.) This price is more precious than material offer- ings. (1 Pet. i, 18, 19.) It is more efficacious than the blood of ancient sacrifices. (Heb. ix, 11-14.) As a "ransom" or "propitia- tion " it avails for all mankind. "He is the propitiation for our sins : and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNINO REDEMPTION. 253 (1 John ii, 2.) As a result of it, all men may be delivered from the "plague" of sin, and restored to the Divine favor. The word " atonement" occurs but once in the New Testament (Rom. v, 2), and the Revised Version substitutes for this the word "reconciliation." This does not change the force in any respect, for all the passages of the Bible which refer to the subject convey the central idea of "a change, that is, of state between parties previously at variance." "Reconciliation and atonement," says Dr. Angus, "are in all the New Testament, except Heb. ii, 17, translations of the same word, and mean the state of friendship and acceptance into which the Gos- pel introduces us." "Our Lord Jesus Christ," says Prof. James T. Hyde, "of his own free will, and in obedience to his Father's will, suffered and died as a sacrifice for sin ; by his precious blood fulfill- ing the Jewish sacrifices, bearing our sin as if it were his own, with a perfect love, sympathy, and patience, that he might redeem us from sin and misery, save us from wrath, vindicate God's justice in showing mercy, and reconcile us unto God." But how did Christ become our "ransom?" We know that — "Our sins on Christ were laid; He bore the mighty load; Our ransom price he fully paid. In groans, and tears, and blood." But how? This question brings forward the idea of "substitution." " He took, the dying traitor's place, And suffered in his stead; For sinful man — O wondrous grace! — For sinful man he bled!" The word " substitution" is not to be found in the Bible, but the idea is very prominent. " We find it," says Rev. Jesse Bird, " impressively represented in Abraham's offering of his son Isaac. The son was de- manded. The wood, the fire, the knife were ready, the victim bound, the hand raised — when the stroke was arrested. The substitute was ready, offered, and accepted, and Isaac went free. So the life of man was demanded by the law. All was ready for its execution, when the Son of God stands forth, saying : ' Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.' I will meet the demands of thy justice, and in due time I will go and die to recover the lost, and bring back to our love and embrace them that are adjudged to death. The Father accepts the Son, and man goes free. He is ransomed, redeemed." In Leviticus i, 4, we read: "He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; and it shall be 254 FAITH MADE EASY. accepted for him to make atonement for him." In 1 John iii, 16, we read again: "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.'' In these representative passages the doctrine of substitntion is plainly taught. The general tenor of numberless texts sets forth the truth that Christ was made a curse for us ; that he gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins ; and that he laid down his life for ours. This is the procuring cause of redemption. "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus ; who gave himself a ransom for all." (1 Tim. ii, 5, 6.) Back of this is the moving cause, the love of God. " In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John iv, 9, 10.) For us he was made a curse, that we might be redeemed from the curse. (Gal. iii, 13.) For us who were under the law, and had incurred the law's awful penalty, he became man, and was made under the law to redeem us, and confer upon us the adoption of sons. (Gal. iv, 5, 6.) But did Christ's death satisfy offended justice, and pay the penalty due to our transgressions? Yes, and no. The word "satisfaction" is a much abused term. Some see in this the "sole cause of our present and eternal salvation." Their theory is that Christ died instead of them, whereas he died for them, that through his stripes they might be healed. He suffered his blood to be shed, not unconditionally to buy the pardon of our "guilt, but that God might freely and graciously pardon us if we accept his salvation freely offered. " On the principle that there must be satisfaction," says Lindesie, "the question arises, To what extent, and for whom? And another question is raised. Is it for all, or only for some? This one question divided the Reforma- ' tion into two great sections, and has been, and remains to this day, a source of hatred and alienation between those who bear the Christian name, and in other respects are nearly one. One section sing: The other : ' For us his vital blood was spilt, To buy the pardon of our guilt.' ' Thou hast for all a ransom paid, For all a full atonement made.' " Yet we believe the fact involved in both couplets; viz., that Christ died a ransom for all. Our Savior's words at the Last Supper were : " For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 255 many for the remission of sins." (Matt, xxvi, 28.) The words do not explain how this should be so, but they assert a direct connection be- tween his death and the remission of sins. He who knew no sin was made a sin-offering for us. "It is not important," remarks an eminent jurist, =1^ "that we should now know how the remission of sin is the result of the death of Christ. It is sufficient to know that through his death remission is bestowed. He suffered and died for our deliverance from death eternal, and through faith in him we are to gain the life everlasting. Though this truth may not be developed further, it is the grandest doctrine ever believed by man. Our Savior's words are sufficient to teach us that the blessing we are to gain by his death is the remission of sin, but the nature of the connection is left unexplained." We accept what Isaiah says in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy: "He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." We believe St. Peter when he says Christ " suffered, the just for the unjust.'' We know that our Lord did not literally assume our guilt or endure our punishment. "He did not suffer the same as sinners in kind, amount, or degree. But it was as if he did. He suffered in hehalf of the world. (1 John ii, 2.) He died in the place or stead of many. (Matt, xx, 28 ; 1 Tim. ii, 6.) His sacrifice, in its whole character and impression, must an- swer the ends of Divine justice and mercy for those who are recon- ciled to God. Tliis view has prevailed in the Greek, Roman, Lu- theran, and Reformed Churches. In substance it belongs to the whole Bible, and to the Church universal. (Isa. liii.)" The sufferings were not penal, but in the nature of a voluntary chastisement, a satisfac- tion to God's righteousness, rather than to his retributive justice. "What Christ did," says Evans, "was to offer satisfaction to Divine righteousness, in order to procure a suspension of the penalty threat- ened by Divine justice." The result pf this satisfactory offering was a new foundation, standing upon which individual man, to the end of time, might enjoy the same probationary privileges which the federal head of the race enjoyed before the fall in Eden. Thus says Dr. Amos Binney: "The guilt of original sin is covered by the atone- ment, and is not imputed to any of the offspring of Adam until its remedy is willfully rejected. Hence all who die in infancy are saved through Christ, the second Adam, from all the penal consequences of the sin of the first Adam. (Rom. v, 18, 19.) The atonement arrested » Hon. E. L. rancher, LL. D. 256 FAITlI MADE EASY. the extinction of the human race, and its propagation after the fall is under the provision of grace. (Gen. iii, 15 ; Heb. ii, 14.)" The atonement is best understood by the experience of its benefits. Cold speculation is of little avail. "The atonement," says Hudson, "can only appear rational to such as have sounded, in their own ex- perience, the awful waters of remorse." Dr. Shedd thinks th^t " Cole- ridge's exposition of the doctrine of redemption would have been very different had his own Christian consciousness been the result of such an inward conflict with guilt as Luther's, or of such a keen insight into the nature of law and justice as Calvin's." " If I were not a be- liever in the historic Christ," beautifully affirms Joseph Cook, "I could find in philosophy no peace for my soul. When I am delivered from the love of sin, I am not from the guilt of it. I want an atone- ment. I want the sight of the cross to melt me and produce in my soul the new birth." Was the atonement really necessary ? Was Christ's death the only means of man's life and salvation ? It is so believed. Otherwise neither the Father nor the Son could have consented to it. Remember with what agony Jesus prayed, saying : " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Matt: xxvi, 39.) Had it been " possible," in the Divine economy, we may suppose that God would have spared his Son. As in the ancient order almost all things were by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood was no remission, so, as Paul tells us (Heb. ix, 22, 23, 28), " it was therefore necessary that the pattern of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ... So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." The atonement is necessary because man is unable to atone fof himself. Even though, under social restraints, he could repent and reform, that would not cancel the past. God requireth the past. He can forgive the sins of the past only when atonement is made. Atone- ment is possible only by one who has never sinned, otherwise he would require a sacrifice for himself. " He who would for sin atone Must have no failings of his own." Man's nature now is such that self-reformation is impossible. The momentum toward evil is so great that he can not overcome it. He did not stand when holy; how shall he now be acceptable, being guilty and polluted ? Gospel grace is his only hope. The atonement is his only foundation. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 257 "The atonement," says Prof. Hyde, "had primary reference to God. Not that it propitiated and reconciled God, or made him good, kind, and merciful — for it was he who provided, as well as accepted it (John iii, 16 ; Rom. iii, 25 ; 2 Cor. v, 19) — but it was required by sin as an offense to God, by God's just displeasure and yet strange forbearance with sinners, by his need of acting in manifest harmony with himself, and by their need of being reconciled to him rightly or without injury and dishonor. It set forth his righteousness in showing mercy. So it brought about an entire change in God's relations to man — ' the reconciliation' which we are simply to ' receive.' (Rom. iii, 25, 26; v, 10.) Now it concerns man chiefly, since he alone needs to be reconciled. It is adapted to his sense of guilt, his ill-desert for the past, and inability to make amends for it, his liability, even if penitent, to inward pain, fear, and despair, and his aversion to repent ^cept in sight of such suffering and dying love." Theologians ground the necessity of the atonement in — 1. The holiness of the Divine character. God is holy, and loves holiness in his creatures. He hates sin, and is eternally arrayed against it. Something therefore must be done before the holy God and the unholy sinner can come together. This something Christ effected by his death. In Christ Jesus ye who sometime were far off are made nigh ; for he is our peace. He has reconciled us unto God by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. (Eph. ii, 15, 26.) 2. In the sovereignty of God. His will is law. Sin is rebellion against his wiU. It is an expression of hostility toward God. It is an effort to overthrow the Divine rule. This would result in the ruin of the race. Sin, therefore, must be checked. Its punishment is unavoidable. 3. In the justice of God. He must protect the innocent. He must chastise the guilty. He must bring the offender to justice. The atonement solves the problem how God can be just, and yet the jus- tifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Rom. iii, 26.) 4. In the honor of the law. That honor must be sustained. A law violated with impunity is a dishonor. The non-enforcement of any rightful civil statute is a stain upon the State. It is unthinkable that the Omnipotent Executor should fail in the execution of his law. He would save man, but in doing so can sacrifice no principle of his government. To pardon the sinner is to make void the law. To make void the law is to weaken the whole moral system. Nothing is firm. The feeling of obligation wanes away, and the sense of se- curity dies. There is no alternative. The honor of the law is of first 17 258 FAITH MADE EASY. importance. To sustain that honor, and yet permit the forgiveness of the penitential transgressor, was the problem which the Divine mind had to solve. The outcome was the cross of Christ, and the pardon of the sinner by faith. (Rom. iv, 15, 16.) ■' God's holy law transgressed, Speaks nothing but despair; Convinced of guilt, with grief oppressed. We find no comfort there. Relief alone is found In Jesus' precious blood: 'T is this that heals the mortal wound, And reconciles to God." • Jesus magnified the law and made it honorable, just as Isaiah prophesied that he would. (Isa. xlii, 21.) " The whole effect of the Redeemer's Avork," says Albert Barnes, " is to do honor to the law of God ; nor has any thing occurred in the history of our world that has done so much to maintain its authority and binding obligation, as his death on the cross in the place of sinners." 5. In the requirements of the law. God's law is positive as well as negative. The subject must not only not violate it, but he must fulfill it. The moral law requires supreme love to God and impartial love to man. This "is the rule of reason and righteousness." How, then, shall the transgressor not only be pardoned, but so purified that the evil propension shall be eradicated, and the heart go out in burn- ing affection for both God and man ? Only by bringing into the same system with man a being possessed of his nature, yet with moral worth rising as far above law as that of man falls below it, and by his sac- rifice institute a new order of things, a system of justification and a dispensation of love. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." " Christ's sacrifice was a love-sacrifice, a sacrifice produced by Divine love. The law required obedience, but could not produce it. It required love, but could not beget love. The sacrifice of Christ is a revelation of Divine love, and hence, as every thing begets its kind, by the love of God manifest in Christy love for God is begotten in believers." "If men love God, they will keep his commandments." Faith dis- poses men to love and to obey ; it casts out sin, works by love, puri- fies the heart, and overcomes the world. The Scriptures plainly declare that Christ came not to destroy the law. The law was em- bodied in his life. By fulfilling the law lie redeemed us from the curse of the law. " By his sufferings the guilt of sin was rebuked, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 259 condemned, and a satisfactory equivalent oflfered to God. The Divine government was maintained, the law was magnified, God's hatred for sin exhibited and his love for holiness displayed, and all this in a manner more striking than if a world had sunk beneath the curse of an offended God." HOW WE ARE SAVED. The atonement makes salvation possible ; the next important ques- tion is, How salvation is made a reality. What is it that saves? How is the soul brought into the consciousness of peace? What re- moves the burden of sin and fills the heart with the sense of peace ? These questions will bring into view, in their order, the doctrines of Repentance, Faith, Justification, Regeneration, and Adoption, but to make sure we are on solid ground, I will here submit pointed state- ments from inspired writers and representative men who testify upon these vital points. First, listen to Jesus. The people inquired : ' ' What shall we do, that we might work the works of God ? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him. What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee ? what dost thou work f Our fathers did eat manna in the desert ; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven ; bi,it my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him. Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." (John vi, 28-35.) Here we see faith presented as the supreme condition of salvation. The sayings of Christ throughout the whole period of his ministry abound with this doctrine. The apostle Paul also made it prominent in his teachings. Hear him when writing to the Romans : " But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth; and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture 260 FAITH MADE EASY. saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek : for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear 'with- out a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things ! But they have riot all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith. Lord, who hath be- lieved our report ? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Hear St. John: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God ; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." Let us now consider some uninspired statements and testimonies. "The theory of all redemption," says Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, "has its mysteries; the practical part of our religion, which is trusting and obeying a Redeemer, is no mystery. A mill operative, who was troubled about his soul, received a letter requesting him to come to the office of the mill at five o'clock. The Christian employer said to him : ' James, do you wish to see me ?' The workman, holding up the note, said: 'I got this letter from you.' 'O!' said the master, 'I see that you believed that I wanted to see you, and you have come promptly. Now here is another letter sent to you by One who was in still more earnest to have you come to him.' Saying this, he held open a Bible in which James read slowly the words : ' Come — unto — me — and — I will — give — you — rest.' The tears came into the eyes of the poor fellow, as he inquired: 'Am I to believe that in the same way I did your letter?' 'Exactly in the same way, James; and if you receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.' That so cleared the path of salvation to the workman's eye that he perceived God asked to be treated in the same way that his earthly employer did. Jesus propounds no riddle when he invites you and me to come to him just as the blind beggar and the penitent harlot came." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 261 To the question, "What saves men?" President W. F. Warren, LL. D., has given this answer: "The gracious operation of God's Holy Spirit in a soul at first made conscious of its needs, then at length withholding opposition to the discernment and acknowledgment of the right, then yielding to, then co-operating with the Divine Spirit with all the freedom and delightful 6lan of a consciously renewed and righted personality. " 'TP^^' does this save? 'Why deliver from the guilt and love of sin?' " 1. Because it precisely undoes that doing which brought the guilt and love of sin upon the soul. "2. Because an experience of the kind described without the deliverance of the soul from the guilt and love of sin, is intrinsically unthinkable. "3. Because God's part in it, as described, is precisely what his nature and character and government demand in the case. "4. Because man's part in it, as described, is precisely what his nature and relations and needs demand in the case. " 5. Because any different adjustment of the related Divine and human activities in salvation would not accord with the Scripture doctrine of God, of man, and of the God-man, in their relations to human salvation. "6. Because, in proportion to the degree of their advancement, all souls who enter upon this way of deliverance from the guilt and love of sin approximate the full and indestructible conviction that in this way alone is the desired deliverance attained. " 7. Because, of necessity, &amng saves." Ex-President Mark Hopkins, D. D., has delivered this utterance: "To the question,- What saves men? the answer is, They are saved by becoming the children of God; 'if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.' That is salvation. Men are in the image of God by being persons with a rational and moral nature. They become children of God by having a character like his. If it be asked how men come to have a character like that of God, the answer is. By receiving Christ in all that he offers himself to us for. 'As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.' To the question. Why does it save men .to become the chil- dren of God ? the answer is. Because salvation consists, virtually, in be- coming his children. Let the limitations and liabilities of the present life be removed and the children of God are saved, of course." Rev. J. O. Peck, D. D., has said: "There are but two steps in 262 FAITH MADE EASY. the acts of the sinner's heart in order to attain salvation. This is all the Bible gives. The first is surrender, or giving the heart to Christ, and the second is faith, or believing on Christ. The first must be taken first. Hold the soul there till that step is taken. He can not do any thing else till he does that. The will must unconditionally yield. All the commands of God to the sinner to break off his sins, repent, seek, turn to the Lord, give him the heart, mean only the same thing — surrender himself to God. This done, then he is to be taught to believe that God will do just what he has promised — forgive, accept, renew, and save." According to Wesley, a good authority on this point, the following •may be accepted as the order of salvation : " 1. Conviction of sin, wrought by. the Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of truth. "2. Eepentance, including a turning from sin and unto God, and leading to a sense of complete helplessness and self-despair. "3. A divine evidence and conviction, wrought also by the Holy Ghost through the instrumentality of Gospel truth, that Christ died for me, or, as he states it elsewhere, that Christ is (1) willing, (2) able, (3) able and willing now, to save even me. "4. Voluntary acceptance of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, or entire surrender to God. This is justifying faith. " 5. Justification, regeneration, and adoption, followed by ' a divine evidence and conviction that He doeth it.' This is not based on Scrip- tural truth, but is the direct testimony of the Spirit to the conscious- ness of the believer, with varying degrees of clearness. It is usually immediate upon justification, but may be delayed. " 6. Filial confidence, or the faith of a son. This is what Wesley means by 'saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.'" A GOOD CONFESSION. Frederick Williara Paber, D. D., was a Boman Catholic priest, J)orn in England, June 28, 1815, and died In 1863. He was a man of deep piety. The following poem describes his conversion : The chains that have bound me are flung to the wind, By the mercy of God the poor slave is set free ; And the strong grace of heaven breathes fresh o'er m)' mind. Like the bright winds of Summer that gladden the sea. There was naught in God's world half so dark or so vile As the sin and the bondage that fettered my soul ; There was naught half so base as the malice and gOile Of my own sordid passions, or Satan's control. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 263 For years I have borne about hell in my breast ; When I thought of my God it was nothing but gloom ; Day brought me no pleasure, night gave me no rest: / There was still the grim shadow of horrible doom. It seemed as if nothing less likely could be Than that light should break in on a dungeon so deep ; To create a new world were less hard than to free The slave from his bondage, the soul from its sleep. But the word has gone forth, and said, Let there be light, And it flashed through my soul like a sharp passing smart ; One look from my Savior, and all the dark night. Like a dream scarce remembered, was gone from my heart. I cried out for mercy, and fell on my knees. And confessed, while my heart with keen anguish was wrung; 'T was the labor of minutes, and years of disease Fell as fast from my soul as the words from my tongue. And now, blest be God and the dear Lord that died! No deer on the mountain, no bird in the sky. No bright wave that leaps on the dark bounding tide, Is a creature so free or so happy as I. REPENTANCE. Repentance is one of the most important of evangelical doctrines. As Jeremy Taylor truthfully observes, "It is not like the Summer fruits, fit to be taken a little, and in their own time ; it is like bread, the provisions and support of life. But it is the bread of affliction to some, and the bread of carefulness to all; and he that preaches this with the greatest severity, it may be, takes the liberty of an enemy, but he gives the counsel and the assistance of a friend." What is repentance? It is not sorrow alone, though it includes sorrow. It is not even godly sorrow, though godly sorrow stands in relation to it as cause to effect. " For godly sorrow worketh repent- ance to salvation not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death." (2 Cor. vii, 11.) Here we have not only a dis- tinction between sorrow and godly sorrow, but we perceive the result of the two. The mere sorrow of the world, however sincere, worketh death ; it is not unto life, and hence avails nothing. Godly sorrow, on the other hand, is unto life, salvation; and though it is not in itself repentance, it worketh repentance of the most genuine sort. Repentance is not simply regret. Judas repented as far as regret could go when he saw Jesus condemned as the result of his traitorous 264 FAITH MADE EASY. act, but his repentance was not to salvation. Regret looks to the consequences of sin when developed or found out, rather than to sin itself. Repentance is hot fear and anxiety, though these are adjuncts of repentance; and they are too closely connected with it to be easily separated, for they not only mark its sincerity, but promote its efficacy. "No man," says Dr. Samuel Johnson, "commits any act of negli- gence or obstinacy by which his safety or happiness in this world is endangered without feeling the pungency of remorse. He who is fully convinced that he suffers by his own failure can never forbear to trace back his miscarriage to its first cause, to image to himself a contrary behavior, and to form involuntary resolutions against the like fault, even when he knows that he shall never again have the power of committing it. Danger, considered as imminent, naturally produces such trepidations of impatience as leave all human means of safety behind them : he that has once caught an alarm of terror is every moment seized with useless anxieties, adding one security to another, trembling with sudden doubts, and distracted by the per- petual occurrence of new expedients. If, therefore, he whose crimes have deprived him of the favor of God can reflect upon his conduct without disturbance, or can at will banish the reflection ; if he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror or panting with security, what can he judge of himself but that he is not yet awakened to sufficient conviction, since every loss is more lamented than the loss of the Divine favor, and every danger more dreaded than the danger of final condemnation ?" "Repentance," says Prof. Hyde, "implies conviction of sin, or such a sense of it as will lead one to condemn, deplore, and forsake; contrition for it, or an inward pain and grief in view of its guilt and ill-desert ; confession of it as against God, and especially a sincere de- termination to abandon it." Read the seven Psalms, called "Peni- tential" since Origen (vi, xxxii, xxxviii, 11, cii, cxxx, cxlii), and the Parable of the Prodigal. (Luke xv, 18, 19.) Repentance is the relinquishment of any voluntary state of mind, or practice of life, from the conviction that it has offended God. It relates not so much to one particular act, perhaps, as to the trend of a life-time. As Luther says: "Repentance goes not to work piece- meal in regard to particular deeds which thou hast openly committed WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 265 * against the Ten Commandments, but deals with the whole persou, with all its life and character — yea, with the entire nature — and shows to thee that thou liest under God's wrath, and art condemned to hell." Repentance to salvation " includes a heart broken for sin, and a heart broken from it." It begins "in the humiliation of the heart and ends in the reformation of the life." It affects the will, rouses it, and leads to commendable resolutions. Repent, therefore, and turn. The penitent determines to cease to do evil and to learn to do well. Such fruit is worthy of repentance, and hence John the Baptist commanded his hearers to bring forth fruit meet for repentance. Repentance is more perceptible in the change it produces than faith is. We know men have truly repented by what they do. They are not only sorry for sin, and deeply regret sin, but they turn away from sin, and to the Lord, to be saved. All apologetic, minimizing conceptions of sin, as if it were a small matter, a triviality, a freak of nature, are utterly incompatible with honest and sincere repentance. Hear Hugh Lat- imer: "If thou have no mind to leave sin and sin grieveth thee not, and thou art content to go forward in the same, and thou delightest in it, and hatest it not, neither feelest what sin is : when thou art in such a case, then thou hast no faith, and therefore art like to perish everlastingly." Hear Archbishop Leighton: "Are you in a willing league with any known sin? Yea, would you willingly, if you might be saved in that way, give up yourself to voluptuousness and ungod- liness, and not at all desire to follow Jesus Christ in the way of holi- ness? Then, truly, I have not any thing to say for your comfort." Listen to John Bunyan: "Take heed that a sin in thy life goes not uurepented of, for that wUl make a flaw in- thine evidence, a wound in thy conscience, and a breach in thy peace." John the Baptist preached repentance, and so did Jesus. (Matt. iii, 2; iv, 17; ix, 13.) The twelve were sent forth to preach in order that men should repent. (Mark vi, 12.) The Gospel call is, "Repent or perish." (Luke xiii, 3, 5.) It constantly bewails the want of repentance. (Matt, xi, 20, 21 ; Luke x, 13.) Peter preached it at the Pentecost (Acts ii, 38 ; iii, 19), and declared that Christ cruci- fied was exalted in order to give repentance (Acts v, 31), and enjoined it on Simon as a means of forgiveness (viii, 22), and spoke of God's long suffering as showing that he would have all men repent (2 Pet. iii, 9). Nor did Paul make less of it in preaching. (Acts xvii, 30; XX, 21; xxvi, 20.) He insists that impenitence is only accumulating wrath. (Rom. ii, 4, 5.) As a condition of salvation, repentance may be further viewed 266 FAITH MADE EASY. as involving four particular points: 1. Conviction; 2. Contrition; 3. Confession; and 4. Conversion, or forsaking sin. 1. Conviction. There is great variation in religious experience, but conviction of sin is an essential feature. No soul can truly re- pent, believe, and experience the joys of pardon, -without a deep sense of guilt and sin. The visible effects of conviction may be less per- ceptible in some cases than in others, but the conviction itself must be felt in every soul humble enough to be saved. Let us examine our doctrinal theory on this point. By nature man is an enemy to God. Something must be done for him and in him before he can enter heaven. Dispute it as you -will, God knows best. He says plainly that, as concerning the gospel, men are enemies, alienated in their hearts. Paul told the Philippians, even weeping, of those who are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction. He speaks of all Christians as having once been enemies. " For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life." Jesus has come as an ambassador with terms of peace to reconcile us to God. The first step toward the reconciliation is repentance, and the first thing that belongs to gospel repentance is conviction — conviction of sin — a clear sight and feeling sense of our sinful condition. Until a man feels himself a sinner he sees no need of repentance. Our Lord expressly declared that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The truly righteous have already turned to God, and have no need of calling. Only the unrighteous need repentance, but until these have a conscious knowledge of their sins, they are pretty apt to think themselves righteous. Careless sinners too often think all is well with them, when in fact nothing is well ; they are enemies to God by wicked works, and exposed to Divine wrath. Not until the sinner stops to think, not until he gives candid attention to his own lost condition, not until the Holy Spirit has opened his eyes and enabled him to see himself in the gospel mirror, does he awake from the sleep of sin, and, like the apostle, behold himself the chief of sinners. Such an insight as this causes the best of moralists to tremble. Moralists pride themselves in having kept the law. They point to the commandments and say: "All these have I kept from my youth up." But when they come to measure themselves by the gospel standard, they are constrained to acknowledge something in themselves wanting. " What lack I yet ?" The moralist lacks the conviction WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 267 that God's law requires positive religious experience as well as inno- cency of open sinfulness. It requires us to love God supremely, and ■ our neighbors as ourselves. It requires constaut and perfect obedience iu thought as well as in deed all our lives long. The man who does not love God and his fellow intensely breaks the law, and, unless for- given, reaps the curse. The convicted sinner sees this. Knowing what the law requires, he perceives wherein he has deviated, and humbly acknowledges himself guilty. Viewing the law with all its holy precepts on the one hand, and his heart and conduct with all their sinful defects on the other, his offenses appear more numerous than the hairs on his head. " He did not before," observes one, " imagine himself guilty of so many crimes. With his eyes partly opened, he thought he had sinned only in a few instances ; but he is now convinced that his whole life has been sinful ; that his best works come short of God's requirements; that he is by nature a fallen spirit, a rebel against God, and as such doomed to hell." This is the sort of conviction which all unconverted souls need. Having lived without God and without hope, they need to feel their godlessness and helplessness. They have loved themselves, the world, and even Satan, more than they have loved God and their fellow-men. They have gone on, utterly reckless of the will and glory of the Holy One, and done it, too, contrary to light and knowledge, contrary to the checks of their own conscience and the restraints of religious in- fluences. They have not desired to be Christians, or to exhibit the faintest sign of Christian tendency. In the face of the truth that by nature there is none righteous — no, not one — they have flattered them- selves that they were righteous notwithstanding. Cold, distant, unsympathetic in respect to vital piety, they have yet claimed, to themselves at least, that they were known of God and would be ap- proved at last. Such souls, above all others, need to offer the prayer of Job : " How many are mine iniquities and my sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sin!" Or that of David: "I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing ; but now, I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very fool- ishly." Conviction of the deep iniquity and great foolishness of sin is a good token iu every sinner's awakening. 2. Sorrow. We have said that sorrow is not repentance, but an adjunct of repentance. The repentant sinner is a convicted sinner, the convicted sinner is a sorry sinner, and a sorry sinner awakens the pity of God. " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Men may 268 FAITH MADE EASY. despise broken hearts, as the Pharisee despised the publican, but God justifies such. God accounts the sorrow of a humble penitent as of more value than a thousand self-righteous prayers and offerings. A heart breaking in humiliation, a heart breaking with itself and away from sin, is a heart that God receives and renews. Such was the heart of the prodigal son. "I will arise and go to my father." He might have said : " I am starving, thou hast plenty, give me to eat." But no! "I will go to my father." He feels his sin and folly, and is resolved to return. So with a penitent sinner. He thinks of the goodness of that Holy Being whom he has offended, and exclaims : " O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Then comes in the thought of God's love. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." He remembers Jesus, his innocence, his benevolence, his sacrifice, his sorrows. He thinks of him whose visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men, all to save the sinner. " It was for me!" cries the penitent soul. "He hath borne my griefs and carried my sorrows ; he was wounded for my transgressions, and bruised for my iniquities." The doctrine of Christ crucified comes home to the heart of the penitent as naturally as truth to an honest mind. He sees his Savior on the cross, and with eyes suffused in tears, cries out : " Who, who, my Savior, this hath done ? Who could thy sacred body wound? No guilt thy spotless heart hath known. No guile hath in thy lips been found. I, I alone have done the deed ; 'T is I thy sacred flesh have torn ; My sins have caused thee, Lord, to bleed, Pointed the nail and fixed the thorn." Such sorrow leads to 3. Confession. The true penitent is bound to confess. He feels that confession is good for his soul, humbles it, and tends to satisfy its sense of obligation to acknowledge wrong. Impenitent persons, however, are disposed to conceal their faults, excuse their sins, and deny their guilt. We are no worse than others, say they ; we acted in accordance with our natural tempers and could not well help our- selves. Not so the penitent. He feels that he has offended God. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." He palliates nothing in himself He hides nothing of his sinful state before God. He bewails not only his own ungodly acts but the evil disposition that led to those acts. He deplores not only WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 269 his transgressions, but the carnal mind which is enmity against God. He sees his fallen nature as well as sinful life, and not only asks pardon for his transgressions, but cleansing from inward defilement. Herein is confession advantageous. "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un- righteousness." Confession is a mark of genuineness in repentance. Until a man takes the whole blame upon himself and stops making excuses for his sins, he will not perceive the absolute need of casting himself wholly and solely on the mercy of God in Christ that he may be saved. There is no other way of finding peace. The Psalmist said: " When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long ; but I acknowledged my sins unto thee, and my in- iquity have I not hid ; I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." When the guilty soul keeps silence, dreading the disclosure of sin, the heart "swells like a tumor, seeking to discharge its anguish in confessions to God and men, that the wound may be washed and healed." God expects confession from those that seek his face. "He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not ; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.'' Confession brings to the light. It turns the heart upward to God. It directs the moral fac- ulties toward the dawning of a new day. It leads to the first steps of faith and hope. The soul perceives its chance of deliverance from the pit, and in the very act of confessing completes its purpose of turning. This is a vital point. It is folly to confess past sins with- out resolving to turn from present and future ones. This turning is called 4. Conversion. The sinner turns from the error of his ways. "He that covereth hia sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." Confess and forsake. God will hear your confessions, and man will observe your forsakings. God will then have mercy and man will have sympathy. Your soul will thus come into possession of covenant blessings and communion privileges. Without this forsaking of sin no repentance is complete or availing. All the most humbling confessions, the greatest alarms of conscience, or floods of tears, will prove insufiicient if there be no forsaking. " Though Cain's terror, Judas's confession, Pharaoh's prom- ises, Ahab's humiliation, Herod's hearing John gladly and doing many things, Felix's trembling, Agrippa's acknowledgment, — though all these were combined in one man, they would not prove him a real 270 FAITH MADE EASY. penitent while the love of one sin remained unmortified in his heart, or the practice of it allowed in his life." "True repentance is not content to lop off the branches, but lays the ax at the root of the tree." Satan may suggest that a darling sin is but a little one, and may he spared ; hut God knows that as one small leak may sink a ship, so one indulged sin will condemn a soul. "If thy right eye offend thee," said Jesus, " pluck it out and cast it from thee. It is better to enter into heaven with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell." However hard to be parted with, the most cherished sin must be surrendered if we would be accepted of God. Sin must he pardoned or punished. Without repentance there is no pardon, and without a willingness to forsake sin there is no rgpentance. "A pru- dent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on and are punished." God has given time for repentance, but that time will end. The harvest will be past, the Summer ended, and the soul forever unsaved. We submit that such a doctrine is highly appropriate to gospel preaching in this age. Men are asleep to the enormity of guilt, or deceived by the thought that salvation is possible without forsaking it. Tell them otherwise. Talk plainly, squarely. Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish. Without repentance souls are lost. There is no hope for the impenitent. Human penitence creates angelic bliss. "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over the ninety and nine that go not astray." Christ died that this truth might be sounded in the ear of men. " Thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to die that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." FAITH. Faith is " belief without sight." We believe there was such a man as Napoleon, but we never saw him. We believe there is such a country as Spain, or France, or Italy, yet most of us never looked upon those lands. Faith is the commonest principle of our daily life. We believe a thousand times more than we know. Knowledge is from experience — from seeing, hearing, feeling ; faith cometh by observa- tion — from the widest possible range of information and report. Faith moves men to action. It removes mountains, and leads to the dis- covery of new worlds. It sent Columbus over the sea to discover the continent in the far West. It overcomes all obstacles to the march of science, commerce, and business life. If men did not believe in each WSAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 271 other's integrity, there would be no business transactions. The world would become generally stagnant but for this every-day feeling of mutual trust. Faith is a power in society. Had we no confidence in each other we would not associate. Faitlj binds us together. With- out it there would be no friendship, no love, no marriage, no home, no social joys. Existence would be a burden. . We should live in perpetual fear of each other. Polite salutation would be displaced by the gruffest recognition, and friendly hand-shaking by violent death- grapples. The present order of things would not subsist a year, and the race would not survive for a century. Keligious faith does not differ in kind from natural faith. It sim- ply has a different object. The special object of religious faith is a Divine Person made known to men and recognized by them. By faith we acknoiwledge the Divine wisdom and love as at work in our world. By faith we fashion a conception of the Divine character from what we learn of his working. By faith we come to trust him for bless- ing in the present, and being and blessedness in the future. We can not unveil the future and behold it as an actual existence, but faith answers the purpose of such a vision. Faith in unseen realities is the fundamental idea of Christianity. " Blessed are they who having not seen, yet have believed." We must believe before we have a chance to see. Sight comes after faith, demonstration after belief. The Bible definition of faith is the best there is: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The English word "substance" is a compound of the Latin sub, under, and sians, standing. Faith, then, stands under, and is the subjective foundation of our religious hopes. Faith is the basis, the "things hoped for," the superstructure ; and these become the evidence, or demonstration, of "things not seen." The "things not seen" are realities, but outside the visible world, and their existence is discov- erable only to the eye of faith. The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit. These are revealed only to the higher intui- tions. We say, therefore, that religious faith is the power that con- nects us with God and with the realities of the spirit world. There are three elements in this faith, viz.: knowledge, feeling, and action. Before we can believe we must know; in order to know, we must hear the truth. " Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." "That word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart : that is, the word of faith, which we preach." This word every man may know. But this is not enough ; he must feel. He must be im- pressed with its importance. , He must feel that it is the word of life. 272 FAITH MADE EASY. He must love it, and adhere to it as the word of the Father. " He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; for God is love." This love must prove itself by action. Christ's love did. Hereby know we love be- cause he laid down his life for us. If our love is genuine it will move us. It will soften our hearts and make us compassionate. ' ' If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, be is a liar." Malice can not dwell in the heart that is actuated by religious faith. It is a loving faith, a faith that prompts to works of love. If we have it, we feel the stirring of its power within us, and we shall not stand idle and unconcerned while the great stream of human affairs rolls by us. Indifference here is condemnation, for faith tells us to act ; it overcomes the world. And this faith is in its essence the power by which we lay hold on the future, the unseen, the eternal ; and in its application to us it is a principle of knowledge, love, and action. The man of faith says : " I know whom I have believed." Whom he knows, he loves, though he sees him not. Whom he loves, he obeys. Degrees of faith vary; the one who believes most, loves most, does most, gets most. As Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler has said : "A feeble faith can remove mole-hUls, but it requires a stalwart faith to remove mountains. He who would cast out the devils that invest his heart, and have the courage to un- dertake up-hill work, and the conversion of ' hard-cases,' must take a prodigious hold on God. When Luther was in the thick of his fight with the papacy, he says that he could not get on with less than three hours a day in fervent prayer. The earthquake that shook Europe came through Luther's knees. His trust in God made one man an overmatch for the scarlet hierarchy on the seven hills of Rome. Sometimes a pastor who has been sowing pure gospel-seed diligently becomes so enlarged in faith and prays so intensely, 'Give me souls or I die,' that God takes him at his word, and sends him a full sheaf of blessings. This sort of stalwart faith sets great store by such a promise as Paul unfolds in this verse : ' If God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things ?' An eminent Christian tells me that she considers this the most precious passage in the Bible," Strong faith means clear religious knowledge and bright hope. The one who has it is never exercised with doubts and fears. He rests on a secure foundation. His hold on the truth of Scripture is firm, and in the spiritual life he acts boldly and unreservedly. He goes all lengths, and risks all consequences on the Word and prom- ises of God. They are substantial to him ; their truth and reality WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 273 are demonstrated every hour. He not only believes that God is, but he feels him to be a constant £e warder. He is persuaded that what God has promised he will perform ; yea, does perform. This is his experience and the groundwork of his hope. " The man," says President Noah Porter, " who believes in God and trusts in his guid- ance, he, and he alone, has solid ground for hope. He knows him through the forces of the universe which surround him and confront him at every step ; and he knows him as the Heavenly Father who animates and directs them to each individual joy or sorrow. In both relations he is in harmony with him." Is faith, then, man's act or God's gift? It is both, or rather the Divine and human in it blend together. God gives man the power to believe — power to weigh and sift evidence when necessary, and to ar- rive at the truth ; but believing itself is purely man's own act. God instructs, enlightens, promises; man studies, perceives, embraces. God calls ; man listens. God invites ; man approaches. God holds out the gift of life ; man accepts it, and is saved. Believing is the gift of the God of grace only in the sense that walking, talking, and eating, are the gifts of the God of nature. We are endowed with certain capacities, and are responsible for the use we make of them. "The ability to believe is nearly all there is of moral agency; the exercise of this ability is about all man can do to secure his present and eternal salvation." But does not the Bible say in just so many words that the act of faith is the gift of God ? It does not ; it says : " By grace are ye saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God." (Eph. ii, 8.) The true meaning of the pas- sage may be expressed in this way : By God's grace are ye saved, through your act of faith ; and, hence, salvation is not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God. It is possible to make too much of the act of faith. "Theoretic- ally, we are accustomed to say that the first experience of renewing power must be preceded by an implicit faith in the word of God. But practically we often see it otherwise. When a man is awakened to a sense of his guilt and the apprehension of his helplessness, when eternity is realized, and he, under the pressure of his feelings, cries out for aid, it takes very little theoretical faith to save him. The col- lapse of years of skeptical speculation is then as sudden as the fading out of a mirage. When once inside that spiritual realm, upon the borders of which he has long wandered, all is clear. He now recog- nizes that God's providence has led, God's Spirit striven with him, and that his vain search for happiness in material good, was the 18 274 FAITH MADE EASY. insatiable desire of the soul for communion with God ; and a joy so deep, pure, and unwasting as to be its own evidence, fills his soul." Mere abstract belief in God, the Bible, in Christ, in the future world, saves nobody. Such faith is only the decision of the mind upon certain evidences it has weighed. Devils believe in this way, but there is no salvation for them. Faith which saves, involves the heart and life. It is the heart's embrace — the sinner's welcome to the Savior. " When he asked [Hopeful] what it is to believe, he was made to un- derstand that coming and believing are all one, and that whosoever ran out in his heart and affection to Christ, and rested on him for sal- vation, did really believe on him.'' (Bunyan.) Faith appropriates Jesus as a present Savior from conscious guilt, and accepts the great truths of the gospel for regulation of the conduct. We believe with the heart unto righteousness, and confess with the mouth unto salvation. This implies a previous conviction of guilt and of exposure to ruin. No sinner can really believe with the heart and frankly confess with the lips until he discovers what he is and what he needs. He will not earnestly apply to Christ for help until conscious of his danger, nor humbly comply with Christ's requirements until he feels himself to be a transgressor of God's holy law, a rebel against his righteous govern- ment, and hence deserving of wrath and punishment. The penitent sinner feels that he deserves to go to hell. This appears to him to be the most reasonable thing in the world. And this is the turning point of the heart towards salvation. The will yields immediately when the judgment reaches this conclusion. Mark, then, it is not merely an apprehension of terrible danger, but a sense of awful guilt. Fear of hell does not drive the sinner to Christ, but rather a consciousness that he merits hell. Fear alone never leads to genuine reformation. It is related that a great excitement prevailed in Paris in the year 1773 in consequence of an article published by M. De Lalande, an astronomer, which the people understood to predict the destruction of the earth by a comet or an earthquake. Every change in the weather was thought to be something unnatural, and construed into an evidence of the comet's approach. A bright planet near the moon increased their terror. "Vast multitudes refused to be comforted, neglected all worldly employments, and passed their days and nights in prayer. There was a general attention to religious subjects, and apparently a great reformation among the people. But time passed on. Neither the comet nor the earthquake appeared. The people wondered at their fears, and, forgetting the good resolutions they had formed, plunged still deeper into scenes of dissipation and vice. Such, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 275 almost of necessity, must be the influence of mere fear in reforming men. It is impossible to make them exercise faith in Christ from any such motive. It does not imply nor admit the idea of submission to the law as a holy law. Saving faith implies heart surrender. It is yielding absolutely to Christ's method of cure. We are told that Dr. John McClintock once fell seriously ill in Paris. He summoned an eminent physician, who, after careful examination, convinced him that he was about to be very sick, but by submitting implicitly to treatment, would be carried safely through. "Are you willing to commit your case to my hands?" in- quired the physician. "I am," was the doctor's response. "Very well, then," said the physician, "hand over your purse!" The doctor was startled, wondered whether he had not fallen into the hands of a rob- ber. His faith for the moment was severely tried, but seeing no alter- native, he complied. His money, watch, and all valuables passed into the physician's hands, and then, calmly and trustfully settling down, he composed himself for protracted sickness and careful treatment. Ere- long he lapsed into unconsciousness, rerriaining so for many days, but was brought in due time to perfect health and strength. Behold an illustration of saving faith! It means absolute surrender of every thing that hinders peaceful trust in Christ. It is a willingness to be spiritually cured at the hands of the Great Physician. It is trust — trust in Christ as a Savior, trust of ourselves to Christ for salvation — trust for grace to do his will, strength to perform his work, and a spirit of obedience unto the end. Saving faith implies obedience. "If a disciple," says Bishop F. D. Huntingdon, " thinks he can have faith, and rest in it, stopping short of obedience, what he has is not ' faith.' It is a fiction. If a disciple thinks he can practice ' obedience ' without faith, it is not God that he is obeying. Christ lays as much stress on obedience as Moses does, only it is a higher and purer obedience, having more love in it and less fear." This is what disarms the skeptic in his objection that Christianity makes salvation depend upon a bare intellectual act, without reference to character or conduct. The very opposite is the case. No faith saves which does not involve submission to the highest authority in the universe, and the establishment in the heart of those moral principles which produce perfect rectitude of life. Faith shuts us up into Christ; it enthrones Christ within us. It makes Christ and the believer one. Through this oneness there is righteousness. In union and communion with the righteous One, the soul walks in all the commandments of the Lord blameless. It obeys the divine 276 FAITH MADE EASY. calls, and gladly heeds the Divine commands. Sin is its burden, Christ its desire. The blessed law is written on the heart, implanted deep within. It is — " The law of liberty from sin, The perfect law of love." VAEIOUS TESTIMONIES. The substance of faith is not a fact which we can not explain away, or a conclusion which we can not escape, but the personal appre- hension of a living, loving Friend. Christ makes himself known in each believer's heart by words of peace. (Prof. Brooke Foss West- cott, D. D., D. C.L.) With the Old Testament saints faith was "a firm reliance on God, and confidence in the fulfillment of his promises." (Gen. xv, 6; Hab. ii, 4; Heb. xi, 1, 6.) It was a spirit of uprightness, constancy, fidelity, or trustworthiness. In the New Testament believers are called "the faithful," but the word faith has "the active meaning, trust" (John xiv, 1), or "hovers between" the active and passive senses, ' ' the frame of mind which relies en another, and the frame of mind which can be relied on." (Lightfoot.) The object of this faith is .not a mere proposition, but a person — the God of the promises, or the promised One — Jesus Christ. Those who credit what he says, or what is said about him, must have faith in Mm. To believe a saying is to accept it as true, to believe a per- son is to accept him as true ; that is, as trustworthy. Our Lord ofiers himself as the object of faith, first, perhaps, directly to the man re- stored to sight (John ix, 35), but indirectly often, and in various ways (John iii, 16, 36; iv, 26; vi, 29, 40). It is not enough to believe in his word, or miracles, or Messiahship, or teachings (John ii, 22, 23), except as this implies belief in his name or himself (John i, 12; iii, 18; viii, 30; 1 John v, 13). "Jesus Christ created the gospel by his work: he preached the gospel by his words: but he is the gospel himself" (Prof James T. Hyde.) Faith is trust in a person. But we are not to exact that he in whom it exists should have satisfied himself minutely as to every part of the object toward which his faith is directed. It is much more important that faith should be sincere than that it should be fully informed. (Freraantle.) He who will not believe in the God whom he can not under- stand — let him inquire what he understands of himself. Is he not here also like a child, who can ask more questions than can be WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 277 answered ? Born but as yesterday, he knows not whence ; existing, he knows not how; feeling a life within him, which he can neither pro- long nor protect from danger, nor even know, but in its effects : he may imagine himself, if he will, to be an empty bubble on the ocean of unbounded Being ; and may fancy the winds of that ocean to be the iron breath of unfeeling, unpitying fate. But in all the ignorance which is common to man, in all the arrogance of theories, he never doubts that he exists, nor hesitates to regard himself as a personal being. The world of phenomena convinces him of this truth : let him look again to that world, and study it ; for it tells him no less clearly there is a living and a personal God. (E. A. Thompson.) There is a God, holy and changeless. He is. From eternity to eternity, he is. On this Rock will I rest. (Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss.) Christian faith is the faith of a transaction. It is not the com- mitting of one's thought in assent to any proposition, but the trusting of one's being to a being, there to be rested, kept, guided, molded, governed, and possessed forever. (Bushnell.) Is it not indeed the distinguishing feature of the Christian system, that it places the foundation of salvation in living relations with a living person, rather than in the adoption of opinions or habits? that under it the believer is, not the man who maintains the doctrine of the Trinity, or holds justification by faith, but the man who has "come to" Christ, and "abides in" him? "Our faith is not in a name which we learn, but in a person whom we know; not in a scheme of salvation, but in a living Savior." (Bernard.) If faith were to have no fruition, it would still possess a measurer less value. If it were only a dream, it would afford us a higher motive than doubt. To believe in heaven, whether there be a heaven or no, is to enjoy a heavenly frame of mind to the last moment of life, when our belief shall fade away and we shall fade with it. If the Christian's trust is not well founded, then it is undeniably true that the best of characters can be built without any foundation at all, and we are like the starving soldier who dreamed that he sat at a well-laden banquet-board, and who, on waking, found himself really nourished by imaginary food. If agnosticism be true, then the truth logically produces a life which can not be compared with another life which is the logical outcome of an error. Real greatness of soul is naturally developed by faith in Christ. No one has ever denied this statement. (Geo. H. Hep worth, D. D.) Saving faith is that confiding and affectionate belief in the per- son and work of Christ, which affects the character and life, and 278 ' FAITH MADE EASY. makes a man a true Christian. It is not works. It is a constant act of the mind and heart of the saint. Abraham's going out not knowing whither he went, or the offering of his son, was not his faith, but the result of faith, the fruit of faith. Walking with God was not Enoch's faith. Placing the little ark in the flags of the Nile was not the faith of Moses' parents. The sur- render of Egypt was not Moses' faith. The building of the ark was not Noah's faith. The same thing holds true of every worthy of all dispensations. It was a living, active reliance in Christ, in the hearts of the apostles, that led them to follow and obey him. (H. F. A. Patterson.) " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," was Paul's answer to the most important question that human lips can utter. Not in Christianity, observe, but on Christ. It is not enough to believe in the Christ described in the New Testament. Millions of unconverted people do this, just as they believe in Wilberforce as a noble philanthropist, or in Lincoln as an unselfish patriot. But these, whose judgments assent to Christ's wonderful beauty of character, do not intrust their souls to him as an atoning Redeemer. They do not rely on what lie has done for them, or promises to do. They do not put themselves into such spiritual connection with him that they draw from his Divine life their own inner life, as a grape cluster draws its substance from the vine. When the miner looks at the rope which is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say to himself: "I have faith in that rope. It looks well-made and strong.'' That is his opinion ; but when he grasps it and swings down by it into the dark, yawning chasm, then he is believing on the rope. This is more than opinion ; it is a voluntary transaction. The miner just lets go of his old foothold, and bears his entire weight on those well-braided strands of hemp. Faith is the cling to the rope, but it is the rope itself which supports him. When a human soul lets go of every other reliance in the wide universe, and hangs entirely upon what Jesus has done and can do for him, then that soul "believes on Christ." To him the be- liever intrusts hinself for guidance, for pardon, for strength, and for ultimate admission into the exceeding and eternal weight of glory. (Theodore L. Cuyler.) The faith that saves, that claims the promise, that relies and walks out on God's word, must precede the consciousness or interior witness of possession. There can be no room for saving faith after visible or tangible manifestations, or after the blessing is received. It is a matter of knowledge then. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 279 Mr. Fletcher says : " Beware of looking for any peace or joy pre- vious to your believing, and let this be uppermost in your mind." You say : " I do not see any evidence, I do not feel any evidence that I receive the blessing." If you have completely committed yourself to God, you are to believe, and have no right to doubt God's word because of any absence of feeling. Your faith for sal- vation is not to rest upon sight or feeling. Seeing, feeling, and possessing the evidences of salvation must be subsequent to its reception. The blessing is conditioned on faith, and this faith must rest on the truth of God, as the evidences of pos- sessing the blessing can not exist before the blessing is received. Dr. True says: " I know of no way to obtain this salvation, but to follow the exact directions given : ' Believe that ye receive, and you shall have.'"" Again, he says : " You need not be afraid to believe that you receive while you pray ; for, according to the testimony of thou- sands, you will thereupon receive the direct witness of the Spirit. This is what you have hoped to receive first, in order to believe ; but it comes, if it comes at all, as the confirmation of your faith." We can obtain salvation only by believing and trusting God. And an evangelical belief and trust in God can be exercised only in connection with complete submission to him. FAITH. "Lord, I believe : help thou mine unbelief^' (Mark ix, 21.) Lord, teach me how to trust in thee. And how less unbelieving be — To place on thine unerring care Those most I love, and leave them there. For Faith is not a mere belief That thou canst aid in bitter grief ; O no ! far greater blessings, Lord, Are promised in thy gracious Word. 'T is grasping thee, when all are gone ; 'T is viewing thee, when quite alone ; 'T is pillowing on thine unseen arm, Supported there, and free from harm. 'T is calm assurance, "All is well!" Though how, or where, I can not tell ; 'T is hearkening, when no voice I hear ; 'T is smiling, though I weep and fear. 280 FAITH MADE EASY. 'T is living in thy blissful sight, Where'er I breathe, by day or night; 'T is drinking in thy tender love From all below and all above. 'T is deep remorse, yet grateful song ; 'T is utter weakness, yet so strong ! 'T is cleansing in thy blood each stain, And knowing pardon, peace again. 'T is putting on the garment white. Preparing for the blissful sight Of that rejoicing, glorious feast. Which saints will share, from great to least. 'T is stepping light, though burdened sore ; 'T is hating sin yet more and more ; 'T is fighting hard, and yet at rest ; 'T is broken-hearted, and yet blest ! 'T is loving with unuttered love, Though hard the heart, and slow to move ; 'T is laboring ; though it 's all so small, I count it laboring not at all. 'T is telling thee my every thought ; 'T is finding all I ever sought ; 'T is treading on through life's lone walk In sweet companionship and talk. 'T is joining in the angels' praise; 'T is fixing high my eager gaze, Where all is boundless love and peace, And freedom marks the soul's release. 'T is hurrying to a glorious end ; 'T is pressing towards my bosom Friend ; 'T is meeting Him — come, Jesus, come ! 'T is folding tent, and reaching home ! My Father ! I must weary thee For faith like this ; 't was bought for me ! Beneath the cross I seek, I claim This living faith in Jesus' name ! FAITH. Faith is that clear celestial ray Which from the Heart of Light Into the darkened soul sheds day, Dispersing error's night. WHAT TO BELIEVE C0NCERN9NQ REDEMPTION. 281 Faith is the upward-shooting beam By that ray kindled first, Which pierces through the clouds that seem Eeady in storms to burst. Faith is the heaven-anointed eye That things unseen can see, And far beyond those clouds descry The glory yet to be. Faith is the golden key to ope The treasures of God's Word ; 'T is faith that changes doubt to hope — That knows at once the Lord. Faith is the angel in the soul That overcomes its foe ; Faith every evil can control. And every good bestow. Faith is the star that brightens death ; Faith calms the final strife ; Faith makes the Christian's latest breath The first breath of new life. (Elizabeth C. Kinney.) JUSTIFICATION. Justification by faith is the first great blessing which comes to us as a result of the atonement of Christ. The doctrine is plainly stated in Bom. iii, 24, 26. "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God : . . . that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." This passage shows that justification is not an act of authority done above law, but a judicial process done consistently with law. In our chapter on the atonement we have shown that God as a sovereign required that his law should be respected, and that the atonement is a scheme whereby God's law is honored, and yet the possibility of the repentant sinner's forgiveness also provided for. Justification is con- sistent with law. God is just, while he is the justifier. Justification is not a sovereign act of Divine authority done for the individual regardless of his own wishes or inclinations. God jus- tifies no man in spite of himself. He coerces no human will. Indeed, 282 FAI9E MADE EASY. under the economy of grace there is no such thing as compulsion. God justifies "freely" "him that believeth." He does not justify the unbelieving or wicked or profane. Until the heart is made ten- der through repentance, and faith grasps the atonement through Christ, there is no such thing as pardon for any intelligent soul. Justification is not the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, though this idea has obtained wide credence. It is a preposterous no- tion that, when justified, Christ's personal righteousness is somehow turned over to our account, and becomes our own just as if we had lived it for ourselves. It is not only unscriptural, but absurd. If it be said that the benefit of Christ's righteousness becomes ours through justification, we grant it. Faith is counted to us for righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ itself is transferred to no man. Justification is not an act of God, whereby we are made actually just and righteous. This is sanctification, and the two doctrines must not be confounded. What is evangelical justification? It is that act of God which reaches the believing sinner's case. God for Christ's sake accounts the trusting sinner righteous. He remits Ms sins that are past. " Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord wQl not impute sin." God will not impute sin to the justified soul, nor condemn him in the world to come on account of past sins ; for these are all blotted out, and made as though they had never been. The scars of these sins may remain on the soul, but the sins themselves are forgiven and covered. The justified soul is acquitted from the charges of the law, and freed from its condemnation. This gives repose. Hence Paul says: " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." There is no practice in legal courts that gives a full view of this doctrine, but we may find an illustration. " When a person has been brought to trial in a civil tribunal, and has been found guilty of some offense for the satisfaction of which by compensation the law provides, the person may, through the payment of an equivalent, depart justi- fied ; that is, he satisfies the law. The accepted satisfaction does not make him innocent; on the contrary, he will probably carry the mark of his guilt to the grave ; but in the eye of the law he is clear, and can no more be prosecuted for the ofiense. "Now this is the way we are justified in the sight of God. We are found guilty by this just Judge. We can not ourselves make satisfaction, but our Savior Jesus offers his merits as the satisfaction WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO REDEMPTION. 283 for our sins. God accepts the offering and releases us from the penalty of eternal death to which we stood exposed. We are not indeed ren- dered innocent by pleading the satisfaction of our Savior, but we are treated as such, and are no longer exposed to the penalty of the law on account of past guilt. " Justification is not by works. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified." The Romish Church thought otherwise, and, notwithstanding Paul, they substituted in the place of faith the merit of works. What was the result? Let me answer the question by citing the case of Martin Luther. He sought rest for his troubled soul in self-denial and retirement as a monk; but did not find it. In 1500 he started as a delegate for Rome, hoping to find relief from his burden there. As he came in sight of the city he fell on his knees, exclaiming, "Holy Rome, I salute thee." He was disappointed and shocked at the wickedness which he found there; but at last he began to ascend Pilate's staircase, thronged by the superstitious crowd, upon his knees. He toiled from step to step, repeating his prayers at every one, till the Spirit of God whispered in his soul a text which he had learned: "The just shall," etc. Instantly he arose, saw the folly of his hope of relief through merit, and flew far from the scene of his folly. A new life followed his new light. " When by the Spirit of God I understood these words,'' said he, "and learned how the justification of the sinner proceeds from the free mercy of God through faith, then I felt born again like a new man." So firmly did this truth tak« hold of Luther, that he resolved to live and die by it. (Ref. Vol. I, p. 199.) Seven years after, he nailed his theses to the Wittenberg church, and inaugurated the Reformation. No danger which ever threatened him caused him to swerve one iota from his confidence in justification by faith to produce relief While on his way to the Diet at Worms, people flocked around him and urged him not to go. "Ah!" said some, "there are so many bishops and cardinals at Worms, they will burn you and reduce your body to ashes, as they did with John Huss!" Said he: "Though they should kindle a fire all the way from Worms to Wittenberg, the flames of which reached to heaven, I would walk through it in the name of the Lord; I would appear before them; I would enter the jaws of this Behemoth, and break his teeth, confessing the Lord Jesus Christ." When he neared the city, his best friend (Spalatin) sent a messenger with the advice, ' ' Do not enter Worms." Luther turned his eyes on the messenger and replied : ' ' Go and tell your master that even should there be as many devils in Worms as tiles on the housetops, 284 FAITH MADE EASY. still I would enter it." When he stood before the council charged as a heretic, he was asked to retract. He took time for deliberation and prayer. On the day following he appeared before the assembly, which held his life in its hands, and, after making a most powerful appeal in defense of his doctrines, he closed by saying : " It is not safe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Unless convinced by the testimony of Scripture, (5r by the clearest reasoning that I err, I can not, I will not retract. Here I stand ; I can do no other. May God help me ! Amen !" Luther never did retract, but by firmly adhering to his principles, inaugurated the great Reformation, which was noth- ing more nor less than a protest against the monstrous delusion that justification can be obtained in any way except by faith in Jesus. Justification is by faith ; that is, a sure trust and confidence that God doth forgive our sins and receive us into his favor for the merits of Christ's death and passion. Without such a trust there is no justi- fication. " He that believeth not is condemned already." And so long as the penitent sinner believes not, so long he remains con- demned. Faith, then, is the necessary condition of pardon; without it, all other things go for naught — virtues, good works, etc. And let me say that this is the only necessary condition of justification. Faith is imputed for righteousness the very moment we believe. Though we may be supposed to want every thing else, yet if we have faith we can not but be justified.. The fact of Christ's death does not alter the fact of my being a sinner. Nor does it lessen the guilt of my sin, nor does it free me from the penalty of my sin ; but it does open a way to the favor of God, whereby my sin may be forgiven. Justice says: "Pay that thou owest." I appeal to Christ; I rest on him; I believe in him, and have no other reply to Justice except "'T is just the sentence should take place, but Christ my Lord hath died." I rely on Christ and am saved, not for my faith, but by my faith for Christ's sake. Do we, then, make void the law through faith? Nay, verily, we establish the law; for the faith we preach is not a dead faith, such as James says can not justify, but a holy, lively faith, which involves life-long activity. We are justified from sin by faith alone; that is what Paul teaches. Our justification is man- ifested by our works ; that is what James teaches,— and the two are in harmony. Justification brings peace, not only legal peace, but real peace. "It not only so absolves us that the law does not condemn us, but it BO absolves us that our own heart does not condemn us. We are WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 285 accounted righteous in him so completely that there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. It is not done by throwing a cloak of divine righteousness over a corrupt heart, but by removing from the heart the consciousness of sin, thereby making peace." REGENERATION. Regeneration is that work of the Holy Spirit by which we expe- rience a change of heart. The Scriptures express it in various ways, such as being born from above (John iii, 7) ; being quickened (Eph. ii, 1); a new creation (2 Cor. v, 17). The subjects of this change are represented as being begotten of God (John i, 13); begotten of the Spirit (John iii, 8) ; new creatures (Gal. vi, 15) ; and partakers of the Divine nature (2 Pet. i, 4). This is a great work, but it does not imply the creation of any new faculties. Man has faculties enough ; all he requires is grace to use them well. Nor does regen- eration effect any constitutional change. The converted man remains identicailly the same in all his fundamental characteristics of body and mind. If he were before a pugilist, he may be expected to prove a valiant champion of the truth, a soldier of Christ, a defender of the faith. If he were before a promulgator of evil things, he may be expected to appear as a herald of truth, a preacher of righteousness. Intellectually, the bent of his mind remains the same ; the change is in his morals, the spirit and aim of his life and work. His appetites and propensities are not eradicated, but they will be regulated. No new taste is given, and no new substance of holiness is implanted. The germ theory of holiness is germinal nonsense. Holiness is holi- ness, not a seed, or separate substance of any sort whatever. "The soul," says Bishop S. M. Merrill, " with its natural attributes, remains the same through all the experiences of sin and pardon, of pollution and washing, of death and life, retaining its identity and its essential aptitudes and powers ; but the spirit, the seat and sphere of depravity, and of renewing and sanctifying influences, passes through these changes of character and condition, determining always the moral state of the man. A new soul is impossible, but a new heart and a new spirit are plainly promised and graciously realized. ' Regenera- tion is, therefore, the fundamental fact of life, because it breaks the reigning power of sin, makes us the children of God, and gives us power to walk in the light of holiness.'" He that is born of God has a new heart, and that is the beginning of holiness. The wicked heart, the stony heart, is taken away, and 286 FAITH MADE EASY. the good, tender heart is given. The carnal mind, whose character- istic is the devotion of the will to self-gratification, is displaced by the spiritual mind, the self-sacrificing mind, the mind that was in Christ. "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Eom. viii, 6.) The carnal mind is at enmity with God, is not subject to his law, and is sold unto sin. The spiritual mind is free from the rule of sin, and is swayed by the Divine Spirit. Hence Paul said that " they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; and they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." (Rom. viii, 5.) Regenerated persons experience a radical change in their ultimate intention, or choice of an end. The will is devoted to God, and the aim of life is to serve Christ. The whole moral char- acter is changed, and so is the entire course of life, if previously wrong. Christ says: "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt, xviii, 3.) The phraseology may be flgurative, but it is emphatic, and shows that when a moral being is changed into the image of Christ, he must live an entirely new life — a life as innocent and pure as that of a child. In 1 John iii, 9, we are told that " whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him : and he can not sin, because he is born of God." Whether this "seed" be "the word of truth," the "Spirit of God," the "power of the divine life," the "re- generate vital principle," the " flxed purpose of faith," or what not else, while it remains he can not sin, "or be a regular sinner, any more than ice can bear caloric, for the two things are incompatible." The regenerate man can not practice sin, because within him is the element of holiness utterly incompatible with sin. Not that sin is volitionally impossible with the regenerate, but that regeneration is entirely antagonistic to sin. The sinner is unregenerate ; the regen- erate can not be sinful. Ignatius, who was born before St. John died, used this language: "Let no one deceive you. They who are carnal can not do the things that are spiritual; nor can they who are spiritual do the things that are carnal. Faith can not do the works of unbelief, nor can unbelief do the works of faith. The works which ye do in the flesh are spiritual, because ye work all your work in Jesus Christ." Divine truth, energized by the Spirit, works convic- tion and conversion. This truth is the "seed" which remains in the regenerated heart. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for- ever." (1 Pet. i, 23.) This seed, ^hich has once broken the power of selfishness, the tendency to sin, remains in him, in his memory, in WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 287 his affections, in his conscience, and unless he willfully casts it out he can not sin. He may cast it out ; he may fall ; but until he does so he will not indulge himself in any form of evil. "Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning remain in you, ye also shall con- tinue in the Son, and in the Father." (1 John ii, 24.) Regeneration implies more than some modern writers appear to grant. To receive the things of God ; to become the subjects of his grace ; to recover the moral image of God ; to regain spiritual life ; to become dead to sin and alive unto God ; to have the eyes of the mind opened ; to receive a relish for the things of the Spirit ; to have the disposition to sin removed, and the disposition to holiness implanted, — these are things to be not lightly esteemed, but remem- bered and cherished, improved and perfected unto the day of full salvation. " Regeneration and entire sanctification," says Rev. R. C. Arm- strong, "do not differ in nature, but in degree; the former is inferior in degree to the latter. Whatever regeneration implies, entire sanc- tification implies the same in a higher degree. Then, as regeneration implies cleansing, renovation, so is this carried on to entirety in the perfected state." " I hold," says Bishop H. H. Kavanaugh, " that all our past sins are remitted and removed in justification and regeneration, and noth- ing can obstruct our passage to the attainment of Christian perfection but the want of faith, the omission of duty, or the breach of the Divine commandments." Rev. John Wesley tells us that we " can not separate the power over sin from being born of God — power over outward sins of every kind ; over every evil word and work ; for wheresoever the blood of Christ is thus applied [in regeneration], it purgeth the conscience from dead works, and over inward sin ; for it purifieth the heart from every unholy desire and temper.'' This grand work of regenerating grace is grandly described by St. Paul in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. " How shall we," saith he, " who are dead to sin, live any longer therein ?" " Our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be de- stroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." "Likewise, reckon ye yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body," "but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead." " For sin shall not have dominion over you. God be thanked. 288 FAITH MADE EASY. that ye were the servants of sin, but being made free," the plain mean- ing is, God be thanked, that though ye were, in time past, the serv- ants of sin, yet now, " being free from sin, ye are become the servants of righteousness." And not only servants, but sons. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John iii, 1, etc.) Regeneration depends on faith. " But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name ; which were born, not of blood, nor of the wUl of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i, 12, 13.) Those only who received him and believed on his name were made sons or regenerated. ' ' Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." (1 John v, 1.) "But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that be- lieving ye might have life through his name." (John xx, 31.) These are only a few of the many passages which prove clearly that regen- eration is conditioned on faith. Justification, adoption, and regenera- tion being concomitants, whatever leads to one of these blessings must lead to the others. ADOPTION. As commonly understood, adoption means to place as a son and heir one who is not such by nature. Moses was the first to apply the term to God's people. " Ye are the children of the Lord your God,'' said he to ancient Israel. (Deut. xiv, 1.) The pious Israelite was prone to regard himself as a servant rather than an heir, and Moses began to instruct him in the conception of a higher relation. Our Lord must have taken up the theme early in his ministry, for the apostle John tells us that "as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John i, 12.) Faith is the condition upon which is based the gift of power to become sous. Faith saves the soul, and when the soul is saved, the Spirit of God witnesses to adoption. " For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The Holy Spirit takes away slavish fear from the justified soul, and implants the knowledge of sonship, that filial confidence which enables us to call God our WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 289 Father. "But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." (Gal. iv, 4-6.) This passage teaches that redemption through Christ is the means of our adoption i that adoption follows^ our redemption ; and that when adopted the Spirit conveys to our hearts the evidence of it. Yet it will hardly do to teach that adoption is a distinct and sep- arate act of God, disconnected with the work of justification and re- generation. It is rather a relative act, involved in, and necessarily flowing from, our justification. Those who are justified are renewed and adopted. As Paul says: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and I will be a FaJ;her unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. vi, 18.) Adoption is intimately connected with coming out from the world, being pardoned, and separated from every thing unclean. God wants his children to be pure. Those whom he forgives he receives into his favor and family, giving them a title to all the purchased pos- session. The Scriptures everywhere teach us that our heirship, and our consequent title to eternal life, are grounded on our justification. " For we are justified by his grace that we should be heirs according to the hope of .eternal life." (Titus iii, 7.) WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT. The doctrine of the witness of the Spirit is simply the assurance of pardon and regeneration, without which knowledge of salvation is impossible. It is based upon such passages of Scripture as these: "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemp- tion of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." (Eph. i, 13, 14.) "For as jnany as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." (Rom. viii, 14-16,). "And, because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son ; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.'' 19 290 FAITH MADE EASY. (Gal. iv, 6, 7.) "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stab- lisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God ; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." (2 Cor. i, 20-22.) "And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us." (1 John iii, 24.) "Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit." (1 John iv, 13.) These passages certainly teach that the witness of the Spirit is not only the privilege but the actual possession of every child of God. Just as the Spirit of God witnesses to conviction of sin in the peni- tent heart, so that same Spirit witnesses to salvation in the believing heart. Without this witnesa there could be no peace, no comfort, no joy. With this witness the saved soul has peace. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God." "The Bible," says Rev. Wilbur F. Tillett, "indicates several tokens whereby we may know that we are the children of God ; and that Christian has indeed just cause for discouragement in regard to his state who can not consciously appropriate some of these to himself. From the stand-point of faith it is called the assurance of faith ; and the faith-mark is : ' He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself,' and ' I know whom I have believed.' The love-mark is : ' Hereby we know that we have passed from darkness to light, because we love the brethren.' The obedience-mark is: 'Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.' It may be tested by the change that has taken place: 'One thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see.' Again by practical benevolence: 'Love not in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth ; and hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.' Again, by contrasting our state with that of the world: 'And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wicked- ness ;' ' We have peace with God ;' ' The fruits of the Spirit are these,' etc. Now here are eight tests given whereby we may know that we are regenerate believers ; nor are these all. If neither by his faith, nor by his love, nor obedience, nor benevolence, nor sense of reconciliation and peace, nor by the change that has taken place in himself or in his feelings for God and his people, nor by the purpose of his heart nor the fruits of his life ; if by none of these marks he can prove himself to be a Christian ; if his faith can take hold of none of these things and reach assurance of souship, the professing Chris- tian has indeed just ground for fearing that he has never been truly WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 291 converted. But if any of these brings comfort to the discouraged believer, let him hold fast to that, and make much of it, and build up from that to the full assurance of faith. ■ No man can know that he is a Christian except he be convinced thereof by the Holy Ghost." The doctrine of the witness of the Spirit is very important, for, as Calvin observes, "if the Holy Spirit of God did not bear testimony to paternal love, our tongue would remain silent ; for we could not in prayer call him Father, unless we were assured that he is really so. Our own mind of itself, independent of the preceding testimony of the Spirit, could not produce this persuasion that we are the sons of God." ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION OR HOLINESS. WHAT IS HOLINESS? A scientific definition of the term holiness will hardly answer our purpose in considering the question of Christian holiness, and yet we may give it. Webster says holiness is " the state of being holy ; free- dom from sin ; sanctified affections ; the state of any thing hallowed or set apart for God or his service." The last clause of this definition is much to the point, and so is his definition of the word "sanctify:" ""In a general sense, to cleanse, purify, make holy; to separate, set apart, or appoint to a holy use ; to make holy ; to make the means of holiness; to make free from guilt; to secure from violation." As applied to the Christian, holiness represents that highest state of grace to which it is possible for a human being by the aid of the Holy Spirit to attain on earth. Views differ as to what that "highest state" may be, and we shall here make no attempt- to settle the ques- tion. Theories on this subject are of less consequence than facts. Theories are man-made. We prefer to go directly to the Bible, the original source of all knowledge pertaining to this question, and from its teachings try to arrive at the essential truth. Happily, the Book is very explicit. Bishop Foster says: "It breathes in the prophecy, thunders in the law, murmurs in the narra- tive, whispers in the promises, supplicates in the prayers, sparkles in the poetry, resounds in the songs, speaks in ^he types, glows in the imagery, voices in the language, and burns in the spirit of its whole scheme, from its Alpha to its Omega, from its beginning to its end. Holiness! holiness needed! holiness required! holiness offered! holi- ness attained ! holiness a present duty, a present privilege, a present 292 FAITH MADE EASY. enjoyment, is the progress and completeness of its wondrous theme ! It is the truth glowing all over, webbing all through revelation ; the glorious truth which sparkles and whispers and sings and shouts in all its history, and biography, and poetry, and prophecy, and precept, and promise, and prayer; the great central truth of the system." We may say just here that the holiness possible to the Christian is not absolute holiness, like the holiness of God. Neither man nor angels can attain to the perfection of the Deity. But man can attain to a condition of moral purity in which it is his delight to commune with God, to do his will, to guard against temptation, to resist sin, to overcome evil, to follow righteousness, to rejoice in worship and praise, to love God supremely and his neighbor as himself. To reach this state, as we shall show, is both his duty and privilege. THE MOTIVE TO A HOLY LIFE. Desire to be like Christ is the grand motive to holiness. Christ was holy, harmless, undefiled, made separate from sinners, and lived a life of complete consecration to God. In him was no sin. The moral image of God shone constantly upon his soul. It is the Christian's privilege to be like Christ, to have his mind, his moral character, to be trans- formed into his image, to manifest his spirit, and keep himself un- spotted from the world. Tlie true Christian desires this. He " pants to have no other will, but night and day to feast on thee." He is under a deep sense of obligation to his Lord, he admires the infinite loveli- ness of his character, and feels that to resemble him would be a realization of paradise restored. Desire to be holy leads to the use of means. There are more means of grace than prayer-meetings, sermons, and communions. We seek counsel. We study the Word. We pray in secret. We im- plore the help of the Spirit. Our very aspirations quicken faith, and faith secures the blessing. " We all with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." The gospel is the mirror in which we behold that glory, and the Spirit of God working on the heart of the believer is the transforming power. It is but reasonable that all Christians should seek an experience so practical, and an inward transformation so beautiful. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said : " I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world ; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 293 The "mercies of God" are a suflBcient reason why we should conse- crate ourselves, soul, body, and spirit, to the service of God. How great axe those mercies ! How boundless the infinite goodness! How speedily the very thought of God's benefactions should drive us to his bosom seeking his purity and fullness of love ! Nothing should hinder us. The body of sin within us should be destroyed. The old man, with his affections and lusts, should be nailed to the tree. There is a sense in which the crucifixion of the flesh is our own work. ' ' They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts." In accepting Christ they renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil. In the life and power of the Spirit they mortify tlieir members which are upon the earth. By the reckoning of faith they realize with Paul: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me;" "I am cru- cified unto the world, and the world unto me." In such a state the believer is prepared to appropriate the truth as it is in Christ, to nourish and strengthen his spiritual life. His conception of re- ligious privilege becomes clearer, his desire for full salvation grows stronger, and the resolve seizes him to know all the length and breadth and depth and height of the love of God which passeth knowledge, that he may be filled with all the fullness of God. Nor is he easily discouraged, or quickly moved from his purpose. His motive is enduring. He is ready to endure hardness, if need be, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Think what human beings can endure when they are firmly resolved. An American Indian will stand without flinching in the presence of his captors while they cut away his flesh with knives. He will not sue for mercy, nor will he sigh or groan. He has hardened his purpose to endure any thing. No torture can shake his fortitude or subdue his iron will. And this is all of pride. He will not dishonor his race, or gratify his foes by the slightest exhibition of softness or subjection. Now, if a feeling of natural pride can bring «a person to such powers of endur- ance, how much more ought the power of Christian motive to lead us to pluck out the right eye of evil and sever the right hand of sin, that we may stand before God unblamable in holiness! Let us put away sin. It is no essential part of our life. It does not rightfully belong in our characters. It is an intrusion, a stain, a blot upon our natures. We are perfect just in proportion as we are pure, and we are pure in the measure that we become Christ-like. The plan is sim- ple, and the way easy. Cease to do evil ; learn to do well. Trust Christ for every thing. Do what he commands you, and realize his power to save to the uttermost. 294 FAITH MADE EASY. HOLINESS— IDEAL AND REAL. ■^here is no dispute among Christians as to the fact that perfect holiness is tlie ideal of the Christian life. It is the standard at which we should all aim. Whether we can reach the heights of this blessed experience on this side of death, is the ground of stumbling. Those who claim that we can, and should, and do, set up a rock of offense be- fore those who think to the contrary. Yet it is a little bit strange that those who believe in holiness as a good theory should be so disbeliev- ing in holiness as a needed practice. Can God consistently set before our eyes a doctrinal scheme which is utterly impracticable? Can he justly tantalize us by exhibiting a blessed life and experience in ideal which we can never attain to in fact? Does God ever deal with his people in that way ? No : and the lives and testimonies of thousands of credible witnesses prove that he has not done so in regard to this doctrine. When God commands us to be perfect in love he intends we should be perfect in love. His grace is sufficient. He never re- quires an impossible thing. Our own experience as believers accords with God's promises that he will lead us on just as far as we consent to be led. Never has he failed. No man ever sought this blessing with a whole heart who did not find. And those who have sought and found have realized as never before that their souls had found the true shrine. Holiness is the felt want of the believing heart. Good men have ever yearned and struggled for it. Robert McCheyne says: "I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of present happiness ; I shall do most for God's glory and the good of man, and I shall have the fullest reward in eternity by maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ's blood ; by being filled with the Holy Spirit at all times, and by attaining the most entire likeness to Christ in mind, will, and heart, that it is possible for a redeemed sin- ner to attain in this world." Biiainerd tells us how we should long and strive for it : "I had intense and passionate breathings of soul after holiness, and very clear manifestations of my utter inability to procure or work it in myself; it is whoUy owing to the power of God. O, with what tenderness the love and desire of holiness fills the soul! I wanted to "wring out myself to God, or rather to get a conformity to him ; but, alas ! I can not add to my stature in grace one cubit. However, my soul can never leave off striving for it, or at least groaning that it can not obtain more purity of heart." This is the experience which ministers need. James Brainerd Taylor thought so : " Ministers, of all others, should be holy men ; WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 295 Christians every where — and no common Christians — always setting an example for the flock to imitate. O, for perfect love, for complete sanctification for the office which awaits us !" On a certain Sabbath he listened to a powerful sermon from a minister whom he believed to be holy, and he wrote : "I came away with the conviction that ho- liness, holiness, is the grand secret of effectual preaching." AUeine shows by his practice how careful and minute this holi- ness is: " Never to lie down but in the name of God, not barely for natural refreshment, but that a wearied servant of Christ may be re- cruited and fitted to serve him better next day. Never to rise up but with this resolution : Well, I will go forth this day in the name of God, and will make religion my business, and spend the day for eternity. Never to enter upon my calling, but first thinking I will do ttese things as unto God, because he required these things at my hands in the place and station he hath put me into. Never to sit down to the table, but resolving I will not eat merely to please my appetite, but to strengthen myself for my Master's work. Never to make a visit but upon some holy design, resolving to leave something of God where I go ; and in every company to leave some good sown behind." THE TRUE STANDARD OF HOLINESS. It is a false idea of Christian purity which rejects of ignores the binding force of the moral law, and holds that the Christian by virtue of iiis union with Christ is lifted above law, and therefore can not sin. This is Antinomianism pure and simple. -It is " the doctrine which makes void the law through faith." It takes such a one-sided view of faith that works lose their legitimate position in the system of salvation, and assume the aspect of something intrinsically evil. This is the error against which St. James directed his epistle, declar- ing that faith without works is dead. Pity he did not succeed in kill- ing the error, for then it would not have cropped out so powerfully in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, to wither and destroy the consciousness of human responsibility, and blast, like a frail flower, the heartiest endeavor of men to be true. The moral law is binding upon every Christian. He who imagines that Christ's righteousness is so imputed to him that he need not seek a righteousness of his own, that by perfect faith in Christ as his Savior he is exempted from the necessity of a perfect life, deceives his own soul and is treas- uring up wrath against t)iat great day when we shall be judged by our works. 296 FAITH MADE EASY. Equally pernicious with this is the opposite extreme, as developed by the Eoman Church, which ascribes a saving value to works, and fairfy casts out faith, the very life-principle of the gospel. There is another false theory of holiness which may be mentioned. It consists in lowering the demands of the law to the standard of easy living. Get the standard low enough, and conformity with it is a very simple matter. In this way criminals themselves may be per- fect. Such perfection is the perfection of Scriptural abuse, the very essence of Satanic deception. The true theory of holiness maintains the strictness and spirituality of the moral law as the standard of duty for both saints and sinners, despairs of obedience thereunto by any natural ability, yet believes that provision is made in the gospel by which every soul may attain unto the standard. Grace is sufficient. The Spirit helpeth our in- firmities. The blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin. By the help of God the soul gets the victory over the world and over every sin. The believer loves God and his neighbor, as required by the law. He relies upon Christ's assisting grace to maintain purity £is well as for pardon and peace. This is the holiness demanded by the law and the gospel. It is attainable through Jesus Christ. He is able to save his people from their sins. It is a philosophical as well as Scriptural truth that if Christ can save from sin at all, he can save from all sin. He can sanctify his people wholly, in body, soul, and spirit. He redeems such as trust in him from all iniquity, fills them with all the fullness of God, keeps them from falling, and presents them faultless before his pres- ence in glory, with 'exceeding joy. Having such a perfect Redeemer, every Christian should seek perfect redemption; he should receive Christ as a whole Savior ; like Paul, he should count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ ; and forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, he should press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. "If we come short of en- tire sanctification, we despise a blood-boughf privilege, which is of in- estimable value, and are guilty of very aggravated unbelief." Only the love of sin, the waywardness of unbelief, will prevent the attain- ment by Christians, in the early part of their religious experience, of that holiness which is as surely provided for them as pardon is for the sinner. It is painful to contemplate professed believers living in practical doubt, their experience at a low ebb, daring not to trust God when he tells them, " I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols," and when he swears to them that he " will grant WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 297 unto them, that they being delivered out of the hand of their enemies may serve him without fear, in holin^s and righteousness before him all the days of their life." Why such unbelief? Why so loath to ac- cept a higher and better life ? Christ was manifested to take away our sins. It is our privilege so to abide in him that we sin not. This is righteousness and true holiuess. The work of such righteous- ness is peace ; its effect is quietness and assurance forever. DID JESUS TEACH THE DOCTRINE OF HOLINESS? Did Jesus plainly and unequivocally teach the doctrine of Chris- tian holiness? If he did, this fact alone places it above cavil, and on the high ground of- truth and righteousness. First, consider the design of Christ's coming, which was to save his people from their sins (Matt, i, 21) ; that is, from the pollution aud guilt of sin, from the dominion and power of sin, so that, hence- forth, they should be free from the bondage of sin, and become serv- ants to God, and have their fruit unto holiness. Hence Paul said to the Romans: "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of un- righteousness unto sin ; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of right- eousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you." (Rom. vi, 11-14.) Likewise St. John: "And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither knowu him." (1 John iii, 5, 6.) Any number of passages might be quoted to show that Christ was sinless himself, and was manifested for the express purpose of redeeming the race from sin ; not from sinful acts alone, but from the inbred power of sin, the last remains of the carnal mind. Now, do the teachings of Jesus, as they fell from his own lips, accord with this revealed truth respecting his mission on earth? Turn to the Sermon on the Mount, and note his words: " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous- ness, for they shall be filled." This "righteousness" is that "spiritual and entire conformity to the law of God, under the want of which the saints groan, and the possession of which constitutes the only true saintship." (Fausset & Brown.) Jesus says they shall be "filled" with this proper food of the soul; they shall be saturated with it; they shall not only have what they so highly value and long to pos- 298 FAITH MADE EASY. sess, but they shall have their fill of it. What can this be but holi- ness ? Again : ' ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This purity implies a new creation of the inner man, the re- newal of a right spirit within us. It is a resurrection with Christ to newness of life, the awaking up of the soul into the Divine likeness, which alone can prepare us for the vision of God. The words of John are of similar import: " We know that we shall^be like him, for we shall see him as he is."' David anticipated this requisite of exalted spiritual vision when he inquired: "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart." (Psa. xxiv, 2-4.) Hence he prayed : " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." (Psa. li, 10.) This heart purity begins in a "heart sprinkled from an evil conscience," or a "con- science purged from dead works." This purging lets in the light whereby the soul may see. "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth ; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John i, 6, 7.) The apostle Paul, expressing the converse of this beatitude, says: "Follow holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." (Heb. xii, 14.) Purity of heart is holiness, and only the holy see the Holy One. Could the infallible Christ have taught the doctrine more unmistakably? We trow not. But hear him a little farther on, when he reaches the point of command. He has been enunciating the principles of the new dispensation, revealing the spirit of the new life as contrasted with that of the old, and gives utterance to such counsels respecting life as these : "Swear not at all ;" "Let your communication be Yea, yea;" "Resist not evil;'' "Give to him that asketh thee;" "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that de- spitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father." And then, as if to make a grand summary of Christian privilege and duty, he says: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matt, v, 34-:48.) No possibility here of ex- plaining that our Lord meant ' ' degrees of excellence ;" he designates squarely that kind of excellence which is to distinguish his disciples and characterize his kingdom; and when he adds, "even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," he refers to that " full-orbed, glo- rious completeness which is in the great Divine Model," and evermore to be the standard of the saintly life. Whedon on this passage says : WHAT TO BELIE VM CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 299 "Be not low and imperfect, like unregenerate men, but rise to. an imitationyof our Father. Be perfect, by having a heart purified from all hate, and filled with all love. If thy vessel be filled with love, God can be no more than full. He is the perfect infinite ; thou art the perfect finite. The shrine of a temple was the perfect image of the temple. The temple was a perfect temple ; the shrine was a per- fect shrine. They were different in magnitude, but they were alike perfect." Here, then, we have in the tersest language the doctrine of Christian perfection from the lips of Christ. He uttered many other sayings of like import; but if we should quote them all, neither their teachings could augment nor diminish the force of this. He does not command us to attain to angelic perfection, nor even to ideal perfec- tion as men, but to have the law of love so enthroned as a perfect power in the heart that the character and life will exemplify it in all relations, even as it shines out in the relation to us of our Heavenly Father. Herein consists the perfected character of evangelical piety, and this Jesus taught. It should be remembered, also, that the word "perfection," as representing this doctrine, and against which there is so much prejudice, is used on the authority of our Savior. "Be ye therefore perfect." This perfection refers to those "called to be saints." The Lord commanded the children of Israel: "Thou shalt be perfect." Of Job, the Lord said: "That man was perfect.'' David sang: " He that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me." Paul exhorted the Hebrews to " go on unto perfection," and prayed repeat- edly for Churches and individuals that they migl(t be sanctified. Paul, and John, and Peter, all claimed to have reached Christian perfection. ' ' This Scripture standard, at which the believer is so constantly ex- horted to aim, involves two things: entire devotion or consecration (Matt, xix, 21), and pure love to Christ (Mark xii, 30). It is a Di- vine gift, a work wrought in us by the Holy Ghost in answer to our faith. It is not the submission of a sinner begging for pardon and eternal life ; it is the consecration of a son longing for purity of heart. It is never innate, but always from Christ, and given in answer to obedient faith." We can never grow into this grace; we have to "go on unto perfection," and lay hold upon the promises of God ; then wiU he " shed abroad his love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." ST. PAUL ON HOLINESS. Of all the New Testament writers, Paul is the most voluminous. We can only suggest the comprehensiveness of his teachings on the subject now in hand. His epistles should be studied in their entirety 300 FAITH MADE EASY. by all who desire to arrive at the whole truth. lu the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Romans he makes himself an especial authority for the highest experiences in grace. Take your-Bible, and read his precious words. We will here consider some more isolated passages. In his letter to the Corinthians he speaks of them as "babes in Christ,'' as being "washed," as "justified," even "sancti- fied." Doubtless he means cleansed from the pollution of personal sins. And yet he says they are " carnal," and urges them to cleanse themselves " from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holi- ness in the fear of God." Also, in his letter to the Thessalonians, he speaks of them as having " faith and labor of love;" as the " elect of God ;" as having "much assurance;" having "joy in the Holy Ghost," so that they were "ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia." And yet Paul desired to see them, that he " might perfect that which was lacking in their faith;" "to the end" he — the Lord — "may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God.'' ' In this same letter he also ventured to utter a bold prayer, if entire holiness of heart and life is not for the believer. He said: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the com- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." (1 Thess. v, 23, 24.) Language could be no stronger as showing to what heights Christians may rise in their God-ward as- pirations and realizations. Paul did not say: "I hope you will be as good as poor, fallen, sinful creatures generally are, and that your no- tions of Christian purity may rise at least to the level of endeavoring to keep the Ten Commandments." He did not say : " It is impossible for you to live without sin, even for a single moment, but I would fain have you tolerably circumspect and religious." He did not say : " Keep your minds on the doctrine of necessary evil, and remember that, though certain fanatics talk about perfection in the love of God, and uprightness of deed and word, you are to walk as becometh redeemed sinners ; viz., now and then stumble into the pit whence you are digged, in order to show your human nature, and the impossibDity of getting rid of its defilement." Paul said nothing of this kind, for the good reason that he believed nothing of the kind, and never taught it in any of his writings. He believed that the " clean water," which Ezekiel had foretold, had power to make clean; that the "new heart" and the "new spirit" would seek to walk after the Divine statutes, and keep the judgments of God. " The very God of peace sanctify you wholly," is his confident wish. May " your whole spirit and soul and WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 301 body be preserved blameless!" is his expectant prayer. " Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it," is his positive declaration of faith. Paul desired that to be accomplished in these Christians which was required of all. He quibbles not, and explains nothing. Taking for granted that they would see and feel the necessity of purity, he prays that they may have it. He knew that the belief and realiza- tion of entire sanctification by the God of peace would fill their minds with unutterable and constant love to God, destroy their selfishness, beget in them the most cordial love to man, quiet their spiritual un- easiness, and satisfy their religious longings. He knew that Christ gave himself for them, that he might sanctify and cleanse them with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present them to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that they should be holy and without blemish; and he afiirms most solemnly that this same Jesus would work in them this glorious experience. Paul was always writing in precisely this style, always urging the truth of God in this same strain. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in the faith, and fully persuaded that what God had promised through Christ Jesus he was able to perform. He exhorted his Churches to receive the fulfillment of God's exceeding great and precious promises, so as not to be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of their mind, that they might prove what is that good and accept- able and perfect will of God. This he regarded as the glory of the Gospel, its crowning excellence, the brightest star in the whole firma- ment of revealed truth. It was his day-star of hope, to which he pointed his fellow-men. It was to his own soul a fountain of living water, a well-spring of life, and he was ever inviting his fellow-be- lievers to partake of its fullness. What shall we do with Paul ? How can we get rid of the import of his utterances so as to rest easy in our primary religious state? He gives us the word and example of leaving first principles and of going on to perfection. Humble, prayerful, and charitable, yet resolute, confident, and. unequivocal, clear in his faith, radiant in his hope, and positive in the expression of his experience, he holds up before the Christian world forever an ideal and a reality of the saving power of the Gospel, which we do well to study, and know, and practice, and fulfill. Hear his last words to the Hebrew brethren, written after St. James and other apostles had suflTered martyrdom, and he knew that his own end was near: " Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of 302 FAITH MADE EASY. the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Paul certainly taught the doctrine of Christian perfection. But did Paul make a personal profession of holiness ? It is one thing to teach and preach, but another thing to profess and practice. Did Paul practice what* he preached? 'We think so, and for several excellent reasons: 1. If he was not holy he could not have consistently exhorted his converts to follow his example. This he did. "Those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do ; and the God of peace shall be with you." (Phil, iv, 9.) The things of which he here speaks were whatsoever are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. If Paul had set an example of untruth, dishonesty, impurity, or of unloveliness of character and life, he would have been the last man to call attention to his own frailties and weak- nesses. Had he been a sinner in any respect he could not have urged them to do the things they had seen in him. But he challenges their observation of his life, and insists that they shall imitate his example. Hear him in other passages: "Let us therefore, as many as be per- fect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample." (Phil, iii, 15-17.) " Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." (1 Cor. xi, 1.) Here are precepts, just as positive and unrestricted, requiring us to follow the example of Paul, who said, "Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded," as can be found in the Bible requiring us to imitate Christ. The conclusion is that Paul, as a follower of Christ, did his whole duty — measured completely up to the highest Christian standard. " Ye are witnesses," he says, " and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe." (1 Thess. ii, 10. ) Who but a consciously holy man could thus appeal to his most intimate associates and to God, the Searcher of hearts, that he had lived a holy, just, and blameless life? On any other supposition Paul was guilty of shocking blasphemy. But the charge of blasphemy never can be laid against him. His life was above reproach. In no instance subsequent to his conversion was sin charged against him. Nowhere can it be found that he had sin to confess, or that he en- gaged in confession after his dedication to God. Mistakes he no WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 303 . doubt made, but his moral character was completely in the likeness of Christ. But, 2. Listen to his professions of holiness: "I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless, I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. ii, 20.) To understand the full significance of the phrase, "lam crucified with Christ," let us taka the comment of Eev. Albert Barnes. He says : " (1.) That this was the way in which Christ was put to death. He suffered on the cross, and thus became literally dead. (2.) In a sense similar to this, Paul became dead to the law, to the world, and to sin." This was holiness. In the remainder of the passage the apostle shows how he was alive. Christ was living in him. His life in the flesh was a life of faith. To every thing pure and good he was alive. Christ controlled him. He had yielded his own powers to his Master. All the impulses of his being were under one principle — faith on the Son of God. Entire sanctification knows no higher estate. Paul also claimed a pure conscience. " Herein do I exercise my- self, to have always a conscience void of offense toward. God, and toward man." (Acts xxiv, 16.) " I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience." (2 Tim. i, 3.) No conscience is "pure," "void of offense," whose possessor is in the habit of daily sin. Such a testimony can not come from the heart and lips of an unholy man. Paul claimed freedom from sin. " For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Rom. viii, 2.) The law of sin and death was the law he had referred to in the preceding chapter, under the influence of which the soul continues in sin. But being made free from this law, Paul had become a servant of God, and had his fruit unto holiness. Paul had all the characteristics of personal holiness, — a contented mind, a humble heart, a reasoning spirit, a fruitful life, a submissive dispo- sition, readiness for death, willingness to live and work for his Master, and a consciousness that he could do all things which God required, through Christ which strengthened him. So far as we know, there is but one passage in all his writings which can be construed as assert- ing imperfection. Here it is : " Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect : but I follow after, if that I may appre- hend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended : but this one thing I do, for- getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the 304 FAITH MADE EASY. high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil, iii, 12-14) But, evi- dently, the apostle is not here speaking of moral imperfection, but only of the imperfection of his earthly religious state as compared with that he should attain when he gained the heavenly prize. Christ used similar language in reference to his earthly humiliation: "I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." (Luke xiii, 32.) In the very next verse Paul refers to his religious life, saying : ' ' Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." The plain significance of the entire passage is that, in reference to the state of glory consequent upon having victoriously finished his race, he was imperfect, but in respect to Christian character he was perfect. Whedon, on this passage, construes "already perfect" as rather "al- ready perfected," referring not to his martyrdom, nor to the physical resurrection change only, but " to that perfected holiness of soul, that completing of the regeneration, which takes place at the exanastasis (out-uprising, or glorious resurrection), by which the being passes out of the sphere of possible sin. This is a higher 'being perfect,' which is different from, but does not contradict, the lower 'perfect' of verse 15, which belongs to the earthly Christian life, and to which St. Paul had attained, and which was an earnest to follow after." Paul's estimate of himself was a humble one, but he never shrank from an acknowledgment of the whole truth as to what grace had done for him. ST. JAMES'S TESTIMONY. Paul is not alone in supporting the teachings of Christ upon this transcendently important theme. We open the Epistle of St. James, and read: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations ; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be per- fect and entire, wanting nothing. . . . Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their aflliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." " Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners ; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded." (James i, 2, 3, 4, 27; iv, 8.) Observe: 1. That the words are addressed to the "brethren," not to strangers to the blood of. sprinkling. He is writing to those who have believed, who have experienced the early blessings of the life of faith, and who are expected to acquire mastery in the school of Christ. 2. That the Christian life is a battle in which the believer is called WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 305 upon to gain complete victory over the forces that oppose. He is not to despond under trial, but "count it all joy" when he falls "into divers temptations." There is no condition in life without its sources of trial and discipline, indeed that is what we are here for, to get discipline for the great life in the future. Grace is sufficient to enable every one to overcome, and he that overcometh shall inherit all things. 3. Patience is required in Christian experience, and patience is to " have her perfect work." It is a glorious thing to be perfect in any particular, and not least to be perfect in the grace of Christian patience, for this patience implies firmness against assaulting powers. The resistance of temptation and victory over the tempter beget hardihood and solidity. 4. The fina,l object is the completion of Christian character. " That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Of St. James's per- fect man, a learned commentator notes: "(1) He is not a sudden product, even by faith, but a growth from trial, persistence, and ex- perience. Herein this view varies from, perhaps, but does not con- tradict, St. Paul's and St. John's. (2.) It is a practical perfection, after a human measure, realizable in this life. It should be the steady aim of every Christian. (3.) It consists in a degree of spiritual and moral power, through Divine aid, of resisting temptation, avoiding sin, and attaining excellence. Just so far as the Christian possesses that power, so far is he the perfect Christian. And it is not so much a 'second blessing' as a consummating of the first one." 5. The apostle directs the way : " Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.'' Christian grace to overcome is the rightful in- heritance of all who will have it. God requires only that we approach him by faith with penitent hearts, and he will meet us in mercy and crown us with his love. ST. PETER ALSO TEACHES THE DOCTRINE. In the very opening chapter of his first epistle St. Peter exhorts the brethren to holiness. Hear him: "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation ; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart ' fervently." (1 Pet i, U, 16, 22.) Again, in the fifth chapter, he says: "But the God of all grace, 20 306 FAITH MADE EASY. wto hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." These are plain words. They convey some pointed truths. 1. They reveal a high standard. "As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy." Christ is the model of all holiness, and it is he who hath called us. Our grand concern is to follow his example of purity that we may appear in his presence with joy. 2. They are of particular application. They reach to the very lips, even "all manner of conversation," and to the utmost point of life; for "conversation" here includes the conduct, or behavior, with the old idea of turning about, and meaning that holiness is to pervade every part of life. 3. They point to the best authority: "It is written." The book of the law is thus appealed to. "For I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy ; for I am holy." (Lev. xi, 44.) Again: "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy : for I the Lord your God am holy." (Lev. xix, 2.) And again: "Ye shall be holy unto me : for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine." (Lev. xx, 26.) The ceremonial purification under the old covenant is typical of the moral sanctification required then as now. "St. Peter's use of the quotation brings out its spiritual significance as freed from the ritual- istic, and presents it as the law of the New Testament. God is holy in his very essence, and the fountain of all holiness in men. His holiness is the reason for their holiness, as well as its pattern." 4. They reveal the source of all our hope of purity — " The God of all grace." We are unworthy, and weak and powerless, but our trust is in the fountain of Deity, the liberal Giver of all good. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. 5. They suggest the process: "After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect." Entire sanctification is generally attained by a growth in every active and suffering grace, that we may be refined as gold in the crucible. It is to be attained by faith and prayer. We must inquire for covenant blessings, and pray that the God of peace may sanctify us wholly, "stablish, strengthen, and settle" us. As a building founded on a rock can stand when the winds blow and the storms beat, so when the mind is confirmed in the faith, and the heart established with grace, we can, in the strength of the Lord, resist the winds of temptation and the waves of sin. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 307 ST. JOHN'S IDEAS. The loving aposde is profusfe in his teachings upon this subject, and very clear. Speaking of our condition by nature he says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John i, 8.) This is a reiteration of St. Paul's words: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Evangelical Chris- tians of every name are agreed that we are the inheritors of corrupt natures, and that this inbred corruption crops out in personal trans- gression. But in the very next verse the apostle says: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Here we have the twofold truth, the for- giveness of sins, and the complete cleansing. The former is justifica- tion ; the latter, sanctification, which is made entire : " Cleanse us from all unrighteousness." In the next chapter he tells us how we are to know that the work is wrought, and how we are to deport ourselves as the result of it: "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his com- mandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his com- mandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected : hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." (1 John ii, 3-6.) It is only a question of steady perseverance in the things of God — faith, obedience, knowledge, truth, and wisdom. Whoso doeth these things, " in him is the love of God perfected." Christian perfection is perfection in love, not perfection in knowledge or other intellectual traits. No intelligent person ever teaches that holiness implies abso- lute freedom from the possibility of mistakes in judgment, conversa- tion, and conduct; nevertheless every follower of Christ should " walk, even as he walked," guarding his words and acts, governing his tem- per and bearing, and in all things maintaining the utmost possible consistency that the Gospel be not blamed. Every Christian is re- quired to be holy, and every professor of holiness must preserve his vessel in honor, that the influence of his life may accord with the love and joy of his heart. Ojfiten he will be unjustly criticised, because he will be misjudged. Men can not weigh each other's motives, and some are not as careful as they should be in interpreting the ways of Christians. If we would " put the best construction on every thing," we could often encourage weak brethren to "go on to perfection," 308 FAITH MADE EASY. instead of so discouraging them that they give up entirely, and make shipwreck of faith. Our faith must be in God, and we must rejoice in his love. See how the apostle goes on: "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God ; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." (1 John iii, 1-3.) It is enough that the servant be as his Master. The world was harsh in its judgment of the life of Jesus, and his followers need not expect to escape. They who profess to be the children of God very naturally excite the secret prejudice, and sometimes the open animos- ity, of the children of this world. The world will love its own. Worldly people appreciate worldly things — the things they can handle and see — and they frequently fail to understand the beauty and value of spiritual things ; these are spiritually discerned. For this reason God's true children should be steadfast and immovable. They know that they have passed from death unto life, and though the world may hate them, they need not hate the world, except the evil that is in it. They are conscious of their sonship, and though the future is veiled, they are assured that their Heavenly Father will provide glo- riously for them. To be "like Christ" here, and to "see him as he is" hereafter, is reward enough for all one's trials and sorrows. Surely "every man that hath this hope'' will purify himself after the pat- tern of Christ. He will seek the pure heart and the faultless life; for " whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you : he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him : and he can not sin, because he is born of God." (1 John iii, 6-9.) It is morally impossible for a pure man to sin. He could sin if he would ; but he does not because he is " born of God," and because the Holy Ghost reigns in his heart. St. John does not mean the vo- litional impossibility of sinning (that is a monstrous heresy) — for he says, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father" — but he does mean that while the fixed purpose of faith abides the right- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 309 eous man can not practice sin or become a sinner. The two things, holiness and sin, are incompatible ; and he who has the one abstains from the other. Faith can not do the works of unbelief. Finally, the apostle adds a beautiful testimony ; and we can but hope that every reader may have his love made equally perfect, and witness a like confession: "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John iv, 14-18.) ST. JUDE ADDS A WOED. St. Jude's epistle contains but one short chapter, yet it very signif- icantly recognizes the doctrine of sanctification, and in a practical way, too. It is not addressed to sinners, nor to unsanctified believers, but "to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." And he proceeds to wish them multi- plied mercies, and peace, and love. Yet he calls all this "the com- mon salvation,'' and exhorts them — sanctified Christians — to " earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints." (Jude, 1-3.) By "the saints" we may understand all true Christians, but especially the "sanctified" of verse 1. Of this class F6nelon has written some appropriate words. "Souls," he says, "that, by being perfected in love, are truly the subjects of sanctification, do not cease, nevertheless, to grow in grace. It may not be easy to specify and describe the degrees of sanctification, but there seem to be at least two modifica- tions of experience after persons have reached this state. 1. The first may be described as the state of holy resignation. Such a soul thinks more frequently than it will at a subsequent period of its own happi- ness. 2. The second state is that of holy indifference. Such a soul absolutely ceases either to desire or to will, except to co-operate with the Divine leading. Its desires for itself, as it has greater light, are more completely and permanently merged in the one higher and more absorbing desire of God's glory and the fulfillment of his will. In this state of experience, ceasing to do what we shall be likely to do, and what we may very properly do in a lower state, we no longer 310 FAITH MADE EASY. desire our own salvation merely as an eternal deliverance, or merely as involving the greatest amount of personal happiness ; but we desire it chiefly as the fulfillment of God's pleasure, and as resulting in his glory, and because he himself desires and wills that we should thus desire and will. 3. Holy indifference is not inactivity. It is farthest possible from it. It is indifference to any thing and every thing out of God's will, but it is the highest life and activity to any thing and every thing in that will." Lady Huntingdon, the great patroness of Whitefield and Wesley, in 1742 wrote a letter, an extract from which shows how her own ex- perience illustrated this truth. She said: "My whole heart has not one single grain, this moment, of thirst after approbation. I feel alone with God ; he fills the whole void ; I see all mortals under my feet. I have not one wish, one will, one desire, but in him; he hath set my feet in a large room. All but God's children seem as so many machines appointed for uses which I have nothing to do with. I have wondered and stood amazed that God should make a conquest of all within me by love. Others may be conquered by less gifts and graces, but what must that evil heart be that nothing but the love of God can conquer? I am brought to less than nothing; broken to pieces like the potter's vessel. O, may you thus be subject — may these tears be your meat night and day ! I long to leap into the flames, to get rid of my sinful flesh, and that every atom of these ashes might be separate, that neither time, place, nor person should stay God's Spirit. And may the same Spirit dwell in you, protect and guide you to love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth. Fear not, be strong, and he will establish you. Adieu." HOW IS HOLINESS DISTINGUISHED? What is the experimental result in the life of an individual who gains the blessing of holiness ? What is there in such an experience that may be analyzed and stated as separate from ordinary Christian experience? Every truly converted person is conscious that a great change has been wrought within, and that a new relation has been es- tablished, that of adoption into the family of God. Yet with many, as the years roll on, there is an increasing consciousness of a painful lack somewhere in the experience, though just what it is can not easily be determined. There is a sighing for greater inward consistency, and generally a singing of the familiar " prone to wander." Evidently, mere conversion is not to be the goal of gospel grace. To make a mere title to heaven the end of all seeking and believing, is to ignore WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 311 the rich promises of Scripture, and the richer comforts of constant spiritual baptism. The Bible is fuU of the subject of holiness, and religious testimony is full of declarations that holiness is attainable, nay, is a precious fact in many lives. It has always been so from the days of Origen and Clement, along down the ages with Bernard, Tauler, DeRenty, Madame Guion, Thomas k Kempis, Law, Jeremy Taylor, Rutherford, Leighton, Doddridge, Wesley, Fletcher, Mrs. Palmer, Finney, Mahan, and on down to the present time, the students of Church history can trace the golden thread. So far there is concord. Holiness is for the believer, and many believers actually become holy. What do such say about their state ? Uniformly they testify that in- ward conflict ceases and the soul is at rest. Proneness to wander is changed to proneness to gravitate toward the valley of blessing. Love to God becomes full and perfect — " with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength." Friction is taken out of the religious life, so that all the soul's powers sweep evenly forward toward God and heaven. Clouds disperse, shd,dows fly, heaviness rolls ofi", doubt disappears, and troubles are powerless to annoy. The soul then rejoices evermore, prays without ceasing, and in every thing gives thanks. The Word of God is better understood, because the heights of its revelation are being climbed, and the soul is bathed with ethereal sunshine. God seems nearer, and trust in him is more assuring and confiding. The souls of men appear more valuable, and the longing for their salva- tion is correspondingly increased. Jesus is better lovfid, because bet- ter known as the perfect Savior from all sin. Religious worship is more enjoyed, because there the soul is in the atmosphere which is favorable to advancement from grace to grace. Such are some of the legitimate results of perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. By complete consecration of all to God, perfect belief in the cleansing blood, living in entire self-abnegation, and breathing after the guiding and helping presence of the Holy Spirit, any Christian heart may prove this record true. And by himself witnessing for the Master, walking in constant obedience to the will of God, and ever seeking more of the mind that was in Christ, the whole life may be a thank- oflfering of gratitude and praise to Him whose delight it is to de- liver from all sin, and keep the soul in perfect peace. Yes, perfect peace. "A mind at perfect peace with God ; O what a joy is this ! A sinner reconciled through blood — This, this, indeed, is peace ! 312 FAITH MADE EASY. By nature and by practice far — How very far — from God ! Yet now by grace brought nigh to him Through faith in Jesus' blood. So nigh, so very nigh, to God, I can not nearer be ; For in the person of his Son, I am as near as he. So dear, so very dear to God, More dear I can not be ; The love wherewith he loves the Son, Such is his love for me. Why should I ever careful be. Since such a God is mine ? He watches o'er me night and day, And tells me, ' Mine is thine !' " A GLIMPSE OF PERSONAL PURITY. " For blest assurance, love complete, Lord, 1 present my deepest joy Of gratitude. For mercies sweet Receive my thanks without alloy. Even my heart is purged of sin ; Now ' is the great transaction done.' Come, Holy Spirit, and within Eternalize the work begun!" Complete assurance is the Christian's solace. There is no comfort in sometimes feeling that we are children of God, and at other times fearing we are entirely deceived. We want to be sure, as sure as con- sciousness can make us. We want the knowledge of salvation which Jesus came to bring. We want to be led out of the darkness and dwell in the light. We want deliverance from sin and evidence of purity. These are for us. Some appear to imagine that the greatest height to which we can attain in this life is to see and feel that we are great sinners ; that we need to have a constant realization of moral deformity and personal guilt to keep us humble. They live with their heads bowed down, their hearts in heaviness, mourning over their sins, repenting but not forsaking, confessing but not reach- ing the heights of perfect freedom. Their hearts seem like cages of unclean birds. They feel that they ought to do something for their WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 313 fellow-beings, but they instinctively inquire, How can we, with these vile hearts? They try to grow in grace, but it is all they can do to stand. They never advance any. Sometimes in secret agony they cry: "O my Father, is this the life of the Christian? Didst thou send thy precious Son to save us only in part, and leave us in this condition of moral dearth and death ?" Now, a sense of sin is a nec- essary step toward purity, but in the purified state that sense should be gone. When the soul takes God at his word, and believes unto righteousness, even to the gaining of a clean heart, the load of guilt removes. Then the Sun of righteousness bursts forth and causes a heavenly day. Then comes peace like a river, deep and strong. The world is beautiful. The goodness and glory of God seem impressed upon every object. The soul is filled with love. Friends are more precious than ever, and even enemies are loved. Jesus is the chiefest among ten thousand. The Bible is the one book in the world ; re- ligion is the only blessedness. The desire increases to live entirely for God, to do something for his glory. Every day is a Sabbath. The whole life is a consecration and blessing. The soul strives to carry out religiou in business, in society, in dress, in conversation, in every-day duties, in home affairs ; in short, in all things. The cry is, O Lord, show me . thy path ! Wlhat wilt thou have me to do ? Death loses its sting ; for the sting of death is sin, and sin is gone. Pride is gone. Unbelief is gone. The future is glorious with promise. Often in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ. Communion with God is close and fervent. At times the soul almost meets him face to face, and talks to him as with a friend. It sees such loveliness in his character, such goodness in his dealings, such wonders in his bounty, that it is completely absorbed. The con- versation is in heaven, and the life is hid with Christ in God. Con- tentment follows contentment, with all the allotments and dispensations of Divine providence, whether in themselves prosperous or adverse, joyous or afflictive. Temper is controlled. Appetites, propensities, and passions are in subjection. A sacred respect is felt and paid to all the laws of God, moral and physical. Wrong habits are corrected ; a victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil, is realized. The desire is unto God. The Spirit's help is ever sought. The Divine baptism is craved and felt, in which the choicest influences descend even " as the dew; of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." 314 FAITH MADE EASY. EEPEESENTATIVE TESTIMONIES. Rev. James Brainerd Taylor, one of the faithful examples of holi- ness in the Presbyterian Church. After his conversion he was in great distress because of indwelling sin ; at length he was enabled to give up all to God. Writing to a friend, he gives the result: "My mind loves to dwell upon this delightful theme — holiness. It is a blessed doctrine. Ah ! why did I not come to possess it before ? Why, because, like many other professors of religion, I looked for a death purgatory, not believing that the blood of Christ, and not the purgatory, cleanseth from all sin. This is the present tense. It is eflScacious now, and the Lord has proved to me a full, a complete Savior." Scriptures illustrated : 1 Pet. i, 15, 16 ; Heb. xii, 14 ; 1 John i, 7, 9 ; ii, 5 ; 1 Thess. iv, 3. Professor T. C. Upham, a minister of the Congregational Church. It appears from his own statement that when he commenced seeking the blessing of entire sanctification he was not in a backslidden state, but possessed a "clear evidence of adoption and sonship." But with all this, he finds evils within, and says: "I do not know that I was ever more troubled." But he cried for help ! His faith triumphed ; he exclaims: "Thou hast given me the victory." "I was never able be- fore that time to say, with sincerity and confidence, that I loved my Heavenly Father with all my strength. But, aided by Divine grace, I have been enabled to use this language, which involves, as I under- stand it, the true idea of Christian perfection or holiness, both then and ever since. There was no intellectual excitement, no very marked joy when I reached this great rock of practical salvation. But I was distinctly conscious when I reached it." Scriptures illustrated : John xvii, 6-19. The persons for whom Christ prays were saved already. See verses 14r-16. Yet he prays for their sanctification. Professor Upham felt inbred sin. Rom. vii, 16-24 ; Gal. v, 17. Frances Ridley Havergal, an Episcopalian : ' ' Yes, it was on Ad- vent Sunday, December 2, 1873, I first saw clearly the blessedness of true consecration. I saw it as a flash of electric light, and what you see you can never wn-see. There must be full surrender before there can be full blessedness. God admits you by the one into the other. He himself showed me all this most clearly. You know how singularly I have been withheld from attending all conventions and conferences ; man's teaching has, consequently, had but little to do with it. First, I was shown that ' the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleans- eth us from all sin,' and then it was made plain to me that he who WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING REDEMPTION. 315 had thus cleansed me had power to keep me clean ; so I just utterly- yielded myself to him, and utterly trusted him to keep me." Scrip- tures : Psa. xxxvii, 15 ; Mai. iii, 10 ; John vii, 17 ; Jude 24 ; 2 Cor. iii, 5. Rev. Wm. Bramwell: "I was for some time deeply convinced of my need of purity, and sought it carefully with tears and entreaties and sacrifices, thinking nothing too much for me to give up — nothing too much to do or suflPer — if I might but obtain this pearl of great price." After describing the manner in which he sought heart cleans- ing — viz. , ' ' By faith alone, without the deeds of the law " — he says : " The Lord, for whom I waited, came suddenly to the temple of my heart, and I had an immediate evidence that this was the blessing I had for some time been seeking. It is now about twenty-six years ago. I have walked in this blessed liberty ever since. Glory be to God ! I have been kept by his power. By faith I stand." Rev. John Fletcher's experience: "I received this blessing four or five times before, but lost it by not obeying the order of God: 'With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth con- fession is made unto salvation.' But the enemy offered his bait in various colors to keep me from a public declaration of what my Lord had wrought." And, after narrating the manner of these deceptions, lie says : ' ' Now, brethren, you see my folly. I have confessed it in your presence, and now I resolve before you all to confess my Mas- ter. I will confess him to all the world ; and I will declare unto you, in the presence of God, the Holy Trinity, I am now ' dead indeed unto sin.' I do not say I am crucified with Christ, because some of our well-meaning brethren say, ' By this can only be meant a gradual dying ;' but I profess unto you, I am dead unto sin, and alive unto God. He is my Prophet, Priest, and King ; my indwelling holiness ; my all and in all." Bishop Asbury : " I live in patience, in purity, and in the perfect love of God. God is my portion ; he fills me with pure spiritual life. My heart is melted into holy love, and altogether devoted to my Lord. I think we ought modestly to tell what we feel to the fullest." Hav- ing once lost the blessing, he says : " Last night the Lord re-sanctified my soul. I am divinely impressed to preach sanctification in every sermon." Scriptures illustrated by this experience : Dent, vi, 5 ; Matt. V, 48; 1 John iv, 17, 18; Acts iv, 31 ; xiii, 52 ; 2 Cor. i, 20-22. Wm. Carvosso: "Just at that moment a heavenly influence filled the room ; and no sooner had I uttered or spoken the words from my heart, ' I shall have the blessing now,' than refining fire went through 316 FAITH MADE EASY. my heart, illuminating my soul, scattered its life through every part, and sanctified the whole. I then received the full witness of the Spirit that the blood of Jesus had cleansed me from all sin. I cried out : ' This is what I wanted. I have now got a new heart !' I was emptied of self and sin, and filled with God." PASSAGES OF SCRIPTUEE QUOTED AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF HOLINESS. Are there any passages of Scripture which contradict the doctrine of Christian holiness ? Some people evidently think so, or they would not always be ringing the changes upon certain ones. Here are the texts they employ from the Old Testament: "There is no man that sinneth not;" "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not;" " If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse;" " Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (1 Kings viii, 46; Eccl. vii, 20; Job ix, 20; Prov. xx, 9.) These are supposed to be all the passages usually cited from the Old Testa- ment to prove that Christian perfection is unattainable and an ab- . surdity. But the question is whether these few passages are to be thus interpreted in the face of numerous other passages which plainly teach the contrary. The several writers can not contradict them- selves, and must not be so interpreted as to contradict each other. Now, what do these passages mean? Are we to understand them as positively asserting that the doctrine of Christian holiness is untrue, unscriptural, and absurd ? This question was once propounded to a distinguished Biblical scholar, known as not in sympathy with the "perfectionists" of his time. His reply was: "These passages bear no relation whatever to the doctrine of entire sanctification. All they can be made to affirm is this. All men are sinners ; that is, every man, at some period of his life, does sin." A noted college president also took up the theme, and he said : "A moment's consideration will show that this is all that can be made out of these passages. The Hebrew has no regular tenses to express the past, present, and future time, with the precision of other languages. Hence, when the past or future tense — the only tenses found in that language — is used, we have to determine by the context, and the object of the writer, whether past, present, or future time is really intended. Now, the past tense more naturally falls in with the manifest design of the writer in these passages, than the present. ' If they sin against thee, and there is WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO REDEMPTION. 317 no man who has not sinned;' that is, we are all sinners in the sight of God. 'There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and has not sinned.' This is the thought which more naturally suggests itself, under the circumstances in which Solomon was when he uttered the sentiment contained especially in the first passage. 'If I should say, I am perfect, that would prove me perverse.' Job does not in- tend to say here : If I should say I have attained to the exercise of perfect love, that would prove me perverse ; but if I should say that I have never sinned, and am in this sense perfect, so that God could not justly punish me. This is his meaning. No reason, then, exists why we should not believe that Job, as a saint, was not a ' perfect and upright man,' as God says he was, and according to the literal acceptation of these terms. So of others." Adam Clarke was a clear-minded and just commentator, and the substance of his remarks upon certain of these passages is this : '"If they sin against thee, and there is no man who may not sin ; that is, is not liable to sin.' ' There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and may not sin.' Thus the Psalmist says, ' Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee,' the phrase, ' might not sin,' being the same as that rendered, 'sinneth not,' in the passages under consideration." Any unprejudiced mind, examining these passages in the light of other Scripture teaching, must conclude that they have no bearing whatever upon the 'doctrine of perfect love. Any other view is di- rectly and irreconcilably at war with the main body of Bible teaching, the chief design of the gospel, and the fundamental principle of the Christian Church. Paul has declared that " Christ loved the world and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of wE^ter by the Word ; that he might present it to him- self 'a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy, and without blemish." It is subverting Scripture to bring forward the passages we have named from the Old Testament, referring primarily to the unregenerated condition of the persons named, to contradict this plain and unequivocal statement of the apostle Paul. "But hold on!" says one; "I can point you to a passage of Paul's writings of precisely the same import. Read Rom. vii, 14-25." We have often done so, and find nothing absolutely con- tradictory to the bulk of Paul's unquestionable teachings upon this theme, and to the beautiful example of holiness which he set before the Church. In the above passage he is not describing Christian ex- perience at all, far less the highest form of Christian experience to 318 FAITH MADE EASY. which he has so plainly pointed all believers. He is simply describ- ing the experience of the sinner, especially of the self-righteous Jew, who was following after righteousness, not by faith, but, as it were, by the deeds of the law. The passage has no more bearing upon the doctrine of holiness than it has upon the character of sinless angels. All reliable commentators are agreed in this. "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." In the passage cited from Eomans, Paul speaks expressly of the carnal sinner: "I am carnal, sold under sin,'' etc. In the carnal state every man is a sinner, totally depraved, and Paul's description of such a man is accurate to the letter; but in the spiritual state no man ought to be a sinner. (Eead carefully Kom. viii, 1-17.) It will always help us in arriving at the exact truth of Scripture teaching if we distinguish between the de- scriptions of the unredeemed sinner, or the characteristics of a legal experience, such as the Jew was conscious of, and such as Paul him- self possessed when a Pharisee, and the description of one who has experienced the glorious liberty of the children of God, who, through faith in Christ — by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus — has been made free from the law of sin and death. Such discrimination always gives beautiful symmetry to the reasonings of the inspired writers, and keeps our own minds free from the fogs. In the light of this statement read 1 John i, 8, and then compare it carefully with 1 John i, 7, 9, and iii, 1-10. In i, 8, \he apostle simply affirmed that if we say, as the self-righteous Jew did, we have no sin to be forgiven, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but in the other passages he teaches that if we acknowledge our guUt, and confess our sins, we may be cleared from the last of sin's remains. Thanks be unto God I , Part V. WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF PRAYER. WHENCE man's idea of the efficacy of prayer ? Is it a religious instinct, or is it the result of instruction ? It might be diffi- cult to prove absolutely that it is an original instinct ; so it would be difficult to show that it is not. The idea seems to be universal, and as old as the race. Probably no human being ever lived without prayer. " Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed ; The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast.'' Prayer is the urgency of poverty, and who is not poor ? It is the outcry of helplessness, and who is not weak ? Prayer is desire, not words; it is earnestness, not eloquence; it is the felt want of the heart, not the expressed opinions of the head. "Prayer," says Rev. Dr. A. Maclaren, "is nothing unless it be the outgoing of the soul to the thing prayed for, because we know it to be Christ's will. The soul should rise on the pinions of a strong desire heavenward, and, as it rises, should gaze with a clear eye upon the certainty of the things for which it asks. These two characteristics — earnest longing and confident assurance — are indispensable to any thing that is worth the name of prayer." If a man believe in the existence of a personal God, he will pray unto him. No number of scientific difficulties, no amount of philo- sophical speculation as to the uselessness of prayer, will prevent the finite from calling upon the infinite, especially in seasons of distress and danger. It was the great Abraham Lincoln who said : "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction 319 320 FAITH MADE EASY. that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for that day." The disposition of man to pray is observable among all classes and conditions. Even savages in their rudest state feel themselves help- less and dependent, yet under rule and authority, and they seek by prayer to propitiate the unknown powers that direct them. In seasons of drouth they pray for rain; in time of destitution they ask for temporal blessings; in war they plead for victory, and in peace for bliss. Tyler, in his ' ' Primitive Culture," gives the following prayer of the Samoans: " When the libation of hwa was poured out at the evening meal, the head of the family prayed thus : ' Here is kava for you, O gods! Look kindly towards this family; let it prosper and increase, and let us all be kept in health. Let our plantations be productive ; let food grow, and may there be abundance of food for us your creatures.'" But savages pray for more than material help ; they ask for sym- pathy and spiritual union. They are importunate, too ; if theij- prayers are not answered in the manner and at the time desired, they resort to forms of petition more forcible than devotional. Lubbock cites the prayer of an old Eesa woman : " O Allah ! may thy teeth ache like mine ! O Allah ! may thy gums be as sore as mine are now !" Such expressions show the earnest belief of rude savages that in some way they can change the disposition of the Spirit, and obtain compliance with the request that has been offered. It is said that when the Zulus call upon the spirits of their ancestors, the sim- ple utterance, "people of our house," is the prayer by which they place before these spirits the claim of sympathy derived from a common ancestry. The Yebus rise to a higher and more spiritual character in their prayers; such as, "God in Heaven, give me happiness and wisdom !" So also the Khoiids : ' ' We are ignorant of what is good to ask for. You know what is good, O gods; give it to us !" This is quite to the point, if not very reverent. These prayers of savages all show that the idea of efficacious prayer is deeply inwrought in their convictions, and is widely preva- lent. The same is true of the ancient heathen. Many of their con- ceptions and expressions are so nearly Christian that one can but feel that, through the religious instincts, they were taught by the same God. An Assyrian tablet records this prayer : ' ' Open the high place, they have granted my pr&yer : until there be no more death, and weeping cease." Compare this with Revelation xxi, 4. WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 321 The following is a translation from an Assyrian clay tablet, as given by Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen before the meeting of the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London : " Pray thou ! pray thou ! Before the couch, pray ! Before the canopy, pray ! Before the building of Jofty head, pray ! Before the rising of the dawn, pray ! . Before the fire, pray ! Before the light of dawn, pray ! By the tablets and papyri, pray ! By the side of the river, pray ! By the side of the ship, or riding in a ship, or leaving the ship, pray ! At the rising of the sun, at the setting of the sun, pray ! To the gods of heaven, at the altars on earth, pray! On coming out of the city, on entering the city, pray ! On coming out of the great gate, on entering the great gate, pray ! On coming out of the house, on entering the house, pray ! In the place of judgment, pray ! In the temple, pray ! On the road, pray !" . The coincidence of this teaching with the Bible precept in regard to •prayer is remarkable. But how much more simple, unmistakable, and comprehensive are the Bible directions, which, in every instance, in substance, amount to the same thing — ' • Pray without ceasing !" Prayer forms no inconsiderable portion of the Mohammedan forms of worship. Dr. Goodell, who spent forty years in the Turkish Em- pire, says: "To a stranger visiting Mohammedan countries few in- cidents are more impressive than the cry from the minaret, calling the people to prayer at regular periods by day and during the night. The musical voice of the trained muezzin, the liquid intonations of the Arabic tongue, together with the sentiments expressed in the call, all make it to a reflecting mind seem like a voice from heaven, especially when heard in the stillness of night : "Allah ekber! Allah ekber! Esbeden en la Allah ilia Allah! God is great! God is great! I testify that there is no god but God. Come to peace ! Come to happiness ! Come to the garden of delights! God is great!" Or, as it is sometimes varied at night : " God is great ! God is great ! Prayer is better than sleep," etc. 21 322 FAITH MADE EASY. Here is a very ancient prayer taken from the Thesaurus Precum : " Save us, Lord, waking; guard us sleeping, that we may watch with Christ, and through Christ may rest in peace." The most ancient remains of Greek poetry, the Iliad and Odyssey, are full of prayers to the gods for assistance and guidance ; and the early poetry of all nations, lyric, epic, or gnomic, Asiatic or Euro- pean, according to Professor William W. Olssen, "abounds in similar petitions. Even the philosophers who seek to get rid of a personal superintending God, can not avoid exhibiting the same human, crav- ing for spiritual communion and guidance. Thus the hymn of the stoic Clean thes : ' Do thou, O Zeus, giver of all things, dark with clouds, ruler of the thunder-bolt, deliver men from the pain of igno- rance. Which do thou, O Father, scatter from the soul, and grant it to find wisdom, trusting in which thou guidest all things with justice.'" Plato testified that " all men, it would seem, all who have even some small share of wisdom, do always in all that they set about, be it a great matter or a small, call on God for his help." Hooker ap- plies to this fact the principle that " the general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, nature herself must needs have taught; and God being the author of nature, her voice is but his instrument." If we contend that prayer is only the result of instruction, it is still necessary to explain the origin of this general tendency to teach. The earliest example of prayer, by which others were led to it, must it«elf have had a beginning in a higher source. Say that it was a chance thought, a freak of fancy, a mere delusion, yet how are we to account for its prevalence and power? Argue that the Bible sanc- tioned it, and still how did it. happen that all those who composed the Bible, with one consent, taught its value and efficacy? The more persistently we trace the idea backwards, the more the evidence accu- mulates that prayer is an intuition which develops in tendency and force under the guidance of Divine illumination and progressive ex- perience. "Ask, and ye shall receive," is not only an encouraging Scripture promise, but a natural impulse and rational conviction of beings made in the image of God. Moreover, it is a conviction which seems to deepen its hold on the human heart as time advances and the race progresses in enlighten- ment. Despite the scoutings of skeptical science, and the persistent attacks of atheism, more prayer is offered in the world to-day than during any period of the past. And it is direct, specific prayer, too. So confident have certain classes become of its entire efficacy, even WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 323 in the realm of the purely natural, that prayer organizations are be- coming numerous, and the cures claimed to have been effected by them in cases of bodily disease are in many instances remarkable. The disposition to pray is at least not likely to die out. Wherever Christianity goes, people learn to "continue in prayer." Throughout evangelical Christendom one week in the year — the first week in Jan- uary — is devoted to special supplication. In the number of meetings held, and in the spirit with which these meetings are attended and enjoyed, every year is an improvement over those preceding. In the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, on the conti- nent in Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, and in more distant countries, God's people of every name come to- gether, thirsting after God, and seeking a gracious baptism of power and wisdom for the furtherance of the gospel. The very contempla- tion of this thought of a praying world is enough to make one break out in the confident language of the old hymn: " There is an eye that never sleeps Beneath the wing of night ; There is an ear that never shuts, When sink the beams of light. There is an arm that never tires, When human strength gives way; There is a love that never fails. When earthly loves decay. That eye is fixed on seraph throngs ; That arm upholds the sky ; That ear is filled with angel songs ; That love is throned on high. But there 's a power that man can wield When mortal aid is vain, That eye, that arm, that love to reach, That listening ear to gain. That power is prayer, which soars on high, Through Jesus, to the throne ; And moves the hand which moves the world. To bring salvation down." THE LAW OF PRAYEE. If it be said that the doctrine of prayer can not be true because it implies, a possible interruption of the fixed order of nature, it is enough to reply that the existence of man, on the same principle. 324 FAITH MADE EASY. can not be a fact because man himself is a disturbing element intro- duced into the midst of the fixed order of the material universe. Man interferes every day with the order of nature. To the extent of his powers he is a being above nature, and modifies the action of natural laws pretty much as he chooses. Water, for instance, naturally flows downward to find its level ; man compels it to flow upward to suit his purpose. In extreme cold, water naturally tends to congeal ; man applies heat, and makes it boil. " If one learned in the stars is asked, Where will such a heavenly body be this day ten years, and whither will it be going? he has no difiiculty," says Wm. Arthur, " about the answer. But if one learned in granite is asked. Where will this block be this day ten years, and what will it be doing? he is not so sure. Why not? Can he not compute the operation of physical laws, from that of gravitation up to the friction of winds? Even if he can, is that all ? Does he not find that the adamantine strength of granite comes within reach of the more subtle force of will ? The simple fact is that there is no telling what the block may be ten years hence. . . . It is not in the safe keeping of mere physical laws. The will of an engineer may interfere, and turn it into the keystone of an arch; the will of a church-warden may interfere, and turn it into a font; the will of a corporation may interfere, and turn it into a pavement ; so that ten years hence the greater part of the block may have been converted into street mud, and what remains of it may be daily trod- den under foot of birds, beasts, and men, each of whom, at his own weak will, will modify its phenomena." There are respects in which natural laws are beyond the reach of man's interference and control ; there are others in which they touch him on every side, and seem to invite his guidance. Nature, so far from being perfect in herself, is so constructed that mind is necessary to the full development and greatest usefulness of some of her laws. Electricity, for example, performs a large function, unknown, beyond our reach, but is fast coming to perform its chief function in obedience to human volition. We now talk by lightning, work by lightning, make lightning shine like the full-orbed moon in our streets and stores, and erelong we will travel by rail behind this fiery steed. Man has taken this uncurbed element of nature by the head, and said to it, "Receive my bridle;" he has thrown over it his saddle, and said, "Take me for your rider!" Electricity has obeyed his mandate; it has acknowledged man as its master, and become a patient servant, and a submissive drudge. " The things which natural laws can do with- out human volition are not so many, nor are they more wonderful than WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 325 the things which they do only by the life-giving touch of man's mind. Heat in the sun produces the seasons. How vast is the great fire-place of our planetary system ! Yet compare it with the sphere in which fire works under the dominion of man — in the forge, in the furnace, over the blow-pipe, warming our houses, and cooking our food." Look at natural fruits ! Nature only makes a beginning in variety and quality. Man finds the crab-apple, and develops from it the pippin, or some other of the thousand varieties just as good. Nature can make iron, but not a steam-engine. Her function is often crude until re- fined by man. Man can not live without nature ; nature would be- come poverty-stricken without man. Matter is serving its only true purpose when molded and utilized by mind. Some of nature's laws man must obey ; many of nature's laws must obey man. It is God's order that mind shall rule — finite mind somewhere, infinite mind everywhere. There arfi millions of results occurring every day that never would have fallen out but for God's special mercy in making contingent the course of nature. The simplest actions of men are usually in the way of modifying fixed laws. Instead of the fact being that phenomena can not be interfered with by wills, wills can not be reached or swayed by phenomena. Mind wills; matter yields. The laws of matter remain the same, but mind accomplishes its pur- pose in spite of them. Shall we deny to the infinite Will the prerogatives of the finite will ? Is the great Author of nature and of man's life cut ofi" from the possibility of accomplishing results such as are common to man's life every day? Rather is it not reasonable to suppose that he can and does put forth the same energies which man puts forth to pro- duce effects contrary to what nature would produce in her uninter- rupted flow? The doctrine of prayer requires only that we think of God as doing in a far higher degree what he constantly allows man to do. This is the doctrine of special providence, more fully treated of elsewhere in this work, and it is the reason of prayer. God ad- ministers natural laws — of the mind, of the body, and the outward world — so as to produce effects which they would never have produced of themselves. Man can do this, and why not God? If it be urged that God is a Spirit, without body or parts, inca- pable of forceful contact with material things, in order to modify phenomena after the manner of man, we reply that God never does any thing after the manner of men. "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; 326 FAITH MADE EASY. He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm." We know, too, that one method of Divine working is through human instrumentalities. God works by man ; man works with God. The infinite will moves upon the finite will ; the finite will answers responsively to the infinite movement. God will not make a machine out of a free agent; but he may incline a free agent to operate a machine. "Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will." If God can not use one man to suit his purpose in a given case, perhaps he can another ; if not a man, then .a lower creature of ani- mate existence ; and so work out the highest good in his gracious providence. We know that, as a matter of fact, in the course of the present life, human beings, and other creatures of God, do strangely serve the purpose of answering prayer, and God's people feel well assured that the Divine hand is in these little providences. As the ravens fed Elijah in the olden time, so birds and beasts and creeping things, in divers ways, operate in the affairs of human life. It is true we may not prove to the satisfaction of skeptics that these things are direct answers to prayer, or the specific results of Divine volition; but not all the skeptics on earth can prove that they are not. As Rev. Robert West says: " The Bible abounds in instances in which God did make suggestions to one and another of his people, and thus led them in the way in which it was best for them to go. And such instances are not only illustrations of what God can do in an- swering the prayers of his children. They are also revelations and promises of what he will do if, in the spirit of a trustful little child, we make known our wants to him, as our little ones do to us." NATURAL PROVISION FOR PRAYER. Not only is efficacious prayer possible under the existing order of things, but, as an English writer suggests, if we look around us we shall see in all animate nature a provision for prayer. Nature is not constructed on the prayerless principle. In its lowest form, prayer is the expression of a sense of want, and this expression is heard through- out the whole animal creation. The cry of the young of animals for food is a prayer which the parent hastens to answer. It is a prayer WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD 10 PRAYER. 327 which proves efficacious to the extent of the ability of the parent to grant, which ability is not always adequate. From this simple form and fact of prayer DaVid carries the mind up to a higher conception: "The young lions do lack and suffer hunger ; but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing." (Psa. civ, 10.) God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, and can answer his children whenever they cry. The relation of animals to men likewise opens to view a field of efficacious prayer. To the animal, man is a God, and the appeals of these dumb creatures to the " lord of creation'' are importunate and endless. In their hunger they ask for food, in their thirst for drink, and in their pain for relief. Man answers their appeals to the extent of his ability, and always consistently with the order of nature. The relation of children to their parents presents a somewhat higher view of prayer. Jesus began his instructions about prayer at this very point. If a son ask bread, will the father give him a stone? "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your chil- ' dren, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matt, vii, 11.) What we do for our chil- dren, in answer to theif supplications, and in entire harmony with established law, God will do for us, only in infinitely greater measure. In the intellectual world we also behold efficacious prayer. The ignorant appeal to the wise; scientists experiment with nature to elicit responses to their inquiries; and the very "truths which come flashing like inspiration" (the very word Professor Tyndall uses regard- ing them) from the infinite spaces, revealing new lines of light and truth to the mind which is fitted to take them in, are answers to inquiring minds given in the order of nature. The truth is that prayer, real and efficacious, is the rule, and not the exception, in aU nature's kingdoms. HOW TRUE PRAYER 18 OFFERED. Rise to a view of the highest form of prayer, and we find the true theory to be in keeping with the stability of natural laws. Intelligent persons do not think of praying for what they know is absolutely fixed and unchangeable. No one prays that the sun may or may not rise to-morrow. No one asks that the dead may be restored to life. In praying for the nearly dead, we plead only for such intervention as is consistent with the regular principles of the .divine government. This thought paves the way for another, viz.: True prayer is perfectly 328 FAITH MADE EASY. consistent with the doctrine of God's unchangeableness. We never ask God to change his mind. God and his universe are different things. He has made the order of the world one of contingency, not fixedness; in other words, he has allowed for the element of prayer, and in answering it, does not alter a single principle of bis govern- ment. Man's free agency is a proof of contingency in the present system. As a matter of fact, all change, all adaptation of creatures to altered circumstances, proves that contingency forms a part in the government of the world. It is, therefore, easy "to conceive of God as unchangeable in his infinite perfection, and yet willingly influenced by man's petitions offered up amid the ever-varying circumstances of human life." God could not be unchangeable if he turned a deaf ear to the cries of his people as he has constituted and placed them. In prayer we are to recognize as nowhere else the Fatherhood of God ; we are to think of his wisdom : he will withhold from us nothing that he sees is needful. He would not be our Father if he used no discretion in granting our requests ; nor should we be dutiful children if we did not acquiesce in his will. This is the sum of all prayer : "Thy will be done." Herein is the true, loving, child-like spirit, the proper and necessary feeling and attitude between a person of limited understanding and one of supreme intelligence. When asking degen- erates into demanding, it vitiates all prayer in which it is found, and can not be other than an offense to God. "The prayer of faith," as Mr. Charles Nordhoff has neatly ex- pressed it, "is necessarily the prayer of him who believes that God will do that which is for the best; of him who does his duty, and willingly leaves the result with God. On any other consideration prayer would be the unreasonable appeal of a creature of finite and very limited intelligence to a servant of absolute power without in- telligence; that is to say, it would be an absurdity. Yet this is the very characteristic of what were foolishly called ' prayer tests,' which disclosed the singular notion that God is to be regarded not as a guide and helper for us in spiritual things, but rather as a powerful yet subordinate being, forced to do our will, if only we scream loud enough — after the manner of the worshipers of Baal — to attract his attention. It was to such appeals as this that Jesus made answer : 'A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.'" Even our Lord himself, who was one with the Father, in all his prayers exhibited the filial spirit. See how he addressed himself to the Father: "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 329 hast revealed them unto babes." (Matt, xi, 25.) " What shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour: Father, glorify thy name." (John xii, 27, 28.) In his last prayer for his disciples, mark how he invoked the Father by name at each petition: "Father, the hour is come;" "O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self;" "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given rae." And then, in the extremity of his anguish in the garden, he cried : "0 my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; never- theless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." In prayer the soul goes out to God. The Father being not a prin- ciple, nor a law, nor an abstraction, nor a mere force, but a living person, may be spoken to. The laws by which he governs the world are simply the rules of his house. As children asking for blessings, we are to respect those rules, and shape our requests accordingly. This does not imply that we are to pray simply in acknowledgment of our dependence and of his power and majesty. As a Father, he sustains personal relations to our interests, and feels concern in all that affects our well-being. He has not constituted us with prayerful intuitions, and taught us in his Word the true nature and specific privileges of prayer, simply to mock us with vain aspirations and unsatisfied longings. No; we may plainly, .directly, and confidently ask for those things which are necessary to us. "These are help and strength in the effort to do our duties, and to avoid wrong-doing ; for guidance in our lives; "for his blessing on our plans and efforts, that we may have wisdom to direct them rightly ; for pourage and serenity of soul under diflBculties, disappointments, and sorrows ; for wisdom to conduct our lives aright and in such manner that their general tendency shall be to prepare and train our spirits for the future life." But may we not also pray for freedom from pain, safety out of peril, physical healing, recovery out of sickness, and deliverance from death? Are not all our temporal matters to be laid before God in confidence that he will do what is best? Exactly so. And we must not forget that what God knows is best is not always what we think is best. He understands the true relation of things temporal to things spiritual and eternal. In his all-seeing eye even " death must appear as a minor, perhaps even a trivial incident in the life of the individ- ual — the coming home from school, rather than the painful leaving home for school ; so of all other and what we are accustomed to think lesser griefs. We reasonably believe that he sees their true bearing, their right relation to the great sum of the individual's life and expe- rience. Is it not for us, also, to strive for this broader outlook ? And 330 FAITH MADE EASY. if, as reason and faith alike demand, we attain to this, must it not necessarily guide our petitions to him whom we call our Father ?" (Charles Nordhoff.) This element of prayer can not be too thoroughly impressed upon the mind. It may save many a troublesome doubt, many a needless fear, and many a violent heartache to keep it in view. We are dependent beings, and never can become any thing else. " In the family, in so- ciety, and in business, we all, to a greater or less extent, lean on one another — children on their parents ; wives on their husbands ; the ig- norant and the weak on the learned and the strong, and the poor on the rich. Now, lying at the very core of prayer is the fact of our dependence on God. By asking blessings of him we confess that de- pendence ; but in this confession of dependence we not only submit our weakness to his strength^ but our ignorance to his wisdom. We ask, conscious that we may make grievous mistakes in asking, so that the innermost spirit of true prayer is the submission of the petitioner to God. The cry of Christ in Gethsemane, as he prayed in agony that the cup might pass from him, ' Not my will but thine be done,' is the undertone of all genuine prayer ; so that God answers us truly, when, instead of giving us what we ask, he gives us rather the thing which, in his wisdom, he sees that we need." (President Galusha Anderson, S. T. D.) And such prayer is easy to those who have truly learned of God. They pray and are content. Lord Bolingbroke once asked Lady Huntingdon how she reconciled prayer to God for particular blessings, with absolute resignation to the Divine will. "Very easily," an- swered her ladyship : " Just as I would offer a petition to a monarch, of whose kindness and wisdom I had the highest opinion. In such a case my language would be : I wish you to bestow on me such or such a favor ; but your majesty knows better than I how far it would be agreeable to you, or right in itself to grant my desire. I, therefore, content myself with humbly presenting my petition, and If ave the event of it entirely to you." THE ANSWER TO PRAYER. In reply to the question : ' ' Does God answer prayer ?" the Rev. R. McCheyne Edgar, in his work upon this subject, has very satis- factorily shown : 1. That the Bible itself is a positive proof that prayer has been efficacious. The Book is a prayer-product. Its writers were all men WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 331 of prayer. Eliminate the element of prayer from their writings, and the Bible becomes inexplicable. Accept the theory of efficacious prayer, and the literary work becomes luminous and intelligible. God communicated with these men, gave them thoughts beyond their thoughts, and lifted them up to a plane of the highest spiritual communion. 2. The life of Christ is another positive proof of the efficacy of prayer. The prayers of Christ were like the true prayers of other men, and yet they were the means he employed to secure that perfect rapport of spirit with the Father which resulted in his high character and noble work. His sinlessness, his miracles, all professedly done through prayer to the Father, the originality of his teachings, and the power of his doctrines were the result of his prayerful human life. His prayers were always answered, because they ever expressed perfect unison with the Father's will, and perfect loyalty to the Father's honor and glory. 8. The progress of Christianity is indubitable proof of the efficacy of prayer. For the most part, Christianity has been embraced by the poor and powerless, the humble and obscure. " Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble have been called; but God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." Christianity is in its very spirit unworldly ; it possessed no elements of worldly popularity, yet it has lived and flourished, chiefly in answer to prayer, until it promises fair to Christianize the world speedily. There is no good thing outside the realm of the purely natural which does not, for its power and approaching perfection, owe some- thing, directly or indirectly, to the prayerful spirit. Around the throne of grace, men from all departments of worthy work, have gathered, just as there gathered around the Master in the days of his flesh the weary and heavy laden. Through prayer these have ob- tained what otherwise they could not — a true unburdening and a grand uplifting. From the raercy-seat they have gone forth purer, nobler, wiser, and stronger, to the battles and victories of their mortal career. The promises of Scripture as to the effect of united prayer in se- curing some object of faith, especially in the region of the spiritual, are definite and encouraging. Take this : "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." 332 FAITH MADE EASY. (Matt, xviii, 19, 20.) Or this, spoken after Jesus had withered the barren fig-tree: "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you. That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass ; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." (Mark xi, 22-24.) To construe this as a literal promise of power to work miracles is unreasonable. It is rather a forcible way of accommodating a grand and general spiritual truth to the infirmities of human understanding. " Under the figure of re- moving a mountain, it sets forth this substantial truth — that earnest, believing prayer is directly efficacious with God for removing great difficulties and achieving great works in connection with his cause." It is one of the most unmistakable assurances of God's Word that be- lieving prayer shall accomplish remarkable results, that practically there is no limit to its possibilities. " If we had but faith enough," says Canon Farrar, " I believe that we could still remove mountains, still dispel the clouds, still draw the rain from heaven, still raise the sick, still open prisons, still loose the chains of the innocent, still find an anodyne for the anguish of the distressed. And are these the only miracles ? Are spiritual miracles nothing ? Is it no miracle by prayer to do what we can all do — wash away our sins, repel our temptations, quench persecutions, encourage the faint-hearted, lead back the wanderers, feed the poor, raise the fallen, stay the falling, uphold them that stand ? Is it no miracle to make the rich humble, and the poor contented? No miracle to touch the hearts of the self- ish, and open the purse-strings of the mean ? Are you in sorrow ? Prayer can make your afiliction sweet and strengthening. Are you in gladness ? Prayer can add to your joy a celestial perfume. Are you in danger from outward or inward enemies? Prayer can set at your right hand an angel whose touch could shatter a mill-stone into smaller * dust than the flour it grinds, and whose glance could lay au army low. When Felix of Nola was hotly pursued by murderers he took refuge in a cave, and instantly, over the rift of it, the spiders wove their webs, and seeing this, the murderers passed by. Then said the saint : ' Where God is not, a wall is but a spider's web ; where God is, a spider's web is as a wall.' What will prayer do for you? I an- swer : All that God can do for you. When he bids us pray, it is as though he said to us: 'Ask what I shall give thee.' We toil and moil and scrape, and make ourselves anxious about the dust and WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 333 dross of earth,' and all the while God is holding forth to us in vain the crown of immortality, and the golden key of the treasures of heaven." PRAYER CONFIRMED BY CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. Religious experience confirms the doctrine of prayer. The Chris- tiau life itself gives evidence of the power of supplication. Prayer — real trustful, constant prayer — carries with it to those who pray, and to others, so far as it can, its own experimental proof. Live to Christ, and you will never deny him. Live in prayer, and your ex- perience of its power will confirm your belief. On his fiftieth birthday, Rev. C. H. Spurgeon was interviewed in reference to his long and eventful ministerial life, especially as to his confidence in the efficacy of prayer. Being asked whether he had in any way modified his views, he replied : " Only in my faith growing far stronger and firmer than ever. It is not a matter of faith with me, but of knowledge and every-day ex- perience. I am constantly witnessing the most unmistakable instances of answers to prayer. My whole life is made up of them. To me they are so familiar as to cease to excite my surprise ; but to many they would seem marvelous, no doubt. Why, I could no more doubt the efiicacy of prayer than I could disbelieve in the law of gravita- . tion. The one is as much a fact as the other, constantly verified every day of my life. Elijah, by the brook Cherith, as he received his daily rations from the ravens, could hardly be a more likely sub ject for skepticism than I. Look at my Orphanage. To keep it going entails an annual expenditure of about £10,000. Only £1,400 is provided for by endowment. The remaining £8,600 comes to me regularly in answer to prayer. I do not know where I shall get it from day to day. I ask God for it, and he sends it. Mr. Miiller, of Bristol, does the same on a far larger scale, and his experience is the same as mine. The constant inflow of funds — of all the funds neces- sary to carry on these works — is not stimulated by advertisements, by begging letters, by canvassing, or any of the usual modes of raising the wind. We ask God for the cash, and he sends it. That is a good, solid, material fact, not to be explained away. But quite as remarkable illustrations of the efficacy of believing faith are con- stantly occurring in spiritual things. Some two years ago a poor woman, accompanied by two of her neighbors, came to my vestry in deep distress. Her husband had fled the country ; in her sorrow she 334 FAITH MADE EASY. went to the house of God, and something I said in the sermon made her think I was personally familiar with her case. Of course I had known nothing about her. It was a general illustration that fitted a particular case. She told me her story, and a very sad one it was. I said : ' There is nothing we can do but to kneel down and cry to the Lord for the immediate conversion of your husband.' We knelt down, and I prayed that the Lord would touch the heart of the de- serter, convert his soul, and bring him back to his home. When we rose from our knees I said to the poor woman : ' Do not fret about the matter. I feel sure your husband will come home, and that he will yet become connected with our Church.' She went away, and I forgot all about it. Some months after she reappeared with her neighbors and a man, whom she introduced to me as her husband. He had indeed come back, and he had returned a converted man. On making inquiry and comparing notes, we found that the very day on which we had prayed for his conversion he, being at that time on board a ship far away on the sea, stumbled most unexpectedly upon a stray copy of one of my sermons. He read it. The truth went to his heart. He repented, and sought the Lord, and as soon as possible he returned to his wife and to his daily calling. He was admitted a member, and last Monday his wife, who up to that time had not been a member, was also received among us. That woman does not doubt the power of prayer. All the infidels in the world could not shake her conviction that there is a God that answereth prayer. I should be the most irrational creature iji the world if, with a life every day of which is full of experiences so remarkable, I entertained the slightest doubt on the subject. I do not regard it as miraculous; it is part and parcel of the established order of the universe that the shadow of a coming event should fall in advance upon some believing soul in the shape of prayer for its realization. The prayer of faith is a divine decree commencing its operation." Let any individual, in an honest and good heart, test the eflScacy of prayer, and sooner or later he will be satisfied, just as all pious people are. Outwardly those that pray may seem to have no advan- tage over their prayerless neighbors, but inwardly they expeiience a holy calm, a spiritual benefit that they would not surrender for the world. Just as Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Daniel, and other worthies held fellowship with God, and received abundant answers to their pe- titions for light and guidance, so the good in every age realize the guiding hand and helpful influences of the all-wise Father. A beautiful illustration of this thought is presented in the "Life WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 335 of Adoniram Judson," the famous missionary. During a long course of years, even to the closing fortnight of his life, in his last sickness, Dr. Judson lamented that all his efforts in behalf of the Jews had been a failure. He was departing from the world saddened with that thought. Then, at last, there came a gleam of light that thrilled his heart with grateful joy. How did it come? Unexpectedly. Mrs. Judson was sitting by his side while he was in a state of great lan- guor, with a newspaper, a copy of the Watchman and Seflector, in her hand. She read to. her husband one of Dr. Hague's letters from Constantinople. That letter contained some items of information that filled him with wonder. At a meeting of missionaries at Constanti- nople, Mr. Schauffler stated that a little book had been published in Germany, giving an account of Dr. Judson's life and labors; that it had fallen into the hands of some Jews, and had been the means of their conversion; that a Jew had translated it for a community of Jews on the borders of the Euxine ; and that a messenger had arrived at Constantinople, asking that a teacher might be sent to them. When Dr. Judson heard this his eyes filled with tears, a look of almost un- earthly solemnity came over him, and clinging fast to his wife's hand, as if to assure himself of being really in the world, he said: "Love, this frightens me. I do not know what to make of it.'' "To make of it?" said Mrs. Judson. -"Why, what you have just been reading. I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for any thing, but it came ; at some time — no matter at how distant a day — somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came." So it is. God satisfies every devoted heart that he is a loving Father, always most pleased when he can wisely grant the requests of his believing children. Dr. Alfred Wheeler has said that "the effort to convince one who has a true Christian experience that such a spiritual exercise is without value would be a vain one. How- ever variant creeds may be, or diverse in some regards personal experience may be, the common consensus of Christians everywhere, and of all ages, affirms that spiritual strength and peace and joy at- tend upon those devotions which the heart offers to God in true, humble prayer. It is not the strength and peace and joy either that come from the reactionary effects of prayer upon the moral sensibili- ties of the offerer, if his own convictions are to be accepted as the basis of certainty. The belief is almost universal among Christians, and among none is it so firm as among those whose lives are the most redolent for their Christly virtues, and distinguished for their unos- 336 FAITH MADE EASY. * tentatious piety. This conviction, so general and unchangeable, ought to count for much in the way of antagonizing skepticism as to the efficacy of prayer otherwise than as it affects reflexively him who offers it. Indeed, the Divine pledge to answer prayer is one of the most definite and clearly announced of those which we accept as com- ing from God." IMPORTUNITY IN PRAYER. In true prayer we ask God to do for us that which we can not do for ourselves or for one another. There may be much connected with the object of our supplication that we can do, as well as much that we can not do, and if we pray as we should we will also labor that our own part in securing the desired answer may be fully done. A strong man who asks God for his daily bread and uses no industry himself to obtain it, makes the wrong use of prayer. A man who prays, " Lead us not into temptation," and neither watches nor strives to shun the occasions of sin, mocks God to his face. Such prayers deserve no answer and receive none. Man must do his part if he expects God to do his. When Christians ask for new graces they must be willing to improve those they already have, and thus work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. But when we ask God to do for us that which we can not accom- plish for ourselves, we must hold on by faith until we secure the answer. Perhaps the very delay may tend to our spiritual good. We need the discipline of patience and perseverance in our religious lives as well as in our earthly career. God takes no delight in withholding from us the good things we seek, but he values them for the bene- ficial effects they produce in ourselves. He will have us pray and persevere in it for our own benefit. Prayer wields a vast influence upon disposition and action. We can not pray much and sincerely without becoming better ; nor can we omit prayer or use it listlessly without degenerating or growing worse. Prayer makes no change in God, but it does produce a change in man, and often this change is very essential in order that man may be brought into complete har- mony with God's holy will, and thus be worthy of and prepared for the appropriate answer. Besides this, that which costs us much in effort and sacrifice we prize the more. It is not always the want, but the keen sense of want, that makes us appreciate the supply. A sur- feit of good things, however valuable in themselves, tends to produce indifference in respect to them. How differently we regard a constant WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 337 state of health, from recovery from severe illness ! How much greater our appreciation of delivery from exquisite pain, affliction, calamity, or imminent peril, than simply continued ease, uninterrupted pros- perity, or perpetual safety ! The former are better, but the latter give us more joy. Adverse experiences sharpen our faculties, and we welcome with tenfold greater zest the things of which we have long been deprived. May not God be preparing us betimes by the application of this principle to place a proper estimate upon his bountiful goodness and tender mercies? How soon would the purest sweets of nature grow insipid to the taste were there no acids to relieve! Even so the benefits we receive at God's hands are kept alive and gracious to our thought by the brief withholdings or the light afflictions. God would have us persevere in prayer. He has condescended to be styled our debtor, and will mercifully place our expectations on the credit side of the account, and bestow blessings the more freely when at last he does give. " He is the only debtor who loves to be perpetually called upon for payment, and who rewards importunity with larger interest." Notice under what figures he has set forth this truth. In one place he bids us asfc that we may receive; and, as if this were not enough, he goes on to say, Seelc, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. The asking, seeking, and knocking imply con- tinued effort until we have obtained our wish. To the same purpose he delivered that parable of the man in need obtaining his request by the force of importunity at a time of night when all considerations of friendly claims were unreasonable; and that other of the poor widow prevailing upon the unjust judge to grant her request, for no other reason than that she persistently pressed her suit ; and again, the Canaanitish woman whose unyielding faith Christ so beautifully applauded — yea, and rewarded — by healing her daughter, after showing that she was thus abundantly qualified for the mercy. We must be earnest enough, from a sense of real need, to make us humbly bold and reverently unyielding in the presentation of our pleas. "I will not let thee go except thou bless me," is a model of resolute faith we all do well to copy. No Christian can know what blessings he may call down upon his own heart and life by prayer such as this until he has exercised himself in it, not for a moment, or on one occasion only, but for a life-time and under all circumstances incident to his lot. Put God to the test. Take him at his word. Pray just as he has commanded, and learn by a happy experience how sweet it is to know that God answers prayer. 22 338 FAITH MADE EASY. WHY PRAYER IS NOT VISIBLY EFFICACIOUS. But why is not prayer visibly efficacious, so that answers thereto could be tabulated like other statistical data, and the results published in the reviews to confound the skeptical world? Perhaps this point can not be elucidated better than by quoting the words of the great French preacher, M. Bersier. He says: "You wish that prayer should be visibly efficacious ; but at what a price it would be ! You would ask for deliverance from sickness and temptation, and imme- diately your prayer would be heard, and suffering and evil would flee away like a shadow, and upon your smoothed path all asperities would disappear. Your desires, as soon as formed, would be visibly accom- plished. And do you not see that all would become Christians like you, and all, like you, would pray? From love? O, not at all, but from well-ordered interest. And why not pray to this God who re- plies immediately to whoever invokes him — this God who encircles his own with an immediate and visible protection ? Come, O ye mer- cenaries! Come, and bend the knee ! Recompense is guaranteed you. For you heaven is in store, and for you, in the meantime, good fortune here below ! Away with the cross, away with griefs, away with sac- rifice ! ... If this is what you wish, very well ; the God of the gospel does not desire it. He has never promised to those who follow him the visible deliverance ; he has said that they must suffer, as men, in the first place, and, in addition, as Christians. He seems to abandon them to the apparent fatality of circumstances ; nothing dis- tinguishes them in the eyes of the flesh. Stricken just like others, oftentimes more than others, they suffer, they die ; but under the apparent chance (hazard), they discern a Divine hand; they walk by' faith and not by sight ; and it is under this austere discipline that there is produced that which is grandest and loveliest on earth — the love which serves God without self-seeking, the love which sacrifices to God its felicity, its security, its joy, and which descends to the sublimest abnegation." We would not 'leave our readers to the inference that all prayer is of private interpretation, and that its verification rests solely upon secret experiences; but it is true that the humble, devoted, pious man has better assurance every day that God hears his faithful cries, and pours upon him needful blessings, than worldlings have in a whole life-time, from all they can observe and know, that "all things come alike to all." In spiritual things, at least, it is not so. In a life WHAT TO BELIEVE IN MEOARD TO PRAYER. 339 hid with Christ in God there are ten thousand blessed experiences, many, if not most of them, in answer to fervent prayer, of which skeptics and scoffers are not worthy to taste, far less to fathom and understand. PRAYER SHOULD BE A HABIT. We should make prayer the habit of our lives. Jesus taught us to pray for no idle purpose. He knew that we should be placed in circumstances where prayer would be needed, and ' if taught that prayer is our privilege, we should then know what to do. "You remember,'' observes Dr. Wm. M. Taylor, "that when Hezekiah received the blasphemous letter from Rabshakeh, he knew what to do in his extremity, for he ' spread it before the Lord.' When Nehemiah was challenged by the Persian monarch for his sadness of countenance, and asked what his request was, he was not dismayed, for even with the king's cup in his band, 'he prayed unto the God of heaven.' When his mutinous band, at the sight of Ziklag's smoldering ruins, spake of stoning David, he was not appalled, for 'he encouraged him- self in the Lord his God,' and said, ' Bring me hither the ephod.' When his ' thorn in the flesh' afflicted Paul, he, too, had his resource in prayer, and 'besought the Lord thrice' concerning it. And, to take again the highest and holiest example, when the Divine Lord himself was oppressed by that mysterious agony which came upon him in Gethsemane, he cried, ' Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' "Now,, if we ask how it came that in these times of special emer- gency those great ones ran first to God, we shall find the answer in the fact that prayer had become the habit of their lives. They had kept always open the pathway to the mercy-seat; so in the hour of urgency they could find it easily, and run along it with speed. These were not exceptional instances in their histories, or if exceptional at all, they were so not in the direction which their souls took, but only in the gravity and perplexity of the crisis. The men who never pray save when they are in peril, rarely, if ever, get at such times the full benefit of prayer. Their cry then resembles the shriek of a conquered enemy for quarter, and is not the entreaty of a loving son for help, and so it brings them little relief. But he who has been daily, or even more frequently, at the mercy-seat for years, and knows God as his Friend, receives always grace sufficient for him, and strength according to his day." 340 FAITH MADE EASY. THE LORD'S PRAYER. If you would see what prayer is, or rather what it ought to be, study the Lord's Prayer. What plainness, simplicity, earnestness, and confidence have we here ! No complaint, no groveling desire, no selfish aspiration, but direct, common-sense expression of the wants of the heart. Its thought is noble, its feeling warm and tender. It is spiritual communion and heavenly longing, combined with healthy contentment to labor on, assisted by Divine grace. Well might Car- lyle, in his last years, writing to a friend, exclaim: " 'Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy will be done;' what else can we say? The other night, in my sleepless tossings about, which were growing more and more miserable, these words, that brief and grand prayer, came strangely to my mind with altogether new emphasis, as if within and shining for me in mild, pure splendor, on the dark bosom of the night there; when I, as it were, read them word by word, with a sudden check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure which was much unexpected. Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I ever formally repeated that prayer — nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of man's soul it is ; the inmost aspiration of all that is high and pious in poor human nature; right worthy to be recommended with an 'After this manner pray ye.'" The following lines, embodying, in beautifully impressive form, the Lord's Prayer, are said to have been written by King James I, though by other authorities ascribed to Bishop Andrews : " If any are distressed, and fain would gather Some comfort, let them hasten unto Our Father. For we of hope and help are quite bereaven. Unless thou succor us Who art in heaven. Thou showest mercy, therefore the same We praise thee singingly, Hallowed be thy name. Of all thy miseries cast up the sum. Show us thy joys, and let Thy kingdom come. We mortal are, and alter from our birth, Thou constant art ; Thy will be done on earth. WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 341 Thou mad'st earth, as well as planets seven ; Thy name is blessed here, As 'tis in heaven. Nothing we have to use, or debts to pay, Except thou givest it to us ; Give us this day Wherewith to clothe us, wherewith to be fed, For without thee we want Our daily bread. We want, but want no faults; for us day passes; But we do sin — Forgive us our trespasses. No man from sinning ever free did live ; Forgive us. Lord, our sins, As we forgive. If we repent our faults, thou ne'er disdainest us ; We pardon Them that trespass against us. Forgive us that is past, a new path tread us, Direct us always in thy faith. And lead us. We thine own people are, thy chosen nation, Into all truths, but Not into temptation. Thou that of all good graces art the Giver, Suflfer us not to wander. But deliver TJs from the fierce assaults of world and devil. And flesh, so shalt thou free us From all evil. To these petitions let both Church and laymen With one consent of voice and heart, say Amen! THE PKAYING SPIRIT. The loss of the prayerful spirit is the greatest of all losses. Noth- ing answers its purpose ; nothing can fill its place. Prayers of the lips, prayers of the head, prayers of the life, all avail nothing in the 342 FAITH MADE EASY. absence of prayers of the heart. All prayer is rendered fruitless, if not sinful, by that spirit which longs for the gratification of self and the possession of the world more than for the presence and commun- ion of God, and the promotion of his glory. Nothing is easier than to say words of prayer, but to pray hungering and thirsting, in hum- ble submission to the will of Heaven, is the hardest of all works. Prayer is living with God ; and, if founded upon right principles of religion, gives us a disposition to search ourselves in order to know our own weaknesses and wants; it weans us from the world, and fixes us in a feeling of dependence on God. " When I can say my God is mine ; When I can feel his glories shine, I tread the world beneath my feet. And all the world calls good or great." "The perilous nature of the commonest things is well known to all, and he who can rush forth to meet the perils of a day without a prayer on his lips and a tremor at his heart has lost all true sense of responsibility.'' Hon. B. F. Burnham has well declared that there are two ex- tremes, each having its peculiar evil. The man who never sequesters himself (or, as the New Kevision beautifully renders it, enters into his "inner chamber"), and when he has shut the door against the overbearing pressure of secular pursuits, contemplates his higher des- tinations, becomes a groveling earth-worm rather than "A glorious thing Of buoyant wing." The woman's mind that is always in a giddy whirl of frivolities re- mains inane. "As one thinketh in his heart, so is he." If he longs to be submissive, patient, modest, liberal, considerate of his relations to his moral environment, such must he tend to become. To be god- like, he must meditate upon God; to make any part of the attributes of Deity his own, he must aspire to the true, the beautiful, and the good. " Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers. Whose loves in higher love endure ; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is our blessedness like theirs ?" WHAT TO BELIEVE IN REGARD TO PRAYER. 343 VARIOUS FACTS ABOUT PRAYER. Here is an old but very fine private prayer bearing the stamp of royal use : A DAILY PRAYER, ENTIRELY IN THE HANDWRITING OP KING CHARLES THE FIRST, Copied from a MS. discovered In His Majesty's State- Paper Office, London, -a f rajK— I63I. " Good Lord, I thanke thee for keeping me this g^. I humblie beseeche thee to keepe mee this g^ from all dangers or mischances that may happen to my boddie, and all evell thoughts which may assalt or hurt my sowel, for Jesus Christ his sake: and looke upon me, thy unworthie servant, -who here prostrates himselfe at thy throne of grace, but looke upon mee, O Father, through the merites and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy beloved Sone, in whom thou art onlie ■well pleased ; for, of my-selfe, I am not worthie to sta^jd in thy pres- ence, or to speake with my uncleane lips, to thee most holly and seternal God; for thou knowest that in sinn I was couceaued and borne, and that euer since I haue lived in Iniquetie, so that I haue broken all thy Holly Comandments, by sinful motions, evel words, and wicked workes, omitting many dewties I ought to doe, and comit- ting manie vyces, which thou hast forbidden vnder paine of heavie displeasure : as for sinnes, O Lord, they are innumerable; in the mul- titude, therefore, of thy mercies, and by the merites of Jesus Christ, I intreate thy Devyne Majestic, that thou wouldest not enter into judg- ment with thy servant, nor be extreame to mark what is done amisse, but bee thou mercifuU to mee, and washe away all my sinnes with the merits of that pretius blood that Jesus Christ shed for mee ; and not only washe away all my sinnes, but also to purge my hart, by [thy] holly spirit, from the drosse of ray naturall corruption; and as thou doest add dayes to my lyfe, so (good Lord) add repentance to my dayes, that when I have past this mortal lyfe, I may bee a partaker of thy everlasting kingdom, throught Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." The first definite record of the public observance of prayer is in Genesis iv, 26: "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." From that time a life of prayer was tlje distinction of the righteous, and was a marked characteristic in the chosen family of Abraham, and the lives of other ancient worthies. The best historical accounts of successful prayer we have, or can 344 FAITH MADE EASY. have, are also found in the Bible. Among the many may be noted : Jacob prays — the angel is conquered ; Esau's revenge is changed to fraternal love. Joseph prays — he is delivered from the prison of Egypt. Moses prays — Amalek is discomfited ; Israel triumphs. Joshua prays — the sun stands still ; victory is gained. David prays — Ahithophel goes out and hangs himself. Asa prays — Israel gains a glo- rious victory. Jehoshaphat prays — God turns away his angel and smiles. Elijah prays — the little cloud appears; the rain descends upon the earth. Elisha prays — the waters of the Jordan are divided ; a child is restored to life. Isaiah prays — one hundred and eighty-four thousand Assyrians are dead. Hezekiah prays — the sun-dial is turned back; his time is prolonged. Mordecai prays — ^Haman is hanged; Israel is free. Nehemiah prays — the king's heart is softened in a moment. Ezra prays — the walls of Jerusalem begin to rise. The Church prays — the Holy Ghost is poured out. The Church prays again — Peter is delivered by an angel. Paul and Silas pray — the prison shakes ; the door opens ; every man's hands are loosed. Here is a suggestive epigram on prayer, published in the Monitor, March, 1712, by Mr. Tate, poet-laureate: " Prayer highest soars when she most prostrate lies. And when she supplicates, she storms the skies; Thus to gain heaven may seem an easy task. For what can be more easy than to ask? Yet oft we do by sad experience find That, clogged with earth, some prayers are left behind, And some like chaff blown off by every wind. To kneel is easy, to pronounce not hard. Then why are some petitioners debarred? Hear what an ancient oracle declared : Some sing their prayers, and some their prayers do say ; He 's an Ellas who his prayers can pray. Reader, remember, when you next repair To church or closet, this memoir of prayer." Part VJ. WHAT TO BELIEVE WITH REFERENCE TO THE SABBATH. FOR the sake of greater variety in the contents of this book, vie present our thoughts upon the Sabbath in the form of questions and answers. Question. What is the meaning of the word " Sabbath?" Answer. A season or day of rest. The Sabbath as an institution signifies rest or repose, not simply a space of time. We do well to bear this fact in mind. The Sabbath is not a day ; it is not Sunday, or Saturday, or any other day ; it is holy rest unto the Lord. The day is simply a space of time set apart for observing the thing itself, viz. : holy rest. To a man who disregards the commandment to keep God's Sabbath, there is no such thing as a Sabbath. The day called Sunday is no Sabbath to the Sabbath-violator ; it is simply a day like all other days. Nature brings the day, but grace furnishes the "rest." To only a comparative few in this so-called Christian land is there any real Sabbath on the legal Sabbath-day. The law can make a Sabbath- day, but it is difficult for the law to make a Sabbath. The Sabbath is a rest which remains for the people of God. Thus we are told that, ' ' He rested on the seventh day from aU his work. . . . And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work." (Gen. ii.) "Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thine handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed." (Ex. xxiii, 12.) Q. Does man need this period of rest and repose? A. He certainly does. After six days of labor he requires a sev- enth for rest. The creational idea of working six days and resting the seventh is grounded in true reason. The Christian idea of mak- ing their rest-day fall on the first day of the week is grounded in 345 346 FAITH MADE EASY. patriarchal customs as well as New Testament teachings. As Abel brought the firstlings of his flock to God, so Christians bring the first of their time. " He that remembers not to keep the Christian Sab- bath at the beginning of the week," said Sir E. Turner, speaker in the House of Commons in 1663, " will be in danger of forgetting be-; fore the end of the week that he is a Christian at all." By rest we do not mean inactivity, but a cessation from all labor put forth to secure our own gratification or reward. The farmer should cease to plow and sow. The merchant should close his store and sell no goods. The student should cease his investigations. All men should stop their regular week-day toil, aud devote the day to spiritual culture. This is the primary object of the Sabbath. It has been so employed from time immemorial. It is the day of " holy convocation," when devout hearts should be " with one accord in one place," and tliat place a place of worship. " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a de- light, the holy of the Lord, honorable ; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord." (Isa. Iviii, 13.) "If a spiritual rest, a holy rest, one day in seven, is to the Christian a weariness ; if he must go to the world for rest on that day, how can he endure an endless Sabbath, of which the earthly is the type ? If the shadow is a burden, how can he sustain the substance?" (Passaic.) Q. Have any great statesmen and scholars ever commended the Sabbath rest? A. They have. Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield, once said : "Of all Divine institutions, the mosi divine is that which se- cures a day of rest for man. I hold it to be the most valuable bless- ing ever conceded to man. It is the corner-stone of civilization, and its removal might even afiect the health of the people." Lord Shaftes- bury also declared : ' ' Sunday is a day so sacred, so important, so indispensable to man, that it ought to be hedged round by every form of reverence." Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone testifies : "Sunday is a ne- cessity for the retention of man's mind and of a man's frame in a condition to discharge his duties ; and it is desirable, as much as possi- ble, to restrain the exercise of labor upon Sunday, and to secure to the people the enjoyment of the day of rest." Louis Blanc, Paris, France, utters the following: "The weekly rest has been conse- crated by all religions, and nowhere is it more strictly observed than among Protestant people, who are pre-eminently laboring people. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 347 Diminution of the hours of labor does not involve any diminution of production. In England a workingman produces as much in fifty-six hours as a French workman in seventy-two hours, because his forces are better husbanded." The testimony is .almost universal, that one begins the week with better spirits, with more elasticity, clearness of brain, and vitality of body, if he makes Sunday a day apart, than if he keeps in the ordinary ruts of thought and reading and action. Q. Must Sabbath rest be absolute ? A. So far as servile toil is concerned it should. But religious wor- ship is appropriate to the day, and in the intervals of worship, works of mercy are allowable. To feed the hungry, comfort the sick, con- sole the dying, and relieve the suffering, are deeds becoming this holy day. Property, also, may rightfully be saved from destruction by fire or other disaster. (Matt, xii, 10-12 ; Luke xiii, 14, 15.) Man may eat his food, and engage in healthful bodily exercise. Jesus walked with his disciples through the corn-field, and plucked and ate. The eating was, of course, incidental. He did not go to the corn-field to eat, but was walking through the corn-fields. Christ sanctioned walking abroad on the Christian Sabbath. "And, behold, two of them went that same day [the first Christian Sabbath] to "a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore fur- longs. . . . And Jesus himself drew near and went with them." But the Sabbath should be a day of gladness, of religious delight. " I have no sympathy," says Thomas Guthrie, " with those who would make the Sabbath a day of gloom. I would have the sun to shine brighter, and the flowers to smell sweeter, and nature to look fairer on that day than on any other. I would have the very earth to put on her holiday attire on the blest morning on which our Savior rose from the dead." But joyousness and revelry are very different things. There are those who would make of the Sabbath a day of general lawlessness and carousal. For these. Sabbath laws are in order. They are worse than those who continue in regular work-day life. Let the law be enforced against both. Q. Did not the Jewish Sabbath law enjoin absolute rest ? A. It did. And the Jewish regulation was peculiar in several re- spects. The Jews observed their Sabbath on Saturday. They allowed no works of mercy or even deeds of necessity on that day. Our Lord himself rebuked such inconsistency, and the Jews called him a Sabbath-breaker, and sought how they might destroy him. (Matt, xii, 1-21.) But Jesus was greater than the Sabbath, and fixed it so as to be a blessing instead of a burden to the race. It is not designed 348 FAITH MADE EASY. to deprive man of any real good, but to favor him with rest and the privileges of religious worship. Q. What other peculiarities attached to Jewish Sabbath-keeping? A. 1. The Jews enforced the observance of absolute Sabbath rest by national authority, defining specifically the time of it — from sun- set to sunset — and making the slightest violation, even incidentally, punishable with death. The people were not even allowed to kindle a fire on the Sabbath day. (See Ex. xxxv, 2, 3.) 2. The Sabbath was to the Jews commemorative of national deliv- erance. The Jew was to remember his deliverance from Egyptian bondage as often as his Sabbath day returned. ' ' Wherefore remem- ber that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mightj' hand and by a stretched-out arm ; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day." (Deut. v, 15.) "Very probably," says Canon Cooke, " the special day of the seven, which became the Jew- ish Sabbath, was the very day on which the Lord brought them from the land of bondage, and gave them rest from the slavery of Egypt. If this reasoning be true, all mankind are interested in the sanctifica- tion of the Sabbath, though Jews only are required to keep that Sabbath on Saturday." (Read Ex. xii, 14-18 ; xiii, 3, 4 ; Num. xxviii, 17.) 3. The Jews instituted several sabbaths, such as the Sabbath of weeks, the Sabbath of months, the Sabbath of years, the Sabbath of Sabbatic years, etc., a system which, if perpetuated in Christianity, would have proved an intolerable burden. And yet, to be consistent, the keeper of the Jewish Sabbath of days should keep the entire round of Jewish sabbaths. Some of the early converts to Christian- ity attempted this, and Paul rebuked them, saying: "But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." (Gal. iv, 9-11.) The Christian who turns back to the Jewish Sabbath-day turns to "a weak and beggarly element," and it is to be feared that New Testament instruction has been bestowed on him in vain. 4. With the Jews the day itself, rather than the Sabbath rest, be- came the important thing. The civil and ceremonial observances were more than the spiritual rest or worship. This was the trouble with the Jews. They rested every thing upon the outward observance, and when our Lord came he had to cut right through many of their tra- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 349 ditions and customs, and revolutionize the whole inner life. In no particular did he do this more thoroughly and strikingly than in re- spect to the Jewish Sabbath. Many Jewish peculiarities, like the passover, the feast of the weeks, the feast of the tabernacles, the Aaroaic high priesthood, the annual atonement, the various offerings and oblations, the shew-bread, the ceremonial purifications, the special penalties by which certain laws were enforced, were all utterly abol- ished by Christianity ; they were mere shadows of good things to come; but the Sabbath, like marriage and the principle of the minis- try, was not abolished, though it was changed to suit the Christian system. The corrupt glosses of Jewish tradition were stripped off from it, and only the holy principle remained. Says the apostle Paul : ' ' For if that first covenant had been fault- less, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts ; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." (Heb. viii, 7-10.) The first covenant, then, was that made to Moses on Sinai, consisting of circumcision, Sabbath days (not the Sabbath rest itself, for that was a permanency in religion before Moses was born), priesthood, sacrifices, and offerings for sin. The second covenant was a spiritual covenant, which had its fulfillment, or the beginning of its fulfillment, in the advent and ministry of Christ. Q. Are we to understand, then, that the Sabbath law is still in force? A. Most certainly. A Sabbath, rest is of universal obligation. It is as binding as the moral law. The fourth commandment reads: " Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it." The "day" may be different under different dispensations, as we shall show, but that does not alter the Sabbath itself. Whether the Sabbath occur on the first day or seventh day, the law of God requires its observance. St. Paul says: "The law was our school-master to bring us to Christ." This is especially true of the Sabbath law. The Jewish Sab- bath law was designed to lead directly to the better Christian Sabbath 350 FAITH MADE EASY. law. Christ, who proclaimed himself as " Lord of the Sabbath," kept the Jewish Sabbath until he had instituted the Sabbath of grace. This he did during the close of his earthly ministry. With the usher- ing in of the Christian dispensation, the commandments contained in ordinances were taken out of the way — removed with the Levitical priesthood. But it must be distinctly understood that the moral law was not thereby abrogated. The moral law is not a thing to be affected by changing dispensations. Itself a transcript of the Divine Mind, it is written upon the consciences of all men, whether revealed religion has appeared to them or not. (Rom. ii, 15.) Our Lord says he did not come to destroy the law. (Matt, v, 17.) Paul says he does not make void the law through faith, but that he establishes the law. (Rom. iii, 31.) John says that he that sins transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. (1 John iii, 4.) James warns Christians to live so as to be judged by the gospel, and not by the law (James ii, 8-13), but he does not intimate that the law is void. Paul says: "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (Rom. x, 4.) Therefore he says to Christians: "Ye are not under the law, but under grace.'' (Hom. vi, 14.) Q. Is there any difference between the moral law as existing un- der the Mosaic dispensation, and under the Christian? A. Yes, and no. The law under the Mosaic dispensation was for- mulated into nine moral precepts, with a Sabbath commandment added, making ten in all. This same law under the Christian dispen- sation is summarized under two grand heads — love to God, and love to man. Yet not one jot or one tittle of the essence of the moral law is abated. When Paul, referring to the abolishment of the law dispensation, said, "For if that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious," he indicated the cor- rect status of the law. The essence of the moral law "remaineth." It was ratified by our Lord in his reply to the young man who ques- tioned him as to the condition of his soul's salvation : " Thou knowest the commandments, Do not kill," etc. Though he did not here quote the Sabbath commandment, he quoted enough to show that he sanc- tioned the substance of that immortal code. And when, as we believe, he afterwards designated a different day for Sabbath observance, he placed the seal of confirmation upon that commandment also. Q. Do Christians respect the Sabbath commandment when they observe their Sabbath on the first day of the week instead of the seventh ? WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 351 A. They do. The whole Christian world maintains the use and obligation of Sunday on the ground of the law in the Decalogue, and the satisfactory evidence in the New Testament that the day was changed to the first day of the week. Throughout Christendom the weekly day of rest and worship as a matter of divine and perpetual obligation is solemnly recognized. We emphasize this point because Sabbatarians sometimes insinuate that Christians allow the Sabbath commandment to sit lightly upon them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. And it is mere delusion to suppose that by going back to the Jewish seventh day a better Sabbath observance would be secured. In no way could the obligation be made more sacred than it is. Christians keep the commandments of God without exception. They keep the Sabbath commandment with especially conscientious care. Nowhere in the Bible are we required to observe the seventh day of the week, as the week is now reckoned. The words, "seventh day," are every time directly connected with six work days. So the Sabbath law is, Work six days, and rest the seventh. One seventh of our time is to be sacred unto God. This is all the commandment requires. Q. How came the Jews to fix upon Saturday as their Sabbath- day? A. We have already shown that upon that day the Lord brought them out of Egypt, and it was to be to them a memorial of their de- liverance. It was also intended to be a sign to the Israelites "through- out their generations" that God bad separated them from the idola- trous nations by which they were surrounded. (See Ex. xxxi, 13, 14; Ezek. XX, 12.) It is probable that great confusion existed immediately prior to the giving of the law as to the day on which the Sabbath should be observed. The idolatry and general wickedness which characterized the centuries from Adam to Moses had involved mankind in a con- dition of religious apathy and ignorance. For a period of two thousand years preceding the giving of the law on Sinai there is no evidence of regular Sabbath keeping, though the race was under Divine obligation to keep holy one-seventh of the time. The people forgot God, neglected duty, and lost sight and thought of spiritual worship, and served other gods. Moses sought to restore the worship of the true God, and to re- store it in such a way as would be most impressive and helpful to God's chosen people. That in selecting the Jewish Sabbath-day he 352 FAITH MADE EASY. selected the regular successive seventh day of human time from Adam down can not be proved by any authority, human or divine. Q. But is it not evident that in designating the seventh day of the week as the Jewish Sabbath, Moses had in mind the example of God's rest in the creation? A . It is. We read : ' ' For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.'' (Ex. XX, 11.) It must not be assumed that these words are exactly parallel to those in Genesis ii, 2, 3, which read: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day 'from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." The best scholars generally hold that this particular seventh day which God sanctified is a vast period of time, reaching from the close of creation down to our own day, and on into the future. It is God's Sabbath, not man's, though no doubt the former is the good reason for the latter. The idea is, that as God rested on the seventh day of the creative week, so he blessed the seventh day of the human week as the particular Sabbath of the Jews. Q. But suppose the "days" of the creative week to have been literal solar days, as many simple folk believe, what then becomes of *he notion that the Sabbath may be rightfully observed on the 'first day of the week? A. The "notion" is still well founded. If we allow that the days of creation were literal solar days, it would still follow that God's seventh day would not be man's seventh day. " The seventh day which God blessed in Eden was the first day of human life, and not the seventh day; and it is certain that God did not rest from his labors on man's seventh day, but on man's first. "We feel inclined, then, to hold with Luther that in Genesis ii, 2, 3, Moses says nothing about man's day, and that the seventh day, which received the Divine benediction, was God's own great seonian period of sabbatic rest." (Whitelaw.) Q. Did mankind observe a Sabbath prior to the giving of the law on Sinai? A. We think so, though not, perhaps, with perfect regularity. There are indications of a Sabbath among the patriarchs (Gen. xxix, 27, 28), among the antediluvians (Gen. viii, 6-12), and back even to Cain and Abel (Gen. iv, 3). Profane history shows that among the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 353 ancient Persians, Indians, and Germans the number seven was es- teemed as sacred.- The Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity were acquainted with the hebdomadal division of time. The true genesis of this, we think, is to be found in the prim- itive observance of a day of rest in accordance with Divine ap- pointment. Q. Allowing, then, that Adam rested with his Maker in paradise, and adopted that rest as his own cm each succeeding seventh day of human time, on what day of the human week would that rest fall? A. Geology agrees with Genesis that on the sixth day occurred the creation of beast, cattle, and creeping things, ending in the for- mation of man in the image of God. Man is the last of the geolog- ical series, such as fish, reptiles, and mammalia, and is the crown and consummation of God's creative work. His existence, then, began at or near the close of the sixth creative day, so that God's Sabbath rest was man's first full day. If he began the calculation of the week from that time, then the first day of the week, and not the seventh, was the primitive and patriarchal Sabbath. "The holy rest day was the seventh from the first, in the count of God's works for man; but it was the first day in his created history. He appeared before hts Maker on that day, in possession of all good, and in the probationary prospect of a confirmation of it forever. The day was therefore blessed and sanctified to man, as containing in its present and prom- ised good his everlasting inheritance. No bloody rites and typical shadows had conducted him to the enjoyment of that glorious day ; it arose to him as the rest of God. All was very good, and all was very satisfactory, both to God and man. But from this lofty probation he fell by transgression under the curse of the whole law. All good was lost, and all threatened evil was incurred, and we must now keep our eye fixed upon this day of the Lord, till its lost blessing shall be re- covered through his mediation." (Biblical Chronology: President Akers, p. iii.) Q. Is there any indication in the Scriptures that a change of the Sabbath day occurred with the Jews? A. There is, and the record is worth reading in this connection. "See," said Moses, " for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place ; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day." (Ex. xvi, 29, 30.) Now, what was this particular "seventh day?" In the opening verse of the chapter we are told that the children of Israel 23 354 FAITH MADE EASY. came unto the wilderness of Sin "on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out of the land of Egypt." The people were hungry, and murmured against God. Manna was immediately sent to them. It fell on the morning of the 16th, and continued to fall regularly for six consecutive nights, but on the morning of the 22d there was none. This was the Jewish Sabbath. Yet the 15th day (just one week previous) was not a Sabbath, but a secular day, for the people had traveled on that day, which they would not have done had the day been sacred. It is evident, therefore, that here we find a change of the patriarchal Sabbath. But it was not designed to be a permanent change. It was for the Jews, "throughout their generations." Eeferring to this historical record in Exodus, Dr. H. C. Benson says: "It is so explicit that we are not left in doubt as to the fact that the Sabbath, as observed in the wilderness of Sin, had not been a day hallowed by the Lord previous to that time. There had been, we doubt not, a patriarchal Sabbath, but on another day of the week." Q. Can you quote any other authorities in support of this view? A. Plenty of them. Joseph Sutcliffe, the English commentator, says that the Sabbath was changed on leaving Egypt in accordance with the declaration of Dent, v, 3 : " The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." Com- menting on Ezek. xx, 12-20, he says : ' ' That holy day, though sanctified from the creation, had been almost lost in Egypt. It was restored by Moses as a sign of the covenant, in the increase of corn on the year preceding the Sabbatic year, and the year preceding the jubilee. And it is thought, from Deut. v, that the Sabbath was anticipated one day on leaving Egypt, the Egyptians having been drowned in the morning watch of the fifteenth day. If otherwise, they must have marched on the Sabbath day. In that view our Savior has restored the Sabbath by his resurrection to the very day of rest after the creation." Rev. W. H. Rogers says that " the only change of the Sabbath by God's authority is for the Jews between the giving of manna and the resurrection of Christ. The first day of the week, but always the sev- enth day after the six working days, was the day of the holy rest from Adam to Moses. Then Sabbatism was separated from idolatry by changing it from Sunday to Saturday among the chosen people ' throughout their generations,' fifteen hundred years. At Christ's res- urrection expired by statute limitation this Jewish peculiarity or excep- tional change, leaving the Divine rule for all mankind, requiring first- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 365 day Sabbath keeping, as had been the case for the first twenty-five hundred years of human history." Q. Do you consider it of great importance thus to fix the day of the original Sabbath ? A. Only as the Sabbath question is used to trouble certain minds. For ourselves, we consider the essential nature of the Sabbath as not a time element, a fixed and unalterable period, beginning at a specified hour of a specified day of the week, and ending in a similar manner, but rather a great spiritual idea developed through the ages of Divine teaching and dealing with the race, and enforced by solemn sanctions, both natural and revealed. Were it otherwise, what would become of Sabbath observers at the poles, where the " day" is six months long? And what would voyagers around the world do, who gain or lose a day in their reckoning, according as they go east or west ? It was a very pertinent recommendation made by Dr. John Wallas, of Oxford, that all seventh-day Sabbatarians sliould make a voyage around the world, " going out of the Atlantic Ocean westward by the Straits of Magellan to the East Indies, and then from the east returning by the Cape of Good Hope homeward, and let them keep their Saturday Sabbath all the way. When they come home to England they will find their Sat- urday to fall on our Sunday, and they may thenceforth continue to observe their Saturday Sabbath on the same day with us." Q. Did any changes of importance occur with the ushering in of the new dispensation ? A. We should think so. "At the opening of the Christian econ- omy," says Dr. A. L. Stone, " the whole state of the Church under- went a revolution. In some way, or to some extent, almost every thing was changed. The Mediator of the covenant was changed, Moses for Christ. The law was changed, the Levitical for the Evan- gelical. The high priesthood was changed, that of Aaron for that of Jesus. The promises were changed, those which looked primarily to temporal blessings for those which looked directly to eternal. The worship was changed, the stately and splendid rites of the temple for the simple and spiritual forms of the Church. The sacraments were changed, the passover for the Lord's supper, and the bloody seal of circumcision for the unbloody laver of baptism. The whole dispensa- tion was changed, that of the law and works for that of ' grace and truth.' With all these changes, then, every thing else made thus new, is it wonderful that the day of the Sabbath was also changed?" Is it wonderful, especially in view of the fact that right along through the whole Mosaic administration there had been a preparation and proph- 356 FAITH MADE EASY. ecy of it? What was the institution of the Pentecost but a prepara- tion for the coming Christian Sabbath? It occurred immediately following the completed Israelitish Sabbath, or in other words, the closed series of seventh-day Sabbaths, and the Israelites were com- manded to observe it. It was, indeed, a Sabbath in itself, ordained by the fiat of God, and not occasioned by any local event of Jewish history. "It was allowed to be known only as a token of the com- pletion of the full series of the Mosaic seventh days, evidently signi- fying that when that dispensation was really completed its antitype would be found in a Divine manifestation greater than that of Sinai — the day of a better covenant. ... It was a greater day than the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath. It was the festival day. For it the tribes had gathered at the sanctuary. The previous Sabbath found them there simply because it preceded the festival. On that Sabbath every one looked forward to the festival. The festival day also was a Sabbath, without the restriction of the seventh day. Both Sabbaths were celebrated by convocations. But the festival Sabbath added to the convocation the sacrificial feast.'' (Eight Studies in the Lord's Day.) Beautifully, therefore, did this feast prepare the mind for the greater Sabbath which was again dawning upon the world. The Pentecost was a joyous feast. The Sabbath was designed to be a day of holy rest and joy. But on the Jewish Sabbath the Sav- ior lay under the power of death. It was to his disciples a day of restlessness and gloom. The remembrance of that day would always be to them grievous. The thought of the agony, the cross, the bitter cry, the expiring groan, and the awful sepulcher, could only create a feeling of sorrow. For evermore the Jewish Sabbath day was de- spoiled of its gladness to the Christian heart. There must be a change ; and what better day than the original first day, that blessed first day when our Lord burst the bars of death, and rose triumphant from the tomb? The resurrection is pre-eminently a joyful event, and from the moment it occurred the first day of the week became the only fit day for the celebration of the Sabbath of rest and joy. Q. Have you noticed the fact that Sabbatarians consider the revised rendering of Matt, xxviii, 1, as favoring the theory that Christ arose on the seventh day of the week instead of the first? They assume that "late on the Sabbath" means late on Saturday afternoon, do they not? A. Yes; but they have no right thus to abuse one single render- ing of the revised version, when other renderings make the fact in the case plain enough, and this can easily be harmonized with it. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING TEE SABBATH. 357 Christ himself predicted (see Matt, xii, 40,) that he should be three days in the bowels of the earth. If he arose on Saturday, he must have been crucified on Thursday instead of Friday, which is contrary to Scripture. Nothing is more explicitly taught than that he was crucified on the day before the Jewish Sabbath, as see Matt. xxvii, 62: "Now the next day, that followed the day of the prepara- tion, the chief priests and Pharisees came together uuto Pilate." This compare with Mark xv, 42-47: "Now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counselor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. . . . And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulcher which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses be- held where he was laid;" xvi, 1: "And when the Sabbath was passed," etc. Also compare with Luke xxiii, 54-56. He was there- fore taken down from the cross on Friday, and rose again, as he said, "on the third day," according to Matt, xvi, 21; xvii, 23; xx, 10, and xxvi, 61. It will be conceded by all fair-minded interpreters that "after three days" must be interpreted according to the oft- repeated declaration "on the third day," and in harmony with the facts as recorded. The phrase, "late on the Sabbath," can only mean "at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week." The best lexical authorities show this. Take one or two : Greenfield's Greek Testament: Opse de sabhatou, "late in the Sabbath — after or at the end of the Sabbath." (Matt, xxviii, 1.) Donnegan: Opse, "Late, too late; properly after, hence with a genitive — long after. Opse tou Troikou, long after the Trojan war." Robinson's New Testa- ment Lexicon gives opse with a genitive, " at the end of — at the close of— after." Matt, xxviii, 1 : "At the end of the Sabbath;" i. e., after the Sabbath, the Sabbath being now ended. Groves: Opse, "late in the evening — a long time after — at length." Bagster: Opse sabhatou, "after the close of the Sabbath." The four evangelists, taken together, give a harmonious account of the Savior's rising "early the first day of the week." (John* XX, 1.) Any other interpretation involves us in inextricable difficulties. If the resurrection occurred on Saturday evening before dark, then the story of the guards (Matt, xxviii, 13) — " His disciples came hy night 358 FAITH MADE EASY. and stole him away while we alept" — has absolutely no significance at all. Equally meaningless is the account of the women going to the sepulcher early in the morning to embalm the body of Jesus, and being surprised to find the sepulcher empty, when they knew the evening before that he had risen. We will say no more upon this point. The theory that Christ rose from the dead on Saturday evening is unscriptural, absurd, and wickedly false. Q. Is the Lord's-day the subject of any Old Testament prophecy ? A. Bishop Home thinks it is. He calls Psalm cxviii " a tri- umphal hymn sung at the resurrection of the Messiah." In it the Church says : " Open to me the gates of righteousness [places of wor- ship], I will go unto them and I will praise the Lord. . . . The stone which the builders rejected is become the headstone of the cor- ner;" "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will be glad and rejoice in it." Rev. WiUiam Armstrong remarks upon these 1. The builders reject the stone, and crucify our Lord. 2. The disciples rejoiced, not when he was laid in the grave, but on his resurrection-day. "And while they believed not for joy." (Luke xxiv, 41.) " Did not our hearts burn within us?" (Verse 32.) It was on this day that the disciples were glad, because they saw the Lord. (John xx, 19.) At this time he referred them to what was written of him in these Psalms. , (Luke xxiv, 44.) At this time he built his Church, of which he was the corner-stone. He was seen to be the chief corner- stone on his great day of triumph — the resurrection-day. It was then, and is now, the day of worship and joy to the Christian Church. Q. Did our Lord expressly command his disciples to observe the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath ? A. We do not know. He gave many directions to his disciples that are not left on record. It is highly probable that they received from his own lips their authority to keep the Lord's-day. Q. Did Jesus Christ in any way sanction the change of the Sab- bath day? A. He did. St. John, in his Gospel (chap, xx), relates, certain particulars of the resurrection morning, and the sanction which our Lord gave to the first day of the week as the newly appointed Sab- bath of Christendom. The chapter opens with : " The first day of the week Cometh Mary Magdalene early unto the sepulcher," etc. After detailing the occurrences of the resurrection, the nineteenth verse WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 359 opens with : " Then the same day at evening, being \h^ first day of the week, when the doors were yet shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you." After giving them certain instruc- tions, and breathing upon them the Holy Ghost, he withdrew and was not seen again that week. Then in the twenty-sixth verse we are told that "after eight days" (being the second first day after the resurrec- tion), "again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them ; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said. Peace be unto you." What peace is this so oft reiterated but the peace of a diviner Sabbath than had hitherto dawned upon man? After convincing Thomas of his actual identity as the risen Lord, and giving many unrecorded signs of the new kingdom now established, Jesus again withdrew, and his third appearance was to the disciples at the sea of Galilee. (John xxi, 1-14.) Three more first days passed before the ascension, and though we are not told whether our Lord appeared on any or all of them, we are informed that he ap- peared three times — once to five hundred brethren besides the apostles, once to James, and once to all the apostles. (1 Cor. xv, 4-8.) Thus the resurrection and the first day were constantly associated with the bodily appearance of the Master. And after the ascension, it being the seventh Sunday after the resurrection, the day of Pentecost, the disciples were again assembled "with one accord," "for prayer and supplication," when Jesus shed upon them the promised Comforter — the fullness of the Divine Spirit — which was ever after to characterize the covenant then in force. This is the "rest that remaineth." This is the day "now sacred to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, gathering into itself the memory of the three great works of the Trinity — cre- ation, redemption, and spiritual baptism — and pouring forth for Chris- tians the fullness of his manifold grace. "Thus by example did Jesus hallow the first day of the week as a divine rest for Christians, throughout the evangelic age, and by the authority of a God sanc- tioned the change so made." Q. But what can you say to those people who insist that we must show written authority for the change of days? that we must point to the plain command of Jesus, or give up the argument? A. We can say that their requirement is absurd. There is no express command on record for the abolishment of circumcision, yet it is done away. Jesus taught his disciples many things that are not left on record, and his example in reference to the first-day Sabbath has sutstantially the force of a written commandment. 360 FAITH MADE EASY. • Q. Did the disciples emulate their Master's example? A. They did, and with remarkable fidelity. Their practice from that day on proves that they had the authority of their Master fox the new order of things. Otherwise there would have been expressed dissent, and a division in the Church. Such a result would have been inevitable. During the entire ministry of Paul, the disciples, following the clearly indicated wUl of their Master, "came together on the first day of the week to break bread " and to listen to the preaching of the gospel. (Acts XX, 7.) Here we see how this first great Christian missionary, with other distinguished ministers and the Church at Troas, in A. D. 60, utterly ignored the seventh-day Sabbath and kept the Lord's-day. About the same time ' Paul gave orders to the Churches at Galatia and Corinth concerning "the collection for the saints," which unmistakably show that their assemblies were all held on "the first day of the -week." (1 Cor. xvi, 1, 2.) Again, in his letter to the Colossians, he says: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body is of Christ." All these things Christians were to discard, be- cause, belonging to the old covenant, they were absolved. The Jewish day had gone with the Jewish economy, with all its false restrictions and associations begotten by the traditions of the Jewish teachers, but the spiritual fact remained, and was carried back to primitive simplicity, coinciding exactly with the pure light of Christ and his apostles. A change of this covenant was a foreordained event when Moses came down from the mount with the covenant in his hand. Says Paul in 2 Cor. iii, 13: " Moses put a veil over his face that the chil- dren of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." The veil used on this occasion was to conceal from the Jews the manifest destiny of that first covenant. Paul goes on to say : "Their minds were blinded; for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ." At the first interview of Christ with his disciples after the resurrection, he expounded the things concealed by the veil, hidden in himself, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, by which the disciples understood that the first covenant of circum- cision — Sabbath days, priesthood, sacrifices, and offerings for sin — had served out their appointed time, were henceforth to have no force ; in a word, to be as though they had never been. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 361 Q. Did the apostolic Christians meet on the first day or the seventh day for purposes of worship ? A. There is no record that they ever met by themselves for the pur- pose of religious worship on the Jewish Sabbath. They did often meet with the Jews on their Sabbath, but it was for the purpose of making known the truths of the gospel. It was Paul's custom to go right into the Jewish synagogues on the seventh day and urge upon the people the doctrine of Christ's resurrection and of salvation through his name. (See Acts xiii to xvii, inclusive.) At Thessalonica he continued for three succeeding Sabbaths "reasoning with them from the Scriptures, opening and alleging, that it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead," with such questions as the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness, the division of their land by lot, the ap- pointment of judges over them, the appointment of David as king, the promise of the Savior, Jesus, the preaching of John, the coming of Christ and his sufferings and death, his resurrection by Divine power, the glad tidings to be declared through the fullfilment of promises made unto the fathers, justification by faith, the abolishment of circumcision, and other customs required by the law of Moses. That the Sabbath question entered into Paul's reasonings on these occasions is very evident from Rom. xiv, 1-6. Some were " weak in the faith," and it was Paul's wish that such be not received "to doubtful disputations." "One man," he said, " esteem eth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind." Paul knew that the Jewish Sab- bath-day woul^ go down but slowly, like some other peculiarities of the Jewish system, and it was his aim, for the sake of the conscien- . tious Jewish converts, to produce a feeling of great liberality upon the question. Yet he was decided himself, and continued all through his ministry to meet the Christian Churches on the first day of the week, and to preach the doctrine of the new dispensation with great power. (Acts xx, 7, 16; xxi, 4, 21, 28; xxviii, 23-31.) The Rev. Daniel Wilson, of England, afterward Bishop of Cal- cutta, says: "We have no express prohibition of the Jewish, nor injunction of the Christian Sabbath. It was a matter subordinate, and was now to make its way by force of circumstances and the tacit influence of the apostles' doctrines. On the question of the Jewish ceremonies, indeed, controversy arose ; circumcision and keeping the law of Moses were made the occasion of supplanting the great doc- trine of justification. But where no dispute arose, where all observed one day in seven for rejigious rest, where no yoke was attempted to 362 FAITH MADE EASY. be imposed on the Gentiles, the apostles were 'gentle as a nurse cherisheth her own children.' The Jewish converts were allowed to observe the Mosaic Sabbath. The Gentiles who had previously cele- brated their pagan festivals, renounced these on their conversion for the holy rest of the Lord's-day. They spontaneously kept the Christian Sabbath as a Datural duty.'' Here we see that the Gentile converts not only renounced their pagan customs, but also turned from the Jewish Sabbath to the first- day Sabbath, and this, too, while the greatest liberty of choice was allowed to all, proving beyond question that the new first-day Sabbath was then considered distinctively Christian. Q. When did God manifest his will respecting the new Sabbath? A. When he inspired St. John to designate it by its proper name — " Lord's-day " (Eev. i, 10) — plainly signifying that the day had already obtained a particular name, which proves that it had become a day of general observance. Just as the supper that displaced the paschal feast was called the Lord's supper, even so this day that displaced the Jewish was called the Lord's-day. On this stated day the prim- itive Christians always convened for their worship, and so well known was their custom in this respect that one of the ordinary questions put by persecutors to the Christian martyrs was, "Hast thou kept the Lord's-day?" To which the usual reply was given, "I am a Christian ; I can not avoid it." Q. How did the post-apostolic writers — those who lived and -vVrote in times immediately following the disciples — speak of the Lord's-day? A. Uniformly as an established Christian institution. They do not hint at the necessity of defending it. It is manifest that they received it " with all the sanction of primitive Christian usage, and with the full consecration of the Master himself" Q. How did Ignatius, the disciple of John, who wrote perhaps as early as A. D. 100, speak of it. A. In his epistle to the Magnesians, in making a contrast between Judaism and Christianity, he goes on to say: " If those who were con- cerned with old things have come to newness of hope, no longer keeping (Jewish) Sabbaths, but living according to the Lord's-day, in which our life has arisen again through him and his death, . . . how can we live without him whom the prophets waited for as their teacher, being in spirit his disciples ?" Again, he called the Lord's- day the " queen and chief of all days," and says: "It is presupposed that even the Jews who have come over to Christianity substituted Sunday in place of the Sabbath." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE SABBATH. 363 Q. Is there any question as to the genuineness of these passages ? A. N&cj little indeed. Dr. Lightfoot, bishop of Durham, in his recently published work on the Ignatian Epistles, has triumphantly vindicated the oft-disputed genuineness of the shorter Recension, in which the above quotations appear, and in this he is powerfully supported by Harnach. Rejecting the longer Greek Recensions as fabricated in the fourth century, and the Curetonian Epistles as a harmless collection made about the year A. D. 400, or somewhat ear- lier, Harnach says: " There remains therefore the shorter Greek Re- cension of the epistles. Whether these epistles are genuine or not is one of the main problems of early Church history. . . . After repeated investigation the genuineness of the epistles seems to me certain. I hold the hypothesis of their spuriousness to be untenable. In this conclusion I agree with Lightfoot, and I also thank him for having removed many difficulties in detail which I had previously felt." Q. It is understood that the recently discovered " Teachings of the Apostles" may have been written as early as A. D. 125. Does that document throw any light upon this question ? A. It does. Chapter xiv opens with this direction to the saints : " But on the Lord's-day do ye assemble and break bread, and give thanks, after ^confessing your transgressions, in order that your sacri- fice may be pure." There is no reference to the Jewish Sabbath in the entire document. Q. Irenseus, who lived in the second century, was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John. What remark has he left on record ? A. He says: "On the Lord's-day every one of us Christians keeps the Sabbath, meditating in the law, and rejoicing in the works of God." This is explicit enough. He says every Christian in his time observed Sabbath rest on the Lord's-day. Q. Can you quote any thing from Justin Martyr, who wrote about A. D. 138 ? A. He says : "On the day called Sunday there is a gathering in one place of all who reside either in the cities or in the country places, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read." (Apology I, 67.) He goes on to give reasons for keeping this day, viz. : "Because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world ; and Jesus Christ, our Savior, on the same day rose from the dead. For he was cruci- fied on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday) ; and on the day 364 FAITH MADE EASY. after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to his apostles and disciples, he taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration." This statement of Justin Martyr is of priceless value in its bear- ing upon the truth that Jesus himself taught his disciples by word of mouth, aa well as by example, to observe the first day of the week. There is no evading Justin's plain declaration that "He taught them these things." Q. Did any of these early writers treat this question in argumen- tative form? A. Yes. Melito, bishop of Sardis, according to Eusebius, wrote a work on the " Lord's-day," about A. D. 170; and Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, about the same date, wrote a letter to Soter, bishop of the Church of Rome, in which occurs this statement: "To-day we have spent the Lord's holy day, and in it we have read your epistle." Q. Did Tertullian, of Carthage, the great writer of the second century, say much about the first-day Sabbath ? A. He did. Here are specimens: "Sundays we give to joy,'' " to observe the day of the Lord's resurrection.'' " If we spend Sun- day in rejoicing, it is from a different reason than sun worship ; we are also distinct from those who spend Saturday in idleness and feast- ing, leaving the ancient Jewish cuctom of which they are ignorant.'' " We celebrate Sunday as a joyful day. On the Lord's-day we think it wrong to fast," etc. These quotations from Tertullian are important as showing the willful error of those modern writers who seek to prove that the primitive Christians apostatized from the apostolic faith and practice, and fell in with the pagan custom of sun-worship. Ter- tullian says plainly that their Sunday observance was from a very " different reason than sun-worship." Speaking to the nations still in idolatry, he defended the Christian Sabbath, or Lord's-day, by an appeal to their own customs : " Others with greater regard to good manners, it must be con- fessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then ? Do you do less than this ? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshiping the heavenly bodies, likewise move your lips in the direction of the sunrise ? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week ; and you have selected its day (Sun- day) in preference to the preceding day as the most suitable in the week for either an entire absence from the bath, or for its postpone- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO THE SABBATH. 365 ment until the evening, or for taking rest, and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliberately deviate from your own religious rites to those of straugers. For the Jewish feasts are the Sabbath and the purification, and Jewish also are ceremonies of the lamps, and the fasts of unleavened bread, and the ' literal prayers,' all which institutions and practices are of course foreign from your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this disgression, you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday, should consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from your Saturn and your days of rest." These quotations, we repeat, prove that the early Christians who observed Sunday, and were claimed by the heathen to be sun wor- shipers, very emphatically denied the accusation. They observed Sun- day, but, unlike the heathen, they did it to commemorate Christ. Their pure forms of Christian worship were as far removed from idol- atry as ever were the religious observances of " the chosen people." Q. Will you give brief references from other early writers which have important bearing upon this question ? A. Origen, the great theologian of Alexandria, in the beginning of the third century, wrote that the Lord's-day was " placed above the Jewish Sabbath." "To keep the Lord's-day" is, in his opinion, " one of the marks of the perfect Christian." Peter, bishop of Alexandria, about the same period, says : " We keep the Lord's-day, because of him who rose thereon." Clement of Alexandria, a contem- porary of Tertullian, says: "A true Christian, according to the com- mands of the Gospel, observes the Lord's-day by casting out all bad thoughts, and cherishing all goodness, honoring the resurrection of the Lord, which took place on that day." Chrysostom, on Psalm cxix, says : "It was called Lord's-day because the Lord rose from the dead on that day," Later fathers make a marked distinction between the Sabbath and the Lord's-day, meaning by the former the Jewish Sab- bath, or the seventh day of the week, and by the latter the first day ■ of the week, kept holy by all Christians. So Theodoret, speaking of the Ebionites, says: "They keep the Sabbath according to the Jewish law, and sanctify the Lord's-day in like manner as we do." Q. It is understood that Eusebius, about A. D. 324, penned a decisive passage. Can you quote it ? A. Here it is : " The Word [Christ] by the new covenant trans- lated and transferred^ the feast of the Sabbath to the morning light, and gave us the symbol of true rest — the saving Lord's-day — the first [day] of light in which the Savior obtained the victory over death. . . . On this day, which is the first of the light, and of the 366 FAITH MADE EASY. true Son, we assemble, after an interval of six days, and celebrate the holy and spiritual Sabbath ; even all nations redeemed by him through- out the world, assemble and do those things according to the spiritual law which was decreed for the priests to do on the Sabbath ; all things which it was duty to do on the Sabbath [that is, Jewish Sabbath] these we have transferred to the Lord's-day, as more appropriately be- longing to it, because it has tlie precedence, and is first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath. It is delivered to us (para- dedoti) handed down by tradition, that we should meet together on this day, and it is evidence that we should do these things announced in this Psalm." (Psa. xcii.) Q. Some Sabbatarians assert that the first-day Sabbath had its or- igin under the enactments of corrupt Roman pontifis and heathen em- perors. Is this true ? A. Not a bit of it. Q. When was the first Sunday law promulgated. A. In the beginning of the fourth century occurred the conver- sion to Christianity of the Emperor Constantine, and thereafter Christianity became practically the religion of the empire. Then was enacted the first Sunday civil law, designed to make the first day of the week the universal Sabbath. It is known as the Edict of Con- stantine, and was issued A. D. 321. Some seventh-day people main- tain that Sunday was first set apart by this Edict of Constantine, but we have conclusively shown that the first day was almost universally observed prior to that date. Constantine's decree commanded a faithful attendance upon public worship, and prohibited all amuse- ments and vain recreations, such as theatrical exhibitions, dancing, and the like, but allowed works of mercy. And this was binding upon the army as well as the citizens. It simply made the Lord's-day the legal Sabbath. Q. Are there other testimonies of interest? A. Plenty of them. Pliny, the heathen, in his letter to Trajan, clearly proves that Christians had a stated day for worship, when they sang hymns of praise to Christ as God. In Mosheim's History of the First Century we are told that " all Christians were unanimous in set- ting apart the first day of the week, on which the triumphant Savior arose from the dead, for the solemn celebration of public worship." These proofs are ample, and ought forever to set the Sabbath ques- tion at rest. No intelligent Christian mind, it seems to us, can here- after be disturbed in the slightest degree by subtle essays or lectures to the eflPect that mankind should go back to Judaism. Part VII. WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. WORSHIP. WORSHIP is the " I thank you" of the heart. It is an act of spiritual politeness, as reasonable and appropriate as it is im- proving and beautiful. A sense of decency and gratitude urges us to it, and the comfort and satisfaction it brings is proof of its pro- priety. "There is something radically wrong," observes Rev. Theo- dore P. Prudden, "in our idea of our Father in heaven, when the thought of giving to him is swallowed up in getting from him. Our religious life requires giving. It withers under a constant desire simply to get. He who has not learned to worship inclines to the belief that there is no being more worthy of reverence than himself. He becomes as selfish as Shylock in that very exercise, one great design of which is to counteract the selfish tendencies of life. The essence of worship is that in it self is dethroned, and God is enthroned. By it we recognize him as somewhat other than a very powerful person whom we may use for our convenience and benefit. A doubter who in his vast uncertainty changes his aim to giving, and away from himself, is the one whose gloom will lighten." Again, " worship is the recognition in Christ, and the ascription to him of every thing which is beautiful and glorious and desirable. It is the necessary tendency of all true worship to assimilate the wor- shiper into the likeness of the being worshiped. Thus the public and private worship of Christ becomes one of the chief agencies in our redemption. The thoughts and feelings of the heart demand for their completeness a corresponding objective expression. Faith finds this expression in the services of the Church and the duties of the Chris- tian life. Every truth contains within itself its peculiar duty. Every revelation of God is also a commandment, telling us something of him which we did not know before, and bidding us do for him that which 367 368 FAITH MADE EASY. we were not doing before. The truth is grasped and realized only in the performance of the duty; the duty must find its inspiration and power in the truth lying behind it. A man who aims faithfully and persistently to do the right will not long be kept in darkness as to what is right. A religion which is from God must touch practically upon human life at every point, as well as meet its needs at every turn." (J. H. Mcllvaine.) Worship is an expression of love and gratitude to the Father of mercies and the Giver of all good. He made us, he sustains, he be- stows upon us all the blessings we enjoy. We owe our life to him. "I have not simply received from his hands certain gifts,'' says Fenelon, " for that which received the first of these gifts was nonentity; for there was nothing in me which was anterior to his gifts, and which could have received them. The first of his gifts, that which formed the basis for all the others, is what I call myself. He gave to me this self; I owe to him not only all I have, but also all I am. . . . ' ' O God ! thou art truly my Father. It is thou who hast given me my body, my intellect, my soul ; it is thou who saidst, ' Be thou,' and I was; it is thou who lovedst me, not because I existed already, and merited thy love, but, on the contrary, in order that I might begin to exist, and that thy preventing love might make of me some- thing worthy of love. . . . ' ' O, Infinite Goodness ! I owe to thee every thing ; but what shall I give to thee? Thou demandest of me only one thing — the free vo- lition of my heart. Thou hast left me free in order that by my own choice I might approve that immutable subordination with which I should ever hold my heart in my hands. Thou desirest only that I should will that condition which is the bliss of every creature. . . . "Man can serve thee only in loving thee. External signs are good when they spring from the heart; but thy essential worship is only love, and thy true kingdom is within the soul ; we need not de- ceive ourselves in seeking for it without. O, Eternal Soul! to love thee is all ; it is in that we find our true manhood ; we find it no- where else; all else is but its shadow. Whoever loves thee not is an abortion — has not even begun to live a real life. "But this worship of love, should it be entirely shut up in my heart? Ah! if I love truly, it will be impossible to hide my love. Love has only one wish — to love forever, and to induce others to love. Can I see other men, whom God. has made for himself as well as me, and leave them in ignorance of him ? He has placed men together in society in order that they may love and help each other, even as WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 369 children of one father. Each nation is only a branch of one immense family which populates the earth. Love of the common Father should reign throughout this family of beloved children. Each one should continually say to those who spring from him, Know the Lord your Father. But to know the Lord wUl not suffice ; we must show that we love him, and so act that none may be in danger of ignorance or forgetfulness of him. These visible signs by which we show our love to God are called ceremonies of religion. These ceremonies are but the signs by which we have agreed mutually to edify each other, and to awaken that true worship which is in the soul." So far as this world is concerned, worship is peculiar to man. Angels are worshipers, but angels are not of the earth, earthy. Man alone of earthly creatures falls down in adoration before a higher power. That which constitutes the nature of man, says Archbishop Sharp, and doth formally difference and distinguish him from all other animals, is not so much the power of reason as the capacity of being rdigwus. There are some* footsteps of an obscure reason to be ob- served in many creatures besides man. But in none, except him, is there found any sense of a Deity, or disposition towards religion, or any thing which looks like it. That seems to be the prerogative of mankind. God endowed men, and them only, with spirits capable of reflecting upon the Author of their being, and of making acknowl- edgments and performing religious worship to him. So that to worship God, to converse with him in the exercise of devotion, to pray and give thanks for his benefits, may be truly said to be the proper oflBce of man as man. But men everywhere appear to be possessed of the disposition to worship. "In all ages and in every heart," said the great English orator. Dr. William Morley Punshon, " there must be an instinct of worship. All nations have offered sacrifice to some beings whom they deified as gods. There is no region where the pilgrim foot can travel where you do not find offerings — some sanguinary, some libidinous, some cruel, some foolish ; but all to propitiate the anger or to secure the protection of the objects of worship ; and there comes a crj' out of the great heart of humanity, ' What is an acceptable sacrifice ? Show me the acceptable sacrifice.' Divinations on streaming altars, cakes for the queen of heaven, children for the insatiate Moloch passed through the fire, — these are the responses from classic and from pagan times. African fetichism, Hindoo immolations, Burman cruelty, the savage atrocities of cannibal life, — these are hollow answers from the uninstructed conscience of paganism. Cold morality, rubrical exact- 24 370 FAITH MADE EASY. itude, sacramental efficacy, ascetic self-denial, — these are the polite and conventional theories of modern formalism ; and as they are all offered one by one, and the worshipers look eagerly for the accepting fire, all is sullen, and the clouds are dark above, and there is no voice near, nor any that regardeth the proud, the cold, the cruel sacrifice. But yonder, afar off, crouching in humble attitude, with eyes that he almost fears to lift, but which struggle through their tears to fasten their gaze upon the Crucified, there is a poor, solitary, contrite sinner without an offering, except that he offers himself; without a plea, ex- cept that he is guilty, and that Christ hath died ; without a hope, except in the multitude of God's tender mercies : and the clouds roll harmlessly away, and the sky is beautifully clear, and the lambent fire leaps down upon the altar, and the voice speaks from the Man at the right hand of the throne : ' The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' " THE CHUECH. We must distinguish betwixt the general Christian Church and the several Christian Churches. "The general Church denotes the entire body of Christian believers in every period of time, whether on earth or in heaven." (Eph. iii, 15.) This general Church on earth includes several particular denomi- nations, each organized and sustained according to its own ideas of propriety, for the worship of God and the promotion of the cause of Christianity. (1 Cor. xii, 12, 25, 27.) We must also distinguish betwixt the "Church militant" and the " Church triumphant." The former denotes true believers yet on earth, and still contending with opposition; the latter denotes be- lievers already glorified in heaven, safe from the conflicts and tempta- tion of the earthly career. In like manner we must distinguish betwixt the visible Church and the invisible. By the former "is intended all those who have openly and freely professed Christianity, and have entered into cove- nant with God and his people accordingly. (1 Cor. i, 2 ; xvi, 1-19.) By the latter is understood all those who are known of Christ as be- longing to him, whether they have joined the visible Church or not." (2 Tim. ii, 19.) The Scripture idea of the Church is " that one mystical body of which Christ is the sole head, and in the unity of which all saints, WSAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 371 whether in heaven, or on earth, or elsewhere, are necessarily included as constituent parts.'' Paul tells us that Christ is the head of this Church, as he is likewise " the Savior of the body;" that he has chosen its members that they "should be holy and without blame before him in love;" that he cherishes them "as his own flesh;" and that it is his purpose " to present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Eph. i, 4; v, 23, 26, 29, 30.) Peter represents this Church as " a spiritual house," "a holy priesthood," designed " to ofier up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ," and that Christ is the " chief corner-stone." (1 Pet. ii, 5, 6.) The sacred writers generally speak of this spiritual temple as composed of all God's true people, those who are fully conformed to Christ, who are indeed "the sons of God," who, having the Christian hope, purify themselves "even as he is pure," who are "glad and rejoice, and give honor to him," and who as the bride, the Lamb's wife, are " arrayed in fine linen, clean and white : for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." This Church is God's dwelling place, " the body of Christ," "the light of the world," and "the salt of the earth." It is the true source of spiritual illumination and the instru- ment of the salvation of the world. (1 Cor. iii, 17 ; 1 John iii, 2, 3 ; Eev. xix, 7, 8 ; Matt, v, 13, 14.) This wide view of the Church as the total of all true believers, the whole kingdom of Christ on earth, whether before or after our Lord's advent and ministry, is the true and original one. When Christ said to Peter : ' ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" (Matt, xvi, 18), he certainly intended the word to include more than one society, one denomination. And in thus addressing Peter he did not mean Peter as an individual, but as an apostle, one among several apostles. The Church is built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. "God hath set some in the Church, first, apostles ; secondarily, prophets ; thirdly, teachers ; after that miracles ; then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." (1 Cor. xii, 28.) With this understanding of the Church, the apostles proceeded to organize societies, which became known as individual Churches, or local congregations, as the Church at Jerusalem, the Church at Rome, the Church at Corinth, etc. They understood that members of the one true Church were to be found in all these several Churches, and in their epistles they kept this thought in view. 372 FAITH MADE EASY. Likewise when Christ said of the Church, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt, xvi, 18), he signified the Church in this complex view, which alone is indestructible. Single congrega- tions and single denominations are, and always have been, subject to varying fortunes ; but the Church as a whole lives on, and, we believe, will live on, until the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ. From the' foregoing intimations it will appear that no one body of Christians has the right to set itself up as the only true Church, the successor of the apostles, etc. Certainly, "if we judge of the various Churches into which Christendom is divided by their conform- ing in all respects to the principles and requirements of the Gospels, we can not allow that any one of them is the perfect representation of that ideal state at which they all aim ; nor, on the other hand, can we entirely deny the name of a Christian Church to any one which professes to be built on the gospel of Christ. They have all so much in common in this religious faith and life, and so much which distin- guishes them from all other religious societies, as to justify us in con- sidering them as one whole, and calling them, in a wide sense, the Christian Church." (Gieseler.) In this connection we may remark that the assumptions of the Roman Catholic Church (the most persistent of all Churches in this peculiar claim) that it alone constitutes the true Church of God is bigoted and false. That the Catholic Church is a development of the Church of the New Testament nobody will deny, but that it contains elements which are not found in the New Testament is equally cer- tain. It claims to communicate salvation through a divinely estab- lished priesthood, whereas salvation is by Christ alone. (Acts iv, 12.) It binds its members together through the external organization of its polity rather than by the principle of brotherly love. It sinks the Pauline doctrine of faith almost out of sight, while it exalts the theory of salvation by works, even allowing the possibility of works of supererogation. Christ did not so much create a Church during his sojourn on earth as implant principles which would be subsequently developed into a Church. It is, therefore, impossible to found a Church exactly in accordance with that which existed on the day of Pentecost, when the historical Christian Church began. This Church was composed of the disciples whom Jesus had personally gathered out of the world for specific ends. It was a community inside of Judaism, with peculiar worship and WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 373 government. The disciples and friends of Jesus constituted a little body by themselves : they were Jesus' flock (Luke xii, 32 ; John X, 1), his devoted band, the representatives, and only the representa- tives, of the Church in all ages. " The apostolic office was by its very conditions unique and untransmissible. There will never be apostles again, because they were the divinely ordered founders of the Church." "There was a mighty difference," says Dr. Kostlin, "between the ' legal ' Church in Jerusalem, and the ' spiritual ' Churches per- ' meated by Paul's heavenly freedom. ' But bond and free constituted one Church in Christ Jesus; and the test of membership was not ecclesiastical observances or theological conceptions, but love. Love to Christ, love to the brethren,— by this were Christians known to the world. ' See how these Christians love one another !' was the ad- miring speech of their enemies. 'These things I command you, that ye love one another,' said Jesus. (John xv, 17.) And John, when too feeble through age to say more, repeated in the gatherings at Ephe- sus the words of the Master. Love was the higher unity in which the Church forgot minor differences. The seal of this sweet brother- hood was the holy kiss. (Roman xvi, 16.)" The existence of the true Church to-day does not depend upon the apostolic forms, many of which are irrevocably lost. Protestant- tism generally holds that " our Lord's speeches concerning his Church have nothing to do with the externals of religion, the ordering of wor- ship, and of government, nor yet with the formulating of doctrine — phenomena which have greatly occupied later attention." The New Testament contains no particular ecclesiastical policy. The future Church was left free to manage its affairs according to its needs. Prior to the time of Cyprian there was no exact definition of the Church, further than the very broad one of " the communion of saints." Clement called the Church " a community of men led by the Divine Logos, an invincible city upon earth, which no force can subdue, where the will of God is done as it is in heaven." For the realization of such a Church our Lord taught us ever to pray. The sum of what we here profess to believe is, that there is upon earth a certain community of saints, composed of holy persons, under one head, collected together by the Spirit ; of one faith, and of one mind (in essentials), endowed with manifold gifts, but united in love. The Church, therefore, is " a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly ad- ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that are of necessity requisite to the same." 374 FAITH MADE EASY. THE CONDITION OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. In view of the diversity of opinion which obtains concerning the rightful condition of membership in the Christian Church, we deem it important to examine closely the New Testament teachings in their bearing upon this subject. We have shown that no particular form of Church government is revealed in the New Testament, but that much latitude was purposely allowed to human judgment and choice upon this point. We think, however, that the will of God is pretty clearly indicated as to the specific requirements which all denomina- tions should lay down at the door of entrance into the Church. There are those who contend that repentance, desire, purpose, etc., are the sole requirements of admission to the privileges of Church membership, and in proof they point to Matt, iv, 17-22. A more irrelevant passage could hardly be quoted from the New Testament in relation to this subject. It was at the opening of our Lord's min- istry, and not at the close. He had come to set up a kingdom, to establish a Church, and had just begun to preach. A forerunner had appeared announcing his coming, and preaching the doctrine of re- pentance. Our Lord takes up the strain, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." As much as to say. The Church is not yet established, but its establishment is imminent ; repent and be ready for its requirements. He then goes forth on his mission, and, coming in contact with two men, he says: "Follow me, and I wiU make you fishers of men." They did as they were told, and there are those in our day who see in this simple record the condition of Church membership for all succeeding ages. "No profession here," say they, " of regeneration and conversion. No demand made by the charitable Christ as to faith, justification," etc. All very true, for the time and occasion for such demand had not yet come. It was in the after years, when the kingdom was laid on its foundation, that Christ said to Peter: "When thou art con- verted, strengthen thy brethren." The men referred to in the above incident were simply called to follow Christ in his special work on earth ; to be trained in discipleship, educated in the great principles of the gospel kingdom, and generally fitted for the dispensation of the Spirit, in which they were to receive the baptism of power and go forth in newness of life to build up the Christian Church. Let us go forward a little space to the days when Christ had finished the work given him by the Father, and was about to ascend WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE CHURCH. 375 up ou high, and see what we find in reference to the mission and requirements of the Church. At the close of Luke's Gospel we read: "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day : and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye 'in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." (Luke xxiv, 45-49.) At the close of Mark's Gospel, we read : "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark xvi, 15, 16.) Near the close of John's Gospel we read : " Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." (John xx, 29-31.) In these passages, among the last of our blessed Lord's utterances on earth, there is something unmistakably clear as to the object of his mis- sion, and the essential condition of partaking of the benefits and blessings of his kingdom. Not only " repentance," but " remission of sins," was to be proclaimed to the world. The disciples were to be the "witnesses;" i. e., the narrators of "their experience." That this might be rich and clear and full, they were to tarry in the holy city for the Pentecostal baptism and the enduement of " power." Then they were to disciple the nations. They were to utter faith as the condition of salvation ; they were to testify to what they had learned, that it is only by " believing" they could " have life through his name." All this the disciples did. They obeyed implicitly, and it is for us to learn wisdom from their example ; we must make their words and work our guide. Let us follow them, then. The day of Pentecost came and went. The Holy Ghost was poured out. The mighty baptism of power came upon the disciples. They began to preach. Thousands listened, repented, believed, and lived. Look at the record: "Now when they heard this [Peter's sermon], they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles. Men and brethren, what shall we do ? Then Peter said unto 376 FAITH MADE EASY. them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. . . . ■ Then they that gladly received his word were baptized : and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doc- trine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. . . . And all that believed were together, and had all things common. . . . And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." (Acts ii, 37, 38, 41, 42, 44, 47.) Again, in the next chapters, after healing the lame man at the gate of the temple, Peter preached to the astonished multitudes, and said: " Eepent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." (Acts iii, 19.) "Howbeit many of them which heard the Word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand." (Acts iv, 4.) "And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people ; and of the rest durst no man join him- self to them : but the people magnified them. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." (Acts V, 12-14.) Further on we are told how Philip met the eunuch, "and preached unto him Jesus. And as they. went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said. See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said. If, thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. . . . And he baptized him." (Acts viii, 35-38.) Yet further, we read how Paul "came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, he said unto them. Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. ' Then, said Paul, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them." (Acts xix, 1-6.) These passages serve very clearly to show that those who would define the New Testament Church as " a Church of penitence, honest endeavor," etc., have not attained to a proper understanding of the inspired teachings. They have drawn their inferences from the record of John the Baptist's work and from the incipient stages of our Lord's WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE CHURCH. 377 ministry, rather than from the final commandments of the risen Christ and the accounts of the apostles' work. How plainly did Peter preach, just as the Master commanded him, in order that the people might not only repent and be baptized, but also "believe," "be con- verted," "receive th'e remission of sins," have their "sins blotted out," as "believers" be "added unto the Lord," and "receive the Holy Ghost." It would be pertinent to inquire whether those who ignore these instructions for a regenerated Church membership "have so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." They would do well to consider how all who had simply received the baptism of John were required to " believe on Christ," and were baptized in his name. Bishop StiUingfleet designates one principal cause "of the great flourishing of religion in the primitive times to be the strictness used by them in their admission of members." Dr. Neander affirms: "At the beginning, when it was important that the Church should rapidly extend itself, those who confessed their belief in Jesus as the Messiah (among the Jews), or their belief in one God, and in Jesus as the Messiah (among the Gentiles), were immediately baptized, as appears from the New Testament. Grad- ually it came to be thought necessary that those who wished to be received into the Christian Church should be subjected to a more care- ful preparatory instruction, and to a stricter examination. . . . The period of probation must have been determined by the diflferent condition of individuals." "None in those days," Lord King says, "were hastily advanced to the higher forms of Christianity, but, according to their knowledge and merit, gradually arrived thereto." Says Dr. Henry Cowles : " The apostolic condition of membership was no other than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (See Acts v, 14; viii, 37; xvi, 33, 34; Rom. x, 8-10; 1 John v, 1; 2 John 7-11.) 'Believers were the more added to the Lord.' ' If thou believest with all thine heart,' etc. ' Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.' 'Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.' ' If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,' etc. An examination of these passages will show : (1.) That faith in Christ was made the condition of admission to the ordinances and Church fellowship. (2.) That all those who had this faith were admitted. (3.) That those who denied this cardinal doctrine were deemed Anti- christ, and rejected. (4.) That this doctrine was regarded as a test of piety of heart, as well as of purity in sentiment.'' 378 FAITH MADE EASY. It is beyond dispute that the apostles labored to establish a re- generated Church, a body of believers, having in their aggregate character not only the form, but in some measure the power, of god- liness. "When Paul saluted the Church at Ephesus, he addressed them as "saints," "faithful in Christ Jesus," " holy and without blame," "adopted by Jesus Christ," and "accepted in the beloved." These terms imply sOund conversion. Again, when he addressed the Church at Colosse, he characterized them as "saints and faithful brethren," having "faith in Christ Jesus," knowing " the grace of God in truth," and "filled with the knowledge of his will." Rather more implied in these terms than penitence and good desire, we should think. And Peter, too, addressed his feUow-Christians as " them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God." All the epistolary writings of the New Testament represent the Church as the body of Christ, a mystical spiritual temple, which rests on Christ as a foundation-stone, and in which believers are knit together in the fellowship and love of the Gospel. Those Churches of to-day who require of all candidates for full membership that they exhibit the tokens of a change of heart and life are building upon the founda- tion of Christ and the apostles. Let adequate provision be made in all Churches for the instruction and care of all who desire "to flee from the wrath to come," but let measures also be instituted to prove the genuineness of the Spirit's work in those who seek to be " planted in the house of the Lord.'' THE DUTY OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. "Is it my duty to unite with the Church?" Certainly, if you are converted; why not? If not your duty, whose duty is it? By whom will the Church be sustiined, if not by you and such as you? Suppose all good people, from righteous Abel down, had stood aloof from the Church, where would the institution of the Lord's house be to-day? Because Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, God testified of his gifts, and gave him witness that he was righteous. Here was the Christian Church in embryo, and in its subsequent development Enoch and Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Jo- seph and Moses, David and Isaiah, and thousands more of whom the world was not worthy, all had part. When Jesus came into the world he referred to the Church as already existing (Matt, xviii, 17), but said that he would build it up; that is, improve it, and make it his own (Matt, xvi, 18). Neither Christ nor his apostles ever claimed the WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 379 houor of establishing the Church ; the Church had stood ever since the promise made in Eden that the head of the serpent should be bruised by the coming Savior. Here was a type of the cross which was used throughout the patriarchal and prophetic ages as the rallying cry of all good people. Moses gathered the sons of Levi around this standard when he exclaimed: "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me." Joshua rallied the fickle Israelites to the same symbol of loyalty and love when he cried: " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." Isaiah touched the same strain when he called out: "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord re- vealed?" Zechariah was direct in line when he announced the foun- tain opened in the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jeru- salem, for sin and for uncleauness. In every age and under every dispensation we find a Church of God — an eedesia — embracing all who professed the true religion and were called out of the world to serve God. Against this Church a hostile world and the adversary of souls have ever been arrayed, and to unite with this Church has always been a prominent test of loyalty and devotion to the cause of God. Our Lord identified himself fully with the Church. He paid his profound respect even to the Jewish synagogue, and not infrequently worshiped there on the Sabbath day. Ere he left the world he had organized the true Church on a new basis. The typical cross which had been planted in Eden, and around which the saints, "from the days of righteous Abel to the days of Zacharias," had rallied, was plucked up, and the true cross, the magnet which should draw all hearts to Jesus, was planted in its stead, and the apostles, like the patriarchs and pi-ophets before them, became the leaders in propagat- ing the true Church everywhere. Jesus had said, "He that is not for me is against me," and the apostles took up and echoed the com- mand: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you." Everywhere they taught that this separation was to consist both of a change of heart, and an outward profession of that change. "Re- pent and be converted, every one of you," said they, and as fast as the people experienced conversion they were led by a profession of faith in baptism through the door into the Church. The apostle Paul worked faithfully on this platform, declaring that "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." This was but a restatement of the Savior's own words: "Whosoever shall confess me before men [not simply 380 FAITH MADE EASY. believe on me, and try to be a secret Christian] — whosoever shall con- fess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." It has been very truthfully said that " the Lord Jesus sustains dis- tinctive relations to his Church different from those which he holds to those without its fold." The elders at Ephesus were exhorted to "feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." For all the world Jesus died, but especially for his Church. We are told that he "loved the Church, and gave himself for it," that " he might sanctify and cleanse it," and " present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." We are also assured that God's people are members of a body of which Christ is the Head, and that to be separated from that body is to be like a severed branch, withered, fruitless, and dead. "Without me,'' said Jesus, "ye can do nothing." He who denies himself the privi- lege of Church membership cuts himself off from participation in the most assuring and blessed promises of the Word of God. The Church is Christ's bride, and only members thereof share in his covenant love. The Church is God's family, and only children in this household are certain of all the rights and privileges of heirship. The Church is God's husbandry, God's building, and only those who are identified with it are built up in Christ, their living Head in all things. "The Church is appointed to fulfill certain offices towards the people of Ood. " To her care and administration are confided those means of grace which have been ordained for the calling and salvation of men. The ministry of the Word execute their holy commission within her courts, and there stand ' to teach and baptize all nations.' To decline connection with the Church is necessarily to be excluded from the use of those means which are appointed in the wisdom and love of Christ for the welfare of his people. " To take a single instance. Is the sacrament of the Lord's sup- per a rite to be despised and neglected without injury to the soul? Can a man be a true and vigorous Christian who slights all oppor- tunities of receiving it? Then it must follow that our Lord has im- posed upon us a needless and valueless ordinance, which we do well to treat with deserved neglect. But if the mind recoil from such a thought (as every reverent mind must do), then there is value in it, great value in it, value worthy to be bestowed by Christ's own royal hand, and all this value is forfeited when a man makes himself a WHAT TO BELIEVE REOABDINO THE CHUBCH. 381 spiritual cripple by self-exclusion from it. SuAh a man will die eter- nally, not for the loss of an outward rite or the grace it could ex opere operato impart, but for the disobedience and contempt displayed in its neglect. "Again, the Church can not, indeed, undertake to be the physi- cian to sin-sick souls. But it can be, and is, the hospital in whose wards Jesus Christ, the great Healer, uses the balm of Gilead for the easing of wounded consciences, and the cure of the leprosy of sin. Beyond these walls his healing ministrations may sometimes, but do not ordinarily, extend. To refuse to enter is often to refuse to be healed. For those who ean enter to decline is equal to a rejection of the ten- derness and skill of Him who alone can staunch the bleeding wounds which sin has made. " The Church is also the training-school into which the Lord in- troduces all his children who have been ' born of the water and of the Spirit,' for instruction and control, for protection and for discipline. Here he has appointed 'pastors and teachers for the perfecting of these his saints, for the work of the ministry,' and for the edifying of his body, while he, by his ever-present Spirit, superintends the whole. " Shall a new-born child of God be permitted to refuse submission to that training and oversight, that discipline and control which the Father has declared necessary to its welfare ? Shall he be allowed to say, I need no instruction from teachers, I will accept of no oversight from bishops, I will submit to no government from rulers, I will not be forced to attend upon the ordinances appointed- for my growth; I in- tend to be a Christian, but I intend to be independent of all earthly authority and control? This is the exact meaning of every man's action who claims to be religious, but refuses to unite himself with the Church of Christ. No pastor has authoritative oversight of him or more influence over him than he chooses to concede ; no rulers have control of his life ; he may neglect all religious duties, and must, from the nature of the case, neglect many; he may run into any kind of sin, and refuse the rebuke of those to whom he has made no vow of obedi, ence in the Lord ; he claims the right to bear himself as a wayward- rebellious child in the household of God, defiant of all wholesome re- straint and all appointed authority, and yet demanding the name, the respect, the privileges, and the expectations of a son. Every pastor's faith is tried and his influence hindered by many such cases. To imagine that the approval of Jesus Christ, the Author of all law, human and divine, can rest on such a man, is a reflection on his wis- dom and his love. 382 FAITH MADE EASY. "Mark the example and conduct of those whose convenion is recorded in the New Testament. " On the day of Pentecost ' three thousand souls believed,' and ere the sun went down the three thousand were baptized into the Chris- tian Church. So we are told that ' the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved,' as though it was then understood, without need of sermons, that those to whom was given the hope of salvation must from that fact identify themselves with the Church. So, again, when Cornelius was converted under the teaching of Peter, and the jailer at Philippi under the exhortations of Silas, and the Egyptian eunuch under the word of Philip, and the woman, Lydia of Thyatira, under the preaching of Paul, — they one and all gave imme- diate expression to their faith by entering the visible Church through the door of baptism. Their example affords a powerful argument, not for hasty professions, but for certain admission to the Church. You will search in vain for any instance recorded in the New Testament of a believer in Jesus Christ remaining separate from his Church when it was possible for him to unite with it. The very commission of the apostles laid it upon them, not only to make men believers, but to make ' disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' " There is, indeed, one instance in which a converted man was not received by ordinances into the Church — the thief, converted on the cross. He covJd not be baptized ; his hands and feet were nailed to the beam, and his heart-strings were breaking in the agonies of death. But his is the last case to which recourse should be had for an excuse in denying the Lord. He did what he could ; he separated himself from sinners openly, fearlessly rebuking his companion ; he courage- ously declared his faith in a King whose only token of royalty was the crown of thorns still clinging to his bleeding brow. "It is very common to hear it said by persons who are not will- ing to form a connection with the Church of Christ that the reason of their refusal is a fear lest they should be unable to live up to their solemn vows, and should, by unfaithfulness, bring reproach on the Christian profession. ' ' From the lips of some this comes sincerely. These are really self-mistrustful, and diffident of their strength. To any whose inmost conscience witnesses that they are sincere we will answer : ' Be not afraid ; only believe.' Christ Jesus your Lord has promised you his grace and assistance. He has declared that ' none shall pluck you out of his hand,' and nothing shall separate you from his love. He WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 383 bids you venture yourself on him, promising that you ' shall be holden up,' and that when you are weak you shall, by his grace, be made strong. To obey in the face of the dreaded terrors of backsliding, to follow in the midst of darkness and uncertainty, is to let faith have its perfect work. But to plead fears as an excuse for disobedience is the acting of a dishonoring unbelief. God has laid on you the duty — he has charged himself with the result. " But it is to be feared that with many this apology is but a mask to hide other reasons even more unworthy. We have seen that the Church is a training-school, where Christ's children are placed under tutors and guardians for instruction and restraint. There are many who do not desire to submit themselves to the oversights, the self- denials, and the control of the Christian life. Their consciences will not suffer them to be wholly irreligious. Hence they mediate between inclination and duty by the regular performance of pious devotions, while at the same time they maintain a strict independence of eccle- siastical control. They know that there .are pleasures of which a Christian may not lawfully partake — their souls still cling to these pleasures, and refuse to resign them. They know that there are ob- ligations which the Christian is bound to fulfill— their hearts still recoil from these duties, and refuse to perform them. They desire a crown, but they wish to escape the cross and the thorny pathway. They hope to enter heaven, but they long to avoid the tribulation and the self-denial which intervene. This, whether known or un- known to themselves, is the secret motive of their hearts. They seek to silence conscience by the introduction of side questions, such as the inconsistencies of Christians. ' I do not wish to be a professor and not a possessor,' they plausibly say. Aye; but it is your solemn duty and opportunity to be a possessor; not to be such is a sin against the love of God, who offers his grace freely. "The Lord Jesus told of some who- shall knock, saying: 'Lord, Lord, open unto us. Have we not prophesied in thy name?' Have we not been believers in heart? But he shall answer: 'Depart; I never knew you.' No ; they were not enrolled among his people. Their voice never confessed his name. He never saw them sitting at his table. He never knew them. " Christian duty is plain. You can never hereafter justify neg- lect by the plea of ignorance. The refuge of all who stop short of the open profession of a living faith is a ' refuge of lies.' You may live as you may, but separate from the Church of God's redeemed you can never be certain of salvation^ Your disobedience must ever 384 FAITH MADE EASY. throw a shadow over your hopes. And when you have gone where no eye can follow you to your destiny, the most that the largest charity will be able to write at your tomb will be this: We trust that God forgave him his sin." (Rev. J. H. Smith.) THE MINISTRY. The Christian ministry was established by our Lord, as a perma- nent institution in his Church, for the revelation of his wiU and the proclamation of his gospel as the light and life of the world. For this purpose he "gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers," that every branch of the sacred office might bear the imprint of the Divine majesty, wisdom, and goodness. This high character of the ministerial calling on the one side is more than offset by the human imperfections and humble attainments on the other. The union. of the Divine and the human is always a union of contrasts. Conscientious ministers have always felt this disparity. Even the chiefest of the apostles, sinking under the weight of his ministerial responsibility, was heard to say : " Who is sufficient for these things?" Who, whether man or angel, is sufficient to unfold the great mystery of godliness, to speak that which is unspeakable, to make known that which passeth knowledge, to stand before men as the representative of Jesus and say: "We beseech you, in Christ's stead, be ye recon- ciled to God." What ! We, unlearned ourselves, to instruct others ! We to convey life, who are ourselves dead ! We, so defiled, to admin- ister a service so pure, so purifying ! " Woe is me !" cried one of old, when contrasting this honor with his own personal unfitness, "for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips." But for the gracious assurance of the blessed Master, "My grace is sufficient for thee," and the not less gracious realization that "our sufficiency is of God," many who view the sacred office in its true light as the ordinance of God would feel utterly unable to enter upon the discharge of its solemn duties, or, having entered, to continue therein. The faithful minister takes upon himself, or rather ventures to bear what God has placed upon him, the awful responsibility of pro- claiming the unsearchable riches of Christ to perishing souls around him. He feels the tremendous guilt to be incurred by any who fail to receive him, and willfully reject his commission. He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me, and he that WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE CHURCH. 385 despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." The conscientious servant of God will be careful every moment of his life to render his ministry acceptable and abundantly useful in turning many to righteousness. Most Churches agree that the New Testament reveals but two orders in the ministry — that of elder or bishop, and that of deacon. The order of apostles ended with the apostles themselves. In his first Epistle to Timothy, Paul speaks distinctly of " the office of a bishop" and of " the deacons." (1 Tim. iii, 1-13.) In his letter to Titus he ordered the latter to "ordain elders in every city," and then he went on to state that " a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God," etc., showing that the terms "bishop" and "elder" are synonymous. (Titus i, 5, 7.) Ministers are to be inducted into these orders by solemn consecra- tion. Prayer, imposition of hands, and fasting are appropriate services in ministerial ordination. (Acts xiii, 2, 3; 1 Tim. iv, 14.) Officers of the Church are variously designated in the Scriptures. " They are called Inshops or elders, from the oversight they are to take and from the grave and prudent examples they are to set; pastors, from the spiritual food they are to administer ; ministers, from the service they are to render ; watchmen, from the vigilance they are to exercise ; teachers, from the instructions they are to give ; ambassadors, from the treaty of reconciliation and peace they are sent to effect." (Binney's Theological Compend, p. 188.) (1 Tim. iii, 1; Acts xx, 28; Jer. iii, 15; 1 Cor. iv, 1; Ezek. iii, 17; 1 Pet. v, 1; Eph. iv, 11 ; 2 Cor. v, 20.) It is understood that in point of religious duty and privilege, " a call to the ministry" embraces no peculiar divine favor for persons. Spiritual functions belong exclusively to nobody. Every believer is a priest unto God. AH believers constitute God's holy priesthood, his peculiar people. Christians in common have the right to pray, to preach, to baptize, to administer communion, in such order as they themselves shall determine. (Rom. v, 2 ; Eph. ii, 19-22 ; iii, 12 ; 1 Pet. ii, 9 ; 1 John ii, 27 ; Eev. i, 6, etc.) Yet, when a body of believers have agreed upon certain order in the Church, it is to the interest of every one to observe that order and preserve perfect decorum in the house of God. " Order is heaven's first law." " Experience has shown," says Dr. Burger, " that certain persons are by natural endowment better fitted for spiritual functions than others, and also that, in the Christian communities, there will be leaders to whom will gravitate the major part of the work. The 25 386 FAITH MADE EASY. clerical order took its rise, therefore, in the very necessity of the case. Decency, order, and eflBciency demanded that certain persons should make it their business to conduct the services, and have the oversight of the congregations. Without such a class, the very freedom of the gospel would be defeated. If every body discharged the spiritual functions of which they were capable, then confusion and anarchy would result." We hold, therefore, that the ministry is of Divine appointment and pleasure, and is entitled to the hearty support of the laity. Con- tributions for the support of the ministry should be viewed as just and honest debt, not as charity or alms. (Matt, x, 9, 10 ; 1 Cor. ix, 7, 11, 14; 1 Tim. v, 18; Gal. vi, 6.) BAPTISM. Next in point of importance to the preaching of the Word, in apostolic times, came baptism and the Lord's supper, both institutions plainly Christ's. In the ordinance of Christian baptism we dedicate oui^elves to God. It is an ordinance of consecration, no matter by what mode administered. God knows and accepts, in all cases, the earnest inten- tion of the candidate. The Jews practiced a kind of baptism as a symbol of purification. (2 Kings V, 10-14; Numbers viii, 5-7.) In conformity to this law Jesus was baptized. (Matt, iii, 13-15.) The baptism of Jesus was a ceremonial induction to the priestly office, hence was deferred "until he was thirty years of age. (Num. iv, 3, 47; Luke iii, 23.) Christian baptism is a sign of spiritual cleansing. It contains no spiritual efficacy, save as accompanied by the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. "The advantages of baptism," says Dr. Daniel Curry, "and the obligation to practice it, are that, God having ordained it, it is our duty and privilege to obey him, and by so doing, we may hope to secure the promises which are to us and to our children. The use of baptism is itself an act of faith ; a petition which devoutly and rever- ently reminds God of his covenant of salvation. The baptized person has in that fact a perpetual reminder of his personal interests in Christ, and of his corresponding obligations to serve and please him in newness of life, and a pledge that if he shall walk worthy of his calling, he is entitled to a place among the redeemed." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE CHURCH. 387 Christian baptism differs from John's baptism in a very important particular. John's baptism was "unto repentance," in view of the Messiah's kingdom then imminent. Christian baptism is of faith in respect to a kingdom already set up. John's baptism was for John's . ministry only. Christian baptism is for all time. Those who received John's baptism afterward received Christian baptism. (Acts xix, 1-5.) Our Lord himself baptized not, save through his disciples (John iv, 1, 2), but before his departure from our world he commanded his apostles to disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Matt, xxviii, 19, 20). From that time on, baptism became the door of entrance into the visible Church. Most denominations hold that children are proper subjects for baptism, they being, by virtue of the atonement, members of Christ's kingdom. The Baptists object: "It is not commanded that infants should be baptized, therefore they should not be baptized." But, as Dr. Lightfoot observes, "It is not prohibited that infants should be baptized, therefore they should be baptized." Baptism in New Testa- ment times became "household" baptism, even as under the covenant with Abraham (Gen. xvii, 7, 10), the children went in religion with their parents. As we do not design this volume to be sectarian, we do not press this question, and omit altogether discussion of mode. Every denom- ination has its literature, in cheap form, upon the subject. THE LORD'S SUPPER. "This do in remembrance of me." Such was our Savior's solemn injunction when he instituted this holy sacrament. It is his standing memorial in the Church. Having offered himself, once for all, a sac- rifice for the sins of the whole world, he instituted this ordinance as a perpetual remembrance and reminder of his death. "As oft as ye do eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come." It is this alone which gives it significance. "The sacrament of the Lord's supper," says Dr. E. Mulford, "is the wit- ness of that communion in which the limits of time and space and the separations of death are overcome. It is with an unseen host; it is with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven." "It bears us on toward the time when all the revelations and the sacraments of God shall close in the coming world, the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Church com- memorates, therefore, with faith and hope the one prevailing sacrifice, 388 FAITH MADE EASY. that its fulfillment may be in him beyond whose love there is no height, beneath whose love there is no depth." In the Lord's supper bread and wine are to be the symbols of his body and blood. (1 Cor. xi, 23.) The wine used should be the sweetest "fruit of the vine" (Matt, xxvi, 29); or, in other words, "the purest blood of the grape" (Deut. xxxii, 14). As this sacrament is the sign of God's covenant of grace in the sacrifice of Christ for the remission of sins, we should make it a feast of thankful love and fellowship, grateful remembrance and consecra- tion, and should exercise particular care not. to partake " unworthily." (1 Cor. xi, 20-22, 27-30.) In respect to importance, the Lord's supper stands upon the same plane with baptism. Both are symbolical. "The latter symbolizes the grace needful to reception into the covenant of grace ; the former, that for maintenance and progress in the covenant. The supper offers us nothing else than what is already offered us in the Word — con- firmation in communion with Christ, with its fruit, strengthening of faith, forgiveness of sin, and power of sanctification. But in the supper these are tenderly pressed upon us. By the eating and drink- ing we are admonished that be gave his body for us, for us shed his blood. Without the supper we can surely have our strength in- creased, and obtain forgiveness of sin ; but in the supper we receive the most solemn assurances that these mercies are ours. And the supper gives us also direct encouragement to continue in grace, and the strength so to do ; so that Zwingli expressed the exact truth when he said that the supper was given to us in order that we might have heart to overcome the world, through faith in Him who overcame the world for us. The supper is, therefore, no empty, meaningless sign; although it does not itself confer grace." CREEDS. "To a new-born soul a creed is a necessity. Jesus himself put the truth into propositions. He built his Church on a creed. The devil hates creeds. Strong beliefs make strong Churches. The Church of God knows something." (Dr. Burton.) THE PATEIARCHS' CREED. It is a matter of interest with many what the patriarchs believed. While the following formula, by E. Bedel Benjamin, may not contain every essential feature of patriarchal faith, it does embrace such points as appear to have been vital in Old Testament times, or during the era of the first covenant. We first saw this creed in the Hebrew Christian, of New York. WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 389 Ex. vi, 3. Gen. i, 1. laa. xliii, 3. Micali vii, 20. Gen. xli, S. Pea. xlv, 7. Isa. Ixi, 1. Psa. ii, 2, 7. Isa, vii, 14. Isa. ix, 6. 7. Micah V, 2. Psa. ii, 2. Isa. liij, 3. Isa. liii, 7. Num. xxl, 9. Isa. liii, 8. Isa. liii, 12. Dan. ix, 27. Isa. liii, 9. Psa. xvi, 10. Isa. 1x1, 1. Psa. xvi, 10. Psa. Ixviii, 18. Psa. ex, 1. Isa. xliy, 6. Zech, xlv, 9. Gen. i, 2. Ezek. xxxvii, 14. Neh. ix, 30. Isa. xliv, 3. Mai. i, 11. Hab. ii, 14. Zech. xiv, 6. Isa. xllil, 25. Leviticus xvi, Hosea xlii, 14. Psa. cxxxlli, 3. " I believe in God the Father Almighty, who in the be- ginning created the heaven and the earth, I believe in the Holy One of Israel who will save his people from their sins, who was promised to our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed, I believe he is the One anointed with the oil of gladness, that he may preach good tid- ings. I believe this Savior anointed is the Son of God who will be born of a virgin of the house and lineage of David, in the town of Bethlehem-Ephratah, of the tribe of Judah, I believe that the kings of the earth will take counsel against the Lord's Anointed ; that he will be a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; that he will be brought as a lamb to the slaughter ; that he will be lifted up, as was the serpent in the wilderness ; that he will be cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people, I believe he will pour out his soul unto death; that he will cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease ; that he will die with the wicked, and be buried in the grave of the rich. I believe he will descend into Hades; that he will proclaim the opening of the prison-house to them that are bound ; that he will rise again before his body can see corruption. I believe he will ascend into heaven, and will sit upon the right hand of God, until his enemies be made his footstool. I be- lieve he will redeem Israel, and that he will come again as King to judge the living and the dead, I believe in the Holy Spirit, who in creation and in re-creation is the Lord and Giver of life, I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks by the prophets ; and that in the latter days he will descend in blessing upon the earth, I believe in the holy universal Church, which will fill the earth; and in the coming of the saints to unite with the Church on earth, I believe in the blotting out of transgression through him, who is typically sacrificed in the blood of bulls and goats, I believe that the body will rise again, and I believe in life for evermore." THE APOSTLES' CREED, The Apostles' Creed, or the creed of the second covenant, is a very old compendium of Christian doctrine. It is held by many writers of the 390 FAITH MADE EASY. Church of Rome that it was composed by the apostles themselves, who, during their stay in Jerusalem soon after our Lord's ascension, agreed upon it, under God, as their rule of faith, and as a mark of distinction, by which they were to know friends from foes. But this claim can not be substan- tiated. Scholars hold that, in its present form at least, the creed is not older than the third or fourth century. Its authorship is unknown. It is the only creed used by the several evangelical denominations in their bap- tismal covenants. It reads as follows: livivii "^ believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Gal. iv, 4. heaven and earth : and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, Luke i, 35. our Lord ; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary ; suffered under Pontius Pilate ; was Markx^™,'37f46. '"■"''ifis'^j dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the Luke"xxiv, 3. 21. t^i'''i "^^J ^^ ™®® ^''o™ ^^^ dead; he ascended into Heb.\ 3 heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father 2 Tim. iv, 1. Almighty ; from thence he shall come to judge the quick icS,t^2.^" ^"^^ ^'^^ ^^^^- ^ believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church (the one general Church of God) ; the Eph. 1, 7. communion of saints ; the forgiveness of sins ; the resur- Jud^2™24, 25. rection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen." THE NICENE CREED. The Nicene Creed, adopted at the second CEcumenical Council of Con- stantinople, A. D. 381, is held to be of authority in the Greek and Roman Churches, and is admitted by most Protestant Churches. It is not as popular, however, as the Apostles' Creed. It reads as follows: " I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible: and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, be- gotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made ; who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the vir- gin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead ; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Fatherand the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. And I believe in one holy catholic (Christian) and WHAT TO BELIEVE REGARDING THE CHURCH. 391 apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen !" THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. ExoD. XX, 3-17. 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any like- ness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for I tfce Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me ; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain : for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 4. Eemember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates : for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. 5. Honor thy father and thy mother : that thy days may be long upon the land which «he Lord thy God giveth thee. 6. Thou shalt not kill. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. The Eev. E. Crittenden is the author of the following tabulation of the Commandments, as found in the New Testament : First. And Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is. Hear, Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord. (Mark xii, 29.) 392 FAITH MADE EASY. Seemd. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. (1 Thess. i, 9.) Third. But I say unto you, Swear not at all. (Matt. v. 34.) Fourth. And he said unto them. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. (Mark ii, 27.) Fifth. Honor thy father and thy mother. (Matt, xix, 19.) Sixth. Thou shalt do no murder. (Matt, xix, 18.) Seventh. Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Matt, xix, 18.) Eighth. Thou shalt not steal. (Matt, xix, 18.) Ninth. Thou shalt not bear false witness. (Matt, xix, 18.) Tenth. And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covet- ousness. (Luke xii, 15.) MAKRIAGE. Marriage is not a sacrament, save in the opinion of Roman Cath- olics, but it is a religious ordinance as well as a civil compact. Christian marriage is the union of one man and one woman in the state of holy wedlock, without which there could be no family, no parental responsibility, no developed political communities, and no orderly society. Marriage among the ancients was a scene full of irreverent joy, wholly unaccompanied with serious gravity or decorum. In Egypt it had degenerated to a mere convenience, and was allowed to include the union of near relatives, not excepting brother and sister. The Mosaic statutes forbade this laxity on moral as well as political grounds (Lev. xviii, 6-18; Luke xvi, 17), and threw around the institution many important restrictions and safeguards; but Christianity alone has in- vested the marriage state with due honor and dignity. "Wiser than philosophers," says Chateaubriand, "Christianity has well ordained that man should have but one wife, and that he should cleave to her until death." Marriage was designed by God as a permanent ordinance for the race, higher than national laws, and more binding than civil statutes. It is more than a civil compact. It is the permanent union of one man and one woman in a relation so intimate and sacred that the words which echo down from Eden alone fitly describe it: "Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said : For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE CHURCH. 393 flesh ?" When, by reason of hardness of heart in man, the Mosaic legislation made separation too easy, our Lord amended the law and restored it to its former simplicity and integrity. In answer to the question of the Pharisees concerning divorce, he said: "Moses, be- cause of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery ; and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." This provides for but one exception to the permanency of the marriage tie. It prohibits forever all divorces, except for the one cause of adultery. And this com- mand of Christ has its supplemental enactment in the direction of Paul: "The woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth, but if the husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law ; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." Again: "Let not the wife depart from her husband ; but and if she depart [pre- sumably for the sole cause of adultery], let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled [the word reconciled indicates a previous dissension] to her husband; and let not the husband put away his wife." No man or set of men, no State or combination of States, has the right to alter or annul this law given by the Supreme Lawgiver. Marriage is the basis of all prosperity in social and national life. It is the fountain-head of public morality. Dissolution here means disorganization everywhere. Corruption here carries decay and death to the extremities. The secret of permanent greatness and prosperity in nations is the sacredness with which they hold the domestic rela- tions. Degeneracy at this point is the unfailing token of hastening collapse. God has pronounced the state of celibacy not a good one. (Gen. ii, 18.) It is not good for man or woman either. It is not good for society. It is not good for any thing. Marriage is good. The wise man said: "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing." Marriage is honorable. It bears the seal of God's favor and blessing. Any man who teaches or practices to the contrary is giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrine of devils. (1 Tim. iv, 1-3.) Exceptions to the rule which makes marriage advisable to all per- sons do not affect the rule itself. (Matt, xix, 10-12 ; 1 Cor. vii, 2, 7-9, 28.) 394 FAITH MADE EASY. The comparison which Paul institutes, making the marriage rela- tion a parallel with the relation of Christ and his Church, serves to confer the highest possible honor on the wedded state. Hence he says: " Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it;" "Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies." Paul gives other information upon this subject well worth atten- tion. "He lets us know that Peter and the Lord's brethren had wives, and considered his right to marry, if he wished, to be as good as theirs ; he wishes the younger widows to marry (1 Tim.' v, 14) ; he makes it essential (iii, 2-4) that the overseers in the Churches should live a family life ; and he regards forbidding to marry as part of an ascetic heresy (iv, 3)." Uniform Scripture teaching makes purity of thought, word, and act of highest moment, both in and out of the marriage state. "Keep thyself pure !" is a good motto for every man and woman to live by. Pure-minded parents are less likely to rear abandoned children. " Like father, like son." It is to be regretted that in the most enlightened countries mar- riage is not being made to contribute its utmost possible good to the social system. In the United States we do not reverence this insti- tution as we ought. We do not enforce its essential laws with the rigor which alone will preserve it from degeneracy and decline. We wink at many of the evils which threaten the very existence of family life, such as frequent separations and divorces, decreasing number of marriages, desertions, and other similar crimes. The safety and per- manent prosperity of this republic depend largely upon our fidelity in preserving in strictest integrity the maririage bond. Part YUl WHAT TO BELIEVE RESPECTING CHRISTIAN DUTIES AND GRACES. DUTY TO OUR NEIGHBOR. " TT 7H0 is my neighbor?" inquired a certain skeptical lawyer of V V the world's great Teacher. The answer included the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke x, 30-37), by which we are taught that the term neighbor is not simply local or national in its ap- plication to man, but includes any body in need of succor, whether black or white, bad or good, poor or rich, alien or kinsman. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why, then, should we deal treacherously with any brother? We may not do it. We are to show kindness, and never fail to be true. In general terms man's duty toward his neighbor could not be more forcibly expressed than in the Savior's golden rule (Matt, vii, 12), and in the apostle's royal law (James ii, 8). The one is explicit as to conduct, and the other emphatic as to spirit. ' 'AH things whatso- ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them : fot this is the law and the prophets." The little word "do" in its rela- tions becomes a great word, receiving in other portions of Scripture particular directions as to its import. Man is forbidden to kill his neighbor, to bear false witness against him, to steal from him, to quarrel with him, to revile him, to oppress him, or retaliate upon him. He is required to set a good example before him, to respect and honor him, to show mercy toward him, to pity his misfortunes. These duties are sacredly enjoined in words that can not be misunder- stood. But good deeds are not sufficient. The royal law is a law of love. " If ye fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well." This law forbids hatred and revenge, excludes envy and malice, prohibits anger and wrath, and requires that covetousness and all uncleanness be not 395 396 FAITH MADE EASY. even named. It positively inhibits the indulgence of any disposition or temper toward our neighbor that we would not indulge toward our- selves. (Lev. xix, 18, 33, 34.) It goes further. It enjoins the cul- tivation of such a frame of mind as would constantly prompt us to the most fraternal expressions and ways. Even our enemies are to be loved, and those that curse us to be blessed. If any hate us we are to do them good, and if they persecute us we are to pray for them. (Matt, v, 44.) Jesus called this law of love the "new com- mandment,'' and Paul affirmed that "he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." (Rom. xiii, 8.) The spirit of forbearance is in- culcated, and that of forgiveness authoritatively laid down. Solomon said that " the discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression." (Prov. xix, 11.) Paul said: " Charity sufFereth long, and is kind, . . . is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, . . . beareth all things." (1 Cor. xiii, 4-7.) He said again: "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Eph. iv, 32.) Peter suggested that a trespassing brother ought to be for- given perhaps seven times, but Jesus exceeded the limits of the best requirement then known, and established the law — " until seventy times seven." (Matt, xviii, 21, 22.) The idea is, that there is to be no limit to the exercise of the holiest and best traits of feeling in relation to our neighbor. As we bear with our own frailties and for- give our own weaknesses even to the end, so we are to do with our fellow-man. Montaigne says: "We are nearer neighbors to our- selves than whiteness to snow, or weight to stones." Jesus requires that we be as near neighbors to others as we are to ourselves. The keeping of this law would make the world a paradise and mankind an ideal race. LOVE TO GOD. It is man's duty to love God. God is the Creator. To him we are indebted for our being and for all the blessings of life. "Thou shalt love the God who made thee," was one of the primary teachings of the apostles. Moses embodied this duty in the book of the law, and required the children of Israel to give diligent heed "to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways." (Josh, xxii, 5.) It would seem to be one of the most natural things imaginable for the creature heartily to love and adore the Creator. But creation is not all. God has redeemed us, and redemption is a song of love. The awakened heart goes out in gratitude and love for the heavenly WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 397 gift. Spiritual life is betokened by love. Keble expressed the truth in his beautiful lines: " Would'st thou the life of souls discern? Nor human wisdom nor Divine Helps thee by aught besides to learn ; Love is life's only sign. The spring of the regenerate heart, The pulse, the glow of every part, Is the true love of Christ our Lord, As man embraced, as God adored." This love should be perfect. It should embrace the entire affectional nature and all the intellectual powers. The law requires it in these words : ' ' Thou shait love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." (Deut. vi, 5.) No stronger mandate is possible of utterance. It admits of no reservation or sub- stitution. Comihendable love of wife, children, or friends will not answer in the place of this, and if they displace this they are a hin- drance to our progress heavenward. Love to God must be supreme. Our affections must center upon the Divine character. Our most intelligent and rapturous expressions of love must have God for their object and aim. In the privacy of our closets, and in the publicity of our open worship, our love to God should be manifestly paramount. Love to God is reciprocated in God's love toward us. "I love them that love me," is the divinely authorized proverb of old (Prov. viii, 17), and Jesus confirmed it in his own words: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (John xiv, 21.) 'The Divine favor is manifested toward those who love God! They are made conscious of that love, they are thrilled by it, and happy in the knowledge of it. Thus Whittier : " ' God is love,' saith the Evangel ; And our world of woe and sin Is made light and happy only When a love is shining in." Those who truly love God are under his special providential care. His tender mercies are over all his works, but his eye is particularly watchful over the interests of such as sincerely and ardently love him. So assured of this was the apostle Paul that he uttered his conviction of it in the most positive language, saying: " We know that all things 398 FAITH MADE EASY. work together for good to them that love God." (Eom. viii, 28.) The highest good is not always temporal. The reaping time of pure souls is not confined to this life. There is another world where they shall gather the most bountiful harvest. Eternity will reveal the workings of the things of this earth for the good of the loving and pure. Love is eternal, and so are its fruits. " Love's holy flame forever burneth ; From heaven it came, to heaven returneth ; Too oft on earth a troubled gviest, At times deceived, at times opprest, It here is tried and purified, Then hath in heaven perfect rest; It soweth here with toil and care. But the harvest-time of love is there.'' Obedience is the test of love. "If ye love me, keep my com- mandments," is the reasonable requirement of our blessed Lord. To say, "I love God," and then go away and willfully disobey him, is simply by actions, which "speak louder than words," to prove the saying false. Love seeks to avoid giving offense. If we do not de- sire to be cautious, says Spurgeon, to avoid offending .our Lord, we may rest confident that we have no part in him, for true love to ChrLst wUl rather die than wound him. FEAR OF GOD. Much has been said of the love of God as a motive to piety. With some, the very thought of turning to God and serving him through fear seems to be particularly unmanly and horrifying. They imagine that it is far more comely for a miserable sinner to straighten up and go about serving the holy God from a newly discovered sense of fondness for him, than to fall down before his terrible majesty from a sense of unworthiness and impurity, and sue for mercy. Per- haps it is, but it is not the way the Bible points out as most pleasing to God and beneficial to man. Fear is as much a human affection as love is. If it be said that there are those who know no fear, so with equal truth it may be affirmed that there are those who know no love. Persons without any sense of fear are as much monstrosities as those who feel no love. There is a fear which is becoming to a creature, and is one of the characteristics of a manly man. The man who does his whole duty is manly in the best sense, and yet the Preacher tells us that the whole duty of man is to fear God. and keep his command- WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 399 ments. The true fear of God is not a slavish dread of his wrath, nor a crawling sense of deserved punishment. It is rather such a percep- tion of the Divine character as recognizes in God both the power and will to punish willful and incorrigible oflfenders, and appropriates in view of this the free grace oflfered through Christ as a means, not only of escape from wrath, but of restoration to favor, and a qualifi- cation for acceptable service. In a word, it is a suitable recognition by the creature of the Creator's authority; a truly rational consider- ation of the hatefulness of sin, and the beauty of holiness ; and an appropriate desire for self-adjustment to the demands of a just law, and the provisions of a gracious gospel. It is our duty to love God, but about the only way of loving him at all is first to fear him. Just as in relation to our fellow-men, we can not love whom we do not re- spect, so in relation to God we can not love him without sufficient respect for his majesty and holiness to fear him. Well may the sin- ner tremble before that God who can not and will not look upon sin with any degree of allowance. SUBMISSION. Submission in its simplest sense is the act of yielding to authority. Christian submission implies an entire giving up of our will, under- standing, and afiections, to God. We acknowledge his sovereignty and right, and acquiesce in his wisdom and righteousness, saying with the poet: "That's best Which God sends. 'T was his will; it is mine." Or with Eli respecting the Divine call to Samuel: "It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good." (1 Sam. iii, 18.) Such an ex- pression implies a sense of God's love and care. His nature and his name are love, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He loves me; he marks my ways; he regards my welfare, reasons the submissive soul; I am contented to have my way his way, and be fully resigned to his will. Whoso by faith and patience thus keepeth his soul from rebellion, from despondency, from selfish ambitions, knows most of the Christian's peace. Malherbe was right in declaring : "To will what God doth will, that is the only science That gives us any rest." St. James had learned this truth, and so he said : " God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves there- 400 FAITH MADE EASY. fore to God." (James iv, 6, 7.) " Woe unto him," said Isaiah, " that striveth with his Maker." His woe is that of helpless struggle, sure defeat, and inevitable ruin. It was so with Pharaoh, and Zedekiah, and Caiaphas, and thousands of others. Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Hath not the potter power over the clay? What can we do? Wisdom lieth not in resistance, but in acquies- cence, and this is pleasing to God. A French officer was once brought into the 'presence of Nelson, and boldly walking up to the great admiral, held out his hand. Nelson drew back. "Give me your sword," said he, " aud then I will take your hand." God asks our surrender. His arms are extended to receive submissive souls. To contrite, yielding man he gives not only his hand, but his heart of infinite love, and his gracious providence. Never yet did he oppress the contrite spirit. "A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench." His wrath is in store only for the haughty and unyielding, the wicked and incorrigible. It behooves us to make diligent application of ourselves to his mind and will. What does God want of us? How does he open the way before us? By what word or deed or spirit or bearing can we serve his cause ? Not my pleasure or comfort or gratification do I seek, but the will of my Heavenly Father. " Welcome alike the crown ot: cross ; » Trouble I can not ask, nor peace. Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss, Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease. Nor life, nor death, but ever pray, ' Father, thy only will be done !' " There are those who live thus. They have had experience enough to show them that the meaning of life and its highest joy are found in submission to the will of God. Hannah More voiced their heartiest sentiment when she wrote : " Lord, I submit. Complete thy gracious will. For if thou slay me I will trust thee still. O, be my will so swallowed up in thine, That I may do thy will in doing mine !" HUMILITY. Humbleness of mind is an excellence which the Scriptures enjoin us to put on. " Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." " For thus saith the high and lofty One that WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 401 inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy : I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Again: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land." We are told that God gives special grace to the humble. "Wherefore he saitli, God resisteth the proud, but giv- cth grace unto the humble." "When men are cast down, then thou shalt say. There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person." "Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepai'e their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear." The humble person is the person God exalts. "A man's pride shall bring him low: but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit." Humility is especially be- coming to the Christian. He receives much from God. He is noticed, cared for, helped, saved, and constantly blessed by the Most High. This should humble him. He is unworthy. The honor he receives is all of grace. The saints in light are humble. They " bow down" when they wor- ship. They ascribe all honor to Jesus. They praise him day and night, saying. Thou art worthy. The flight of ages does not lift them up in their own opinion. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all their thought. Angels are humble. They neither boast of their perfect obedience^ to the will of God, nor glory in their exalted rank, nor claim any other honor. Off come their crowns, and down they fall at the feet of the slain Lamb, at the very asking of the question, ' ' Who is worthy ?" Man alone is proud and lifted up. And how strange that a mere creature, born in sin, a stranger to God, living on earth but a day, should exalt himself in his own eyes, and even consider himself mer- itorious of Divine favor! There are those who even think it hard if, in their unregenerate state, they are not, by virtue of some good word or work, accorded a title to the unfading inheritance. They seem to imagine that religion is a point, the mere perception of which is sal- vation; that at most it is a name, the assuming of which is a certain passport to eternal joys. Not so with those who have learned Christ. Never satisfied with their attainments, they press on to greater heights ; unboastful of graces and gifts received, they still crave richer bless- ings, counting themselves unworthy of any reward. This is the pov- erty of spirit that gains the kingdom of heaven. "Pride will carry a man to heaven's gate, but only humility will find admission." 26 402 FAITH MADE EASY. HOPE. The Christian should be full of hope. He should always be able to say : " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him;" "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Well may any believer inquire : "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me ? Hope thou in God ; for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance;" "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it;" " Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind; be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." The hope for which the Christian waits is the hope laid up for him in heaven, whereof he has heard in the Word of truth. This is the hope which is "as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." It is " a strong con- solation" to those who " have fled for refuge." It is built upon "two immutable things," in which it is " impossible for God to lie." The two immutable things are "his partyship and his mediatorship ; his position as promiser and as juror." The believer's hope of glory is the absolutely pledged veracity of God in Christ. The Lord is not as man, that he should lie, and this is the rock on which we build our hope. The Christian's blessed hope lights up the gloom of life, soothes all care, bids fear depart, assuages grief, binds up heart-wounds, and "guides us still, through faith and love, to endless peace in heaven." " Hope, of all passions, most befriends us here ; Passions of prouder name befriend us less. Joy has her tears, and transport has her death; Hope, like a cordial, innocent though strong, Man's heart at once inspirits and serenes, Nor makes him pay his wisdom for his jpys." "Hope," says Thomas Watson, "is an active grace; it is called a lively hope. Hope is like the spring in the watch : it sets all the wheels of the soul in motion. Hope of a crop makes the husband- man sow his seed ; hope of a victory makes the soldier fight ; and a true hope of glory makes a Christian vigorously pursue his course. Here is a spiritual touchstone to try our hope by." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 403 TRUST. Several German princes were once extolling the glory of their realms. One boasted of his excellent vineyards ; another of his hunt- ing grounds; another of his mines. At last Abelard, duke of Wur- teraburg, took up the subject, and said: "I own that I am a poor prince, and can vie with you in none of these things ; nevertheless I, too, possess a noble jewel in my dominion ; for were I to be without attendants, either in the open country or wild forests, I could ask the first of my subjects whom I met to stretch himself upon the ground, and confidently place my head upon his bosom, and fall asleep with- out the slightest apprehension of injury." Was not this a precious jewel for a prince? asks Gotthold. "But," he adds, "I have some- thing better ; for I can rest my head and heart in the lap of God's providence, and upon the bosom of Jesus Christ our Lord, with a perfect assurance that neither man nor devil can touch me there." Gotthold's trust was in accordance with Bible truth. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." " None of them that trust in him shall be desolate." For he saith: "He that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mount- ain." "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool," "but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat." "Blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies." "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which can not be removed, but abideth forever.'' " Some trust in chariots, and some in horses : but we will remember the name of the Lord our God," "who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe." It is man's duty to trust in God. Trust is a part of Christian obligation. God requires it. He says: " Offer the sacrifices of right- eousness, and put your trust in the Lord." It must be exceedingly ofieiisive to the Most High to find his creatures living in unrighteous- ness, and trusting in other gods. Man is safe only when trusting in God. " Other refuge have I none." Life is uncertain. God, in whose hand our breath is, alone can keep us. In his hands we are secure. Come health,, come sick- ness, come pleasure, come pain, come prosperity, come adversity, come life, come death, our God will take care of us. He whose heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord, shall not be afraid of evil tidings. 404 FAITH MADE EASY. PRAYER. We are to pray as well as trust. What we want we are to ask for. They that ask shall receive. Duty and privilege are' here hap- pily combined. Many passages enjoin the duty of prayer. " Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually." "Watch and pray." "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." "Pray without ceasing." " Seek ye the Lord, and ye shall live." Faith is one condition of acceptable prayer: " What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Holy living is another condition: "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye wUl, and it shall be done unto you." Deep sincerity is another: "Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Patience is another: " I waited patiently for the Lord : and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry." Perseverance is another : " Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance." We should pray in secret. Jacob was alone when he wrestled with the angel, probably Jehovah. Elisha "shut the door" upon himself and the child when he prayed for life to return to the dead. Corne- lius fasted as well as prayed in his own house when he saw the beauti- ful vision. Jesus said : " When thou pray est, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father." When he himself prayed and communed with his Father, "he went up into a mountain apart." We should pray also in public. Prayer is an important part of public worship. The Bible abounds with examples of public prayer. We should pray with our families. Household piety is especially pleasing to God. There is no sight on earth more beautiful than that of a Christian' family kneeling together around the domestic altar. The attitude of prayer is not specifically enjoined in Scripture. When King David went in to cry out, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?" we read that he "sa< before the Lord." (2 Sam. vii, 18.) When Phinehas asked God whether he should again go out to battle, we are told that he ^od be- fore the ark of the covenant. (Judges xx, 27, 28.) When Job wor- shiped he "fell down upon the ground." (Job i, 20.) When Solomon WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 405 offered prayer, he "kneeled down upon his knees before all the con- gregation." (2 Chron. vi, 13.) When Jesus prayed for the cup to pass from him, " he fell upon his face." (Matt, xxvi, 39.) We think it was the usual custom of our Lord and the early Christians to bow down upon their knees when they prayed. (Luke xxii, 41 ; Acts vii, 60; XX, 36; xxi, 5; Eph. iii, 14.) Kneeling is certainly an attitude becoming to every suppliant at the throne of grace. PERFECT OBEDIENCE. The perfect keeping of nine commandments will not atone for breaking the tenth. St. James says that if we keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, we are guilty of all. The law of God is an endless chain, every link of which sustains a vitally important relation to all the rest. If one link be broken, the severance is just as complete as if five were destroyed. The violator of one command- ment may not be as heinously offensive to the great Lawgiver as the violator of ten, but he is a violator just the same, and guilty. More- over, if his violation be deliberate and reckless, it may serve quite as completely to sever his soul far from God as the most general wicked- ness. As a rule, the conscience that is educated to respect and ob- serve the Divine requirements, and does so in the main, is apt to feel more keenly the consequences of one deliberate moral lapse than the less sensitive soill in the midst of constant transgression. God requires the whole heart. " He abhors the sacrifice Where not the heart is found." The soul may pay its vows to him in the spirit of general obedience, but the one willful refusal to obey at a given point, where peculiar sacrifices are required, will involve in condemnation and spiritual darkness. When the test of God's law is applied to every act, it must be pronounced by itself an act of obedience or disobedience; it can not be both at the same time, and there is nothing to apply to an act of willful disobedience to moderate its guilt or make it other- wise than what it is. There are no works of supererogation. There can be no accumulation of virtue in any life for use in a moment of spiritual dearth. In the natural world men may lay by in store against times of famine and want, but not so in the moral. Every day brings its own duties. Every hour is freighted with its own ob- ligations. In prosperity the Christian is to be true; in adversity he can not be false. In the life of religious service there are no vaca- 406 FAITH MADE EASY. tions. God metes out to no manimore time than is necessary to do his whole work. None may hope to accomplish in the first or second half of life what God knows will require the whole life to do, and then expect to be excused for idleness and indifference to duty. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. Obedience to-day is right, no more than right, no less than right, and obedience to-morrow will carry its own and the same environments. But, under grace, obedi- ence is easily possible in all things. And only by grace is perfect obedience possible to any. It is a mistake to suppose that none could obey the law without such a change of nature as would enable the soul to remain holy without any further influence from the Spirit of Christ. We doubt whether such a state is possible of realization. The Christian is always dependent on Christ and the Holy Spirit. Perfect obedience is nothing else than a condition of entire depend- ence upon Divine help, where Divine help is needed and promised. It is that state in which the mind throws itself wholly upon the sup- porting grace of Christ, saying, I will do what is required of me, God being my helper. STRENGTH TO STAND. No Christian is worth much to the Church who has not power to stand alone. As well might a man with a weak back attempt to rear a stone wall. He must have strength not only to lift, but to assume the attitude of a builder of stone. The Christian is one of God's building. He is called sometimes to serve, and sometimes to stand and wait. Paul contemplates this attitude in that beautiful sixth chapter of Ephesians, wherein he says: "Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." We need faith in God — a faith that is clearly defined and direct — an unwavering confidence in his existence, personality, and providence. We need to think of him as a judge and rewarder, as taking cognizance of our words, thoughts, and actions here much the same as we observe the actions of one another. We need to feel that he seeth in secret, and under- standeth our thoughts ; that every moment we live he is inevitably marking our conduct, and will call us to account. The consciousness that God really sees us is a powerful deterrent from evil. No person who really believes that God's eye is upon him can rush headlong into evil. If he ever had such a belief he must first learn to doubt before he can deliberately sin. Persons of strongest faith in God are WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 407 strongest to withstand evil. Especially is this true if there be with it a clear understanding of the Divine wUl. This comes from the study of the Word and the enlightenment of the Spirit. To know (jrod, to believe in him, to understand his will, these are elements of spiritual power. A sound conversion, a prayerful life, a watchful spirit, give strength in the evil day. The worldly wise, the self-con- fident, the lovers of ease and pleasure, like Solomon when he had forgotten the God of his father David, lapse easily and quickly into sinful lives. The spirit of a man crops out in his conduct. By their fruits shall ye know them, is an infallible rule. Grapes grow not on thorns. Thistles produce no figs. The worldly spirit yields no spir- itual strength. The husks of sin impart no moral vigor. The pillars of the Church are not made out of such weaklings as skepticism and immorality produce. They are the men or women who have been strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power which worketh in us. Every one may be a partaker of the Divine nature to such an extent as to be quick and strong to resist sin, ready and able to do good, and vigorous and resolute for a long life-service. Every Church needs such members. Every good cause requires such supporters. The grand harvest-home and the promised millennium could be proclaimed centuries earlier, if only the people of God would learn the secret of power. "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Thus endowed, we are to help others, in accordance with our Lord's direction to Peter: "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. In Christian activity dwells security. There is no security other- wise. There is no place or condition in which unconsecrated and idle souls are safe. Amid the inactivity and pleasure of Paradise, Adam fell; in the personal presence and influence of his Master, Judas, by transgression, fell ; even in heaven, where all is holy, angels kept not their first estate, but fell from the Divine presence. Hence God or- dained work. Since banishment from Eden's garden home, man eats his bread by the sweat of his brow ; he is secure only when toiling ; Satan finds mischief for all idle hands. So, after the suflferings and death resulting from the betrayal, Jesus enjoined work. " Go and preach." "Proclaim liberty to the captives." Call on men to "re- pent and believe the gospel." "Baptize the nations." "Watch and pray," Christian discipleship is a school of self-denial, cross-bearing, 408 FAITH MADE EASY. and work for God. An idle soul hath no part with Him who went about continually doing good. Heaven itself is not a lazy rest, as some appear to imagine, but a glorious temple wherein the saints serve him unweariedly, day and night. This is their joy. It is the joy of all saints, whether in heaven or on earth. If any man hate religious labor, he is not a saint. His tastes, inclinations, and ambi- tions have not been weaned from self and the world. He is yet in his sins. When Christians are active they are influential and powerful. The world respects the faith that prompts to good works. Sinners feel the force of a belief that leads to earnest effort in their behalf Never does the Church appear so beautiful as when engaged, harmo- niously and zealously, in religious labor. When Christians bestir themselves in revival efforts the unconverted begin to think and speak. Some revivals become the one theme of conversation in the community. People can talk about nothing else. They know that such work is of God, and it worries them. They feel that God has chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty. A working Church is a divine power for the salvation of souls. When the Church is alive Satan is troubled, but when Christians sleep he is as happy as he can be. "The devil," says Luther, "held a great anniversary, at which his emissaries were convened to report the re- sults of their several missions. 'I let loose the wild beasts of the desert,' said one, ' on a caravan of Christians, and their bones are now bleaching on the sand.' '"What of that?' said the devil; 'their souls are all saved.' 'For ten years I tried to get a single Christian asleep,' said a third, ' and I succeeded, and left him so.' Then the devil shouted," continues Luther, " and the night stars of hell sang for joy." The old adversary of souls can tumble the unwary into the pit fast enough to suit him when ministers lack earnestness in the pulpit and Christians are wanting in holy endeavor. A listless min- istry and indifferent laity make jubilee in perdition. In religious activity there is reward. Work implies wages. Hence God proclaims that judgment in the great day will turn on works. He knows that work is a just and accurate test of faith. The faith that saves is a faith that works. Any other is dead and worthless. If your faith does not move you to diligent effort for God and the Church, it won't stand in the judgment. You are not living in the Lord, you will not die in the Lord, and you will not be crowned by the Lord, if you have no labors to rest from, and no works to follow you. There is no blessedness in such a life, and no bliss in such a death. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 409 PERSEVERANCE. We all believe in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints — some in the perseverance of necessity, others in the necessity of per- severance. It is not enough that we begin well ; rather is it more important that we end well. Judas and Demas began well, but ended badly. Paul began ill, or at least he inspired little confidence among the Christians whom he had persecuted and scattered ; but he ended grandly, his life becoming more and more of a triumph as it neared its close. In him we have a beautiful illustration of the Savior's words to the Jews which believed on him : " If ye continue in my Word, then are ye my disciples indeed." Without perseverance, other graces go for naught. Of what avail is the faith that saved us, if we make shipwreck of it^? or the hope that anchored us, if we cut off the chain ? or the love that warmed us, if it decline and wax cold ? Re- penta,nce, obedience, patience, humility, charity, all are lost if we continue not steadfast unto the end. The crown of life is promised only to those who are faithful unto death. How sad is the lot of those who run well for ■ a period, perhaps for the most of life, and then faint and fall by the way ! They are like voyagers who weather a stormy sea, and suffer shipwreck in the harbor. They lose their reward just as they are about to receive it. They keep Satan, who desires to have every one of us, at a distance until the last hour, and then permit him to devour their souls and snatch away their bliss. For want of a little final resolution they hopelessly surrender all that makes life worth living, or the future worth striving for. But perseverance is essential all the way along. Not only shall we fail of heaven without it, but we shall fail to accomplish any thing that would make heaven glorious. Perseverance is the secret of every worldly success, and of every work which God approves and proposes to reward. It discovered to Newton the law of gravitation, and to Columbus the pathway to the New World. It made Welling- ton the hero of Waterloo, and Washington forever famous as the Father of his Country. It revealed to Stephenson the plan of the locomotive, to Morse the secret of the .telegraph, and to Field the hidden bed of the Atlantic cable. All discoverers, inventors, great leaders, and renowned workers, have been men of perseverance. The name of Wilberforce is the synonym of philanthropy, chiefly because, in spite of determined opposition in the British Parliament, he continued for twenty years to press to an issue the bill for the abolition of the 410 FAITH MADE EASY. African slave-trade, and for twenty-five years longer, or until nearly the day of his death, the act for negro emancipation. The mission- aries who opened the way of the gospel in foreign fields, all struggled against fearful odds for many long and weary years. It was fourteen years before a single convert gladdened the heart of the first mis- sionary to Western Africa. Dr. Judson labored in Burmah seven years before he had one; and in Tahiti, sixteen years. In our own country the time has come when converts are the reward of persever- ing labor. Forty years ago the mere announcement of a " protracted meeting" was sufficient to fill the house at the time appointed, and awaken interest from the outset. Now the world gives little heed to the services of the Church, and ministers and laymen must go out into the highways and, by personal labor and entreaty, compel sinners to come in. It is now more laborious to win sinners to Christ in civilized lands than in many heathen countries where, forty years ago, the very name of Christ was hateful. But shall we, therefore, despair? Eather let us summon our energies and, with unyielding faith, make our lives a perpetual efibrt to turn men to God. No labor is lost to him that endures. Judgment wUl turn not on our success, but upon our fidelity. " Well done, good and faithful servant!" It may well be so, for the faithful servant is in the best sense the successful one. "Hast thou not learned, what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's?" (Cowper.) Moral conquests are of God. Time is his, and so are the toilers. The workmen may fall, but the work will go forward. And at last, when the work is done and the workmen are summoned from their long sleep, eternal wages shall be theirs who, in spite of discourage- ments and trials, counted not their lives dear unto themselves, but finished their courses with joy, and the ministry which they received of the Lord Jesus. UNWORLDLINESS. Is there such a thing in our present life as unworldliness? That depends upon what is understood by the term. In an extreme sense there can be no such thing as separation from the world, until we are out of it altogether. Our feet must tread upon the ground, our stomachs must be supplied with material food, we must breathe the atmosphere of earth, and keep more or less in contact with worldly WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 411 things. In a moral sense, however, there is such a thing as unworld- liness. It is a duty of the Christian life to be unworldly. We find it enjoined in 1 John ii, 15-17: "Love not the world," etc. Re- specting all that is sinful in the world Christians are to be unworldly. They are to shun its evil practices, avoid its bad customs, be proof against its follies, and avoid excesses, even in its harmless things. They are to attend diligently to their daily occupations, but not be so engrossed as to forget God. They are to love their fellow-men and their kindred, but they are to love the Savior more. They are to be cheerful and happy in enjoyment of comfort and pleasure, but not to live as if life had no other object. To be wedded and enslaved to secular pursuits or idle amusements is not becoming to candidates for everlasting glory. They must live with another world in view, and employ the things of the present with reference to those of the future. This is unworldliness. This is' using the world as not abusing it. This is the love of the Father and of Leaven as distinguished from the love of the world. And this spirit may characterize every Christian life. It is the right spirit. It does not scorn the world as if it were all evil, but treats it so as to extract a blessing from it. It does not reject the world as if it had no value, but lays a foundation while in it for the possession of eternal riches. It turns the world to good account. It makes it profitable to all eternity. It employs the powers of body, mind, and soul wisely. God does not require of any man that he turn his natural ability for money-making into spend- thrift habits, but rather to use all the money he can honestly earn in doing good. God does not desire that any person shall crush out love of father, mother, wife, children, and friends, but rather to cherish these affections and make them influential in promoting love to God. In all undertakings and in all relations the Christian's principles should appear. " Whether we be ministers or merchants, or trades- men or laborers — whatever our calling may be — we should let our Christianity be apparent in that calling. We should take our stand as servants of God. Ours should not be a mere worldly standard, but a Christian. Unswerving truthfulness, an honesty that will bear the light, a rectitude that can not be impeached, a high tone bearing the ' gospel impress, — these should characterize all our dealings in the world. Instead of regarding the hours employed in our trade or our profes- sion as so much time taken away from the religious life, we should rather look upon it as the appointed sphere in which that life may display itself" This world is not our permanent abiding place. Here we have no continuing city. It is the sheerest folly to act as if we 412 FAITH MADE EAST. were to stay on earth forever. True -wisdom is found in so living that, when our souls are required of us, we can say with complete resignation: "To depart and be with Christ b far better." Either a man is worldly or unworldly. He can not be both. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. . Ye can not serve God and mammon. There is no room in any human heart for both the spirit of the world and the Spirit of Christ. One or the other must be shut out. If the former, there is abundant compensation in the joys and prospects of the spiritual kingdom ; if the latter, there is a feverish tussle for a little while with the excitements and gains of the earthly life, and then gloom and foreboding in anticipation of the life to come. Worldliness slays its victims. It worries the life out of them. It hurries them to God's judgment-seat. Unworldliness is preservative of life, and trains the mortal powers for the enduring realities of existence beyond. CONSTANT CONSECRATION. The permanent devotement of our whole being to God is the proof of saving faith and hearty obedience. It shows that the spiritual work begun in us is clear and satisfactory, and that our fixed purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. It indicates that we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and that none but God is real hidden manna to our souls. We have given up ourselves, our bodies, minds, and hearts to him, and to him alone, evermore to abide in spiritual rest or holy activity at his feet. Any consecration short of this is worthless in the end. It is as disastrous as that of the angels which kept not their first estate, or that of Adam who fell from his primal condition of holiness. It may be good while it lasts, but is bad because it fails. To be sanctified, separated from sin, and set apart to that which is holy, and then afterward to be desecrated and defiled, is as grievous a fall as this or any other world can know. Consecration must be constant. Holiness must be abiding. The moral law as well as the gracious Gospel requires it. The law of the Lord is perfect. It. requires just what is right, all that is right, and only what is right. Christ in his human life fulfilled this law. He set an example of complete and lasting dedication to God and obedience to the commands of his Father. His heart was pure and his life replete with good works. Yet he labored under just such embarrassments as Christians always do in endeavoring to be perfect. He was criti- cised and maligned. The Jews declared that, instead of being holy, he WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 413 was possessed of the devil. He loved God with all his might, mind, and strength, and his neighboi- as himself, which is the whole law ; jet so erroneous were the notions of some regarding a perfect life that he was branded as an impostor, and fiercely persecuted. It is evident that popular opinion is not a safe criterion by which to judge the reality of spiritual consecration. The life will betoken it, and intelligent observers in our day will estimate it with tolerable accuracy, but it is mainly a spiritual state, the fullness and blessedness of which only those who are in it know. To such, popular approval is not con- sidered a requisite. To live in the smile of God hour by hour until the closing scene, is the one desire of those who are wholly his. Yet the approbation of good men will be sought, and sympathy for all that is godlike in others will be felt. The Christian who is wholly aud always Christ's is the best humanitarian, and the best member of the best society. It must be so. He is the perfect lover of his neighbor. He does not make the wretched mistake of so iuterpreting the law as to suppose that God must be the only object of his thought, affection, and practical attention. He knows there is a second commandment equally binding with the first, and he must needs keep it. To love his neighbor as himself, and show his love by the spirit of his life, is as much his endeavor as to love God with all his heart, and prove it by the constancy of his devotion. The religion of Christ does not destroy natural affection. On the contrary, it strengthens and purifies it. Jesus had a natural affection for John, and for the three inmates of the Bethany home. The Christian will love his wife, children, and brethren the more because he is a Christian. He will not worship them instead of God any more than he will shut himself up in a cloister to serve God instead of them. His affections are rightly adjusted. He loves the Creator supremely, and all his crea- tures perfectly. Does it, therefore, follow that he will never be angered or grieved ? Not at all. God is angry with the wicked every day. Christ looked round about upon certain men with anger. A sense of injury or injustice is in nowise inconsistent with perfect obedience to th^ law of God. By the very constitution of our nature we must feel opposed to all ill-treatment and wrong. Sanctification does not eradicate any principle of our intellectual natures. It does, however, imply a state of grace in which we can forgive our enemies and pray for them that despitefully use us. Constant consecration is the condition of permanent usefulness. Those who are wholly Christ's all the time are ready for every good work. They lose no time in preparing to serve. They do not need 414 FAITH MADE EASY. to be " worked up" to a working condition. It is often said in begin- ning protracted meetings that the Church must be wrought up to a working state. This is a confession that the consecration of its mem- bers is not unwavering. Such professors differ as widely from con- stantly consecrated Christians as militia troops differ from the regulars. They must be brought together periodically and drilled, in order to be of any use. But regular troops are ready at the word. Great excitement is not theirs when in action. They are steady and efficient. They expect execution to result from their service. In communities where Christians are not constantly consecrated, revivals of religion, when they occur, generally produce great excitement. The whole community is profoundly moved. The revival is a novelty and a wonder. Too often it is never repeated, at least in the life-time of the interested observers. Such excitement is good in its way. It is better than continued spiritual dearth and death. Indeed, it is im- possible, under such circumstances, to accomplish any thing without producing it. Yet in other communities it is almost unknown. Re- vivals there are the rule, not the exception. Souls are converted in the regular services, and during extra meetings the work is deep and quiet. It is a mistake to imagine that a revival consists mostly of excited emotions rather than in conformity of the human will to the will of God. All such revivals, cease when the causes of the excite- ment cease. People then say the revival is on the decline, whereas real religion should never wane. We repeat, in some communities excitement is important and indispensable to arrest attention, to draw off the people from other pursuits to attend to the concerns of their souls ; but in others, Christians are so constant in their devotion and so earnest in " their invariable solicitude for souls that revivals are almost perennial, and awaken no wonder. These are the best. In them new converts live and breathe in an atmosphere of piety. Every prayer-meeting is a revival. The divine fire dwells in the heart and flashes out in the prayers and testimonies, to warm any wavering soul. Keep consecrated, and Christ will live in you and work by you. Keep consecrated, and your life will be an enduring benediction to those around you. SPIRITUALITY. Spirituality develops from communion with God in Christ. It is one thing to know Christ outwardly — that is, historically — and form an intellectual conception of his character and life, and quite another WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 416 thing to know him inwardly — that is, experimentally — and have him formed within us the hope of glory. The critic can discuss carefully and coldly the work and ways of the historical Christ. He has only to study the four Gospels, applying the principles of historical criti- cism, to gain such a knowledge of Jesus as will enable him to set forth a tolerably accurate view of his earthly career and the^wonder- ful system of truth which he founded. Many have done this. Even skeptics have succeeded in drawing beautiful intellectual pictures of our Lord, and in making him appear almost superhumanly lovable in spite of themselves. Thus Goethe, in his Conversations with Ecker- mann, is h§ard to say : " I look upon all the four Gospels as thoroughly genuine; for there is in them the reflection of a greatness which eman- ated from the person of Jesus, and which was of as divine a kind as ever was seen upon earth. If I am asked whether it is my nature to pay him reverence, I say, Certainly ! I bow before him as the divine man- ifestation of the highest principle of morality." And Renan, whose reluctance to say more of the adorableness of Christ's character than he can avoid, speaks of the " idyllic and sweet nature of Jesus," who, in his estimation, "was more beloved than loving, and in him, as often happens in elevated natures, tenderness of heart transformed itself into infinite sweetness, vague poesy, universal charm." How quickly would such cold and inadequate conceptions of our Lord's character have melted away could these unspiritual minds have felt the touch which faith secures of the practical, self-denying, and self-sacrificing love of Christ! A thousand-fold better is the humblest Christian's comprehension of his Savior's glorious excellences than the highest views which the merely cultured mind can obtain. How can a man, however worldly wise, fittingly characterize a person whom he has never seen or heard or known? If the person figures in the annals of literature, the critic can read about him, and state such opinions as he can thus form. But far better that the biographer or critic could have known his subject personally, have talked with him face to face, broken bread with him, communed with his very soul, and studied him after the laws of the inward man. This is precisely the manner in which the Christian may study Christ. Jesus is with his followers always. He sups with them. He abides in them, and they in him. He invites and expects the closest acquaintance of heart and soul. The loving John, who leaned upon the bosom of his Master, had no better opportunity to become intimately acquainted with Jesus than has the humblest Christian of this nineteenth cen- tury. " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall 416 FAITH MADE EASY. believe on me through, thy word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." Here is an intimacy vouchsafed to believing hearts to the end of time, by which a practical and satisfactory knowledge may be had of Jesus, and of which Goethe and Renan. never dreamed. The man who can say with Paul, "Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me," can boast of a communion as endear- ing and sweet as blesses the life of angels. * Herein is the secret of fortitude. The apostle says: "I know whom I have believed." The Christian gains assurance froifl his spiritual intimacy with Jesus which makes him superior to the worst ills, the most fiery ordeals, or even death itself. The immediate consciousness of a present and all-power- ful Savior fortifies him against the fiercest opposition, enables him to endure the sorest trials, and encourages him to undertake the most arduous labors for his Master's sake. Moreover, it is promotive of spiritual comfort, and fills the present existence with peace and bless- ing. "To be spiritually minded is life and peace. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." Christ in the heart, Savior, Ruler, Comforter, Friend, and Guide, is the surest guarantee of intellectual serenity, and the only condition and proof of warm spiritual life. Spiritual life is to be lived and known, rather than known and lived. Its comprehension is simply impossible except by experience. Explain to the natural man as best you can all its sublime and inspir- ing mysteries, and it is yet an enigma to him. The great English writer, Thomas De Quincey, confesses at this point a truth which all un- renewed men feel. " Frightfully perplexed," he said, " to this hour am I as to what constitutes the so-called appropriation of the benefits of Christ's death. Never could I get any one to clear it up to me. They talk all about and about it, but never clear it up. Often have I dis- cussed the question with my mother, a clear-headed, thoughtful woman of evangelical feelings; but she would utterly fail to comprehend my difficulties. ' My dear child,' she would repeat, ' you have simply te trust in the blood of Christ.' ' Very well,' I would reply, ' I am will- ing; but what does this trusting mean? How am I to know exactly what to do? Upon what must I specifically take hold to support me when flesh and heart faileth me in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment?'" The difficulty which De Quincey felt is realized by every intellectual theorist as to experimental religion. The sweetest expressions of spiritual Christianity are to them meaningless phrases. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING DUTIES. 417 BENEFICENCE. Beneficence is the practice of doing good ; active goodness, kind- ness, charity. Christian beneficence, then, is the practice of doing good from Christian motives, in a Christian spirit, and in Christian ways. This is a redeeming element in human character. It allies man to the angels and to Christ. Self-indulgence is self-degradation, the subjection of the higher and nobler principles of our natures to the lower and baser. This leads to destruction. Man needs only un- restrainedly to indulge his various appetites and passions to get down among the brute beasts, and lower still. He thus loses his character, blights his soul's powers, gets farther and farther from God, becomes more and more unlike God, until, finally rejected of God, he perishes in his own corruption. Beneficence, on the other hand, raises him up, ennobles him, develops his finer instincts, gives him a power of moral ascent. Enlightened by the truths of God's "Word, and prompted by gospel principles, a man in such a career takes on saint- liness. The solar light beams from his countenance; it is his con- science shining out. He feels that he is living the right kind of a life. He*has the witness in himself. It is safe to walk as Christ also walked — to go about continually doing good. The Bible is full of such examples. It abounds with incitements to precisely such living. Before gospel days God's people were thus trained. Ancient Israel were taught little else save to give, to offer sacrifices, to present gifts unto God. Some imagine that one-tenth of all their increase was the sum total required of them. This is an egregious error. The tithe did indeed obtain among thenj. One-tenth of the annual produce for the support of a holy ministry ; one-tenth for national offerings and great festivals, in order that special approaches to God might prove the occasions of sacred sympathy and joy ; gifts from patriarchs, valuable animals in sacrifice, as sacred obligations and conditions of worship, were continually required. The seal of religious charity was put upon almost every article of the Hebrew's possessions. Ransoms, first-fruits, gleanings from the harvest, and every seventh year the entire produce of the land, were sacred as religious dues. It has been estimated that the devout Jew gave away about one-third of all his income to the poor and to religion. His was systematic charity, too — not impulsive and hap-hazard. Then, there were special liberal- ities, as for the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple at Jeru- salem. How much did the latter cost? More than all our churches, 27 418 FAITH MADE EASY. all our colleges, all our hospitals, all our philanthropies, in these aus- picious days. Just think of putting three thousand millions of dollars into a single temple ! What insigniiicance in comparison with this do modern religious benevolences assume ! Yet the moral obligation and systematic method which moved the Jews are yet binding upon Christians. The essential principles of God's ancient system are not annulled. Especially in this age, when the destinies of the world are devolving upon Christian effort in evangelizing, missionary, and edu- cational movements, are the obligations to gifts and offerings strenu- ously binding. From every page of 'the New Testament come the promptings to worthy deeds: " Let your light so shine;" "Laboring, ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said. It is more blessed to give than to receive ;" " Have fervent charity among yourselves;'' "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath ;" "On the first day of the week [system], ... as God hath prospered you" (measure). We live under a dispensation of gospel principles, not specific rules. No exacting maxims of one-fourth or one-tenth are now rung in the Christian ear, but all we have is God's. We are to be good stewards of the manifold mercies of God. The measure of each man's charity is left to his own conscience, only assuming that he will en'deavor to acquaint himself with the extent of his obligations. Beneficence is to be the law of the Christian's life. It symbolizes God's gracious gift which alone makes the Christian a possibility in the world. It counteracts the tendency in man to set his heart upon property and temporal things. It cultivates in him a true and cordial sympathy. It strengthens the heart in love to God and man. It practically ex- hibits to the race that Divine tenderness and goodness which would ameliorate human woes, and make happy the sons of men. " GOD'S FINANCIAL SYSTEIM." One-tenth of ripened grain, One-tenth of tree and vine, One-tenth of all the yield From ten-tenths' rain and shine. One-tenth of lowing herds That browse on hill and plain ; One-tenth of bleating flocks For ten-tenths' shine and rain. One-tenth of all increase From counting-room and mart; WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNINQ DUTIES. 419 One-tenth that science yields, One-tenth of every art. One-tenth of loom and press, One-tenth of mill and mine ; One-tenth of every craft Wrought out by gifts of thine. One-tenth of glowing words That glowing guineas hold ; One-tenth of written thoughts That turn to shining gold. One-tenth ! and dost thou, Lord, But ask this meager loan, When all the earth is thine, And all we have thine own ? (Churchman.) THE DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. Separation from sin is the first requisite to a devotional spirit. The sinner can not at the same time be a saint. A man whose life is evil, and whose thoughts are base, is never in the devotional frame of mind. Before Christ reigns in any human heart the devil must be cast out. When Christ is enthroned, spiritual aptitudes take their rightful place. His Spirit helpeth our infirmities. "We aspire to be like him. We groan to be set free from impediments to spiritual progress, and to attain to a state of fervent communion with God. Thus the downward bent of our minds is arrested, and the upward tendency is established. Then must come watchfulness and prayer. These must not be separated. We can not consistently ask God to "lead us not into temptation," unless we also set a guard. We cun not expect worldly thoughts to recede and give place to pure and holy feelings, while we at tte same time give loose reins to our fancy, allow our imagination to play with corrupt images, and sufier our minds to brood over the frivolous and profane. The temple of the heart into which foul things are constantly invited can not long re- main pure. We must resist evil inclinations. We must be vigilant in thought, self-denying in action, and crucifying to wrong desires. We must meditate upon whatsoever things are pure, honest, just, lovely, and of good report. We must inure our minds to sober re- flection. We must encourage serious thoughts, and hold them when they come. A good thought allowed to rush through the mind, and then be gone forever, is of little practical use. We must seize upon 420 FAITH MADE EASY. it, constrain it to remain, analyze it, examine its bearings, incorporate it into our principles, else it makes no lasting impression upon our hearts. The best way, the only way, to exclude the unworthy from our minds is thus to make practical use of the worthy. An intellect busy with high and holy ideals is not likely to amplify the vain or vicious. To get good thoughts we must commune with good minds. Our reading should be carefully chosen. It is not enough that we avoid corrupt writings, which debauch the imagination and poison the principles ; we must also refuse the idle, trifling, and insipid. Even though comparatively harmless, such works "debase the taste, slacken the intellectual nerve, let down the understanding, set the fancy loose, and send it gadding among low and mean objects." To brood over such is not only a waste of time, but a destruction of the appetite for better things. There are precious few minds in this world so loaded with weighty ideas, so trained in the channels of solid in- tellectual exercise, that they need much diversion in light reading of any sort. We common folks, busied with ordinary pursuits, have more need of solemn truth than of airy fiction to maintain iu our- selves a decent mental equilibrium. There are books accessible to us all, which, while entertaining, tend to raise a devotional spirit. They awaken the affections without disordering them. They elevate and purify the aspirations, reveal true character to us, and foster a desire for the spiritual and holy. They show us the malignity of sin, the deformity of our hearts, the evil lurking in our wills, and unfold better ideals, point to the Savior, incline us to seek his face and favor, persuaded that there is no salvation in any other. The same is true of some companionships. There are people whose very presence is an incitement to holiness. They have a power of character which makes itself felt without speech or action. Their conversation is also in- spiring, and their deportment in keeping with their profession. They are not austere, but pure ; not ostentatious, but wise and good. How much better the society of these than the intimacies of such as dote on frolics and fashions, sordid gains and low endeavors! How much more real, too, their happiness, the comfort they get out of life, and the perraauent advantages they gain from existence ! They have the prize of their high calling in view, and are occupying their moments with reference to the eternal years. In this world we must make good use of our privileges and powers. We must be diligent students of the Word, and frequent applicants at the throne. Bible study, private prayer, public worship, and earnest Christian work are the truest and most healthful methods of religious culture and growth. Study makes WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GRACES. 421 us wise, prayer makes us devout, worship inspires us, and work pro- motes good spiritual circulation. These bring the calm of an approv- ing conscience, and the smile of God. With due care that all our occupations and amusements are such as we can implore God's blessing upon, and with firm purpose to exercise ourselves vigorously in all Christian duties, we shall find our spirits increasingly devotional, and our conscious preparation for heaven more and more perfect. CHRISTIAN COURAGE. Courage is that quality of mind which enables one to encounter opposition, diflSculty, or danger with firmness, or without fear or de- pression. Cortez, while addressing his discouraged soldiers, with his sword drew a line in the sand, saying: "On this side of the line lies safety and cowardly comfort; on that side is toil, and danger, and sufiering, and glory, and gold. I step over. Who follows?" That was courage. There are occasions in every-day life that call for de- cision and pluck ; occasions that bid you stand by the right, conscience, and duty. When Athens voted for shows and pleasure the money that ought to have gone to pay the army, and then voted that he who should propose to change the vote should be put to death, Demos- thenes stood forth, threw himself into the gap, and bravely demanded a change. That was real courage. Christian courage has in view the peculiar trials and difficulties of the Christian life. In times of per- secution it may be supposed that more courage is required to live consistent Christian lives than in periods of peace and repose. But this does not necessarily follow. The Christian character, under all circumstances, should be adorned with this kingly grace. None can tell when there may arise special need of it. Indeed, no soul is so situated as to be able to accomplish the utmost for God and humanity without it. Our lives in Christ are to be open, pure, and bold. We are not to shrink from any needful cross, self-denial, or trial. Temp- tations that can not be shunned in honor must be encountered without fear and resisted without wavering. Sloth, eaSe, and indolence must be shaken off". We must earn our wages before expecting reward. As soldiers, we must fight if we would reign. We are to be good people in a wicked world^good in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil ; not only good at heart, but good in life, good every way — secretly, openly, privately, publicly, and all the time. Prosperity must not be suffered to seduce us ; adversity must not be allowed to overcome us. Riches must be powerless to estrange us from God, and 422 FAITH MADE EASY. poverty must be borne in the spirit of the Master, who had not where to lay his head. These things call for courage, real firmness of spirit, genuine gallantry of soul. For it must be remembered that the true Christian is ready for any duty, no matter how arduous, and for any responsibility, no matter how weighty. He understands that the com- mandments of God are to be obeyed, cost what they may. He is not. to falter in time of trouble or doubt or danger. " Fearful," the timid companion of Pilgrim in his progress, soon became alarmed and turned back. The timid disciples in the days of our Lord, as they listened to the way of salvation as taught by Divine lips, exclaimed : ' ' Who, then, can be saved ?" and on another occasion debated the question of turning away from Christ, after listening to his sublime definitions of a Christian's life. Our Lord illustrates most strikingly the evil consequences of this timidity in his Parable of the Talents. Said the man of one talent: "I knew thee, that thou wert a hard master, reaping where thou hadst not sown, and gathering where thou hadst not strewed, and I was afraid and went and hid thy money." For this act he was severely rebuked. He knew his duty, but did it not, and difiidence or timidity was no valid excuse. We must have faith. Faith develops character and inspires courage. Upright char- acter and personal faith have been the cause of some of the noblest exhibitions of bravery. It was not nature or training that made those three Hebrew youths so courageous. It was a matter of con- science with them. To comply with that unjust and unholy demand would have been moral cowardice — nay, idolatry. It was their faith that made them bold. Christ's apostles spoke the Word with bold- ness, because they believed it. Men who have weak faith are easily frightened. Distrust of God is the mother of timidity and weakness. If we feared God more we should fear men less. The Christian must be courageous to seek, in fullest measure, the riches of experience in Christ. He is not to limit the promises or tone down the law. When God tells him to love the Lord with all his heart, he is not to understand that half of his heart will do. God accepts no divided hearts. When he is required to love his neighbor as himself, he is not to put in the qualification, I will, if my neighbor is agreeable. Love must burn in his soul. Charity must distinguish his spirit. Beneficence must characterize his life. His whole speech and deportment must exhibit an indwelling Savior. He is a disciple of Christ, a friend of humanity, a co-worker with God. He is to build up the Divine kingdom amid human environments. He is to be a lover of all good and a hater of all evil. He must spend his WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GBACES. 423 strength -with his years in fighting sin and establishing virtue, dis- pelling darkness and letting in light, breaking the chains of bondage and making known the true liberty, defeating the devices of Satan and promoting the work of God. For assistance he must rely on God, and such must be his confidence that he can exclaim with Paul : "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.'' And, again : " None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus." This courage we all need. It would lead to the formation of new plans of usefulness and to the adoption of more aggressive measures in executing the plans we have. Zion would put on her strength. The King's messengers would make haste. The trumpets of God would sound to the battle. Hypocrites and dead professors would fall back in their own places. God's true soldiers would stand in the van. And as the command, Forward I rang along the lines, such a scene would be witnessed as would cause Satan and his allies to tremble and the hosts of God to shout for joy. More than any other element to-day is needed this simple grace of Christian courage. The world observes our completeness of organization, the number and culture of our ministers, the size and beauty of our churches, but inquires. Where are your great victories? Why do you not command the masses ? Why not more rapidly evangelize the nations ? Our reply should be a practical and daring venture of life and soul for greater personal and collective achievements in the Master's name. PATIENCE. Patience is not exclusively a Christian grace, but no Christian can aiTord to be without it. Calmness of spirit under trials, suffering with- out discontent, constancy in labor or exertion, — these things become the man of God. Trials rightly endured foster patience. They are a test of faith, and " the trying of your faith worketh patience." For this reason believers are exhorted to "be patient." "Let patience have her perfect work." "In your patience possess ye your souls." It i? a part of the Divine plan to perfect the Christian character and make it meet for heaven, through the experiences which call for patience. "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." "Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and 424 FAITH MADE EASY. of tender mercy." All literature accords with the Bible in insisting on a proper exhibition of patience. From the Greek of Pythagoras we read : " With patience bear the lot to thee assigned ; Nor think it chance, nor murmur at the load, For know what man calls Fortune is from God." Virgil said: "All misfortune is to be subdued by patience." Horace wrote: "It is hard! But what can not be removed becomes lighter through patience." And Seneca affirmed: "There is nothing so disagreeable that a patient mind can not find some solace for it." Why should we be discontented under sufferiug, since pain is inevit- ably a part of our lot? We can not escape it, nor can we lessen it by perturbance of spirit. To chafe or grieve or faint under it is to despise the chastening of the Lord. Character is not thus improved. Disposition is not thus sweetened. No natural trait of mind becomes more radiant, or even retains its minimum of beauty, in the impatient sufierer. The same is true of all our undertakings. As a means of achievement patience is powerful. The hasty, fretful worker is quickest foiled. His blows are enfeebled, his purpose unsteadied by the com- motion of his mind. He is like a warrior trembling in the field with- out his armor. Every one can strike him, and he can strike none in return. He thrusts out his hands blindly and wildly, as one that beateth the air, but he accomplishes nothing, and is only wounded for his pains. The world is his who has patience. All things are for him who can work and wait. " With time and patience the mul- berry-leaf becomes satin." Patient people live longer. Patient Chris- tians not only do more efficient work, but have a longer period for noble effort. They go forth contented with their lot, willing to bear bur- dens, to endure suffering, to brave dangers, and energetically toil. They have but one mission in the world, and that is to do the will of God and await the reward. They are truer and purer men or women for being perfect Christians. Their faith is guarded, their love cherished, their peace preserved, their comfort enriched by the patience in which they possess their souls. Patience does for them what Bishop Home says it will do for all. She governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride ; she bridles the tongue, restrains the hand, tram- ples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom. Patience produces unity in the Church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor, and. moderates the rich ; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GRACES. 425 unmoved by calumny and reproach ; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured ; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman and approves the man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age. Behold her appearance and her attire ! Her countenance is calm and serene as the face of heaven unspotted by the shadow of a cloud ; and no wrinkle of grief or anger is seen in her forehead. Her eyes are as the eyes of doves for meek- ness, and on her eyebrows sit cheerfulness and joy. Her mouth is lovely in silence; her complexion and color that of innocence and security; while, like the virgin, the daughter of Sion, she shakes her head at the adversary, despising and laughing him to scorn. She is clothed in the robes of the martyrs, and in her hand she holds a scepter in the form of a cross. She rides not in the whirlwind and stormy tempest of passion, but her throne is the humble and contrite heart, and her kingdom is the kingdom of peace. CHRISTIAN PATIENCE. Sweet Patience is as rare, as fair, And strong as she is good ;' Though much applauded everywhere, She's little understood. She is not stoically firm, Nor passively inert ; She calmly bides afiliction's term, But not as one unhurt. And so, like Love, she suffers long. Is gentle and is kind, And when enduring pain and wrong She seeks to be resigned. Sweet Patience hath an iron will And heart with zeal aglow ; Yet on God's anvil can lie still And take the hardest blow. She deems not pain a natural good. She is of wiser mind; But knows, in ways not understood. It is for good designed. And so in trouble she is calm, Can sleep on rolling waves; For every pain she hath a psalm While trusting Him who saves. 426 FAITH MADE EASY. And if the Savior tarry long, She waits his coming still ; The soul that trusts she knows is strong To bear or conquer ill. She asks not for the ripened grain Till Summer seasons come ; Knows that the sunshine and the rain Precede the "harvest home." She knows the growth of moments brief, A moment's time endures; So asks not for the ripened sheaf Till time the grain matures. And so with calm and hopeful eye. Not always free from tears. She scans the distant as the nigh, Far down the coming years. She knows with God a thousand years Are as a single day: And so no disappointment fears. Whatever the delay. O gentle Power, teach us to wait, And waiting to be strong ; How sweet submission can abate The present stress of wrong! (Joel Swartz, D. D., in Neiu York Observer.) "BROTHERLY KINDNESS." Only once is this expression used in the Bible, but it there forms a link in the chain of Christian graces: "And to godliness, brotherly kindness." Only one higher virtue follows, and that is " charity," or love, which is the crown of Christian excellence. But there are other passages which inculcate this grace, as when Paul says : " Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love;" "Let broth- erly love continue;" "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." Love is to be the ruling affection in the Christian brotherhood. Without it, even godliness becomes morose, sour, and unattractive. Brotherly kindness is the natural and proper index of Christian love. When in full exercise in religious society it commends Christianity as no other principle can. It makes the" living epistles," which the world reads more than the written word, influential ex- amples of what grace accomplishes in the heart. Brotherly kindness WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GRACES. 427 betokens a right spirit and an enlightened mind. It is proof that the soul has learned of Christ. It is a practical application of the golden rule. It is the noblest and best trait of a good man's life. It is a lan- guage which speaks for itself — the dumb can utter it and the deaf can understand it. It is the force which breaks hard hearts and bends stubborn wills, when perhaps all other human means faU. A Chris- tian gentlemen once visited a hospital where a degraded and ignorant specimen of humanity lay, sullen and forbidding, upon a sick cot. Speaking kindly to the man, he perceived the effect upon his counte- nance. Continuing the conversation, he was surprised to see the poor fellow draw the bed-clothes over his head and break out in convulsive sobbing, but as soon as he could control himself he uncovered his face and said : " Sir, you are the first man who ever spoke a kind word to me since I was a child, and I can't stand it." The best of brotherly kindness might not soften some hearts, but this is the spirit which pre- pares the way for the Spirit of God. Such love should fill our na- tures that every word and action shall be tempered with kindness. God commands it; the world admires it; conscience approves it. Kindness to the aged, kindness to the young, kindness to each and all ; a kindness that is brotherly, Christ-like ; a kindness that can be felt as well as heard, that can be weighed, as well as seen, — such abiding, ruling, substantial kindness would solidify the forces of Chris- tian character, and prove a power in the Church of God. "Let brotherly love continue." CHARITY. Charity is "that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow-men, and to do them good." As Cowper wrote : " True charity, a plant divinely nursed, Fed by the love from which it rose at first, Thrives against hope, and in the rudest scene, Storms but enliven its unfading green ; Exuberant is the shadow it supplies. Its fruit on earth, its growth above the skies." No wonder that Paul placed such a high estimate upon this beau- tiful grace. "Nowabideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Charity is greater than faith or hope, because it fosters both and is the proof of their reality. " In faith and hope the world will disagree. But all mankind's concern is charity." 428 FAITH MADE EASY. In its finest development charity is a Christian grace, the noblest trait of the purest heart. Charity is always becoming to man, and always in order in society. It never outgrows itself, never dwarfs the other graces, and never loses its own identity. It is said that charity begins at home, and we guess the saying is true. "In the home it is born and bred. It gets its education by the fireside. One of its first lessons is to rock the cradle of infancy, lisping or singing a prayer; another, almost as early, to minister silently to the bed of age ; and thus gradually expanding to its perfect growth, it becomes the relig- ion of the hearth, the guardian genius of domestic life, the spirit that imbues and embalms all our best human affections." But charity is not confined to the home. It is too great for any limited sphere. It is strong of limb, swift of wing, and generous of hand. It goes everywhere, and tarries long. The circle of its ministries is ever widening, until it embraces the uttermost ends of the earth, and sweeps in its sympathies the boundless domains of other worlds. But charity never bids farewell to the scenes of its nativity. It never for- gets the duties that are near, by reason of its attention to those afar. Charity is only another name for love ; and ' ' love is founded in reason, and is judicious, intuitively discerning ends and means, and achieving those by following these, as if obedient to a holy instinct.'' Charity is devout. It listens to the voice of God and finds its highest pleasure in obeying the Divine mandates. It is faithful, too, heeding the stUl, small voice of conscience, and always busying itself with the concerns that most demand its attention. Charity is never partial, unless it be the partiality of imperative duty. It carries a sympathetic heart, and would bless every body if it could. Its operations are finite only because it is possessed of finite resources. When the whole human race puts on charity, the present sphere of generous thought and prac- tical benevolence will widen and brighten until " that which is perfect is come, and that which is in part shall be done away.'' SELF-CONTROL. Reason, revelation, and conscience, all dictate the duty of self- control. Unlawful passions are to be subdued, and lawful appetites are to be properly restrained. The natural impulses are to be care- fully guarded and kept within the limits of safe and lawful indulgence. Disregard of this law results in moral and physical wreck, and not in- frequently dethrones reason. Every wise and pure man, with St. Paul as an example, keeps his body under, and brings it into WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GRACES. 429 subjection. (1 Cor. ix, 27.) As we are to govern and restrain natural appetites, so we are not to create hurtful habits. The use of tobacco, opium, and intoxicating drinks is a violation of the law of self- control. So debasing and enslaving may these artificial appetites be- come that the victim of them is no longer in possession of his full powers of thought or speech, or work or worship. He has volun- tarily placed himself in bondage, step by step, as the habits have been indulged, forging the links of a chain which binds him fast. He has thus deliberately cut himself off from the possibility of doing much good, which, as a free man, he might have accomplished. He has involved himself in a condition of filth and degradation which is condemned by the Scriptures as well as the highest and noblest senti- ments of humanity. Divine law and refined principles alike require physical as well as spiritual purity. No man can indulge himself in hurtful and shameful habits and be innocent, either in the sight of God or the best society. In the truest belief of earth and heaven it is only a reasonable service that we should, by the mercies of God, present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. All natural desires should be subject to the law of self-control. We may eat and drink, but are not to be gluttonous ; we may clothe our bodies, but are not to be extravagant ; we may strive for position and gain, but not be covetous or dishonest, or too eager and hasty, or inordinately ambitious in any respect. Frequent oflfenses against these plain requirements disturb social order, work bodily injury, and are wholly derogatory to spiritual excellence. We must be manly or womanly, not brutish ; we must be sober and well-poised, not vain and feverish. To take into our stomachs only what is promotive of healjh ; to place upon our frames only what is conducive to comfort and respectful appearance ; to use our powers only as tends to better ourselves and others, — these are the simple laws of physical life, to obey which should be the study of every person in this world. Intellectual passions and tempers must likewise come under the law of self-control. Bitter envyings and strife tend to confusion and evil work, not to truth and glory. They are earthly, sensual, devilish, not heavenly, spiritual, or Christ-like. Self-control partakes of that wisdom from above which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits. (James iii, 14-17.) It aims to establish the mind in all comely traits which tend to happiness in the individual and in society at large. It seeks to pro- duce such an equanimity of temper and disposition, or decision and judgment, that every heart is a little throne where the Spirit rules in 430 FAITH MADE EASY. royal excellence. "I will be lord over myself," says Goethe. "No one who can not master himself is worthy to rule, and only he can rule." History is full of the failures of monarchs to rule their own spirits, and thus command the respect and affection of their subjects. Peter the Great, for a trivial offense, struck his faithful gardener, wounding him so sorely both in body and mind that he took to his bed and died. Then the iron-hearted king broke down and wept, say- ing: "Alas! I have civilized my own subjects; I have conquered other nations ; yet I have not been able to civilize or to conquer my- self." "There are many men," saith Seneca, "that have subdued principalities, kingdoms, cities, towns, and countries, and brought them under their own mastery, but there are few that have guided themselves. There is a tiger within them that disgraceth and ob- scureth their outward conquest by reason of foul seethings and cor- ruption in their own flesh : therefore, for a man to get the victory^ and to overcome himself, is to get the victory, and to overcome all the world ; for man is a microcosm, a little world." Man must rule his own spirit first, if he would rule the hearts of others to their good. He must be king of his own heart before he is fit to be a ruler of men, to say nothing of being a king and priest unto God. SELF-DENIAL. Self-denial is the opposite of self-gratification. It has not so much to do with the unlawful and sinful as with the permissible and pleas- ing. To deny self is not to please self in the direction of inclinations and indulgences that can result in no good. Christ set an example of self-denial ; he pleased not himself. The problem of life is pften solved by this simple law. Many a man has made a miserable failure of existence by not curbing his desire to grasp more than his natural capacities could profitably employ. Unhappiness is sure to follow when self-pleasing is made the law of life. Self can be encouraged to think it not only wants, but deserves, the world ; and when it gets an extravagantly large share, to turn in and fight for more, and in the end, like Alexander, sit down and cry because there are no other worlds to conquer. Religiously, self-denial is of the utmost importance. Our Lord made it a primary condition of discipleship. " He that will come after me, let him deny himself." He must deny himself the privilege of saving himself, a matter extremely hard with some. He must deny himself the privilege of sitting aloof from necessary sacrifices WHAT TO BELIEVE GONCEBNING GRACES. 431 for the Lord's cause. To the self-denying, the will and glory of God and the salvation of men must ever be of more account than any self-interest or pleasure. " When the Christian practices self-denial he gratefully accepts and enjoys the gifts of his Heavenly Father, but keeps before him the idea of human benefit as connected with Christ's honor and glory." There is precious little self-denial in that mood or state which would give attention to religious things simply to escape the curse. It is the duty of all to shun hell and win heaven, but the self-denial which Jesus taught and exemplified by his life prompts to more than this. It not only conscientiously shuns the bad, but goes about doing the good. It not only refrains from sinful pleasures, but finds the highest joy in exercises of worship and Christian work. It says: " For me to live is Christ." It rules the body, the mind, and the heart. It keeps self in subjection, and holds the happiness and welfare of others in full view. One of the finest illustrations of this spirit is presented in the life of William Raymond, a missionary to Africa forty years ago, when missionary work involved greater sacri- fices than now. Much had been said to him of the self-denial neces- sary to entrance upon such a life, but as he pondered over the idea he failed to find in his own consciousness the slightest trace of it. It troubled him. He knew that self-denial was a part of Christian duty, and as he compared his own experience with the common idea of it, he made up his mind that either he was not a Christian or else the popular notion was erroneous. While traveling from place to place he asked ministers and Christians for their idea of self-denial, and uniformly got an expression in substance like this: "When a Chris- tian sees any thing after which his heart longs, though it may be right in itself, yet under the present circumstances is forbidden by the spirit of the gospel, a struggle ensues in the mind, and if he decides on the side of the gospel, and foregoes the pleasure of the thing thus forbidden, it is self-denial." Raymond could find nothing corresponding to this in his own mind. What he considered duty or the will of God he joyously set about with all his soul to do, and things incompatible with the spirit of the gospel fostered in him no semblance of desire. " When God called me," he says, " to go to Africa, my whole soul rose up to go. A blast and a mildew seemed to be spread over every thing here. I saw no beauty in any thing, unless it was in some way connected with my duty. " I have heard of the peculiar emotions that missionaries have felt as they have looked upon their native land for the last time. I stood upon the deck of the vessel, and saw ray native hills sink — sink until 432 FAITH MADE EASY. they were entirely hid behind the mass of water that lay between us, with no other emotion than that of joy — joy that my Heavenly Father had counted me worthy to carry the lamp of life to those who sat in the region and shadow of death. "While laboring in Africa, amidst all the trials incident to mission- ary life, I never had one longing desire after home nor the privileges of civilization. If the common acceptation of the term is correct, it is no self-denial for me to labor in that country. It is my pleasure and delight.'' It is probable that most missionaries have a similar feeling. They surrender their all to the will of God, and his labor is their delight. And this condition of mind should characterize all Christians. When self-denial is but a yoke of bondage, heavy and galling, entirely incom- patible with the spirit of the gospel, a man may well inquire whether he has ever known Christ. Jesus said: "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." It certainly ought not to sour the spirit of a true Christian, or make heavy his heart, to give up selfish aspirations and schemes, and be content to go where God leads, and labor where he opens the field. Far less should it hurt the soul to surrender indul- gences and pleasures that are harmful, or at least not helpful. . Self-denial, then, is a state of mind in which the whole heart, under every circumstance and on every occasion, prefers Christ and duty to every selfish or sensual gratification. It is a state of mind in which every gratification which is seen to conflict with the will of Christ is at once relinquished, without even the heart longing after it. Faith is a state of mind, and yet there are particular acts of faith. In the same way, self-denial is a state of mind, and yet there are such things as particular acts of self-denial. " True self-denial,'' says Rev. Dr. W. H. Anderson, " does not put on rags, or, in apparel or food or home, offend against the proprieties of life, the laws of society. It does not select a tub for its home, as did Diogenes, the dirty cynic, nor live on the top of a column, as did ' Simeon, the Stylite.' Nor does it require us to imitate the Baptist in his rough garb, or his hermit habits, or his wild Bedouin piety. It modestly avoids notoriety, and loves to hide its offerings for Jesus as bashfully and shrinkingly as the widow hid herself in the crowd, after she had placed her two mites in the treasury. This grace never dis- gusts us by appearing as a mendicant friar begging for cold victuals, and in neglect of that wholesome adage, so truthful and striking, 'Cleanliness is next to godliness' — and, we might add, is a twin brother. Nor does this excellent grace borrow the trumpet of the «> WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GRACES. 43S Pharisee to proclaim its piety, or engage a street-Corner for the exhibi- tion of its humility of garb and spirit, as 'well as the ardor of its prayers. It is modest, like the flower hiding from the intense gaze of the sun, while it breathes its fragrance for the benefit of others. It takes into its wide field of operation every thing which is highly prized by men generally — fortune and reputation, ease and position, the pur- suit of letters and exercise of power. Indeed, every temporal good is to be laid on the altar, and the most sacred associations of home and friends, and valued pursuits, and even life itself, must be made a con- secrated ofiering to God." SELF-CULTUKE. We are created with bodies to care for, minds to educate, con- sciences to develop, and souls to save. These duties appertain to every mature human life. Our bodies must be properly fed, and this implies not only sufficient food, but right food properly administered. It re- quires a whole life-time with some to learn what, when, and how to eat. There is no fixed rule for every body. Diet requires personal attention. The life is more than meat. Much depends upon organization, phys- ical condition, age, and occupation. To eat just enough of that kind of food which will most conduce to health and vigor for our work is surely'a matter of the highest importance to every individual. So of exercise. Our bodies were not made for inactivity. They are ma- chines which need to be correctly run, else they clog, rust, and decay. We must ascertain how much walking or working they require in order to serve us longest and best. To neglect this is to take life in our own hands, and proceed with suicidal intent. Clothing, too, can not be left to adjust itself. The body is more than raiment. The dress should cover it adequately for protection, easily for comfort, and grace- fully for comeliness. We should scorn to follow a fashion which con- flicts with any of these, and we should be sensible enough to observe them all. We should keep clean. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Dirt within the body or without is offensive and unhealthy. It is an abomination to a rational being in a world abounding with the ele- ments of purity. We should rest and sleep. Sleep is tired nature's sweet restorer. We are more than ourselves in sleep. We take on new vigor then. Our minds seem to be more powerful. Who in his waking hours can attain to the imagination of his dreams? Well does Sir Thomas Browne say: "The slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the 28 434 FAITH MADE EASY. liberty of reason ; and our waking conceptions do not match the fan- cies of our sleep." The education of our intellectual faculties is a prominent part of self-culture. We thus enlarge our capacities for usefulness and en- joyment. We are to train ourselves not only to think, but to think rightly ; not only to acquire knowledge, but to retain and utilize what we acquire. To be a knowing dunce is about as vain as to be a for- getful fool. Knowledge is a power for good if applied in the right direction. It is a source of happiness when turned to advantageous account. We should seek to learn what others have known, and to originate ideas of our own. We should cultivate our memories, and make them serve us faithfully in retaining the useful and pure ; they will keep enough of the worthless and bad any way. We should curb our imaginations when running in the wrong direction, and train our fancies to be sometimes at rest. We should cultivate a taste for the wholesome and pure, and moderate all our instincts and passions in accordance with the law of right. Our meditations should be chiefly on our duties, and our resolves mainly in the line of energetic work. Pastime and pleasure are not to be ignored, but life is too real and earnest to make them worthy of serious thought. St. Paul had the right perspective of active intellectual status when he wrote to the Philippian brethren to think on whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. All virtue and praise to hihi who broods over such things! He is culturing his mind for the highest excellence, and laying the foundation of the purest morality. Our moral nature requires development. Conscience is largely what we make it. Rightly educated, it becomes a monitor for good. Wrongly instructed or neglected, it is of little avail. Jesus knew the place of conscience when he declared to his apostles: "The time Com- eth, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.'' (John xvi, 2.) These things he said they would do because they would not know the Father, or Christ. Persecutors lack Christian conscience. They are strangers to that charity, love, and mercy which characterize those who are trained in the Gospel spirit. We must ' educate the conscience to discriminate nicely betwixt right and wrong, and strengthen it by quickly yielding when it impels toward the right. We must study the best examples, fix in our minds correct principles, practice the highest virtues, and yield unfaltering obedi- ence to the law of God. Added to these things we must have the enlightening and purifying influences of the indwelling Spirit. Those who are thus trained and endowed have their senses exercised to WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING GRACES. 435 discern both good and evil. Their whole spirit and soul and body are preserved blameless. They are the children of light. They watch, pray, work, and are sober. They have put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. They edify one another, are at peace among themselves, and abstain from all ap- pearance of evil. They are cultured in the highest and best sense, and are fitted to enter, in God's own time, upon the study and prac- tice of the etiquette of heaven. THE CONSUMMATION. He who neglects his duty to God, his neighbor, or himself, does not live to the highest and noblest purpose. Life is most commend- able when it presents in the most practical way the traits of obedience, brotherly kindness, and full-orbed personal piety. For ourselves we need perfect control of all our propensities and passions, for our neighbor we require the largest charity, and for God the deepest rev- erence and humility. These three graces of the Christian life are so essential to the prosperity of the individual, and to socifety as a whole, that the absence of any of them is a fatal defect of character, a break in the chain that links us to the power that works for righteousness. Nothing jars the world's harmony like a break in the ranks of Chris- tian and social order. A great army soon becomes demoralized when discipline is lax, and soldiers fall out of the ranks as they please. One turbulent spirit will disturb the calmest organization. There must be order, uprightness, self-control. Were every man to keep his own life right, what a state of concord would be found in every community, city, state, nation, and in the world! Order is heaven's first law, and therefore heaven would begin below if society presented perfect order. But society presents no such order. Many live as they should, and many more live in every way but as they should. Society being thus disjointed, charity and brotherly help are required. Were none to repair the breaches, the walls of the social kingdom would soon be demolished. Were all to hate, and none to love, anarchy would speed- ily create a reign of terror, and sweep society from the earth. Charity is so excellent that, though but few exercise it, many partake of its benefits. Thus it is that a little gospel leaven tends to leaven the whole lump. Take away the remnant of Christian charity, and life loses its value, and the world its attraction. If humanity contain any thing sweet and beautiful it is harmonious social intercourse, where each is another's counselor, and all one another's friends. Grace in 436 FAITH MADE EASY. the heart alone develops this ideal. First pure, then peaceable. In point of order, loving God with all the heart goes before loving our neighbor as ourselves. Perfect love to God and man casteth out all fear, for where such love abounds no offense is ever given, and no re- taliation ever feared. To do each other good is then the dominant passion. Love accepts the will for the deed when the executive powers fail, and thus people of all ages live in harmony, and are blest together in the holiest communion. A perfect realization of such social order would be a fulfillment of God's plan of redemption. Heaven would draw near to earth, and there would be but a step betwixt mor- tal life and eternal glory. Angels would fly the rounds of human life, and find in mankind congenial companionships for heavenly commun- ion. God would smile upon the race, and own that the treasure lost in Eden had been restored to its rightful owner, and earth would once more be esteemed a paradise. Peace would well up from every throat, and serenity sit enthroned on every brow. Death would lose his terror, and Satan be shorn of his power. Christ would reign supreme, and the new heavens and the new earth, in all their transcendent glory, would speedily be ushered in. The Son would then deliver up all things unto the Father, and God would rule over all and in all. Part l^. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE FUTURE STATE. DEATH. OUE earthly existence ends in death. The body then rests in sleep. (John xi, 11; Acts vii, 60; 1 Cor. xv, 6, 18, 20.) The parellel between death and sleep is not perfect, since in death the body suffers decay and can not awake. But the Bible employs the figure, and hence there must be points of resemblance strictly accu- rate. Death resembles sleep in that the body is then at rest, and shall awake in the resurrection morn. It is appointed unto men once to die. The laws of life appear to provide for death. ' ' Living is dying, since we are made of dust." (Professor Hyde.) "Dying is that breakdown in an organism which throws it out of correspondence with some necessary part of the envi- ronment." (Professor Drummond.) Physical death may have existed before sin, but sin makes it terrible. It is not death itself that humanity so much fears, as what is beyond death. Death is not death to the soul. The idea that death ends all is not of faith, but despair. The Bible teaches that the soul survives the shock of death, and lives on in conscious existence. In death the spii-it returns to God who gave it. It departs from the body, but it is present with the Lord. (Read Eccl. xii, 7 ; Luke xxiii, 46 ; Acts vii, 59; 2 Cor. v, 8; Phil, i, 23.) There is a death which is the wages of sin. This death is spiritual, and may be eternal. To deliver mankind from this death Jesus gave his life. Spiritual death begins with the first act of sin, and culmin- ates when sin has absolute dominion and the soul is "past hope." Eternal death begins when the soul thus bound by sin, unpardoned and unredeemed, is separated from the body by physical death. Properly speaking, it is not eternal death, but eternal punishment. (Matt. XXV, 46; Rom. vi, 23.) 437 438 FAITH MADE EASY. There is no form of death which is absolute in the sense of anni- hilation. The words "perish," "destruction," and so on, are to be understood morally, not ontologically. "How can the spirit be re- duced to utter nothingness? The extinction of hope may lead to the hope of extinction. But science can talk only of the continuity and conservation of forces. It knows nothing of matter which is decom- posed in the sense of being literally destroyed, and nothing of spirit as distinct from matter which ever loses its identity or activity. We look in vain for evidence that any being will be blotted out of being." (Professor J. T. Hyde.) "The essence of death does not consist in the extinction of the man, but far rather in the fact of its depriving him of what he might have had in and through his life, and thus in forming a direct an- tithesis to life, so far as life is to the man a possession and a blessing." (Cremer.) Death to the good is not a terror. The Ohristian can exclaim, '■' O death ! where is thy sting ?" which is only another way of saying, "Thou hast no sting." Christ hath abolished the sting of death. Millions of death-beds, since Jesus led the way, have been cheered and gladdened — made even the gate of heaven. Some suffer great pain in their last sickness, but die painlessly and in peace; some appear to suffer little, and also die in triumph. Some linger many weeks; others go in haste. None of us can fix upon the closing scene we. most admire, and say: "Such shall be my departure." "We can not anticipate the nature of the disease, or the circum- stances of our last illness, so as to form any opinion as to the manner of our death. But this we can say : " I will make sure of a living interest in Christ, by casting myself in entire self-renouncing faith on his mercy, and I will hold fast, day by day, the beginning of my confidence steadfast unto the end." We can do no more ; to do this is enough. We shall thus find grace equal to the hour. " The so-called agony can never be more formidable than when the brain is the last to go, and the mind preserves to the end a rational cognizance of the state of the body. Yet persons thus situated commonly attest that there are few things in life less painful than its close." To many pious people death appears more' terrible than it is. " The pains, the groans, the dying strife, Fright our approaching souls away ; And we shrink back again to life, Fond of our prison and our clay." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FVTVRITY. 439 Providence generally deals kindly with us in handing us down to the last hour and the closing scene. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. He will manage our death even as graciousl)'' as he manages our other affairs. We shall wonder, when he has borne us through the valley of shades, how slight a thing the operation really was. It will appear like many things we have known, formidable in apprehension, but easy in experience. "If I had strength enough to hold a pen," said William Hunter, "I would write how easy and delightful it is to die.'' "If this be dying," said the niece of Newton of Olney, "it is a pleasant thing to die." "If this be dying," said Lady Glenorchy, "it is the easiest thing imaginable." "I did not suppose it was so sweet to die," said Francis Saurez, the Spanish theologian. An agreeable surprise was the prevailing sentiment with them all. They expected the stream to terminate in the dash of the torrent, and they found it was losing itself in the gentlest current. The Rev. S. Graves, D, D. , has shown that ' ' the event we call death has two aspects — two very different sides: an upper and a lower ; and we see only the lower. God and the angels, and ' the spirits of the just made perfect' perhaps, see the upper side. ' It is not death to fling Aside this weary load ; And rise on strong exultant wing To be with God.' "That is indeed death — what we call death; but it is the upper side of it. Life, in common simile, is a journey, with staff and worn sandal and dusty garments. Death, the death of a true Christian, is reaching home, and resting and rejoicing with the loved ones ' gone before.' " Life is a voyage — so we ^often call it — through which we must tack and beat and buffet the storms and breast the whelming waves. Death is dropping the anchor and furling the sail in the harbor. " We crossed the Atlantic in December, and met little else except storms and head-winds all the way. How joyfully loomed the home- hills, though covered with snow; and how the heart beat with a great swell of thankfulness when we steamed through the Narrows into the harbor of New York, and moored at the home dock ! Such is death, as seen from above. "Balloonists sometimes see the upper side of a dark and rainy day. How gloriously different from the dreary, drizzly under side! 440 FAITH MADE EASY. "I have seen a thunder-storm from the top of a mountain, look- ing down upon it, and seen its lightnings play and heard its thunders roar, all so harmlessly amidst the glorious white clouds on which the benediction of the sun and the blessed day were falling. "So will be — can we doubt it? — the upper side, the heaven side of death to the true believer." In his "Thanatos," Mr. J. W. Long pictures death as a king waiting at the gates to crown us in royal and resplendent life : " Is death the end of all our pain and sorrow ? Or is it but the portal of the day ? Should we so dread the coming of its morrow 7 Or think of it, as driving care away ? Is it a king, black-crowned with awful terror. Or a physician, banishing our pain ? Are all our hopings but a night of error ? When we once sleep, shall we not wake again ? Is each ambition quieted forever. When we are borne to our last resting-place ? Does Fate ring out an everlasting ' never I' Which blanches hope as white as the dead face ? Are all our lovings to be turned to ashes ? Does disappointment crucify each pain? Are we but slaves receiving unjust lashes. And bound together by a galley-chain ? Do mothers bid a farewell everlasting To little children they have loved so long? Is life but one long sacrifice and fasting? And heaven but a mythologic song? Do maidens build in vain a jeweled palace, In which Love sits, supremely crowned as king? Does Death force to their lips a poisoned chalice, And laugh to scorn their life's whole offering ? Does manhood cease, with coffin round it closing? Does the fair jewel die within its case ? Is what we see so quietly reposing. All that is left of what was strength and grace ? Is what we read and call it revelation. But a poor fable of the olden time ? And must we be forbidden consolation, And forced to disbelieve those truths sublime ? WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 441 Must every*grave shut out the life eternal ? Is it the ending of each fond desire ? Or does it open into pastures vernal, Warming our souls with glad fruition's fire ? Has father gone ? or mother? husband? brother? Sweet dimpled child, we loved, despite decree — • ' Beside me, thou shalt love on eartli no other Like unto me.' Is this eternity? No ! Thanatos is King ; since ages olden He sits enthroned near the cold river's side. Wide open gates lead to his city golden. Where all our sorrows shall be deified. Our good ambitions meet us at the river. All clothed in substance, beautiful to see. Each wish is granted by a royal Giver, And peace there reigns as once in Galilee. Hearts that still wished, when hope was almost dying. For something better than this world could give, Will quiet grow, and cease earth's endless sighing, And know that now they can begin to live. The waves, which once grew still upon the ocean. Reach to the borders of the future land, And He who tempered the wild wave's commotion Will meet us with a loving brother's hand. Yes ! Thanatos is King ; with royal greeting. He seals our welcome with a father's kiss ; Gives back our loved ones ;' and the joyous meeting Fulfills each hope. Can aught compare to this? It is our home. This life is but a trial. A crucial fire, our very souls to prove. There, no request is met with a denial, And there we realize that 'God is Love.' " The time of our death is uncertain, and" it is a blessing to us that it is so. If we knew the day and hour and moment of our departure, like a murderer condemned to the gallows, we would count the minutes that remain to us, and perhaps shiver in horror to the last. Far better the present order in which " no man knoweth the coming of the Son of man." As Eben E. Rexford has gracefully sung — "When will it be? Just at the nightfall, when all work is done. And rest comes, following the vanished sun, 442 FAITH MADE EASY. Bringing its peace to those who Tvear^ grew With labor lasting all the long day through ? Will it be then? Or will it be at midnight's solemn hour, When earth seems sleeping like a folded flower ? y Then will there come a knocking at the door, And the soul start at sounds unheard before. And listen for a voice in terror dumb, The dreaded voice of death, that says : ' I come ; Art ready for the journey thou must take Before the cock crows and thy friends awake V Or will it be at morning, when the sun Rises on golden tasks anew begun ? Will I be standing at the plow when he Whose face we dread so much shall come to me. And say : ' Give o'er thy labor. Say good-bye To these thy comrades ?' Will I shrink and cry : ' 0, spare me yet a little while, I pray. I am not ready. Wait till close of day !' Ah, soul ! not ready ? Will the plea avail Uttered by lips that terror has made pale? No ! He will say : ' Thou knewest, soon or late. My feet would tarry at thy soul's closed gate. Wast thou not bidden to be ready 7 Lo ! I come and find thee unprepared to go. Thou askest time. Was time not given thee ? Too late regret, and all in vain thy plea !' Else, soul, and set thy house in order, lest At any moment Death should be thy guest. Be ready for the journey thou must go At morn or midnight. If he finds thee so. Brave with a faith in things thou canst not see, What does it matter when he comes to thee ?" IMMORTALITY. The hope of immortality is not peculiar to the Christian. All men appear to believe in the continued existence of the soul after death. Savages of the lowest order give expression to this idea. "The Fijians not only believed in a future state, but were per- suaded that, as they leave this life, so will they rise again. Hence it was an act of filial piety for children to put their parents to death before the decrepitude of old age had overtaken them. At the death of a chief, it is usual to send with him some of his women and slaves. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEBNINO FUTURITY. 443 In these cases the wives generally die voluntarily, believing that thus only can they hope to go to heaven." "The natives of Tiarrabou believed in the survival of the soul, and in two situations in different degrees of happiness somewhat analogous to our heaven and hell." "Among the Karens the souls of the dead are supposed to assume different aspects, determined by their previous life. Sometimes they become divine spirits ; sometimes they appear under the form of mon- strous animals, as the punishment of murder and adultery. The good go to join their ancestors ; the bad, on the contrary, wander about as restless phantoms." " The Dyaks, of Borneo, believe that, as the smoke of the funeral pile of a good man rises, the soul ascends with it to the sky; and that the smoke from the pile of a wicked man descends, and his soul with it is borne down to the earth, and through it to the regions below." The Damares indicate their notions of immortality by going to the grave of a deceased friend, laying down provisions, asking him to eat, drink, and be merry, and then beg him, in return, to aid them, and grant them herds of cattle and plenty of happiness. They also believe that the dead revisit the earth, though not in human form. The Krumans conceive that the soul of the dead tarries for a while around the fire which is built at the occurrence of death, in order to warm and prepare itself to appreciate the new life into which it has been born. They therefore prepare food that it may eat, and sacrifice cattle in numbers according to their conception of its deserts, that it may take rank in the spirit-land in proportion to the number of cattle it leads thither. Both naturalists and supernaturalists concede the universality of the belief in immortality. "The idea of a future life," says Pres- sens€, "is inseparable from the idea of God in the credo of the savage." Rialhe declares: "The belief is something inherent in our personality, which outlives our present existence, or continues it in another world ; it seems to be universally diffused among mankind, and to be inborn in the human mind." How can we account for this belief except it be founded on intui- tion ? It classes itself with certain other fundamental doctrines of religion, such as the fall of man, the displeasure of God, and the necessity of prayer, as the universal heritage of the race, and in search- ing out the foundation of these beliefs, "we reach at last the inex- plicable facts, that man is conscious of the existence of his own spirit, 444 FAITH MADE EASY. and that he believes other men to possess like spirits, that there are beings of an order higher and more powerful than human, that he is accountable to some one or more higher powers for his actions, that it is needful to propitiate these superior beings, and that there is a future spiritual existence for him in the presence and society of higher spirits.'' For these rudimental religious ideas no reason can be as- signed, except that ' ' they are the result of the intuitive perception of men as the axioms of geometry, or the first principles and definitions of all science and knowledge." THE CHINESE AND IMMOKTALITY. A -writer in the North China Herald discusses the early Chinese notions of immortality. In the most ancient times ancestral worship ■was maintained on the ground that the souls of the dead exist after this life. The present is a part only of human existence, and men continue to be after death what they have become before it. Hence the honors accorded to men of rank in their life-time were continued to them after their death. In the earliest utterances of Chinese na- tional thought on this subject, we find that duality which has remained the prominent feature in Chinese thinking ever since. The present life is light ; the future is darkness. What the shadow is to the sub- stance, the soul is to the body ; what vapor is to water, breath is to man. By the process of cooling, steam may again become water, and the transformations of animals teach us that beings inferior to man may live after death. In the course of ages, and in the vicissitudes of religious ideas, men came to believe more definitely in the possi- bility of communications with supernatural beings. In the twelfth century before the Christian era it was a distinct belief that the thoughts of the sages were to them a revelation from above. The " Book of Odes" frequently uses the expression, " God spoke to them," and one sage is represented after death " moving up and down in the presence of God in heaven." A few centuries subsequently we find, for the first time, great men transferred in the popular imagination to the sky, it being believed that their souls took up their abode in cer- tain constellations. The pure is heavenly and the gross earthly, and therefore that which is purest on earth ascends to the regions of the stars. The stork became the animal which the immortals preferred to ride above all others. The idea of plants which confer immunity from death soon sprang up. The fungus known as Polyporus lueidus was taken to be the most eflScacious of all plants in guarding man from death, and three thousand ounces of silver have been asked for a WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 445 single specimen. Its red color was among the circumstances which gave it its reputation, for at this time the five colors of Babylonian astrology had been accepted as indications of good and evil fortune. The plant of immortal life is spoken of in ancient Chinese literature at least a century before the mineral cinnabar. OLD TESTAMENT SUGGESTIONS OF IMMORTALITY. Perhaps no doctrine of the Bible is as fully and clearly set forth in the Old Testament as in the New. The earlier books of the Bible are the "whole Bible in germ." Their teachings are largely in the way of preparatory suggestions and hints, leaving the full truth to be expanded in New Testament unfoldings. There is a law of develop- ment in Bible doctrines. ' ' First the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear." ' It is so with the doctrine of immortality. This doctrine is taught in the Old Testament, but more clearly unfolded in the later books. The idea of death as set forth in the Old Testament is no more or less than the separation of the spirit from the body. In death, God gathers unto himself man's spirit. (Job xxxiv, 14.) When the dead child came to life in Elijah's time, it was because " the soul of the child came into him again." (1 Kings xvii, 21.) When the earthly life is cut off, " we fly away." (Psa. xc, 10.) When Abra- ham died, it is said that "he gave up the ghost and was gathered unto his people." (Gen. xxv, 8.) His body was. not buried within hundreds of miles of his people, but the living Abraham was united to his people. When the tidings came to Jacob that Joseph had been devoured by wild beasts he exclaimed, " I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning." (Gen. xxxvii, 35.) He did not mean that he would be buried in the same grave with Joseph, for he believed that "an evil beast had devoured him." (Verse 33.) And when the aged patriarch did die, "he yielded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people." All this is related of his death though his body was not buried for two months afterward. When the Psalmist wrote Psa. xvi, 9-11, he spake of the resurrec- tion of Christ. (Acts ii, 31.) " Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh ^so shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life ; in thine presence is fullness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Evidently the Psalmist here taught not only the resurrection of Christ, but the doctrine of a future life. Again, when Asaph said to 446 FAITH MADE EASY. God, " Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory" (Psa. Ixxiii, 24), did he not teach a future life also? Job in his affliction and prospect of death said : " For I know that my Re- deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another ; though my reins be consumed within me." (Job xix, 25-27.) Job here shows that he believed in a life to come. Again : we now know, since Jesus has explained the pas- sage to us, that when God said to Moses at the burning bush, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," he meant that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were alive. Surely this is a clear proclamation of a life to come. Once more : " The wicked is driven away in his ■wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death." How so, unless he meant to teach the fact of reward and retri- bution in a future world? (Pro v. xiv, 32.) These passages set forth the belief of the saints of old that their souls would survive the grave. THE IMMOETALITY WHICH CHRIST REVEALS. Christ "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immor- tality to light." This passage can not mean that there were no inti- mations of this truth before, for we have already given the expres- sions of barbarians and heathens, saints and sinners, as to their hope of endless being. . It means simply that Christ removed all doubt and ambiguity on the subject. He unfolded the grand truths of the res- urrection and future life of the body, and of future rewards and pun- ishments. He made definite and clear what before was dim and dark, barely guessed at and longed for. He spake with authority. He did not argue, but made simple assertions that none could gainsay. The meaning of his statements is apparent to every one. The comfort of his promises is available to all. Hear him : " If a man keep my say- ing, he shall never see death." "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto mj%elf ; that where I am ye may be also." " Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." "I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." " Thy brother shall rise again." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 447 " It is at the silent portals of the tomb," says Chauteaubriand, " hovering upon the borders of the celestial world, that Christianity dis- plays its sublimity." " He that liveth and belie veth in me shall never die." "No break in life to the soul that hath this faith in Christ; no cessation in existence ; no long, dreary sleep ; life flows on in one continuous current into the great ocean of eternity." " When the brow of beauty paleth, When the heart's warm throbbing faileth, Warm no more ; When love's subtle powers of charming, All the happy hours embalming, Charm no more ; Who will solve affection's sigh — ' Doth the spirit live or die ?' When the lips, with sweet caressing, Speak in tones of tender 'blessing Nevermore ; When the light of smiles is faded, When the beaming eye is shaded, 'er and o 'er. Questions still hope's eager cry — ' Dotli the spirit live or die ?' When the day of life declineth. In ' the valley ' brightly shineth Faith's pure ray ; Who the glorious truth receiveth, ' He that liveth and believeth,' Lives for aye ; Jesus speaks the sweet reply — 'Crowned with life they never die.'" (Kate Sumner Burr.) And this thought is sufficient. It satisfies us, cheers us, comforts us. "Wail on, sad Winter wind, sobbing over all the sorrows of earth. Thy melancholy storms are evanescent ; above them we hear the music of Christ's voice speaking sweetest, sublimest assurance of deathless life. We listen, even now, to the song of the redeemed. The winds that sweep through the lonely boughs of earth can not silence the harps of heaven." CONTINUOUS EXISTENCE. Rev. James H. White has grouped those Bible passages which in- dicate the soul's continuous existence. Continuous existence is ascribed to the human soul by various 448 FAITH MADE EASY. methods, mostly by words and phrases descriptive of its conditions and belongings : "1st. It has an existence that is independent of the body, and therefore continuous beyond the death of the body. Man can kill the body, but can not kill the soul. (Matt, x, 28.) The soul lives when the body is dead. (Matt, xxii, 32.) The soul is capable of suffering when the body is dead and buried. (Luke xvi, 23.) The body dead, and the soul in paradise. (Luke xxiii, 43.) Stephen dies, and his soul is received into heaven. (Acts vii, 59.) The soul may be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. (2 Cor. v, 8.) Such a state is better than the present. (Phil, i, 23.) " 2d. Its existence is continuous, because it may suffer eternal or always continuing punishment. (See Matt, xviii, 8, and xxv, 41.) 'These shall go away into everlasting punishment;' literally, always" enduring punishment. (Matt, xxv, 46.) The Revised New Testa- ment in this verse gives us 'eternal punishment' and 'eternal life.' (See, also, Mark iii, 29; 2 Thes. i, 9; Jude 13; and Rev. xiv, 11.) " 3d. Its existence is continuous, because it may enjoy an always enduring life. The passages are numerous wherein eternal and ever- lasting are connected with the future life and joy of the saints. I need give but a few: Matt, xxv, 46; John vi, 27; Gal. vi, 8; Titus iii, 7; Heb. ix, 15; and 2 Pet. i, 11. These are enough. God would not have us ignorant 'concerning them which are asleep,' and to this end he has given us the sure testimony of his Word. " Death is a mighty conqueror, and has prostrated millions in the dust. But there is in humanity that which survives its stroke, that remains unscathed by its touch, and bid.s defiance to its power. The souls of his saints leave the fallen body ' to be present with the Lord,' ' to be with Christ, which is far better.' " INCORRUPTIBLE EXISTENCE. Mr. White also notes the passages which teach the incorruptible existence of the soul : "Its original representative is ' aphtharsia,' signifying incorrupt- ibility, incorruptness, and, by implication, immortality in a less re- stricted sense. The word occurs eight times in the New Testament, and is correctly rendered ' incorruption ' in the following passages : 1 Cor. XV, 42, 50, 53, 54. In two places its English representative is 'immortality' (Rom. ii, 7; 2 Tim. i, 10), and twice it is rendered ' sincerity' (Eph. vi, 24; Titus ii, 7). In the Revised New Testament it is uniformly rendered ' incorruption.' WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 449 "A kindred word, ' aphthartos,' js used seven times, and is ren- dered ' uncorruptible' in Eom. i, 23; ' incorruptible' in 1 Cor. ix, 25, and XV, 52 ; also in 1 Pet. i, 4, 23 ; ' immortal ' in 1 Tim. i, 17 ; and ' not corruptible ' in 1 Pet. iii, 4. The Kevised New Testament gives the uniform rendering ' incorruptible.' " Incorruptible existence is ascribed to God in Bom. i, 23, and 1 Tim. i, 17; to the resurrection body, 1 Cor. xv, 54; and to man after the resurrection in 1 Cor. xv, 52. Both undying and incorrupt- ible existence will be given to humanity when this dying shall put on the undying : ' When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory.' (1 Cor. XV, 54.) And in view of this glorious consummation we may well exclaim with the apostle : ' But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ !' " THE MUEMUE OF THE SOUL. "A solemn murmur of the soul Tells of a world to be, As travelers hear the billows roll Before they reach the sea: Tells that this anxious, yearning soul, Heir of that world to be, Beyond the grave's dark, silent goal Shall live eternally : Tells that as after Winter's storms, Come life and joy and bloom. So life anew shall clothe the forms That slumber in the tomb : Tells of a dread, impending hour. Of solemn, final doom, When at the call of sovereign power All shall to judgment come: Tells of a purer, better sphere, A vernal, tranquil shore. Where those who love and worship here Shall worship evermore. O solemn murmur of the soul ! O solemn world to be! To liye while endless ages roll, 'Tis immortality!" 29 450 FAITH MADE EASY. This "murmur of the soul" is not simply a desire for eternal earthly fame. No doubt there is a profound satisfaction in the thought that the good we do will live after us. We may rejoice also at the benefit the world derives to-day from the good deeds of those who lived yesterday, and are now dead. But, as a secular paper (the New York Smi) has said : ' ' Set up this sort of immortality as a substitute for the personal immortality which Christianity promises, to praise it as a nobler object of aspiration, to try to appease the longing of the human heart with the prospect it offers, is all in vain. Conscious life after death is the immortality which man longed for in ages past, longs for to-day, and will always long for. Science may doubt, and philosophy deny, but the hope of such an immortality will be as eternal as the foundations of the earth." Even the wonderful old philosopher of Greece came very near our revealed doctrine of the soul and its immortal life. Here is a passage most striking : " If the soul be immortal, then does she stand in need of care, not only during this period which we call life, but for all time ; and we may well consider that there is terrible danger in neglecting her. If death were indeed an escape from all things, then were it a great gain to the wicked, for it would be a release from the body and from their own sin, and from the soul at the same time ; but now, as the soul proves to be immortal, there is no other escape from evils to come, nor any other safety, but in attaining to the highest virtue and wisdom." This passage, and some following it, from the Phoedo are examples of the search of the intellect of men for the truth. Shall we say unassisted intellect? Was not Socrates a seeker after God, and do not the loftiness of his teaching, and the practical illustration in his submission to the law because it represented the highest earthly power, prove the aid of that Spirit whose fullness we possess in Christ? Hear Cicero also : " O glorious day ! when I shall depart to that divine company and assemblage of spirits, and quit this troubled and polluted scene. For I shall go not only to those great men of whom I have spoken before, but also to my friend Cato, than wliom never was better man born, nor more distinguished for pious affection ; whose body was buried by me, whereas, on the contrary, it was fitting that mine should be buried by him. But his soul not deserting me, but often looking back, no doubt departed to those regions whither it saw that I myself was destined to come ; which, though a distress to me, I seemed patiently to endure ; not that I bore it with indiffer- ence, but I comforted myself with the recollection that the separation WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 461 and distance between us would not continue long." This clearly ex- pressed hope of Cicero was not unlike that hope which is the anchor of the Christian soul. Well may we inquire with Addison : " Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality ? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us : 'T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. * The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth. Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds." Not only has man a hope of immortality, but he can not persuade himself that that hope is ill-founded. Note the question of S. W. Francis, M. D. : " Can it be possible that man, a human form, to whom homage is paid both by animal and vegetable ; the focus of in- genuity ; the wonderful exposition of cause and effect ; the living poem of perfect measure ; the mechanical wonder of the world, — was born and created to grow; and, having done his best to injure or benefit mankind, he, a perfect score in the plan of creation, shall cease to exist when the body sinks; and the soul stained with sin shall meet with no just punishment, when laws against sin govern this world ? Or, if he has raised the lowly, forgiven the erring, and re- lieved the suffering and needy relative, is he to be blotted out, even as a worm is trodden down, and reap the benefit of no approving conscience?" Consider the reflection of Lord-Chancellor Erskine: "When I' reflect that God has given to inferior animals no Instincts or faculties that are not immediately subservient to the ends and purposes of their beings, I can not but conclude that the reason and faculties of man' were bestowed upon the same principle, and are connected with his superior nature. When I find him, therefore, endowed with powers to carry, as it were, the line and rule to the most distant worlds, I consider it as conclusive evidence of a future and more exalted desti- nation, because I can not believe that the Creator of the universe' would depart from all the analogies of the lower creation in the for- 452 FAITH MADE EASY. mation of his highest creature, by gifting him with a capacity not , only utterly useless, but destructive of his contentment and happiness, if his existence were to terminate in the grave'." "To him who believes, or tries to believe, that death ends all, the greatest human achievement, or possibility of achievement, must be mean and pitiable, unworthy the struggle to secure it. But to him who believes that the character laid here is the foundation of a oeiug as eternal as God himself, the smallest stone laid therein, the least act, becomes fraught with importance, and all life is made an inspiration to go up higher." "Alas for him who never sees Th9 stars shine through his cypress trees ! Who, hopeless, lays his dead away. Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play ! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That life is ever lord of death, And love can never lose its own !" (J. G. Whittier.) IMMORTALITY INDICATED BY EXPERIENCE. The desire for immortality is universal. ' Were it possible to secure a popular vote upon the subject, an overwhelming majority would be found to favor endless existence. All might not wish to live forever in this world, and some, because of trouble and afflictions, might not care to live forever anywhere, unless they could be freed from the things which make existence a burden to them ; but the masses would say. Yes, let us live on and live ever. We desire not to die. Even this world is good enough for us, if sickness and pain and death be taken away. We vote for continued life. Now, it is a fair inference from what we know of God's ways that he will gratify a wish so natural and universal. The desire for im- mortality is divinely implanted in the human breast. It is constitu- tional. It inheres in our natures. It is not acquired by education. It is not a recent, spontaneous production, but has always been. The literature of every nation shows a longing for eternal life. None wish to die, to lie down in the cold and noisome grave, to become the food of worms and be forgotten. Consider what men do to acquire an earthly immortality. They know they can not dwell on earth forever, and so they toil and struggle to perpetuate their fame. Old age does not dampen their ardor. To life's latest hour they seek to establish a name that will live forever. Even those who affect not to believe in WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 453 the immortality of the soul, believe in making the life history and in- fluence immortal, or as nearly so as they can be. George Eliot groaned after this realization : " O, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence ; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude ; in scorn For miserable aims that end with self ; In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild, persistence urge man's search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven : To make undying music in the world, Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man." Every natural desire has provision for its gratification. If we hunger, we find food ; if we thirst, there is water to drink. The love of the heart finds objects around which it may entwine. Even lauda- ble ambition may be gratified. And so with the desire for immor- tality. The very existence of such a desire is • proof that we are immortal. " It must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well ! — Else whence tliis pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality ? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught ? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction ? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us ; 'T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter And intimates Eternity to man." The very dread of death itself, in the fair equation of existence, de- mands a satisfactory antidote. For all losses, save the loss of life, there are compensations. If we lose our property, we may regain it by industry and economy; if we lose our health, it is possible to build it up ; but if we lose our life, unless immortality be true, there is no chance for reparation. Immortality is the only possible antidote for death, and he who is just in all his ways has certainly provided it for man. The dead we have laid awa'y are not dead, but only asleep. Our loved ones for whom we mourn are living on. They have escaped the trials and sorrows of this present world, and await our coming in the land of life. They desired a better country than this, that is, a 454 FAITH MADE EASY. heavenly ; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God ; for he hath prepared for them a city. We feel that this is so. It is in- conceivable that beings created as we are, with powers capable of unlimited progression, should be blotted out of existence. Man is too valuable a specimen of creation to perish in a day. Look at the great intellects that have arisen like veritable suns, and shone upon the world. Has their life been quenched? Are Moses and Isaiah, and Paul and Luther, and Sir Isaac Newton, absolutely extinct ? Was the transfiguration in which Moses and Elias appeared a delusion and lie? None of us think so. Doubt and wonder at times as we may, the old belief comes back in spite of us that the dead are not dead, but only housed in the realm of spirits. In God's good time they shall all come forth and reclaim their glorified companion bodies iu the bonds of endless being. We shall join them. Like them we shall live, like them we shall die, and like them we shall know what it is to be thrown upon the consciousness of pure spirit being. This is destiny. Now we know in part, but then shall we know even also as we are known. As in our pre-natal life we had no idea or con- sciousness of what post-natal life would be, so in the earthly sphere we have no knowledge of the heavenly. " We lie here, as it were, in our nests, unfledged and weak, guessing dimly at the future before us, and scarcely willing to believe in the reality of the existence we now enjoy ;" but that existence is ours, and shall have no end. A little time will unfold it, and it shall then appear to us in all the beauty and power of its eternal grandeur. LIFE'S VERY WRETCHEDNESS DEMANDS IMMORTALITY. The sufferings of life, arising from the transgressions of moral laws, can not be explained except upon the hypothesis of a future life. I have heard, says a celebrated Oxford professor, of some French workingmen who told a clergyman that there was no God, or that if there were, they only wished they could catch the author of so much misery and kill him. And they were right, if this world be the only one. If there be no future life, there is no moral iniquity so foul, no injustice so crying, as the world in which we live. In this case, there is no crime so horrible but that we can plead the example of the Creator of this world, if there be One, for it. That the great mass of mankind should be living in poverty and filth and wretchedness, slaving hard for their daily toil, scarcely knowing what it is to have a gleam of brightness across their days, while the few should be lapped in luxury, steeped to the lips in enjoyment, "faring sumptuously WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 455 every day," without a thought of the Lazaruses at their doors, is a moral anomaly which can not on these principles be explained.* That the pioneers of progress, the apostles of civil and religious liberty, should have rotted in dungeons, perished at the stake, by the gibbet, or by the ax, after a life spent in toils and labors, while we, their descendants, enjoy the fruit of those labors without an effort, and too often without gratitude, is another spectacle of injustice which might well rouse us to indignation. But grant another world, where all grievances will be redressed, all anomalies removed, all wrongs set right; grant a just and wise Ruler, who is taking care that " good" shall ever be "the final goal of ill,"t and all these difficulties disap- pear. The world, from being the most revolting of all exhibitions of favoritism, injustice, cruelty, becomes a school of patience, a means of training for all the noblest virtues, a path of progress to the per- fection of humanity in other scenes and under other skies. J Another argument will serve to confirm this position. If this world be the only one, you have no force sufficiently strong to restrain man's passions. Tell the lad with his hand in his master's till that he ought to refrain from taking what is another's, because such conduct is, on a wide view, incompatible with the welfare of humanity, and what can you say to him if he replies: " What is humanity to me? Why should I trouble myself about any man's convenience, but my own ?" Tell the young man who is about to rush into vicious courses, of the misery and wretchedness which result to society in general from the indulgence of evil passions, and how are you to deal with him if he answers: " I do not care how it affects other people. It pleases me, and that is all I have to care about." Tell the drunkard of the evils that flow from his unrestrained self-indulgence, and how can you answer him if he says: " Life is short; let me enjoy myself while I may." "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." § There is no *At least God, as revealed in Jesus Christ, does not contemplate this state of things with indifference. (St. Luke xvi.) T Tennyson, " In Memoriam." t " Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter iii, 13.) § Mr. Herbert Spencer is quite of Voltaire's opinion that if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one, in order to bridle the scoun- drel, to give hope to the upright, to serve as a bond to society, a foundation for equity. Mr. Spencer admits that in a rudimentary condition man needs a " belief that is harsh, and habitually shows attachment to such a belief." (First Principles, p. 119.) Voltaire, be it remembered, was a violent oppo- nent of Christianity, though perhaps he might have thought differently if he had had a less corrupt state of society and the Church presented to him. 456 FAITH MADE EASY. passion so gross, no iniquity so cruel, but you give a man a justifica- tion for indulging it if you take away his belief in God. If there be no God, there is no right or wrong, or rather there is nothing around us but wrong. The world itself is one grievous wrong, one vas,t bad example to all who dwell therein. And where are you to look for a moral force strong enough to restrain a man who is urged on by vio- lent passions, if you remove the thought of a just and righteous ret- ribution in another world ? What is to prevent a sudden rush of every infamy and every crime upon us, if you take away the only restraint on vicious indulgence ? THE LESSON OF LIFE. The pain we have to suffer seems so broad Set side by side with this life's narrow span, We need no greater evidence that God Has some diviner destiny for man. He would not deem it worth his while to send Such crushing sorrows as pursue us here. Unless beyond this fleeting journey's end Our chastened spirits found another sphere. So small this world, so vast its agonies, A future life is needed to adjust These ill-proportioned wide discrepancies Between the spirit and its frame of dust. So, when my soul writhes with some aching grief And all my heart-strings tremble at the strain. My reason lends new courage to belief, And all God's hidden purposes seem plain. (Ella Wheeler Wilcox.) PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY FROM THE POWER AND BREVITY OF LIFE. "I can not humiliate the condition of our being to the narrow career of life ; I see immortality in every aspiration of man. The proof of the great fact, that man shall live beyond the grave, niust de- pend upon the resistless authority of Scripture. Immortality can be proclaimed by inspiration alone. But I see its corroborative evidence in every power, impulse, and imagination of human nature. "I can not bring myself to conceive that the intellect which measures the courses of the stars, which weighs the globe, which resolves the fine tissues of light, and which reveals the structure of WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 457 the earth, can have been given only to heighten the moral of our decay ; that the faculties which have controlled the lightning, have ruled the winds and waves, and have guided us over the ocean through night and storm, were given but to tantalize the brevity of human aspira- tions; that the talent which covers the canvas with life, sculptures the stone into beauty, and creates the grandeur of architecture, all should vanish, like the floating atoms seen only by a passing ray of sunshine. Above all, that the genius of the poet, the preacher, the philosopher, and the statesman, those founts of thought flowing for all mankind and for all time; those pinnacles on the great palace of intellectual empire, which catch the first light of nations and retain the last ; those minds, whose very dreams are of immortality, whose words descend upon posterity with the impress of an inspiration, and whose memories remain, like altars on mountain-tops, fixing the eyes and directing the worship of all below, — that all these should be compressed into a clod of the valley ! "Impossible! No; we must not libel the wisdom or the benef- icence of the great Disposer. Man was not sent here only for a glimpse of those splendors which he was never to share — to pine for that intellectual banquet from which, at its first sight, he was to be snatched away ; to feel his heart filled and his spirit exalted by that majesty of creation, from whose worship he was to be banished at the first bend of his knee ! "The brevity of human existence, and even the precariousness of that existence, are arguments for its higher destiny. If a touch, the breaking of a fiber, too minute to be visible, the sting of an insect, may extinguish forever the finest imaginations of the poet, the pro- foundest thought of the philosopher, and the noblest purposes of the statesman, where do we find such waste in nature? Not a dying leaf is thrown away, not a drop of water is lost, not a particle of earth but varies into new forms. "And is man to be the only instance of this contemptuous prodi- gality of creation? The whole analogy of nature compels us to believe that the great purpose of Providence in this world is to train both our moral and intellectual faculties for a perpetuity of progress in another, to exercise our mental nerve for the conquest of perpetual difficulty, rewarded by a perpetual increase of power, and that power given only to render us capable of the knowledge of a higher sphere, to prepare our intellectual eyes for the expanding glories, and to invig- orate the spirit of man for the mighty mysteries of Providence." (Anonymous.) 458 FAITH MADE EASY. THE BALMY EFFULGENCE OF MORN. (James Beattle's pensive lines on "The Hermit" show well how man may lament if no light dawns on the night of the grave, and how the morning really does breali upon the soul of him who cries to the great Fatherx)f light for pity.) " At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove ; When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill, And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove ; 'T was thus, by the cave of the mountain afar, While his harp rang symphonious, a hermit began ; No more with himself, or with nature, at war. He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man : — Ah ! why thus abandoned to darkness and woe ? Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall? For Spring shall return, and a lover bestow. And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthrall. But if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay ; Mourn, sweetest complainer ; man calls thee to mourn. O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away ; Full quickly they pass — but they never return. Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky. The moon half extinguished her crescent displays ; But lately I marked, when majestic on high She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue The path that conducts thee to splendor again : But man's faded glory what change shall renew ? Ah, fool ! to exult in a glory so vain ! 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more: I mourn ; but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you ; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore. Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew : Nor yet for the ravage of Winter I mourn ; Kind nature the embryo blossom will save ; But when shall Spring visit the moldering urn ? O, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave ? 'T was thus, by the light of false science betrayed, That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind. My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade, Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. ' 0, pity, great Father of light,' then I cried, ' Thy creature, that fain would not wander from thee : Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride : From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free !' WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 459 And- darkness and doubt are now flying away ; No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn : So breaks on the traveler, faint and astray, The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom! On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." IMPORTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN BELIEF. As a cobbler sat at his work, the pendulum of the clock, as it swung, seemed to him to say : " Eternity — where ?" This led to his conversion, and the words so much impressed him that he afterward penned these lines: "' Eternity— where ?' it floats in the air; Amid clamor or silence, it ever is there. The question so solemn : ' Eternity — w^here ?' 'Eternity — where?' O, ' Eternity— where ?' With redeemed ones in glory, or fiends in despair? "With one or the other : ' Eternity — where ?' ' Eternity— where ?' is well worth a care ; O shall we, can we, e'en venture to dare Do aught till we settle ' Eternity— where ?' 'Eternity — where?' O, 'Eternity — where?' Friend, sleep not, nor take in this world any share. Till you answer this question : ' Eternity — where ?' " "Of course," says the Pittsburg Christian Advocate, "if existence ends in the sleep that knows no waking, the believer in Christ will be disappointed in his faith and hope of a future life ; but it is a loss of which he will not be conscious, and will be attended with no pain, no lashings of conscience, no terrible remorse. The faith ■Which re- ligion brings, the hope it inspires, and the happy influence it sheds over the life, make it one of the grandest delusions, if it be a delusion, ever conceived by the human mind. It promotes virtue and usefulness, and leads to a peaceful and happy end. Though it ends in disappoint- ment, still it has its present reward — the reward of virtue — the answer of a good conscience, no little thing. He will share the common fate of humanity, so that the most zealous scoffer at his faith will have no room to glory, and can not outrank him in destiny and reward. " But suppose he is not mistaken; suppose he is the prudent man 460 FAITH MADE EASY. who, foreseeing the evil, takes refuge in the sin-atoning merits of Christ, how then stands the case ? Whose will be the gain and whose the loss ? The Christian will realize more than he had ever ' thought, or wished, or known ;' but will the man who sneers at the idea of a personal God, and blasphemes Christ and his atoning work, share in the reward of virtue and purity? Not if God will 'render unto every man according to his deeds ;' not if he will visit on ' them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, in- dignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil.' How terrible it must be to one who has no place in his faith for God or Christ or immortality, to awake in the future life, to realize what a fearful thing it is to ' fall into the hands of the living God !' What must be the feelings of a soul that has passed into eternity, full of wrath and bitterness, when it stands before the righteous Judge, covered with moral pollution and, with the unrepented sins of a life-time resting on it, awakes to a faith without hope — the faith of devils ; awakes to a sense of the loss it has sustained, and to the magnitude of the ruin it has brought on itself? On the assumption that religion is only a fable, 'Our Rock is not as their rock, our enemies themselves- being judges ;' if it be true, the Christian gains all, and the unbeliever loses all. ' Wisdom, therefore, is the principal thing.' Reason, as well as religion, would admonish us that, where there is so much involved — such vast issues at stake — that the safe course is the wise course." PERSONAL EXPRESSIONS OF BELIEF. Victor Hugo, the great French author and novelist, whose life covered the space between A. D. 1802 and 1885, tells the story of his own faith in the following sublime language: "I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am rising, I know, toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me with the reflec- tion of unknown worlds. You say the sou? is nothing but the result- ant of bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul the more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, and eternal Spring is in my heart. Then I breathe, at this hour, the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years. The nearer 1 approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal sympho- nies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple. It is a fairy tale, and it is history. For half a century I have been WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 461 writing my thoughts ,in prose, verse, history, philosophy, drama, ro- mance, tradition, satire, ode, song— I have tried all. But I feel that I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. When I go down to the grave I can say, like so many others, ' I have finished my day's work ;' but I can not say, ' I have finished my life.' My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley ; it is a thoroughfare. It closes in the twilight to open with the dawn. I improve every hour, because I love this world as my fatherland. My work is only a beginning. My monument is liardly above its foundation. I would be glad to see it mounting and mounting forever. The thirst for the infinite proves infinity.'' I can not help thinking that there is a better world, and a hap- pier life for us all ; but no one has come back to tell us. Well, we can at least hope for the best, and face the inevitable. (Thaddeus Stevens.) For the great hereafter, I trust in the Infinite Love, as it is ex- pressed to me in the life and death of ray Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. .(Dr. J. G. Holland.) The bird within the shell could not comprehend why wings were given for that cramped existence, but the almost unconscious flutter of the prisoned pinions was God's promise of another and a better life. (Duff" Porter.) We do not believe immortality because we have proved it, but we forever try to prove it because we believe it. (James Martineau.) My belief in the immortality of the soul springs from the idea of activity ; for when I persevere to the end in a course of restless activ- ity I have a sort of guarantee from Nature that, when the present form of my existence proves itself inadequate for the energizing of my spirit, she will provide another form more appropriate. When a man is seventy-five years old, he can not avoid now and then think- ing of death. This thought, when it comes, leaves me in a state of perfect peace ; for I have the most assured conviction that our soul is of an essence absolutely indestructible — an essence that works on from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun, which to our earthly eyes sinks and sets, but in reality never sinks, but shines on unceasingly. (Goethe.) THE SECOND ADVENT. Several .hundred passages in the Bible bear directly upon the doc- trine of Christ's second coming to this our world. These are variously mterpreted as to matters of minor import, according as people cherish 462 FAITH MADE EASY. preconceived opinions about the things that shall accompany that momentous event. We do not purpose to introduce any theories here. It will be enough to show that the Word of God clearly teaches that as Christ came once into our world to effectuate man's redemption, so he will come again to receive his redeemed Church unto himself. This sec- ond coming, we believe, will be personal, visible, and glorious. Here are a few of the texts upon which our faith relies: " Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." "And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory." "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." (Mark viii, 38; xiii, 26; Titus ii, 13. Also read carefully the entire twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, which some think was fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem.) The apos- tles came privately to Jesus, saying: ■" Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" It is evident that they understood " these things" to include more than the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem, for they distinctly specified " the end of the world." The answer of Jesus also contains expressions that could hardly have found fulfillment in the destruction of the holy city by Titns. For instance: "There shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." " F6r as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the com- ing of the Son of man be." " Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in the heaven ; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." These things were not fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem, unless the words be so construed as to be almost without meaning. We cite another passage : "And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up ; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEMNINQ FUTURITY. 463 This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts i, 9-11.) Dr. A. W. Pilzer has said of this passage that it " can not mean either death, or the outpouring of the Spirit, or the destruction of Jerusalem, or the triumph of the Go^el; it means, and can only mean, the BODILY RETURN OF Jesus, who was crucified, who was buried in Joseph's tomb, who rt)se again, who ascended into heaven." That eminently solid, safe, and sound commentator, the late Dr. D. D. Whedon, utters language 'equally explicit. In his comment on the above passage he says : " This passage is an immovable proof-text of the actual personal second advent of Jesus. It is the same per- sonal, visible Jesus which ascended that shall come. The coming shall be in like manner with the going. A figurative or spiritual coming would clearly not be a coming of the same Jesus, and still more clearly not a coming in like manner." Again, in John xxi, 22, Jesus says of the apostle John: "If I will that he tarry tilt I come, what is that to thee ?" From that ex- pression, St. John tells us, a rumor was current among the brethren that he should not die. Now, what "coming" was it here specified? We answer, it could not be the establishment of Christianity; for living until this coming specified implied perpetual exemption from death. Nor could it be Christ's coming to each man at death; for it implied that St. John, who should meet it, would not die. But it must be a second coming which iniroduced the eternal state; so that he who lived unto it would never die. Richard Watson, the great theologian also afiirms: "The Lord shall come and declare himself. And will he declare himself to be man or God? Will he justify the faith of his people, or refute it? He shall come ; and in his time he shall show who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. ' Yes, we shall see that day supreme. When none his Godhead shall deny, His sovereign majesty blaspheme. Or count him less than the Most High. ' Faith is here looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God; is waiting for him in holy expectation, and loves his appear- ing; but the scoflTers in all ages have said, 'Where is the promise of his coming?' The day will come, the sign of the Son of man shall appear in the heavens, the veil of the heavenly temple shall be drawn aside, and he who went in there with a sin-oflTering as our Priest and 464 FAITH MADE EASY. Intercessor shall come forth as the Judge of all, and the everlasting Savior of them who waited for him." THE MILLENNIUM. Most Christians have no set theories of any description concerning an earthly millennium. They do not claim to be wise respecting " the thousand-year" period, whether it will precede or follow the first resurrection, whether it will be a thousand solar years or an indefinite period, or whether sin shall absolutely cease and Satan be helplessly bound ; all these things are uncertain, conjectural, and practically un- important. What they claim is that there is a central truth in the doctrine of the millennium ; Christianity will yet concentrate, as in a focus, in a flourishing period of the Church, and fulfill the unmis- takable predictions of Scripture as to the universal reign of righteous- ness, and that somewhere, in connection with this glorious era of ' peace, probably at its close, the return of Jesus may be expected, to bless his Church and judge the world. When and how, in any pre- cise detail, these things shall occur, no man knoweth ; but their occur- rence is certainly foretold in Scripture. Our Lord himself has given one clear note: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come." (Matt, xxiv, 14.) He does not say that all nations shall receive and obey the gospel, but that the proclamation of the gospel shall reach all the tribes of heathenism scattered over the earth. Until the world is evangelized in the New Testament sense of the word, the second advent may not occur ; but when the world is thus evangelized, the Lord shall come and millen- nial glory shall overspread the earth. In a spiritual sense the Lord is here now, and will be " unto the end of the world ;" so that in any final or proper sense his second coming can only be personal and visi- ble at the end of time. With his coming shall be established the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Such passages as the following can only refer to this doctrine : "All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name." "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it." " They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNINO FUTURITY. 465 "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings" of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be con- founded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.'' " For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea." "And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.'' "And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying. Know the Lord ; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest." (Psa. Ixxxvi, 9; Isa. ii, 2, 4; xxiv, 21-23; Jer. iv, 2; Hab. ii, 14; Heb. viii, 11.) Also this paragraph from Kev. XX, 1-7: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottom- less pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should de- ceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled ; and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, aud they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them ; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison." It is not best to be too dogmatic as to the precise meaning of this passage. Opin- ions of learned and good men differ widely as to its import in detail, but are in harmony as to its general significance. Satan is to be sub- dued, righteousness is to reign, Jesus is to be set upon the throne of his glory, the dead shall be raised, and for a period the earth is to present a scene of wondrous interest and glory. Dean Alford says : "That the Lord will come in person to this our earth ; his risen elect will reign here with him, and judge ; during that blessed reign the power 30 466 FAITH MADE EASY. of evil will be bound. ... At the end of the millennial period Satan is loose, and the nations of the earth are deceived by him. This," he concludes, "is my firm persuasion." Something like this is the firm persuasion of nearly all people who have not come to view the subject from a rationalistic point of view. That famous and schol- arly commentator, Dr. J. P. Lange, says that " the prophecy of the thousand years of Christ's reign on earth is, in and for itself, a true pearl of Christian truth and knowledge." In 1764 John Wesley wrote to Mr. Hartley, saying : ' ' Your book on the Millennium and the Mystic Writers was lately put into my hands. I can not but thank you for your strong and seasonable confirmation of that comfortable doctrine ; of which I can not entertain the least doubt as long as I believe the Bible." THE ESTTERMEDIATE STATE. The intermediate state is that state in which the soul exists be- tween the death of the body and the resurrection state. The intermediate state is not the same to the righteous and wicked, but as difierent as their characters. Tbe intermediate state of the righteous is called ' ' paradise " (Luke xxiii, 43), or "Abraham's bosom," (Luke xvi, 22), either of which signifies a happy condition, even heaven itself (2 Cor. xii, 2-4; Rev. ii, 7). The intermediate state of the wicked is described as one of con- scious suffering as the consequence of guilt. (Luke xvi, 22-28.) At death the soul enters immediately upon its appropriate inter- mediate state, and continues in that state until the resurrection morn. (Luke xvi, 22 ; xxiii, 43 ; Rev. xiv, 13.) We must distinguish here between state and place, as many able scholars doubt whether as a place the intermediate condition is any thing short of heaven or hell. Some believe that the abode of disembodied spirits may be very near us. In proof they point to incidents concerning those who almost die, but return to lifg, and then relate how the occupants of the room were all seen, but no power remained to move the lips or articulate in speech. If it be asked, says Dr. Martensen, the cultured Danish theolo- gian, " where those who are fallen asleep find themselves after death, nothing certainly is more preposterous than the idea that they are separated from us by an outward infinity, that they find themselves WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 467 in some other material world, etc. . . . No barrier of sense sepa- rates them from us, for the sphere in which they find themselves differs, toto geivere, from the material sphere of time and space. . . . The tendency or direction of the soul in death is not outward, but inward, a going into self, a going back, not a going forth ; and instead of the modern notion that the soul wings its way to the stars, which is some- times understood literally, as if the soul were borne to some other actual world, the idea is far more correct that it draws itself back into the innermost and mystical chambers of existence which underlie the outward." He says again : " They live a deep spiritual life, for the kingdom of the dead is a kingdom of subjectivity, a kingdom of calm thought and self-fathoming, a kingdom of remembrance in the full sense of the word; in such a sense, I mean, that the soul now enters into the very inmost recesses, resorts to that which is the very foundation of life — the true substratum and source of all existence. ... As long as man is in this present world he is in a kingdom of externals wherein he can escape from self-contemplation and self-knowledge by the dis- tractions of time, the noise and tumult of the world ; but at death he enters upon a kingdom the opposite of all this. The veil which this world of sense, with its varied and incessantly moving manifold- ness, spreads with soothing and softening influence over the stern reality of life, and which man finds ready to his hand to hide what he does not wish to see, — this veil is torn asunder from before him in death, and his soul finds itself in a kingdom of pure realities. The mani- fold voices of this worldly life, which during the earthly life sounded together with the voices of eternity, grow dumb, and the holy Voice now sounds alone, no longer deadened by the tumult of the world ; and hence the realm of the dead becomes a realm of judgment." All this is speculation chiefly, though if we remember to distin- guish between state and place, such speculation will do no harm. Of this we are sure, the righteous dead are with Christ and are happy, whether near this earth or millions of miles removed from it. THE SOUL IS CONSCIOUS IN THE INTERMEDIATE STATE. The Bible teaches most abundantly and plainly that the soul is per- fectly conscious of its bliss or woe during the state which immediately follows the death of the body. So St. Paul must have believed, for he says : " For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." To live is' to serve and enjoy the Savior — 468 FAITH MADE EASY. V a state inexpressibly better than unconscious sleep ; yet to die is gain — the state after death is still more blessed. Again, Paul had a desire "to depart and be with Christ," which is, says he, " far better." Here mark three things : 1. The state next beyond death is not only gain compared with this, but great gain ; not only better, but far better. 2. He enters upon it immediately after death. For him to depart is to be with Christ. The question upon which his mind is in a strait lies between spending the next ten years, say, of his existence, in the flesh, laboring for the Church, or spending it with Christ in that state which is for him far better. And his decision ultimately is the noble one — that which is more needful for the Church, though less blissful for himself. 3. Paul desires to depart. Now he could not have desired uncon- sciousness, or annihilation, either temporary or perpetual, unless he felt his existence to be a curse, which is not supposable. In another passage (2 Cor. v, 1-9) Paul shows : 1. That he expected, at the dissolution of his body, to receive a building of God, a house not made with hands — a state perfectly unlike that of unconscious sleep. 2. That mortality would then be succeeded by a more glorious life — in his language, "be swallowed up of life." 3. He characterizes the present state by being at home in the body and absent from the Lord ; and the state next ensuing, by being ab- sent from the body and present with the Lord. There is no room here for an interval of time between leaving the body and being present with Christ in glory. ' Yet another passage may be cited in proof that Paul believed in the soul's conscious existence immediately subsequent to death. In Hebrews xii, 1-23, he represents departed patriarchs and prophets as "a great cloud of witnesses" around the Christian's pathway, plainly implying on their part conscious and interested observation. Moreover, he represents the ancient Jew as having before him Mount Sinai with its awful thunderings, voices, and earthquakes, but the modern Jewish convert as having before him Mount Zion, countless angels, God the Judge, and, quite to the purpose of our argument, " the spirits of just men made perfect;" that is, perfect in the bliss of heaven, exalted to the consummation of blessedness, as the same lan- guage means when spoken of Christ. (Heb. ii, 10.) In the same sense, too, they have before them Jesus the mediator of the new cove- nant. Now, will it be claimed that of these several objects which are WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 469 all before the Christian Jew as motives for a holy life, God, angels and Jesus are living, but the spirits of just men are dead, in the sleep of utter unconsciousness ? This were indeed to attach great honor and influence to nonentities — to exalt them to a rank with angels, with God the Father and the Son ! The reader will scarcely need to be reminded of Christ's promise to the penitent thief: " This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Is paradise a state of unconscious sleep ? Is Christ in such a state ? Does the phrase "this day" mean any thing but immediately after death ? I am aware that some punctuate the passage so as to make it read: "I say unto you this day, thou shall be with me in paradise;" but such punctuation is unauthorized in the original Greek, and it robs the passage of all significance. It was not necessary for Christ to tell the thief that he was talking to him that day, and our Lord was never guilty of a waste of words. The word rendered " this day " does in- deed come before the words " with me thou shalt be in paradise," and for this plain reason : Christ meant to give emphasis to the idea that his prayer was to be answered immediately.. It is common in Greek to place the emphatic words first in order. Further proof that the intermediate state is one of conscious ex- istence is furnished most amply in Luke xvi, 19-31 ; the case of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man died and was buried ; next and immediately he was in hell lifting up his eyes, being in torments, far from being unconscious ; and to show beyond all doubt that this is immediately after death and not beyond the resurrection, we are told that his five brethren are at this very time alive on the earth, and still on probation, having Moses and the prophets yet in their hands. The dead could, but may not go to them, from hell, to warn them not to go there. The beggar, too, died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Christ said: "Now he is comforted ;" which could not have been had his condition been otherwise than conscious. We pass to the Apocalypse, and listen to the revelator's report of what he saw in heaven. First, " I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God. . . . And they cried : How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ?" They are told that they should rest yet a little season until their fellow-servants and their brethren, who should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. (Rev. vi, 9-11.) They are in heaven ; but the scenes of earthly life are moving on be- low ; they must wait for God's righteous judgments, until others, then living saints, should meet a martyr's death and take a martyr's 470 FAITH MADE EASY. crown. Were those souls under the altar in a state of utter uncon- sciousness ? Of the same nature are the scenes described in Rev. xv, 2-4; V, 9, 10; vii, 13-17. Again, Rev. xiv, 13: "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth :" that is, from this time, or as the best lexicons have it, Bblessed even now are the dead, etc. — a plain and positive assertion of the doctrine that the sainted dead are at once made blessed in the Lord, and do not wait for their blessedness till the resurrection and the judgment, when their works which follow them will come forward as testimony that they are Christ's people. So much of what John saw in heaven, and heard from heaven. Did the Lord deceive his prophet by false visions and voices ? If not, then are the sainted dead enjoying the bliss of a conscious existence before the throne of God. Just what the soul's consciousness is in its intermediate state, no man knoweth ; but, as Rev. E. Green observes, "the representations which the Scriptures give of the disembodied state seem to indicate that there is a kind of mysterious connection or identification which the soul in that state, in its consciousness, still retains with the body, though separated from it ; so much so that, although out of the body, it still seems to itself to be in the body, and to feel the same sensa- tions that it had while connected with it. St. Paul, when caught up into paradise, says he could not tell whether he was in the body or out of the body, which is about the same as to say that a man may be out of the body and yet seem to himself to be in it. The rich man in hell, although his body was in the grave, is represented by Christ as having the same personal consciousness, with the same at- tendant sensations, as to different parts of the body that he had while in the body, for he is represented as having eyes and tongue and voice, or, at least, as seeming to himself to have them. Now, it is a psy- chological fact, well known to surgeons as well as to many others, that men in this life may lose parts of their bodies, as an arm or a leg, and yet seem to themselves still to retain those parts and to feel the same sensations in them that they did before losing them ; and if this is so as to parts of the body, why may not the same law hold good as to the whole body, and a man lose it and be out of it, and yet seem to himself subjectively to exist in it? Thus Alford, in his comment on his Greek text of the New Testament, in explaining this point in the rich man's case, say^ : ' If when parts of the body are removed, we still believe that we possess those parts and feel pain in them, why WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 471 may not the disembodied spirit still subjectively exist in, and feel the sensations of, that corporeal system from which it is temporarily separated ?" / THE RESURRECTION. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and it is one of the few doctrines which rest entirely upon the Word of God. Nature gives hints of its possi- bility — like that of the butterfly escaping from the grave of the chrysalis, or the opening of Spring and the revival of life after a long Winter of cold and death — but no complete illustration. Science stumbles at this doctrine, reason is dumb before it, and infidelity derisive of its claims. Yet it has its warrant in the truth of God, and is very comforting to every believer. Its difficulties are not so great that any person who believes in God need hesitate to accept it. The scientist may talk of the uniformity of nature, no life out of death, but God established that uniformity, and nothing is impossible with him. In his own good time he can as easily summon the dead from their graves as he could originally create life. Of the certainty of the resurrection God has witnessed. He did so to Moses at the burning bush, and he did so repeatedly through Jesus Christ. The raising of the ruler's daughter, of the widow's son at Nain, and of Lazarus at Bethany, were all practical proofs. Our Lord declared that all "in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." He affirmed that he would raise his own body within three days after life had left it. This affirmation he verified, and left the infallible proofs of it for the comfort of the Church in all ages. "But hark! what clearer tidings now our songs of triumph swell! Christ Jesus hath abolished death and holds the keys of hell ! He lives, and whoso trusts in him shall never, never die ; He lives— this mortal shall be clothed with immortality !" Of Christ's actual death there can be no doubt. He publicly gave up the ghost. The soldiers broke not his legs, because they found him already dead. To fully satisfy themselves, however, they plunged a spear into his side, and let out his blood. This alone would have extmguished life, had a spark of it remained. Pilate refused to de- liver the body, even to a prominent Jewish counselor, until the officer on duty had assured him of its lifelessness. As surely as Jesus lived, so surely did he die. His death is established as certainly as history can establish any thing. 472 FAITH MADE EASY. He was also buried. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus pre- pared his body and put it in a tomb. It was not a secret burial. The Pharisees knew where the body was laid, in Joseph's own family sepulcher, and they had the tomb sealed and the watch set. The enemies of the cross thus unwittingly took the precaution of settling for all time the question of Christ's actual death and burial. His resurrection is no less certain. His body was missed from the sepulcher, and the fact created just such a sensation as might be ex- pected. The disciples did not steal it. First : They could not. The soldiers had it in charge. They were under penalty of death if they slept. To break the seal of the sepulcher was also a capital crime. Secondly: The disciples had no motive for attempting to reach the body. What use could they have made of it? Where would they have concealed it ? The entombment of Christ occurred on a moon- light night, when a festival called out the people, and the streets were filled. The timid disciples did not go near the burial-place of their Master. They had lost hope. Before his death they trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel, but now that hope was blasted, and they could only submit to the inevitable. To steal a lifeless body, even if they could, would not have helped their cause. The Jews knew the disciples did not steal it. The soldiers knew they did not steal it. Only for money were the soldiers in- duced to tell the foolish lie which the Jews repeated for generations afterward. Jesus arose. His resurrection occurred by his own power. No man broke the seal, or knocked at the door of his tomb. "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again." This power he exercised. When the proper moment came, he rein- habited his body, and laid aside the grave-clothes, angels rolled back the stone from the door, and he stepped out upon the dewy ground. The soldiers were aifrighted. How could it be otherwise? They became as dead men. They were terror-stricken. Only when they found themselves personally unharmed did they act a soldier's part, and give the alarm. Jesus was then beyond their reach. Jesus showed himself alive. The number of his appearances dur- ing the forty days between his resurrection and ascension, exclude the possibility of its being a dream or a delusion. He was first seen in the garden by Mary Magdalene ; then he appeared to the other women as they came again to the grave. Next he appeared to Peter that same day; also to the ten disciples, who were met in a room that same night. Eight days afterward, to the eleven disciples, when Thomas saw the wounds. Then he appeared to the disciples as they WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 473 were fishing in the Sea of Tiberias. Again, to the eleven on a mount- ain in Galilee. Then James saw him ; and, last of all, he went with them to the top of the Mount of Olives, from which, before the eyes of hundreds, he ascended into heaven. These multiplied appearances placed his resurrection beyond doubt. The disciples could not be deceived. They knew their Master as well as children know their father. They had every opportunity to verify his identity, and were so well assured of his actual resurrection that they were ready to suffer and die in defense of the truth of it, but never once, even for ease, or wealth, or fame, to deny it. And they could not deceive others, even if deceived themselves. The account of Christ's resurrection was published and circulated while many of the witnesses to it were yet alive. No one denied it. The evidence was such that neitUer Jew nor pagan dared to call it in question. Hence Paul, in addressing the Corinthians, was bold to declare : " I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received; how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scrip- tures, and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve ; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles, and, last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." Having thus established the fact of Christ's resurrection, Paul bases his argument for our resurrection upon this fact: "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ again from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies" (not your soul, for that is not mortal, but your mortal bodies). " For our conversation is in heaven, from whence, also, we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." Therefore Paul says: "If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead;" "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection." "We also believe, and therefore we speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus." "Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." "Why is their faith vain? Because "we are found false wit- nesses of God. Because we have testified of God that he raised up 474 FAITH MADE EASY. Christ, whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins." "Moreover, those who have (fted in Christ are perished." Why should we preach the resurrection if it be not true? "We are of all men most miserable." Modern skeptics concede that the disciples were sincere In their belief that they actually saw their Master alive after he was crucified. Eenan admits that "without this belief they would never have in- curred the labors, hardships, persecutions, and perils incident to the founding of the Christian Church." Strauss writes to the same purpose: "Faith in the resurrection of Jesus is a fact of prime historical importance ; for without it one can not see how a Christian community could have been formed; there can be no doubt that the apostle Paul had heard from Peter, James, and others beside, that Jesus had appeared to them, and that all these persons and the five hundred brethren were fully convinced that they had seen Jesus living, who had been dead." Baur says: " History must hold fast to this fact, that for the faith of the disciples, the resurrection of Jesus was a certain and immovable truth, and that it is only in this faith that Christianity found a solid basis for its whole historical development." "From the hour that Christ ^-ose," says Kev. C. R. Henderson, D. D., "down to the present, there has been a series of monuments to these facts. The line of evidence is unbroken. These monuments are three, and all of them are connected with the very existence of the Church, baptism, the Lord's supper, and the Christian Lord's- day. History, sacred and secular, records proofs that these monu- ments date from the dawn of Christianity. These are monuments which time's tooth can not corrode, nor rains wash down, nor frosts upheave, nor man's hand deface, nor lightning crack and overthrow." HISTORY SUBSTANTIATES THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. From the great argument of Prebendary Row on the Historical Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we deduce the following salient points: The lAfe and Death of Jems Conceded. — As it is allowed to be an historical fact by all the distinguished unbelievers of Europe that an eminent Jew, named Jesus, collected a number of followers, who be- lieved in him as the Messiah of Jewish expectations, I shall not waste WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 475 time in proving that which no one possessed of competent information will dispute. No Other Jems Appeared. — Now it is evident that his public execu- tion must have utterly extinguished their hopes*that he could ever fulfill the expectatioiis which they had formed of him. Such being the case, the community which he had attempted to found must have gone to pieces, unless a new leader could be discovered who was capable of occupying his place. But as its existence at the present moment proves that it did not perish, it is certain that it must have made a fresh start of some kind — something must have happened which was not only capable of holding it together, but which im- parted to it a new vitality. It is no less certain that this was not due to a new leader who stepped into the place of the original Founder, but to a new use which was made of the old one. Our histories tell us that this new impulse was imparted to the society by the belief that he had risen again from the dead. Whether this belief was founded -on a fact, or was the result of a delusion, it is evident that it could not have occupied many years in growing; for while this was taking place, the original community founded by Jesus must have perished from want of a bond of cohesion adequate to maintain it in existence. The Resurrection Early Believed. — This being clear, I now ask at- tention to the fact that we have the most unimpeachable historical evidence that this renewed life of the Church rested on the belief that its Founder, after he had been crucified, rose again from the dead. The proof of this must be derived from the four letters of the apostle Paul, which all the eminent unbelievers of modern Europe admit to have been his genuine productions. As these letters form historical evidence of the highest order, I must draw attention to their importance. Contemporary Letters. — We are in possession of letters written by one who was both a contemporary and also the most active agent in founding the Christian Church. Now, contemporary letters of this kind are admitted by all modern historians to be the most valuable of all historical documents. Of such we hav6 an example in the let- ters of the great Roman orator and statesman, Cicero, which were col- lected and published after his death, about a century before St. Paul wrote his. They still exist, and it is not too much to say that they form the most important documents which we possess for giving us an insight into the history of Rome between B. C. 100 and B. C. 50. They contain a continuous reference to current events in which the 476 FAITH MADE EASY. great statesman bore a part, and they enable us to estimate the secret springs of the events of the time, and the agencies which brought them about, in a manner which we should utterly fail to do if we had nothing to trust to but the ordinary histories of the period. It is true that we could not compose a perfect history from them alone. Their allusions to current events are for the most part inci- dental ; but the general facts of the history being known from other sources, they not only furnish the strongest attestation to them, but they enable us to form a correct estimate of their true character in a manner which it would have been impossible for us to do if we had nothing but the histories to guide our judgment. In truth, Cicero's letters form the most important historical documents which have been handed down to us from the ancient world. Four Letters of Paul. — It is impossible to overestimate the impor- tance of the concession made to us by the learned critical unbelievers of modern Europe, that beyond all question we are in possession of four documents, carrying us up to the earliest days of Christianity. The latest date which can be assigned to them is twenty-eight years after the crucifixion. These letters put us into direct communication with the thoughts of the most active missionary of the infant Church, and of those to whom the letters are addressed. Their character is such that they present us with a living picture of the entire man who wrote them — what he did, what he thought, and what he believed — with a freshness and a vigor scarcely to be found in any other letters in existence. By their means we can hold direct communication with their author, and almost put him into the witness-box. They depict him as he lived, thought, and moved ; and they render it indisputable that he was a man of the most unimpeachable veracity. It is of no little consequence, then, that these letters, admitted to be genuine, form the most important of those which have been attributed to the apostle. Written from Fresh Memories. — Having pointed out the value of contemporaneous letters, I now ask the attention of the reader to the fact that at least four letters of St. . Paul, viz. : Galatians, Romans, Corinthians I and II, were written within that interval of time after the date of the crucifixion which the more rigid canons .of criticism lay down as within the period of the most perfect historical recollec- tion. There is no possibility of dating them eighty or ninety years after the events, as unbelievers for their own convenience endeavor to date the first three Gospels, in order that they may get time during which it might have been possible for a number of fictions to have grown up in the Christian Church, and superseded the genuine events WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 477 of its Founder's life. Not only were they written within twenty-eight years of the crucifixion by one whose activity as a missionary of Chris- tianity had extended over the preceding twenty years, but he was then of such an age that his historical recollections were good for at least fifteen years earlier. Although he had not seen Jesus Christ before his crucifixion, he must have conversed with multitudes who had done so and had heard him teach. In these letters, therefore, we are in possession of a contemporaneous record of the highest order. Let us test, by our own practical experience, the value of historical recollections that are only twenty-eight years old. This period of time is nine years less than the interval which separates us at the present year, 1888, from the coup d'itat which made Napoleon the Third em- peror of the French. Our recollections of that event are so lively that it is simply impossible that we could become the prey of a num- ber of legendary stories respecting it. Such stories can only grow up after considerable intervals of time, when the recollection of events has lost its freshness, and the generation which has witnessed them has died out. Let the reader observe, then, that St. Paul, when he wrote these Epistles, was separated from the crucifixion by an interval of time not so great as that which separates us from the event in question. Add three years more, and it will include the whole of our Lord's ministry. The Date of Paul's Conversion. — The latest possible date which can be assigned for the conversion of the apostle is A. D. 40, or ten years after the crucifixion. But this is far too late ; and several concurrent probabilities fix it at five or six years earlier. St. Paul therefore had the amplest means of information as to what were the beliefs of the Christians at, this early period, and must not only have had the most positive certainty respecting what it was on which the renewed vital- ity of the Church rested, but he could not have failed to know that his primitive followers also ascribed a number of superhuman actions to our Lord. Nor was this all. For some time previous to his conversion he had acted the part of the fierce persecutor of the Church. This fact we learn from his own pen. In acting this part, common sense would have suggested to him the necessity of minutely scrutinizing the tenets of the new society, and, above all, of investi- gating with the utmost care the foundation on which it rested ; namely, the alleged resurrection of its Founder. He must therefore have been fully cognizant of the beliefs of the Church in connection with this event, and as a vehement opponent he must have done his utmost to expose any delusion respecting it. 478 FAITH MADE EASY. What tlie Epistles Prove. — 1. They make it certain that not only did St. Paul, believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as an histor- ical fact, but that he considered it as the foundation on which the life of the revived Christian community was based. In the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians he expressly asserts that if the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a fact, Christianity is a delusion. 2. His mode of reference to this event proves that he not only himself believed in it as a fact, but that he did not entertain the smallest doubt that those to whom he wrote believed in it as firmly as himself. HOW ARE THE DEAD EAISED UP? But some man will say, " How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come ?" The apostle answers .the first part of this question by representing that the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet's sound, and the dead shall rise and be changed from corrup- tion to incorruption, from dishonor to glory. Herein we see the power through which the resurrection shall be efiected. It is not the power of nature, or of science, or of reason, or of unbelief, but the power of Omnipotence. " Declared to be the Son of God, with power, by the resurrection from the dead." This miracle of miracles is the Di- vine power proof of the Sonship of Jesus. The apostle also answers the second portion of the inquiry. "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." Man has but one body sub- ject to death, and if that be not raised, there is no resurrection, for resurrection implies previous death. In Isaiah xxvi, 19, we read: "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust : for thy dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead." " If this passage does not teach a literal resur- rection," says Dr. Luther Lee, " no form of words could so teach. It is dead men that are to rise, not live spirits which never die. It is ' my dead body ' that shall rise, not my spirit, or some other body newly created, but ' my body.' It is the earth that shall cast out her dead, not hades or paradise. This identifies the body raised as the same that was buried." Paul, in Phil, iii, 21, says: " For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ : who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 479 glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." This is conclusive.> It is not the soul that is resurrected, but the body ; not some new production or newly created body, but our body, that shall be changed and made glorious ; which proves, beyond all doubt, that our bodies which are laid in the grave will enter into the composition of the resurrected, changed, and glorious body ; otherwise, it would in no sense mean our body. As the glorified body of Christ in his ascension was developed out of the identical body which was laid in the tomb, and rose from it, so, as our ascension will take place in the moment of our resurrection, our glorified bodies shall be developed out of the bodies which were laid in' the graves, cast into the sea, or otherwise disposed of, after death. " The greedy sea shall yield her dead, The earth no more her slain conceal." Hence, " the ancient creeds speak of the resurrection of the body — some of them use the word flesh — sarx, earo — for soma, corpus.'' Of the apostolic fathers who lived in the first and second centuries, Clement of Eome says: " Let us understand, dearly beloved, how the Master continually shows unto us the resurrection that shall be here- after ; whereof he made the Lord Jesus Christ the first fruit when he raised him from the dead. Let us behold, dearly beloved, the resur- rection which happeneth at its proper season." In illustration of this doctrine and fact, Clement refers to the succession of day and night, the sowing and springing up of grain, the death and succeeding life of the phoenix, and then adds: " Do we think it to be a great and marvelous thing if the Creator of the universe shall bring about the resurrection of them that have served him with holiness in the assur- ance of a good faith, seeing that he showeth to us, even by a bird, the magnificence of his promise ?" In his first apology Justin Martyr says : ' ' We put up prayers that we may have a resurrection to incorruptibility through our faith in him [the Creator of the universe]. Our Jesus Christ, being crucified and dying, rose again, and reigned, ascending into heaven ; and from the tidings which were proclaimed by him through the apostles in all nations is the joy of those who look for the incorruptibility which is promised." Origen writes : " Differences of opinion obtain, but the true opinion is that which has been transmitted in orderly succession from the apos- tles. This teaching is clear that there is to be a resurrection, when this body, ' now sown in corruption,' shall rise in incorrupton. . . . What 480 FAITH MADE EASY. rises at the resurrection is a spiritual body. The differences among these bodies are illustrated, in the case of saints, by the differences be- tween the glory of the heavenly bodies. We are not to think that bodies of flesh and blood, with the passions of the senses, but rather that incorruptible bodies, -will be given." Tertullian, in his treatise "On the Resurrection of the Body," says: " Nothing perishes but with a view to salvation. Therefore this whole revoluble order of things is an attestation of the resurrection of the dead." The Greek fathers, who flourished from the fourth to the sixth century, state in their formulated creeds their belief in the bodily resurrection of Christ and that of the dead. Cyril of Jerusalem, "Catechetical Lectures," No. 18 says: "The doctrine of the resurrection is the spring of hope to the Church. To all objections thereto we allege God's power, and also cite the analogies of the springing of grain, the phoenix, etc., as well as the examples of rising from the dead found in the Scriptures." Gregory of Nyssa : " Man is of a double nature, is soul and body ; and while the soul may attain to salvation by faith, the body must come to it in another way. The body can become immortal only as, by communion with the immortal, it becomes partaker of incorruption. My opinion is this : The soul is an active, living, spiritual essence, which confers upon the organized body power to live and to observe those things known by the senses so long as its nature is capable thereof" The Latin fathers of the same Post-Nicene centuries are equally explicit. Eufinus, in "Exposition of the Creed," says: "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Augustine, in "City of God," Book XIII, writes: "The whole man dies when the soul, forsaken by God, forsakes the body. This death is to be followed by the second death, when the soul and body are rejoined indissolubly and the body experiences the torments of ret- ribution. . . . Shall we limit God's power as to bodies? Our renewed bodies, however, will be far better than our present bodies, better even than those of our first parents in Paradise, all reluctance, all corruption, and all slowness being removed. Spiritual bodies will yet be bodies, not spirits ; having the substance, but not the unwieldi- ness and corruption of the flesh ; being animated, not by the living soul but by the quickening spirit. This body is now worn by Christ in anticipation of what we shall wear." The Catholic Church in every age has held this doctrine. The WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 481 burial services of other Churches recognize it from beginning to end ; so do their catechisms, institutes, sermons, and hymns. Rev. John Wesley, in a sermon on the Resurrection of the Dead, found in the second volume of his sermons, page 507, says : " The plain notion of a resurrection requires that the self-same body that died should rise again. Nothing can be said to be raised again but that very body that died. If God give to our souls at the last day a new body, this can not be called the resurrection of our body ; because that word plainly implies the fresh production of what was before." Christ's resurrection is the example and proof of ours. Did his identical body rise again ? So will ours. Was his body changed from weakness to power, from the physical to the pneumatic state, highly refined and sublimated — a glorious body ? So will ours be. Jesus is " the first fruits of them that slept." Just as the first sheaf in the Jewish harvest was presented to God as a first fruit of the general harvest, so Christ is " the first fruit of a general resurrection." " Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." The character of the resurrection body is the point at which differ- ences of opinion have arisen. But here again, what about the jden- tity of the body of Christ ? " That it is I mysglf," said he, " handle me and see." Here are the prints of the nails, the wound of the spear. It is precisely the body which was laid in the manger at birth, and was afterwards nailed to the cross. Such will be the identity of every resurrection body. There is an identity of the body in life; the same body from the cradle to the grave ; the body of birth, the body of death, the birth-mark, the death-mark ; the. body one and the s^me amid whatever changes nature knows, — so shall the body of the resurrection be. No intervening change shall destroy its essential identity. But "flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God." So? Have ye not read Paul upon this subject, how that " all flesh is not the same flesh?" "There are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial." "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" but it is a body still, the same body that was sown. " There is a natural body" (its flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom), "and there is a spiritual body" (it shall enter in). "Matter," says Dr. B. M. Mes- aick, " in the hand of God becomes flesh of man, of bird, of beast ; each adapted to its sphere — man to earth, bird to air, fish to sea — the adaptation in each complete, and no incompatibility in either. So matter in the hand of God becomes the earth-body — the body in its 31 482 FAITH MADE EASY. adaptation to its present earthly environment; becomes the heaven- body — the body in its adaptation to its future heavenly environment; the adaptation in each complete, and no incompatibility in either." If this is not the apostle's doctrine, then man may not know it. But it is said that the body is constantly undergoing change by the reception of new matter and the rejection of old, worn-out matter, once in every few years, and the body becomes new. Which of the several bodies possessed in a life-time shall be gathered from the four winds and raised up ? The idea of such constant change in our bodies is prevalent; but who has proved it to be correct? What evidence is there that the body changes its substance once in seven years, or once in seventy years? Bring it forward. Physiological speculation will not be accepted now. We want demonstration. But suppose it is so. What of it? The body, despite its changes, maintains its essential identity from decade to decade. " The Lord only knows," says Rev. Wm. W. Lance, " where the atoms are that were in our bddies twenty years ago. Some of them may be thousands of miles away, doing duty in the body of some cow or horse or wild beast, or helping to paint the blush on the rose, or enrobe nature in emerald glory. We do n't know, neither do we care ; our bodies are thg same bodies we had when those atoms were in them. And none but God knows where the atoms came from that are in our bodies now. They doubt- less have come from all quarters of the globe, since we have replaced lost atoms from the atoms contained in the products of all climes. And still I know I have the same organized body I started with when a boy, for there is that scar ; as I look at it I feel the pain yet, I see the blood falling and sinking into the earth yet. I do not know, neither do I care, what became of the atoms my blood carried to the ground then. May be some human body has appropriated them from some vegetable into which they had gotten, and has long since carried them to the grave. I do n't care; lam done with them. Their places were soon filled, and they have been kept filled ; and I have the same body I had then. The resurrection of this body is no more an in- comprehensible mystery than the keeping of this body after we leave the Jen-year mile-stone. And he who first formed it out of dust (atoms of matter) will have no trouble to set it up again ; and from purely scientific data it is not only possible, but highly probable, that it will be the same identical body, minus its heritage of death." Equally forcible is the language of Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe. "Let us remember," he exhorts, "that what holy Scripture promises us is the identity of continuity, not the identity of material ; or, to WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 483 use words not quite so hard — we shall be the same that we are now, but not the same as to our flesh and blood. This is easy to compre- hend, because every boy and girl knows that a few years ago there was a little baby called by the same name that he or she now bears almost grown up to full size. 'Are you that little child I once took into my arms?' says some kind friend; and the answer is: 'Even so, but now I am in my teens.' The doctors tell us that the full-grown man has not a particle of the same flesh he had as a babe or little boy; yet he 'is the very same person, by continuous or progressive change, because what he now is, is what has grown out of what he then was ; and what he now is could have grown out of nothing else. Therefore Job says — of seeing God in the resurrection — ' Whom mine eyes shall behold, and not another.' This is the doctrine of the res- urrection of the dead : ' Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.'" The literalistic theory of the resurrection implies no clearer identi- •fication than we recognize in these changing bodies every day. Any other view is extreme and unwarranted, and has as few supporters as the other theory which would spiritualize our bodies all away, thus making the resurrection not a resurrection, but a new creation. To every soul its own body. That body shall be raised which the soul will recognize as its own, the same house in which it lived so long, the dwelling of its earthly infancy, youth, and mature age. The highest beauty and noblest characteristics of that body shall re- appear, and it shall take on new glory with its resurrection life and immortal health. Paul says: "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be." The difference will be the difference between coarseness and fineness, weakness and power, sickness and health, a tendency to corruption and the vigor of immortality, earthly environments and heavenly adaptations. Yet the connection between the old body and the new will be actual. Amid all the changes of the changing period something must abide. Whatever is essential to the corporeal identity of the bodies we claim as our own, and in which we die, will be raised again to life, and will go to constitute our res- urrection bodies. If it is necessary to collect the scattered molecules, Omniscience and Omnipotence can do it ; God can refine and exalt them, and so compound them that every form and feature shall be heavenly and divine. Yet it is not necessary to take this extreme view. The difficulties it involves — such as, the body decomposed be- comes a part of other bodies, and two or more bodies dying at different periods possessed of the same particles — are not insurmountable, bui 484 FAITH MADE EASY. it is not necessary to suppose such .an emergency. Jesus satisfied the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, and by another miracle he will find bodies enough for the resurrection, and in the infinite goodness of his heart will give to every man his own body. THE GENERAL JUDGMENT. THE LAST DAY. Hark! from the deep of heaven, a trumpet sound Thunders the dizzy universe around ; From north to south, from east to west it rolls, A blast that summons all created souls ; The dead awaken from their dismal sleep : The sea has heard it ; coiling up with dread Myriads of mortals flash from out her bed ! The graves fly open, and, with awful strife, The dust of ages startles into life ! All who have breathed, or moved, or seen, or felt ; • All they around whose cradles kingdoms knelt ; Tyrants and warriors, who were throned in blood; The great and mean, the glorious and the good, — Are raised from every isle, and land, and tomb. To hear the changeless and eternal doom. But while the universe is wrapt in fire, Ere yet the splendid ruin shall expire, Beneath a canopy of flame behold, With starry banners at his feet unrolled. Earth's Judge : around seraphic minstrels throng. Breathing o'er golden harps celestial song ; While melodies aerial and sublime Weave a wild death-dirge o'er departing Time. Imagination I furl thy wings of fire. And on Eternity's dread brink expire ; Vain would thy red and raging eye behold Visions of Immortality unrolled ! The last, the fiery chaos hath begun ; Quenched is the moon, and blackened is the sun ; The stars have bounded through the airy roar ; Crushed lie the rocks, and mountains are no more ; The deep unbosomed, with tremendous gloom Yawns on the ruin, like creation's toimb ! And, lo ! the living harvest of the Earth, Reaped from the grave, to share a second birth ; Millions of eyes, with one deep, dreadful stare. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEKNING FUTURITY. 485 Gaze upward through the burning realms of air; While shapes, and shrouds, aud ghastly features gleam, Like lurid snow-flakes in the moonlight beam. Upon the flaming Earth one farewell glance ! The billows of Eternity advance ; No motion, blast, or breeze, or waking sound! In fiery slumber glares the world around. 'Tis o'er; from yonder cloven vault of heaven, Throned on a car by living thunder driven, Arrayed in glory, see th' Eternal come. And, while the Universe is still and dumb, And hell o'ershadow'd with terrific gloom. To immortal myriads deal the judgment-doom! Winged on the wind, and warbling hymns of love. Behold ! the blessed soar to realms above : The cursed, with hell uncovered to their eye, Shriek — shriek, and vanish in a whirlwind cry ! Creation shudders with sublime dismay. And in a blazing tempest whirls away ! (James Montgomery.) THE JUDGMENT CERTAIN. For our knowledge of the judgment we are entirely dependent upon the Word of God. No such day has ever yet been, and nothing can serve as a criterion by which to form any estimate of its character. Nor is it needed. The Scriptures are replete with information re- specting every practical issue of that awful day. Its certainty is fore- told in language that can not be misunderstood, and all the inspired descriptions of the scene are such as to impress mankind with a feeling of the necessity of complete readiness for these tremendous issues. Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or bad. A sudden blaze of light will then expose all, and make it clear to the astonishment of an assembled universe that " all thingS are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." There are many whose conduct, so far as it meet| the eye of the world, is irreproachable. But what about the thoughts — what about the coun- sels — of the heart? Is there one, however high his morals, or honor- able his dealings, who would like to have the counsels of his heart laid open to the world? Surely this consideration ought to overthrow every confidence but that which is based on the merits and mediation of Christ. The day cometh when we must render our account. Even Enoch 486 FAITH MADE EASY. of old, the seventh from Adam, "prophesied of these, saying, Behold, ■the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." (Jude 14, 15.) THE TIME UNKNOWN. The day and the hour, saith our Lord previous to his passion, knoweth no man, not even the Son, but the Father only. " It was a part of Christ's humiliation," says Rev. W. O. Prentiss, "that this thing was to be hidden from him until after his ascension. In the Apocalypse, however, the Savior showed it to his servant John ; but, even now, the proximity of the event is only to be guessed at by the events which precede and synchronize it, and which will prevent the elect from being deceived, though they will only be able to decide when the time draweth nigh. "The offers of salvation must first be made to every nation and tongue and people. Iniquity must abound in the world, the distin- guishing doctrines of the gospel be no longer tolerated in the Church ; for then she will no longer endure sound doctrine, but will heap up unto herself teachers having itching ears, and will turn away her ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables. Wars, pestilences, and famines and earthquakes, must prevaU in divers places, and Satan successfully tempt men to the overthrow of many governments and to thorough contempt for all authority, human and divine." DESIGN OF THE JUDGMENT. There is good reason for a judgment-day. The Divine adminis- tration in the present government and final destiny of men, perhaps of all created intelligences, requires vindication. Wicked men are constantly assailing the equity of God's ways, and even the good often stumble at the mystery of his dealings. In the general judgment the divinely ordered course of events shall be shown to be proper, merciful, aud just. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Yes, and in the end mankind shall be made to see it, and acknowledge its truth. The final decision shall be confessed to be "the righteous judgment of God." The universe shall see that it " is a righteous thing in God to recompense tribulation" to his enemies. What was dark shall be illuminated ; what was mysterious made plain; what seemed unjust shall be shown to be the highest equity. The murmur- ings of the ungodly shall be hushed. " Every mouth shall be stopped," WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 487 and the whole world shown " guilty before God," and all intelligences, either in willing homage or reluctant confession, shall acknowledge the justice of the universal doom. "The mystery of God shall be finished," and a voice from the great white throne shall proclaim, "It is done!" Then, again, the honor of Christ before the universe, in connection with the work of redemption, is alone an adequate cause for the judg- ment event. He will come "to be glorified in his saints." While on earth he said: "And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth nof my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." (John xii, 47, 48.) "Christ will accompany his final victory over death with a vindi- cation of his mediatorial work for the salvation of his people. The mingled justice and mercy and wisdom of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus our Lord will be fully exhibited. Then wiU be declared all "the treasures, of wisdom and knowledge" that were hidden in him. The final purpose of the creation and government of the uni- verse shall be disclosed and vindicated, and it shall be seen that, through the riches of his grace, he has a seed to serve him and a people who are made ' meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints.' Their character, so often assailed, will be manifested; their names, so often ' cast out as evil,' will be adorned with glory ; the song which has so long been sung by a few 'by the rivers of Babylon,' shall burst from the lips of ' a great multitude whom no man can number,' as they are welcomed to the joy of their Lord." CHRIST HIMSELF TO BE THE JUDGE. Not God the Father, not God the Holy Ghost, but God the Son, shall occupy the throne of judgment. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. " He hath appointed a day in the which he wiU judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance in that he hath raised him from the dead." " Yes, the Lord Christ shall stand yet again upon our earth. But not as of old in Gethsemane or on Mount Calvary. He comes not now, in humilation and weak- ness, to call sinners to repentance. Their probation is ended. They can reject no more invitations of mercy, can digest no more convictions of sin, can refuse no more reproofs, can disregard no more wairnings. The day of vengeance is in his heart, and he is willing to show his 488 FAITH MADE EASY. ■wrath. He will be clothed in a vesture dipped in blood. All the armies of heaven will follow him, and sinners will call upon the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb." Christ is the most proper person to judge. 1. He is in favor of the prisoners. 2. He is righteous, not to be bribed. 3. He is omniscient, not to be deceived. 4. He is almighty ; none can escape the sentence dire. PRINCIPLES WHICH SHALL DETERMINE THE AWARDS. "When the beloved disciple saw in apocalyptic vision the judg- ment scene, he beheld ' all men, small and great,' judged according to their works. These indicate the condition of the soul, and hence it is written : ' By thy works thou shalt be justified, and by thy works thou shalt be condeipned.' "It is Christ's good pleasure that all men shall appreciate the justice of his sentence. There is a law, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' and the works of men will testify how far this law has guided their lives. Albeit not all men have heard this law proclaimed from the pulpit or in the revealed Word, it hath by Divine establishment .a place in their hearts, and conscience, under its instruction, accuses them when they disregard it, and justifies them when they obey it. Studied out by the light which illuminates every man who cometh into the world, it can convince of sin ; and though, unassisted by revelation, the doctrine of a Divine atonement and of vicarious righteousness can not be discovered, the knowledge of sin, attainable by every man, can assure him of the doom which awaits unpardoned transgression in the world of woe, and, convincing him that this moral sense is the gift of God, who would lead him to repentance, and save him if he trusted in that provision made by in-; finite wisdom for sinners, and which loses none of its efficacy because unknown to the transgressor, must forever leave him without excuse. " Only faith in Christ can justify a sinner, but his works must justify him before men. And this faith is not an inoperative principle, an intellectual recognition of the fact that Divine justice requires an atonement, but it is such a heart-appreciation of this divine verity as makes a complete change in the whole state and character of the man, as well as in his condition before God, which will not only clothe him with the righteousness of Christ, but which will infuse into him the holy principles of the Lord of glory. Thus works must manifest the interior faith, or unbelief. ' For the invisible things of him, from the foundation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 489 things which he hath made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.' They can see the confusion which prevails around them, and know that the disturbance caused by sin can be only temporary, and must have some remedy. For that remedy they can trust, and by it they can be saved. "For impenitent sinners under the gospel there can be no excuse. ' If any man will do the Father's will (saith Christ) , he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.' Every effort at obedience is met by the approval and assistance of the Divine Spirit ; using what light they have, they attain unto a higher illumination : ' for to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly.'" (Rev. W. O. Prentiss.) The teachings of the apostle Paul are very explicit as to the prin- ciple which shall determine final destiny. Read this : " For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble ; every man's work shall be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he him- self shall be saved; yet so as by fire." (1 Cor. iii, 11-15.) But the language of Jesus is unmistakable as to the ground of final reward. We are saved by being built by faith upon the foun- dation which has been laid ; we shall be judged by our works on the basis of this faith. No faith is saving faith which does not result in works to prove its genuineness. Hear our Lord : ' ' When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations : and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats : and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, 490 FAITH MADE EASY. and came unto thee ? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:- for I was au hungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hun- gered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ? Then shall he answer them, saying. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into ever- lasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. XXV, 31-46.) CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE JUDGMENT. 1. Eemarkable circumstances shall precede the judgment. There will be many changes. Some of these have already occurred ; others will occur before that great and notable day of the Lord. Wars and rumors of wars; peace and intervals of peace. Jesus shall reign among many nations; even now he has a wide inheritance. Some people will be watchful ; others- utterly careless. Men will be eating and drinking and marrying the same as ever ; these are the essential accompaniments of life. But what surprises will occur, when in the midst of these things, shall be heard the blast of the resurrection and the trump of God ! Mark the language of the Revelation: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshiped God, saying. We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great ; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament : and there were light- nings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." (Rev. xi, 15-19.) WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 491 2. Wonderful circumstances shall accompany the judgment. The sun shall be darkened. If this is a figurative expression it may mean that all glory of men shall pass away, lost, eclipsed by the higher and greater glory of God. If it be natural darkness, then the scene will be terrific. Nothing so terrifies the human heart as the darkening of the orb of day. Perhaps the spots of the sun will be enlarged until its brightness is utterly obscured. The inspired writer says it shall become " black as sackcloth of hair.'' The moon shall show corresponding eifects ; it shall be red, as it were bloody, the decreasing light of the sun will obscure reflection, and appalling darkness shall settle down. The stars shall fail. This may mean the elements surrounding the earth, such as meteors or falling stars. We see such things occasion- ally now, but in that day the elements shall be let loose, and natural phenomena shall be grouped into one tremendous but prolonged ex- plosion. St. John, in his vision, saw the stars of heaven fall unto the earth, "even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." The heavens shall pass away, depart " as a scroll when it is roUed together ;" and every mountain and island shall show the effects of the terrific upheaval. By the "heavens" here we understand the atmosphere surrounding the earth. This is composed of gases, which, in the general tumult, will explode and set the earth on fire. It is weU-known that there are elements of fire everywhere about us. 3. Glorious scenes shall be witnessed in the judgment assembly. (I.3 The Judge. How grand his character, how glorious his vest- ments! "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them." When Divinity shall reveal itself in the Eternal Judge, nothing natural shall stand before it. (2.) The Assembly. The dead shall be there, small and great, the dead from the depths of the sea and the caverns and graves of the earth ; the dead from hell and from the grasp of death itself. The angels shall be there — the fallen angels who have tempted us, and the guardian angels who have ministered unto us. We shall be there, to see and be seen amid the general consternation. We shall have our memories and consciences in perfect exercise, and we shall then know that from our record there is no escape. We shall then behold our own characters just as they stand, and shall not deceive ourselves or deceive others. It will then appear plain to us that "a good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things : and 492 FAITH MADE EASY. an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." The long account of our words and actions will then be reviewed. "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." The books will be opened. The books of memory and the books of the law. God has a book of his own which he has kept under the various dispensations of his dealings with men, such as the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian. We may also suppose that he has a book es- pecially for those in whose hearts the laws alone were written, and who shall be judged according to the light they received. Then, there is " the book of life," which shall also be opened, and intense will be , our anxiety to see whether our names are writtgn there. Better to feel a measure of this anxiety now, and make sure that the recording angel enters our names ere it be too late, for whosoever is not found written in the book of life shall be cast into the lake of fire. (3.) .The Ptiblie Awards. Punishment and reward shall terminate the eventful scene. The flaming messengers of God will separate the righteous from the wicked, and the two grand divisions will stand on either hand of the judge. To the one on his right hand he will say: " Come, ye blessed chil- dren of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." To the other, on his left, he will say: " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." What this awful sentence means we know not now, but it includes " a catastrophe which words were never invented to express, or finite minds formed to grasp." HELL. DEEIVATION OF THE WORD. The word " hell" is a translation of the Hebrew word sheol, which signifies a cavern, or cave, and hades, which means, strictly, what is out of sight. Both words were used to designate the place of departed spirits. Homer, who knew no other place for dead men, whether good or bad, pronounced the place of the dead " a dark and comfortless abode," " with gates forever barred," and charges that the god who ruled there is " deaf to prayer, and never repents ;" hence neither mercy noi; escape can be hoped for. But the Hebrews would admit of no such notions. They demanded hope for such as lived in virtue and believed in God. They allowed WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 493 that the guilty would find their place in sheol, the underworld or cavern. They said : "Sheol is open before him" — God — '.'and de- struction hath no covering;" "Sheol and destruction are ever full." Hence they considered that whoever goes to sheol, the pit, goes to destruction. They insisted that "the wicked shall be turned into sheol." On the other hand, they said in behalf of virtue, that it should find a difierent lot. "Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." When our Lord came to earth he cleared up the teachings of the Hebrews respecting sheol, and spoke of it as "The gehenna 6f fire." This is described in fearful images, such as " outer darkness," "an undying worm," "unquenchable fire," "weeping, wailing, and gnash- ing of teeth," " the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Language knows no imagery more terrible than that which escaped the lips of the tender Christ. WHAT HELL IS. I'll tell thee what is hell— thy memory Still mountained up with records of the past. Heap over heap, all accents and all forms. Telling the tale of joy and innocence. And hope and peace and love ; recording, too, With stern fidelity, the thousand wrongs Worked upon weakness and defenselessness ; The blest occasions trifled o'er or spurned ; All that hath been, that ought not to have been. That might have been so diflferent, that now Can not but be irrevocably past! (Starkey.) Hell is the place of final punishment for the wicked. It was not made for man, but for the devil and his angels. Only those persons who have rejected Christ, persisted in sin, and refused to walk in the light given to them, are driven away under the frown of God into this place of torment. The inmates of hell are, therefore, self-destroyed. God has no pleasure in their pain. They perish because they refuse the gift of life. They are punished because they deserve it, and because God's holy law which they have violated, and the interests of his eternal kingdom, require it. REALITY OF HELL. The doctrine of hell, like many other spiritual truths, is purely Biblical. We know only so much about it as God has revealed. There is no possibility of scientific proof, because all eschatological 494 FAITH MADE EASY. truth lies outside the domain of science. Science deals with God's works. Theologj' deals with God's Word. But theology may be as true as science, and, as we believe, in respect to the fundamental, is a thousand times more accurate. There is but one safe rule of Biblical interpretation, and that is to accept the statements of the Bible as literally true, unless there is clear evidence that they are figurative. What, then, is the testimony of the Bible as to the fact of hell? Read such passages as Prov. vii, 27 ; Prov. xv, 24 ; Matt, vii, 23 ; Luke xii, 5; Mark ix, 43; Psa. ix, 17. This is direct testimony as to hell, as a fact. There is also indirect testimony: 2 Pet. iii, 9; 2 Thess. ii, 9, 10. Death: Psa. xxxiii, 18, 19; Rom. vi, 23. Die: Ezek. X, 14. Damned: 2 Thess. ii, 11, 12; Mark xvi, 16. Dam- nation : Mark v, 28, 29 ; Mark xii, 40. Destroy : 1 Gor. iii, 17 ; Matt. X, 28. Destruction: 2 Pet. iii, 16; 1 Thess. v, 1, 3. Perdition: Heb. X, 39 ; 2 Pet. iii, 7. Punish : 2 Pet. iii, 9 ; 2 Thess. i, 7, 9. Punishment: Matt, xxv, 46; Heb. ix, 26, 31. If you wipe out these words, you wipe out the plan of salvation, and the gospel is an ab- surdity. What kind of a place is hell? Isa. xxxiii, 14; Rev. xiv, 10. It is either literal or figurative. If the latter, it is worse. Rev. xix, 20; Rev. xx, 14, 15; Matt, xiii, 41, 42. DURATION OF HELL. Will future punishment ever have an end ? This is the question around which all controversy rages. Very few people refuse to accept the doctrine of hell, but t'here are some who afiect to believe that its punishment is not eternal. Let us try to get at the truth. Let us glance at the teachings of the ages upon this point, and endeavor, without prejudice, to reach correct conclusions. OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING. Only two texts will be cited from the Old Testament, and these such as are accepted by the almost unanimous authority of the best English and German scholars, whether orthodox or liberal. The first text is Isa. Ixvi, 24: "And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched." Gesenius, Delitzsch, Cheyne — rationalist, conservative, and liberal — agree that the punishment spoken of here is endless. Cheyne, in response to the question, whether God annihilates the wicked or WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 495 afflicts the guilty until they are purified thereby, after quoting Isa. xxiv, 10, as a parallel passage, says: "The everlastingness spoken of is absolute, and without qualification." The second text is Dan. xii, 2: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." On this passage the ex- positors are substantially agreed that it harmonizes with the one just cited. I merely quote the interpretation of two rationalists, whose only desire is to give the grammatical meaning of the text. Hitzig says: "They arise for judgment (John v, 29); they awake for the punishment of eternal fire '' (Cf. Isa. Ixvi, 24, with Rev. xx, 14, 15) ; and Lengerke remarks: "The wicked will arise to a misery that has no end." PRE-CHEISTIAN TESTIMONY. Jewish writers before Christ held that future punishment is eternal. The author of the Book of Judith, which was composed in the second century B. C. (xvi, 17), writes: "The Lord Almighty will punish them in the day of judgment, putting fire and worms into their flesh; and they shall wail with pain forever." And the author of the Book of Enoch, writing about one hundred vears B. C, says (chap, x, 12, 13): "Bind them fast under the hills of the earth for seventy genera- tions, until the day of their judgment and their completion, until the last judgment is held for all eternity." Again he says (xxxviii, 3): "It would have been better for the sinners if they had never been born, and that when the secrets of the righteous shall be revealed, the sinners shall be judged, and the godless shall be driven away from the face of the righteous and the elect." Our third witness is Josephus, who was born about the year forty. He testifies that the Pharisees held this doctrine of everlasting punishment. The following is his language (Antiq. xviii, 1, 3): The Pharisees "also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishment, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life ; and the latter are to be detained in an ever- lasting prison." (Cf. Bell. Jud. ii, 8, 14.) NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING. The teaching of the New Testament is so plain that we need cite only a few passages, without note or comment : " Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels;" "Whose fan is 496 FAITH MADE EASY. in his band, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquench- able fire;" "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire : where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched;" "And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;" "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." (Matt, xxv, 41; iii, 12; Mark ix, 47, 48; 2 Thess. i, 7-9 ; Eev. xx, 10.) TESTIMONY OP THE EARLY FATHERS. It is important that we ascertain what views those men held who lived immediately subsequent to the lives and teachings of Christ and the apostles. What do these say? Up to the time of Origen (born A. D. 185), so far as they have left any opinion on the subject, they all taught that the punishment of the wicked would be everlasting. 1. Barnabas writes (Epis. xx) in the first quarter of the second century: "But the way of darkness . . . is the way of eternal death with punishment, in which are the things that destroy the souls of men : idolatry, over-confidence, arrogance of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, . . . avarice, want of the fear of God. It is well, therefore, that he who has learned the judg- ments of the Lord, as many as have been written, should walk in them. For he who keepeth these shall be glorified in the kingdom of God; but he who chooseth other things shall be destroyed with his works." 2. Justin Martyr, who wrote about the year 146 A. D. (Apol. i, 8), says that " the wicked will undergo everlasting punishment; and not only, as Plato said, for a period of a thousand years." In another place (Apol. i, 12) he says: " It is alike impossible for the wicked, the covetous, the conspirator, and for the virtuous to' escape the notice of God, and that each man goes to everlastirlg pun- ishment according to the value of his actiaos. For if all men knew this, no one would choose wickedness even for a little, knowing that he goes to the everlasting punishment of fire." WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 497 3. Irenseus, who was born about the year 125, writes: "Each class [of souls] receives a habitation such as it has deserved even before the judgment. . . . Now good things are eternal and without end with God, and, therefore, the loss of these is also eternal and never-ending." 4. Clement of Rome (Ep. ii, 8) affirms that "after we leave this world we are no longer able to confess sin, and to turn from it." 5. Hippolytus, who was born in the second half of the second century, speaking about the eternity of future punishment after the judgment, says: "And the fire which is unquenchable and without end awaits [the wicked]. ... No death will deliver them from punishment ; no voice of interceding friends will profit them." 6. And Minucius Felix, who wrote in the latter part of the second century, adopts the same opinion as to the endlessness of future pun- ishment when he affirms: "Nor is there either measure or termination to these torments. . . . They who know not God are deservedly tormented as impious, as unrighteous persons." Writers coatemporaneously with, or subsequent to, the time of Origen and Clement of Alexandria, believed and taught the eternal woe of the lost. 7. Cyprian says: "An ever-burning gehenna will burn up the condemned, and a punishment devouring with living flames ; nor will there be any source whence at any time they may have either respite or end to their torments. Souls with their bodies will be reserved in infinite tortures for suffering. . . . When you have once departed thither, there is no longer any place for repentance, and no possibility of making satisfaction. Here life is either lost or saved ; here eternal safety is provided for by the worship of God and the fruits of faith." 8. Augustine (Enchiridion, sec. 112; De Moribus Ecclesise c, 11, etc.) argues that the misery of the lost will be endless, from the use of the word aionios in Matt, xxv, 41, 46, which he maintains must have the same signification when applied to the punishment of the evil as to the recompense of the good. " If both things are alike aionios, then the term must be interpreted to mean either that both are transitory, or that both are everlasting. 'Eternal' punishment and 'eternal' life are contrasted with each other." To say that 'eter- nal' life will have no end, but that 'eternal' punishment will have an end, is absurd." Eespecting the nature of the punishment, Au- gustine considers that sepii];ation from God constitutes the severity and dreadfulness of it ; but leaves it to the individual to choose be- tween the more sensuous or the more spiritual mode of interpretation, 32 498 FAITH MADE EASY. adding that it is better to unite them together. Chrysostom employs his powerful eloquence in depicting the everlasting torments of the lost; but remarks that it is of more consequence to know how to escape hell than to know its locality or its nature. (Horn. 8, etc.) Here, then, are Isaiah, Daniel, the pre-Christian Jewish writers, Josephus, the New Testatament writers, and the early Christian Fathers, so far as they have left recorded utterances, testifying to the endlessness of future punishment. And there is no such thing as evading the force of these teachings. Mere quibblers may affect to despise them, but candid men, of all schools of thought, concede their great weight. We now propose to give the views of one recognized as an oppo- nent of the orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment, and whose ability in textual interpretation is universally acknowledged. Surely his words should have great weight. We italicize those that are especially significant as coming from the pen of an opponent: In his recently published work on the "Doctrine of Last Things Con- tained in the New Testament, Compared with the Notions of the Jews and the Statements of the Christian Creeds," Dr. Samuel Da- vidson says: "The expressions employed in the Bible do not entirely settle the question of everlasting punishment, though they favor it. Jff' a specific sense be attached to words, never-ending misery is emendated. On the presumption that one doctrine is taught, it is the eternity of hell torments; and those who maintain such to be the Bible statement have valid arguments on tJieir side. Bad exegesis may attempt to banish it from the New Testament Scriptures, but it is stiU there; and expositors who wish to get rid of it, as Canon Farrar does, injilre the cause they have in view by misinterpretation. Of the two methods resorted to for putting the tenet out of the New Testament, the annihilation hypothesis is more plausibly supported by language. Both, however, must be rejected. The strong language — 'everlasting destruction,' ' everlasting punishment,' ' unquenchable fire,' ' perdition of ungodly men,' ' destruction and perdition,' and the like — may be taken for annihilation, or ceasing to be; and the adjective 'seonian' may be modified, but that hiterpretation is unsatisfactory. It is impossible fairly to eliminate the eternity of hell torments from the following passages: ' To be cast into the everlasting fire ;' ' The everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;' 'These shall go away into everlasting pun- ishment;' 'Whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost has never forgiveness, but will be liable to everlasting sin ;' ' To be cast into hell, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched.' WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCEENINO FUTURITY. 499 If the words of Jesus in these places be correctly reported, he taught the doctrine of everlasting punishment. The apostle John, in the Reve- lation, who must have known the mind of the Master, uses language of the same import when he says that ' whoever was not found writ- ten in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet are tormented day and night for ever and ever.'" OBJECTIONS. But there are sentimental objections to the doctrine of future end- less punishment which appear to carry weight with some. The ques- tion is often asked: "Is it reasonable to believe that God is such a vindictive ■ being that his justice can not be satisfied with the death of the ofifender, but that he must be constantly pouring floods of fiery wrath upon the wretched being through the ever-rolling cycles of eternity ?" " The asking of this question," remarks Eev. William W. Lance, A. M., "is little short of sacrilege. To presume that God should re- vengefully inflict punishment on any one, or for any time, is out of all reason and has never been thought of for a moment by the true Christian believer. No : God takes no pleasure in the death of any one. But our annihilation friends talk as though, when the enemies of God were slain, divine vindictiveness would be satisfied. "Now, what is the philosophy, in short, of eternal punishment ? It is this : Holiness is harmony with God, and whoever is in harmony with God is rightly adjusted in all his relations to God ; and the result is peace and happiness. But sin is disharmony with God. And whoso chooses to remain in sin continues in this inharmonious condition, which is the progenitor of all ills, pains, and torments, both in this world and in the next. And as the soul is immortal, hence, when the soul passes into eternity in sin, as there is no probation, no chance for moral change beyond this life, therefore, in the degree that it has increased its inharmoniousness with God in this life, so shall it endure forever what sin has brought forth, in a degree co-equal to the degree of its wickedness. " God really punishes no one. He has prepared a way of escape from the direful consequences of sin, and is doing e'^ery possible thing to save men from perdition ; but if men will obstinately refuse proflTered mercy, and elect to enter eternal woe instead of eternal joy, it is not God's vindictiveness sends them there, it is their own wicked- ness. Who hung that murderer by the neck till dead ? Was it the judge who sentenced him? Was it the jury who pronounced him a 500 FAITH MADE EASY. murderer ? Was it the law ? No ; it was his crime. Had he not committed it, he had not hung. "How long now, in justice, ought a sinner to suffer for sin? Here are two slayers of men ; one is hung, the other is not. Why ? though the victim of one is as dead as the victim of the other. Be- cause one intended to kill, the other did not. What, then, is the basis of punishment ? It is the motive of the actor. One wanted to kill, and did kill. One did not want to kill, yet did kill. Justice said of one crime, it pushes the perpetrator into an irreparable pen- alty. The other does not. Now, the sinner sins because he intends to sin. The heart motive is to sin, and is neither sorry nor penitent. The Christian may sin unwittingly ; but he does not want to, and as soon as he finds he has sinned, sorrow on account of it puts him a penitent at the feet of Jesus. As the intentional murderer was driven by his heart-motive into an irreparable penalty, so the intentional sin- ner, dying as he lived, is driven by force of his heart-motives into an irreparable penalty. " The pendulum of Divine Justice ought to swing as far to the left as to the right. And if it grants eternal life for a short part of a life-time of righteousness, certainly eternal torment is not too great a punishment for a whole life-time of insult to God and spurning of his merciful goodness.'' But there is still another view which makes eternal punishment an inevitable necessity. We refer to the eternal nature of guilt. Guilt never ceases to be guilt. It never becomes any thing less, or any thing else, but guilt. If a man commits murder, he is a murderer for life, and our civil laws will hold him responsible for his crime to the end of his days. Should he succeed in evading arrest, and thus escape punishment, for twenty or more years, he must, when finally apprehended and tried, pay the full penalty. Mere lapse of years does not lessen guilt. Neither will lapse of ages. The human being who enters eternity, guilty and unforgiven, must suffer as long as the guilt continues, which will be forever, because beyond the boundaries of this life there is no forgiveness with God. The finally guilty and incorrigible shall know no escape forever. Hell for them is surely eternal. PUNISHMENT OF DEGREES. But the punishment of hell will be one of degrees. God is just. He will punish no soul more than it deserves. No lost spirit, even after the lapse of ten million ages, will be able to look up and charge WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 501 God with injustice. The Judge of all the earth will do right. " The Scriptures plainly teach that the retributions of eternity will be in accordance with an eternal, beneficent, irrevocable law. That law is : ' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.' ' For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' This does not mean that each particular act is to be held up to scrutiny and man's punishment or reward grad- uated by the number of his deeds, but that his free acts of right and wrong will have left their impress upon his character, and made it ■ good or bad ;' and the character he shall possess as the resultant of the ' things done in his body,' shall determine his destiny for weal or for woe. Every human act which has a moral quality registers itself in the character of the actor, and he will meet with just that destiny for which his character prepares him. He can not by any possibility receive any other allotment, simply because he is not fitted for any other. This is the divinely ordained law of retribution, that charac- ter determines destiny ; and since each individual, by his own free choice, fixes his own character, it follows that he, and not God, de- cides his own eternal destiny. God can not assign a happy destiny to a vicious character, or the reverse! He does not determine the fate of any soul for weal or woe, either at the day of judgment or at any period in duration. He has established, as the basis of his moral gov- ernment, the law that virtue shall be followed by happiness and vice by misery; but this is no decision of the fate of any individual of the race. This law is beneficent. It is an expression and proof of the infinite wisdom, mercy, and goodness of God." (Rev. C. H. Zimmerman.) Other writers confirm these views. Dr. S. M. Vernon clearly shows that endless punishment is just because God is love that he must be the guardian of righteousness. Just on that account must his relation to sin be that of unchangeable antagonism. Both reason and revelation show us law and penalty as the exponents of the Di- vine benevolence. God can only measure the authority of his law by the extent of the per^\tj. The operation of punishment must be as infinite as the obligation to holiness. The ethical character of the universe can only be maintained on these strict terms. " Eternal pun- ishment is the consolidation and perpetuation of evil character, pro- jecting itself into the eternal world, and reaping its own self-prepared 502 FAITH MADE EASY. consequences." (Storrs.) "The God of Christianity does not make hell ; still less does he deliberately put men into it. It is made by men themselves; the essence of its torment is the loss of God; and those that lose him, lose him by their own act, from having deliber- ately made themselves incapable of loving him." (Mallock.) " Hell is a world of misery, constituted by the complete absence of God. The disorders of sin running loose in human souls must be driving them downward into everlasting and complete ruin, the wreck of all that is mightiest and loftiest in their immortality." (Bushnell.) " Hell is the infinite terror of the soul." (Robertson.) "The words of Jesus clearly teach the doctrine of unending penalty." (T. Par- ker Davidson.) That there is " eternal sin," and therefore eternal punishment, can not be disputed. Be it an act of blasphemy, or a state of persistent impenitence, if unpardoned, it must be punished forever. Mark iii, 29. (J. Muller.) "The doctrine of eternal pun- ishment is not offensive to the moral reason, so as to require us to deny that Christ has taught it, or to a£&rm that if he has, Christianity can not be from God." (Porter.) " The sinner's own conscience will bear witness and approve of the condemning sentence. Dives, in the para- ble, when reminded of the justice of his suffering, is silent. Accord- ingly, all the evangelical creeds say, with the Westminister Catechism, that ' the wicked upon clear evidence and full conviction of their own consciences, shall have the just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them.' If in the great day there are any innocent men who have no accusing conscience, they will escape hell." (Professor Shedd.) A SECOND PROBATION. But what about a second probation? Surely enough, what about it? Who teaches it? Where is the doctrine to be found? Did Isaiah teach it? Did Daniel? Did Jesus Christ? Did the Christian Fathers? We think not. If they taught the doctrine of endless punishment, as we have shown, they surely did not promulgate the notion of proba- tion after death. This is a modern invention, of which men have sought out many. It is a specimen of the improved theology which appears to tickle the fancy of certain writers and speakers more than any old truth, no matter how plainly and surely set forth in the Word of God. As the purpose of this volume is to tell what we do believe rather . than what we do not believe, we shall not dwell upon this speculative theory further than to give the views of a few scholars confirming our own thought. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D. D., has said: "Do not delude yourselves WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 503 with a hope that some time in the future there will be some mighty force impelling you toward holiness, stronger than those already exist- ing. God's grace has done all that it possibly can for the soul's salva- tion in the gift of his well-beloved Son, and whoever shuts the door of his heart against the Savior now makes the choice forever. Character becomes fixed in this life." Speaking of the duration of future punishment, Professor K. J. White has uttered the following: "Christ never gave us the history of one who did repent in that world, nor has he anywhere told men if they neglect here that an effort will be made for their rescue be- yond. I can nowhere find an assurance that there will be a reversal of the decisions of the judgment-day. Some have hope that a change of condition is probable, and that by and by the wanderers will all be saved. By examining that view I have presented a few reasons which force the conviction upon me that our present life is the formative period of existence. I pick up a stone. Upon breaking it open I find the form of a leaf. Once it was plastic sand ; now it has become petrified. So character is petrifying. Physically, we are under the law of motion. Stop we can not. The heart beats, the lungs expand and contract, the earth moves spinning on its axis, journeying round the sun, marching majestically on through the universe. Morally, we are under the law of development, never at rest, upward or downward, always in a straight line, never returning to the same point. It sweeps us onward forever. The speed quickening every moment, while the rate of speed is slow, a change of direction to the opposite point of the moral compass is possible. The soul gains a momentum. Be quick! Time adds to the rate of motion. A thousand years pass — a million." "I accept," says Rev. J. H. McHvaine, "the teaching of Christ concerning the future life as final. If he does not know what that life contains, we are in utter darkness. I believe that he teaches that there is an infinite and everlasting distinction between good and evil in their nature and their consequences ; that sin and sufiering, holiness and blessedness, are necessarily and forever connected ; that there is a drift in human life toward the evil rather than the good — a drift which is constantly accelerated. Unless some counteracting force is brought to bear, I believe this must go on forever. I can find no hint in the words of Christ of any such counteracting force or process after death. He declares that there is that in death which is decisive. I can find no hint in his teaching of a probation after death. I should be glad to find such a hint, and be permitted to cherish such a hope. 504 FAITH MADE EASY. It would relieve my faith of a strain and my heart of a burden which at times are almost unbearable. I have looked everywhere for ground upon which to build such a hope. I have looked in vain. I can not believe that Christ meant us to have any hope for those who perish in their sins. If there is another probation, he did not mean that we should know it. It is a mistake to try to be wiser than he was, or than he meant us to be. From the tenderest lips come to uS the hardest words as to the fate of those who reject him. New light may dawn upon these words, but I can not conceive whence it is to come. They are darkness itself." But must not every body have a chance ? Must not the heathen and all infant babes have an opportunity to share in the benefits of Christ's redemption ? Most certainly. As for the heathen, they are "a law unto themselves." God will take care of his own plan. No human scheme of second probation is necessary to make God appear to be just with all his creatures. Our duty is to do what we can to spread the light and truth of the gospel abroad, and leave results with Him who made the world. As for children, they are already provided for in the atonement of Christ. The merits of that atone- ment, we believe, are applied unconditionally to all such as die before arriving at the age of accountability. Of precisely such is the kingdom of heaven. The scheme of a second probation affords no relief from trouble- some questions. If there should be a second probation, what if some men should appear to have a poor chance to improve that? Will there be a third, and a fourth, and as many more as the imagina- tion can devise ? Away with the thought ! Such speculation would never end. "The theory of a second probation destroys the very ends of moral government. If this life is a state of trial at all, it is such by the limitation of its terms and the certainty of its consequences. It is, moreover, contradicted by the rapid fixity which comes to character. Act is continually passing over into state. We see, even here in this life, the closing in of the prison walls of doom. Nor is another pro- bation needed to equalize the chances of all men. The equation of advantages is more certainly fixed by the rule of varying account- ability and the justice of the Judge. The idea of a second probation has no support in Scripture, but is definitely opposed by the plain teaching of the Word of God. "Future punishment is endless. The same words describe the duration of hell, the lasting joys of heaven, and the eternity of God. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 505 The argument which limits the extent of the penalty of sin must, with the same breath, blight the deathless flowers of Paradise, unhinge the pearly gates, and sweep away the foundations of the eternal throne. But in the atonement has been given a stUI more striking proof of this doctrine. God has measured the holiness of his law by an endless penalty; so has he measured the extent of man's danger by the sacri- fice of Christ. How awful must be that doom which forces from the heart of Deity such an offering !" We are moved to say that of all the deceitful lies invented by Satan to encourage the final perseverance of sinners, that of a second probation is the most dangerous. It requires all the good influences of Christ's word, Christ's spirit, and Christ's Church, together with all the fearful dread of endless pain, to lead wicked men to forsake their evil ways. Cut off a single foot of this moral lever, and fewer still will be raised from the mire of their earthly degradation. The faintest ray of hope of final restoration to another chance of salvation, even after ten million years of sufiering, is enough to lead some sin- bound souls to procrastinate through life the essential appeal to God for salvation. It is astonishing that a single rational mind should accept this dangerous doctrine. So far as we can understand the Scriptures, and are capable of weighing and sifting evidence, t^ere is not the slightest foundation for hope of salvation to those who die in their sins. We see deceivers here waxing worse and worse, bad men becoming more and more confirmed in character, and, from all our observation, this tendency would go on forever. For this reason God proposes that bad characters shall be separated from the good by an impassable gulf. " Head Luke xvi, 26. SATAN. Satan is the chief of the fallen angels, or, as Matthew states it, he is " Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." According to religious belief in all ages, devils are " apostate angels who were expelled from heaven, or some probationary state, for rebellion against God. The tradition of their fall is in all coun- tries and in all religions, and is clearly taught in the Scriptures." (Job iv, 18 ; John viii, 44; Eev. xii, 7-12.) Milton gets his idea from the Bible when he says of Satan : " Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition ; there to dwell 506 FAITH MADE EASY. In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms." And Pollok : " Thus free, the devil chose to disobey The will of God, and was thrown out from heaven. And, with him, all his bad example stained." Of the character of Satan we get the following description in the Word of God: " He was a murderer from the beginning," and this is an awful thing to say of any creature; but Satan deserves it. " He abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own ; for he is a liar, and the father of it." That is vigorous language, but the enemy of our souls merits it. " The devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." "Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." He is the chief deceiver. He is full of wiles, always planting his snares and setting his traps for the unwary. There is nothing open and noble about him. By "cunning craftiness" he seeks to accomplish what he could not by fair, open methods. He lies in wait to deceive. He is " the accuser of the brethren," yet a coward and a sneak. His boldness " as a roaring lion" is mere bravado. A coward can roar and threaten and persecute and kill. All these the devil does, and they do not prove him brave. " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Resist him, and he will slink off like any other shamed coward. See how he cringed when Jesus confronted him. He and his imps were willing to enter the swine to escape the presence of the Son of man. A word from the lips of Jesus could dislodge him and them at any time from the bodies and souls of men. It was Jesus who said: " If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace ; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils." Yet Satan is a dangerous adversary, the more so because many people allow themselves to remain in doubt or ignorance of his de- vices. He is cunning and active, aggressive and bold. He is full of devices against us, of which we are warned again and again. Sometimes, in spite of every caution, he gets advantage of the good. Even Paul, when writing of his work for God as a missionary, was led to confess : " We would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again ; but Satan hindered us." (1 Thess. ii, 8.) He prevents many WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 507 precious souls from erTtering the kingdom of God, not because they can not resist him, but because they will not. Satan leads them cap- tive. It was Jesus who taiight that there are some by the wayside that hear the gospel ; " then cometh Satan, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved." Paul also speaks of this obstacle in the way of religious influence : "If our gos- pel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." The chief role of Satan "is to hide his personality from man, and to get man to believe that the evil he works is the mere outcome of a certain amount of wrongness in human nature, or is the result of a certain want of balance between the good and the evil in man's spiritual being. And so, leading men on by the false philosophy of the day to doubt the existence of a personal devil, he is ready to set aside his own identity, if he can thereby eventually lead men also to doubt the existence of a personal God." Perhaps no modern writer has more forcibly presented the truth respecting Satan's real personality than Bishop Perry, of Iowa. In his volume of sermons, called " Life Lessons from the Book of Proverbs,'' he utters this language : " It is with no cloudy vagueness that the per- sonal existence of the spirit of evil is revealed in Holy Scripture. In history, prophecy, and in parable is the tempter brought before us, and every quality, every action, every attribute which can indicate personality, is referred to him in language which can not be explained away. The records of the old dispensation and the writings of the new, alike reveal to us the existence of the adversary as a matter of spiritual importance. They depict him as pre-eminent in power among the angels who lost their first estate, and as ever compassing the de- struction of the souls of men. We may seek to dispose of the open- ing chapters of Genesis, where the story of the temptation and the fall occurs, as myths; we may refer to Oriental hyperbole, that weird picture in Job of the accuser of the brethren blaming the Almighty to his face; we may characterize the closing pages of Kevelation, telling of the tempter's fall and fate, as but allegory and romance ; but there will stiU remain, scattered through the whole series of Bible books, and appearing in connection with every prominent Bible character or Bible fact, mention of the personal Satan, the foe of God, the foe of man. " We, then, are neither wise nor prudent, when we are thus warned 508 FAITH MADE EASY. of Satan and his wiles, to talk of allegories, ol" rhetorical personifica- tion, or in bolder unbelief to doubt or deny the existence and the power of the chief of the fallen spirits. It were far wiser, in humble acceptation of God's Word, to recognize our foe, and to seek the strength with which to contend with him. We need the simple faith, coupled with the bold defiance, breathed forth in Luther's life and words and hymns ; a spirit which, in its fearlessness and literal re- ception of the Word of God, would blot his study wall with the hurled inkstand where a mighty imagination had conjured up before him the very form and face of Satan. We need that faith of au ear- lier day, seen in the old law phrase of the Motherland, where the murderer's indictment reads, ' Done by the instigation of the devil ;' and where men shuddered as they saw in the pale-faced criminal one who had bartered his soul for the price of revenge. We need this unquestioning reception of God's teaching on this point, from the fact that Scripture and experience combine to teach us that this wily ad- versary of souls rarely, if ever, assails us in his proper shape of hor- ror, but makes use of other guise in which to entrap us, changing his dark front into the winning shape of an angel of light, or turning even our seeming friends into foes, and using our very heart's desires as lures to win us to our ruin." It is very strange that people should be led to doubt the actual ex- istence of a being who is so diligent and successful in completely trip- ping, them up. Surely they are his dupes, without wit as well as without grace, and completely in the power of their arch-foe. No more clearly and unmistakably does the Bible teach the exist- ence and personality of God than it does the existence and personality of Satan. The same rule of Scripture exegesis that assumes the per- sonal descriptions of the devil to be metaphorical, when applied to the Almighty, and to other spiritual intelligences, robs the world of a Creator, humanity of a Eedeemer and Comforter, and religion of the last vestige of its divinity. On nothing do the sacred writers lay more stress than the danger to which humanity is exposed from the designs and intents of " the prince of the power of the air, the spirit which now worketh in the children of disO|bedience." This is the ground on which they base the utmost strength of their exhortations. We need only quote Paul's words to the Ephesians: "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil ;" that is, not against these alone, natural oppositions, "but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 509 Wherefore " — because e'specially of this more tremendous warfare — "take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.'' No candid person need to read the Bible to any unusual extent to find sufficient evidence to convince even the most skeptical (unless Satan holds their eyes that they should not see), that the following seven propositions formulated by Rev. Standish Grey, M. A., are in the main correct: " 1. That Satan is a veritable person, an angel formerly of one of the highest ranks in the order of God's celestial intelligences. " 2. That for his seat of power he had allotted to him dominion over this earth. " 3. That he was ' lifted up with pride ' because of his beauty (Ezek. xxviii, 17), and, being banished from the immediate presence of God, fell. "4. That for. some inscrutable purpose of Jehovah he was per- mitted to retain somewhat of his former power and might, that power being manifested in his perpetual antagonism against God. "5. That sin, having once got possession • of his nature, warped him from all that was good, and made his character the impersonifi- cation of all that is called s,in. " 6. That knowing that his time is short, he is ever using his power over men, in influencing them to follow him into every kind of evil, being determined to the utmost of his power to mar God's work in creation, leading men into sin and into all its miserable consequences. " 7. That he has power, which he exercises, to produce disease and to cut short man's life on the earth by death." "But," says some candid objector, "how can we suppose Satan to be a personal being without also supposing that he is omnipresent, like God, and capable of tempting all men at one and the same time, no matter where they may be living, moving, and having their being on earth. If all our temptations are to be ascribed to the evil one, surely he is round about us constantly, for we are never free from his suggestions and devices." To this it may be replied that, for aught we know, there are more demons in the universe of God than there are human beings. As every man may be supposed to have his guardian angel, so every one may safely be presumed to have his tempting devil. All that the Scriptures say of the number of evil spirits represents them as very great. As Satan is " prince of the power of the air," the extent of that "power" probably has no earthly limits. When Jesus expelled 510 FAITH MADE EASY. the evil spirit from the Gadarene (Mark v, 1-9), the spirit said : "My name is legion, for we are many." A legion is six thousand, and these were all in possession of one person. This one Bible narrative serves to explain the seeming omnipresence of the tempter. "What Satan can not do direct, he seeks to accomplish through his cohorts. There is no better explanation of the temptations that overtake us than the simple Bible truth that in this world we are surrounded by invisible, powerful foes, bent on our overthrow and destruction. "Angels our march oppose, Who now in strength excel. Our secret, sworn, eternal foes. Countless, invisible. From thrones of glory driven. By flaming vengeance hurled. They throng the air. and darken heaven. And rule this lower world." Those who reject this doctrine would do well to cast about for an answer to Rev. Alfred J. Hough's pertinent, reasonable, and decidedly 'cute question, as couched in his widely published poem on — THE DEVIL. Men do n't believe in a devil now, as their fathers used to do ; They 've forced the door of the broadest creed to let his majesty through. There isn't print of his cloven foot or a fiery dart from his bow To be found on earth or in air to-day, for the world has voted so. But who is it mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain, And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain? Who blights the bloom of the land to-day with the fiery breath of hell. If the devil is n't and never was, won't somebody rise and tell ? Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint, and digs the pit for his feet? Who sows the tares in the field of time wherever God sows his wheat? The devil is voted not to be, and, of course, the thing is true ; But who is doing the kind of work the devil alone should do? We are told that he does n't go about as a roaring lion now ; But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row To be heard in Church, in home, and State, to earth's remotest bound. If the devil by a unanimous vote is nowhere to be found? Won't somebody step to the front forth v/ith, and make their bow, and show How the frauds and crimes of a single day spring up ? We want to know. The devil was fairly voted out, and, of course, the devil 's gone ; / But simple people would like to know who carries his business on ! WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 511 HEAVEN. As used in the Bible the word " heaven" has different applications. Sometimes it refers to the surrounding atmosphere, as in Gen. i, 7, 8 : "And God made the firmament, . . . and called the firmament heaven." Sometimes the word refers to the immensity of space, as in Gen. i, 14: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night."- But the word is also employed to designate the glorious abode of the blessed, where God's personal presence is manifest. Paul speaks of it as the "third heaven," and says of one who was caught up into it that he "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." Moses spake of this heaven as "the heaven of heavens;" and Solomon said that the heaven of heavens can not con- tain God. Of this heaven, the state and place of blessedness to which the saints attain after the present life, we now wish to speak. HEAVEN AS A STATE. Heaven is presented to our thought as a condition of holiness. It is a holy state for a holy people. Nothing that defileth can enter there. It is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. It is also a happy state. In God's presence is fullness of joy ; at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore. The saints are satis- fied, when they awake, with his likeness. They shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. It is likewise a glorious condition. In many places and in various forms the sacred writers present the future life as one of exceeding brightness and splendor. Paul reckoned that the sufferings of his earthly life should work out for him " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Heaven is the beatific vision and presence of God. The pure in heart shall see God. In heaven we shall see the King in his beauty. Now, while at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight ; but in heaven we shall be absent from the body and present with the Lord. These sensuous, physical natures must be left behind, until such time as mortality shall be swallowed up of life. Heaven is eternal blessedness. It is not only existence without end, but bliss without bounds or termination. " For we know, says St. Paul, "that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 512 FAITH MADE EASY. we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven : if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." The righteous shall go into life eternal, life everlasting. Methu- selah, we are told, was the oldest man the world has ever known, and ' ' all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years, and he died." Of every one of the fathers we read, "And all the days of his years" were so many, "and he died." And as of man, so of all things created by man. Napoleon in the gallery of the Louvre turned from a splendid painting to Baron Denon and said : "That is a fine picture, Denon !" " Yes, immortal,'' was the reply. "How long will this picture or a statue last?" said' Napoleon. "The picture five hundred years and a. statue five thousand, sire." "And this you call immortality ?" said Napoleon. Not such the immortality of the saved in heaven. He that believeth on Christ hath everlast ing life. He is passed from death unto life. The life which shall- never end begins in his soul now and here. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." "^ Heaven is a reward. It is for those to whom it can be said: " Well done, good and faithful servant." Those who are faithful over a few things on earth are to be made rulers over many things in heaven. They will sit upon thrones, wield a scepter, and wear glorious crowns. Just what all this may mean we can not now fully com- prehend, but we shall know hereafter. To accommodate the truth to our present weakness, God has chosen the figures of highest honor and glory known to the earthly life, and promised that heaven shall be all this, and more. HEAVEN AS A PLACE. What is heaven? Where is heaven? What is it to "go to heaven ?" Is heaven the whole space outside our world ? If so, it must be easy to enter heaven, and doubtless all persons will find them- selves within it when they go hence. But this view of heaven is too cheap and worldly. It would not pay the cost of the pain and trouble of dying. It is not such a heaven as the Bible reveals. Heaven is not everywhere. We have not found heaven on earth, and there are no doubt many places away from earth where heaven is not. WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 513 ^ Heaven will certainly be a great improvement over our present estate. Job expressed his thought of the better world in these hope- ful words: " There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master." Were there no higher view of heaven than this, it would be worth infinite trouble and sacrifice to gain such an estate. We propose to look through the Bible for the inspired thoughts of heaven. These may be trusted. Only these are reliable. What do the men who spake as they were mpved by the Holy Ghost say ? If the last may be first, we will begin with St. John's beautiful description of heaven. He pictures it as a city, even the New Jeru- salem, which St. Paul said was " the city of the living God." "And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God ; and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal ; and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel : oh the east three gates ; on the north three gates ; on the south three gates ; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth four-square, and the length is as large as the breadth : and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper : and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all man^ ner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper ; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl ; the ninth, a topaz ; the tenth, a chrysoprasus ; the eleventh, a jacinth ; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls ; every several gate was of one pearl : and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the 33 514 FAITH MADE EASY. temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it : and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day : for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever work- eth abomination, or maketh a lie : but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." (Eev. xxi, 10-27.) Beautiful description this ! It suggests the idea that heaven is a real place. We doubt not that it is a state, a condition of glory, honor, and immortality ; but as a city we are more inclined to think of it as a place. There are other passages which confirm this view. One term em- ployed to designate the place is "paradise." "To him that over- cometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." "Country" is another. " But now they de- sire a better country, that is a heavenly." Many a man from Eng- land, from Ireland, from Germany, longs to see his native land. We all are wanderers from our native land — the better country. " Home" is another. " In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also." Father's house is always home to the children. It is the place of re- union and of loving greeting as long as parents and children live. Such shall be our Father's house on high. Rev. Dr. E. J. Hamilton suggests that the chief idea of our Sav- ior while using these words was the reunion in the land of glory of Christian friends, who have been parted here. He had just instituted the sacred supper, and had thus informed his disciples of his ap- proaching death, in which his body should be broken and his blood shed for the sins of many. Their souls, as yet unenlightened in the spiritual glories of Messiah's reign, were filled with dark distress. In these circumstances their Lord offers them precious consolation. He assures them that he is going away to prepare a blessed home for them, and that when the proper time shall come, he will return to them and receive them to himself, that, where he is, there they may be also. The prominent blessing promised by our Savior, in con- nection with the mansions of heaven, is that the friends from whom WHAT TO BELIEVE CONCERNING FUTURITY. 515 he was about to be parted, would, in those happy homes, be forever reunited with each other and with himself. But St. John allows us another glimpse into the eternal city, and along with it a sound of heavenly music: "And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder : and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps : and they sung as it were a new song be- fore the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders : and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.'' (Rev. xiv, 1-3.) Once more let us listen to the voices which fell on the ear of the enraptured John: "And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshiped God. Saying, Amen : Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me. What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? and whence came they ? And I said unto him. Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me. These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple : and he that sit- teth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb