= ) ee de oe ea *, * ‘ ‘ - J 4 od ‘ ; e r ‘ > — F i's wry i PT . bt é ~ a he * jou ry B Ces, ~~, oe | ™“ Dal ; » 4 ae & PREFACBSy,. A \ SOs HE following course of Lectures has been composed exclusively for the purpose of meeting the wants of that class of persons who are described in the title as ‘Busy People.’ I mean by such those who are so deeply engaged in the discharge of the active duties of life as to render it impossible that they should devote themselves to a number of special studies. Yet these constitute an over- whelming majority of the members of the Christian Church. Have they, then, no other alternative but to pin their faith on the authority of others; or else to accept Chris- tianity for no better reason than that their fathers have before them? Christianity, if true, involves questions so profoundly interest- ing to each of us in our individual capacity, that it is absolutely necessary that our accept- ance of it should rest on personal conviction. vi PREFACE. But a faith which has no better foundation than that above referred to can be satisfactory to no reasonable man; for it is certain that our ancestors were the prey of many errors, and, therefore, they could have had no infallibility in the choice of a religion; and if we rest on the presumed authority of learned men, they have greatly differed in opinion. What, then, are we to do? The claims of ) religion are all-commanding, and the evi- dences of Christianity, as they are usually set forth, require a considerable amount of know- ledge in special departments of study, and portions of them a special training for their full appreciation. Is it necessary, therefore, that ordinary Christians should neglect the duties to which they are called by Providence, and engage in a number of special studies in order that their acceptance of Christianity may rest on a basis of rational conviction? I think not. Surely if Christianity is what it claims to be, there must be something in it which will approve itselfto the understandings of ordinary men. The object of these lectures PREFACE. Vii ee ee tee oe oe is to set before such, a body of reasons for accepting it as a Divine Revelation, which | will commend themselves not only to the select few, but to the masses who compose the Christian Church. For this purpose, therefore, I have avoided all deep questions and learned reasonings, and appealed to a number of facts which persons who possess ordinary information can easily verify for themselves. These facts are either so obvious on the surface of history that no educated unbeliever will venture to question their truth; or are so palpably present in the pages of the New Testament, that any one can form a judgment as to their reality. Nothing more will be necessary than that my readers should form their own opinion as to the inferences which they justity ; and ordinary common sense will be quite as competent to arrive at a sound conclusion as the profoundest learning. The subject of miracles, as it is at pre- sent debated between theologians and men of science, is a very complicated one, and Vi1ll PREFACE. eee involves the discussion of several abstract questions. One of these is whether they are possible without a violation of that govern- ment of the universe by those invariable laws which science reveals? Next, if their possibility is conceded, what is the amount of evidence which will be requisite to prove their actual occurrence: When these points are settled, another very important question requires so- lution—How are we to discriminate between true miracles and the vast number of false ones with which history abounds? I need hardly say that to form a judgment of any value on these and numerous other points connected with this controversy, it requires extensive reading and careful meditation. Miracles might have had a high evidential value to those who actually witnessed them ; but as they have ceased to be performed in these latter ages, we are now compelled to prove their occurrence by a somewhat com- plicated chain of historical testimony. On many of these questions it is very difficult for persons whose time has to be devoted to the PREFACE. 1X discharge of active duties to form an intelli- gent opinion. I have, therefore, in these lectures appealed to a different order of occurrences, as afford- ing unquestionable proof of the presence of a superhuman power in Christianity. These I have designated “moral miracles.” That on which I have especially dwelt is the unique action of Jesus Christ in the history of the past and in the facts of the present. I have shown that the power which has been exerted by Him is without example in the history of man. It not only distances that of all great men, but that of all great men united. If so, it affords a stronger evidence of the active presence of a superhuman power than the per- formance of a miracle in the physical universe. Miracles of this kind have this advantage, that they require no long and complicated chain of evidence to prove their occurrence. Most of us would wish to witness a miracle, and consider that if we could do so it would ereatly strengthen our faith. I invite you in these lectures to witness a number of moral x PREFACE. ELD VE MTA miracles, in connection with the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord, which we can actually behold. They are clearly written on the pages of the history of the last eighteen centuries. The facts are indisputable, and common sense is quite competent to deduce the inferences which they suggest. Nay, it is not necessary to explore the history of the past, for they are daily occurring before our eyes in the facts of the present. Jesus Christ alone of the sons of men is energising mightily eighteen centuries after the termination of His earthly life. Common sense is fully adequate to determine whether His action in the his- tory of the past, and in the facts of the present, can have been the result of the forces which have generated ordinary men, or is the mani- festation of the presence of a superhuman power. Again, according to the New Testament, Christianity stands or falls with the truth of the resurrection of our Lord. This forms its great evidential miracle. If it is not a fact, the Christian Church has been erected ona PREFACE. Xi u-——— delusion. It is most important, therefore, that the ordinary Christian should have some rational ground for believing in its reality. The usual mode of proving it is by adducing a number of citations from the early Christian writers, as evidence of the historical character of the Gospels. Not only is this mode of proof one of considerable complication, but it is evident that persons who have never studied the science of historical criticism must be very imperfect judges of its value. I have, there- fore, adopted a method of proof far more simple, and one which every student of the New Testament can verify for himself. Four of the most important of St. Paul’s Epistles are admitted by an overwhelming majority of learned unbelievers to be genuine. This being so, they are historical writings of the highest order. From them I have proved, on evidence which it is impossible to dispute, that the Christian Church was reconstructed, immediately after the crucifixion, on the basis of the resurrection, and that the belief in it formed the groundwork of the religious life Xii PREFACE. of its individual members. This being so, those whom God has blessed with ordinary intelligence will be fully able to judge whether the belief in it could have originated in some form of mental hallucination, with- out the necessity of making themselves masters of more complicated methods of proof. My own conviction is, that that form of evi- dence whichcommendsitself to men of ordinary intelligence is equally real as that which is based on the most profound reasoning. I am fully sensible that it may be objected that some of the very important subjects which are referred to in these lectures have not been treated with the fulness which they deserve. To this objection I have two replies to offer. First, the lectures were not intended for the learned, but to afford to those who are engaged in the active duties of life solid reasons for accepting Christianity as a Divine Revelation. Secondly, even if I had wished to give them a treatment more worthy of the subject, the limits imposed on me by the time occupied by the course would have rendered PREFACE. X1ll it impossible. If, therefore, any of the readers of this work are desirous of seeing a more full and scientific discussion of the important subjects which it brings under their notice, I must refer them to my course of Bampton Lectures, which will be published simul- taneously with the present volume. Can k: May, 1877. CONTENTS. "O: CHAPTER I. Tue Duty oF BASING REticious Fatru on RATIONAL CONVICTION : z 2 . ; 3 rs CHAPTER II. Tue EvipENCE ON WHICH WE BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD BRIEFLY STATED: ‘HE THAT COMETH TO GOD MUST BELIEVE THAT He 1s” CHAPTER III. IF THERE BE A GOD WHO CARES FOR MAN, THE CONDITION OF MANKIND RENDERS A FURTHER REVELATION HIGHLY PROBABLE . F | : CHAPTER IV. Tue NATurRE OF THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH CuHRIS- TIANITY CLAIMS TO BE ACCEPTED AS A DIVINE REVELATION. : 3 f é . ; : CHAPTER V. THE PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIANITY . CHAPTER VI. THe INFLUENCE WHICH JESUS CHRIST HAS EXERTED ON MANKIND IS A FACT UNIQUE IN HIsToRY hy CHAPTER VII. THIS UNIQUE INFLUENCE EXERTED BY JESUS CHRIST PROVES His Divine CHARACTER : ° : CHAPTER VIII. THE COMBINED FoRCE OF THE ARGUMENT . A ‘ 28 32 38 44 51 XVI CONTENTS. _ oT —_—— CHAPTER IX. THE WIDE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE TEACHING OF Jesus CHRIST, AND ITS POWER TO SATISFY THE DEEPEST CRAVINGS OF THE HUMAN HEART . CHAPTER X. THe ARGUMENT FROM THE MoRAL TEACHING OF THE New TrEstaMENtT A i f 4 : : CHAPTER XI. THe ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY z . r \ . CHAPTER XII. Tue Historica, ARGUMENT—THE IMPORTANCE OF St. Pauy’s Epistues . ‘ P : A CHAPTER XIII. Tue TESTIMONY WHICH THEY GIVE TO THE CHIEF Facts oF CHRISTIANITY, AND ESPECIALLY To THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST . 4 : CHAPTER XIV. THE THEORIES PROPOUNDED BY UNBELIEVERS AS THE. ALTERNATIVE TO THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST BEING AN ACTUAL OCCURRENCE CONSIDERED AND REFUTED.—FirsT, THE THEORY OF VISIONS. CHAPTER XV. Tue TuEory THAT Jesus Curist DID NoT ACTUALLY Dig : : 5 : : : 4 4 ; CHAPTER XVI. Tue Historica, CHARACTER oF THE GOSPELS . 5 CHAPTER XVIL CoNcCLUSION ‘ i ¢ 4 . . ° ° 95 115 128 135 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY, Ardressed to Busy People. 20: CHAPTER I. THE DUTY OF BASING RELIGIOUS FAITH ON RATIONAL CONVICTION. I purpose briefly to set before you a) SOmMe adequate reasons on which you may found your acceptance of Christianity as a Divine revelation. The question, “Why am I a Christian?’ even if it is not forced on us by others, is one which, at the present day, no thoughtful man can help putting to him- self. Not only is it a duty to base our ac- ceptance of Christianity on a foundation of rational conviction at a time when men’s I 2 REASONS FOR beliefs have been greatly shaken, but we ought to do so always. On this point St. Peter gives a clear and distinct precept, “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” (1 Pet. iii. 15). Chris- tianity addresses itself to every portion of man’s nature—his reason, his affections, and his conduct. These have been united together by the Author of our being into an har- monious whole; and all attempts to sever what He has welded together, can only ter- minate in disaster. I make this observation, because there are not wanting persons who affirm that the provinces of reason and reli- gion are separate and distinct, and that reli- gious truth does not form the subject of rational conviction. This is an error which has been fraught with the most injurious con- sequences, and the legitimate result of which must be wide and universal unbelief, Reason, and conscience (which is only a particular form of reason), are the governing principles in man; its convictions, energizing in the BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 3 form of faith, kindle into activity our moral and spiritual affections. These latter impel us into action. Let one link in this golden chain be wanting, and the harmony of our nature, as it has been constituted by our Creator, is violated. The danger of this has been great in every age. Hence the oft- repeated prayer of the apostle for his converts that they might be filled with all wisdom, knowledge, illumination, and spiritual under- standing. Yet it is an unquestionable fact, that no inconsiderable number of his professed dis- ciples have deprecated inquiry in matters of religion. This has resulted from their having mistaken St. Paul’s denunciations of certain systems of false philosophy that were preva- lent in his day, as though they were levelled against reason generally. From this has arisen a wide-spread idea that there is some- thing antagonistic between reason and faith. Many therefore are afraid to base their religion on rational conviction. Their only reason why they are Christians is, that their fathers 4 REASONS FOR were so before them. Can we wonder that their faith gives way on the first shock? Cannot an equally valid reason be given for adhering to the most degraded superstitions? If such people were consistent, they would return to the worship of Woden and of Thor; for certain it is, that our ancestors worshipped these deities in their German forests before they became Christians; and our first ancestor who embraced Christianity, must in their eyes have been an impious revolter from the religion. of his forefathers. What else had he to guide him in embracing Christianity but his reason ? Our reason is not infallible; nor do our arti- ficial lights equal the lightness of the sun; but we shall not improve our condition by extinguishing them, and living during his. absence in the darkness of night. Equally absurd is it to refuse to walk by our reason, when it is the only light that God has given us to guide our steps.* * Persons who take the contrary view would do well to ponder over the cbservations of Bishop Butler on this point inhis “Analogy.” “T express myself with caution, lest I should be mistaken to BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 5 ee ey ee But it has often been objected that men who are engaged in the active pursuits of life have neither the time nor the endowments that are required for entering into such ques- tions. ‘Their necessary avocations render a high degree of mental culture or cf profound study impossible. How then can they form an opinion on deep questions of philosophy, theology, science, or history? All that they can do is to accept such things on trust from those who are professed students of them. To this, however, I reply, that there is one objection that is absolutely fatal. Suppose that these authorities disagree among them- selves? This is a contingency that must be faced, for such disagreement is a patent fact. vilify reason, which is indeed the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself; or be mis- understood to assert, that a supposed revelation cannot be proved _ false from internal characters. . . . . And now, what is the just consequence from all these things? Not that reason is no judge of what is offered to us, as being of divine revelation ¢ for this would be to infer, that we are unable to judge of any- thing because we are unable to judge of allthings. Reason can, and it ought to judge, not only of the meaning, but also of the morality and the evidence of revelation.’—Butler’s “ Analogy,” part 2, chap. iil. 6 REASONS FOR Who, then, shall choose for us our infallible guide? I readily admit that it is impossible for those, the greater part of whose time is occupied in the discharge of the active duties of life, to enter on all the profound questions that may be introduced into the subject of religion. But (blessed be God!) it is not necessary to do so, to enable us to base our acceptance of Chris- tianity on rational conviction. Even in the study of the special sciences, the student is not required to solve all the intellectual prob- lems that lie at their foundation. God has not put us under the necessity of doing that which is impossible. He has endowed us with common sense, which is an adequate guide on all practical subjects, and religion is pre-eminently practical. Profound inquiry is a luxury, not a necessity. If we could not conduct our practical matters until we could solve all the profound questions that lie at their foundation, human life would come to a disastrous standstill. Yet we conduct them, and, for the most part, successfully. I will BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 7 take a remarkable illustration. Some years ago, as was proved by the evidence taken before a Committee of the House of Com- mons, some of the most eminent bankers in London took opposite views as to the prin- ciples on which the currency ought to be regulated. Yet, notwithstanding this, they conducted their business successfully. What, then, must have been their guiae? The an- swer must be, the sound principles of common sense regulated by experience. To act on these is to act on principles of sound reason. Now, as religion is a subject eminently prac- tical, it is my intention to appeal to this principle in the course of these lectures. I propose, therefore, to avoid all profound and learned questions—in fact, all such as require a special study to enable us to estimate the evidence on which they rest—and to lay be- fore you those aspects of the evidences of Christianity, which will commend themselves to the general intelligence of those members of the Christian Church, whom God has called 8 REASONS FOR ss in His providence to spend their energies in the discharge of the duties of active life. There are branches of those evidences of which such persons are as adequate judges as the most scientific thinkers, BELIEVING IN CilRISTIANITY. 9 CHAPTER TE THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH WE BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD BRIEFLY STATED: ““HE THAT COMETH TO GOD MUST BELIEVE THAT HE: IS.” % Te is evident that before I can ad- f| vance a single step in this argu- ment I must either assume, or prove, that there is a God who is the moral Governor of the Universe. Unless this is admitted, all reasonings about a revelation must be futile. You are aware that a great number of very profound arguments have been adduced for the purpose of proving His existence. It has even been attempted to be demonstrated on mathematical prin- ciples. JI own that I have little confidence in such demonstrations, and I greatly fear that those whom the reasonings that commend themselves to the average intelligence of mankind fail to convince, will not be per- 10 REASONS FOR suaded of this great truth by any amount of abstract argument. In my own opinion, the evidence of the existence of God arranges itself under three simple heads. 1. Zhe argument from Causation. 2. The order and adaptations of the unziverse,. which exist tn numbers passing all compre- henston. 3. That which ts derived from the moral nature of man. Those who fail to recognise the existence of God on these grounds will scarcely do so on any other. The first of these arguments admits of being” stated very briefly. Dismissing all discus- sions as to how our mental constitution has. originated, as having no bearing on the ques- tion before us, it is a certain fact that whenever Wwe see an event, we cannot help inferring that it must have originated in some cause, it. being impossible even to image to our imagi- nation an event without a cause. Now, as an infinite succession of such causes cannot be BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. If conceived of as possible, we infer that all finite causes must have originated in a first cause, which must have been itself uncaused. This first cause we designate God. You are doubtless aware that a large number of abstract reasonings have been adduced for the purpose of breaking the force of this argu- ment. My limits render it impossible that I should discuss them; nor will it be necessary, for I am persuaded that men who are ac- quainted with the realities of life will refuse to acquiesce in their validity. The second of these, which is derived from. the order and adaptations of the universe, is that which will ever have the greatest weight with practical men. Wherever we behold order and arrangement, our mental constitu- tion compels us to infer that it must have originated in intelligence. We cannot believe that orderly arrangements can have resulted from the action of blind, unintelligent forces. As far as we know anything of the action of these latter, they do not produce order, but disorder. Such, I say, is the natural action D2 aes REASONS FOR of our minds, that whenever we see things arranged in a certain definite order, we infer with the utmost certainty that this order must have originated in the action of an intelligent agent. Now, the universe is full of orderly arrangements of the most striking character. We therefore infer that they must be due to the action of a being who possesses an amount of intelligence adequate to have produced them. This being we designate ‘God. A simple illustration will make the force of this argument plain. Let us suppose that I have nearly completed the writing of these lectures, and have gone out for a walk, leav- ing my papers arranged, not perhaps in the order of perfect neatness, but in one in which I can readily refer to them. On my return I find the room swept out, and my papers arranged in an order perfectly pleasing to the eye, but in one in which the connection of the sense of what I have written has been wholly disregarded. What is the certain inference which I draw from this state of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 13 things: Clearly, that an intelligent agent has been meddling with my papers during my absence. Of this I feel as certain as if I saw the person do so with my eyes. But let us suppose that Iam rather angry at this state of things, and call the servant and ask why she has been disturbing my papers. She tells me that she opened the window, and the wind blew them into the form in which I now find them. This account of the matter I should consider an insult to my understand- ing, being certain that such a result could not have been brought about by the action of the blind forces of nature, but that the order in which I find them, proves that it must have resulted from the presence of intelligence. In a similar manner, when I survey the universe, and observe its orderly arrangements, the con- viction becomes irresistible, that they cannot have resulted from the action of its blind forces, but that the result has been effected by their action having been directed and con- trolled by an intelligent mind. Closely allied to this is the argument from 14 REASONS FOR adaptation. By the word adaptation, we mean a number of distinct things meeting together at the right time and place, which by their conjoint action produce a definite result, which result would have had no exist- ence apart from their conjoint action. An illustration will make this plain. A machine is an adaptation,—such, for example, as a common locomotive. It consists of a number of distinct and separate parts—the boiler, the condenser, the piston, the furnace, the wheels, &c., and the water and the fire to generate the steam. These are so combined together that by their joint action they produce a particular result. To effect this the parts must meet together at the right time and place. If any one of them had been different from what it is, the result would be different. Whenever we witness such combinations, our minds cannot help drawing the inference that their existence cannot have been due to the action of unintelligent forces, but that they must have originated in intelligent volition. We infer this with the utmost certainty, BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 15 even when we cannot see the author of it. A simple illustration will prove this. Flints of a particular form have been found in lakes and caverns. From their adaptation to pro- duce particular results, it has been inferred that their form must have been given them by intelligence, and cannot have been due to the action of the blind forces of nature. Hence it has been inferred, that beings possessed of intelligence, z.¢., men, must have existed con- temporaneously with the times when the flints were deposited in the situations in which they were found; and the degree of ‘their intelligence is justly assumed in propor- tion to the roughness or the perfection of the flint as an instrument for cutting. Thus the existence of man ina certain stage of civili- sation at particular epochs of time is inferred with an assurance in proportion to the indi- cations of adaptation for the purposes of cutting that these flints present. As far as the facts are certain, the argument is con- clusive. Let us apply it to the subject before us. 16 REASONS FOR Various things in nature, in numbers so vast that our intellects are utterly unable to form any adequate conception of their’ multi- tude, present similar combinations and adap- tations, only infinitely more complicated and marvellous. The universe is full of them, but they are most remarkably displayed in those beings that are possessed of life. A single instance, the eye, will serve for the purposes of illustration. Its adjustments are of the most complicated character. Scientific men, when they describe them, are at a loss for language to express their admiration of them. Sight is the result of the combined action of — its various parts. If any one of them had been different from what it is, sight would have been either impossible or imperfect. But, further, by their modification, the power of sight is adapted to the particular circum- stances of each particular order of animal. I ask you to reflect on the multitude of things which had to be combined and adjusted, both to render vision possible, and to adapt it to the special circumstances of the possessor. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 17 Is it believable that such marvellous com- binations and adjustments can have been due to the action of blind forces meeting together at the right time and place by an almost infinite succession of lucky accidents? Are we not irresistibly compelled to refer them to intelligence? The ear is perhaps a more marvellous example of such combinations even than the eye, wonderful as it is. To render the hearing of articulate sounds possible, two complicated organs are necessary, each of which is separate from the other, viz., the ear itself, and that marvellously complicated in- strument, the mouth, composed of the throat, the larynx, and the lungs, which by their com- bined action produce the human voice. Each of these consist of a number of parts of the most complicated delicacy, which are mutually adapted to each other; and if in any particular point the adjustment failed, the result would be marred. But what I ask you specially to observe is, that not only have each of the parts of these separate organs to be adjusted together, but unless the two organs were 2 18 REASONS FOR mutually adjusted, that is to say, the ear, and those organs which form the voice, were pre- cisely fitted to each other, hearing would be impossible. Nor is this all. In this particu- lar case the ear and the vocal powers would exist in vain, unless the atmospheric air had been nicely adjusted to both. You are aware that the air is the medium which conveys the wave of sound to the ear, and unless it was exactly fitted to do so, both the ear and the vocal organs would exist in vain. Unless, therefore, our vocal organs, the air, and our ears had been mutually adjusted together by a set of most delicate combinations, hearing would have been impossible, and however admirably adapted each organ might have been in itself, the human mind would never have perceived an articulate sound or a musical note. I ask you to reflect on the number of wonderful adjustments of parts to each other which are called into action on the occasion of a great concert; and that any failure in this complicated mechanism would have been fatal to the result, and then to ask BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY, 19 yourselves whether it is believable that such an effect can have resulted from the action of the blind forces of nature, unguided by intelli- gence. But the whole animal frame consists of a combination of similar adaptations of the most marvellous complexity, all nicely adjusted to themselves and to the entire organism, and in numbers passing all com- prehension. Can we refuse to refer these to the action of an intelligence adequate to have produced them: Is it possible that the rea- soning can be good, when we infer from the adaptation of the flint as an instrument for cutting, that it was framed by a being pos- sessed of intelligence, and when from the imperfection of the instrument we infer the imperfect intelligence of the framer, that our reasoning should be invalid when we reason from these wondrous adjustments to the being of a God? I leave that issue to the determination of your common sense. It has been objected, that even if this course of reasoning is adequate to prove the exist- ence of a Being who is possessed of sufficient 20 REASONS FOR power and intelligence to have constructed the universe, yet it by no means proves that he is Almighty or Omniscient. It has been affirmed that all we can infer is, the existence of a being of limited power and wisdom, ade- quate to have effected the result in question, but nothing more. My reply is, that such objections may safely be left in the hands of those who amuse themselves with barren speculations as to the nature of the Infinite. To us the power which has been able to build the universe and to originate all its marvellous adaptations, is, for all practical — purposes, Almighty and Omniscient. But further, as all the intelligence with which we are acquainted is united with personality, and as we are unable even to image to our minds. intelligence that is not personal, we infer that the intelligence that has constructed the universe is not a blind force, or an ‘abstraee tion, but a personal God, despite of any amount of metaphysical objections that the idea of personality necessarily involves that of limitation. Such speculations may be BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 2t safely left to certain schools of thought, who amuse themselves with a number of barren philosophical speculations; for I am firmly persuaded that they will exercise little in- fluence on those who are engaged with the practical realities of life. To them the exist- ence of an intelligence which is impersonal will be unbelievable. | It is satisfactory to know that a profound thinker like Mr. J.S. Mill, the whole of whose education and mode of thought was in the highest degree adverse to Theism, admits the validity of the argument from adaptation. There is, in fact, nothing to set against it but a theory of evolution, carried on by the blind forces of nature, which during the infinitude of a past eternity have brought about these adaptations by the survival of the fittest in the constant struggle for existence. Of this theory you have heard much under the name of “ Natural Selection.” It is not my intention to discuss the modus operandt which the Creator has adopted in creating the universe. I see no difficulty to to iS) REASONS FOR Theism in supposing that one of the modes in which God has operated in the production of living forms has been by a succession of evolutions. It is certain that this is the mode in which He has produced every member of the human family from the first ancestors of the human race; and this does not in any way hinder us from recognising the great truth, “JT believe in God the Father, who made me and all the world.” It is absurd, therefore, to dogmatise on a subject on which at present we are profoundly ignorant. But what I con- tend against is, a theory of evolution which no creative intelligence has originated, or by its constant presence controls and directs. Against such a theory, if viewed as the sole account of the origin of things, there are three fatal objections :— First, it is utterly unable to account for the origin of the evolution itself, that is, to tell us how things acquired the convenient power of producing their like, and also of slightly varying in the manner which the theory pre- supposes, without which power the whole BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 23 process would have been impossible. All atheistic or pantheistic theories of evolution are compelled to assume that the first, being possessed of life, somehow or other became possessed of a power of propagating its kind, and at the same time, of slightly varying from its original type. This is a most convenient assumption to begin with, for it assumes the point at issue. The question at once arises, how came it possessed of this power? For if this primeval germ of life could have only produced a progeny exactly resembling itself, all progress would have been impossible. The fact is that all atheistic and pantheistic systems are compelled some- where or other to assume the existence of that intelligence whose existence they deny. Secondly, it is obliged to postulate the concurrence of an infinite succession of lucky chances, all of which must have taken place at the right time and place, which is un- believable. Thirdly, whenever it is pressed with diffi- culties, itis obliged to fall back on what is 24 REASONS FOR practically an infinitude of past time, and to use millions of millions of years for its counters. Todo this is to evade the question, and not to solve it. Thus, if a particular modification of the eye (I merely take this as an example out of the innumerable adapta- tions by means of which each part of the animal frame has become fitted to the func- tion which it performs) cannot have been effected by what has been called the struggle for existence, and the survival of the fittest, in twenty thousand, nothing is easier than to fall back on a hundred thousand; and if that is insufficient, on a million or any multiple of that number. Ali things, in fact, are possible to those who can draw cheques without limit on the bank of eter- nity, for it cannot break! Such cheques, however, when presented for payment at the bank of reason, have no more value than the paper on which they are written. I therefore feel persuaded, that although a number of ingenious theorisers, including men of great eminence in special departments of science, BELIEVING IN CURISTIANITY. oe have persuaded themselves to accept this theory as furnishing an account of the origin of all things, that such principles will fail to commend themselves to the intelligence of practical men, and that, despite of it, they will still feel with the Psalmist, “I am fear- fully and wonderfully made;” and that the adaptations and adjustments existing in the animal frame in numbers numberless cannot have proceeded from the action of the blind forces of the universe, but of an intelligent Creator. The third argument for the being of a God is founded on the moral nature of man. The ether arguments only indirectly prove that the Creator of the Universe is a moral Being; this one establishes it. It stands as follows: It is inconceivable that that moral being, of which we each are distinctly conscious, can have originated in a number of forces des- titute of a moral nature. Our possession ofa moral nature is the highest of certitudes. It involves the conception of free as distinct from necessary agency. We shall continue 4 29 REASONS FOR to believe that we are free agents, despite of all reasonings to the contrary, because we know tt, and are compelled every day to act on the supposition that we are so. ' Now it is impossible to believe that freedom has origi- nated in necessity,—consciousness in uncon- sciousness,—self-sacrifice in self-love,—or our elevated affections in forces destitute of every moral attribute. "We infer, therefore, that he who has originated the moral nature of man must be a moral being and a free agent; and. that every moral attribute that exists in man has a higher counterpart in God. This con- clusion we shall continue to accept, notwith- standing all the taunts of a popular school of philosophy that such a belief is nothing better than anthropomorphism, z.¢., that such a God. is one of our own creation. It will be suf- ficient to reply to philosophers of this class that there is not a single conception in their philosophy that is not open to a similar ob- jection. When such philosophers object that to attribute the moral attributes of man to God is nothing better than the deification of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 27 Aeoe yeih O a hedariee meat mere S eS is Se man, we reply that our mode of reasoning is correct, because man is made in the image of God. If man is made after the image of God, to ascribe to him the attributes of per- sonality, holiness, justice, benevolence, and truth, is not to project man into God, but to attribute to God that which originally existed in Him, in the image of which He has created man. On the deeper questions connected with Theism it is impossible for me to enter in the present lectures. 28 | REASONS FOR CHAPTER III. IF THERE BE A GOD WHO CARES FOR MAN, THE CONDITION OF MANKIND RENDERS A FURTHER REVELATION HIGHLY PROBABLE. . ey RAVING proved the existence of : a God, the next question that i Sa demands our attention is, Are there any sufficient grounds for believing that He will make any manifestaticns of Himself to man other than those that He has already made in His various creative and providential acts? [his point is of very con- siderable importance in relation to the qucs- tion before us. You all know (for it is constantly brought to your notice in the ordinary affairs of life) that the amount of evidence which is necessary to prove that a particular event has taken place varies in proportion to the probability or the improba- bility of its occurrence. In a similar manner BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 29 an action which, if assigned to one motive may be in the highest degree improbable, may be accepted on the most ordinary testimony if assigned to another. An _ illustration will make this plain. A dead body is found, bearing all the indications of having been killed by violence. A friend, whom we have known intimately throughout life as a man distinguished by the highest benevolence and morality, is charged with the murder. We should require the strongest evidence before we could be persuaded that such a person had committed a wilful assassination; but if it could be shown that the dead man had at- tacked the other for the purpose of robbing him, and that his death had resulted from the struggle, the difficulty of accepting the fact that our friend had killed him would disap- pear. The bearing of this principle on the question of a Divine revelation is obvious. Abstractedly it may be very difficult to believe in supernatural interferences with the ordinary affairs of the universe, and it may require an overwhelming amount of evidence 30 REASONS FOR to prove their reality. But if we have reason to believe that the Divine character, and the condition of man, is such as to render such a revelation probable, the difficulty of accepting it disappears, and it can be believed on ordi- nary testimony. I ask, therefore, if there be a God, is there | any reason for thinking that He will interfere in man’s favour in a manner other than He has already done in the order of nature? In answering this question our appeal must not be to theories, but to facts only. Here again I can quote the high authority of Mr. J. S. Mill in connection with this subject in his posthumous essays. The picture which he has drawn of man’s condition is sombre in- deed. I believe it to be overcharged; but there it is as it presented itself to the reason of this eminent unbeliever. Ifit is only quar- ter true, itis in the highest degree probable, if a God exists who cares for man, that He will make an interposition in his favour beyond any that He has already made. Is it not, I ask, a simple fact that the vast majority of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 31 mankind are in a very degraded condition ? Does not evil everywhere abound? Does it not occasion a vast amount of suffering even to those who are not the guilty causes of it? Has not past experience utterly failed to pro- vide any adequate cure for it? or does it sug- eest the hope of being able to eradicate it for countless ages yet tocome? With the facts of life and history before us, these are things that cannot be denied. It follows, therefore, if there be a God who contempiates man with feelings of benevolence, that some interposi- tion in his favour is highly probable, and that there is no abstract difficulty in accepting the fact that He has done so, if only it can be established on evidence that will commend itself to our reason. to REASONS FOR ISS) CHAPTER IV. THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY | CLAIMS TO BE ACCEPTED AS A DIVINE REVELATION. Se RAVING established that a God lj exists who is the moral Governor ane fy of the universe; and that if He cares for man, man’s condition is such as to render some interposition in his favour highly probable, I am now in a position to lay before you proof that Christianity is a Divine Revelation. I first draw your attention to its internal evidence in contradistinction to that por- tion of it which is usually called mira- culous. It is a popular idea that Christianity rests for its attestation exclusively on the evi- dence of miracles wrought expressly for the purpose of proving its truth. The principles which have been laid down by many learned BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 33 writers have greatly favoured this conception of it. Icannot but think that this view of the subject is a very imperfect representation of the case. Miracles constitute an important portion of the evidence of Christianity, but by no means the whole, or even the most promi- nent part of it. Our Lord affirmed that He had a higher witness than that of miracles to the truth of His Divine mission. This is in- disputable if we accept the fourth Gospel as a truthful exponent of His teaching.* - His own * T quote the following among many passages either affirm- ing or implying it:—‘ And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John i. 14). “If any man will (is willing to) do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself ”(John vii. 17). “Zam one that bear witness cf Myself, and the Father that sent Me beareth witness of Me” (John viii. 18). ‘And because I tell you the truth, ye believe Me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me? He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God” (John viii. 45, 46, 47). ‘‘ If Ido not the works of my Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and Iin Him” (John x. 37, 38). “lamcom 3 34 REASONS FOR co express assertions assign the first rank to the manifestation of His own Divine person and character, as affording proof that He came from God, and to His miracles the second rank. This must necessarily have been the case if He is the Light of the World. The existence of the sun is best known by his visible shining. Our Lord’s Divine working, viewed as a whole, constitutes the highest evidence of His mission. In this is included the moral aspect of His miraculous acts. This a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness” (John xii. 46). “Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that 1am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto youl speak not of Myself, but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Believe Me that lam in the Father, and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the very works’ sake” (John xiv. 8—11). “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you” (1 John 1—3). BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 35 same truth is set forth in the synoptic Gospels, but less formally.* This portion of the evi- dence of Christianity may perhaps not inaptly be designated as a moral miracle. It is, in fact, a manifestation of the Divine on the sphere of the human. This view of the subject is worthy of our particular attention at the present day, because it is an attestation to the truth of Christianity, which, instead of being weak- ened, is strengthened by the lapse of time. Such is not the case with what we designate a miracle: by which I mean some event taking place in the external universe at the bidding of another, which none of its known forces are adequate to cause, and which, therefore, bears witness to the energising * It is worthy of remark that when our Lord was challenged ‘by His adversaries to work a miracle in proof of His divine mission, He uniformly refused to do so, but He referred to His resuireetion as constituting that proof, “the sign of the prophet Jonas.” In many cases, when He performed cures, He charged those healed by Him to keep the matter secret. Such miracles ‘were certainly not wrought for directly evidential purposes, but ‘they constituted a portion of His divine working, 36 REASONS FOR presence of a power superior to the ordinary forces of nature. When such an event takes place at the bidding of a particular person, it proves, in the language of Nicodemus, that God is with him. Miracles, therefore, would be convincing evidence of a Divine mission to those who witnessed their performance, though we know that their evidential force was in some degree weakened by the super- stitions of the times, and that our Lord was consequently obliged to appeal to the moral aspect of those performed by Him, as afford- ing proof that they were wrought by the finger of God. We, however, who live in these latter days, cannot behold the miracles. Our belief in them must be founded on the testimony of others. To us, therefore, they afford an inferior evidence compared with that which they yielded to the actual spectators of them. We have to establish the facts by a long chain of historical reasoning. It is exactly contrary with the moral evidence of Christianity. The Light of the World is actually shining onus. The Christian Church BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 37 during eighteen centuries of life has proved the mightiest moral and spiritual power that has ever been manifested among men. We are now in a position fully to estimate whether Christianity is a manifestation of a Divine power or of a purely human one. We are now in a better position to take a larger view of this subject even than those who lived in the first century of our era, in proportion as our experience is wider. To this result the increase of our knowledge and the establish- ment of a sounder philosophy have alike contributed. This portion of our evidence, therefore, increases in force instead of dimin- ishes by lapse of time. 38 REASONS FOR CHAPTER: Vi THE PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTIANITY. WOMMHAT, then, is the most striking | feature in Christianity which dis- sama’) tinguishes it from every system which man has invented either in the past or in the present? To this question there can be only one answer: that its entire system, its inner life, and its sole principle of cohesion are based on the personal history of its Founder. I ask your deep attention to this remarkable fact. The history of man presents nothing parallel to it. He has ori- _ginated every conceivable form of institution, whether it be religious, political, or social ; yet not one of them has been based on its founder’s person. Yet this is the one sole ground of the origination of the Christian Church, of its vitality and its cohesion. If BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 39 Ry ee eer eee ee eee the life of Jesus Christ be removed out of Christianity, it would remove the key-stone out of its arch, and the whole would collapse into a mass of shapeless ruins. This is not the case with any other institu- tion, whether religious, political, philoso- phical, or social. Three great religions exist in the world, which probably number among their votaries between six and seven hundred millions of the human family: Braminism, Buddhism, and Mahometanism. Two ofthese have known founders. Yet the essential principle of all three consists in a body of dogmatic teaching, not in a personal history. The persons of. their founders might be removed out of them without damage to their entire systems. The same is true of all the religions that have ever existed among man- kind. But to remove the person of the Founder of Christianity out of His religion would be its destruction. It is quite true that the New Testament contains a considerable amount of doctrinal and moral teaching; but neither of these constitutes its inner life. The 40 REASONS FOR person of Jesus Christ our Lord alone imparts to it vitality and cohesion. The Church, the greatest of all visible institutions, is founded on Him alone. If we also take a survey of every political or social institution, we shall arrive at the same result. Individuals may have founded them, but this is all. Their vitality and cohesion has never been based on their own personal history, or that of any other. So it has been with all the various philosophical sects. Dog- matic statements, not the history of the life of an individual, have formed the bond of their union. The Socratic, Platonic, and Aristo- telian systems of philosophy are complete, and are entirely independent of the personal history of their founders. The last thing which would have occurred to the leaders of ancient thought, would have been to found their systems on their own persons. Nor, although Christianity has set the example of doing this, has it ever been attempted since. A vast number of sects have sprung up in the bosom of the Christian Church; but the bond BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 41 which has imparted to them unity and vitality, has been invariably a doctrinal one, and never a personal history. Respecting the fact that the Person of Jesus Christ forms the inner life of the Christianity of the New Testament, and that He is the sole rock on which the Church is built, there cannot be the smallest doubt. I need not attempt to prove it. You can read the New Testament for yourselves. Take away every- thing having reference to Jesus out of it, and it becomes a shapeless ruin. Nor is the voice of history less certain, that of all the moral and spiritual influences that have ever been exerted on this earth, the influence of Jesus has been the most potent. Enumerate, if you will, kings or conquerors, patriots, statesmen, philosophers, poets, and men of science, take them, I say, separately or conjointly, and the influence that has been exerted by them will be found to be inconsiderable compared with that which has been exerted by Jesus Christ. Fle has founded a spiritual empire, which has endured for eighteen centuries and a half; the 42 REASONS FOR JW lee ian oa ee a moral force of which, despite the predictions of unbelievers, shows no indications of de- crepitude. Beginning with the smallest beginnings, He now embraces within His. empire all the progressive races of man. It differs from all human institutions, in that it is founded neither on force nor self-interest, but on the supreme attractiveness of His character. In proportion as men have attained to mental elevation, they have rejected various tyrannies, but have confessed Him Lord. The holiest of men have viewed Him with the supremest reverence, and accepted Him as a King worthy to reign over them, and with the more eagerness in proportion to their holiness. Yet Jesus in outward condition was a peasant, who, if His mental illumination was derived from sources exclusively human, was born and nurtured in the midst of a nation whose narrow exclusiveness provoked the contempt of the ancient world. The truth of these facts is, I believe, incap- able of being disputed. If so, there is nothing which, in the smallest degree, resem- * BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 43 bles them in the entire history of man. But before I proceed to the more minute points of the argument, I will put the case broadly to your common sense. Is it conceivable, that differing as Christianity does in these respects from every human institution, that its origin should be simply due to human causes? Must not the power that is inherent in it, be the manifestation of something superhuman? As an event which is not produced by the known forces of nature is a physical miracle, so one that is uncaused by the known forces of the moral universe must be a moral miracle. This I claim for Christianity, until some power that is purely human can be pointed out, which is adequate to have produced these results. Ad REASONS FOR CHAPTER VI. 2HE INFLUENCE” WHICH: JESUS -CHRIST @HAS EXERTED ON MANKIND IS A FACT UNIQUE IN HISTORY. pone Be ae | WILL now proceed to consider ole . S\ (Pa, in detail those characteristics of faxxmias| Christianity that distinguish it aoe all human systems. In doing so, instead of making any statement on my own authority as to what Christianity has accomplished, I will quote the testimony of Mr. Lecky, given in his history of morality from Augustus to Charlemagne. He is a most unexceptionable witness, for he is an unbeliever in the super- natural origin of Christianity. Writing as an historian, however, he states the following to be fact :— ‘“‘ It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has in- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 45 gL beclide atl la lll sa ahi a a ASU ED ee Sa spired the hearts of men with an impassioned love, and has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and con- ditions; has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the highest incentive to its practice, and has exerted so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften man- kind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists. This has, indeed, been the well-spring of what- ever is best and purest in the Christian life. Amid all the sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution and fanaticism that have defaced the Church, it has pre- served, in the character and example of its Founder, an enduring principle of regenera- tion.”’ Such is the testimony of the historian. The great question is, Is it borne out by the facts of history? If the facts are correctly stated, they are of unspeakable importance in their bearing on our present question. Mr. Lecky 46 REASONS FOR is an unimpeachable witness, for he cannot be accused of bias in favour of Christianity. There can be no doubt that the facts are stated by him accurately. To what, then, do they point—a human or a superhuman origin of Christianity? It is clear that nothing that man has produced in the long course of his historical development in the smallest degree resembles them. Let us weigh them one by one. First, the historian affirms, as a matter of fact, that Christianity has succeeded in pre- senting to the world “an ideal character, which throughout all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love.’ It is almost super- fluous to say that this ideal character is that of Jesus as it is depicted in the Gospels. The historian designates it ideal, because in his _ view it embodies the highest possible concep- tion of human nature. The considerations that I shall offer in the course of these lectures will enable you to judge whether this character is historical or fictitious. At present I ask BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 47 you most carefully to weigh the following considerations :— | First, it is an undoubted fact that there is no character, whether real or fictitious, that can bear the smallest comparison in point of ideal perfection with that of Jesus Christ. It stands out in solitary and unapproachable grandeur. Whencecomes this? If it is that of a mere man, how comes it that no other man has made a near approach to it? If it be a fictitious creation, whence is it that no fictitious character of the ancient world comes anywhere near to its perfection: Fictitious characters are abundant enough in ancient literature, and the genius of the ancient poets is unquestionable. Howis it, then, that the crea- tionsof ancient genius have utterly failed to por- tray a character which even approximates to thatof the Christ of the Gospels? After eighteen long centuries the character of Jesus inspires the hearts of men with an impassioned love. No other character of the ancient world, whether real or fictitious, does so. But there is one more point pre-eminently remarkable, (! 48: REASONS FOR a ee ee eee. to which I ask your earnest attention. During the last eighteen centuries fiction has been busily at work with its creations; yet Jesus still reigns without a rival. Surely philosophy must concur with common sense that we are here in the presence of a moral miracle. But, further, all men are the children of their surroundings. To the truth of this every fact in history bears witness. The utmost that genius can effect is their modifica- tion, but it cannot break through their tram- mels. To this universal rule history presents one exception, and one only, Jesus Christ. If we look merely at His earthly environment, He was born and educated in an intellectual, moral, and spiritual atmosphere, pre-emi- nently narrow: yet He has burst through every trammel imposed by His surroundings. His followers also were narrow-minded Gali- lean peasants. Yet, if the character of Jesus be a fictitious one, it must have been their creation. Such a supposition involves a violation of the laws of the moral world. But the historian further tells us that this BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 49 ideal character has not only kindled in the hearts of men an impassioned love, “but it has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions.” This fact can be controverted by none, account for itas we may. It has acted on civilised man, and it has acted on savage man. The Euro- pean, the Asiatic, the African, the aboriginal American, the native of the Polynesian Isles, notwithstanding these several races are of the widest divergency of intellect and character, Mave alike confessed its power. Can it be denied that men of the mightiest intellects have bowed before Him in every age? Is it not likewise a fact that the most simple- minded have felt Him to be the inward life of their spirits ? Has He not been the consola- tion of the poor and the degraded ? At the same time has not the whole course of European legislation been influenced by Him? Has He not exerted a mighty influence on all our social relations? Great men have existed— great conquerors, great legislators, great philosophers, great poets—who have been 4 50 REASONS FOR men of far-seeing range of intellectual vision, and, may I not add, many of whom have been animated with an earnest desire to benefit their fellows, according to the light that was in them. But they have only been able to influence portions of mankind. They have belonged to their particular race or country, their day or generation ; Jesus alone has acted on all nations, ages, temperaments, and con- ditions. No poet outside the Bible is so catholic in speaking to the heart of man as Shakespeare, yet who will think of comparing his influence to the universality of that of Jesus Christ? Who feels for Shakespeare’s. person an impassioned love? Great men have been national and local, Jesus alone belongs to humanity—He is, in the truest sense, the Son of Man. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. SI CHAPTER VII. THIS UNIQUE INFLUENCE EXERTED BY JESUS CHRIST PROVES HIS DIVINE CHARACTER. 2 aE this be so, we are in the presence | of a fact unspeakably important. : wee] Iiow is it, I ask, that Jesus alone of es sons of men can sway men of every temperament, race, and degree of mental cultivation? Why is it that He alone, though by birth and education He breathed the air of the most rigid exclusiveness, is neither national nor local, but stamped with the image of humanity itself? Al other men are deeply tinged with the idiosyncrasies of the environments which surround them, which render them unsympathetic to multi- tudes of mankind. Why is it that Jesus alone is as wide as human nature? Need I draw the inference? Must not the laws of man’s intellectual and moral being have been re- versed in His case? Must He not be more 52 REASONS FOR than man? Must He not be Divine, as well as human? No long chain of reasoning is necessary to prove this. It is simply unbe- lievable that the most intensely national and bigoted of races should have produced the only catholic man, if the laws which regulated the birth and development of Jesus were the same as those which regulate that of the remainder of mankind. On what principle of evolution or natural selection was the intel- lectual and moral character of Jesus Christ evolved out of Jewish bigotry and fanaticism ? I repeat it; the catholicity of the character of Jesus is a miracle wrought in the moral world, and is utterly inconsistent with an origin that is purely human. I now ask you to consider the next great fact connected with the character of Jesus, to which the historian draws our attention. “Jesus Christ has not only been tne highest pattern of virtue, but the highest incentive to its practice.” I shall not in this place enter on a discussion of the wide comprehensiveness of the moral BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY, 53 teaching of Christianity. That I propose doing hereafter. The point now under our consideration is a special one, that the charac- ter of Jesus Christ, as it is delineated in the New Testament, is “the highest pattern of virtue.” The New Testament has made His life and actions an essential portion of its moral teaching. In doing so, it propounds the highest ideal of perfect morality, and does so successfully. This is to be found in no other system. No subject occupied the attention of the great thinkers of the ancient world more deeply than the investigation of the great principles of moral obligation. Many of them deserve to be mentioned with profound respect, yet to none of them did it ever occur to teach the great principles of duty through the medium of any character, ideal or actual. There can be no doubt that if the attempt had been made, it would have ended in hopeless failure. Not so has it been with Jesus Christ. His example is the perfect embodiment of His teaching ; nay, it constitutes the essence of it. 54 REASONS FOR No ancient teacher of morality would have presumed to say, “Do as I have done.” All questions of moral duty can be solved by asking ourselves the question, What would the great teacher Himself have done under similar circumstances? and we possess suffi- cient details of His actions to make this a great practical rule of conduct under the ever varying circumstances of life. Now ask you to observe, that it would have been impossible to have done this in the case of any one known in history, except the Author of Christianity. Why is this? All the great teachers of the ancient world were conscious of their own imperfection. Jesus alone was not. Not one of them, therefore, would have ventured to say, “ Practice not only what I preach, but find your complete and perfect rule of duty in my practice.” Would Socrates have ventured to do this? Would Plato: Would Aristotle? Would the most self-suffi- cient of the Stoics, whose philosophy may be almost called the philosophy of self-suffi- ciency? Yet Jesus has done it, and done tc BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 55 effectually. How, I ask, has this been possible? Is it anything else than intense presumption? There is only one adequate answer. Jesus Himself was fully conscious that He was morally perfect. If He was so, He must have been Divine. The next point is still more worthy of your deep attention, for it forms the most remark- able characteristic which distinguishes the teaching of Christianity from every human system. Jesus is not only the most perfect pattern of virtue, “‘ but the highest incentive to the practice of it.” One fact must be clear to every reader of the New Testament. It represents that the person of Jesus Christ is the most powerful incentive to holiness that can be brought to bear on the mind of man. Human nature is weak against temptation to evil. According to its teaching, faith in Him makes it strong. His love is the great constraining principle to duty. What I aver is, that Christianity is absolutely unique in placing the centre of moral obligation in a living person. 56 REASONS FOR Of the weakness of human nature all the great moralists of the ancient world were pro- foundly conscious. They vainly sought for a power that was capable of controlling the violence of the passions. As far as their light enabled them, they investigated the grounds on which moral obligation rests, and applied its principles to the elaboration of rules for conduct more or less complete. Many of their treatises, which are directed to the study of man and his motives, may still be read with instruction even by the Christian. One thing they made clear: not only were the motives that the philosopher was able to urge for the purpose of enforcing the practice of virtue extremely weak, but he was fully conscious of their weakness. Philosophy wholly failed to discover a power which, in the words of our historian, was capable of regenerating and softening mankind; or, to use a more Chris- tian form of expression, which could give us the victory over the evils by which we are environed. With this difficulty it is the special function BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 7 of Christianity to deal. What is its remedy for this great defect? It propounds the person of its Founder as the highest incen- tive to the practice of everything that is good and holy. Faith in Him is declared to be a means of imparting to human nature a moral and spiritual strength of which it was previously destitute. The originality of the idea is unquestionable. But has it proveaa mighty moral and spiritual power? Mr. Lecky shall answer the question :— kne ideal character”? which it contains ‘‘has done more to regenerate and soften mankind tnan all the disquisitions of philosophers, and than all the exhortations of moralists.’’ This being so, we are in the presence of two facts, the conjoint force of which will go far to prove that there must be something in Christianity that is superhuman. First, it alone, of every system of human thought, professes to create a new moral and spiritual power, sufficiently strony to render holiness possible toman. This it has placed in the Divine attractiveness ot the person of its 58 REASONS FOR Founder, whe constitutes the centre of its life. Secondly, as an actual fact in history, this power has wrought with a mighty energy during eighteen centuries. Its influence has been greater than that of all other powers united. To these two facts I ask your atten- ’ tive consideration. The attempt to make the founder of a religion a mighty moral and spiritual power is one that is absolutely unique in the history of the human mind. In fact, if it had been attempted in any other person than Jesus Christ, nothing could have saved it from ridicule. An ililustration will place this before you in a striking light. Socrates produced among his followers a deep feeling of attach- ment; but nothing but madness could have induced them to propound him to future ages as the centre of moral and spiritual obligation. Suppose for one moment the following expres- sions to have been put into the mouth of Socrates :—“ I, if I drink the cup of hemlock, will draw all men unto me.” ‘Come to BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 59 ah it Ee ee Veta SN a Socrates all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and he will give you rest.” “Take his yoke upon you and learn of him, for he is meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light.” Or suppose these words to have been the utterance of one of his disciples :—“‘ The love of Socrates constrains us.” ‘* Whether we live we live unto Socrates, and whether we die we die to Socrates ; whether, therefore, we live or die we are Socrates’s.” “I drink the hemlock with Socrates, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Socrates lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith in Socrates, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Applied to Socrates such expressions are ridiculous; applied to Jesus Christ they are a mighty power. Would any follower have dared to apply them to Sakya Muni, or Confucius, or Mahomet? Would not Moses: have rejected them with horror? Yet there is that in Jesus Christ which makes them fit with propriety. Why is this? The only possible 60 REASONS FOR answer is, there is something in Him which belongs to Him alone, a worthiness that is absolutely Divine. But, further; the attempt has not only been made, it has proved a success; the Divine character of Jesus has acted on men mightily. It has rescued the degraded from their degradation. It has regenerated hardened hearts that no other force could break or power subdue. It has elevated the good and the noble. In the words of the historian, “It has done more to regenerate and soften man- kind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and than all the exhortations of moralists.” But I must press on you an additional con- sideration. The influence which has been exerted by Jesus Christ is one that no mere sense of departed worth is capable of origi- nating. However great a man’s personal influence may have been, or whatever attach- ments he may have evoked, after he is dead these only remain in the reminiscences of a few fond friends, and then gradually disappear. There have been many benefactors of man- BELIEVING. IN CHRISTIANITY. 61 kind of whose labours we now enjoy the benefit, but of which of them is the personal history a mighty power capable of swaying the human heart? Intensity of devotion can only be felt for aliving person. All that dead men can do is to leave us a legacy of their example, and conjure their personal friends to follow it. But the influence which Jesus has exerted for eighteen centuries is no fond remi- niscence, but one that can stir the mind of man to its lowest depths. The power of pro- ducing profound devotion, which is confessedly seated in Him, could have no existence, except from the belief in His continued life. But Jesus has done what no other man has done: He has lived and energised for eighteen centuries after the termination of His mortal life. The mighty power that He has exerted has not merely been seated in His three short years of active life, but in these, followed by His self-sacrificing death; and that followed by His resurrection. The whole forms a manifestation of Divine attractiveness, able to constrain the human heart. 62 REASONS FOR Closely connected with this unique power, and directly flowing from it, is the last fact mentioned by the historian, that amidst all the corruptions of the Church, its superstitions, its priestcraft, it has ever found a well-spring capable of imparting to it a new vitality “in the character and example of its Founder.” Probably some of us will take a different view of the extent of these corruptions. from the writer before me. For my own part, I shall not dispute that the historic Church has frequently been overlaid by superstition; that it has sanctioned prac- tices which its Founder expressly forbade; and that, in a manner frightful to contemplates it has unsheathed the sword which He en- joined it to put up into its scabbard. All this. is true, and its truth only increases the mar- vellounesss ‘of the fact which the historian brings to our notice—that she has ever found in the person of her Founder the ever-renewing principle of her regeneration. Of whom else, I ask, can this be affirmed? It is the universal law of human institutions that their corrup- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 63 tions terminate in their destruction. Hence empires have passed away; religions have become extinct ; and institutions, once instinct with life, have become effete. Similar cor- ruptions have smitten Christianity; but the unveiling of the Divine person of her Founder before the eyes of men ever has and ever will impart to her a renewed vitality. Of Him alone, and of the Church that He has founded, can this be said with truth. Surely the inference cannot be evaded that His Name is above every name, and that in it every knee’ should bow, and that every tongue should coniess Him Lord. 64 REASONS FOR CHAPTER VIII. THE COMBINED FORCE OF THE ARGUMENT. : ee HAVE thus far surveyed these his- ’ a Zi torical facts separately, for the oe Ba purpose of setting before you the ence they afford of the Divine origin of Christianity. I must now ask you to look at them conjointly. The evidence is moral evidence; and, as you know, moral evidence is indefinitely multiplied in its force, when a multitude of things converge in a common centre. The possession of the purse of a murdered man may not be conclusive proof that the possessor was the murderer. But if his clothes are stained with blood; if various articles that belonged to the murdered man are found in his _ posses- sion; if it can be proved that he purchased the instrument by which his death was ac- complished; if his foot-prints exactly corres- pond to those of the murderer; if he also has BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 65 adopted a number of cunning devices to avoid detection; if all these circumstances meet together in the same person, they afford a stronger evidence of guilt than that of a man who affirms that he saw the prisoner commit the murder. Why is this? Because testi- mony may be false, or a mistake may be committed about personal identity. But facts like these can neither lie nor deceive; and when they thus converge in a common focus they possess all the force of demonstration. So it is with the evidence before us. Each separate fact, taken by itself, affords a very strong presumption that Christianity is Di- vine. What then must be the force of the whole, centring, as they do, in the person of Jesus? I leave it with your common sense. They prove the presence of a moral miracle. If you could witness a physical miracle wrought in the material universe, would its evidence be more conclusive: Unbelief here steps in with its objection. The great character as it is delineated in the Gospels never had an historical existence, but o 66 REASONS FOR cara an hc oR nna ee is an ideal delineation, created by the imagi- nations of the early followers of Jesus. To meet this objection fully would require an amount of time which is inconsistent with a course of lectures. I have already done so in a closely-reasoned volume of upwards of 400 pages.* In this place I can only press on your attention the following considerations. If the character of Jesus be an ideal, and not an historical one, the hearts of men—includ- ing the wisest and the noblest—have been inspired with an impassioned love for a phan- tom during these eighteen centuries of time—_ I say it with reverence—as its whole power to inspire impassioned love has been due to the belief that the Jesus of the Gospels was a living entity—on a lie. The alternative is a terrible one to contemplate, but there is no other. Either the Jesus of the Gospels is the delineation of a living entity, or during this long period of time the holiest, the most elevated, and the best have been bowing be- * «The Jesus of the Evangelists.” BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 67 fore a phantom, and mistaking it for a reality. If this be so, what a terrible view does it present us of the condition to which man is condemned! Full well might sceptical Pilate exclaim, with the bitterest irony, ‘‘ What is truth?’ Verily one thing is true, and one only: that “man is walking in a vain shadow, and disquieting himself in vain.” To what end have been all the self-sacrificing struggles in the search for truth, for delusions are mightier than realities. Let us, therefore, take refuge in delusions; for in this case a phantom has been acting for good with a power compared with which that of all the earnest efforts of philosophers and moralists have been nothing. None, I think, but a misanthrope will accept this as a correct view of the history of the past. But there is one more aspect of this question which I must ask you to ponder over. If the Jesus of the Evangelists was an ideal, and not an historical personage, the character must have been the invention of a number of nar- row-minded, bigoted, and credulous Jews. I 68 REASONS FOR put it to your common sense. Is this believ- able? Can water rise above the level of its fountain? Can such a character have issued out of such a Nazareth by any process of natural development? BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY, 69 CEA Fe iN EEX, THE WIDE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE PACING. |OF->fESUS CHRIST, AND) —ITS POWER TO SATISFY THE DEEPEST CRAV- INGS OF THE HUMAN HEART. NOW draw your attention to another important branch of this pee subject—the wide comprehensive- ness Dok the teaching of Christianity, and its adaptation to all the nobler aspirations of man. Before doing so, I will point out what this argument is valid to prove. I readily concede that it does not neces- sarily follow that a religion is Divine because it is adapted to some of the wants of human nature. All religions are so in a greater or less degree. This is the only thing that imparts to them force, or renders their accep- tance possible. The important question is, Is it a religion adapted to its higher aspirations, 7O REASONS FOR including its entire system? If it is so, it proves that it cannot have originated in any- thing mean, narrow, or degraded; and that its origin must have been different from that of those religions that are unable to satisfy them. But, further: in denying that Chris- tianity is Divine, unbelievers allow that it is necessary that they should point out the human causes in which it must have origi- nated. In doing so, they invariably assign a most important influence to the alleged superstition, credulity, and fanaticism of the original followers of Jesus. Unless this assumption is made, it is impossible to give even a plausible account of the origin of the miraculous narratives which are contained in the Gospels; and above all, of the belief in our Lord’s resurrection. This forms the key of their entire position; and without it it is utterly indefensible. But if Christianity has succeeded in realising all the highest aspira- tions of human nature, it is clear that it cannot have originated in the dreams of credulous, superstitious, or narrow-minded BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 71 men. Further, if it has accomplished this, while the efforts of the wisest and the best have failed to do so, it will form a strong presumption that its origin must have been superhuman.* The same remarks are applicable to its moral teaching. If Christianity has solved a problem over which the mightiest intellects have toiled and failed, it is clear that it must have originated in something else than the imaginations of ignorant and bigoted Jewish fishermen and peasants. It may be urged that unbelievers allow that a large portion of the moral teaching of the three first Gospels is that of Jesus Himself. But if Jesus were a Jew, and nothing more, all that He could have attained to, even on the supposition that He was a pre-eminently gifted man, would have been a moderate elevation above the ideas and the prejudices of His countrymen. His entire education and surroundings must _have been those of an ordinary Jewish peasant. To many of their superstitions and * See “‘ Supernatural in the New Testament,” chaps. xiiii—xvi, 12 REASONS FOR prejudices He must certainly have been a prey. The universal experience of man proves that the greatest men have never been able to break through the conditions imposed on them by their birth and education. If Jesus, therefore, and His disciples, have succeeded in propounding a moral system, not only more complete and perfect than that of any of the previous great masters of human thought, but one which is fitted for every condition of man- kind, it proves not only that the positions taken by unbelievers are untenable, but that Jesus and His followers could not have de- rived their illumination from any ordinary human source, or, in other words, that it must have been Divine. In taking this line of argument, I ask you to observe that there is no occasion to say one word in depreciation of the results which have been effected by the previous great teachers of morality. This has been some- times done as though it gave support to the Christian argument, but I think most un- wisely. If Jesus Christ and His followers BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 73 have successfully rivalled the most’ en- lightened teachers of antiquity, what stronger proof can we have that they were not credu- lous fanatics, enthusiasts, or impostors: [I fully admit that ancient thinkers discovered no inconsiderable amount of moral truth; but the teaching of the New Testament embraces all that is true in theirs, and adds to it the morality of humanity. Two questions, therefore, present them- selves for our consideration. First, Does Christianity as a religion satisfy all the higher aspirations of the human mind, and at the same time appeal to none that are de- grading? Secondly, Is its moral teaching free from all one-sidedness; and is it ade- quate to meet the requirements of every condition of human civilisation? First, What are the subjects on which the spirit of man most intensely requires satis- faction? JI answer that they are four in number. First, to know whence we came; or, in other words, to understand the relation in which we stand to the Author of the Uni- 74 REASONS FOR Ee verse. Secondly, to obtain freedom from the sense of guilt under which man’s conscience labours. Thirdly, to have before us a perfect ideal of moral rectitude. Fourthly, to obtain a more definite assurance than our natural light affords us as to the destiny that awaits us beyond the grave. Whether Christianity satisfies man’s highest aspirations on these points is not a question of theory, but of fact. Firstly, man intensely desires to understand the relation which exists between him and the Author of the Universe. It is not neces- sary for me to discuss the question whether this problem is or is not soluble by unaided reason, because nothing can be more certain, as a matter of fact, than that man has very imperfectly succeeded in solving it for him- self. This is testified to by the universal voice of history. To this question the answer of Christianity is clear and definite. It tells him that there is a sovereign Creator of all things, to Whom man stands in the relation not only of a creature but of a child. He is a personal moral Being, the Controller of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 75 con lei AE ES Ls ar a SD Sein ea a | Providence, holy, just, beneficent, and unalter- _ ably good. Contrast the account which the New Testament gives of God with those of the other religions that have dominated among men, and the difference in point of elevation is prodigious. The God of the philosopher was a being who satisfied not one of the aspirations of the human spirit. He was for the most part an impersonal God, incapable of evoking either trust or love. The popular deities were tainted with the worst imperfections of human nature. The God of the New Testament is the merciful Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is what Christ is. As such He is capable of satisfy- ing every elevated aspiration of the spirit of man. It is impossible, therefore, that those who have propounded views of the Divine character more elevated than any others which can be found in the ancient or modern world, can have been the prey of enthusiasm, credulity, or fanaticism. | Secondly, man’s conscience labours under a sense of guilt, and earnestly desires freedom 76 REASONS FOR from its burden. Of this fact the universal prevalence of the rite of sacrifice in some form or other is a sufficient proof. No race of men who have believed in the being of a God have been without some means of expi- ating guilt. It may be objected that there are individual instances in which this feeling does not exist at all, or only imperfectly. I reply that such cases no more avail to prove that a sense of guilt is unreal in human nature than the cases of those persons who are born blind or deaf, or with imperfect powers of vision or hearing, prove that these faculties do not belong to it. And not only is this so, but the holiest and the best of men have always felt deeply conscious that they have not lived up to that law which conscience pronounces to be right; and the deeper has been their sense of this in proportion to the degree of their holiness. In what position, then, does this feeling of sin place man with God? What effect has it on their respective relations? How are we to be delivered from its consequences? While these are questions BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. roy of the profoundest interest, which have been felt to be so by every portion of the human race except a few of the most degraded savages, we have no data which can enable us to return a precise and definite answer to them. But Christianity professes authoritatively to solve the question. It informs us that Jesus Christ has completely restored the union between heaven and earth; that the sense of guilt need exist no longer; and that whenever repentance is real the consequences of sin are done away. In connection with this I ask you thoughtfully to consider the following point, as proving that its solution of this problem has been felt to be an adequate one. Wherever Christianity has prevailed it has abolished the old worid-wide institution of sacrifices. It has subverted them by an- nouncing that man can approach to God acceptably through the perfect Man Jesus Christ. Before this idea all the expiations and sacrificial rites of the ancient world have perished. ‘With the third of these subjects I need not 78 REASONS FOR further occupy your attention, as I have already proved that the character of Jesus Christ fully satisfies the cravings of the human spirit after a great moral ideal, and does it with matchless perfection. F ourthly, Christianity returns a definite answer to the question, What is man’s destiny beyond the grave: I assume that no one can dispute that the light that man possesses on this subject, inde- pendently of a revelation, is very uncertain. Nor have the discoveries of modern science in any way tended to dissipate the gloom. The utmost that our natural light can do is to afford us a hope that death will not terminate our existence.* Yet who will venture to affirm that some definite information on this point is not in the highest degree desirable? The question whether we shall perish by the stroke of death, or, if not, whether our condition hereatter will be affected by our conduct here, is one which no amount of unbelieving. philo- Sophy pronouncing it insoluble, will prevent * See J. S. Mill’s three Essays on Religion, BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 79 man from putting to himself with the pro- foundest interest. Man struggling with the uncertainties and the unsatisfying character of present things, cannot help putting to him- self the question, Do my hopes and my fears terminate with this shadow of existence, which we call life? I know nothing more mysterious than the darkness of our natural light on a subject of such profound practical interest. Yet itis a fact. Surely, if there be a God, He will afford us some information for our guid- ance? Christianity affirms that it can solve this question on grounds of the highest cer- tainty—the express authority of God. It affirms that the existence of man will not be terminated by death, and that his condition hereafter will be dependent on his conduct here. It even goes beyond this, and asserts as an historical fact that in one case the uni- versal law of death has been reversed; that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and that His renewed life is a pledge of the resurrec- tion of all mankind. If this answer is true, it _isclear that it is one that fully satisfies the 80 REASONS FOR highest aspirations of the spirit of man. Contrast the Christian doctrine of immortality with that propounded in the fictitious litera- ture of the ancient world, and mark its superior elevation. Homer makes his greatest hero say in Hades, “‘I had rather be the meanest slave on earth, than king among the Shades.” Contrast also the words of the dying Socrates, who, while expressing his hopes for the future, declares his inability to affirm anything re- specting it with certainty, with the language of the Galilean fisherman, ‘In whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” To enable us fully to estimate the force of this argument, we ought to compare the solu- tions that the New Testament has propounded of these four questions with those that have been offered by every other system of human thought. Nothing is more remarkable than the contrast that they present. ‘The philo- sophic ones are coldly unsatisfying, the popular ones are degrading. If these solu- tions of Christianity are purely human ones, BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 8r they must have originated in the minds of narrow-minded and bigoted Jews. Is this conceivable? I do not say that these solu- tions, taken by themselves, prove that Chris- tianity is Divine; but, taken in conjunction with those which I have already adduced, they establish it. One thing they prove on evi- dence that is absolutely conclusive, that the theories that unbelievers have propounded as the only alternatives for the Divine origin of Christianity—viz., that the followers of Jesus were a prey of the most unbounded credulity, superstition, and enthusiasm—are utterly baseless, 82 REASONS FOR — CHAT ie Ree THE ARGUMENT FROM THE MORAL TEACH=- ING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. rca i SIMILAR course of reasoning is applicable to the moral teaching of B48 §| the New Testament. The subject is a very wide one, and I can only draw your attention to a few of its more salient points. Before doing so it will be necessary that L should answer a very popular objection which has been alleged against its originality. It has been urged that much of the moral teaching of the New Testament has been dis- covered by man’s unaided reason. Who, I ask, but persons utterly ignorant of the sub- ject, have ventured to affirm that man has not discovered many of the rules of duty with- out the aid of revelation? To affirm that he cannot do so is equivalent to the denial that he is a moral being; for the idea of one BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 53 involves the conception of duty or obligation. It follows, therefore, that some portions of its teaching must be common to every treatise on morality. Ifthis is what the objection means, it is worthless. But the allegation that its higher teaching is to be found elsewhere is of amore serious character. How far, then, is it true: I reply that some shadows of its higher teaching can be found elsewhere, scat- tered over a large number of authors, as isolated precepts, but its system nowhere. I ask you to observe that the real question respects its moral teaching taken as a whole, and not whether you can find one or more of its precepts in some ancient author. Let the comparison be made between system and system, principle and principle, and the objec- tion utterly breaks down. The real truth is that it embraces everything that is good which has been propounded by previous teachers, free from their defects, and a great deal that stands solitary and alone. But what, I ask, taken at the utmost, is the value of the objec- tion? It will not be pretended that the writers 84 REASONS FOR of the New Testament had either studied the ancient philosophers or derived any of their ideas from them. Their conceptions then, as far as they rose above the level of those of their countrymen, must have been original. Let us suppose that some small portions of their teaching were anticipated by some of the great luminaries of the ancient world. What would this prove? The very opposite to the affirmations of unbelievers. Instead of being credulous enthusiasts, they must have been men of great sobriety of thought. Iwill now briefly enumerate some of its most salient characteristics. First, its teaching is of the most wide and comprehensive character. It is absolutely catholic. Superior to every distinction of nation, race, or social position, it embraces all mankind within the sphere of moral obliga- tion. To enable us fully to estimate the great- ness of its achievements in this particular, it would be necessary to compare it with every system that has been evolved independently. of its influence. Great as were the powers of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 85 the ancient philosophers, they never rose to the conception of a law of duty obligatory towards every member of the human family. With them obligation was limited to persons ot particular races and conditions; and the outside world lay beyond its limits. One of the greatest of them pronounced slavery natural to man, and defined a slave to be a living tool. But the New Testament affirms that in Christ Jesus there is neither circum- cision nor uncircumcision, Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Him; the heirs of the same hopes, and that moral obligation extends alike to all. Its one great rule is, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;”’ and in answer to the question, Who is my neighbour? it replies, “Every man who stands in need of help.” Such is its com- prehensiveness. Is it conceivable that the narrow-minded Jew, intensely national and bigoted, raised himself to an elevation of moral sentiment to which no philosopher was able to attain? 86 REASONS FOR a Secondly, its moral teaching embraces in a few comprehensive principles the whole range of human duty. From the absurd attempt to elaborate a complete moral code, into which both philosophers and divines have fallen, it is absolutely free. It deals with principles, and leaves their application to the conscience of the individual. One of its most striking characteristics is that it bases duty on love. The love of Jesus Christ towards man is at once the measure and the motive of obedience; but while love is its dominant principle, every other in man’s moral constitution is appealed to, in its due place and proper subordination. To this that of enlightened self-love forms no exception. I ask your particular attention to this point, because every enthusiast or fanatic invariably selects some one portion of our moral being, and appeals to it alone, ignoring everything else. So strong is this tendency that it is far from being confined to persons of this charac- ter. Great philosophers have fallen into the same error. They have addressed themselves BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 87 ———— to one portion of our mental constitution, and endeavoured to exterminate other parts of it. Of this the Stoic philosophy is a remarkable example. Nor are similar tendencies wanting in several philosophic systems of the present day. One school has attempted to resolve all moral obligation into self-love: another pro- nounces even reasonable self-love inconsistent with an elevated morality. A similar one- sidedness, as you well know, is very frequently exhibited by Christian teachers. Nothing is more common than for one aspect of Chris- tianity to be specially dwelt upon, to the ignoring of every other. From this narrow- | ness of view the teaching of the New Testa- ment is absolutely free. From whence, I ask, has come this freedom? Whence this wide expansiveness ? Whence this profound insight into human nature? Has narrow bigotry succeeded in effecting that which men of wide intellectual culture have failed to accomplish ? Nothing can afford a stronger proof that the authors of it were neither enthusiasts nor fana- tics. In this respect its teaching is distin- 88 REASONS FOR —— guished from every system of thought that has been elaborated independently of its influence. Thirdly, another remarkable trait of it is, that it possesses the power of adapting itself to the ever varying conditions of society. It is no hard iron rule, like that of Mahometan- ism, which renders progress impossible. Man changes in his environment; and a morality suited to him must be capable of adapting itself to it. This Christianity has effected, by making self-sacrifice to Jesus Christ the principle of its inner life, and by consecrating it by His own Divine example. Fourthly, the New Testament is absolutely free from the smallest attempt at political legislation. In this it stands in striking con- trast to all the speculations of the moralists of the ancient world, who almost invariably conclude with a treatise on politics. But what is still more remarkable, the Old Testa- ment, for which the writers of the New felt the profoundest reverence, contains a body of political legislation. Yet while they recognise civil government as an ordinance of God, not BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 89 one political precept is to be found in their pages. Now observe what would have been the consequence if the New Testament had contained a body of political legislation. It would have unfitted Christianity for being the universal religion of mankind, for the laws which are suitable for one nation are wholly unfitted for another. Mahometanism is at this moment a striking example of the effect which is produced by the incorporation of a body of political legislation with a religion. This is what isdonein the Koran. The result is, that the religion of Mahomet is utterly incompatible with the various forms of Western civilisation. This is one of the chief causes under the influence of which Mahometanism is perishing before our eyes. It renders it hopelessly incompatible with human progress. Christianity, on the contrary, owing to its freedom from political legislation, is adapted to every form of human society. Yet the temptation on the part of the writers of the New Testament, if they had been only ordi- nary men, to have taken the contrary course 90 REASONS FOR was great, because, as I have observed, they had the example of a body of political legisla- tion in the Old Testament, which they pro- foundiy reverenced ; yet their abstinence from all such questions is complete. Nothing can be a stronger proof of their freedom from that fanaticism and credulity which unbe- lievers find it necessary to charge them with to impart even the appearance of plausibility to their positions. Fifthly, it has revolutionised the order of the virtues. Prior to it every system-of moral teaching placed courage, and the whole class of qualities that are akin to it, in the first rank, and the milder virtues, as far as they afforded them any recognition, in the second. Christianity has exactly reversed this. Since it has done so, the change has received the all but unanimous approval of the wisest and the best of men. I ask, is such a fact con- sistent with the theories that unbelievers pro- pound as to the origin of Christianity ? Sixthly, the most remarkable of all the characteristics of its teaching is the mode in BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. gi which it brings a new moral and spiritual power to bear on the heart of man. In this conception it is absolutely unique, no such idea having been thought of before or since. It effects this by bringing the whole force of religion to bear on man’s moral nature, and concentrating it in the person of Jesus Christ. I ask you to keep steadily in mind this most important fact, that it is the great aim of Christianity, not merely to teach morality, but to render its practice possible, by imparting to man a spiritual power of which he was pre- viously destitute. This is far too often over- looked in this controversy. I have already drawn your attention to the fact that all the great teachers of the ancient world were deeply conscious of the weakness of the motives by which they could enforce the practice of virtue. The violence of passion was too strong for them. All that they thought that they could effect was to benefit the virtuously inclined, but they felt them- selves powerless to act upon the masses. When men had arrived at a certain stage of Q2 REASONS FOR corruption they viewed their case as hopeless. Philosophy was destitute of a spiritual power capable of acting mightily on the heart. Every page of ancient literature that survives testifies to this. To what purpose was it to talk of nobleness to those who had no taste for what was noble? The truth must be spoken —philosophy left degraded men to perish in their degradation. It viewed the idea of going out into the highways and hedges of humanity as chimerical. Can anything be more terrible than the thought? Its only hopes for humanity were placed in political legislation, but how such legislation was to be brought about it failed to discover. I need not waste your time in proving that it is the prime object of Christianity to grapple with this defect. It has done so; and, as I have already shown, it has acted as a mighty moral and spiritual power for eighteen centuries, compared with which that of all others has been weakness. I ask you to consider the profound significance of this fact. Then reflect on those parts of the moral teach- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 93 ing of Christianity which I have set before you. Weigh them, not only separately but conjointly. Add to them the solutions which it gives to the higher aspirations of man, and say whether we are not in the presence of a moral miracle. To ask us to believe that all this has been the invention of ignorant enthusiasts or credulous fanatics is an outrage on our reason, still less can it have been due to wilful imposture. But this subject not only suggests a nega- tive, but a positive conclusion. It is an un- doubted fact that Jesus and his followers were born and educated among a race of men whose narrow-mindedness and bigotry ren- dered them the contempt of the ancient world. It is no less certain that they are the authors of the most enlightened system of teaching which has ever been excogitated by the human mind. Itis a great philosophic truth that the best of men only succeed in elevating themselves to a moderate degree above the surroundings in which they were born and educated. The question, therefore, demands 94 REASONS FOR solution, Whence, then, had this Man this wisdom? Is there any known law of evolu- tion in accordance with which the elevated wisdom found in the New Testament could have been evolved out of the society in which our Lord and His followers were born and educated, by any natural process of the human mind: If there is not, there is only one other source in which it can have ori- ginated—it must have come down from above. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 95 CHAPTER XI. THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. NOW draw your attention to another important portion of this we} subject, the prophetic references to ae Christ that are contained in the writings of the Old Testament. I will con- fine myself simply to those portions of the prophetic Scriptures that are Messianic. Even here my space will only allow me to draw your attention to a few striking points. One thing cannot help striking you as obvious. The New Testament is dependent onthe Old. If the Old Testament had not existed, the writing of the New would have been impossible. Yet, as a matter of fact, the latter has superseded all the institutions of the former. Again, in the times preceding the New Testament an idea had become widely prevalent that a person who came to 96 REASONS FOR eee be designated the Christ was about to appear. This expectation had been created by the writings of the Old Testament. Itis no less certain that Jesus claimed to be this Christ, and asserted that the announcements of the prophets received their realisation in His per- son. This the Jews who were His contempo- raries denied ; and they crucified Him on the ground that He was a false pretender to that title. Asa matter of fact, however, His claims to be the Christ were set up again immediately after His death ; and in virtue of that claim He has succeeded in creating the Church, or Kingdom of God—the greatest of all institu- tions—in which, as the Christ, He reigns supreme. All these are simple facts, the truth of which cannot be disputed. The history of the idea of the Christ is a very long one. It certainly reaches three thousand years back, if not considerably longer. LIask you particularly to note the fact that one of the grounds on which Jesus claimed to be accepted as the Christ by His contemporaries was that He was the embodi- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 97 ment of this idea, and that, in virtue of this, He has become the Founder and the Head of the Christian Church. Also, while Jesus claimed to be the Christ of the Oic Testament, He has abolished its entire mode of worship, including its great sacrificial system, on the ground that having been fulfilled in Him, it has become useless. Such a singular fact can be asserted of no other claimant of a Divine commission—yet that His claim to he the Christ was based on the Old Testament, and its successful vindication has resulted in the entire abolition of its system, is an indisput- able fact, account for it as you will. Such an event stands alone in the history of man. Next, observe that the idea of the Christ could have been no creation of Jesus or His followers. They found it ready made in the Old Testament Scriptures, which were cer- tainly in existence long before they were born. On these writings modern criticism has exerted its utmost powers; and after all its curtailments and attempted explanations, the idea of the Christ still remains therein. Nor 7 98 REASONS FOR will it be necessary for the purpose of this argument that I should use a number of learned reasonings, for the purpose of fixing the date of any Messianic prophecy. Nothing is more certain than that every one of them were in existence prior to the completion of the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, called the Septuagint version. The latest date that can be assigned to the most recent portion of that version is not less than 180 years before Christ. I make this observa- tion, in order that you may see that you need not trouble yourselves, as far as your faith in Christianity is concerned, about various learned questions that are continually being raised about the dates of the Hebrew books. If they were all certainly in existence 180 years before Christ, for all the purposes of the Christian argument, itis as good as if they had been in existence 2,000; é.., you are aware that the greatest efforts have been made to prove that the Book of Daniel was composed during the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, or shortly after. If it were so, the date of its BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 99 composition would not be less than from 160 to 150 years before Christ; and it is therefore indisputable that its Messianic passages were in existence prior to Jesus Christ by that period of time. What more do we require for the purposes of our argument? But consider, further, what is the real na- ture of these Hebrew books. They are not a single work, but a literature, extending over at the least 1,000 years. They were com- posed by not less than forty different authors occupying various stations in life, including the prince, the priest, the statesman, and the herdsman. Portions of them contain the de- tails of a legislation, others are hortatory, others contain predictions. A considerable number are historical; the general truth of the facts contained in which unbelievers do not venture to question. A still larger num- ber are poetic, and contain poetry of every form, and of the highest order. A few are embodiments of practical wisdom. Now, all these being indisputable facts, I ask your attention to the following consideration :—On 100 REASONS FOR several points a unity of thought runs through the whole of this extensive literature, the parts of which are separated from each other by centuries... There is no other similar litera- ture that extends over even half this interval of time, in which a similar unity of thought can be found. What is the inference that this remarkable fact suggests? The only possible answer is, that there must have been’ an influence that has presided over this litera- ture, which has been exerted over no other. As a matter of fact, the Bible, diversified as. are its contents, admits of being exhibited as a single volume in a manner which no other similar literature can. Look at it for your- selves, and see whether its numerous books. are not in a proper sense capable of making one. But I must not dwell on this remark- able characteristic, but direct your attention to the conception of the Christ and of the kingdom of God that runs through them. The Messianic prophecies are of two kinds. First, those that are unquestionably Mes- sianic, and admit of being applied to no other BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 10f person. Of these, those in Daniel, those in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, the 23rd and 33rd of Jeremiah, several in Isaiah, and a few of the Messianic Psalms, may be cited as in- stances. Closely connected with these are the numerous predictions of the establish- ment of a future kingdom of God, the idea of which, as it is delineated in the prophets, necessarily implies that of a Christ to reign init. All these passages are in the strictest sense of the words prophecies—z.é., the writers did not affirm them to be true of anything that existed in their own day and generation, but asserted that they would be realised in the future. I ask you carefully to peruse these passages, and to look at them, not with the light which we Christians consider that the New Testament has thrown on them, but as they must have appeared to the reader a century before the coming of Christ. You will see that they announce, in language that - cannot be mistaken, the establishment of a future kingdom of God, of a far higher char- acter than anything that had been realised in 102 REASONS FOR (A Aes eigen the past, and of a king who was to reign in it, whose kingdom was to be universal over Jew and Gentile, and in which righteousness was to flourish and peace to prevail. As the latest of these books must have been composed not less than 180 years before our era, it is clear that the Christ idea could have been no crea- tion of Jesus or His followers; but, as they had been accepted as canonical by the Jewish Church, it had become one of national faith. Secondly, there are another body of pro- phecies, of which both Jesus and His followers claimed that He was the realisation. These were affirmed by the prophet of some person who either had existed in the past or in his own time, but the language of which was far too elevated to be realised fully by the person to whom they were immediately applied. This class of predictions may properly be designated typical prophecies, and are very widely scattered over the Old Testament. I mean by a typical prophecy, one when some event or historical character was used for the purpose of portraying a future one, which BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 103 was to possess similar attributes, only higher and more perfect than those embodied in the person or event of which they were actually spoken. Let me illustrate this by an ex- ample. We find many things spoken of David and Solomon, which neither of these kings fully realised. What is very remark- able is, that prophets who were the strictest Theists applied to them terms which were incapable of finding their realisation in any mere man, even in a king of the Jewish theo- cracy, who was in a certain sense viewed as God’s vicegerent. To these prophets all idol- atry, including the worship of a man, was a simple abomination. That such predictions were intended to have a typical reference is proved by the fact that the latter prophets spake of a David who was to be manifested at a future day, after the historical David was silent in the grave. This ideal David was in other words a Christ in whom the promises that had been made to the historical David were to be realised. Of this species of pro- phecy Psalms xlv.,, Ixxii., Ixxxix., Isaiah xi, 104 REASONS FOR Jeremiah xxiii. and xxxiii., and Ezekiel xxxiv. and xxxvii., and numerous others, are unques- tionably instances. Of these likewise our Lord claimed’ to be the embodiment—that is, that, in their full meaning, they were true of Him and of no other person. There is yet another portion of the Old Testament Scriptures of which the writers of the New Testament affirm that Jesus is the complete and perfect realisation, its sacrificial system and symbolical worship. This claim is also made by our Lord Himself. It amounts precisely to this. The rites, sacri- fices, and institutions of Judaism all pointed to some deep-felt want in human nature. While they grew out of it, and endeavoured to satisfy it, they were in no proper sense able todo so. They were, in fact, only faint shadows and symbols of a great reality com- ing in the future. What the New Testament affirms is, that all these rites, symbols, and sacrifices, as far as they had any real mean- ing, obtain their full realisation in the person and history of Jesus Christ, and that He con- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 105 tains in Himself the substance to which these shadowy representations pointed. Such is a general view of the Christ idea as it is found in the Old Testament, affirming, as it does, in a number of direct and typical prophecies, the advent of a future deliverer, and of a kingdom of God, and containing a typical and symbolical system, which was unable to satisfy the realities of human nature, but which pointed to a person in the future who would realise their full and entire mean- ing. Of this idea Jesus Christ claimed to be the fulfilment. Now if it be true that He was So, it is hardly possible to over-estimate its importance. What, then, are the facts? We are in possession of a body of writings ex- tending over a wide interval of time, and composed by a great variety of authors, the latest of whom wrote, even if we take the latest date given by unbelievers, no less than 150 years before the Christian era. These, in various ways, and in a great diversity of form, point to the idea of a Christ who was to come in the future and realise a more perfect king- 106 REASONS FOR dom of God. If it be true that Jesus has effected this realisation, it constitutes the most remarkable fact in history, and cannot possibly have been brought about fortuitously. Whether Jesus does or does not realise this claim is not a question of theory but of fact, and can be ascertained by carefully perusing the Messianic portions of the Old Testament and comparing them with the Jesus of the Gospels. You have the book in your hands; read for yourselves, and judge whether the Jesus of the New Testament embodies the Christ idea of the Old in all its great sub- stantial outlines. There is certainly no other person in history who can be said to embody the aspirations of a varied literature that ex- tends over several centuries. If Jesus has accomplished this, I feel assured that you will accept the conclusion for certain that He must have been what He said He was, the Christ; and if He is the Christ, both His teaching and His person must be Divine. There is only one mode in which the force of this reasoning can be evaded, and it is BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 107 generally adopted by unbelievers. It is as follows :—The Christ idea of the New Testa- ment, as far as it agrees with that of the Old, did not really belong to the Jesus of history, but is the gradual creation of His followers, who have incorrectly ascribed to the historic Jesus a number of attributes, for the purpose of making Him correspond with the Christ idea of the Old Testament. In other words, it is affirmed that the Christ idea of the Old Testament and of some apocryphal writings suggested the conception of the Christ of the New; and that the latter has been deliberately fashioned on the model of the former. I need hardly say that if this could be proved, it would be fatal to our argument. To discuss this question fully would require avery considerable space. Ihave considered, in eight chapters of another work,* the possi- bility of delineating the Jesus of the New Testament, if those persons who attempted to do sohad no other aid than the Christ concep- tions of the Old, and of such apocryphal books * The Jesus of the Evangelists. 108 REASONS FOR as were in existence prior to the Advent, and proved that the attempt would have been a hopeless one. Professor Leathes has also treated the same subject in his Bampton | Lectures of 1874, and has shown that the materials which these writings supply would have been utterly inadequate for the purpose in question. In these lectures my space will only allow me to give you a few hints, to put you in the way of investigating the subject for yourselves. First, with respect to several of the apocry- phal books alluded to, such as the Book of Enoch, several forgeries attributed to different Sibyls, and other apocryphal works, there is no evidence to prove that the Messianic portions of them were composed prior to the Christian era. Until this proof can be adduced, itis absurd to urge that they can have aided in the elaboration of the conception of the Christ of the Gospels. Secondly, even if we admit their date to have been prior to the Advent, their Messianic delineations are of so shadowy a character, BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 109 that the aid that they could have afforded to the delineators would have been very incon- siderable. Let ustake as an example the most important of them, the Book of Enoch. All that they could have derived from it would have been a few general notions. It ascribes to the Messiah several Divine titles as well as universal dominion. It even hints at the incarnation, by designating Him as the Son of Man, and the Son of Woman; and ascribes to Him the office of Universal Judge. But respecting the mode in which the Divine and human were to be combined in the character of the Messiah it gives nota single hint. What aid, I ask, would such vague expressions have given to a delineator of the life-like character of the Jesus of the Evangelists? Besides, a large number of the most important elements that are contained in that of Jesus are entirely wanting inthis book. It does not contain one single hint that the Messiah was to suffer; nor does it invest Him witha single human attri- bute, though it calls Him the Son of Man. Its Christ is simply and entirely a Divine and triumphant one. I1o REASONS FOR Thirdly, let us now add to the Messianic passages in the apocryphal books the Christ delineations of the Old Testament, and con- sider what aid they could have afforded to the delineator of the Jesus of the New. These likewise could do nothing more than furnish a meagre and shadowy outline. Itis true that they might have learned from them that the Messiah was not only to be a King and con- queror, but a sufferer; but this would have left them without a single hint as to how these opposite characters were to be exhibited in combination. It is one thing to say that the Messiah was to be Divine, humble, meek, holy, and benevolent; it is quite another to deli- neate Him in a living life, which exhibits all these qualities in combination. If you would wish fully to estimate the difficulty which such an undertaking involves, and of the embarrass- ments that would arise at every point, I invite you to make the attempt, out of a few hints contained in the Old Testament, to delineate a living character, extended over a sphere of action for several years, and then to submit vour delineation to an adverse criticism. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. Tift ne A aR a Ra ic OR fabs a ES I Re AS! Ete PIR eh OR a exe As this isa subject of the greatest import- ance, must ask your attention to a single point in it. The latter portion of Isaiah contains a delineation of a person who is designated “the Servant of Jehovah.” The ‘ whole section is of considerable length, and forms the most remarkable Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. The fifty-third chapter directly informs usthat this Servant of Jehovah was to be a sufferer. Combined with the twenty-second Psalm, we may get a general idea of the nature of His sufferings. But putting them together, how imperfectly do they represent the Divine drama of the suffer- ing Jesus as it is delineated in the Gospels? Nor do these passages suggest ahint as to the mode in which a delineator should combine the Divine with the purely human elements of His character. Yet, while this forms the most graphic of Old Testament delineations, it. forms but a single element of the many-sided character of Jesus Christ. In considering this question, I must ear- nestly ask you to divest yourselves of all pre- I12 REASONS FOR conceived ideas. We have the Divine reality before us, the Jesus of the Evangelists, and are apt to contemplate the Old Testament Scrip- tures in the light that the facts of His life throw upon them; but to adopt such a course com- pletely fails to do justice to the subject before us. If wewishto do so, we must look at the Old Testament Scriptures not through the light that the New Testament sheds on them, but as they must have appeared to the Jew prior to the Advent. The question is not what we see in them when viewed through the medium of the Gospel history, but what was the only thing that a Jew could have seen in them before Jesus Christ walked on this earth. To him the delineation must have been exceed- ingly obscure and dark. We know that it was so in fact. I press this point on your consideration, because many Christian writers on the Old Testament prophecies have repre- sented them as a veritable Gospel. By doing so they have produced the impression that it would have been easy by their aid to have delineated the Jesus of the Evangelists. To BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. I13 do so, is to aid the cause of unbelief in its efforts to deprive us of the evidence of pro- phecy, and it forms a striking illustration of the old saying, “It is easy to be wise after the event.” The only rational way of viewing the question when we are considering the pos- sibility of the prophetic Christ of the Old Testament having formed the model for the delineation of the actual Christ of the New, is to consider, not what we think that we can see in the Old Testament with the Christ of the Gospels shining on it, but what was the only thing that the Jew could have seeninit. If you will keep this in view, I am persuaded that the more closely you investigate this question you will arrive at the conviction that the position which is taken by unbelievers for the purpose of breaking the force of the argu- ment from prophecy is hopelessly untenable. I will now briefly state the position of this portion of the argument. The Old Testament Scriptures had announced the Advent of a Christ some centuries before the birth of Jesus, and had produced in the popular mind 8 114 REASONS FOR an expectation of His appearance. ‘This Christ was to be not an ordinary man but a superhuman and supernatural one. Jesus claimed to be this Christ. He must therefore have professed in his actions and teaching to have manifested such a supernatural character as was suited to vindicate His claim. His. work was cut short by His crucifixion. Not- withstanding this event, however, His fol- lowers persisted in proclaiming that He was the Christ, and that He had vindicated His claim to be so by rising again from the dead. Now, it is clear that if His resurrection was. an actual occurrence it forms an ample vindi- cation of His claim. This brings before us the question of the miracles that have been attributed to Jesus. Are they real? For the purpose of this argument, we need only deal with one of them, the Resurrection. If this. actually occurred, He is certainly the Christ, and the whole difficulty in accepting the Gospels as trustworthy accounts of His ministry will disappear. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. IIl5 CAA PTR: X11. THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT—THE IMPORT- ANCE OF ST. PAUL’S EPISTLES. TEEN discussing this subject I shall not : Z| occupy your time by entering on ae aS the question as to the possibility of miracles, or the alleged impossibility of their being proved by any amount of evi- dence. I have discussed this question at length in my “Supernatural in the New Testament.” Starting, therefore, with the assumption that there is a God who cares for man, miracles must be possible, and, if possible, the question of their performance must be one simply of historical evidence. After the concessions that have been made on this subject by so eminent an unbeliever as J. S. Mill, to argue this point on the present occasion would be an unjustifiable waste of time. The writers of the New Testa- 116 REASONS FOR ment appeal to only one great miracle as proving the truth of Christianity. With its truth the Christian religion stands or falls. If true, it is sufficient to carry all the other miracles recorded in. the New Testament. The only question, therefore, that I need dis- cuss is, Is the evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead sufficient to establish it as an actual occurrence? If it is, it fully proves that He is the Christ. In considering this, I shall only appeal te that portion of the evidence that lies within your own reach fully to investigate. I shall avoid every thing which savours of learned research, and confine myself to the New Tes- tament itself. I shall not trouble you with quotations from the Fathers to prove the canonicity of the Gospels, or discuss the vexed questions of their authorship, or date. Such subjects are very important, but they are unsuited to the present occasion. I will confine myself to those writings in the New Testament the authenticity of which is fully admitted even by unbelievers, and instead of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 117 using them for doctrinal purposes, as is usu- ally done, employ them as historical documents. Most of my hearers, I trust, are aware that an overwhelming majority of the most eminent unbelievers of Europe who have studied the question, fully admit that four of the most important writings of the New Testament were beyond all dispute written by the Apostle Paul, viz., the Epistle to the Romans, the two to the Corinthians, and that to the Galatians. This is a fact that ought to be known by every member of the Christian Church; for it is hardly possible to exaggerate its importance. Besides these four, a large number of eminent unbelieving critics admit that four more are the work of the Apostle, viz., the two to the Thessalonians, and that to the Philippians, and to Philemon. On this point I invite you to judge for yourselves, for it is a subject quite lying with- in the reach of ordinary common sense. First, carefully peruse the four about which there is no dispute, and observe the line of thought and the most striking marks of individuality 118 REASONS FOR they contain; then compare with them the other four. When you have done so, I feel certain that you will arrive at the firmest of convictions that the person who wrote the first four certainly composed the last four, and that it is simply impossible that a forger could have succeeded in stamping them with those traits of the Pauline mind that they evidently contain. These eight letters are amply sufficient for the purposes of this argu- ment, and it is unnecessary to claim the other writings in the New Testament that are alleged to have been written by him, as un- questionably his; though there are not wanting eminent critics, like Renan, who concede that two more of them are so, viz., the Epistles to the Colossians and the Ephe- sians. One more writing of the New Testa- ment unbelievers almost unanimously allow to have been written by one of the original apostles of Jesus, the Book of Revelation. Altogether, then, we are in possession of nine documents which are beyond all dispute the product of apostolic pens. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 119 To this most important fact I ask your most careful attention. Christians have hitherto been in the habit of studying these writings chiefly on account of their doctrinal value, and have overlooked the fact that they are also historical documents of the highest order. As such, they constitute the sheet-anchor, which is fully capable of supporting the weight of the great facts on which Chris- tianity rests. To you, who have no time for learned research into ecclesiastical history, they are invaluable. ‘They are in your posses- sion, and with the aid of common sense, a sound judgment, and a moderate knowledge of the principles of history, you can fully esti- mate the value of their testimony. I submit the following points to your consideration. First, there are no class of writings more valuable than letters as historical documents, when they are written by active agents in events. As evidence of facts, they are higher than even formal histories. Historians, even when they are desirous of telling the truth, are not unfrequently subject to bias; 120 REASONS FOR and they are seldom active agents in the events that they describe. But the allusions to historical facts in original letters are almost always incidental. As such they constitute us judges of the credit that ought to be attached to them. They are also a pledge, not only that the writer accepted them him- self, but that those to whom he wrote accepted them also. All modern historians are unani- mous as to the high value which attaches to original letters, written by persons who were actively engaged in the events to which they refer. This will be sufficient to convince you that, in these eight letters of St. Paul, we are in the presence of historical documents of the highest order. Secondly, the interval which separates the composition of these letters from the great _ event to which they refer is extremely brief. They are, in the strictest sense of that term, contemporaneous documents. Two of them, viz., those to the Thessalonians, were written within twenty-five years of the crucifixion, or about the same space of time which separates BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 12k us from the first International Exhibition. Many of us here present have the most dis- tinct recollection of it. Is it, then, possible that the reminiscences of our Lord’s ministry were not of the most vivid character when the apostle wrote them? Four more, the most important of the whole, viz., the Roman, Corinthian, and Galatian letters, were written only from three to five years later. ‘This is about the interval that separates us from the expulsion of Louis Philippe from the throne of France. Large numbers of persons, who are in the fullest enjoyment of their faculties, have the most distinct recollection of this event, and all its attendant circumstances. Equally fresh, when these letters were com- posed, must have been the recollections of the events of our Lord’s ministry. The two remaining letters are only from three to four years later. The Book of the Revelation, in the opinion of our opponents, dates somewhat less than forty years from the crucifixion. This is not far off from the interval that sepa- rates us from Her Majesty’s accession. If the G22 REASONS FOR author was about sixty when he composed this book, his recollection, and those of large numbers of others, of the scenes of our Lord's ministry must still have preserved all their freshness. He must have witnessed the most important events in it, and have been thoroughly acquainted with what were the primitive beliefs of the Christian Church. As for Paul, his means of communicating with such persons, and of ascertaining the truth of its chief events, must have been of a most ample character, and the idea that, situated as he was, he neglected to do so is incon- ceivable. It follows, therefore, that as far as these writings contain allusions to the chief facts on which Christianity was based, we cannot have better testimony. Thirdly, the careful perusal of these eight letters of St. Paul will furnish you with the most unimpeachable evidence of the writer’s veracity. The proof of this is in the letters themselves. Read them. You have before you the entire man. You will see him there in all his bursts of feeling, in all his joys and BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 123 eR RP A AE EAE MES IES 2 RIEL SSE ROR LI TM TL Sd Sd TL discouragements ; in a word, in every varied aspect that his remarkable character presents. Is it possible, I ask, to read these letters, and not to rise from their perusal with the fullest conviction of the honesty of the writer? De- ceived he might have been, but that he was consciously misstating facts is unbelievable. Fourthly, these letters contain an additional %: guarantee of truthfulness, such as I doubt whether it can be found in any other literary compositions. They were intended to be publicly read before the assembled Church. In several of these churches there prevailed a violent party spirit. In the Corinthian and Galatian churches, not only had St. Paul considerable numbers of vehement opponents, but oppo- nents who went to the length of denouncing him as a false apostle. No inconsiderable portion of these letters is occupied in discus- sing this very point. In them the apostle again and again challenges his enemies. What guarantee of! truthfulness can be com- pared tothis? If he was not an honest man himself, would not common sense have with- 124 REASONS FOR held him from making assertions which he knew that his opponents could dispute? Was he not certain of instant detection if he had done so? It follows, therefore, that whenever in these epistles St. Paul either states or alludes to facts, they must have been accepted as true by his opponents equally as by him- self. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. Zs CLAP TH Rayos td: THE TESTIMONY WHICH THEY GIVE TO THE CHIEF FACTS OF CHRISTIANITY, AND ESPE- CIALLY TO THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. Va : AUCH, then, are these letters as ‘ ‘| historical documents. I must now mew «bring before you the points that they prove beyond all reasonable question. My limits would fail me if I were to support my assertions by quotations. I must there- fore take it for granted that you will read and verify them for yourselves. You will have no occasion to travel beyond the pages of the New Testament. 1. These letters prove as an unquestionable fact, that St. Paul, from the date of his con- version, was firmly persuaded that Jesus Christ rose from the dead; that this belief was the foundation of the existence of the 126 REASONS FOR Church as a society ; and that it was the sole ground on which, after His crucifixion, Jesus was again proclaimed to be the Christ. Also that, during his career as a persecutor, he had been unable to discover how this belief could have originated except in its reality. This carries the belief in the resurrection as a fact up to within five or six years of the cruci- fixion, at the latest. 2. They prove that all the churches, when the apostle composed these letters, accepted the resurrection of Jesus as the sole ground- work of their existence, and considered it fundamental to their spiritual life. 3. They further prove that this belief was not one that had recéntly sprung up, but that it was contemporaneous with their first ac- ceptance of Christianity. 4. [hey prove that it was the accepted belief, not only of the churches founded by Paul, but also of those with whom he had no connection. 5. They prove that the fact of the resurrec- tion was accepted equally by those who denied BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 127 Paul’s apostleship as by his followers. As the former were Judaising Christians, who claimed the authority of the Church of Jeru- salem for their opinions, this establishes the fact that it must have been the fully accepted belief of that Church. This carries us up to the date of its foundation, and proves that the Church was reconstructed on the basis of that belief immediately after the crucifixion. 6. They prove that the following persons believed that they had seen Jesus Christ alive after his crucifixion, viz., Simon Peter, James, the eleven apostles on two occasions; more than five hundred persons on another occasion, of whom upwards of two hundred and fifty were alive when St. Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians; and, finally, Paul himself.* 7. Uhey prove that during the whole of his ministry St. Paul believed that He had been ** According to the tables which give the average duration of human life, upwards of 300 out of these 500 persons would have been alive when St. Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians. This fact is important as showing that the assertion is historically credible. An inventor of a fiction might have fallen into a serious error on such a point. 128 REASONS FOR NN in the habit of working miracles, and that the different churches were firmly persuaded that He actually performed them. | 8. They prove that the other apostles be- lieved that they possessed a similar power, and that this belief was accepted as true by the different churches. 9. They prove that St. Paul and the churches to whom he wrote were firmly persuaded that a number of supernatural gifts were possessed by many of their members, and that their manifestation was an habitual phenomenon among them. The xii., Xili., and xiv. chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians contain a very full description of these gifts, and of the mode of their operation. I must ask you to read them through with the utmost care, in order that you may be able rightly to estimate their bearing on the present argument. They establish, beyond all contradiction, that the belief in the presence of supernatural powers in the Church was not of a late growth, but coeval with its origin. 10. They prove on the most undeniable evi- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 129 dence that the Church was in possession of an account of the chief facts of our Lord’s ministry, which in its leading outlines must have agreed with that which is contained in our present Gospels. The number of direct references to it is not large, but the incidental ones are very numerous. Of these latter I will give a few examples, for the purpose of enabling you to form an idea of their general character. “I beseech you,” says St. Paul, “by the gentleness and meekness of Christ.” Such an exhortation would have been mean- ingless, unless the writer felt certain that those to whom he wrote were well acquainted with an account of His actions, which exhibited Him as a bright example of those qualities. “ We have the mind of Christ”? Such an ex- pression as “ the mind of Christ” proves that the Church must have believed itself to be in possession of very considerable details of His teaching. “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This proves that there must have been in existence a well-known outline of His life and character. ‘Be ye followers of me, as I am 7 130 REASONS FOR of Christ.” It follows, therefore, that there must have been treasured up in the Church a sufficiently extensive account of the actions of Christ, as to enable a comparison to be in- stituted between them and those of Paul. “‘ Even so Christ pleased not Himself.” There must, therefore, have been a number of His well-known actions, which exhibited Him as the greatest of self-sacrificers. Numbers of similar examples you may easily find for your- selves. Nothing can be clearer, as the Church was based not ona set of abstract dogmas but on a personal history, than that it must have been a matter in which its very life was concerned, to keep an account of His actions and His teaching steadily before it. I now proceed to consider the evidence which the facts, which these epistles prove to be true on the highest form of historical testi- mony, afford of the truth of our Lord’s resur- rection. I ask your earnest attention to the fact that the resurrection is not like an occurrence which has passed away without leaving behind it any BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 131i traces of its existence. On it is based the greatest institution which has existed among men—the Christian Church. This has lived with a continuous life for eighteen centuries, and has exerted an influence which is abso- lutely world-wide. So closely connected is the resurrection of Jesus with the origin of this great institution, that unless His followers had been firmly persuaded of its reality it could never have come into existence; and if it could be proved that Jesus is now sleeping in His grave, mighty as it is, it would crumble into ruins. In surveying the evidence of the resurrec- tion, it is hardly possible to over-estimate the importance of the Church as a visible insti- tution. It exists now. Nothing is more certain than that it was in existence, and ina state of vigorous growth, in the year 4o of our era. Equally certain is it that it was not in existence in the year 20. Its birth, therefore, took place in a definite and well-known period of time. It originated in the following facts: —A person called Jesus appeared, who claimed 132 REASONS FOR to be the Christ whose coming was predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures. He collected together a body of followers, whose bond of union was that they believed that He was this Christ. On account of this claim He was publicly crucified at Jerusalem, under the authority of the Roman Government. As it was impossible that a dead man could be the Christ, His public execution, unless it had been redeemed by the belief of His resurrec- tion, must have been fatal to the existence of this society, and have caused its certain dis- solution. But the Church did not perish. It was reconstructed immediately after His crucifixion. How was this effected? What alone rendered it possible? THis disciples affirmed that He was risen again from the dead, and that they had seen Him alive. In the firm belief of its truth, they proceeded to recon- struct the society. They proclaimed Him to be a living Christ; and as such He became again the centre of the Church’s life. The attempt proved a great success. The society spread rapidly, until it became the greatest BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 133 institution in the world. After eighteen cen- turies, it still lives with unabated energy, having affected by its influence the whole course of human civilisation. To this hour the centre of its vitality continues to be attach- ment to Jesus, asa living person. ‘These are facts that it would be madness to dispute. The account which this great society has ever given of its origin is worthy of profound attention. Such an account has a right to be accepted as the true one untilit can be shown to be impossible. The Church cannot have been mistaken as to the cause that gave it birth. When, therefore, it affirms that its renewed life was due to the belief in the resur- rection of Jesus, it is certain that it must have been owing to this and to no other cause. I ask, therefore, your deep attention to the following consideration. If Jesus really rose from the dead, His resurrection is a cause fully adequate to account for the origin and the past history of this great society. The sternest system of philosophy must admit that the cause which the Church has ever affirmed to 134 REASONS FOR have created it, is one, if true, that is entirely adequate to have produced the results; and is. a complete solution of all the facts of history. This being so, we are, on every ground of reason, entitled to accept the resurrection as. a fact, until some other cause can be pointed out that was sufficient to have produced all the phenomena before us. If unbelievers affirm that the resurrection is a fiction, they are bound, by every principle of a sound philosophy, to point out clearly and distinctly what causes other than its truth originated the Church, and have been adequate to pro- duce its subsequent history. So far, then, the Church is a standing witness to the truth of the resurrection. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 135 CHAPTER XIV. THE THEORIES PROPOUNDED BY UNBELIEVERS AS THE ALTERNATIVE TO THE RESURREC- TION OF JESUS CHRIST BEING AN ACTUAL OCCURRENCE CONSIDERED AND REFUTED. —FIRST, THE THEORY OF VISIONS. the ee was reconstructed immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus on the basis of His resurrection, and that all His followers who joined the reconstructed Church accepted His resurrection as a fact. This being so, there are only two alternatives that are possible ones. Either the resurrection was a fact, or the belief in it must have been founded on some species of delusion. I say that the alternatives are two only, because no one in the present day ventures to 136 REASONS FOR affirm that the belief in it was the result of a deliberately concocted fraud on the part of the disciples of Jesus. It is, therefore, needless to argue against this assumption. | Happily, the second alternative, that the belief in the resurrection was owing to some delusion of the followers of Jesus, is resolvable into two suppositions, and into two only. The first of these is the one more generally pro- pounded by unbelievers: that one or more of them, in the height of their enthusiasm and credulity, saw visions of Jesus after His cruci- fixion and mistook them for a resurrection, and on the strength of this they induced | others to believe it, and to join in reconstruct- ing the Church on the basis of a spiritual, instead of a temporal, Messiah. The second is that Jesus did not really die from the effects of His crucifixion—that He recovered from His wounds, and that His credulous followers mistook this recovery for a resurrection. In connection with the first of these alter- natives I might justly decline to discuss the possibility of one of the theories that have BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 137 been propounded, that a single follower of Jesus saw some phantom with his, or her, mental eye; mistook this purely subjective appearance for a bodily resurrection; and succeeded in persuading the other disciples of its truth; for it stands in direct contradic- tion to the historical conditions of the case, which I have established on the strongest historical evidence. It is not true that one person only thought that he saw Jesus alive again after His crucifixion; but He was seen by several on different occasions. As I have shown from St. Paul’s Epistles, the whole of the Apostolic body must have thought that they saw Him on two occasions. More than five hundred persons affirmed that they saw Him when they met together in a body. Peter and James each believed that they had separate interviews with Him. No person, I think, can read the Book of Revelation, and entertain the smallest doubt that its author was firmly persuaded that he had seen the risen Jesus, long before the vision at Patmos. Nothing, therefore, can be more certain than 138 REASONS FOR that the belief in the resurrection did not rest on the testimony of any single disciple, man or woman. To attempt, therefore, to account for it on this supposition is to raise a false issue. Ifitis to be explained on a. theory of visions, that which must be accounted for is not that a single disciple mistook a creation of the imagination for a reality, but that many did this, both separately and conjointly. It is obvious why this suggestion has been made. It is to distract our attention from the insuperable difficulties which the problem presents, if the belief in the resurrection is to be accounted for on the supposition that it” originated in mistaking visionary appearances for actual ones. At first sight there may be some appearance of plausibility in the asser- tion that some crazy fanatic mistook a creation of the imagination for a reality, and per- suaded others of its truth. But that con- siderable numbers of persons should imagine that they saw a man alive again after he had been publicly crucified and mistake this for a reality, that they should do this on several BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 139 occasions separately and conjointly, and that _ they should found a great institution on its. basis, is an assertion which makes our reason stagger. But although I am under no obligation to consider this theory, yet as it is at first sight the most plausible that unbelief has pro- pounded as the alternative to the truth of the resurrection, it will be desirable for me to point out some of the insuperable difficulties that surround it. Several of these are common to every theory of visions, whether they are supposed to have been seen by one or by many. It is certain that the state of mind of the followers of Jesus on the evening of the crucifixion, must have been one of utterly blasted hopes and expectations. Their Master, to whom they had united themselves in the belief that he was the Christ, the King of Israel, had breathed His last on the cross, and instead of assuming a kingdom, His enemies had. terminated His existence in agony and shame, His remains had even been consigned to the tomb. Now, our long 140 REASONS FOR familiarity with the Chrzs¢ idea of the New Testament has tended to obscure our view of the intense absurdity which the conception of a dead Christ must have presented to a Jew. The result of the crucifixion must have con- vinced His followers that although their Master might have been a good man, and even a prophet, He must have been under self-delusion in proclaiming Himself to be the Christ. There was nothing in their previous history to suggest the idea of His resurrec- tion. Many of their prophets in former times had been put to death by unrighteous governors; but God had never once inter- posed in their favour by raising them from the dead. The events of the day of the cruci- fixion must have quenched everything like enthusiasm in the followers of Jesus. No rescue had come from heaven. Fear and terror might have suggested the idea that His departed spirit had appeared to some of them; but this could not have induced any one, however crazy, to have believed that he saw Him alive again in bodily reality. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. I4t But, notwithstanding its improbability, let us suppose that such a delusion was possible, and that some one crazy fanatic had a vision of Him returned to life, and mistook this for a reality. Is it credible that either he or she asked Him no questions? If he did, did he get visionary answers? Under the circum- stances, such questions as these were inevi- table: Was He going to re-appear at their head in the capacity of the Messiah? Was the attempt to found the Church to be con- tinued or abandoned? Had He any message to convey to His friends: Was He not going to meet them? Such questions were, I say, under the circumstances, inevitable. If He made any engagements to meet them, were they kept? Or, was His omission to do so supplied by a fresh set of visions, which were mistaken for realities? If no answers were returned, madness could hardly have continued the delusion. But if it is conceivable that one crazy fanatic succeeded in persuading himself that Jesus had again returned to bodily life after 142 REASONS FOR His crucifixion, we are only at the beginning of our difficulties in propounding this as the origin of the belief in the resurrection, and of the reconstruction of the Church on its basis. This is the fact that requires to be accounted for. To reconstruct the Church it was neces- sary to makeconverts. To do so, this disciple must have addressed himself to the others. Let us suppose, then, that he met some of them, and told them,*‘I have just seen the Lord risen from the dead!” do we really believe that any fifty men or women could be found who would have accepted this with open-mouthed credulity? Would not ques- tions such as these have been inevitable }— Where is He? Is He not going to per- mit us to behold Him? Has He made no appointment where He will meet us? Has He sent us no message as to what we are to do? Ifnomeeting was promised, the delusion must have instantly ended. But what if the disciple reported that ameeting was promised at a definite time and place, and the engage- ment was not kept? Are we to believe that BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. | 143 the others at once swallowed the story of their _‘Master’s resurrection, and proceeded to recon- struct the Church on its basis without His ever once again appearing at their head, or allowing them to behold Him ? But we shall be, doubtless, told that on the strength of the announcement the whole body of the disciples took to seeing visions of Jesus risen from the dead, and mistaking them for realities. This brings us back to the real historical problem which requires to be solved, which is, I repeat, not that a single disciple thought that he saw Jesus alive after His crucifixion, but that many did, and that, on the strength of this belief, they proceeded to reconstruct the Church. I really feel as if it is hardly possible to argue against this sup- position with gravity. Is it conceivable that the whole body of the apostles thought that they saw Jesus alive again in bodily reality after His crucifixion, mistook this fora reality, and, on the strength of this belief, proceeded to reconstruct the Church on the basis of a spiritual Messiah? If so, they must have 144 REASONS FOR believed that they had conversations with Him, in which they must have received definite instructions as to their future conduct. Were these also visions, mistaken for reali- — ties? Did no one of them put any obvious question, which would have instantly dissi- pated the delusion? But the history tells us that Peter and James believed that they had two private interviews with Him. Did they ask Him no questions? If they did, did they receive answers? Or did each of them hold a visionary conversation with Him, which satis- fied all his doubts? But this is not all. St. Paul states that when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians, upwards of 250 persons were then living who were persuaded that they had seen Jesus alive after His crucifixion on one definite occasion. To assume that all these took to seeing visions, and that they mistook them for realities, is to suppose that an event occurred quite as much out of the order of nature as the resurrection itself. It is plain that all these suppositions involve impossibilities. They have only a semblance BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 145 of plausibility when they are expressed in vague and general terms, such as, “ An en- thusiastic woman mistook the gardener for Jesus, and communicated her enthusiasm to the rest.” The insuperable difficulty is dis- guised under these few brief words, “ ske com- munticated her enthustasm to the rest.’ How? Immediately we compare such theories, in all the details that they involve, with the facts of human life, their absurdity becomes palpable. Yet converts were made in large numbers to the belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead; and no fact in history is more certain than that the Christian Church was erected on its basis. How is this to be accounted for? It is Clear that the theory of visions utterly fails todo so. The reality of the resurrection is an adequate account of the facts before us. No other supposition is. It will be doubtless objected against the validity of the above reasonings that modern society presents a most remarkable instance of a wide-spread belief in a great delusion in the phenomena of spiritualism ; and that the 10 146 REASONS FOR principles which will explain the acquiescence of numbers of intelligent people in its alleged facts will account for the belief in the resur- rection of Jesus Christ. This objection has been recently adduced by a man of great eminence in the scientific world, Dr. Carpen- ter. It is urged by him as invalidating the evidence of the Gospel miracles generally, and as he makes no exception to that of the resurrection, I must suppose that it is included among them. The special point of the objec- tion is as follows:— Although a large proportion of the pheno- mena of spiritualism are the result of clever impositions, which have been greedily accepted as facts by persons under the influence of excited imaginations, yet there are others which it is impossible to believe to be the result of simple imposture. These alleged facts, that are quite as much out of the order of nature as the miracles of the New Testa- ment, are firmly believed in as actual occur- rences, not only by large numbers of ordinary people, but by many men of highly cultivated BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 147 minds, including some well-known men of science. Yet the common sense of mankind refuses to believe that these alleged pheno- mena are facts, notwithstanding the testimony on which they rest. But as those who have reported them firmly believe that they have witnessed the phenomena in question, it is clear that if they are unreal this belief must be due to some species of mental hallucina- tion. Itis therefore urged that if a number of highly cultivated minds can be deluded into the acceptance of the marvels of spiri- tualism, while they have no objective reality, it is far more probable that the comparatively ignorant followers of Jesus should have been the prey of similar hallucinations when they accepted the resurrection as an actual fact. You should observe that the only thing really new about this objection is, the general intel- ligence and scientific training which many of the believers in these spiritualistic pheno- mena unquestionably possess. To enter on the discussion as to how far the alleged facts of spiritualism can be explained 148 REASONS FOR on the supposition that those who have accepted them have been the prey of cer- tain mental hallucinations, would swell the present course of lectures beyond all reason- able bounds. It will be only necessary to observe that among the causes assigned by Dr. Carpenteras accounting for them, the three most important are mental expectancy, prepos- session, and fixed idea. My duty in these lec- tures is to make it clear to your common sense that the explanations which he has given of the phenomena of spiritualism leave the evi- dence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ un- touched. I ask you to observe that the objection is not directed against the resurrection specifi- cally, but against the whole of the miracles recorded in the Gospels ina mass. I cannot too earnestly warn you against this mode of discussing the question. As I have more than once pointed out in these lectures, the resur- rection is the great evidential miracle of Christianity. If this can be proved to have actually occurred, there will be no difficulty BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 149 in accepting the other miracles that are re- corded in the Gospels. If it cannot, to discuss their truth or falsehood will be a mere waste of time. I therefore urge you, in the strongest manner, whenever you consider the subject of miracles, never to allow your attention to be distracted from this, which is the real point at issue, even for a moment. The entire contro- versy, I repeat it, turns on the truth of the resurrection, and on it alone. The objection, as far as it affects the truth of the resurrection, resolves itself into a form of the theory of visions, and is encum- bered with all the difficulties which I have already pointed out. Its special point is, that, under certain predisposing mental conditions, large numbers of people, including persons of intelligence and scientific training, are capable of mistaking the creations of their own minds for external realities. Now, I ask you to observe that such hallucinations are only pos- sible when the suitable mental conditions are present. The chief of these are mental ex- pectancy, prepossession, and fixed idea. The 150 REASONS FOR question before us, therefore, becomes a very simple one. Is there any evidence to show that the followers of Jesus, during the days that followed His crucifixion, were under the influence of either of these states of mind? Is there not, in fact, the most overwhelming proof that their mental condition must have been the very opposite? If this be so, the mental conditions which may have produced the hallucinations of spiritualism and other kindred phenomena would have been utterly powerless to have induced the followers of Jesus to see visions of Him raised from the dead, and mistake them for objective facts. As it is only affirmed that such hallucinations are possible when these peculiar mental con- ditions are present, the objection falls to the ground, and leaves the force of the preceding reasonings untouched. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that His disciples had a kind of fixed idea that Jesus was the Messiah, the real fact being that they believed in Him as such, but not with an unwavering faith. What was the BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. I5t nature of their Messianic expectations? Evi- dently they held the Messianic conceptions of the day. Every scrap of evidence that we possess proves that the Messiah of popular expectation was to be the triumphant founder of a mighty empire, in which He was to reign supreme. It follows, therefore, that whatever amount of fixed idea His disciples might have had must have been certainly dissipated by His ignominious public execution as a false pretender to that title. Nothing could have been more abhorrent to any Messianic con- ception which could have dominated in their minds than a Messiah who was put to death by the authorities of the Jewish nation as an impostor. ‘The disciples might have believed in Him as a prophet, but after His crucifixion, to retain a fixed idea that He was the Messiah was impossible. Besides, the idea was not a fixed one, for after His crucifixion nothing is more certain than that it underwent an entire change. This being so, it disposes of the suggestion that the hallucination of the resurrection 152 REASONS FOR could have originated in those states of mind designated expectancy and _ prepossession. | Far from being in such a state of vividness as would have been sufficient to produce visions | of the crucified Jesus raised from the dead, these states of mind were simply non-existing. The days which followed the crucifixion must have been to the followers of Jesus days of darkened hopes and blasted expectations. He whom they had fondly taken for the Messiah had perished on the cross, and been consigned to His grave. No help from heaven had been afforded, no legions of angels had come to His rescue. Not one of the old prophets had been raised from the dead to renew: His mis- sion. It is clear, therefore, that there could have been no expectancy of a resurrection, unless our Lord Himself had definitely pre- dicted it. This the evangelists inform us that He did, but at the same time they tell us that it was totally misunderstood by the disciples. If their authority is good for the one fact, it is absurd not to acceptit for the other. If, how- ever, the prediction produced a hope of the BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 153 centile MOIRA Ek, SRT SG SA NR ah a Ne anid NS: resurrection (although the entire narrative of the evangelists stands in plain contradiction to the idea) it is clear that under the circum- stances above referred to it must have been a very faint one. But faint hopes would have been utterly powerless to have produced visions of a person who had been publicly executed returned to life again, to cause them to be mistaken for realities, and under their influence to found the greatest of all institu- tions, the Christian Church. Prepossessions which can produce such hallucinations, if they are possible at all, must have been, not the ‘result of faint hopes, but of profound convic- tions. As the crucifixion and its attendant circumstances had so utterly blasted all their hopes, it is clear that no expectation which the disciples could have entertained of the fulfilment of any prediction of Jesus of His own resurrection could have produced such a degree of mental expectancy as to have led them to see visions of Jesus after His cruci- fixion, and to mistake them for an actual resurrection. But besides all this, if we sup- 154 REASONS FOR pose that to some crazy fanatic all this was possible, a simple reference to the tomb, and to the body corrupting therein, must have caused the instant dissipation of the delusion. It is clear, therefore, that this special form of the objection leaves the force of the pre- vious reasonings untouched. I am prepared to admit that the principles laid down by Dr. Carpenter are adequate solutions of the origin of many of the great delusions to which man- kind have been a prey; and even that some of their alleged phenomena rest on a strong form of attestation. But they are totally un- availing to account for the origin of the belief in the resurrection, because, as I have proved, the requisite mental conditions were simply non-existent in the minds of His disciples. Nothing can be more certain than that the historical facts of the case render it impossible that they could have been the prey of either fixed ideas, expectancy, or prepossession on this subject, and consequently it is impossible that these principles could have produced the hallucination of a visionary resurrection which BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 155 they mistook /for a reality. I cannot too strongly urge you to bear constantly in mind the all-important point to which I have so strongly drawn your attention, that the resur- rection is not a bare fact that has left no results behind it; but it has been for these last eighteen centuries the mightiest of moral and spiritual powers. The risen Jesus has acted with a mighty energy after the ter- mination of His earthly life. The belief in His resurrection has created the Church. It speedily grew into a great community. It has subverted the old civilisation, and has created a new one. It has most powerfully influenced the entire history of man. An overwhelming majority of those institutions, whose end has been to improve and amelio- rate his condition, have grown out of it. If the resurrection is true, it is a cause adequate to have produced all these results. If itisa visionary delusion, they are simply unaccount- able. When the best attested phenomena of spiritualism can produce results similar to these, it will then be rational to enter on a 156 REASONS FOR comparison between them and the resurrec- tion. Until they can effect some definite result, we may safely decline to accept them as actual occurrences, notwithstanding the fact that they are attested by men of general intelligence and even of scientific training. When they can produce results such as the resurrection has accomplished, the philo- sophical course will be to accept both them and it as veritable facts in history. What, I ask, has been accomplished by these grotesque phenomena? They have left the world precisely where they found it. The spiritual visitants (be they what they may) have done little else than perform a number of fantastic tricks, to compare which with the miracles that are recorded in the Gospels would be to offer an insult to your under- standings. To what purpose, I ask, are these alleged lifting up of tables, levitations of the human body, and this whole mass of grotesque phenomena? What result has come from the supposed entrance of a human body through a ceiling in a darkened room? What have BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 157 es, ee ee these strange performances effected? These spiritual visitants have not yet accomplished anything great, good, or admirable; they have not even succeeded in bringing the con- cealed murderer to justice, or in enriching any one by the discovery of a hidden treasure. Yet to make disclosures of surpassing interest must clearly be within their power, if they are realities. But the moral and. spiritual resurrection of multitudes of degraded and sinful men has been the result of the belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. With respect to the feats and performances of spiritualism, the saying of the prophet has lost none of its argumentative force: “Yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.” | 158 REASONS FOR CHAPTER XV. THE THEORY ‘THAT JESUS CHRIST DID NOT ACTUALLY DIE. yera ve VERY few observations on the | other alternative—that the story Ci4e283; of the resurrection originated in the fact that Jesus did not really die, but that He was taken down from the cross in a swoon, that He subsequently recovered, and lived in profound retirement ever afterwards, and that His followers mistook this for a resurrection —will be sufficient. The truth is, it is incum- bered with all the difficulties of the theory of visions, and with some that are peculiarly its own. Let me draw your attention to a few of them. First, the idea never occurred to any of the early opponents of Christianity, whether Jew or Gentile, that Jesus Christ escaped from the hands of His enemies with His life. Our BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 159 historical materials for making this assertion are ample. Neither the Talmud, nor the writings of Celsus, nor Porphyry, nor Julian, contain a hint that they suspected this; nor is there a hint in any one of the Fathers that the unbelievers whom they daily encountered took this ground of opposition. The theory is due to modern speculation only. Secondly, as to the supposition that Jesus might have mistaken his recovery from a swoon for a resurrection, I observe that, our opponents being witnesses, the historic Jesus was one of the greatest of men. This being so, it is impossible that He could have de- luded Himself into the belief that such a recovery was a resurrection from the dead. If He recovered, it is clear that He must have died shortly after, or have withdrawn Himself into retirement, for from henceforth He dis- appeared from history. If He was so ex- hausted that He died within a short interval, it is evident that neither He nor His followers could have accepted this as a resurrection, or founded on it any claim for Him to be the 160 REASONS FOR oe Messiah of the future Church. If, on the con- trary, He lived-in retirement out of the reach of His enemies, He must have abandoned all Messianic claims, unless they were fraudulent ones. As far, therefore, as Jesus is concerned, even if His recovery from the wounds that He received in crucifixion is a possible suppo- sition, that event must for ever have put an end to His Messianic claims. Thirdly, if He recovered at all, His body must have passed from the custody of His enemies into that of His friends. Our only knowledge that such was the fact is derived from the Gospels. To do so was contrary to . the Roman custom. If, therefore, the testi- mony of the Gospels is accepted for this fact, it must be valid for a great deal more. To accept this solitary statement, and to reject all their others, is absurd. Fourthly, it may be urged, that although Jesus Himself could not have fallen into this delusion, His followers might have done so. This supposition involves all the absurdities that I have already exposed. How, I ask, in BELIEVING 1N CHRISTIANITY. 1OLr the name of common sense, was it possible for any one to mistake a man slowly recovering from His wounds for a resurrection, and, while He was hiding from His enemies, to proclaim Him the Messiah of the Church? The fact is, the supposition is inconsistent with any species of delusion, but it involves deceit and conscious fraud. As these two hopelessly impossible theories are the only alternatives to the resurrection of Jesus Christ having been an actual occur- rence, it. follows that it is as firmly established as any fact in history. As such it forms an adequate account of the origin of the Church, and the power with which Christianity has acted on mankind. It frees us also from the terrible alternative, that if the resurrection is a fiction, the most beneficent influence that has ever been brought to bear on mankind is an unreality, and that the holiest and the best have during eighteen centuries been bowing before One who has been sleeping the sleep of unconsciousness, who can neither sympathise with them nor accept their love. If all the II 162 REASONS FOR self-sacrifice which during this long period of time has been offered to Him has been pre- sented to a shadow, full well we may join the preacher who had wearied himself in the pur- suit of unrealities in exclaiming, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY, 163 CHAPTER XVI. THE HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS. ‘ fou NOW draw your attention to 4 another important consideration. Ae pe! With the proof of the truth of the resurrection, the whole of the difficulties with which the belief in the historical truth of such supernatural narratives as those contained in the Gospels is attended disappear. Exception has been taken to them on other accounts; but there can be no doubt that their miracu- lous narratives are the real ground on which their historical character has been disputed. If Jesus rose from the dead, it is far more probable than otherwise that His ministry was attended with events of a supernatural character. In fact, a narrative of it which did not contain an account of a single superna- tural occurrence would be liable to suspicion. The truth of the resurrection, therefore, so far 164 REASONS FOR carries with it that of His other miracles, that Wwe can accept them on the same evidence as we do the facts of ordinary history. We have already proved that St. Paul firmly believed that He had been in the habit of performing miracles during the whole course of His ministry; that the other apostles did the same; and that the entire Church entertained the same persuasion. I fully admit that this does not prove that these supposed miraculous occurrences were really so, though it goes a great way towards doing so. But if Jesus rose from the dead, the entire difficulty in accepting St. Paul’s statements as a true account of objective facts vanishes. Dismis- sing, therefore, all difficulties about miracles, let me briefly state what is the historical value of the Gospels, on the supposition that there is no more difficulty in accepting their miracu- lous narratives than there would be if they contained nothing but accounts of ordinary events. First, observe that the authors of the Gos- pels distinctly affirm that these writings are BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 165 pe a ee a ee SS not histories but memoirs; and not only so, but that they are memoirs composed with the definite purpose of teaching a religion. The preface of St. Luke, John xx. 30, 31, and the opening words of St. Mark, distinctly affirm that the object of their authors was to set forth a religious memoir. Nor can any doubt be entertained that the object of the author of St. Matthew’s Gospel was precisely similar. The distinction between these two classes of writings is a very important one. Histories are bound to narrate events in the strict sequences of time and place, while memoirs are entitled to follow a different arrangement. You are aware that a large number of the objections that have been alleged against the Gospels are owing to the fact that different events are reported in different connections by the evangelists, and with considerable varia- tions in the circumstances attending them. Hostile critics have collected a large number of alleged discrepancies, and urged them as fatal to their historical character. On the other hand, the defenders of Christianity have 160 REASONS FOR i ie expended an immense amount of ingenuity and labour in attempting to reconcile them. Whether it is possible to do so in all cases it is needless to inquire. The fact that the Gospels were intentionally written as religious memoirs, and not as histories, is, I believe, a fully satisfactory answer to an overwhelm- ing majority of these difficulties. It is won- derful, when their authors have definitely affirmed that they are memoirs and not histories, that friends and foes have so often dealt with them as though they were histories and not memoirs. Many of the defenders of Christianity have taken this course from their anxiety to maintain a particular theory of inspiration. With such theories I have ° nothing to do in these lectures; but I can- not help asking you carefully to read and meditate on the principles which that great thinker, Bishop Butler, laid down on this subject in Part IT. chap. iii. of his “Analogy,” more than a century ago. Considering that many of our most important modern con- troversies had not then been heard of they BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 167 eR hee te eS are a wonderful proof of his far-seeing vision. If his warnings had been heeded by writers on the Christian side, we should have escaped from many a difficulty. I fully admit that the various questions that have been raised as to the date of the publi- cation of the Gospels, and whether they were composed by the persons whose names they bear, are of the deepest interest. But to enable you to form an adequate judgment on these points would require an extensive critical study of the earlier portions of ecclesi- astical history. The literature on this subject is extremely large, and on many points it requires special training to estimate its value. I cannot, therefore, urge you to endeavour to satisfy yourselves in this way. I think that, for all practical purposes, there is a shorter path that will conduct us to the desired issue. The real question for you to consider is, Were our Gospels composed within that period, when the traditionary reminiscences of the life of Jesus, which were preserved in the Church, must have preserved the utmost fresh- 168° REASONS FOR ness; and have we evidence that at least the three first Gospels are real embodiments of the Church’s traditions? First, let us accept provisionally the dates which have been assigned by our opponents to the Synoptic Gospels—that they were com- posed between the last ten years of the first and the first twenty-five years of the second century. ‘Their real date is no doubt between the years 60 and 70 of our era. Even Renan concedes that they must have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem. In this case they must have been composed within a period when the number of living witnesses of our Lord’s ministry was still considerable, and falsification of the traditions was impos- sible. But let us suppose that the dates which the majority of unbelievers assign to them are the correct ones—viz., that Matthew’s Gospel was composed somewhere between A.D. go and 100; that of Mark about 110; and that of Luke from A.D. 115 to 120. Still we are within the period of genuine historical tra- dition. Writers of great eminence have laid BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 169 down that traditionary reminiscences can be used as trustworthy informants as to historical events within a period of from 100 to 120 years after their occurrence. Assuming the above date, the composition of St. Matthew’s Gospel would be separated from the crucifixion by no greater interval of time than that which lies between us and the Battle of Waterloo ; Mark’s, by the space which separates us from Earl Howe’s victory; and Luke’s, from the year 1785, when Her Majesty’s grandfather had been sovereign of this country for not less than a quarter of acentury. Such inter- vals are too brief to have allowed of the falsi- fication of the chief events in the history of Him on whom the life of the Church was based. A. substitution of a false account for the accepted one must have been impossibie during the lives of the children of the first generation of Christians. They must have heard the original traditions from their fathers; and as their religious life was based upon them, it would have been impossible to have imposed on them an account materially ditter- 170 REASONS FOR ing from the one with which they were familiar. This difficulty would have been increased by the ever-enlarging extent of the territorial area of the Church. The fact that its different communities were separated from one another by hundreds of miles must have rendered a general falsification of their traditions impos- sible. The faithful transmission of these facts was also further assured by the necessity that the Church was under of making converts, whom it must have been impossible to have induced to join this new society, founded as it was on the acknowledgment that Jesus was the Christ, without first instructing them in His character and history. Everything in the circumstances of the Church must have conduced to keep the events of its Founder’s ministry in the most vivid recollection. It follows, therefore, that even if no accounts of it had been committed to writing (a suppo- sition that is in the highest degree impro- bable), the traditionary reminiscences of the second generation of Christians would have handed down the leading facts with substan- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 171 tial accuracy beyond the first quarter of the second century; so that those who committed them to writing must have been within the reach of ample historical materials. All that we are really concerned with is, the truth of the chief facts. Minor variations are unim- portant for the great purposes of history. Next, if we examine the three first Gospels, they present all the appearance that the nar- ratives that they contain have passed through a period of oral transmission. This point is one of great importance to enable you thoroughly to appreciate their character, and I must ask you to investigate the subject for yourselves. All that is absolutely necessary to enable you to do so will be to procure a copy of the Gospels published by the Chris- tian Knowledge Society at the inconsiderable price of 1s. 6d., in which the narrative of the evangelists is printed in parallel columns. When you have done this, diligently study those narratives and discourses that are com- mon to two or more of the Gospels, and note their variations word for word. ‘These parallel 172 REASONS FOR narratives present some of the most singular phenomena in literature. They are two, and in many cases three, different versions of the same facts and discourses. In a considerable portion of them the words and expressions are identical. But in the midst of these identical expressions occur a very considerable number of variations such as it is impossible to attri- bute to any design or purpose of the writer. The first thing that they will suggest to you is that it is impossible that they can have originated in the act of a forger. Nor less certain is the proof that they afford that the author of one Gospel has not copied from another, or even has deliberately altered a document that was common to all three. Of this the Gospels of Matthew and Mark supply evidence that seems to me nothing short of decisive. It is simply inconceivable that the author of Matthew’s Gospel, if he had a docu- ment like that of Mark before him, should have struck out all the graphic touches with which the parallel narratives of this latter Gospel abound, and that of Matthew is desti- BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 173 tute; nor is it less so that the author of Mark’s should have reversed this process. The sin- gular variations in the discourses also afford additional evidence of the total absence of purpose; for, while they are numerous, they do not occasion any appreciable difference in the general sense. To what, then, do these samenesses and variations point? for it is certain that they must have had an origin of some kind. The identities of expression can only have originated in some common form of the narrative, either oral or written. The variations are rationally accounted for if the narrative passed through a period of oral transmission in the different Churches before it was committed to writing. Taking them as a whole, therefore, the phenomena which the Synoptic Gospels present are such as we should expect to find in a narrative that had passed through a considerable amount of oral transmission before it was reduced to writing. I have proved from St. Paul’s Epistles that a well-known account of our Lord’s ministry was current in the Church, agreeing in all its 174 REASONS FOR great outlines with that contained in our pre- sent Gospels. We conclude, therefore, that the Gospels represent the traditionary reminis- cences of the Church, and that the account that they give of our Lord’s ministry is the same in all its great outlines as that which was accepted by the apostles and their early followers. I ask you carefully to weigh one fact more as a proof of our historical continuity at the present day with the events of our Lord’s life. The Holy Communion has been celebrated every week in the historic Church which He has founded during the last eighteen hundred and forty-seven years, forming a chain which directly connects us at the present moment with the events of our Lord’s Passion. Every time of its celebration it has brought into the most lively recollection all its chief scenes. It is impossible, therefore, that a remembrance which was thus renewed week by week could have become mixed with fiction in the minds of his followers, or obscured by it. Of no other event in the history of man have we an BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. equal guarantee of the historical truth of the facts, the remembrance of them being renewed week by week. The Last Supper, therefore, and its attending circumstances, the betrayal, the crucifixion, the burial, and the facts at- tending them, are unquestionable historical realities, which each celebration of the Com- munionhaskeptinlivelyrecollection. St. Paul, twenty-eight years after its institution, affirmed that whoever eat the bread, and drank of the cup, showed forth the Lord’s death until He came. Such was the view which was taken by the Church of this ordinance at this brief interval of time after its first institution: according to its belief, “/¢ showed forth the Lord’s death until He came.’ Nothing, there- fore, can form a stronger guarantee of the firmness of its belief in His resurrection and ascension. But further, the circumstances of a death thus commemorated by His followers every week must have preserved the chief events of His historic life in their lively recollection. Unless this had been so, the commemoration of the death would have been 176 REASONS FOR meaningless. Thus the weekly celebration _ of this ordinance forms a chain which connects us with the most important historical events in our Lord’s life in a manner which is done by no other historical event in the history of man. Let us now look at the purposes of the insti- tution itself. What dothey imply? Did the institutor view Himself as a mere man, or does the whole scene imply that He claimed a divine character: First, it is a thing absolutely without pre- cedent in history, that a man, who believed that he was going to be murdered on the morrow, should assemble his friends together on the preceding evening and direct them for the future to eat bread and drink wine to- gether in remembrance of him. The act im- plies that the person who instituted the rite had a profound sense of the importance of the surrender of his life, such as has been felt by no other human being. Secondly, the words of theinstitution directly affirm that His body would be broken and BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. ET? His blood shed for the remission of sins. His death, therefore, in the view of the dying q man, was to be no common death; but, on the contrary, it was one which had an unique importance of its own. In some way or other, it was to be connected with the remission of the sins of men. Such a view was never taken of his own death by any other man in the immediate prospect of dissolution. “This,” says Jesus, “is My body, which is broken for you. Dothisin remembrance of Me.” “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. Do this, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me: or as another evangelist has it, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’ It is clear, therefore, that the speaker considered that hewas about to perform an act of superhuman importance, and that the shedding of His blood would be the means of sanctioning a new covenant between God and man. No such idea as this ever entered into the head of any martyr. It leaves only two alternatives respecting it. Hither the speaker was possessed of a Divine I2 178 REASONS FOR consciousness of His own superhuman charac- ‘ter when He’ uttered these words; or He was wrought up to a state of fanatical self-delusion of which history presents no parallel. This last alternative is absolutely negatived by the calm solemnity of the entire scene. It follows, therefore, that the constant celebra- tion of the Holy Communion in the Christian Church is not only a chain without a single historical flaw, which directly connects us with the events of our Lord’s Passion, but it forms a standing memorial that on the eve of | the Passion He laid claim to the possession of a superhuman character. There are many other considerations, that you can observe for yourselves, which will aid in establishing their historical character. My space will only allow me to bring three of them to your notice. First, their authors show an exact acquaint- “ance with the facts and circumstances of the times. This would have been impossible if they had been legendary inventions of a gra- dual growth. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 179 Sa rails eS A ee eh Secondly, the variations in one Gospel throw light on the obscurities of another ; and the narrative of one evangelist, in a very remarkable way, dovetails into that of another. This is precisely what ought to be the case if they rest on an historical foundation, and would have been impossible if they had been a mass of floating legends, placed side by side by their respective authors. Thirdly, they contain a portraiture of the greatest of characters, wrought out with matchless perfection, and forming a_har- monious whole. To this subject I have devoted a volume of considerable size,* and it is therefore unnecessary that I should treat it here. You cannot read the Gospels with- out at once recognising the great character they delineate—a character which all the wisest and the best of men have esteemed one of unapproachable perfection. I put it to your common sense, is it believable that this character, which consists of the sum total of all the facts and discourses that are * The Jesus of the Evangelists. 180 REASONS FOR recorded in the Gospels, has been created out of a mass of myths and legends casually invented? Equally unbelievable is it that it is a consciously invented fiction. What is, therefore, the only conclusion to which it ‘points? I answer, that it must be the delinea- tion of an historical reality. You have doubtless heard that a great num- ber of objections have recently been raised against the evidence on which the authenticity of our Gospels has been accepted. It has. been affirmed that the proof is insufficient, when references have been made to the evan- gelical history by the Fathers who lived during the first 160 years after the Christian era, that they quoted from any of our present Gospels ; and, consequently, that we are devoid of evi- dence that our four canonical Gospels are the works of the persons whose names they bear. It has been strongly objected that for aught we know they may be productions of the second century. I ask you not to be disturbed by any of these suggestions. They are points which can only be adequately judged of by BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 181 those who have made such subjects a matter of special study. I do not deny that such questions are extremely interesting to those who have time and opportunity to investigate them. But for all practical and historical pur- poses there is a much shorter road to truth than to spend your time in narrowly scru- tinising quotations from the Fathers. One thing is clear, the Fathers were in possession of written documents of some kind; and their references to the actions and teaching of Jesus Christ are numerous, whether they are made to our Gospels or to other documents. I ask you most attentively to weigh this all- important fact, which really disposes of the entire difficulty. Although these references may vary from the words of the evangelists, yet they assign to Him no action or precept which differs on any substantial point from those that are recorded in our four Gospels. Let us take, for an example, the writings of Justin Martyr. The references in them to the actions and teaching of our Lord are about two hundred in number. Several of them are 182 REASONS FOR a ee of considerable length. Yet these writings contain references to only four unimportant circumstances not mentioned in our present Gospels. Now it is admitted on all hands that Justin was possessed of written docu- ments of some kind from which he drew his information. What is the only possible inference from these facts ? Clearly that what- ever documents Justin had before him, they could only have differed from our present Gospels in the facts that they narrated in the proportion of five to two hundred, or two and a half per cent. For all the purposes of history, therefore, the question what Gospels Justin derived his information from js unim- portant, because it is clear that their contents must have been substantiaily the same as those of our present Gospels. They must have contained the same facts, and the dis- courses must have only varied from those which we now possess by inconsiderable verbal variations. The same observations are true of the other early Fathers. All that we are really concerned with is the truth of BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 183 Pepa eee ee the facts. These considerations render it evident that they must have been the same as those which we read in our four Gospels. The larger the number of documents which are supposed to have been in the hands of the Fathers, the more certain is it that we are in possession of the traditions which were handed down by the original followers of Jesus, and that there were no others of im- portance which presented a different aspect of His life and teaching. The only effect of supposing that the Fathers quoted from documents differing from our Gospels is to multiply the number of witnesses to the facts of the evangelical history, and thereby to confirm its truth. I am now ina position to restore the Gos- pels to their place in history. They are memoirs of the ministry of Jesus, as it was accepted by His early followers, and handed down by an uninterrupted stream of tradition by the Church as the pillar on which its existence rested. If they are so, it is certain that they could not have been mistaken about 184 REASONS FOR Sr the general facts. The resurrection having been established as a fact, it has placed the whole of the supernatural occurrences re- corded in them on the same level in point of credibility as the ordinary events of history. We require nothing further than this; the real question, as it respects the truth or the falsehood of Christianity being, Did Jesus really rise from the dead, and are the chiet facts of His ministry, as they are reported in the Gospels, substantially accurate? If SO, He is certainly the Christ, and Christianity is a Divine Revelation. Any amount of minor difficulty is powerless to shake this great truth, or interfere with our accepting Him as the light of the world and the. great teacher come from God. BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 18 ior CHAPTER XVII. CONCLUSION. ae: XEN these grounds, therefore, and for fj }| these reasons, which I think will mae] Commend themselves to your com- mon sense as absolutely decisive, I ask you to accept Christianity as a Divine Revelation. Its entire scheme may be not devoid of diffi- culties, but they are gradually disappearing before advancing light. The slowly progres- Sive character of Divine Revelation has in former times tried the faith of thousands of believers, who have sighed at the imperfection of the light afforded them under God’s earlier dispensations. Unbelievers have used this as one of their strongholds, from whence they might attack the Christian faith. But this difficulty is one of the things that are passed. Physical science has taught us the great truth that God, in His operations in creation and providence, has been a slow and gradual 186 REASONS FOR worker, if they be measured by man’s narrow standard of time. He has begun with the lowest, and finally produced the highest forms of life. But the Christian maintains that the same God Who is the Author of Nature, is also the Author of Revelation. Ifthe one has been a gradual process, beginning with the lower and advancing to the higher, why not the other. It has been objected that Revela- tion has been slowly elaborated. Granted. The first rays of light that it shed were com- paratively dim. This I shall not dispute. But it has gone on waxing brighter and brighter until Jesus Christ appeared as the Sun of the moral and spiritual world. Where, I ask, is the difficulty in God’s having accom- modated His revelations to the condition of His creatures? Instead of forming a difficulty in the way of Christianity, it furnishes us with a strong confirmation of the truth that lies at its foundation, that the Author of Nature and of Christianity is the same. What might not have been said at the present day if the case had been reversed? It would have been urged BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. 187 as a proof that the Author of Nature was a - distinct being from the Author of Revelation. if on the grounds I have stated in these lec- tures we arrive at the full conviction that Christianity is a Divine Revelation, we can afford to wait patiently for the solution of many of the difficulties which the Bible con- tains. They do not affect its essence, but its accidents. ‘he student of nature has had to wait long for the solution of his difficulties ; many of them have come at last, though others are still unsolved. Let the believer in Christianity pursue the same course. Many of its difficulties have been solved already ; others are in process of solution. For others we must wait until the day when we shall no longer see through a glass darkly, but face to face. There is a mystery of God alike in Nature, in Providence, and in Grace. This mystery, like others of the past, will be gradually disclosed to those who patiently wait for the unfolding of the Divine purposes. If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, Christianity is a revelation from God to man, notwith- 138 REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN CHRISTIANITY. standing any amount of difficulties that it contains; and while in former ages He has spoken in prophets, at sundry times and in divers manners, God is now speaking to us in His Son. The voice that was heard in the Mount of Transfiguration should still re-echo in every heart: “ This is My beloved Son; hear ye Him.” ADVERTISE MENTS. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. :0: THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF DIVINE INSPIRATION, AS STATED BY THE WRITERS AND DepucED FROM THE Facts or THE New Testament. (Longmans.) THE JESUS OF THE EVANGELISTS; His Historica CHARACTER VINDICATED; or, an Examination into the Internal Evidence of our Lord’s Divine Mission with reference to Modern Controversy. (Williams & Norgate.) THE MORAL TEACHING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT VIEWED AS EVIDENTIAL TO ITS’ HistTorRIcAL TrRvUTu. (Christian Knowledge Society.) THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, PossIBLE, CREDIBLE, AND HISTORICAL; or, an Examination of the Validity of some Recent objections against Christianity as a Divine Revelation. Inreply to Part 1. of “ Supernatura| Religion.” (F. Norgate.) THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN fATHEISTIC AND PAN- THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY. (Published by the Victoria Institute, Hardwicke.) THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY PROVED BY THE ADMISSIONS OF UNBELIEVERS. Three Lectures de- livered at Norwich Cathedral, being the Seventh Series of the Norwich Evidential Discourses. (Hamilton, Adams, & Co.) FIVE LECTURES, published at the request of the Christian Evidence Society in their Evidential Series. (Hodder and Stoughton.) PRAYER VIEWED IN RELATION TO NATURAL LAW. (Christian Knowledge Society.) THE BAMPTON LECTURES FOR 1877. Curistian Evt- DENCES VIEWED IN RELATION TO MopeErN ‘THOUGHT; being eight Lectures (with Supplements and Notes) preached before the University of Oxford, in the year 1877, on the foundation of the Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. Second Edition. (F. Norgate.) PUBLICATIONS OF THE Ln limp cloth, price 2s. LESSONS ON EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. From the conclusion of the Acts of the Apostles to the Estab- lishment of Christianity under Constantine, By Miss ALCOCK. ——_— Thirdand Revised Edition, 2s., cloth limp ; 28.6d., cloth boards, extra gilt. GLADIUS ECCLESIA; Or, Church Lessons for Young Churchmen. By the Right Rev. the BISHOP OF RANGOON. Crown 8vo, price 1s. 6d., Limp cloth. INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONFIRMATION, For the Use of Senior Class Teachers, WITH SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO INSTRUCTIONS FOR BAPTISM. By the Rev. E. P. CACHEMAILE, M.A., Vicar of St. fames’s, Muswell Hill. Handsomely printed tn colours, price 2d. THE SCHOLAR’S CONFIRMATION CARD, With Space for Dates when Born, Baptised, Confirmed, and First Communion. Third Edition. Price 2s. 6d., cloth boards, extra gilt, A CHURCH SUNDAY SCHOOL HANDBOOK. A Manual of Practical Instructions for the Management of Church Sunday Schools. With Specimens of the Registers, and other School Material, and a Plan of a School Butlding. Compiled by the Rev. E. P. CACHEMAILE, M.A.., Vicar of St. James’s, Muswell Hill. Crown 8vo, handsomely bound tn cloth boards, price 2s. BETWEEN THE BELLS; Or, the Place of the Sunday School in the Church; together with a Manual of the Teacher’s Work. By JOHN PALMER, Secretary of the Church of England Sunday School Institute. The above can be had separately, tn Two Parts. Part I.—The Office of the Sunday School in the Church’s System ° with Suggestions for attaching Senior Scholars to the Church. Crown 8vo, price 6d. Part I1—The Teacher’s Work; What it is, and How to do it. Crown 8vo, bound in limp cloth, price ts. CHURCH OF ENGLAND SUNDAY SCHOOL INSTITUTE. LESSONS FOR BIBLE CLASSES. Lessons on Genesis. By the Rev. W. SAumAreEz Surry, B.D. Price, in limp cloth, 2s.; in cloth boards, bevelled and gilt edges, 3s. Lessons on Israel in Egypt and the Wilderness. By Sarau GERALDINA Stock. With a Map. Price, in cloth boards, bevelled, gilt lettered, 3s.; in stiff cloth wrapper, 2s. Lessons on Old Testament History, By the Rev. Joun Warson, M.A. In Three Volumes. Price, limp cloth, 2s.; cloth boards, bevelled edges, gilt lettered, 3s. I. From the Death of Moses to the Death of Saul. Il. From the Death of Saul to the Captivity of Israel. Wil. From Fehoshaphat to Malachi. Lsssons on the Life of our Lord. By Evucrene Srocx. In Two Volumes. Price, each Volume, in cloth, gilt lettered, 2s. 6d. ; in stiff linen wrapper, 2s. The Two Years complete in One Volume, 4s. 6d. Lessons on the Acts of the Apostles. By Eucrene Stock, with Coloured Maps of St. Paul’s Journeys. Price, in stiff wrapper, 2s. 6d. ; cloth boards, 3s.; cloth boards, bevelled, 3s. 6@. Lessons on the Life of St. Paul. By E. H. Green. This Course remenenced in “The Church Sunday School Magazine’’ for Novem- er; 1879: Bethlehem to Olivet. A course of Lessons on the Life of Jesus Christ. By Joun Parmer. The Course will consist of Forty Lessons, together with Twelve Review or Examination Lessons. Each Lesson is accom- panied by a simple Blackboard Illustration for Junior and Infant Classes. The Lessons will be published in Four Quarterly Parts, price 6d. each. Accompanying the Lessons is a Scholar’s Lesson Paper, which will be published in packets, containing Twelve copies of ro different kinds (making 120 pages), at 6d. each packet. Lessons for the Ecclesiastical Year. (Vew Serves. By the Rev. J. B. wx. DRAPER, B.A. Price, in stiff cloth wrapper, 1s. 4d.; in cloth boards, gilt lettered, 2s. Lessons on the Church Catechism. By the Rev. A. C. MAcPHERson, M.A. In cloth boards, bevelled, gilt lettered, 25. 6d¢.; in limp cloth wrapper, 1s. 6d. Lessons on the Collects. Mew Serves. By the Rev. Joun Kyte, Price, stiff wrapper, 2s.; cloth boards, bevelled, gilt lettered, 3s. Lessons on the Prayer Book. By the Rev. A. C. MacpHERson, M.A. Limp cloth, 2s.; cloth boards, bevelled edges, gilt lettered, 3s. Lessons on the Gospels for Sundays and Holy Days. By Arice M. CAWTHORN, with Critical and Explanatory Notes by LAURA _SOAMES. Price, in limp cloth, 2s.; in cloth boards, bevelled and gilt edges, 3s. Syllabus, with Passages for Reading, and Verses for Repetition, for Distribution to Scholars on each course. 2s. 8d. per 100. PUBLICATIONS. BOOKS FOR PRESENTS AND REWARDS. In cloth boards, handsomely gilt, price One Shilling each. THE LITTLE MAID. A Tale for Girls. By A. L. O. E. GWYNETH. A Tale of 1700 yearsago. By L.S. E. GEORGE DENNISON, and other Tales. By M. L. CHARLIE HARVEY, and ENLISTED. MATTEO; or, THE LITTLE GUIDE. MARY FAWCETT. By L. P. K. LITTLE NED AND HIS COMPANION. By Exien Lipscomse. NORA AND MILDRED. By Mrs. M. E. Bewsuir. CAPTAL. A fale for Boys. WHEN WE WERE BOYS. A Story of Sunday School Life. By the Rev. ‘lHomAs TuRNER. Cloth boards, bevelled edges, extra gtlt, ores 2s. 6d. THE REFORMERS: their Homes, Haunts, and W ork. By Dora M. PENNEFATHER. LOVELY IN THEIR LIVES. A Book for Earnest Boys. By the Rev. W. E. LitrtLewoop, Vicar of St. James’, Bath. “* All well told, and likely to be received with favour.’’—Rock. “Capital little books for their special purpose.”’—Record. PRIZE BOOK LABELS (adhesive). Three sizes, for inserting inside Prize Books, with Spaces for Name of School, Child, Vicar, Superintendent, &c. Size 5in. by 34in. Price 5s. per too. Printed in Colours. Also, two new Designs, the one 6 in. by 4% in., price 7s. 6d. per 100, or 1s. per dozen; the other, 4 in. by 22 in., price 4s. per 100. FIRST THOUGHTS: a Daily Text Book. Containing Comments, chiefly selected from the Writincs of [the Otp Divines, and arranged for the CurIsTIAN YEAR. Edited by Joun PALMER. Large Edition, fcap. 8vo, interleaved with ruled writing paper for recording special events, and handsomely printed in red and black, bound in cloth, extra gilt, bevelled boards, 2s. Also, a Small Edition, crown 32mo, containing a'Text for every day, _ with Hymn suitable for the Christian Year. Prices, bound in cloth boards, gilt, 6¢.; ditto, extra gilt, with gilt edges, 9¢.; Interleaved Edition, cloth gilt, 1s.; ditto, extra gilt, bevelled boards, with gilt edges, 1s. 6d. This work may also be had in Morocco, Calf, and Roan bindings. LOY LUU LANL