1' l'^- '1. y V' ^A V. .- -a L/t- ~ ' >rf V ».^^ H ■•k •;• '.JC V, <„/ ^^ ... f t^>^ n '* \ ?^ t^ "- IP'' ♦V •^ ^ 'X A -#' rH: f.-^ tihxaxy of t:he t:heological ^eminarjp Presented by Rev. Alison R. Bryan in memory of his great grandfather Rev. William S. Plumper Class of 1827 4. ^^ I NJ VJ5^ V 'd^ i^H^:, ^ x'T ^^' i! < >^ >t T- X ^ T >iz vC t^^|JVM5?^ ^c^^Z Jt:/^^/SSX. ^ i I \'m>^ Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2011 witin funding from Princeton Tiieological Seminary Library littp://www.arcliive.org/details/lecturesoneviden1852ruff •^' ^ c/ ^^ '^-T-?.^^ ^^.«^ LECTURES ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, DELIVERED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, DURING THE SESSION OF 1850-1. NEW YOKK: ^^^ ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, ^^^ 285 BROADWAY. 1852. :-f'v/ •{;.■. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, BY ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, Jn the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPKD BY THOMAS B. eMITB, '216 WILLIAM 8TRBKT. CanteiitH. I. FAOB Man Responsible for his Belief. By Rev. William S. Plumkr, D.D. Baltimore, Md 1 II. The Necessity of a Revelation: and the Condition of Man with- out IT. By Rev. A. B. Van Zandt. Petersburg, Va. . . .21 III. y^ Miracles, considered as an Evidence of Christianity. By Rev. Henry Ruffner, D.D., LL.D. Kanawha, Va 59 IV. Prophecy. By Rev. Alexander T. M'Gill, D.D. Alleghany, Pa. . 109 The Authority of the Sacred Canon and the Integrity of the Sacred Text. By Rev. F. S. Sampson, D.D. Hampden Sidney, Va. 141 VI. The Character of Jesus Christ, an Argument for the Divine Origin OF Christianity. By Rev. James W. Alexander, D.D. New York 193 VII. Thf. Success of Christianity an Evidence of its Divine ORiom; with some Observations on the Celebrated Secondary Causes of Mr. Gibbon. By Rev. Moses D. Hoge. Richmond, Va. . . 213 VIII. Inspiration of the Scriptures : Morell's Theory Discussed and Re- futed. By Rev. T. V. Moore. Richmond, Va. .... 267 IV CONTENTS. IX. PAOS The Nature of Christianity, as shown to be a Perfect and Final System of Faith and Practice, and not a Form in Transitu to A Higher and more Complete Development of the Religious Idea. By Rev. .Tohn Miller. Philadelphia 303 X. The General Internal Evidence of Christianity. By Rev. Robert J. Breckenbridge, D.D., LL.D. Lexington, Ky 321 XL Popular Objections to Christianity. By Rev. B. M. Smith. Staunton, Va 366 XII. The Ethnological Objection: the Unity of the Human Race. By Rev. T. V. Moore. Richmond, Va 409 XIII. The Harmony of Revelation and Natural Science : with Special Reference to Geology. By Rev. L. W. Green, D.D. Hampden Sidney, Va. 467 XIV. The Difficulties of Infidelity. By Rev. Stuart Robinson. Frank- fort, Kt 521 XV. The Moral Effects of Christianity. By Rev. N. L. Rice, D.D. Cincinnati, Ohio 669 preface. To prevent misappveliension and enhance the interest of this volume, it may be proper to sketch briefly the history of the Univei-sity bf Virginia, and to give some account of the origin of tlie following course of lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. This task seems naturally to devolve on the undersigned, who was Chaplain in that institution at the time of the dehvery of these lectures. It is a familiar fact that this distinguished State Univei-sity was brouo-ht into being mainly by the exertions of the illustrious Thomas Jefferson — a man of versatile genius and varied literary accomplishments, if not of sound logical talent and profound erudition ; one personally conversant with the most advanced forms of civilization in his day, yet thorouglily devoted to all that belonged distinctively to the structure of society and form of govern- ment in America, and ever desirous to contribute all in his power to the advancement of his country. He was fully possessed with the American idea as to the necessity of education and good morals among the people at large. And after his withdrawal from the national service, nothing seems to have engaged his thoughts and active exertions so much as the intellectual eleva- tion of that State in which he was born, and in which was his fixed residence through his whole lifetime. As early as the year 1814, in a private letter to a fi'iend in Albemarle County, he proposed a scheme for a State College, and in 1816 the Legisla- ture took the initiatory step in the execution of his scheme. In the Session of 1817-18, Mr. Jefferson drew np two bills, having fr)r their object the establishment of a system of public instruction for the State, namely, 1st, A Bill providing for elementary schools, and 2d (introduced a hltle later), A Bill making provision for an extensive system of public schools. This latter bill embraced the provisions of the former, and further provided for a num- ber of Colleges and a Central University. In accordance with the spirit of these bills, an act was passed February 21st, 1818, applying from the reve- nue of the Literaiy Fund, forty-five thousand dollars annually to pripaary schools, and fifteen thousand dollars annually fur the endowment of ant University. A Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was Chairman, appointed' vi PREFACE. by the Legislature, among other purposes, for naming a suitable location for the proposed University, met at Rockfish Gap, on the Blue Ridge Mountain, and decided in favor of the site of the Central College, an embryo institution gotten up by private subscription of the friends of science, Mr. J. at their head, and located near Charlottesville, Albemarle County. The Legislature accepted the suggestion of the Committee ; so that the Central College, including all its appurtenances, was absorbed into the University. The beautiful eminence selected for the buildings lay about five miles distant from Monticello, but in full view. The whole plan of the institution, in respect of buildings, studies, instruc- tion, and government, originated in the prolific mind of its devoted founder. With great discrimination and independence of mind, he culled from extant ideas and wrought out his own conclusions, some of which were novel and of undecided expediency, but are now gaining ground, as wise, practical principles. From the time of the passage of the final bill, January 25th, 1819, until the day of his death, July 4th, 1826, the venerable statesman seemed to possess the fire and activity of youth, so great was the assiduity :and energy with which he gave his personal attention to all the details of vhe .designing and erection of extensive and elaborate buildings, and to all the numberless features, great and small, connected with the establishment of a first-class University. He was spared to behold his long-cherished scheme successfully consummated. On the 25th day of March, 1825, it^ halls were thrown open for the reception of students. Its distinguished Father continued to watch over it, and treated its students with paternal kindness and attention. But in little more than one year his great spirit was summoned from the scene of his honorable and useful labors. The University went into operation with eight professors and one hundred and twenty-three students- The average number of students up to this date has been over two hundred. For several years past there has been a sound and constant growth. The number of students now is about four hundred : and there are nine professore, one lecturer, one adjunct professor, and three tutore, making the corps of instructoi's to number fourteen in all. It is a fact of general interest, that the subject of theology is omitted in the plan of studies, and no provision is made for having religious worehip in the University. This omission has sometimes been ascribed to peculiarities in Mr. Jefferson's religious belief. It is not to be denied that amidst the %iolent agitations in the public mind during the latter part of the last century, throughout the civilized world, and the overthrow of many long- venerated opinions, Mr. Jeffei-son became as skeptical concerning the divine right of Christianity as he did concerning the divine right of Monarchy. 'But he studiously concealed his sentiments upon this subject during his whole life. "My religion is known to God and myself alone," he wrote «ithin a few years of his deatL Only to his most confidential friends did PREFACE. VU • •>■ ■•■ ^■■~".* -,'''' '.. ' he ever communicate any part of his religious opinions. Se is not Ic'nowh to have ever made any attempt to propagate his views, or in any direct and open manner to interfere with the success of Christianity. The publication of his private correspondence has indeed disclosed fully his errors and bitter- ness respecting Christianity, but as the object of these lines is to present facts and views not generally noticed, I shall not farther allude to the melan- choly revelations of those posthumous papers. The absence of authorized religious instruction in the University is not justly attributable to Mr. Jefferson's single influence, nor is it in itself a proof of hostility to our religion. Christianity in Virginia, particularly among the more cultivated classes, was certainly at a point of great depres- sion in those days, when memories of corrupt and despised Church establish- ments were still vivid, and when the wave of French infidelity which had rolled across, and had lashed the very base of the Blue Ridge, had not yet subsided to its parent depths. But in the opinion of many of those best qualified to judge, no greater favor could have been done to the cause of true religion than to save it from the dubious fate of falling again into the unconsecrated hands of State authorities. Virginia, ever shuddering with recollections of the past, and ever having before her eyes the jealousies of Christian sects, and the fierce discords in sister States, has uniformly decided that portentous and much-debated question as to the proper combination of religious and secular instruction, particularly in State schools, by leaving out the religious element entirely from her government institutions, yet never interfering with its introduction by private means, which do not inter- fere with religious equality. In the arrangement of the University system, this subject was not left to go by mere default. It is interesting to find in the original scheme drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, and submitted to the Legislature of 1818, that it is proposed to leave a space in a conspicuous part of the grounds, which might he needed at some future time for a large building to be used among other purposes "/or religious worship, under such impartial regulations as the Visitors shall prescribe." In the same document occurs the following perti- nent paragraph : — " In conformity with the principles of our constitution, which places all sects of religion on an equal footing, with the jealousies of different sects in guarding that equality from encroachment and surprise, and with the senti- ments of the Legislature in favor of freedom of religion, manifested on for- mer occasions, we have proposed no professor of divinity ; and the rather, as the proofs of the being of God, the creator, preserver, and supreme ruler of the universe, the author of all the relations of morality, and of the laws and obligations these infer, will be within the province of the professor of ethics ; to which, adding the developments of these moral obligations, of those in which all sects agree, with the knowledge of the languages, He- ^ vili PREFACE. brew, Greek and Latin, a basis will be formed c«.,mmon to all sects. Pro- ceeding thus far without offence to the constitution, we have thought it proper at this point to have every sect inovlde as they think fittest, the means of further instniction in their ownpccnliar tcnefsy Two j-cars before the Univei'sity went into operation, the idea contained in the concluding clause of the above extract was clearly and fully developed by iyir. Jefferson in a Report written by him, and sanctioned by the other meifbers of the Boai'd of Visitors, to the President and Directore of the Literary Fund. So true and excellent are the general views, and so novel and interesting is the proposition, contained in this Keport, that it is worthy of being quoted entire, with the single omission of the paragraph copied above, which is made to form the opening of the Report. The document continues, " It was not, however, to be understood that instruction in religious opinions and duties w-as meant to be precluded by the public authorities, as indiffer- ent to the interests of society. On the contrary, the relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study and investigation. The want of instruction in the various creeds of religious futh existing among our citizens presents therefore a chasm in a general institution of the useful sciences : but it Avas thought thi^t this want, and the entrustment to each society of instruction in its own doctrines, were evils of less danger than a permission to the public authori- ties to dictate modes or princijiles of religious instruction, or than opportuni- ties furnished them of giving countenance or ascendency of any one sect over another. A remedy, however, has been suggested, of promising aspect, whicb wliile it excludes the public authorities from the domain of religious freedom, Avould give to the sectarian schools of divinity the full benefit of the public provisions made for instruction in the other branches of science. These branches are equally necessary to the Divine as to the other profes- sional or civil characters, to enable them to fulfil the duties of their caUiug- with understanding and usefulness. It has therefore been in contemplation, and suggested by some pious individuals, who perceive the advantages of associating other studies with those of religion, to establish their religious schools on the confines of the University, so as to give to their schools ready and convenient access and attendance on the scientific lectures of the Uni- versity : and to maintain, by that means, those destined for the religious professions on as high a standing of science and of personal weight and respectability, as may be obtained by others from the benefits of the Univer- sity. Such establishments would offer the further and great advantage of enabling the students of the University to attend religious exercises with the professor of their 2)a.rticular sect, either in the rooms of the building still to be erected, and destined to that purpose under impartial regulations, as proposed in the same Report of the Commissioners, or in the lecturing room PREFACE. 1» of such, professor. To such propositions the visitors are disposed to lend a willing ear,' and would think it their duty to give every encouragement, by. assuring those who might choose such a location for their schools, that the regulations of the University should be so modified and accommodated as to oive every facility of access and attendance to their students, with such, regulated use also as may be permitted to the other students, of the library which may hereafter be acquired, either by public or private munificence, but always understanding that these schools shall be independent of the University and of each other. Such an arrangement would complete the: circle of the useful sciences embraced by this institution, and would fill the chasm now existing, on principles which would leave inviolate the constitu- tional freedom of religion, the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights, over wliich the people and authorities of this State, individually and pubUcly, have ever manifested the most watchful jealousy: and could this' jealousy be now alarmed in the opinion of the Legislature by what is here suggested, the idea will be relinquished on any surmise of disapprobation, which they might think proper to express." The general sentiments in this paper with regard to the importance of religious mquiry, not only are just and expansive, but form a very appro- priate introduction to a volume such as that now presented to the public, and fumbh an ample vindication of tlie propriety of having such a course of lectures delivered in the institution. This scheme of Mr. Jefferson's, al- Uiough never opposed by any State authority, has been met by no response from the * sects,' who perhaps were unwilling to range themselves as satellites around'this great orb of secular science. '''■ Although religion, didactic or devotional, has never had an acknowledged \ legal existence in the institution, yet since the third year after the University ' < went into operation it has always had a footing and a welcome among the practical observances. By the year 1828, arrangements had been made by the faculty in their private capacity for regular weekly service within the walls of the University by the Episcopal and Presbyterian clergymen of , Charlottesville, alternately. In the year 1830 a Presbyterian clergyman of f Philadelphia accepted the invitation of the faculty to act as Chaplain to the institution. A systematic arrangement for securing regular religious worship was consummated in 1831, by which an annual appointment of a Chaplain was made from each of the four principal denominations in the State, in rota- tion. In 1848 the appointment of Chaplain was made for two years instead of one, the same system of rotation being continued. Since 1831 the com- pensation of the Chaplain has been made by the voluntary contributions of the oflBccrs and students. With a Chapel, a Chaplain, two ser^^ces each Sabbath, a weekly prayer-raeeting, a Sabbath-school, daily morning prayers, together with entire cordiality and accessibility on the part of all concerned, Christiamty is now established nt the University of Virginia on a basis JC ; PREFACE. which secures to it as much purity and efficiency as could be .cq)ected in guch an institution. The lectures embraced in this volume contain nothing sectarian. They are fully within the domain of our common Christianity. They are couched in the language of love, and aie designed not to insult, but kindly to reason with, the unbeliever. In reading these pages let every one bear in mind the truth so forcibly stated by Mr. Jefferson, that " the relations which exist be- tween man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study and investigation." Much space need not be consumed in detailmg the origin and history of this Course of Lectures. No such course ever had been delivered in the University, and its delivery was designed to narrow ' the chasm' of which Mr. Jeffereon speaks. The only point which seems to need explanation is the fact that all the lecturers were chosen from one denomination of Chris- tians. This was a point of much deliberation, and the plan adopted was considered the most likely to secure in the end the best and widest results. It was hoped that our example would be followed by the other denomina- tions, as they in turn had possession of the Chaplaincy. And thus only could all be allowed an equal opportunity. The material being inexhausti- ble, let each denomination draw up its own schedule, select its own cham- pions of the faith, and publish its own volume of lectures, and thus, and thus alone, might we hope to have the flower of American Christian intellect in the several churches engaged in a united assault upon the ranks of infidelity. It is enough to say as to the ability of these lectures, that they are the best efforts of their distinguished authors. May God our Saviour use them for the extension of his kingdom, and to his name be the praise, W. BL RUFFNER. Philadelphia, December, 1851. Man %nfnMi\ilt fnr {110 %tliti WILLIAM S. PLUMER, D.D., BALTIMOaE, MARYLAND. THOUGHTS WORTH REMEMBERINa. AuT undique religionem tolle, aut usquequaque con- serva. — Cicero. The way to liell is easy, for men can find it witli their eyes shut. — Castruccio Qastracanni. That those persons should tolerate all opinions, who think none to be of estimation, is a matter of small merit. Equal neglect is not impartial kindness. — Bu7'he. Pride of opinion and arrogance of spirit are entirely opposed to the humility of true science. — Locke. The fact is, men are not always in a mood to be con- vinced.— Logan. Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein. — Jesus Christ. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws. — JBlachstone. It is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth ; nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth on men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in fa- vor, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. — Bacon. Men are ready to believe everything when they believe nothing. They have diviners, when they cease to have prophets, witchcraft, when they cease to have religious ceremonies ; they open the caves of sorcery, when they shut the temples of the Lord. — Cliateaulyriand. If I would choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm re- ligious belief to every other blessing. — Sir Humphrey Davy. My Respected Friends : — If the course of lectures, the first of which is now to be dehvered, shall be worthy of any attention, they will justly claim your greatest candor, your most ardent love of truth, and your utmost docility of temper. It will be unworthy of you as men, and as lovers of knowledge, it will be unphilosophical, I think too it will be wicked for you to attend these discussions for the purpose of blindly receiving or rejecting whatever may be said. I bespeak your utmost ingenuousness in listening to the arguments that may be offered. " Buy the truth, and sell it not." Your eternal life is the stake involved in the solemn inquiry to be made into the truth of Christianity ; for if the Scriptures be not true, there remain to us only darkness and lamentation. There is found extensively diffused among men a book, called The Bible. Besides other lessons, it teaches that one of the highest exercises of virtue is faith, and that one of the most hei- nous sins is unbelief. It makes salvation to depend upon the for- mer, and a loss of the Divine favor to be the fruit of the latter. It often and clearly settles these points. It says : " Without faith, it is impossible to please God ;" and, " He that believeth not is condemned already." Nevertheless, men are found who utterly reject this book as a revelation, some without inquiry, but not without scoffs, and some with a vain show of reasoning, but evidently without thorough and fair examination. Of the latter class, are those who insist that man is not, because he ought not to be, accountable for his belief in any matter, that faith is involuntary, and so not proper ground of praise or blame, reward or punishment. This opinion has some prevalence, and is worthy of examination at the begin- ning of a course of lectures on the evidences of Christianity. If it be true, the whole Christian system fails of the authority which it claims. Before entering on the main question, a few preliminary observations are proper. 4 MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. Truth is the great and proper object of the mind of man, and may with safety be pursued to any length whatever. There is no danger in giving up any error, or in embracing any truth. Forsaking truth, and embracing error, angels shrunk into devils. Forsaking error and grasping truth, sinners rise to the dignity of saints, and to the companionship of angels. The resemblance between truth and error is often so great as to call for the most patient inquiry, and for the soundest discrimina- tion. Prejudice and passion are enemies to truth, and will defeat any quest after knowledge. All truths and all errors are not equally evident. Some of the most important truths bear no marks of credibility whatever, when first presented to the mind. And some of the most serious errors often for a while seem to be truths. Numerous instances, drawn from every branch of knowl- edge, might easily be given. All truths are not equally important. Some we may never know, and yet attain all the highest ends of existence. But some have such a scope and bearing that it behooves all men to seek and find them, and then to hold them fast. Such are the great truths of religion. It cannot promise the slightest utility to reason with one who admits that there is a God, and yet cannot be brought to see that our relations to Him are momentous. Though mere intellectual belief is not saving faith, yet, by the laws of the human mind, the former is a necessary foundation of the latter. When a man so believes as to be saved, his heart makes no war upon his understanding, his faith is not contrary to his judgment and reason. It is a glory peculiar to Christianity that it requires our religion to be a " reasonable service." " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" is one of its oracles. No man acts more wisely and rationally than when he solemnly and earnestly believes all religious truth. An early Christian writer says : " He, who believes the Scrip- ture to have proceeded from Him who is the author of nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difliculties in it as are found in the constitution of nature." And as the author of nature is confessedly the author of all truth, the argument from analogy is both legitimate and important on religious subjects. It does, indeed, furnish no direct evidence of any rehgious truth. But if difficulties, presented against religion, can be shown to lie with equal force against the constitution and course of nature, they can no longe/ be urged as-vahd objections. The nature of the subject MAN EESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 5 now to be discussed renders a resort to analogy entirely proper. The chief use of analogy in argument is to silence cavillers. The connection between cause and effect in the moral world is as close as in the physical. Error will give trouble to the traveller to a distant city. May it not be fatal to the traveller to eternity? The former feels the consequences of mistake for a short time, the latter for endless ages. The plague produces pains, blotches, and death. Sin is more dire in its effects. No signals of distress are so appalling as those held out by men living or dying under moral maladies. Let us now examine the statement that man is not, and ought not to be, accountable for his faith. At this point it is proper to make a few remarks on the grounds of belief in general. Every man finds his mind so constituted that it cannot but believe some things. Consciousness informs him that he exists, thinks, wills, loves, and hates. On these and like points he needs no other ground of belief. It is folly to seek it. This is adapted to the subject, and is complete. When a man tells me that I have the power of reflection, he gives me no new information, and no more evidence of the fact than I had before, " Man also believes some things by an intuitive perception of their truth. The whole is greater than a part, two are more than the half of three, a proposition, admitting of but one construction, cannot be both true and false, are truths so obvious to every sober mind, that to announce them is to prove them, to understand them is to believe them. To demand argument in support of them, is like calling for candles to show us an unclouded sun. We believe such things because we cannot, without violence to the constitution of our minds, deny or doubt them. Again, mathematical demonstrations built upon the axioms of that science command our belief. The very lowest penalty for expressing a doubt of a proposition thus proven is the contempt of mankind. In long mathematical processes errors may indeed occur^but where each premise and each step are clear, our assent to results, however surprising, is most reasonable. Thus accounts are settled, seas navigated, countries partitioned, and nations divided. Logical reasonings on moral subjects may be as fair and as con- clusive as mathematical demonstrations. Parents should provide for their helpless children, children are bound to the offices of filial piety, the mother who cares not for her own offspring is a monster, he who loves slander, robbery, or murder, is an enemy 6 MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. to virtue, are moral truths as fairly reached as any result in geometry. It is not true that our knowledge in morals is, in its own nature, less certain than in other branches of science. Our senses also furnish good ground of belief. When a man sees a rainbow, he believes it has several colors, when he hears the songs of the mocking-bird, he believes it has exquisite musical powders, when he tastes honey, he believes it is sweet, when he feels ice, he believes it is cold, when he smells the incomparable flower of the magnolia, he believes it has strong odors. Nor does he need any other proof of these things. No process of ratioci- nation would add anything to his reasonableness in believing what his senses had already informed him of Consciousness, intuition, mathematical and logical reasonings legitimately conducted, and our senses are all to be relied on in their proper spheres. He, who rejects consciousness, intuition, the senses, and logical reasonings, can make no progress in knowledge, and will simply live and die a fool. He, who refuses to settle an account fairly and arithmetically made out, or to abide by a boundary fairly and mathematically ascertained, will be set down for a knave. Yet in the use of all these grounds of belief, mistake or deception is possible. He, who slanders a neighbor, may say that he is not conscious of malignity towards him. In this case we simply infer that he does not candidly observe or truly report the state of his own mind. But we do not on that account give up all evidence of that kind. Such facts teach us to be watchful and truthful, but not skeptical. So a first truth may not be clearly stated, or from heedlessness one may mistake its import. Would it on that account be wise to reject intuition, and begin to prove that the whole is greater than a part? In the use of the senses, and in mathematical and logical reasonings, errors have been committed. Shall we therefore abandon them all as instruments of advancing in knowledge ? All sober men say, No. All these sources of evidence must be restrained to matters falling within their proper and respective provinces. Consciousness, intuition, logical reasonings, and the senses cannot determine how many acres of land are in a given field, or how^ many leagues a vessel has sailed in a day. Con- sciousness, intuition, mathematical and logical reasonings cannot prove a stone hard, an orange sweet, or a rose fragrant. One sense cannot testify for another, neither ought one of these classes of evidence to invade the province of another. Yet it is philo- MAN KESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 7 sophical, reasonable, right and wise to found belief on the evidence obtained from all these sources. We have another source of information, on which to build our belief Indeed, in the strict sense of the word faith, it is the only foundation of belief. I refer to the testimony of others. The necessity of reliance on testimony is based on our ignorance of many things, which can be known to us in no other way. The faculties of men are so limited, and time and space are so vast, as to preclude the possibility of his knowing thousands of things, important to be known, except by the testimony of others. Milhons of men believe that the sea is fathomless, though they never cast a line into it ; that lions and elephants are found in Africa, though they never were in sight of its coast ; that a vast tract of the earth's surface is never whitened by frost, though they never were within the torrid zone ; that there are vast deposits of gold in the mines of California, though they never were within a thousand miles of any part of that Western Empire State. Their belief in these and a thousand other things has no basis but the testimony of others. If a man concedes the reason- ableness of so believing, he grants all that is essential for the basis of this argument ; but if he denies it, he stultifies himself and all mankind. It is entirely by testimony that we believe in the existence, productions, appearance, or institutions of countries, which we never visited. It is only by testimony that any man's lineage is known to himself or his neighbors. In the same way the law of descents is executed, property is held, guilt and inno- cence proved, life and liberty legally taken or preserved. It is almost exclusively by testimony that the mass of men come to regard certain drugs, plants, and reptiles as poisonous. Very few men in each age of the world subject them to any actual test. It is solely by the testimony of men long since dead that w*e have any knowledge of the universal empires of antiquit}'^, and of the men who reared, or who destroyed them. Let all men refuse assent to testimony, and all business must cease, all commerce be checked, and all law be a dead letter. Such a course would make earth a Bedlam, would convert every man into a murderer or a suicide, would produce starvation, dissolve society, and de- populate the earth. Men are therefore compelled to receive testimony, rely upon it, and be governed by it. In so doing they wisely submit to the laws of their nature and of their condition. Who will maintain that the Chinese were philosophical in disbe- 8 MAN EESPONSIBLE FOE HIS BELIEF. lieving, for thousands of years previous to the present century, the existence of the Northern and Southern Oceans? When a voyager in certain seas and seasons is told by the sailors that if he sleep on deck, it will cost him his life, is he a wise or a good man for believing not a word they tell him? To test the truth is to lose his life. To invite another to test it, is to tempt him to self-de- struction. Here is a case, in which one has no guide but the testimony of men, and those strangers perhaps. The penalty, fixed by the Author of nature to such recklessness as refuses the warning even of a stranger, is death. When the king of Siam was told by the German ambassador that in his country water in winter became so hardened by the cold that men could walk upon it, was he wise in forthwith determining that it was a falsehood? Are Virginians unphilosophical in believing on the testimony of several men that the feat of climbing the Natural Bridge lias actually been accomplished ? It is no valid objection to the principle of reliance on testimony, that it may be abused. Some witnesses are ignorant, some credu- lous, some dishonest. That is a good reason for patience, inquiry, candor, and discrimination, but none at all for blindly rejecting all testimony. There are said to be more than a hundred kinds of mushroom. Of these, but one is fit for food. Yet men easily learn to discriminate between the noxious and the wholesome. So we judge of all testimony that is submitted to us, and easily learn to discriminate between the precious and the vile, the false and the true. We wisely and universally receive testimony. The old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, the sav- age, the barbarian, and the civiHzed man all do it. If they acted otherwise, they would be madmen. The whole force of testimony, considered by itself, depends upon the ability and honesty of the witness. We judge of the former by his general intelligence, and by his opportunities of information in the matter of which he speaks. We judge of the latter by his general character for veracity, and by his whole conduct in testify- ing. When the ability and honesty of witnesses are unknown, an' inquiry on the subject is proper. Upon the testimony of com- petent and credible witnesses, we take property from one man and give it to another, and for offences thus proven, we punish men with loss of liberty, and even of hfe itself. Nor do good men live in a state of alarm lest they should be ruined by this state of things. On the contrary, it is one of the best means of preserving MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 9 all the dearest civil rights of men. Without it, no man is safe for an hour. All nations, therefore, have received testimony. All men have done it. All government rests mainly upon this corner- stone. There is no better proof of high civilization in a nation, than the perfection of its laws on this subject. It is the judgment of mankind that we are bound to admit testimony, and that we are highly culpable for refusing it. Take a few cases. Serious charges are circulated against one of my neighbors. If true, they ought to lead to a suspension of all intimacy between us. All the facts are elicited. By ample testimony, my neighbor is proven guilty. Yet there is no change in my conduct towards him. Privately and pubhcly he is still my boon companion. What is the consequence? I declare my belief of his innocence, and give the highest proof of my sincerity. But men say that if I were not reckless of character, or had no sympathy with wrong- doers, I would certainly believe otherwise. If I still cling to him, I must bear a tremendous penalty, the forfeiture of the esteem of the wise and good. Or suppose the charge is fully disproven, and the innocence of my neighbor amply vindicated, and yet I declare my belief of his guilt. Is there no penalty for my rejection of testi- mony in his behalf? Do not all just men ascribe to malignity my beUef of the guilt of one, whose defence has been triumphant? Do I not suffer severely, yet justly, for my belief in this case? Even in phj^sical affairs men are. by the fixed laws of God, held accountable for their belief, and that under the severest penalties. Here is a white powder. A man is told that it is arsenic, and that a small quantity of it will destroy animal life. He has never known a death caused by this poison. The powder looks as harmless as so much flour or clialk. He does not knoio that it is arsenic. He does not believe that it is deadly poison. He refuses to receive testimony as to its destructive qualities. He says, it is impossible that anything, so harmless in appearance, should hint any one. He gives it in a dose to some one. Death ensues. He is arrested, tried, convicted, and justly executed as a murderer. Or if he takes the dose himself, and thus gives the highest proof of the sincerity of his belief, an agonizing death, in- flicted by God himself, as the Author of the laws of nature, soon follows. The penalty is certain, speedy, and dreadful. He dies in horror and in torture, for refusing testimony. Why is this? Is not God good? Yes, verily. But his goodness leads him to teach men that for their belief in things natural they are respon- 10 MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. sible to him under natural laws, with penalties as severe as any that can be inflicted on this side of the grave. Not one man in a thousand has ever seen human life destroyed by a fall from a high eminence, yet upon the testimony of others it is generally believed that it will be fatal. Suppose a man refuses to listen to the warning voice of others, and leaps from the top of a high precipice to the rocks below. His unbelief in the testimony he has heard will not make void the law of attrac- tion, by which he is drawn with fearful violence to the earth's surface, and dashed to pieces. The Author of nature will not suspend the laws of the material world, but will terribly punish those who violate them, even if the violator of them has but heard of, but never proven their power and penalty. Nay, in things natural men suffer for the slightest disregard of the law of testi- mony. When a colony goes forth to a new country, abounding in plants of unknown qualities, it is under the general declaration that some are wholesome and some noxious, and that it is folly to eat of anything whose nature is unknown. When the first set- tlers at Jamestown gathered, and boiled, and ate the leaves of the stromonium, they acted rashly, they despised the general law of testimony concerning vegetable plants, and they felt the conse- quences. The same truth might be taught by many other well- known examples. Besides, it is the common sentiment of mankind that a man's belief on moral subjects is a sign of his present character, and a good index to his future career. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," is a maxim not only of revelation, but of all judi- cious men. Take away the fear of punishment, and present the occasion, to him who believes that swindhng or stealing are justi- fiable, and no man of sense is surprised that the belief rules the life. It is said that the great mass of convicts in our prisons believe themselves to have been justified in the perpetration of their crimes. So long as they thus believe, every orderly citizen knows that they are dangerous to society. A man is known to believe that doctrine of devils, that the end justifies the means. Does any wise man confide in him ? Will he not lie whenever it is convenient to do so ? As it is his creed, so shall you find it Ins trade to deal in falsehood. No merchant will employ a young man, who is known to believe that he may, without guilt, procure his pleasures ai the cost of his master, and without his consent. A man's creed embodies his moral principles. To publish his MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 11 creed is to make known his principles. If lie, who believes viciously, acts correctly, it is owing to causes foreign from his real character ; it is despite bis principles, and there is no proper ground of praise in what be does. No respectable code of morals admits of cases of fortuitous or unintended virtue. Moreover, it is the very office of reason to search for truth, to seek for light, to weigh arguments, and to determine the value of evidence. This whole work is voluntary. In performing it, every human being has the highest kind of evidence that he is a free agent. That evidence is his own consciousness. No man of sense will deny this. Nothing within the range of the human mind can be more free from violence, than the whole process of collecting, receiving, rejecting or weighing evidence. The proof of this is of the same nature with the proof of all our mental operations. All proper attempts to influence the human mind rest upon this basis. All other attempts to influence it are felt to be outrages. Persecution made Galileo submit to a humiliating confession. Good men have ever since felt the wickedness of the treatment he received. But his belief was unchanged. The echo of his confession that the earth did not move was hardly dead, till he was heard to say, " It does move," and if he had not said it, we know that such is the unchained and untamable freedom of all such mental operations, that after his confession, he must have thought just as he did before. If our belief is in any sense so involuntary, or so independent of the native freedom of our minds, that we may not be held accountable for it, what is the use of evidence ? If the result cannot be varied by the evidence presented, then the whole process of eliciting testimony and listening to arguments in any cause or matter is a mockery of reason, truth and justice. To ansv/er a matter before he hears it is not folly and shame to a man, if he cannot by candor, by patience, by inquiry, learn what conclusion he should reach. This doctrine carried out into practice would make all judicial proceedings very short, and save much time. Whether it would be satisfactory to mankind, I will not inquire. It would also open the shortest road to science and learning. It would save these young gentlemen the toil and labor of demonstrating prob- lems and theorems. They might be persuaded to believe all things that are told them without looking at the evidence on which they rest. Life at the Unirersity would then be a time of elegant leisure tc be sure. But whether such a course would . 12 MAN EESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. raise up a set of me?}, or advance soZtcZ learning, 5'ou may deter- mine without argument. Wliy do the laws provide with such care, and why do men labor with such zeal, that as far as possible judges shall be impartial, if the state of the mind has nothing to do in determining the weight of testimony ? Why should a prisoner wish to be heard if evidence and argument strongly pre- sented will not influence the belief of a just and good man on the question of guilt or innocence before the court? Why should a man ask for afair trial, if there be not states of mind very uiifair to the rights of truth and justice ? A court is in session. A cause involving great interests is to be tried. A jury appears. One of the first acts of a juror is to bind his soul under the sanctions of an oath that he will render a ver- dict according to the law and the evidence. If belief be involun- tary and beyond control, this oath is a mockery. But this is not all. The trial proceeds. The evidence is clear and carries con- viction to every impartial mind. The law is equally clear. The judge so states it. The jury retires, and brings in a verdict contrary to the law and the facts. What is the result? The pubhc puts a mark of infamy on each of those men. Public in- dignation is like coals of juniper on their heads. Their reputa- tion is blasted. All respect and esteem for them cease. This is sure to be the case in proportion as the community, in which they live, is inteUigent and virtuous. Now why do all good men visit such conduct with so severe a penalty? Simply because the jurors did not stand to their oath. Even if there be no suspicion of bribery, even if there be no suspicion that the verdict is con- trary to belief, yet the penalty is inflicted, not by a baihff or constable indeed, but not less terribly, because the public inflicts it and that without ceremony. Men judge that none but bad men, who did not fear an oath, could entertain a belief so utterly at variance with law and fact. Here is another jury of twelve men. One pays no attention to testimony, argument, or the law. His mind is already made up. Another is a mere trifler. He neither knows, nor cares what is right in the case. Another listens eagerly to the testimony on one side only. Another at- tends partially to one side and fully to the other. One and but one carefully and candidly hears the whole case and decides accordingly. This is the only innocent man in the panel. Even if the rest agree with him, in the eyes of God they are guilty ; and so far as their conduct is known, they are guilty in the eyes MAX RE3P0XSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 13 of all good men. They have evinced a criminal recklessness, a base want of love of trutli. Again, if belief is involuntary in any sense, which sets aside the freedom of the mind, and with it accountability, there is a full end of the distinction between right and wrong, virtue and vice. Thus we should fairly conclude that Saul of Tarsus, f' breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, and making havoc of the Church, and haling men and women, committing them to prison," was not criminal, and ought never to have felt remorse for such conduct, for all the time he was doing these things he " verily thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Saul's belief in this matter was firm but erroneous. It was the result of prejudice and bigotry. He was "exceeding mad" against the Christians. Yet he believed he was doing right. But as soon as he became a candid, truth-loving man, he was covered with shame and filled with sorrow for this conduct. He never forgave himself for it, but went to heaven crying : " I am the chief of sinners — I persecuted the Church of God." And if he were not guilty for his bloody persecutions, neither should we be in doing the same things, provided w^e could only so far pervert our minds and hearts as to believe that we were doing God service. By parity of»reasoning, when in the midst of extreme perils and suffering and with incredible zeal, Paul preached Christ, there was nothing virtuous in all this, for although he did right and acted conscientiously, yet his belief, according to the error here opposed, was not a proper ground of praise. It was an involun- tary result reached by his mind. For the same reason, he who believes in no God, and worships none, he who believes in one God, and worships him, and he who believes in thirty thousand Gods, and worships them, are alike acceptable or unacceptable to the Creator. Such are a few of the monstrous consequences of this huge error. It has been shown that by the constitution of our natures we receive the testimony of men, that in so doing we act wisely and virtuously, and that if we violate this law of our existence, con- science, mankind and divine providence enforce severe penalties for the transgression. It is impossible for any man to attain the high ends of being or even to maintain that being on earth, un- less he will listen to the testimony of others. Let us go a step further. The same law of our constitution, fairly interpreted, 14 MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. a fortiori, obliges us to receive the testimony of God. "If we re- ceive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." The Bible claims to be God's testimony to man. It summons men to the investigation of great questions, involving at once the salva- tion of each man's soul, the general good of the human race, and the glory of our Maker. It declares that God would have our inquiries to be free, fair, thorough, calm and earnest. The tenor of Scripture on this subject is well expressed in such sentences as these : " Come now, let us reason together ;" " I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say ;" " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good ;" " In understanding be ye men ;" " The truth shall make you free ;" " Be ye not as the horse and the mule, which have no understanding : whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle ;" " If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;" " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Larger liberty of inquiry no man of sense could wish for. The sober legitimate use of all our mental powers is encouraged in every proper way. It is true that the Bible represses and forbids all those tempers, which are unfriendly to growth in knowledge. It says : " Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." This remark is as applicable to a student of nature, of law, or of medi- cine, as to the student of the Bible. It says : " He that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly ;" but the truth here asserted is of universal application. Rashness of mind is no more contrary to religion than to sound philosophy. The Bible warns us against " philos- ophy falsely so called." Regard to this warning gave to the world the discoveries of Copernicus. Galileo, Newton and Franklin. If the Bible calls for profound reverence in contemplating religious truths, it is because those things are divine and awful in their own nature. Levity of mind on sacred subjects is in bad taste, and proves that in such matters a man wishes to be a fool. He who sits on the bench during a trial for life, or investigates the question of the truth of Christianity in the same lightness of mind, with which he may throw pebbles into a brook, or spend an hour with the friend of his childhood, is a bad man, and every one, who is not bad, will say so. But the modesty, the caution, the candor, and the reverence, called for in such an inquiry, do not impair our freedom. They are the surest pledges, and the highest guaranties of its perfection. It has been shown that man is held responsible for his belief in MAN EESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 15 temporal affairs ; why should he be irresponsible where everlasting things ftre at stake? If in any case I am bound to receive the testiinony of an intelligent, honest man, ought I not, in every case, to receive the testimony of God ? If erroneous belief in the affairs of this life is mischievous and often fatal, who can show that it will not be equally or more so in the business of the life to come? If the well-being of man on earth requires him to believe the fixed laws of God's natural government, may it not be even more im- portant that he should believe the fixed laws of his moral govern- ment? A man heard that the legislature of his State had abol- ished capital punishment. He committed murder, and under the gallows said he would not have shed innocent blood, if at the time he had believed the penalty was death. His erroneous behef on this one point made him an actual murderer. May it not be as mischievous for a man to disbelieve God, when he says, " The soul that sinneth it shall die?" If man, who is always fallible and often fallacious, must nevertheless in some things be believed, how much more must we believe the true and infallible God ? If man's word is ever reliable, God's is always unimpeachable. He commits no mistakes, and is never deceived. '• God is light, and in him is no darkness at all ;" " His understanding is infinite ;" "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning ;" " Nei- ther is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight ; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him, with whom we have to do;" "He understandeth the thoughts afar off;" "He searcheth the heart and trieth the reins ;" He is omnipresent and omniscient ; he knows all causes and all effects ; he is in full pos- session of all the propositions, that constitute universal truth ; he knows what is, and was, and is to come, as well as what might have been, might now be, or might hereafter be on any conceiv- able supposition. He who denies these things must be sent to school to learn Natural Theology. Some of the heathen believed as much of God. Such a witness as God is infinitely fit and competent to testify. If he speak of what shall be, he has infinite power and wisdom to bring it to pass. Failure is out of the ques- tion. "To God all things are possible." Nothing is too hard for him. He cannot be defeated. His veracity cannot fail. False testimony is unspeakably abhorrent to the infinite rectitude of his nature. He is a God of truth. Even " if we believe him not, yet he abideth faithful, and cannot deny himself." Natural religion teaches that he is infinitely removed from insincerity and decep- 16 MAN EESPOiSrSIBLE FOll HIS BELIEF. tion. Despite all his giossness of character, Balaam proclaimed that " God is not a man that he should lie." This truth is never to be yielded. Sound reason unites with revelation in saying-, "Let God be true and every man a liar." It is less foolish and less criminal to suspect the truth of all men, than to question the veracity of God. " It is impossible for God to lie." If then we receive the testimony of men, who often deceive and are deceived, is it not much wiser to receive the testimony of God? Could reasoning be fairer ? Nor is there any reasonable presumption against God's making known his will on the highest themes that deserve human thought. He instructs mankind by his works of creation and providence concerning things of comparatively slight importance. He teaches the husbandman when to sow and when to reap, he instructs the mariner when to furl and when to unfurl his sails, he gives men skill in all the useful and ornamental arts, he gives sagacity to statesmen and by them stability to governments. Those who obey the lessons he gives in nature and providence, are so far wise, prosperous and happy. Is it worthy of God to give us such ample and safe lessons concerning the body, health, riches, and the wel- fare of society, and say nothing of the soul, of the riches that endure to eternal life, and of that boundless existence, which all but brutish men believe to be before them ? God is benevolent and knows more than man. It would therefore be worthy of his boundless goodness to teach us. He is our Creator and Law- giver. It is therefore to be expected that he will make known to us his will. There is nothing taught us by Natural Religion, which makes it probable that God cannot or will not reveal to us more than he teaches us in his works. In other words, there is no a jniori argument of any weight against God's revealing to us his whole will for our salvation. Now if God has spoken to us in the Bible, it is our duty to honor him by believing what he says. " He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." He has done a very reasonable and proper thing. He has confided in his Maker's word. On the other hand, "he that believeth not God hath made him a liar." No inference could be more logical. He, that believes not man, charges him with speak- ing what he did not know to be truth, or with uttering what he knew to be false. Not to believe God is to do what in us lies to destroy confidence in his moral character, and to bring his name into contempt among his creatures. Every virtuous man feels MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. 17 exquisite pain, when his veracity is questioned. No public person, as a judge, or governor, will brook the insult offered by giving him the lie, if he has power to redress it. God is the Judge of all the earth. He is the Governor among the nations. The harmon}' and happiness of the Universe depends upon the esteem in which he is held. To make him a liar is to offer him the highest kind of insult, and to sow the seeds of mischievous disaffection among his creatures. Confidence in God's veracity gone, all is gone. It is therefore for the best and highest reasons known to mortals that man is held accountable for his belief in the testimony of God. If God has in the Gospel spoken to man, and man receives not His testimony, then by such unbelief he impeaches the Divine wisdom in the whole plan of salvation. To reject any measure proposed for our good, is to declare it unnecessary, or unsuited to the end proposed. In either case, it is an impeachment of the wisdom of the author of the plan. So, also, to reject God's word is to deny His ability to make good what He has promised or threatened. Unbelief makes the great First Cause inferior to second causes, and subjects the universal Lawgiver to the power of feeble creatures. It also impeaches the Divine kindness in making a revelation. If the Gospel be from heaven, its overtures of reconciliation are the strongest proofs of amazing love. But unbelief pronounces God a hard master, even in requiring the acceptance of proffered grace. If the Bible be God's word, every candid man must admit that he Divine testimony contained in it is full and clear on the most important subjects. It abundantly teaches that man is by nature *nd practice a sinner, that he is alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him, that he is dead in trespasses and sins, that he is in love with sin and at enmity with God, that he is condemned by a law that is holy, just, and good, both in its precepts and in its penalty, that he is without strength, without righteousness, without hope, and without God in the work]. If these things be so, it is kindness in God to testify them to us, especially as they are accompanied by offers of grace, mercy, and peace. Illumination, renewal of heart, pardon of sin, acceptance with God, strength to resist temptation, and victory over sin and death, are everywhere proffered in Scripture. Nor is the method of a sinners recovery to the favor and enjoyment of God concealed, or obscurely handled in the Bible. Jesus Christ, the sole and sufficient cause of salvation to sinners, is clearly revealed. " The 2 18 MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." " To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever beheveth in him shall receive remission of sins." God has spoken of him "by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began." "Yea, all the prophets from Samuel, and all that follow after, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days" of Messiah. In the New Testament, Christ is all in all, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. The Scriptures say that he was "equal with God," that " he was God," that he was " the Son of God with power," " the only begotten of the Father," " the Lord from heaven." They call him Messiah, Christ, the Anointed of God, Jesus, or Saviour, the one Mediator between God and man, the Surety of the Covenant, the Redeemer, the Prophet, Priest, and King of his people, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the true ark of safety, in which all who are sheltered shall be borne to the eternal mountain of God, when the deluge of Divine wrath shall drown the ungodly world. The testimony of God concerning his Son, as the author of eternal redemption, is given in many forms and with great earnestness, is peculiarly full and clear, is con- firmed by the solemnities of an oath, and by many unmistaka- ble tokens. The Bible claims that God long bore " witness with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will." Before the eyes of successive generations for thousands of years its professed predictions have been in a course of apparent fulfilment. Every generation also witnesses very remarkable transformations of character from vice to virtue, from evil to good, which are ascribed to the power of God's testimony concerning his Son. Under the energy of Bible truth, order, reason, law, civilization, benevolence, piety, patience, humility, public spirit, all that can bless society and honor God, reascend their thrones, and sway their sceptres over men If these things be so, I appeal to you whether there be not good reason and just cause for God's holding that man guilty, who rejects the Divine testimony? Is not man justly held accountable -for his belief? Some, indeed, object to the threatenings of Scripture against unbelievers, and say that they do not like to be frightened out of their unbelief. But may there not be as good reasons in a moral government for threatenings as for promises, for announcing penalties as precepts? The penal clause of every statute is a MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF, 19 threatening to wrong-doers. Ought the people of this common- wealth to turn felons, because the State, through the Legislature, has threatened to punish perjury, burglary, arson, and murder? Are not some men more influenced by the fear of evil than by the hope of good? In times of great temptation, may not the best of men find their virtue in some measure fortified by fear of the penal consequences of evil deeds? The threatenings of Scripture are chiefly to be regarded as kind and timely declarations of the unimpassioned but inflexible purpose of God to maintain his rights and authority at all hazards. The Bible is a code of laws, and God is a moral governor. Laws without penalties are mere advice, and laws without known penalties are among men always objected to. Besides, if we understood the connection between causes and effects in the moral world as well as in the natural, we might see that all the misery of which the wicked are fore- warned, is the necessary and invariable fruit of sinful conduct here. As refusing food cannot but produce the death of the body, so refusing to receive Christ Jesus, the true bread that came from heaven, may as necessarily produce the death of the soul. The threatenings of Scripture, if true, are as really benevolent as its promises. Their place on the sacred page may heighten the gratitude of those who, by making peace with God, have escaped the wrath to come. They are also useful in awakening the zeal and compassion of those who preach the Gospel, when they see men ready to fall into the hands of a holy and just God. If the consequences of a wicked life were not clearly stated in a revela- tion, would not those who die in sin forever find fault with a government, that had observed a profound silence on so momen- tous a matter? Thus the objection appears to have no force. To urge it, is but to cavil. A modern writer assigns as a reason why man should not be regarded as accountable for his belief, that the opposite doctrine leads to persecution. If man were responsible to his fellow-man for his religions belief, then, indeed, those monsters of iniquity who have gloated over the agonies, screams, and mangled limbs of their victims, might plead in their justification the doctrine maintained in this lecture. But the Scriptures teach that God alone is Lord of the conscience. "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? To his own master he standeth or fall- eth," i' the terrible rebuke of Scripture to all who invade the Divine prerogative, and undertake to punish men in matters in 20 * MAN EESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF. which Jehovah has said, " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." The pains and penalties due to misbehef or disbelief of God's testimony, and to all other offences of the same class, can be fitly judged of and condignly inflicted by none but God himself. A more daring outrage cannot be perpetrated by any creature than to rush into the judgment-seat of God, and deal out blows of ven- geance for offences, the punishment of which the Almighty has reserved exclusively to himself. In civil and social affairs men may make us feel their just displeasure for our wrong belief, and course of action under it ; but in religious affairs an attempt to punish us by the laws and courts of man, deserves the execra- tion of men, and will, I doubt not, receive the reprobation of God. This objection, therefore, vanishes away. Such is an outline of the argument designed as an introduction to this series of Lectures. Its object is to show that man may reasonably be required to believe sufficient evidence. What evi- dence is sufficient to oblige us to believe the Bible to be God's word, I shall not state. For purposes of illustration and argument, I have hinted at portions of it. I have also freely quoted the Scriptures, where it seemed important to educe their principles, or where they teach truths assented to by all wise and good men. But I have purposely avoided arguing any of the several kinds of evidence by which Christians suppose the Bible to be proven to be a revelation from God. In due time, each leading point will be discussed by those whom you will be pleased to hear. elmMJtiinf a Umlato: THE CONDITION OF MAN WITHOUT IT. BY KEY. A. B. VAN ZANDT, PETERSBtJKG, VIRGINIA. 1 Archdeacon Paley, in his "View of the Evidences of Chris- tianity," says, " I deem it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a revelation, because I have met with no serious person, who thinks that even under the Christian revelation, we have too much light, or any degree of assurance which is super- fluous."* If this view of the subject is correct, it should only be our aim, to establish, from this conceded necessity, the probabilities, or the certainty that a revelation had actually been given to mankind. But if no " serious person" will assert, that man possesses more light than he n^eds, yet it is notorious, that many do deny the necessity for any supernatural divine communication. Even these, it is true, acknowledge a revelation of some sort, and dignify by that name, their boasted discoveries of truth, from the works of God interpreted by the human reason. This miscalled revelation they hold to be sufficient, and on that ground, reject any other as unnecessary, and therefore improbable. We, on the contrary, by demonstrating the insufficiency of their uncertain and erratic guide, prove the necessity of a supernatural divine communication, and thence, legitimately argue its probability, if not its certainty. The discussion of the former part of this argu- ment, might not fall within the plan of the distinguished Author whom we have quoted. Its omission, however, did not need to be justified by an assumption so unwarranted. But the argument which Paley pronounces superfluous, Chal- mers is disposed to reject as invalid. " There are some," he says, " who must be satisfied that a revelation is necessary ere they will proceed to inquire whether it is true. There seems to be no logical propriety in this. It pre- sumes a greater acquaintance with the principles and policy of the Divine administration than belongs to us." * * * "We know vastly to!) little of that mysterious Being who suffered so many * Paley's Evidences, p. 1. 24 THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELAnON. ages of darkness and depravity to roll on ere that Christianity arose upon our world, and still leaves the great majority of our race unvisited and unblessed by her illuminations — we con- fess ourselves too unequal to the explanation of such phenomena as these, for confidently saying that because man needed a revelation, therefore, as a matter of necessary inference, a revela- tion was in all likelihood, if not in all certainty, to be looked for. For ourselves, we do not feel the strength of this argument, and can therefore have little or no value for it."* The argument which Dr. Chalmers thus depreciates, is con- fessedly, one of inference, and it may be granted, that we know too little of God and his government to explain every phenome- non, in his dealings with men, or to pronounce with confidence, what he would do in certain given circumstances. But if in many things, his ways are unsearchable, and his "judgments a great deep," must we thence conclude, that nothing can be argued a priori from his attributes — no inferences can be confidently drawn from what He is? Are our notions of wisdom, goodness and justice, so inapplicable to Jehovah, that we ^annot certainly expect the adaptation of means to an end ; a benevolent regard to the condition and wants of his creatures, and all necessary arrangements whereby transgressors shall be made, ultimatel)^, to feel and acknowledge the equity of his government ? It is not necessary to the validity of arguments thus derived, tliat by a similar process of reasoning, we should be able to explain, much less to anticipate all the phenomena of the Divine administration. From those attributes which enter into our very idea of a God, we may confidently infer certain results, and yet be unable to conclude anything as to the time, or the mode of their accom- plishment. It may be perfectly logical, to infer from the character of God, and the wants of mankind, that a revelation would be granted, and yet for the extent of that revelation, the mode, and the means of its universal diffusion, we may have no other light than that which is derived from its own teachings. Yea, in re- gard to these things, and such as these, w^e may be left in the dark even there, and yet it shall militate nothing against the just conviction, from the necessities of the creature, and the known attributes of the Creator, that a revelation of some sort, and at some time, would result. We hold, that from what may be learned of God by the light of nature, together with the demon- * Chalmers' Evidences, book iii. ch. 1. THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATIOISr. 25 strated necessity to mankind of a superior revelation, this infer- ence is fair, is logical, and unavoidable. Dr. Chalmers objects to this, our limited knowledge of the Divine government, and in stances some mysterious phenomena, in the actual bestowment of this revelation. That is to say, because we cannot precisely de- termine, a j)rio7'i, when and how a revelation would be given, therefore, we have no right to the primary inference, that it would be given at all. We may not conclude in favor of the general truth, because the same information will not warrant us, in pred- icating subordinate, particular truths. But it is obvious, that the two supposed conclusions, stand upon entirely different grounds. The one may baffle our inquiries, and be as far beyond our reach as the wisdom of God is superior to that of man, whilst the other may lie entirely within the scope of legitimate speculation, and be fairly deducible from the known attributes of Jehovah, I may justly conclude, from the character of a parent, that he will relieve the necessities of a child, and yet with the utmost knowledge of even human nature, I may be unable to decide in advance, how, or when, his parental affection will be manifested. He may have reasons of which I am ignorant, that would vindi- cate both his wisdom and kindness, in withholding for a time the necessary aid; or if he have many children, he ma}'', in hke man- ner, vary their allotments, and yet give no ground to question his parental affection, to any one who should be admitted into his secret councils. Now, it is not ours to inquire into those deep things of God, which govern his unequal dispensations to man- kind. And yet, without trenching at all upon this forbidden ground, assured of his wasdom, goodness, and justice, we may infer, and safely infer, that Jehovah would not leave his erring creatures, w^iolly and forever, without some surer guide, and higher revelation, than that which they by searching can find out. It may be admitted, that this argument does not carry with it the urgency of a demonstration, and, to some minds, it has not the force of many others, in the extended and cumulative evi- dences of Christianity, But it ought not, therefore, to be need- lessly given up, for it amounts at least to a presumption, and in some of its aspects, as we hope to show, it becomes a very strong probability, which may not be lightly set aside, by either the advocates or the rejecters of revelation. It may, indeed, be but one of the outworks, which surround the citadel of truth. And regarded with the eye of unbelief, by those who take only distant 26 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. and cursory views, of the bulwarks of our faith ; or on the other hand, with the feehngs of security, common to those who are strongly fortified within : the true position and importance of the argument may be easily overlooked. But in a day like this, when the skeptical tendencies of our nature have the most unbounded scope and license, and our holy religion is menaced, by every variet}^ of stratagem and assault ; it becomes us to stand upon the outposts, and yield no point to the pretensions or the arts of unbe- lief, until it has been fairly proved to be untenable. Now the argument v»'hich we are to examine, may be regarded as a reply to the pretensions of unbelief, claiming the sufficiency of the human reason, as a guide to truth and duty, and therefore rejecting revelation as unnecessary. In this point of view, as a weapon of defence, the argument, if it can be made out, is certainly unexceptionable and conclusive. But it does not stop here, nor should we be content with disproving the boastful claim, where- with reason would justify her neglect, and rejection of inspired truth. If the insufficiency of her teachings can be shown, that fact more than meets her cavil against revelation, and becomes at once a positive and valid evidence in its favor. We have then " the necessity of a revelation,^'' and this, coupled with what rea- son teaches us of Qod and his government, constitutes one, and not the least among the probabilities, that a revelation has been granted. In this its affirmative aspect, the argument is two-fold, and its diffisrent parts mutually strengthen each other. -There is first, the presumption, from the known attributes of God, that he would grant a revelation, to meet the pressing wants of mankind. This, by itself, would only warrant the expectation of some super- natural divine communication, and decides nothing as to the authority of any book claiming that distinction. But it falls also within the scope of the general argument, to mark the adaptations of Scripture, to meet the necessities of our condition, and this, while it adds probability to the foregone presumption, carries with it also, the force of a positive conclusion, that the Bible is indeed a revelation from God. As to the uses of this argument then, there can be no dispute about the first named. If the light of human reason is not adequate to meet the felt necessities of our nature, there is an end, at once, to the grand assumption upon which all Deistical writers proceed. That there is force also in the presumptive evidence derived from this fact in favor of a revelation. We argue — THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 27 1. From the strenuous efforts of the most philosophical skeptics, in every age, to disprove it. Though the language of these men is Uke that of the builders of Babel, a confusion of tongues, yet their object is the same : the subversion of the truth, by superseding its necessity, and erecting a fabric of human folly, pride and power, which shall reach unto the heavens. Let the necessity of a Divine revelation be granted, or proved, and the entire superstructure of these self-styled philoso- phers will crumble to the earth. Its foundation is laid in the assumption, that nature contains sufficient notices of God, and his government, and sufficiently discernible to the human intelligence, to lead us on to virtue and happiness. In the vaunted fulness and sufficiency of this universal code, they affect to find 2)?'iina facie evidence, that any other must be the invention of designing men, and dishonoring to the Almighty. Some, therefore, to depre- ciate the disclosures of revelation, exalt their own discoveries. Others, compelled to concede the narrow limits of human knowl- edge, would persuade us to rest satisfied in our ignorance. And others still, find the goal of all intellectual achievements and the end of all inquiry, in the murky darkness of universal doubt and uncertainty. These, contending that darkness is better than light ; these, that the glimmer of a few straggling stars, is all that we ought to desire ; and those, that the dim twilight of reason is brighter than the noontide splendors of the Gospel. Now, whence this effort to extinguish the felt necessity of a revelation, and to supersede its teachings, but from the conviction, that this necessity acknowledged, would carry with it, also, a pre- sumption and probability, of a revelation actually given ? The historical argument, indeed, has not been left unassailed, and not a few have been the efforts to impeach the Divine authority of the Scriptures, from their own contents. But underlying all these attempts has been the assumption, that a revelation was unneces- sary, and therefore not to be looked for. If the contrary can be shown, as to the premises of this proposition, the converse to the conclusion must also follow, our enemies themselves being judges. 2. The presumption drawn from the necessities of our condition, acquires additional force, from the actual expectation, based upon these necessities, of the best cultivated minds of ancient heathen- ism, that a revelation would be given. The mind struggling after truth unrevealed, soon finds the hmit 28 THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. of its attainment, and longs foi- superior aid. It is when the dis- coveries of revelation are connected with unwelcome truths, and its authority enforces ungrateful precepts, that a human philoso- phy seeks some pretext to discard it. Then, often availing her- self of so much of its light as shall serve to define her own vague impressions, she vaunts her ability, in discovering the rudiments of rehgion, and elaborating these, into an attenuated system of mo- rality, she arrogantly propounds it, as the perfection of wisdom. It was not among those who were left only to its guidance, that the sufficiency of the human reason was asserted. It was not till called to grapple with the claims of the Bible, as an inspired book, that men learned to deny the necessity of a Bible. So far as there is any speculation upon the subject, man's need of supernatural guidance is felt, where it is not enjoyed, and the religions of hea- thenism, universally, contain the formal confession of this need. The only vitality which they have, and which for so long has ani- mated the enormous mass of their monstrous errors, is the per- verted truth of God in communication with man. It is because the mind yields to this truth, with almost instinctive readiness, that the mystic leaves of the Sibyl, and the vague responses of the raving Pythoness, obtained any credit in the world. We may Avonder at the credulity of even a classic age, which could be de- cided, upon the most momentous undertakings, by the casual flight of a bird ; the relative position of the stars ; or the yet more indeterminate auguries derived from the entrails of a beast. But the foundation for a belief so absurd, is laid deep in the constitu- tion of our nature. These were but the erratic goings forth of the mind, after a supernatural guidance, from the impressed convic- tion that man needed, and might expect, the direction of Heaven. The sagacity of civil rulers enabled them to practise upon this impression, and invest their enactments with the sanction of Divine authority. Much more have the founders of false religions always claimed for their teachings a direct revelation, and found the claim easily admitted. If a few gifted minds, in an age bordering upon " the fulness of the times," were able to discover, and to dis- card this empty pretence, it was not without a confession of the actual and apparent necessity upon which it was based ; it was not without the expression of a hope, more prophetic than the ora- cles, that that necessity would, at some time, be met. In the mon- uments of the brightest minds of antiquity, there are found several passages^ containing, at once, the confession of their ignorance, THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 29 and the felt necessity of a Divine interposition. "The truth is," says Plato, '■'• to determine or establish anything certain about these matters, in the midst of so many doubts and disputations, is the work of God only." Again, in his apology for Socrates, he puts these words into the mouth of the sage, " You may pass the remainder of your days in sleep, or despair of finding out a suffi- cient expedient for this purpose (the reformation of manners) ; if God, in his providence, do not send you some other instruction." But the most remarkable passage, is in the well-known dialogue between Socrates and Alcibiades, on the duties of religious wor- ship. Alcibiades is going to the temple to pray, Socrates meets him, and dissuades him, because of his inability to manage the duty aright. " To me," he says, " it seems best to be quiet ; it is necessary to wait till you learn how you ought to behave towards the gods, and towards men." " And when, O Socrates ! shall' that time be, and who will instruct me," says the wondering disciple, " for gladly would I see this man, who he is V " He is one," re- plies Socrates, " who cares for you ; but, as Homer represents Minerva taking away the darkness from the eyes of Diomedes, that he might distinguish a god from a man, so it is necessary that he should first take away the darkness from your mind, and then bring near those things, by which you shall know good and evil." " Let him take away," rejoins Alcibiades, " if he will, the darkness, or any other thing, for I am prepared to decline none of those things, which are commanded by him, whoever this man is, if I shall be made better." Such were the utterances of nature's longings, for that revelation which has since been given to the world. 3. In favor of the presumptive argument, for which we contertd. we remark again, that the expectation thus expressed, is justly founded upon the known attributes of God. Let it be observed here, however, that the idea of obligation on the part of God, to bestow the desired boon upon mankind, is utterly excluded by the origin and nature of that necessity under which they labor. The revelation, of whatever kind it was, given to man at his creation, though measured by his wants, was not granted as his right. No such claim can be basetl upon the mere relation of creatures to their Creator : much less can it be made out, in favor of those, who originally endowed, have •' became vain in their imaginations," and whose " foolish hearts" are thereby " darkened." 30 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. Neveitlieles?, there may be a well-founded expectation of a de- sired good, where there is no valid claim to its enjoyment. Such an expectation will be more general or defined, according to the extent of our knowledge. If derived from obscure analogies it is indefinite and vague, and therefore only partially fulfilled by the event, yet the event which disappoints it in part, may at the same lime justify the reasoning upon which it was built. I may know enough of God and his government to infer the probability of a revelation, and yet the very analogies from which I reason, will themselves teach me, that I do not know enough to anticipate be- forehand, the extent or mode of that revelation. If, then, passing beyond the only conclusion which my information will warrant, I go about to form a definite conception of my own, as to the how^ or the when, of this supposed revelation, the event may entirely disappoint all such expectations, and yet by fulfilling, justify, the primary inference. It is by these considerations, that we vindicate our argument from the objection, that God has not given to all men a revelation, though all men are under a like necessity. If a revelation is to be inferred from the condition of men, it may be said, that a universal revelation ought to be inferred, since all men are in this respect in the same condition. But as all have not been blessed with the light of the truth, the fact is, therefore, in opposition to the infer- ence. Now, if the argument necessarily implied, that man's neces- sities constituted a claim upon his Maker; or if it professed to proceed upon so clear a knowledge of Jehovah's purpose, as to de- termine beforehand, the extent and mode of any Divine commu- nication, this objection would be fatal. But as man has no claim of right, and can expect the desired boon only as the bestowment of grace, he cannot know beforehand, that God will make no dis- tinctions in its bestowment. He cannot anticipate the degree, or any one circumstance in the manner of imparting the supposed revelation. Such detailed and definite expectations are not war- ranted by his information. Their being disappointed by the event, therefore, can in no way impair the force of an inference, justly derived from ascertained premises. To say that there are consid- erations which warrant the expectation of a Divine revelation, is one thing: but to say furthermore, that such a revelation if given, will be universal, is a very different assertion, and one which would require a very different set of analogies to prove it. Assuming then, the necessity of our condition, we argue, that THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 31 the expectation of a Divine revelation is justly founded upon whal may be known of God and his government. In the exercise of those attributes which are deemed essential to every reasonable conception of God, he has created man with a physical, intellectual, and moral nature. With varied dispensa- tions towards races, and ages, and individuals, we yet find that he has made ample provision for man's physical and intellectual wants. The earth, though bearing the marks of changes, un- friendly to its products and its clime, and in some of ks wide- spread regions yielding a precarious, and in some a scanty, and in all a seemingly reluctant support to her teeming populations, is yet, by evident design, adapted to man's physical constitution. The very difficulties of its climate and soil, requiring skill and labor to overcome them, as they stimulate to exertion, furnish also " verge and scope" for the exercise of his intelligence. If gifted with faculties seeking a wider range than the daily supply of his necessary wants, he is surrounded also with objects appeal- ing to his curiosity and inviting his research : he is in the midst of a world of wonders which ages would be too short to explore, and himself the greatest wonder of them all. If, with still more adventurous thought, he would rise from the actual to tlie prob- able, and from a real to an imagined existence, his discursive fancy may weave into unnumbered combinations the elements of being, or a bold speculation may busy itself in conjectining or discovering the reasons of things. By the wise arrangements of the Creator, there is then abundant employ and a rich reward to the utmost stretch of his intellectual powers. But man has no less certainly a moral, than he has a physical and intellectual nature. There is that within him which recognizes the distinc- tion of right and wrong, and gives no unequivocal notice of his accountability. Yea, he has a religious nature ; a sense of the Divine existence, if you will, which, not until he has reasoned himself into metaphysical madness, or besotted his soul by long habits of sensuality, will permit him to say in his heart " there is no God," or leave him wholly insensible to the obligation of his worship. Might we not then expect, from the analogy of his dealings in other things, that God would make provision also for this part of man's nature? And might we not expect it the more, by as much as this is the highest and most distinguishing element of his complex being ? Is it conceivable, that whilst caring for all 32 THE NECESSITY OF A. REVELATION. his subordinate wants, as he manifestly has, God should leave him unprovided in this the most essential want of his nature: that he should leave him with the consciousness of obligation and accountability, and yet uninstructed in the relation which he sustains to his Maker, and the paramount duties growing out of that relation ? It is a monstrous supposition, which sober Deism itself would reject, with indignant scorn. And yet on the assumption that man needs a revelation, by just so much as this supposition is at war with right reason, and the analogies of the divine government, by so much the opposite presumption gathers strength and force — that a revelation would be granted. The Deist would, of course, contend that God had made ample provision for man's moral and religious nature without a revelation. But we are arguing now upon the assumption that he has not, and we say, that that assumption being granted, or the fact being proved, even Deism itself must admit that a revelation is probable. Now thus much, w^e have deemed it necessary to say, towards exhibiting in advance, the nature and strength of that presump- tive argument, which from the necessities of our condition, infers a revelation. Standing thus by itself, the argument, of course, claims not to have the urgency of a demonstration. But estab- lishing a probability, that probability may serve as a link in the chain of induction, which binds us down to a positive and un- avoidable conclusion. We have intimated already, that the in- ference of a revelation as probable from its alleged necessity, is but a part of the general argument in its affirmative aspect. The expectation of a revelation brings us to the Book itself, and we come to the investigation of its claims, not as if it were an un- looked-for phenomenon, but as to an event, which from its ante- cedent probability, has already an established title to our credence; a title which can only be set aside by being actually disproved. There is here a presumptive claim which casts the onus i^rohandi upon the opposite party. Arrived at this presumption, we hold then that the argument has made progress, and the evidence of revelation in any of its departments gains force and urgency from this foregone probability. But the probability thus derived especially leads us — and in the attitude of expectants, an attitude perfectly compatible with ex- emption from prejudice — to examine the claims of any supposed revelation, with particular reference to those necessities on account THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 83 of which it was given. And if we find in the Bible an adaptation to the felt wants of our spiritual nature, we are brought to the direct conclusion, upon the principles of Deism itself, that the Bible is a revelation from God. For just as we argue from the adaptations of external nature, a designing cause, we may also argue from the adaptations of Scripture its supernatural and Divine origin. As conclusively as in the one case, these adapta- tions prove the being of a God ; those, in the other case, transcend- ing as they do, the discoveries of the human intelligence, prove the Bible to be from Him. Thus much, .Dr. Clialmers fully coo- cedes, and in conceding it, shows that his previous exceptions can only hold against those defective representations of the argument, which make of the presumption a certainty, or suppose the reason- ing to stop short at the inference, and passing over the interme- diate steps, to leap at once from the bare probabiHt}^ of a revela- tion, to the conclusion that the Bible is that revelation. It is only with reference to such a view that we can understand him as saying that "the argument is altogether premature if we base it upon the necessity alone." We may certainly base upon the necessity the strong presumption which we have considered, and that presumption leading us to examine and find the perfect adaptations of Scripture to our felt necessities, we may thus " arrive at the truth of the gospel through the medium of its necessity," and by "a pathway" too, sufficiently "sohd"for even the Herculean tread of a Chalmers. " The fitness of the Bible," he says, " or of the truths which are in it, to the necessities of the human spirit, may as clearly evince the hand of a designer in the construction of this volume, as the fitness of the world, or of the things which are in it, evinces the same hand in the construction of external nature. They are both cases of adaptation, and the one is just as good an argument for a revealed as the other is for a natural theology." If we have occupied considerable space in exhibiting the true ground and scope of our argument, it is not more than seemed to be required by the treatment which it has received. If we have succeeded in estabhshing its logical propriety and force, and marking out the track by which it advances to a just and definite conclusion, we shall follow, with the greater interest and satisfac- tion, the several steps of its progress. The main question is now before us, and we shall endeavor to substantiate what we have hitherto assumed. 3 84 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. la exhibiting the pioofs of this necessity, we shall have no occasion to depreciate the powers of the human reason ; to over- look its achievements in the varied departments of knowledge, or to deprecate its most unfettered exercise. There is no such Hutagonism between reason and revelation, as that the claims of the one, can only be made good at the expense of the other. It is to the reason that Christianity addresses itself, as a system claim- ing to be Divine. It is the province of reason to judge of its cre- dentials. And it is always the faith of a rational conviction which our religion demands. Reason has, then, an important office to perform, not only in natural theology, but also in supernatural. It is her province, by deductions from the works and the ways of God, to lead the inquirer on to the vestibule of truth. It is hers to enter with him into the temple itself, and pointing out the glories and beauties of the inner sanctuary, it is hers, together with her 'disciple, to bow in adoring reverence at its shrine. The question is not, whether reason can teach us anythin'g concerning God and diitv, but whether she can, unaided, teach us everything which it is necessary for us to know ; — not whether she has any light, but whether she has light enough, to dispel the darkness which envelopes our condition and our destiny. Her in- structions may be autlientic and truthful, but at the same time they may be indefinite and incomplete. Her light may be light from heaven, and yet, like the lightning's fitful flash, or the pale glimmer of the stars, it may only reveal our danger, without revealing also the way of escape. Nor is it our purpose, in this discussion, to portray the horrors of heathenism, ancient or modern, and presenting the dark picture of its degrading rites, disgusting manners, and cruel maxims, to bid you look upon this as the utmost effort of the unaided reason. Your whole moral nature, revolted at the appalling spectacle, would recoil from the assertion, that this was the last and highest result of reason's struggle after truth. You would say, and justly sav, that it is not amid barbarous and savage tribes we are to find the measure of our intellectual and moral attainments, any more ■than we would look for the perfection of our physical nature among the dwarfed, deformed, and crippled inmates of a lazaretto. And yet the horrors of heathenism have their lesson upon this subject ; a lesson which we cannot ignore or escape. They reveal THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 35 to US, at least, the depths of that abyss into which erring humanity may pkuige, if left to its own guidance. Moreover, account for this monstrous departure from tlie principles of even natural theology as you may, the tremendous fact is still before you, the incontestable evidence, that reason is not universally an adequate guide. If it could be proved that, in any case, her discoveries were commensurate with our wants, it must still be admitted that to millions of the race, and for countless ages together, she has not served as a guide to even the rudiments of truth ; she has not saved them from the utmost degradation of which our nature is capable. But turning from savage to civilized society ; from the barbarous and semi-barbarous to the most enlightened and polished nations and ages of antiquity, the result of our inquiry will be scarcely more flattering to the pretensions of reason as a sole guide in religion. There is room to believe, and ground for the assertion, that the most eminent sages and philosophers were more indebted for any just views of the being and attributes of God, and the relations and obligations of man, to immemorial tradition, the lingering light of the original, or the scattered rays of the Mosaic revelation, than to their own independent discoveries. And yet, with all this extraneous aid, how meagre and imperfect their systems at best ; how inoperative in restraining and removing the idolatry and superstition of the masses. Upon the primary questions of natural theology, their doctrines were obscure, and conjectural, and con- tradictory. Upon all that pertains to the worship of God, they were silent, from a confessed incompetence to speak, or acquiescent in absurdity, because ignorant of a more excellent way. Upon questions vital to man's happiness, both here and hereafter, the great problems of his origin and his destiny, they were content with the wildest dreams of poetry, or despairing of a satisfactory solution, they awaited in dread uncertainty the disclosures of hereafter. The question of reason's competnece might fairly and safely be rested upon her actual achievements, or more properly speaking, upon her obvious failures, in the ages preceding the advent of the Son of God. The philosophers of the Academy, the Porch, and the Grove, must be admitted, on all hands, as the competent wit- nesses and examples of her power. They lived in an age of learn- ing and of leisure ; they walked and talked amid the noblest creations of art ; and their lives, devoted to philosophy, were spent beneath the shadow of Parnassus, and beside the cool flowing' 36 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. streams of Helicon. And yet, what is their concur ent testimony, direct and indirect, but the unequivocal and unanswerable evi- dence, that " the world by wisdom knew not God." But it may be alleged, that in this, as in other respects, the ^yorld has grown wiser, as it has grown older ; that science has made progress in these latter days, and penetrating farther into the arcana of nature, reason has been able to strike out new light and discover new truths concerning God and his govern- ment. Not, therefore, to the sages of antiquity, but to modern philosophy, the appeal should be made. Be it so ; we have nothing to object against this transfer of the inquiry, if so the inquiry shall be properly conducted. But we must put in a caveat here, lest the light of revelation should be confounded wuth the deductions of reason. It is a notorious and instructive fact that the most full and con- clusive systems of natural theology, extant in the world, have been constructed by Christian writers. And the reason is obvious. There is an immense diiference between gathering up and mar- shalling the proofs, which go to establish an ascertained conclu- sion, and marching up by a long line of existent but scattered evi- dence to the same conclusion, as yet undiscovered. It is just the dif- ference between a demonstration and a discovery — the one may be comparatively easy, to those with whom the other is simply impos- sible. To say then, that in the unaided exercise of reason, human philosophy, in the nineteenth century, is capable of constructing a system of doctrine and morals which shall be exempt, by its supe- rior elevation and purity, from man}^ of the objections which lie against the various systems of antiquity, is to assert what cannot be proved by the simple production of such a system. Philosophy has now for nineteen centuries lived and breathed, under the hght of revelation. And for her now, to claim as discoveries of her own, truths long ago announced, and found that claim upon her ability to demonstrate what has been known for ages and demonstrated too, would only be equalled in absurdity, by one who in this day, having sailed from Europe to America, should claim, on the ground of that exploit, to have discovered a continent. The question is not, what can be proved by reasoning to be true ; but what in its unaided exercise the reason can discover. What, then, has modern philosophy whereof to boast, over the sages of antiquity, beyond that, which she owes to the light of revelation? We are not advised of any new principle in morals THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. 37 evolved by the progress of physical science. If tliere has been a more complete analysis and classification of our mental exercises, neither has this changed tlie quality of actions, or added a single precept to the code of human obligations. More just and exalted conceptions of God and his government may now enter into the speculations of philosophy. But we claim it for revelation to have originated those conceptions, and the claim can only be disproved by authenticated examples of the like, which cannot be traced directly or indirectly to the influence of its teachings. There are many truths to which the mind readily assents as soon as they are proposed, and for the establishing of which it can easily gather up abundant and conclusive evidence, but which yet lie upon the very borders, if not actually beyond the limit of its discovery. Like Nebuchadnezzar's forgotten dream, there may be some lin- gering and indefinite recollections, not enough to recall the em- bodiment or the outline of the departed image, though assisted by all the arts of the magicians and the wise men of the world ; and yet enough to recognize it instantly when it is made to stand out in all its proportions of gold and silver and brass and iron, by the revelation of the Prophet. So there may be lingering lines and traces of the Divine character, written upon the heart, and writ- ten upon the external creation, which by the light of nature alone, men cannot read for themselves, but which illumined by the light of revelation become at once the legible and impressive records of God and his government. And under the clear shining of a sun, in the heavens, the philosoph)'- of our day may decipher these records, and expatiate through all the fields of natural theology, and attain to some exalted conceptions of God and duty, the while discarding, but not the less indebted to that supernatural light, by which all her inquiries have been directed to a just con- clusion. But the question of her capacity, is not to be settled by ascertaining how much of truth she can demonstrate, but how much she can discover. Now, to settle this question, the only legitimate appeal is to ex- perience. We must judge of what man can do, by what he has actually done ; and accurately to judge, it must be by what he has done under circumstances which preclude the suspicion of aid derived from that revelation which he discards. Under any known circumstances, indeed, his efforts must be regarded with the unavoidable impression of a lingering tradition, more or less 38 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. defined, which had its origin in a higher source than his own in- telligence. But subsequent to the advent of the Son of God, the dim remains of tradition have given place to the effulgence of Gospel truth. And, under the blaze of this truth, the whole field of inquiry has been so illumined, that even the skepticism which has most wilfully shut its eyes, and, mole-like, has burrowed the deepest, has still found its caverns, to some extent, lighted up by its rays. Reason cannot now, if she would, construct a system of natural theology, which shall be the product alone of her own deductions. Truly to find out her power, we must go back to the theologies of antiquity, or we must take our estimate from the abominations of that heathenism which has as yet been unvisited by the light of revelation. But to vindicate our argument to the fullest extent, and estab- lish the inadequacy of reason, it is not needful to press this advan- tage, or insist upon the inquiry taking either of these directions. Natural theology, in its highest development, is yet inadequate to meet the obvious and felt wants of humanity. 1. And it is so, first, because its teachings are so diverse, and therefore uncertain, concerning even the first principles of religion. Those of its disciples who have carried their speculations the far- thest, and whose circumstances have been the most favorable for the discovery of truth, are by no means agreed in their doctrines, or in the processes by which the truth is to be reached. To a great extent, the history of modern philosophy has been the his- tory of motion without progress ; conflicts and victories without conquests ; deductions and dogmas without discoveries ; the rise, prevalence, and decadence of systems, without satisfaction, cer- tainty, or safety to the inquirer. From the ample and diversified page of nature without, and the irregular actings and agitations of the spirit within, as the data of their investigations, each one has had his interpretation, his theory, his dream, until, in the end- less jargon of the schools, the mind bewildered, has accepted words for wisdom, sound for sense, and the latest as the greatest and the best exposition of truth. (1.) Take, for example, the teachings of philosophy concerning the being and attributes of God, and from the polytheism of Greece, to the pantheism of Germany, where did ever her deduc- tions meet and centre in a Divinity, " A God full orbed. In the whole round of rays complete," THE NECESSITY OF A KEVELATIOX. 39 worthy the worship of an ingenuous mind, and meeting all its aspirations and desires? The light of nature, to those who have followed it only, has not always brought the conviction of that cardinal truth, the existence of a God. Thus, one disciple of reason would solve his doubts by a silly experiment, and he staked his faith in this article upon the issue of throwing a stone at a tree, whether he should hit it or not. And another, a poet, not unknown to fame, amid the inspirations of Alpine scenery, deliberately writes himself an atheist. But, convinced that God is, there remains still the question, " What is God ?" And philosophy, not in all her disciples exhibiting the modesty of a Thales, has yet exhibited her incompetence to reply, in every attempted answer to that question. Surveying the vast, compli- cated, and yet admirably adjusted and harmonious mechanism of the universe, she returns from her research to tell us of a mechani- cal God : the artificer of worlds and systems ; known to his crea- tures only by the evidence of skill and contrivance, in every organization of matter. Turning, then, to the world within — the chaos of human emotions and passions — and from the heights of abstract contemplation, looking down upon the actings and agita- tions of the heart, she deifies the less degrading elements of char- acter, and presents us with the God of sentimentality ; the Divinity of the imagination ; an apotheosis of some hero of romance. Again, constrained by unaccountable events, and phenomena that fall not within the operation of ascertained laws, to acknowledge some constant connection between God and his works, and yet shrinking from the implied personal supervision and control of a universal Governor ; by the potent alembic of her sophistries, she forthwith transmutes both the God of sentimentality and the Creator of the universe into the universe itself; "a power without personality, an essence without feeling ;" the dream-God of modern pantheism. •' Man must have a God." But if left to himself, by searching to find Him out, he will form his own divinity, and he will make it a god after his own image. Or, if made sensible of the absurd- ity of deifying his own tastes and desires, and disgusted with a Divinity which bears so strong a likeness to himself, he- seeks to rise to a more exalted conception of God ; in the mazes of specu- lation he elaborates an ethereal essence, too impalpable and un- real to be the object of human love or aversion. Embodying, then, a vague, unintelligible idea, in the amplitude of high-sound- 40 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATIOX. ing words and phrases — as an idle fancy gives colossal shape and limbs to the mist-cloud of a summer morning, he virtually vacates the throne of the Eternal, enthroning there the phantom of his brain. Listen for a moment to the oracular utterances of a High Priest of modern philosophy. " Thy life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-representing will, which clothed to the eye of the mortal with multitudinous sensuous forms, flows through me and the whole immeasurable universe — here stream- ing as self-creating matter through my veins and muscles— there pouring its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass."* We may cease to smile at the narrow and distorted conceptions of God — the deities of an earlier and darker age, Avhen in our own there emanates from the schools of philosophy, such sublimated nonsense as this. (2.) In tlie department of morals, the teachings of philosophy are no less diversified and inadequate. If it were true, as has been asserted, that every cardinal precept of the Bible, may be found somewhere in the writings of some one or other of unin- spired men ; yet they would also be found scattered too widely, to be gathered into a system, modified and neutralized by con- tradictory dotrines ; and founded upon such different and deba- table grounds of obligation, as materially to weaken, if not wholly to destroy their weight and authority. The mind bewildered in its notions of God, can never have clear and settled conceptions of duty. (3.) So also concerning futurity, reason can give us nothing but diversified conjectures. Granted, that her deductions are so direct and conclusive, as to leave the conviction of an existence beyond the grave, yet it is at best, a conviction, which may be character- ized as an apprehension rather than a hope. Until some traveller returns from the unseen regions of the dead, or a revelation from God lifts the veil which intercepts our views, imagination may picture its scenes in the dreams of poetry, and conscience may anticipate its reversions with alarm ; but reason can never pro- nounce with certainty or satisfaction. 2. But even though we should grant that, to a few gifted minds, the toil of patient and profound investigation might be rewarded by the discovery of all necessary truth ; yet their deductions, lying far beyond the reach of the mass of mankind, and clothed * Fichte. Sc 5 McCosh, on " Method of Divine Government." THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". 41 with no manifest authority from heaven, must be wholly inopera- tive as restraints, and entirely inadequate as guides. The utmost that can be claimed for natural religion, implies in its disciples, an extent of intelligence, reflection and reasoning, to which the great mass of mankind never attain. And though the maxims of the few may be delivered to the many, yet re- garded only as the opinions of men, they have always failed to preserve public morals and order. The reign of terror, in France, was the jubilee of unbelief. Revelation discarded, and Christianity proscribed, natural rehgion had an open field, in which to work out its results, and make full proof of its power. In an age of learning and refinement ; an age of distinguished progress in science and the arts, at a period bordering upon the nineteenth century ; and in the fairest capital of Europe, with philosophers for its priests, the temples of God for its altars, and unlimited power and wealth for its support ; what was the result ? The story has been often told, and in the annals of the world's history it will stand a record to all coming time, of human depravity unrestrained, misery unmitigated, and crimes without a parallel. Atheism, practical and avowed, ob- literated all reverence for the being and authority of God ; lust and cruelty triumphed over prostrate order and virtue ; a can- nibal fury trampled upon the instincts of nature ; and with hands dripping gore, with banners inscribed with names of blas- phemy, and with bacchanal songs upon their lips, a phrenzied people march to the very altars of religion, to crown and con- summate their extravagance of impiety, by enthroning a harlot as the goddess of reason ! That such excesses are at variance with the principles of natural religion, and the dictates of right reason, will not be denied. We appeal to them, not as the examples of what reason would teach, but as the examples of depravity triumphing over reason, when, discarding revelation, she exalts herself as the guardian and guide of public morals. We appeal to them as the instances, in which the fountain of iniquity in the human heart has poured out the tide of its bitter waters, sweeping away the frail barriers which human philosophy had reared ; overflowing its ancient channels, and ploughing up the very foundations of society. Take away the hold which revelation has upon the conscience, and the elaborate theories, profound maxims, and admired precepts vi^hich a philosopher may excogitate in his 42 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". study, will fall as powerless upon the ear of an excited populace, as falls the snow-flake upon the billows of the storm-ridden ocean. Even Robespierre confessed, that to save France from lapsing back into barbarism, it was necessary to find a God, or to invent one. And when the far-reaching sagacity of Napoleon restored the former religion, in spite of the scorn and ridicule of the philoso- phers, it was well said by one of his counsellors, " The natural religion to which one may rise by the effects of a cultivated rea- son, is merely abstract and intellectual, and unfit for any people. It is revealed religion which points out all the truths that are use- ful to men, who have neither time nor means for laborious dis- quisition." 3. But we have now arrived at a point in the argument, from whence we may take higher ground. We have alluded to the confessed inadequacy of the unaided reason, as discovered in the varied religions of heathenism. We have considered her achieve- ments, when receiving important, but unacknowledged aid, from the revelation which she discards ; and we have found that, even then, her discoveries and her influence have not been equal to her pretensions. Let us now estimate her teachings under the most favorable circumstances, when the whole field of investigation is lighted up by revelation, and when her inquiries are all directed towards ascertained conclusions. The question is not now what reason can discover, but what she can prove to be true. So far as the character and govern- ment of God are manifested in his works, nature, rightly interro- gated, always gives truthful answers. The incompetency of the unaided reason, as it has thus far appeared, is to be ascribed mainly to the misdirection of her inquiries, and the lameness of her deductions. The accumulated experience of the past, there- fore, proves the necessity of a revelation, by as much as it proves that reason never would have discovered even those truths which the volume of nature contains. With that volume before him, written all over with the handwriting of God, man has not been able to read the truth, or if he has, by the potency of an evil heart, he has also " changed the truth of God into a lie." But let nature have an interpreter, and yet we hold, that when interrogated in every part by an instructed reason, her responses will be too few to satisfy our wants — wants increasing with our knowledge. It was the wise and profound saying of D'Alembert, that "man has too little sagacity to resolve an infinity of ques- THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". 43 tions, which he has yet sagacity enough to make." Now this appears to be precisely the case with Natural Tiieology. There is a limit to her instructions, beyond which she cannot carry us ; and yet beyond that limit lie unresolved the most momentous questions of our condition and destiny. Natural Theology brings us to these questions, and leaves us there. She states the condi- tions of the problem, but gives us no solution. She sets before us the difficulty and the danger, but she points to no way of escape, except as her silence, when further interrogated, intimates the necessity, and inspires the hope of another and safer guide. Let us look at a few facts, and the conclusions to which they lead. There is in man a certain law, faculty, or sentiment (call it by what name you please) in obedience to which he universally recognizes the distinction of right and wrong. This is one of the most obvious facts in human nature. It may have been obscured, at times, by the speculations of philosophy, but, through- out the whole circle of metaphysics, the fact has still been acknowl- edged, whilst the contention has been about questions of nomen- clature, or theories of explanation. As little has philosophy invaded the generally conceded and felt supremacy of conscience. " Upon whatever," says Dr. Adam Smith, " we suppose that our moral faculties are founded, whether upon a certain modification of rea- son, upon an original instinct called a moral sense, or on some other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they are given us for the direction of our conduct in this life." " The rules, therefore, which they prescribe, are to be regarded as the command and laws of the Deity, promulgated by those vice- gerents which he has set up within us."* Cicero, in his cele- brated passage, represents the conscience, in like manner, as a universal law, clothed with Divine sanctions. " Nor does it speak one language at Rome and another at Athens, varying from place to place, or from time to time, but addresses itself to all nations, and to all ages, deriving its authority from the common Sovereign of the universe, and carrying home its sanctions to every breast by the inevitable punishment which it inflicts on transgressors." " Had it strength," says Butler, " as it has right, had it power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world." Its right to the throne of the human heart * Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. iii. chap. v. 44 THE NECESSITY OF A KEVELATION, is acknowledged, even when that throne has been usurped by some dominant inclination or passion. " Cast your eyes," says Rousseau, " over all the nations of the world, and all the histories of nations. Amid so many inhuman and absurd superstitions — amid that prodigious diversity of man- ners and characters, you will find everywhere the same principles and distinctions of moral good and evil. The paganism of the ancient world produced, indeed, abominable gods, who on earth would have been shunned or punished as monsters, and who offered, as a picture of supreme happiness, only crimes to commit, and passions to satiate. But Vice, armed with this sacred author- ity, descended in vain from the eternal abode : she found, in the heart of man, a moral instinct to repel her. The continence of Xenocrates was admired by those who celebrated the debaucheries of Jupiter, — the chaste Lucretia adored the unchaste Venus, — the most intrepid Roman sacrificed to Fear."* Now these quotations are given, not so much to establish, as to express a truth, to which the consciousness of every man responds, that there is within his breast a power, principle, or sentiment, which recognizes moral distinctions, and delivers its decisions with the authority of a judge, and with the high sanctions of present and prospective pain or pleasure. But frotn this truth, we easily rise to another. The monitions of conscience imply a rule of duty, and a ground of obligation. The acknowledged supremacy of conscience, even where its dic- tates are disobeyed, is the confession that this obligation is para- mount, and this law is heaven-derived. The sentences pro- nounced by this judge within the breast, are felt to be the echoes from a higher tribunal. And the sanctions with which they are clothed, proclaiming the Divine regard for virtue, and aversion to sin, proclaim also the righteousness of God, and a moral government administered by Him, connected with rewards and penalties. If, from the constitution of external nature, we infer (he wisdom and power of God, so, from the original moral consti- tution of man, we may also infer other and higher attributes. And if upon that constitution he has impressed the law of right- eousness, we may be sure "it must have been transcribed from the prior tablet of his own nature." But, it may be objected, the decisions of conscience are too diversified and contradictory to warrant this inference. The * Quoted by Di Brown, Lect. 15. THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION". 45 apparent want of uniformity in our moral judgments will not be denied ; an examination of the facts, however, would show that this diversity is more apparent than real. The conscience, like a court of law, decides upon an action according to the evidence laid before it, and if it ever approves the wrong, or disapproves the right, it is because the understanding has presented a false issue to its decision, being itself either misinformed or misled. But if we look a little more closely into the operations of con- science, we shall find that its sanctions do not terminate with the* present pleasure or pain, consequent upon its approval or dis- approval. For the time being, its voice may be so far overborne by the turbulence of passion, as hardly to awaken the sensibili- ties. But when its sentence falls upon the heart, like the voice of doom, and its reproaches, like a whip of scorpions, yet its inflic- tions always imply something more than any measure or degree of present remorse. Memory has recorded the deed of guilt, and whenever the record is perused, conscience repeats its sentence, and re-enacts its punishment. Nor is this all. In every decision of this judge upon any particular act, whether it be for the first, or for the fiftieth time, the pleasure of its approval is always linked to the inspiration of hope, and the pain of its condemnation is enhanced by the apprehensions of fear. Thus conscience her- self proclaims, that her sentence and her sanctions are not ulti- mate, but the prognostics and precursors of higher rewards, or heavier vengeance, consequent upon the final sentence of the infinite Judge. Now, it is in full view of these ascertained truths ; — that God is a righteous moral governor, and will maintain the distinction of right and wrong, in the administration of his government, by rewarding the one and punishing the other ; that conscience, yet further, pronounces upon the character of every man, and its ver- dict, in regard to the individual, is always. Guilty ! This, her sentence, is recorded in every breast, and for the proofs of the fact, we have but to refer to every man's consciousness. Such, then, is our condition, according to the teachings of natural theology ; — there is a righteous God, administering a govern- ment of retributive justice, and by the testimony of our own hearts, we are guilty in his sight : and, yet more ; — this con- sciousness of guilt brings terror in its train. We feel that the dis- approval of conscience is not the ultimate punishment; is not all that we deserve ; but is itself the confession, that we deserve some- 46 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. thing beyond it. The guilty mind turns involuntarily towards the future, and, unable to penetrate its darkness, looks upon its darkness with instinctive apprehension. So far as past experience or observation throws any light upon that darkness, it serves but to heighten that apprehension. For, whenever we have suffered what may be styled the natural consequences of sin, in the pains and penalties attendant upon a violation of the laws of our nature, we have not found any degree of present suffering, satisfying the demands of conscience, or silencing its voice ; but the rather awaking its sterner rebukes, and its more fearful denunciations. And when, in others, we have seen the consequences of a single sin, or a series, mysteriously interwoven throughout the whole history of life, and bringing down accumulated sorrows upon hoary age, the conscience of hoary age has still re-enacted its sentence, and, in the very hour of dissolution, it has still thundered through the chambers of the soul the verdict of Guilty ! And this brings us to still another fact, which, together with the preceding, will give us the true conditions of a problem, which natural theology may propound, but cannot solve. It is manifest, from the constitution of our nature, and the dis- pensations of Providence, that God exercises a moral government over the world. But it is equally plain, that, in this present world, the sanctions of that government are not fully developed. We see enough to conclude that He is a God that " loveth right- eousness and hateth iniquity," and yet we do not see a system of rewards and punishments, invariably meting out to individuals according to their deserts. The spectacle of flourishing impiety and suffering virtue, whilst not so constant as to unsettle the con- viction of a righteous government, is yet too common to admit the supposition that present allotments are its ultimate rewards. But from the manifest tokens of retribution on the one hand, and the occasional discrepancies between character and condition on the other, there is but one conclusion to be derived. We live under a moral government, which, as to its sanctions, is not yet fully developed. Conscience has pronounced its sentence, but the execution is postponed. Analogous to those cases, in which the transgressor enjoys for years a seeming impunity, until suddenly the consequences of his sin overtake him, so there may be res-erved for a futurity beyond the grave, the punishment of sin which has passed through life with a seeming exemption. The difficulties which surround the administration of Divine Providence, demand THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". 47 this explanation ; and conscience confirms it, by those presages of the future, which still attend the sinne-r down to the very gates of the grave ; there she dismisses him from all farther sorrow and suffering on earth, and yet she sends him thence into eternity, with the verdict of '-'■Guilty''' upon his soul, to await the final award. Given, then, by the deductions of Natural Theology, a righteous Governor, a broken law, a condemning conscience, and a retribu- tive administration, which carries its sanctions into the other world, and we have now the problem to be solved, the grand question upon which human destiny hinges, " How can man be just with God?" We come with this question to the disciple of Natural Theology, and we demand an answer, other tha-n that which revelation has given, which shall yet be satisfactory to the reason and the con- science. He certainly will not point us to the altars of heathenism, streaming with the blood of beasts, or dyed with human gore. There we may read the confession of guilt, and the felt and fear- ful demerit of sin ; but no words of pardon are written there, which reason recognizes as the handwriting of God. He may refer us to the evident proofs of the Divine benignity, in the azure beauty of the heavens ; the balmy breath of spring ; the odor of spices ; the song of birds ; the teeming earth, robed in its mantle of green, radiant with sunlight and flowers, or rich in the golden sheen of its waving harvests. But if, in these, he would find the impress of a benevolence which knows no wrath, the darkening heavens frown upon the false induction ; the burn- ing simoom of the desert, or the borean blasts of winter, sweep away the idle hope ; the desolating tornado, or the dark wing of the pestilence, leave destruction and misery in their path, and the yawning earthquake answers back to the crashing thunder of the clouds, that the God of nature, moving in terrible majesty, is a God to be feared as well as loved. Will he tell us, then, of those natural consequences of sin, its effects upon the body, and the mind, and the condition, in this present world, as its only and sufficient expiation? This con- nection between sin and sufifering, though it may be real, is not always apparent. To the utmost of our apprehension, it is often interrupted, and oftener still disproportionate. When it occurs as a most manifest retribution, it does not silence, but rather stimu- 48 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATIOK lates, the reproaches of conscience, and the apprehensions of the g'uilty. It reaches onward, sometimes, from the early dawn to the evening shadows of hfe, and, linking the sorrows of old age to the transgressions of youth, it marks a progression of punishment which has no necessary termination at death, and which reason and conscience concur in extending into eternity. But we are told of a repentance, which recognizing the au- thority of the law, and implying some kind and degree of sorrow on account of its transgression, may come in the place of suffer- ing, and equally satisfy the Lawgiver. If such is indeed the fact, it can only be known by means of some communications, more or less direct from God himself. But revelation discarded, it must then, either be written on the heart, legibly as the law itself, or it must be ascertained by induction and inference. 1. But. so far as our observation of God's dealings extends, there is nothing to warrant this inference. What are called the natural consequences of sin, and which are but so many intima- tions of the Divine purpose to punish it ; are not suspended by the repentance of the sinner. Contrition the most hearty, brings not back to the debauchee his ruined- health and fortune ; un- locks no prison doors ; empties no hospitals. The connection between sin and suffering, so far as we can trace it, is unin- terrupted by repentance, and argues not forgiveness, but its opposite. 2. Is the conclusion, then, rested upon the analogy of human conduct ? This would require us first, to show that any of the relations which men sustain to each other, is in every respect the counterpart to that which we sustain to the Almighty, and then, that our conduct in that relation is heaven directed. It is true that a parent forgives a penitent child, and God is our Heavenly Father. But then it is also true that our Heavenly Father is God. As creatures of the same mould our authority over each other is limited, and can bear but a faint analogy to the preroga- tives of Jehovah. A sense of our infirmity and errors should make us forgiving, whereas the essential attributes of Deitj', would rather imply in Him, an inflexible justice. It is, then, at best, a precarious inference, which from the analogy of human conduct would conclude, the probability of Divine forgiveness. 3. But will it, then, be said, that God has written the law of forgiveness upon the heart, side by side with the law of obedience. THE NECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. 49 and by the same light by which we read the one, we may leant the other also ? Wherein such an arrangement would differ from a direct repeal of the law, it must, from the known principles of human nature, serve only to stimulate transgression, by a seeming restraint, and render it the more daring, by an actual impunity. It would be substituting repentance, for the penalty of the law, and certifying the sinner in advance, that a life of iniquity, when the limits of its enjoyment had been reached, could all be expiated by the brief sorrows of contrition. But let us examine the record, and we shall find that no such law of forgiveness has been written upon the heart. The denunciations of conscience do inde^Jd call the sinner to repentance, and her sentence becomes the more severe, and his guilt is increased by every disregard of that call. But when it is regarded, and the culprit at her bar, stands con- victed and penitent, recognizing the authority of the law, and his own demerit, does conscience thereupon dismiss the cause and the criminal, from all further jurisdiction and impeachment for that crime ? So far from it, it is the most alarming element in her sanctions, that her sentence hands him over to a higher tri- bunal, and meanwhile she holds him as in durance, by keeping before his mind, ever and anon, his sin and its demerit. His tears cannot wash out the record, but the more sincere his re- pentance, the clearer his conception of the turpitude of his sin, and the more distinct his acknowledgment of its ill desert, with- out the slightest implication of forgiveness, in the exercises of his own heart. The. connection between repentance and pardon is not a doctrine of natural Theology, whilst the connection between sin and suffering most clearly is. The question then returns upon us, with all its urgency, "How shall man be just with God?" The grand problem of humanity remains yet unresolved, Natural Theology having served only to develop its conditions, and press home the necessity of an adequate and authorized solution. This limit to its teachings, is well summed up, in the nervous language of Chalmers. " There is in it enough of mani- festation to awaken the fears of guilt, but not enough again to appease them. It emits, and audibly emits a note of terror; but in vain do we listen for one authentic word of comfort from any of its oracles. It is able to see the danger, but not the deliver- ance. It can excite the forebodings of the human spirit, but can- not quell tbeni — knowing just enough- to stir the perplexity, but 50 THE NECESSITY OF A EEYELATION. not enough to set the perplexity at rest. * * There must be a measure of light, we do allow ; but like the lurid gleam of a vol- cano, it is not a light which guides, but which bewilders and terrifies. It prompts the question, but cannot frame or furnish the reply. Natural Theology may see as much as shall draw forth the anxious interrogation. " What shall I do to be saved?" The answer to this comes from a higher theology."* From the insufficiency of Natural Theology, then, as mani- fested in the errors and abominations of heathenism ; in the limited and defective systems of a classic age, blending numbei'- less absurdities with a few elementary truths ; in the results of modern philosophy ; and in the law of conscience ; we conclude, that the necessity of a Revelation, is no longer an assumed,, but a demonstrated fact. 1. But if so, this necessity, as we have seen, overthrows that entire fabric of infidelity, which is built upon the assumption of the sufficiency of nature's light. 2. It furthermore rises above the ruins of that hypothesis, a well-founded presumption, which in the light of God's attributes, becomes a strong probability, that a Revelation would be given. 3. From the vantage ground of this probability, we are brought to inquire for that revelation so justly expected. And by as much as the Bible is superior and eminent beyond comparison, among all alleged communications of the Divine will, by so much, this probability becomes a direct evidence to its truth. The proofs of its Divine original, in all their variety of miracles, prophecy, and precept; gain strength and urgency from this foregone probability. But if, besides, we find in the Bible a complete correspondence and adaptation to those wants of ouv nature which proclaim its neces- sity, the argument, here, becomes demonstrative, and is, precisely, that reasoning from effect to cause, by which, from the adaptations «f external nature, we prove an intelligent Creator. To exhibit, fully, this correspondence and adaptation, would refjuire another Lecture, yea, it would require a volume. But, from «ven entering upon a field so inviting, we are precluded, not merely 'by the vastness of its extent, but because unwilling to trench upon a topic which belongs more properly to other's. You will have no reason to regret the limits, thus imposed, and for ourselves, we are well content to perform the humbler office of an usher, to an * Bridgewatcr Treatise. THE JSTECESSITY OF A EEVELATION. -51 argument, which we regard as one of the most convincing within the whole range of the Evidences of Christianity. But if we may not extend our argument, and carry it home to a legitimate conchision in the track which we have indicated, we may, perhaps, prepare you the better for that conclusion, and deepen the felt conviction of the necessity of a revelation, by recurrinff for a moment to THE CONDITION OF MAN WITHOUT IT. It is recorded of a tyrant, whose cruelty rivers of blood could not satiate, that in the greediness of a cannibal ferocity, he uttered a wish, that the whole Roman people had but one neck, and with a single blow he would destroy them all. By their manifest desire to extirpate the existence, and the very name of Christianity from the earth, the advocates of infidelity confess to a wish even yet more atrocious. We do not judge them too harshly, in saying this, for whilst we would not ascribe to them, in all cases, a malice prepense, in that which they desire, yet we do maintain, that he labors to inflict a greater injury upon his race, who ignorantly or otherwise seeks to shut out the light of heaven from the human mind, than he who could find it in his heart to annihilate a nation. Happily, the pur- pose of unbelief is quite as impracticable as the fiendish thought of a Nero, every assault upon Christianity having only served to establish it the more, by bringing out into more bold relief the ac- cumulated and accumulating evidences of its truth. But let us suppose the object of infidelity to be accomplished, the light of revelation to be extinct, and Christianity forgotten from among men : would it not be like striking out the sun from the heavens, and bringing back upon the earth tlie darkness of chaos, and trans- forming the abode of man into a void and formless waste? 1. To estimate how much society owes to the Bible, we must estimate the value of all those civil and social institutions, which distinguish the most enlightened from the barbarous and semi- barbarous nations of the earth. To trace the progressive influence of revelation in the world, is to trace the progress of civilization. Commensurate with the increase of the one, has been the advance of the other, and the same causes which have obstructed and hin- dered the former, have invariably retarded the latter. It is believed by many, and upon the ground of evidence which 52 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. cannot be easily set aside, that it is to revelation, the world owes its knowledge of language and of letters. It is at least certain that the literature of the world, has in every age received from this source its highest impulse and aid. It is here alone that history, carrying back her records to the birth of time, and across that void, which antiquity had sought in vain to fill up with her fables, absurd and monstrous, dates her narrative " In the hegiiming,^^ and leads it on from thence, with a consistent chronology, and in annals bearing the manifest impress of truth, down to the authen- tic monuments of an age, comparatively recent, which but for the Bible, had been the earliest within our knowledge. Poetry and elo- quence have ever found their finest models in the Scriptures, and the loftiest genius has not been ashamed to borrow its inspirations from them. " It is not undeserved homage to this sacred book to say that philosophers and great men of other times, lighted their torch in Zion, and the altars of learning caught their first spark from the flame that glowed within her temple."* Natural science has found in the Bible a key to many of the mysteries of Creation, and in all her departments, has received from it aid, more than she has been always willing to acknowledge. In the leaf of every plant and flower, botany reveals the marks of creative wisdom and design. But it may be questioned, if the preconceived attributes of God, did not first give direction to her inquiry, and guide to her discov- eries. The maxim that "Jehovah has created nothing in vain," we hold to have been the basis of all those minute investigations, which have evolved from the organism of insects, and animalculae, the same proofs of omnipotent skill and contrivance, which appear in the constitution of man, and the creation of a world. So also on the broader scale of a more extended inquiry, the knowledge of a Great First Cause, has guided the labors and aided the dis- coveries of the astronomer. He has advanced with a bolder stride through the fields of space, and stretched his thoughts to the com- pass of theories more extended and sublime, from a more just con- ception of Almighty power. We verily believe, that the stupen- dous disclosures of this noble science would never have been attained, or if attained, would have so overwhelmed the mind by their vastness, as to beget a suspicion of their truth, but for the previous knowledge of Him * Dr. Spring. See on this whole topic his admirable book, " Obligations of the World to the Bible." THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 53 " who kaJs Orion forth And guides Arcturus round the north." It cannot be doubted that the human mind, freed on the one hand, from the darkness of that superstition, which overcast the bright- est intellects of ancient paganism, and exempt on the other, from that tendency to universal doubt and distrust, which always per- tains more or less to skepticism ; under the genial light of revela- tion, and certified of those great facts which it contains ; acts with a more confident freedom, springs to a higher vigor, and expands to the grasp of sublimer truth. "Why is it that the chief secrets of nature have been penetrated only in Christian times, and in Christian lands, and that men whose names are first in the roll on which science emblazons her achievements, have been men on whom fell the rich light of revelation?" It is true, unbelief and atheism have also had their representatives among these illustrious names. But their eminence has been attained under the light which they discarded, by tlie aid of its influence, and in spite of their errors. Compare the present advancement of science in any of its departments, with the brightest days of oriental philosophy, and find a satisfactory reason, if you can, for that astonishing pro- gress which has marked the Christian era, especially in its later centuries, other than the influence, direct and indirect, of the Christian Scriptures. It would be easy to trace this influence, also, in the progress of the useful and elegant arts ; in all those contrivances of skill and inventions of genius, by which the elements of nature, once so for- midable as to be deified, or so subtle as to be deemed supernatural, have been subjugated to the necessities, the convenience, and the pleasures of men. But we mark the influence of revelation more distinctly, in its healthful effects upon the varied relations of life. We owe to the Bible, all the hallowed associations and nameless endearments, that cluster round the domestic hearth, and impart its magic power, to the place we call our home. It is Christianit)' which consecrates the union of willing hearts, in the marriage bond, and pronouncing its benediction upon their plighted vows, envi- rons this relation with those solemn sanctions, which are the safe- guards of virtue, and the barriers to the unlimited concubinage of lawless passion. Under its tutelage parental instinct becomes " strong as death," and binds the mother to the cradle of her infant in all the tender assiduities of watching and weariness, by a tie which only grows and strengthens with each new demand 54 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. upon her care and toil. While the history of pagan nations, and the habits of licentiousness engendered b}' a philosophy which owns no law but desire, give us the manifold and mournful proofs, that a mother may forget her sucking child and cast it out, a sacrifice to the demon of superstition, or to the demon of lust. The Chris- tian family circle, the home of love and piety, is itself, a triumph of the gospel, which proclaims its pre-eminence, even if it had no other. But it has also triumphs upon a larger scale. Where among all contemporary nations will you find a form of government, which can bear a comparison with the inspired and equitable code of the Jewish theocracy ? Study then the subsequent his- tory of governments, and you will find, that since the dawn of the Christian era, wherever the principles of civil and religious liberty have prevailed, wherever public order and personal safety, the just authority of government, and the highest immunities and welfare of the governed have been combined, there the in- fluence of the Bible has been proportionably felt and acknowledged. There have been despotisms, it is true, under the name of religion, but when tyranny puts on this mask, it is always careful first, to put out the light. " Christianity," says Montesquieu, "is a stranger to despotic power." "Religion," says DeTocqueville, "is the com- panion of liberty in all its battles and conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims." England owes to the Bible the great charter of its liberties. And our own Republic stands this day, unexampled in the history of the world, simply because it is a land of Bibles. Take away the influence of this book from our wide-spread country, and how long would it be, under the necessary and rapid degeneracy of public morals, be- fore the decisions of the ballot-box, would give place to the deci- sions of the sword, the prerogatives of right to the power of might, law to lust, government to anarchy, and anarchy to despotism ? We may not further pursue this train of thought, but with these suggestions, we point you to the manifest influence of reve- *lation upon the literature, the learning, the arts, the domestic ties, and the political relations of mankind, and pointing you at the same time to the absence of this influence where alone it is absent, amid the darkness of heathenism, we ask, if the condition of man without revelation is not, jf necessity, a condition of barbarism ? THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 55 2. But there are still other aspects of his coiKlition, presenting a yet more melancholy picture. There is in every breast an abiding conviction, which neither the pleadings of sophistry, nor the dominion of passion, can wholly extirpate, of an invisible almighty power, the disposer of events, and the arbiter of destiny. So universal is this, that it may with some propriety be styled " a sense of the Divine exist- ence." Man must have a God, simply because he cannot pos- sibly prove, and he has never been able, effectually, to persuade himself, that there is none, though many a " fool may have said it in his heart." But if God is revealed to us, only in his works, our utmost knowledge of Him, can only serve to awaken appre- hension and stimulate our fears. In the phenomena of nature there are indications of wrath as well as goodness. In the events of life, there is a succession and intensity of sorrows, w^ould justify the sentiment, that "man was made to mourn." And in the presages and premonitions of conscience there is " a fearful looking for, of judgment and fiery indignation." With no better support than the deductions of a fruitless and bewildered philoso- phy, man is called, then, to encounter " all the ills that flesh is heir to." And he must meet at every turn of life, with afflictions which he cannot explain, w'ith sorrows which know no solace. By a sudden calamity, or a succession, the garnered wealth of years is swept away, and hope expires within the breast of him who has neither the fortitude to endure, nor the ability to retrieve the unlooked-for reversion. The grave closes upon the objects of a tender regard, and there is nothing to restrain, or to sweeten, the bitter tears of the mourner. Disease invades the frame, and we cannot tell, whence cometh sickness, nor why. We mark the dread approach of Death by the painful harbingers of his coming, but his aspect of terror is unrelieved, for even when his skeleton hand is on our brow, and the light of life is darkening, we know not, ' what is Death !' or ' what is there beyond it !' It is a hard blow to bear, when he who yesterday was rich, stands to-day amid the wreck of a departed fortune, penniless and bankrupt. And we wonder not at that sullen gloom of disappointment, sometimes-^ deepening into despair, and seeking in suicide an end to its sorrows, of those who in a Christian land, are yet wanting in a Christian's consolation. To the heart of sensibility, it is a harder blow, when one, in whom its life, and love, and hopes are centered, to whom the very 56 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION". soul is knit by a thousand nameless ties, is torn from the last em- brace, and hidden from the eyes forever. A man may put on the stoic then, and wrap about him the frigid maxims of a cheerless philosophy, but they soothe not the anguish of a bleeding heart. Nothing but a voice from beyond the grave can waken, again, the inspiration of hope, and whisper its throbbings into peace. Read the touching lament of Augustine for his friend, while yet his darken- ed soul was moving in a heathen element, and you will under- stand what an apostle means by " sorrowing without hope." " At this grief," he says, " my heart was utterly darkened ; and what- ever I beheld was death. Mine eyes sought him everywhere, but he was not granted them, and I hated all places, for that they had him not. I became a great riddle to myself, and I asked my soul, why she was so sad, and why she disquieted me sorely ; but she knew not what to answer me. If I said, ' tnist in Godi' she very rightly obeyed me not ; because that most dear friend, whom she had lost was, being man, both truer and better, than that phantasm she was bid to trust in. Only tears were sweet to me, for they succeeded my friend, in the dearest of my affections." But there is a grief too great for tears, and if you take away the light which Revelation sheds upon the tomb, and then are called to stand upon its brink, and hear the rumbling earth as it falls upon the coffined dust of the loved and lost, if your heart has ever swollen with a true emotion, you will know, what is that greater grief. To you, young gentlemen, in the morning freshness of your day, and witli your sky as yet, perhaps, unclouded, these con- siderations may seem to have but little urgency. But, mark it ! you will not have travelled far in the appointed pilgrimage of life, before you will both find and feel that life is not that bright and sunny scene which youthful hopes had pictured it. It has its shadows, too, deep and sombre shadows. It has its sorrows, which Heaven alone can heal. Man's devious pathway to the grave is, full often, a ^^via dolorosa," in which he needs a com- forter, as well as guide. You may destroy his sensibilities, and, as he approximates the brute, he will cease to feel. You may dethrone his reason, and, in the delirium of passion, he will laugh away his cares. Thus, without the Bible, he may stumble on through life in stern and sullen gloom, or, insensate and reck- less, stifling his nature, and forswearing humanity, he may bound along, as gaily and as madly as e'er a gibbering maniac among . THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. 57 the tombs ; but, as a rational and sentient being, without the Bible, he can only tread his sad and tearful way bewildered and desponding. But grave or gay, reckless or thoughtful, it is a brief pilgrimage at best, and life's battle, or its ballet, ends in the strife of death. Under whatever aspect we n^ay view it, this inevitable event is the most momentous in the history of man. Be it so, — that physi- cally it is but " the turning of a few ounces of blood into a dif- ferent channel," and thereafter an eternal sleep ; — yet who that knows the boon of being, recoils not from the thought of that being's end, as the incomparable calamity ? There is a greater, we do allow, and it is only the guilty fear of this could ever have fathered the wish, or endured the thought, of the soul's annihila- tion. And yet that thought, that wish, can never so possess the mind as to exterminate that fear. Tell us not of death-scenes, calm and peaceful as the Christian's dying hour, where no Chris- tian's hope was known. Is it the untutored savage upon his couch of turf, who dreams of happier hunting grounds? If you could yourself become a savage, ignorant as he, like him you might also die the victim of a fond delusion. It avails no more to plead the few examples of classic story, except you can also rein- state the Olympian gods, and make to youuself a gospel of Charon and his boat. And as for the boasted instances of modern philo- sophic calmness, we aver, that, upon the principles of Deism itself, it can be shown that such calmness, if it is real, is a treason against nature, and an outrage upon right reason. If Natural Theology cannot demonstrate that there is a hereafter, much less can she demonstrate that there is none. Under a dread uncer- tainty of a future state, coupled with a conscious guilt, which, in the prospect and probability of retribution, deepens into remorse, tell me then, ought man to be calm, in this dire necessity of his nature? Only an authentic voice, from the eternal throne, can possibly give him the assurance, that with the destruction of the body, his being ceases, or that, continuing to exist, his existence shall not be one of suffering. But nature has no such voice, and all her utterances, fairly interpreted, contradict the hope. To die . without the light of revelation, is to take a fearful leap into an abyss of darkness,'and on the brink, conscience, like an avenging spirit, points to a thousand evil omens, in the spectral array of long-forgotten sins, and cries in the dying sinner's ear, " 'Tis an abyss of woe !" 58 THE NECESSITY OF A REVELATION. . If, then, with respect to his civil and social relations, man's con- dition without the Bible is a condition of barbarism, no less, with respect to his personal spiritual interests, is it a condition of unmitigated, hopeless misery. On the supposition which we have considered, if we conclude not that this is a God-forsaken world, it must be because there are in it the manifest tokens of Divine displeasure. Man struts his little hour upon its surface, ignorant alike of his origin and his destiny. Doubtful and desponding, he reaches the goal of mortal life, pressed down by present sorrow, and yet shrinking and aghast at the thought of '• greater ills he knows not of." He dies ! scarce knowing whether he should most desire a conscious immortality, or an eternal sleep ! The grave closes upon him, but no promised resur- rection consecrates his dust, no words of hope are written on his tomb ! * i 7 Z^7^ «• « According to the evangelical records, Jesus Christ appealed to his miracles as evidences of his Divine mission. (John v. 36.) His apostles made the same appeal. (Acts ii. 22 ; Heb. ii. 4.) They did not require men to beheve the gospel on the bare word of its preachers. They founded its claim to a Divine origin on tlie attestation of God, as given in the mighty signs and wonders which he exhibited, first by the agency of the Great Founder, and then by the instrumentality of the twelve apostolical witnesses, who were commissioned to pubhsh the gospel among all nations. Without some miraculous token of the Divine sanction, no sys- tem of religion can present infallible evidence of its being a revela- tion from God. Men may publish doctrines that are sublime, pure, benevolent, and fully approved by the reason and conscience of mankind ; yet, however they may appear worthy to have emanated from heaven, they may still be the product of merely human wisdom. What- ever the human mind is capable of receiving by revelation from God, it may also by possibility originate by the exercise of its own powers. Divine revelation, though flowing from an infinite source, is necessarily limited to the capacity of the recipient. In God and in his works, are depths of wisdom, reaching infinitely beyond all the profundities of human thought. The human mind seems indeed to have an indefinite range of thought ; it can form com- binations innumerable of those elements of thought, which it de- rives from sense and reason. But it can form no conception of any- thing beyond the informations of sense and the suggestions of rea- son. Therefore while human nature remains unchanged, the Spirit of God can reveal nothing to the spirit of man, but what is already within the natural range of human conception, and intrinsically undistinguishable from the natural products of the mind. Many a poor enthusiast has mistaken the ardor of his feel- ings and the vividness of his conceptions for the inspirations of God. Without an external sign from God no man can certainly distin- 62 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. guish a Divine revelation from what is purely human ; for reve- lation is necessarily so humanized in passing through a human medium, that nothing indicating its Divine origin remains dis- tinctly impressed upon it. As external evidence is necessary to distinguish genuine history from ingeniously wrought fictions, so without the criterion of miracles we might confound the revela- tions of the Holy Spirit with the dreams of the enthusiast and the inventions of the impostor. But when God connects miraculous demonstrations with the doctrines of inspired men, we know that the teachers speak by his authority ; for whilst we know that men can originate whatever doctrines men can understand, we know also that no man can work a miracle, unless God be with him. My subject is miracles, their nature, their susceptibility of proof, and the evidence which they afford of the Divine origin of Chris- tianity. I shall first discuss the theory of miracles in general, and sec- ondly, the miracles of Jesus in particular, considered as an evidence of his Divine mission. I. The general theory of miracles comprehends two points of inquiry,— 1st. What is a miracle ? and 2d. Can the occurrence of a miracle, if it should take place, be proved by the testimony of men? First, then, — What is a miracle? Various definitions have been given. A miracle is a suspension or violation of the law of nature. It is a supernatural event : It is a deviation from the course of nature, &c. Any of these definitions with a little explanation will answer. But I will offer another which is more explicit. A mira- cle is a sign,ohvious to the senses, that God has interposed his poiver to control the established course of nature. The novelty of an event does not make it miraculous ; else every new discovery in natural science w'ould be a miracle. Nor is an event which is simply unaccountable, to be esteemed mirac- ulous. Unaccountable events sometimes occur, such as the fall of meteoric stones, which come hissing, glowing, and exploding, from the upper regions of the atmosphere. All that w'e can say of them, is, that we know not whence they come, nor how they originate. But for aught that we know, they may be the product of natural causes. It should be observed that our knowledge of the laws of nature, and of their various complicated W'Orkings, is very partial and MIEACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 defective. Wc see many effects of which the causes are hidden. If they are such as frequently occur, we reasonably infer from their frequency, that they spring from natural causes. Even when the event is extraordinary in its nature and of rare occurrence, we may still judge from circumstances, that it is merely the effect of a rare combination of natural causes, like the connection between the Siamese twins. The rarity of an event may also be accounted for sometimes by the regularity of nature in her courses, producing only once in a long time the most striking coincidences. Thus the planets vary their aspects in the heavens continually; — age after age they pursue their mazy dance through the zodiac, pre- senting innumerable figures to the astronomer's eye ; until at last they all meet together in a splendid group, a wonder to human eyes ; then they begin their grand cycle again ; to meet once more perhaps long after the generations of mankind shall have passed away. In this case we know that the event proceeds from the regular movements of nature: but why may not equally rare phe- nomena, result from a secret concatenation of natural causes, stretching back to the creation of the world ? Phenomena purely mental or spiritual cannot be demonstrably miraculous, although they may be such in reality. We under- stand too little of the nature of spirit and of the action of spirit upon spirit to distinguish the natural from the supernatural in spiritual agency. We cannot trace the various phases of human madness to their causes : how then can we determine what is or is not according to nature in the deeper mysteries of the spiritual world ? A miracle, to be cognizable by mortal man, must appear within this "visible diurnal sphere," in which he is an agent and a look- er-on, from the cradle to the grave. Here he learns by his own experience and that of the generations before him, what are the constitution and laws of nature, what is the orderly course of events, what are the causes of many things, and what is within the power of those living agents that God has created upon the earth. All his experience of external things is gained through the medium of the senses, and the objects of sense are those with which he is best acquainted. Here then is the field within which he can distinguish between the natural and the supernatural. Here, if anywhere, will God give him signs from heaven, by which the revelations of God may be distinguished from the wisdom of 64 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. the philosopher, the dreams of the enthusiast, and the impostures of the false prophet. But there are false miracles as well as false prophets, — delusive appearances by which the credulous are often deceived. Hence the necessity of an infallible criterion by which the miracles of God may be distinguished from the impositions of man. As we derive all our knowledge of external things from the senses, so we must hold that our senses give infallible evidence of what they perceive. Jugglers and false prophets may elude our senses and impose on our understandings ; but they can do it only on the supposition that we see what we see and hear what we hear. They deceive us by what they conceal, not by what they exhibit. If we could perceive by our senses all that was done, the deception would be at an end and the wonder would disappear. But be- cause our understandings are liable to delusion, when objects are but partially and indistinctly apprehended by the senses ; nothing should be construed as a miracle, but what is in the first place definitely, distinctly, and evidently perceived by the senses, — in the second place, clear and intelligible to the understanding ; — and in the third place, manifestly inconsistent with the established order of nature ; and therefore impossible to be accounted for with- out supposing that God has interposed to control the law of nature. When we consider that a real miracle is a sign which God ex- hibits of his power to control the laws of nature, we cannot doubt that every real miracle will have in it a dignity and a character befitting its sublime and glorious author. God can never descend to play the petty tricks of a juggler, or to employ his miraculous power for so low an end as to puzzle the understanding or to ex- cite idle wonder in his creature man : nor would he endow a human being with supernatural power for any base or trifling end. Hence a miracle must not be in the power of a man to produce at will, or by the use of means. It must not come by magical incantations, nor by mesmeric " passes," nor by questions to be answered by " spiritual rappings." It must not submit to be sold by perambu- lating lecturers at so much a ticket. It must be nothing ridicu lous or fantastic, nothing like the petty tricks usually ascribed to the devil, because the puzzled spectators know not to what else they should ascribe them. It must not be an unmeaning sign, an insignificant display of supernatural power, teaching nothing but the fact, which is better taught by nature in her regular move- MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. Qo ments, that there is a God. Do not the heavens and the eartii evidently show the handiwork of their Creator? Is not nature herself the greatest of all miracles? When God makes nature deviate from her prescribed course, it must be for a special sign of some extraordinary communication from himself. Again, if a miracle be supernatural ; if it imply a suspension of some known law of nature : — then I hold that no created agent can by his own power work a miracle. No angel nor demon, how- ever "great in might," can break the order of nature, or disturb the operation of those physical laws by which the creation is regu- lated and preserved. God has so constituted the system of nature, and so regulated its operations, that the whole is a glorious mani- festation of his supreme power, wisdom and goodness. Were he to subject any part of this magnificent and well-ordered system to the discretionary control of any created being, then nature would cease to be altogether an expression of his Divine attributes ; the work- ings of her infinitely complex machinery, would be no longer under his exclusive control ; some of his own creatures would share with him the sovereignty ; the inferior creatures, such as man, would be in some measure dependent on subordinate rulers of the world, who would justly be feared as gods, and the ancient system of heathen- ish idolatry would be founded on fact. But can we believe that the Author of nature would subject any part of the system to the will of a creature, who is himself but a part of the same system, and, consequently, subject to its laws ? He has endowed created agents with faculties greater or less ; but these are themselves subordinate to the preordained laws of nature. Rational beings may violate the moral law ; but so much the more necessary is it, that they should be strictly subjected to those physical laws, by which God maintains his sovereignty over nature. I argue also from analogy against the opinion that any created being can, by his own power, work a miracle. We know that man has vastly more power, both mental and corporeal, than the worm which he treads under his feet. His understanding is com- paratively infinite, his strength ten thousand fold greater, yet is he as absolutely subject to the laws of nature as the worm in the dust, or the animalcule, whose life-time is a day, and whose world is a drop of water. He can devise and construct machines, of which the poor worm can form no conception, but for the eflfect of these, and all his other operations, he is entirely dependent on 5 GQ MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. the laws of nature. What these enable him to do, he can do ; but, contrary to these, he can do absolutely nothing at ail. He cannot make a hair of his head either white or black, — he cannot m.ake a grain of sand either heavier or lighter, — he cannot make a thorn-bush bear grapes, nor reanimate the dead body of a tiy. Suppose his wisdom and his physical strength to be increased a thousand fold ; will he then be able to do any of these things ? Will he then have advanced a single step towards a sovereign power over the Jaws of nature? No ; nor is the mightiest demon in the universe any more able to control a law of nature, than a Solomon or a Samson, — a worm or an animalcule. The power that can work a miracle must diifer, not only in degree, but in kind, from that of created beings. It is a creative power. A man may kill his brother man, because the law of nature gives him the power ; but when he has killed, neither he nor all the hosts of heaven and hell can restore that dead man to life. Only the God that made him can raise him from the dead. I conclude, therefore, that every miracle, every manifestation of a power superior to the law of nature, is a sign from God, that he has, for some important and holy end, seen fit to interrupt the established course of nature. I proceed to the second inquiry under this head, which is, — Are tnb'acles susceptible of proof hy testimony 7 In other words. Can we in any case reasonably believe men, who testify that they have ivitnessed a miraculous event! A miracle must, from its nature, be a highly improbable event. It is an exception to the uniform rule of nature ; a partial de- rangement in the long-estabUshed working of this great machine, the universe. One of the earliest lessons that experience teaches mankind, is the uniformity of nature. Our belief in this uniformity seems to be constitutional, and to be developed immediately after experi- ence begins. The burnt child dreads the fire. He believes from one experiment that it is the nature of fire to burn. So his instinct teaches him to reason about nature in general. Experi- ence in general confirms our first conclusions respecting the established relation between causes and effects. God has wisely ordained that things should be distinguishable by their permanent properties, and that the course of events should depend upon established relations between antecedents and consequents, causes .and effects. Without steadfastness in the course of nature, human J MIRACLES, AS -IX EVIDENCE OF CHRISTI IXITY. 67 reason could have no guide, human sciences and aits could not exi.-t, neither instinct nor intelligence could avail the creatures of God. and nature herself would have no voice to proclaim her Divine original. In a disordered universe, there could be no miracle, because there would be no law of nature by which reason could distin- guish the natural from the supernatural. If the Deity often changed the course of nature, the laws of nature would be weak- ened ; and the course of events being unsteady, the signs of God would be less manifest, both in the regularity of nature and in her deviations. As miracles more frequently occurred, the less miraculous would they appear. They would come to resemble the jarrings of an ill-constructed machine, and would be expected as things of course. Miracles, therefore, to answer any useful purpose in the moral government of God, must necessarily be reserved for rare and important occasions. But for the very reason that they must be the most rare and extraordinary of all events, they are in them- selves the most improbable, and require the strongest evidence to render them credible. Besides the intrinsic improbability of miracles, the frequency of false reports of supernatural events, and the ingenious methods by which impostors often delude credulous people, should make us particularly cautious how we give credence to any report or any appearance of a miracle. So improbable an event should not gain our belief, until we have carefully scrutinized both the nature of the fact reported and the evidence of its occurrence. But reported miracles are not all equally improbable. The degree of their antecedent improbability depends on the nature, circumstances, and relations of the event. Though all miracles are equally impossible with man and equally possible with God, ihey are not equally improbable in themselves. Reason teaches us to expect that if God work a miracle, he will not on the one hand make it so portentously great as to derange the general course of nature, nor on the other hand so contemptibly small as to excite ridicule. He would not summon the thunders of heaven to kill a fly. Whilst he made the miraculous nature of the event sufficiently evident, he would also make it correspond in moral significancy with the occasion on which it was introduced ; making it a miracle of benevolence, when it was designed to authenticate a mission of mercy, and perhaps a miracle of punishment, when 68 MIRACLES, AS .AJST EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. it was designed to enforce the authority of a violated law. T deem it reasonable to assume that God would not turn nature out of her regular course without some moral necessity, nor exhibit a sign that was incongruous to the occasion. Much less would he affix his signature to anything that was revolting to the rea- son and the moral sense which he implanted in the human breast. How absurd is it to imagine that he would sanction by miracles the scheme of a wicked man, the vagaries of a fool, or the visions of a half-crazy fanatic ! Or is it credible that God Almighty would be so lavish of his miraculous signs, as to employ them for the establishment of relic-worship and transub- stantiation 1 But when the reported miracles appear to have been morally necessary for the establishment of some great and salutary truth, and when they are in themselves, their circumstances and their human agents, altogether worthy of their Divine Author ; then I tliink that in the opinion of all candid men, they are not so im- probable, as to put their proof beyond the reach of human testi- mony. Consider, friends, what the consequences would be, if God had so constituted the nature of things as to make it impossible to prove a miracle by the testimony of eye-witnesses. In this case the Father of mankind would have forever precluded himself from making a supernatural revelation of his will. In my intro- ductory remarks I showed that miracles are the only reliable test of Divine revelation. I have also shown that frequency of mira- cles would detract from their efficacy as signs of God. But how exceedingly common and how apparently natural would they become, if they were exhibited to all mankind as evidence of a Divine revelation ! I have not the presumption to say absolutely that God could not prove a revelation to mankind, by working miracles before the eyes of all in every age. But I can say with- out presumption that such a method would bear no analogy to the general system of Divine government. It is true that God has written the signs of his existence and perfections over the whole face of nature, and displayed them to the eyes of all man- kind ; yet how few are able of themselves to give them the right interpretation ! How generally did mankind, with the heavens and the earth in view, fail to discover the One Only Living and True God, and in their blindness worship imaginary gods and dumb idols ! Is it probable, that they would have succeeded \ MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 better in the interj)ietation of a universal system of miracles in proof of a revelation from God ? A French atheist* once de- manded, why, if there be a God, he did not give a proof of his ex- istence, by so arranging the stars in the form of letters, that they should spell his name ! But the poor fool did not say, in what language God would write his name in the heavens more intelli- gibly than he has already done. Without discussing this point farther, it is sufficient to say that God has made the mass of man- kind dependent on testimony and on the instruction of qualified teachers, for nearly all their knowledge ; and we may presume that this is on the whole the wisest and best way in which the knowledge of revelation could be imparted to the Imman race. In this way, it would be impossible for God to verify a system of re- vealed truth, unless he made miracles capable of proof by testi- mony. And consider whether there be not questions of the utmost im- portance, which men cannot solve by the light of nature, but which our Father in Heaven might be disposed to solve by reve- lation ; such questions as these, for example. Are our souls im- mortal ? Shall we be rewarded and punished in a future state for the deeds done in the present life ? Will God forgive us our sins ; and if so, on what conditions ? These are questions on which human destiny hangs, on which human laws and morals depend for their principal sanctions, and human society for its improvement from age to age. Without faith founded on a Divine revelation of future rewards and punishments, and of pardon for sin on the conditions of repentance and atonement, the motives to virtue and amendment of life would be defective. Without a revealed religion, the generations of men must ever wander in the mazes of error and superstition, or cast off the shackles of false religion only to run into the licentiousness of practical atheism. Without a revelation from God there can be no assurance of immortal life, of retributions after death, of Divine forgiveness of sins, of grace, to help us in our time of need, or of a Heavenly Father's watchfulness and care over the helpless children of mor- tality. Human philosophy cannot unveil the secrets of death ; reason has invented a telescope that can penetrate the starry skies ; but wherewith shall the soul of the living pierce the * Mirabeaud, in his Systems de la Nature. 70 MIEACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. " shadows, clouds, ajid darkness," that rest upon the eternal state of man ? • For all that man needs to know respecting the material world and the common affairs of life, nature and reason are sufficient teachers ; but if this world be only the cradle of the soul, or at the most its infant-school — and if for its better training here, and its happier state hereafter, it needs a spiritual instruction which na- ture and experience cannot give — then surely it is not impossible, nor so very improbable, that the Parent of mankind should send us a message of instruction, adapted to our wants, and accom- panied by visible signs of its heavenly origin. Now, supposing that we should hear of a teacher who professed to be a messenger from heaven, who taught a religion, solving the great questions before mentioned, and embracing a pure and benevolent code of morals — a teacher whose personal character was every way befitting his profession, and who wrought mira- cles of mercy and goodness in proof of his mission — I ask, would such a report, taken altogether, be so utterly incredible, that no sort or amount of testimony could make it worthy of credit? May I not appeal to the common sense of every one who hears nie-to bear me out in the assertion, that such a report might be verified to the satisfaction of any reasonable man by the testi- mony of witnesses ? The reported miracles, taken in connection with the other reported facts, could not be so improbable as to make all possible testimony in their favor unworthy of belief. But the celebrated historian and philosoph.8r David Hume at- tempted to frame an argument against miracles, which he fancied would overthrow all faith in revealed religion, by showing that human testimony could not in any case afford proof of a miracu- lous event. This argument, invented by a skeptical philosopher, fond of paradox, has received more attention than it deserves ; but as it is ingeniously framed, and contains all that can be said against the credibility of reported miracles, I shall give you the sum and substance of the argument in his own words, and then point out the fallacies interwoven with it, and demonstrate the sufficiency of human testimony to prove any fact, however im- probable. " Experience (says Hume) is our only guide in reasoning." " A wise man weighs the evidence ; he considers which side is supported by the greater number of experiments ; to that side he inclines with doubt and hesitation." " When the fact which the MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 testimony endeavors to establish partakes of the marvellous — th(3 evidence resulting from testimony admits of a diminution, greater or less, in proportion as the fact is more or less unusual." '• The reason why we place any credit in witnesses, is not de- rived from any connection which we perceive a priori between testimony and reason, but because we are accustomed to find a conformity between them." •' When the fact is such as lias seldom fallen under our obser- vation, here is a contest between two opposite experiences, of which the one destroys the other, as far as its force goes, and the superior can only operate on the mind by the force whicli re mains." "But let us suppose that the fact is not only marvellous, but really miraculous ; and suppose that the testimony amounts to an entire proof (considered apart and by itself ;) in that case there is proof against proof, of which the strongest inust prevail, but still with a diminution of its force, in proportion with that of its antagonist." " A miracle is a violation of the law of nature, and as a Jinn and unalterable experience has established that law, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.''^ " Nothing is a miracle that happens in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man seemingly in good health should die on a sudden, because such a kind of death has been frequently observed. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must therefore be a uniform, experience against every 'miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact against the existence of any miracle ; nor can such proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof which is superior." Consequently, " No testimony is suffi- cient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavors to establish." Such is Hume's argument, from which he concludes that "No testimony is sufficient to e:^tablish a miracle." The general principle of reasoning stated by Hume is not ma- terially objectionable ; but a fair use of that principle would not have served his purpose ; he therefore connected with it several 72 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. gratuitous assumptions, by whicli an arg-ument otlierwise legiti- mate though inconclusive, lias been conve'ted into a mere soph- ism. He assumes by way of premise, tliac " a miracle has never been observed in any age or country,^'' that the '• uniform expe- rience of maiikind is against every miraculous events otherwise it would not m,erit that appellation''^ — tiiat is, the mere fact that an event has happened, proves that it deserves not the appellation of a miracle ; and on this assumption, he grounds the assertion, that " there is a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact against any miracle." What is all this but a mere begging of the question, an arbi- trary assumption of the matter in dispute? — "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle," is Hume's conclusion. What is the reason? (we ask.) Because, (says the philosopher) no miracle has ever been observed, and no observed event can merit the ap- pellation of a miracle ! — Indeed ! (we may well exclaim) if so, the argument is at an end : that is the conclusion of the whole matter. Why infer anything about the insufficiency of testimony to prove what has never been observed, and what, from the na- ture of the fact, never can be observed ? When a philosopher can take it for granted that a thing is not and canriot be, — surely it is puerile in him to come forth triumphantly with the conclusion, that it cannot be proved. But Hume builds his argument upon the basis of experience. Let us see how he has managed to raise an insuperable barrier of experience against all possible testimony for miracles. He begins with each individual's personal experience. He says, " When the fact is such as has seldom fallen under our observa- tion, here is a contest between tvvo opposite experiences, of which the one destroys the other so far as its force goes, &c." What two experiences are those which he represents as coming in con- flict, when the fact is such as we have seldom observed? They are our positive and our negative experience in relation to the fact. For illustration, suppose that a neighbor of yours told you. that he had seen a man's leg broken by a fall from a scaffi)ld. You had never perhaps seen precisely such an event, but you had seen, we will suppose, one instance of a man getting his arm broken by a fall from his horse. Let this be your positive experience in re- spect to facts of that sort. It is something; but how small com- pared with your negative experience in relation to such events ! You had lived and observed the events of human life for years, MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 and except in that single instance, you had never observed any- thing hke the event which your neighbor reported as a fact. Now here according to Hume is a contest of opposite experiences, of which the one destroys the other so far as its force goes. But if negative experience has any force against positive, then in this case tire vast preponderance of the negative must overvvhehii the positive, and make your neighbor's report exceedingly improbable. — Would it have that effect on your mind or that of any sane man ? Certainly not ; for no rational man reasons in this man- ner from his personal experience. Our philosopher being aware that individual experience is too narrow a basis for his argument, makes a sly transition to the general experience of mankind, where he makes the assumption already mentioned, that no miracle has ever been observed, or in other words, that universal experience is against every miraculous event. But what I have to remark at present, is the fallacious manner in which he sets universal experience against testimony for miracles. He leaves out of view the fact, that we derive from testimony all our knowledge of what other men have experienced from the creation of the world to this day. Our personal expe- rience is but a drop in the ocean of universal experience. Now when he asserts that the uniform experience of mankind is against the occurrence of a miracle, if he means, as his lan- guage would imply, that all testimony is against miracles, the assertion is false, for there is much testimony in their favor ; or if he means that all the testimony that goes to establish the gen- eral regularity of nature is true, but that all, without exception, which goes to prove occasional deviations from that regularity, is necessarily false, then we demand a reason why the one should be true and the other wholly false. It cannot be, because they are contradictory testimonies, and therefore the strongest should prevail. If one man testify that he has seen fishes without eyes, and ten thousand men should testify that all fishes ever seen by them had eyes, there is no contradiction in the statements ; both may be true ; the general fact is, that fishes have naturally two eyes, but in particular cases they have none. Here is no contest between opposite experiences or opposite testimonies, as Hume sophistically pretends. Hence you can easily perceive the fallacy of his argument, when he says, " A miracle is a violation of the law of nature, and as a firm and unalterable experience has established that law, the proof against a miracle^ from the 74 MIEACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHEISTIANITY. very nature of the fact^ is as entire as any argimient can pos- sibly be imagined^' Here he assumes, artfully and sophistically, that all the proof by which the law of nature is establislied, lies in full force against the occurrence of a miracle: whereas, on the contrary, no miracle can occur where there is no law of na- ture ; for according to Hume's own definition, a miracle is a viola- tion of the law of nature. Be it so then, — that human experience proves the existence of the law of nature : we all admit the fact, — wc must admit it before we can believe the occurrence of a miracle. Where there is no law there is no violation, of a law ; where there is no rule there is no exception. Milton represents the chaos, or unformed elements of nature, to be full of wild hub- bub and confusion. No wpnder ; chaos has no law, and none of its disorderly workings can be deemed miraculous. Now to repre- sent the experience which proves the law of nature as being an entire proof against a miracle, is exceedingly illogical ; for such experience, however firm and unalterable, it may be, is entirely consistent with any supposed experience of a miracle, which, " from the nature of the fact,"' must be an exception to the general experience of mankind. The only condition on which experience can furnish any proq/* against a miracle, is, that it be opposed to the particular fact re- ported as a miracle. Thus, if one man testifies that, at a particu- lar time and place, he saw the sun miraculously darkened at noon- day ; and another man who was present at the same time and place, testifies that he saw no such thing, or only a natural obscu- ration of the sun by a cloud ; in such a case there is an opposition of reported experiences, of which those on the negative side may amount to full proof against the miracle. But Hume's argument assumes that a general negative experi- ence, or mere non-experience of a fact by mankind in general, amounts to an entire proof against its existence. On this princi- ple many facts of very rare occurrence are disproved by a firm and unalterable experience of the generality of mankind. ' So s.4ngular a phenomenon as the Siamese twins would be disproved by the experience of mankind ; so rare a phenomenon as the fall of meteoric stones from the atmosphere, would be incapable of positive proof, because the negative experience of nearly all man- kind has raised an insuperable barrier against its credibility. One more remark on this part of the argument will suffice. Though the experience to which Hume refers is merely negative JRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 in respect to miracles, it is positive, so far as it goes, in re- spect to the law of nature. I have aheady shown that this does not make it inconsistent with the supposition that a miracle has been experienced, but that, on the contrary, a miracle sup- poses a pre-existing law of nature. Yet there is a supposable case, in which positive evidence of the regular operation of the laws of nature w'ould disprove the occurrence of a miracle in times past. If we knew from experience, or otherwise, that every event had come to pass heretofore in accordance with the laws of nature, then, of course, any supposed miracle would be inconsist- ent with our positive knowledge. So far must our knowledge of nature and of the events of time go, before Hume's argument from experience can have any validity. The moment you admit tiiat our knowledge of events and of their causes is defective ; that innumerable events have occurred of which we know noth- ing, and that many events have been observed to happen from causes unknown ; — that moment is it evident that human experi- ence does not, as. Hume affirms, afford an entire proof, or any- thing like it, against the occurrence of a miracle. And you know this to be the fact. No living man or set of men are acquainted with the millionth part of those facts which the generations of mankind have experienced ; and of that very minute fraction of them, that we have ourselves observed, how many have resulted from causes of which we have no certain knowledge ! All this numerous class of contingent events may or may not have hap- pened in the regular course of nature. For aught that we know, some of them at least may have resulted from the interposition of Divine Providence, by which the natural course of things has been changed. Take an instance given by Hume : a man appa- rently in good health suddenly dies from a cause unknown. He says that this is no miracle, because it has been frequently ob- served. Certainly, we do not call it a miracle, but the true reason why wc do not. is that we are ignorant of the cause. Did we know that according to the law of nature, the man would have lived for years, but that God killed him by a stroke of super- natural power, then it would be a miracle. Take another in- stance : a man apparently at the point of death from disease, recovers, we know not how nor why. Does experience of events like these and innumerable others of the like contingent nature, prove anything either positively for the uniformly regular opera- tion of the laws of nature, or negatively against occasional devia- 76 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. tions by the act of God? Certainly not. But they do demon- strate conclusively, that experience — even common, every-day experience — raises no such insurmountable proof against mira- cles, as Hume pretends; and that, in fact, experience is not incon- sistent with the supposition, that the Deity does sometimes vary the course of nature for particular ends. But then, supposing that God does produce contingent events by controlling the course of nature, we do not recognize any event as miraculous unless it be manifestly contrary to the law of nature ; and as, for reasons before mentioned, such events must rarely occur, they are still so improbable as to require stronger proof than ordinary facts. Although negative evidence cannot amount to a proof, as Hume's argument assumes, it can, nevertheless, extend so far as to raise a strong presumption against a reported fact, and this it does in the case of miracles. Having thus disposed of the principal sophistries which Hume has wrought into the body of his argument, I come now to con- sider the principle from which the argument derives all its logical force. Had the skeptical philosopher made a legitimate use of the principle, unmixed with unwarrantable assumptions and other tricks of sophistry, in combating the testimony in favor of mira- cles, his argument, though inconclusive against the miracles of Christ, would have been fair and worthy of respectful consideration. He thus lays down the principle: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous [that is, more improbable,] than the fact which it endeavors to establish." This is a just principle. The improbability of a miracle must be overcome by proof, which must be stronger in proportion as the imp'-obability is greater. That proof must, to those who are noi eye-witnesses, be furnished by testimon3^ But human testimony is liable to error and falsehood. Hence, it is only probable th/at a witness will tell the truth, and more or less probable according to his competency, his moral character, and the motives that operate on his mind \n giving his evidence. Without some particular motive to falsify, all men will probably tell the truth, substantially at least. But, however lowly we may estimate the veracity of mankind in general, certain it is that testimony is susceptible of indefinite accu- mulation, by increasing the number of witnesses ; especially when the witnesses are of good character, and are competent to report MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 correctly what they have observed. Still, however, the credibihty of their testimony, in a particular case, will be weakened in pro- portion to the improbability of the fact to which they testify. Hence, to justify our belief of an improbable fact, we must judge the fact to be less improbable than the falsehood of the testimony ; and the degree of our belief will be stronger, as the weight of the testimony preponderates more strongly over the improbability of the fact. Hence, because a miracle is a very improbable sort of event, a firm faith in its occurrence ought not to be entertained without much stronger proof than is necessary in regard to ordi- nary facts. The testimony ought to be such, that its falsehood shall be decidedly more improbable than the fact itself. This is Hume's principle, and I adopt it in arguing against Hume's con- clusion, that '• no testimony is sufficient to prove a miracle." The argument is now on the general question, whether or not a miracle is susceptible of proof by testimony. Hume denies it ; we affirm it. We take for granted, that a miracle is, from its nature, a very improbable sort of event, and that the testimony of man is fallible, yet capable of affi)rding evidence, more or less, of any possible event. We have to determine, whether it can have sufficient weight to overcome the improbability of a miracle. I undertake to demonstrate that human testimony is susceptible of such a cumulative force, that it can overcome any assignable degree of improbability in the fact which it tends to establish. Before I proceed to analyze the force of testimony, let me call your attention to some familiar examples of its power to produce conviction against strong antecedent improbabilities. You know that we derive the far greater part of our knowledge from the reports of other men, that is, from testimony. All our belief in facts beyond the narrow sphere of our personal experience, is founded on testimony. Many of these facts are highly improbable, if we judge them by our own observation and experience. We shiver in the moderate cold of our winters, yet we firmly believe the men who report, that whole tribes of mankind live and enjoy life in an at- mosphere that freezes mercury. We know that the general mass of materials composing this globe is incombustible, yet we believe that mountains disgorge rivers of melted rocks, even amidst frozen oceans and glaciers of eternal ice. We know that masses of stone are with difficulty heaved a few yards into the air ; but w^e fully credit the reports of a few men who profess to have seen red-hot stones of considerable weight fall from the upper regions of the 78 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. atmosphere, though we cannot imagine how they were projected to such a height, or whence they could have originated. When we consider the present state of the earth, and what we know of its hving tribes, it is hard to beheve that monstrous animals, four times as large as the elepliant, should once have lived by tens of thousands in the frozen regions of Siberia ; yet we give our un- hesitating assent to the testimony of a few travellers, who declare that innumerable bones of such animals are found in the icy soil of that country. AVe also hold it for certain, on the testimony of men, that the skeletons of strange monsters of various kinds, have been found imbedded hundreds of feet deep in the solid rocks of this globe. And how improbable in themselves are the stories which travellers relate concerning the artificial wonders of Egypt ! What is Egypt but a narrow vale between immense deserts, where no rain falls, and where two or three millions of poor in- habitants draw subsistence from the mud of the Nile. Yet here do travellers pretend to have found the most stupendous monu- ments of human labor, that the world ever saw — the pyramids, the catacombs with their millions of mummies, and the ruins of Thebes. How could such structures and such excavations in solid rock, have been made by human hands in such a country ? You wonder, and yet you believe with as firm a faith as if you had seen those unaccountable objects with your own eyes. And how much like a wild romance is that ancient story of Alexander of Macedon ? Can you believe that so petty a king, whose hereditary dominions were a small space between the mountains and the sea in a cor- ner of Europe, could have conquered Asia with 30,000 men ? — that he could have overthrown millions of soldiers, and crossed vast deserts, in his victorious march, from the Mediterranean sea to the Indian ocean? Yet although the story is more than 2000 years old, and rests upon the authenticity of a few ancient records, every reading man has full confidence in its truth. You may never have seen the Alps, yet you easily believe on testimony that the}'^ are a mountain barrier, so high, so precipitous, so covered with perpetual ice and snow, that it is very difficult for travellers to cross, except by a modern road constructed with immense labor. What think you, then, was the feasibility of marching a great army across them in ancient times, when there was no road, when every valley and gorge was occupied by savage moun- taineers, ready to roll huge rocks from the precipices upon every invader? Yet on the authority of a few ancient historians, you MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANIXr. 79 believe that Hannibal led an African army of 60,000 men through those narrow gorges, up those frightful precipices, over those fields of ice, over those snowy peaks, and down again into the gulfs that led to fair Italy ; that he took with him not only his 60,000 men, but all their provisions, forage, tents, arms, horses, and elephants — all, over a route where often even the experienced chamois-hunter would scared} venture to climb. You have no doubt of these facts. Consider how absolutely certain you feel concerning innumera- ble facts, of which your knowledge is derived wholly from testi- mon}'^, oral or written. Does anything appear more certain to you, and to all other intelligent men, than the existence of such a country as Japan, or the former existence and actions of such men as Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther, and Napoleon Bonaparte? But in respect to most facts that have come to your knowledge, and of which you feel iiuhihitabhj certain, the testi- mony on which you rely is exceedingly indirect. Between you and the original witnesses are many intermediate reporters. Yet I he man who should presume to deny these facts would be won- dered at as a curious specimen of the genus homo — a very pecu- liar sort of fool. The illustrations just given of the power of testimony to pro- duce a firm conviction of even the most improbable facts, are sufficient to show that belief in testimony is a law of our nature, and that no conceivable fact can be rejected as incredible, when the full power of testimony is brought to bear upon the mind. I now proceed to analyze the force of testimony, and to show how it is susceptible of indefinite augmentation, until it shall overcome the highest conceivable degree of improbability in the fact to which it is applied. In the first place, testimony may derive any degree of force from undesigned coincidence in the statements of different wit- nesses, who give independent testimony. Witnesses and their testimony are said to be independent when there is no previous concert or design by which the testimony of one witness is made to coincide with that of another. It is an evidence that the coincidence is undesigned, when the witnesses have not communicated with one another about the matter of their testimony. But this is not necessar}^ to constitute inde- pendent testimony. It is sufficient that each witness tells his own story, without depending on the information or instruction of an- 80 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. Other as to what he shall testify. You have probably reiuaiked in the manner of witnesses, and in the matter and circumstances of their testimony, sufficient evidence that they spoke independ- ently from tiieir personal knowledge of facts, and not from the promptings of another. But I need not explain by what means we may ascertain the independency of witnesses. It is enough for you to know that there are such witnesses, and that the coin- cidence of their testimony is not the result of concert or design. Then the coincidence can result only from chance, or from the truth of their testimony. We suppose that the facts of which they testify are of a contingent nature, and capable of being known as facts only from actual observation. Thus, if two men were to tell you independently that they had seen a certain man killed accidentally by the fall of a tree, it is evident that either the report is true, or they must by mere chance have hit upon the same falsehood. In proportion as it is improbable that such an undesigned coincidence in falsehood should occur, is it probable that the testimony is true, even though the witnesses were personally unworthy of credit. Now the more numerous the particulars in which these wit- nesses concur in their statements, the more improbable is it that the coincidence should have resulted from chance; not only so, but the improbability increases in a geometrical ratio, as the points of coincidence increase in number. Contingent events are infinitely diversified in time, place, and circumstances. Many men have been killed by the fall of trees, yet probably no two in- stances have coincided in all their circumstances. Two men might possibly feign or fancy an incident of this sort about the same time; it is not impossible that they should happen to do it near the same place; nor will 1 pronounce it impossible that they should happen to tell this fiction of theirs to the same person, as a fact which they had seen. But you will allow that an undesigned coincidence, even to this extent, is exceedingly improbable. What would you say then if they agreed exactly in regard to the time and place of the accident, the sort of tree that fell, the cause of its fall, what sort of injury it inflicted on the man, &c. ? Would you not feel that it was morally impossible to attribute such a web of coincidences to chance? Hence, if it be granted that the wit- nesses were independent, you would say at once that the testi- mony must be true. I said that the degree of probability increased in a geometrical ^■•■! V' MIRACLES, AS AX EVIDENCE OF CKEISTIANITY. 81 ratio as the points of coincidences increased in number. Tiiis is capable of mathematical demonstration; but I shall not enter fully into this method of proof. I shall only illustrate the princi- ple sufficiently to make it intelligible. Suppose the two men referred to should happen to conceive the idea of telling the falsehood, that a certain man was killed : yet the chances we will suppose are only 100 to 1 against their happening to coincide in respect to the manner of his death by the fall of a tree. Then suppose they each invent for himself a place at which they Avill locate the accident, the chances are at least 1000 to 1 against their coinciding on this point. But the chances were 100 to 1 against their coinciding in the other, therefore the chances would be 100,000 to 1 against their coin- ciding in both at once. Now, suppose they consider, each for liimself, what sort of tree he shall pitch upon as the cause of the man's death. Here the range of choice is limited ; say the chances are only three to one against their coinciding in this particular ; then the probability is, that they would coincide three times as often in the two former points as in all three at once. Therefore, the chances are 300,000 to 1 against their coinciding in all these three points. So. as they coincided in four, five or six, or more points, would the chances against the falsehood of their testimony be multiplied, until they amounted to a moral certainty that the testimony could not be false. But equally potent is an increase in the number of independent witnesses to multiply the chances against the falsehood of their testimony, or, what is the same thing, to multiply the degree of probability in favor of its truth. I supposed that when two men happened about the same time to invent a lie respecting a certain person's death, the chances were at least 100 to 1 against their both hitting upon so rare a cause of death as the fall of a tree. I have assumed too low a number, but let it stand. Now, sup- posing the very improbable case, that three men should at once, without concert, take it into their heads to fabricate a tale about the same person's death. We will leave out that improbability, and suppose that the three did chance to do this improbable thing, and that the chances were, as aforesaid, 100 to 1 against any two of them coinciding in respect to the cause of his death. Then it is evident that two of them would coincide in this particular 100 times as often as all three would ; that is, the chances would be 10.000 to 1 against their all coinciding at once. And so on 6 82 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. would we have to multiply the former results throughout, as we added witness after witness. You can easily conceive then that the power of testimony, considered merely as undesignedly coin- ciding, is practically unlimited, and capable of such accumulation, as to overcome any assignable degree of improbability in the fact to which such testimony is applied. Should any of the younger part of my audience not have as yet a clear conception of the grounds of this mathematical sort of reasoning on chances or probabilities, I can only refer him to any good mathematician, or any good treatise on the subject, for a fuller explanation. No method of human reasoning is more certain in its results than this. The only room for error is in the numbers assumed to express the chances, or the degrees of proba- bility or improbability. The method of calculation is infallible; and I have given you a specimen of it merely to show how rap- idly the probabilities of truth are multiplied, as the points of coin- cidence and the number of the independent witnesses increase, and how soon they accumulate to such a degree of moral cer- tainty, as to overcome any conceivable degree of improbability in the nature of the fact. To illustrate the principle of this method of reasoning, I will propose to you some simple case, in which events are referred to what we call chance. Suppose for example, that you had before you a confused heap of printer's types, and you thrust your hand among them at haphazard, and drew out successively two types, with the design of speUing the little word so. Would you not probably have to make many trials before you succeeded in draw- ing the right letters in the right order? But suppose that you chose a word of three letters instead of two, as the monosyllable jnati. Consider how much the chances of failure would be mul- tiplied by this single addition of a letter ; how often you might hit the two first letters without hitting the third at the same time? So it is w^ith coincidences when they result from chance. And then if two of you should try the same experiments together, how often might the one or the other succeed before both should suc- ceed at the same trial? So is it with independent testimony, when we increase the number of witnesses. How often mig-ht one of them hit upon a particular set of circumstances when he invented a lie, before both should hit upon them all at the same trial. I trust that I have sufficiently demonstrated the power of inde- pendent testimony to establish the most improbable sort of facts ; MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHEISTIANITY. 83 and that too without respect to the moral character of the wit- nesses. In the second place, testimony derives force from the character of the witnesses, for veracity and competency ; and this too is susceptible of infinite accumulation. Men naturally tell the truth ; and although motives of interest and passion may lead them to swerve from it, sometimes, there is also implanted in the human breast a moral feeling- which resists the motives to falsehood, and gives more or less weight to the testimony of honest men, even when they are tempted to utter a falsehood. Regard to reputation is another powerful check upon the motives to falsehood. A liar is one of the most infamous characters in society. Mankind feel the necessity of maintaining truth with one another. Therefore they brand the false witness as a dangerous character, and point at him with the finger of scorn. But nature prompts even liars to tell many more truths than falsehoods ; and nature and moral principle and re- gard to reputation combined, give a general character of truth to the testimony of mankind ; at least of substantial truth, even when interest or prejudice causes it to be somewhat disfigured. But men may err in their testimony through incompetency to observe and report correctly the facts of which they testify. Due allowance must be made for this in estimating the credibility of a witness. When the facts are simple and obvious to the senses, almost any man is competent to testify about them. He can tell what he plainly saw and heard and felt, though he may not be quahfied to reason on the subject. To demonstrate that testimony may have force sufficient in the personal credibility of the witnesses, it is not necessary to assign to each witness a high degree of credibility. Let it only be prob- able that a witness will tell the truth, and the force of the testi- mony will, as in the former case, be multiplied by every additional witness. Let the probability be only as two to one, that a single witness will tell the truth ; then the probability will be as four to one that the testimony of two such witnesses, when they eon- cur, is true ; — and so on the probability of truth will be doubled by each additional witness. But when the witnesses are honest, conscientious men, you will readily admit that the probable truth of their testimony is far greater. When such a man is not very powerfully tempted to swerve from the truth, you will allow that 1000 to 1 is a very low estimate of the probable truth of his tes- 84 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTL'US'ITY. timony. Then let two such witnesses concur, and the probability is a thousand thousands, or a million to one, that their testimony is true ; and every additional witness of this character will multi- ply the probability a thousand-fold. Now suppose that twelve such witnesses concur ; if you calculate the force of their united testimony, it mounts up to an almost inconceivable quantity, — to a moral certainty of truth so powerful, that no degree of im- probability in the fact attested, can resist its force. Yet the num- ber of witnesses is supposed to be only twelve : what if it were a hundred or a thousand? Observe that we put the probability of truth in one scale of the balance, and the improbability of the fact in the other, as Mr. Hume directs; and then give our judgment in favor of the side which preponderates. We must therefore allow the testimony its full weight independently of the nature of the fact ; taking care not to let the improbability of the fact itself detract anything from the testimony, until we put them into the scales. If any one should be at a loss to understand how the addition of one witness can in this case so multiply the force of the testi- mony, I ask his attention to this observation. When the question is whether a particular event has or has not occurred, if we can believe any one witness, who testifies that it has occurred, then we must consider the fact as established. All that we need, there- fore, to justify our belief of the fact, is to feel morally sure that one witness out of all who testify can be relied upon as true. Then it matters not whether we can rely upon the rest, or not ; for if any one tells the truth, then it follows that all who concur with him, also tell the truth in that case, though the};^ should falsify ia other cases. In this case, if one be true, all must be true ; and it is only on the supposition that all concur at once in the same falsehood, that their testimony can be discredited. From this observation, it may be easily understood, when wit- nesses are probably honest, how an addition to their number not only increases but multiplies the force of their testimony, because it multiplies the chances that some one among them can be relied on as a true witness, or what is the same thing, multi- plies the improbability that they should all concur in the same falsehood. I have now shown satisfactorily, I trust, that human testimony is susceptible of two sorts of force, each of which may be aug- MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 merited to any extent necessary to overcome the improbability of any conceivable event. Wiiat shall we say, then, of the force of testimony, when it combines these elements of strength ; — when the force of unde- signed coincidence in the testimony is multiplied by the force of honesty and good faith in the witnesses ? Yet these elements of strength may be, and often are, combined. How miserably dis- eased with skepticism must a man's intellect be, who can affirm, as Hume did, that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle ! But I need not urge the force of testimony any further ; for this same skeptical philosopher, after elaborating an argument by which the force of all possible testimony for miracles was to be paralyzed, does in the same Essay give up the point, by admitting that the most stupendous miracle might be proved by the testi- mony of men ; — no less a miracle than this, namely, that at a certain time, ages ago, the sun was totally darkened for the space of eight days. If testimony might, as Hume says, have force enough to prove such an awful derangement in the course of nature, how much less would be sufficient to prove that a teacher sent from God had miraculously healed some diseased persons, and had himself risen from the dead ? But whilst he thus concedes that testimony is of force to prove an unheard-of miracle, void of all moral use and signification, he resolves that religion shall not benefit by his concession, for he expressly excepts religious miracles as wholly incredible, because mankind have been often imposed on by stories of such miracles. He summarily disposes of religious miracles forever, by declaring that they ought to be universally rejected without examination. But if the frequency of imposture in relation to a class of facts be a sufficient reason for scouting the whole as incredible, then Ave ought to reject all reports of cures by medicine, because mankind are daily imposed on by the worthless nostrums of advertising quacks. And this, at last, is the result of Hume's Essay on Miracles, which has given so much trouble to writers on the Evidences of Christianity. After packing together a mixture of sound prin- ciples and miserable sophisms into the form of an infallible argu- ment against miracles, the author himself virtually abandons his argument, and falls back upon the last refuge of a despairing skeptic, — a resolution not to believe in Christianity, whatever may be its evidence, and to scout all religious miracles without exami- 86 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. nation. This resolution shows that he found it very hard to dis- believe the tniracles of Jesus Christ. II. I come now to the second head of the general subject, which is to consider the nature and the evidence of the mighty works ascribed to our Saviour Jesus Christ. I confine myself to these among all that are recorded in the Bible, in order, by simplifying the discussion, to reduce it to the narrow limits of a lecture ; nor is it necessary to go beyond them ; for these are obviously the test miracles, by which the Christian religion must, so far as its Divine authority is concerned, either stand or fall. First, then, let us examine the nature of these mighty works, and determine whether any of them were really miraculous or not. I say, miy of them, because even one undoubted miracle is sufficient to prove the Divine interposition, and to establish the doctrines of the great teacher. The certainty, also, that one or a few were real miracles, will also determine the nature of those which, if considered by themselves, might be in some degree ques- tionable. In determining the nature of the mighty works ascribed to Jesus Christ, we must take the facts as they are related in the evangelical records ; for we are not considering whether those facts actually occurred, but whether, supposing them to have occur- red, they were really miraculous or not. In respect to some of them, it is easy to determine that they could not have resulted from natural causes : they must, there- fore, have been miraculous. Of this sort was Christ's walking upon the sea (Matt. xiv. 25) ; his feeding thousands with a few small loaves and fishes (Matt. xiv. 15.) ; his giving sight to a man born blind by the application of clay moistened with spittle (John ix.) ; his raising Lazarus from the tomb (John xi.), and his own resurrection from the dead and visible ascent to heaven. Next to these is a sort of cases, which, if taken singly, are not demonstrably supernatural, but when taken collectively and in ' connection with the circumstances, must also be considered as un- questionably miraculous. Of this sort are the numerous cases in which Christ instantaneously healed men of diseases, which were almost, if not quite incurable by natural means, — such as inveter- ate leprosies, palsies, epilepsies, lunacy, &c. (Matt. viii. Luke v. Mark v. John v.) Admitting that in some rare instances, persons deeply affected with such diseases, might naturally recover, I think that you will esteem it impossible for any man without MIEACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 8< miraculous power to effect instantaneously many cuies of this sort in succession, and without a failure, as often as the ptttients pre- sented themselves. What I have to say on a third sort of cases will apply with additional force to these also, and remove any doubt that may linger in your minds. In the third sort of cases, the events were such as might pro- ceed from natural causes, and the only evidence of their miracu- lous character, consisted in the circumstances and manner of their production. Such was the sudden fall of the wind on Lake Tibe- rias, when Jesus commanded it to cease (Matt. viii. 18). The recovery of patients from ordinary diseases without the application of remedies, as in the case of Simon Peter's mother-in-law, who was ill of a fever (Luke iv. 38). Into this class I also put the cases of Jairus's daughter and the widow's son, who were resusci- tated after apparent death (Luke viii. 41, Luke vii. 11, 12). For although cases of revival after apparent death are rare, yet as they do sometimes occur from natural causes, the mere occurrence of the fact is no evidence of a miracle. But whilst events of this sort are not necessarily miraculous, neither are they necessarily the result of natural causes. The most common sort of event is miraculous, when it happens out of the regular course of nature, — when the cause on which it naturally depends is wanting, and its occurrence can be accounted for only on the supposition of a supernatural cause. A gust of wind may suddenly blow over, — a sick man may regain his health, and a blind man may recover his sight ; and a man after lying breathless for hours may return to life ; and though the cause may be unknown, yet the circumstances of the case may give no indication of a miracle. Before a miracle can be inferred, there must be a sign of supernatural agency. What was the sign in these cases ? It was the wonderful coincidence between certain acts of Jesus and the events which immediately followed. According to the law of nature, the acts of Jesus could not have produced such effects ; yet the events sprang forth instantaneously, as the effect springs from the cause, and quite as certainly and regularly as if all had occur- red in the ordinary course of nature. A storm agitates the waters and threatens to overwhelm the frail boat in which Jesus lies asleep. He is wakened with the fearful cry. Lord save, or we perish ! He rises, and commands the winds to be stHl. Instantly there is a great calm. A woman lies ill of a great fever. Jesus happens to arrive at the house, and seeing her condition, he takes 88 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDEKCE OF CHRISTIANITY. her by the hand and rebukes the disease : the fever flies at his command, the woman rises and attends to her household duties as usual. A bhnd man happens to meet with Jesus and begs for the rfestoration of his sight. Jesus touches his eyes, immediately the film that had for years drawn its dark curtain over them is dispel- led, and the world again flashes upon his sight. At another time Jesus happens to meet a funeral procession, attended with extraor- dinary lamentation and woe ; he learns that a heart-broken widow is following the dead body of her only son to the tomb. He orders the bier to be stopped ; he uncovers the corpse, and commands the dead to rise. Immediately the current of life resumes its flow, the pale cheek reddens, the lungs breathe, the eyes open, the limbs move, the soul resumes its tabernacle of clay, and the poor widow embraces her recovered son. Such a coincidence between the word of a man, and the forth- coming of an event, — between the command of a mortal and the obedience of nature, — if it happened once would be deemed ex- traordinary ; if twice in succession, wonderful ; if ten times or a hundred times without a failure, certainly miraculous. And justly would it so appear ; for although such a coincidence might once or possibly twice occur by chance ; yet that it should continue to happen regularly a dozen and even hundreds of times, is a sure indication of supernatural power. If further proof were required that such coincidences could not be accidental, it could easily be afforded by reducing the argu- ment to a mathematical form, as I did when discussing the force of testimony. Take for instance the case in which the wind ceased at the command of Jesus. A violent gust of wind in full blast might chance to fall on a sudden when a man uttered a command that it should ; but you will admit this to be so improba- ble, that it could not be expected to happen oftener than one time in a hundred. So a high fever, as it does, though very rarely, happen to cease all at once without apparent cause, might possi- bly happen once in a thousand times to do so at the moment when a certain man called at the house and rebuked the disease. If we assume these numbers as correctly expressing the improbability of the two coincidences taken singly, then it would follow that the two could happen in succession only once in a hundred thou- sand times that the trial should be made. If we suppose again that a person who has been for hours apparently dead, would chance to revive at the moment when a certain man met the fu- MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 neral procession and commanded the dead to rise, as often as once in ten thousand times ; then compounding this case with the other two, the three would not successively occur by chance oftener than once in ten thousand times one hundred thousand times ; that is once in a thousand millions of times. Such then is the degree of improbability that lies against the supposition of acci- dental coincidence in only three out of hundreds of similar cases recorded or alluded to in the Gospels. How then can any man imagine that all these cases should be the result of accidental co- incidence between the acts of our Saviour and the apparently miraculous effects that immediately followed? Had Jesus failed in many instances or even in a few, when he attempted to produce such wonderful effects, the argument would lose much of its force, but as not a single failure appeal^ to have occurred, we must reject the hypothesis of accidental coincidence as utterly absurd. But there is another, which may be reasonably applied to many reported cases of miraculous healing, and which deserves there- fore to be respectfully considered in the present argument. The hypothesis is that the faiih and imagination of the pa- tient, often have a wonderful effect upon the disease, and some- times produce a cure when ordinary remedies fail. This is true, and what seems to give the hypothesis more appli- cability to the miraculous cures related in the Gospels, is that Jesus often required faith in his power to heal, as a condition on which he would undertake the cure (Matt. viii. 10; ix. 22. Mark X. 52). But however plausible this hypothesis may at first sight appear, a little examination will prove that it cannot throw even a doubt upon the miraculous nature of our Saviour's mighty works. It may sufficiently account for some extraordinary cures per- formed among superstitious people, by faith in the relics of a dead saint, or in the prayers of some austere fanatic, believed to have miraculous power; — but in reference to the miracles of Christ, it is either inapplicable, or where applicable yet inadequate to solve the phenomena. In many of Christ's miracles, faith and imagination could have no effect, as when Christ himself "walked the waves," — when he multiplied the loaves and fishes in the wilderness, — when he raised the unconscious dead, and when he was himself raised from the dead. And in many cases in which the subject of the miracle 90 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. could exercise faith, tlie effect was too great and too sudden to be ascribed to this cause. How could faith suddenly dispel the cat- aract from a blind man's eyes, or instantaneously infuse perfect health and vigor into the half-dead members of a bed-ridden paralytic ? Respecting the healing power of faith and imagination, it should be observed that it operates by producing strong emotions, by which the vital energy is increased and salutary effects are often, but not always produced. As most medicines are liable to failure, so it is with faith as a curative agent. In some cases it effects a complete cure either speedily or slowly ; in others it produces only partial and temporary relief; and in others again it wholly fails to benefit the patient. Some diseases too are beyond the reach of its influence. Now the fact, according to the gospel narrative, that in every case and in every sort of ailment, the cure was immediate and perfect, demonstrates that the cures ascribed to Jesus Christ could not have been effected by any degree of faith or any workings of the imagination in those who were healed : and the additional fact that in not a few cases, no faith or fancy could operate at all, is conclusive evidence, that if the gospel narrative be true, Christ did possess miraculous power, and to this power alone should we ascribe all his mighty works. But if so, why did he in some instances require faith in those upon whom he exercised his healing power ? This may, I think, be reasonably accounted for without supposing that he depended in any case on the patient's faith for his ability to effect a cure. Many of his vi^orks were intended, not merly to prove his Divine mission, but to teach moral lessons of the highest importance. There is an obvious analogy between the nature of his miracles and the object of his mission. His miracles were works of salva- tion ; his mission was to save sinners. His w^orks of Divine power were illustrations of Divine mercy. He manifested his power to redeem men from their iniquities by redeeming them from the evils of mortality. But whilst he could save their lives and restore their health by a physical operation on their bodies, he could save their souls only by a moral operation upon their spiritual nature through the medium of faith. To inculcate the necessity of faith in him as the Saviour of the soul, he also required that applicants for his healing power should profess their confidence in his ability to save them from disease and death. MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 This was conformable to his usual mode of teaching. He made all the incidents of his ministry and all the occurrences of life the means of conveying moral instruction. He required faith of those who came to him for health and life, because he also required faith of those who should come to him for salvation from spiritual disease and death. No more needs be said to prove that the mighty works ascribed to Jesus Christ were real miracles. If these works or any of them were truly reported by the evangelists, then they afford evident signs of the Divine mission of our Saviour, and of the Divine authority of his gospel. But before we can reasonably believe the gospel on this evidence, we must have satisfactory proof of the authenticity and substan- tial truth of the evangelical records in which these miracles are related. I say, their substantial truth ; for if we have reason to believe that Christ wrought any such miracles as are recorded in the Gospels, we shall have sufficient ground of belief in his Divine mission, although the Gospels should appear to contain the usual portion of error to which historical records are subject. I come now in the last place to investigate the proof on which our belief in the miraculous power and Divine mission of Jesus Christ is founded. The question is. Have ice sufficient evidence of the substantial truth of the evangelical records to overcome the intrinsic improbability of the miraculous events which they relate 7 The amount of evidence required will depend on the degree of improbability to be overcome. According to the theoretical prin- ciples laid down in the former part of this discourse, a miracle is necessarily an improbable event, and requires for its establishment a greater amount of proof than a common event, and so much the greater as the nature and circumstances of the miracle render it more itnprobable. But we must observe that in this case the amount of proof needs not to be augmented in proportion to the number and variety of miracles ascribed to Jesus Christ ; for you will readily admit that if he had power to work miracles at all, he could as easily work many as few, and great miracles as small ; because when the Divine power interposes to produce supernatural events, we readily understand that some great occasion has arisen, and that God will probably multiply and vary his signs, so as to make them evident to the senses and understanding of all observers. Also by exhibiting them at divers times and places, and in a vari- 92 MIRACLES, AS AN" EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. ety of forms, they would be more susceptible of proof and better fulfil the great design for which they were exhibited. Hence, the improbability of Christ's miracles is rather diminished than in- creased by the number and variety of those ascribed to him. Further to estimate the degree of their improbability, we ought to consider the professed object for which the Deity was said to have interposed, the character of the person through whom he was said to have wrought miracles, the doctrines which that person professed to confirm by signs from God, the sort of mirac- ulous signs which he is supposed to have exhibited, and any other circumstances by which a reasonable man could judge what degree of improbabihty should be assigned to the facts for which testi- mony is adduced. What then is the object for which God is supposed to have en- dowed Jesus Christ with miraculous power? No less an object than this, to introduce a new and holy religion for mankind through the agency of his own Son, who was to confirm it and render it efficacious by the sacrifice of himself; and by which mankind might be saved from the errors of idolatry, the preva- lence of sin, and the ignorance under which they labored respect- ing their future destiny. Surely, if ever the Father of mankind should exhibit in this world the miraculous tokens of a revelation from himself, it would be for an object like this, — to bring life and immortality to light, —to disperse the dark clouds of superstition, and open to his erring and sinful creatures the pathway to peace on earth and glory in heaven. And what sort of person was he, through whom, as the Gospels tell us, these miraculous signs were given, and this revelation of light and mercy was sent? Do they so represent his character and actions, as to make it credible that he should be honored with this Divine mission and endowed with miraculous power ? According to the programme of this course of lectures, another has assigned to him the delightful task of portraying the character of Jesus of Nazareth. Suffice it to say here that by the acknowl- edgment even of infidels, if ever a human being was worthy to represent the moral majesty and goodness of our Father in heaven, the Jesus of the gospel is that man ; who without the vain pomp, and glory of the world, or any circumstance which could dazzle to blind, presents a character so morally pure, so humanly amia- ble, and yet so divinely great, that neither the examples of his- tory, nor the ideal portraitures of genius, have ever exhibited his MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 parallel. With a soul as gentle as the dews that fell upon Mount Hermon, all melting with pity for the sorrows of humanity, all forgetful of self, and regardless of worldly applause and pomp and power, he possessed a fortitude which nothing could break, — a patience which nothing could exhaust, — a zeal for the cause of God, which glowed like a star of heaven, a philanthropy which could sacrifice both honor and life for the welfare of man, — and withal a heaven-taught wisdom which confounded the subtlety of lawyers and scribes, separated the good from the bad in religion and morals, and produced a system of doctrines, worthy to have emanated from God whose glory they display, and worthy to be accepted by man, who, if he would hope for heaven's bliss, must find it through the religion of Jesus Christ, or despair of it forever : for if such a teacher as Christ, and such principles of piety and moraUty as he taught cannot guide us aright, — then where — oh where in all the earth shall we look for a heaven-taught "Guide to everlasting life through all this gloomy vale ?" What shall we say then? Does the character of Jesus Christ — does the religion which he taught — reflect discredit upon the miraculous power ascribed to him? Is there anything in the miracles of mercy recorded in the evangelical histories — any in- congruity, any want of dignity, any sign of imposture, or any circumstance whatsoever, that should make them either intrinsi- cally or circumstantially more improbable than miracles must of necessity be ? May I not, on the contrary, affirm, that of all the reported miracles in the annals of the world, those ascribed to Jesus Christ are in their nature and their circumstances the least improbable, and therefore require the least amount of proof to render them credible ? But do not mistake my meaning. I do not offer the character of Christ and of his doctrines as affording any proof whatsoever of his miraculous power or of the truth of Christianity. My present object is not to prove his miracles, but to estimate in a general way the degree of improbability attached to them, and consequently the amount of proof requisite to overcome that im- probability and to justify our belief of his Divine mission. In the first part of my lecture, in which I discussed the theory of the subject, I showed that all reported and all conceivable miracles are not equally improbable. The degree of their improbabihty t'aries according to the nature, the circumstances and the occa- on. I leave it now to your candid judgment to determine 94 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. whether the miracles ascribed to Jesus Christ be more or less im- probable than the generality of those which have been reported in ancient and in modern times. I come now to consider the evidence by which the miracles of Christ are supported. Not having witnessed them ourselves, we must rely upon the testimony of others who professed to have been eye-witnesses. But as Jesus Christ lived upwards of 1800 years ago, we have to rely upon written documents for all the facts. All the evidence is to us historical. The great distance at which we are separated from the original witnesses of " what Jesus did and taught," may seem to weaken the evidence so much as to make it inadequate to prove a miracle. But notwithstanding the wide interval of time, we are in fact within a step or two of the original testimony. A single step takes us back about 1800 years to the publication of the New Testament records, especially to the four evangelical histories of Jesus Christ, purporting to have been written partly by eye-witnesses of his acts, and partly by contemporaries who professed to derive their information from original witnesses. The first step is to ascertain the authenticity of these records. This being done, we have reached the testimony of the original witnesses : then the only remaining question will be. Has their testimony sufficient force to overcome the improbability of the miraculous facts which they profess to have witnessed 1 Respecting the authenticity of the evangelical records, I must pass it over with a brief remark or two, because I have not time to discuss it, and because that will be done by another lecturer from whom you doubtless will hear a satisfactory argument on the subject. I will only remark, that, according to all accounts in every age, from the first century downwards to this day, the fouf gospels and most of the other books of the New Testament were considered on all hands as being genuine documents of apostolica. times, and as containing true accounts of what the apostles and other primitive Christians j'e/jor/ec? concerning the acts and doc- trines of Jesus Christ. I shall take it for granted, therefore, not only that the twelve Apostles who first preached the gospel, professed to be eye-witness- es of what Jesus did and taught, but also that we have in the New Testament a substantially correct account of what they and other primitive Christians testified respecting Jesus Christ. But before we consider the credibility of these original wit- MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 nesses, we must remove an objection which infidels have fre- quently urged against the evangelical records of their testimony. No one pretends to dispute the sufficiency of these records to es- tablish a number of leading facts. Few even of the French infi- dels have denied that such a man as Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught and was crucified ; and that twelve men called his apostles professed to have witnessed his mighty works and his resurrection from the dead ; and that on the strength of their tes- timony they did with much labor and suffering make many con- verts and found many churches in different countries, and that the four Gospels are authentic records of what was reported among Christians in apostoUcal times respecting the life and miracles of Jesus. So far there is no dispute worth noticing between believers and unbelievers in the Divine mission of Christ. But the unbelievers object to the four evangelists, that they disagree in their state- ments, and as two of them were apostles, and the other two were companions of apostles, the inference is that the twelve apostles disagreed in their testimony, and are therefore unworthy of credit. The truth of the matter is this : when we compare the foui evangelists we find a general and substantial agreement in all their narratives ; but they differ in several respects. 1. Some relate facts which others wholly omit : this argues no disagreement, since none of them profess to relate all the facts relative to their subject. 2. They differ somewhat in the order of the facts related : but neither does this argue anything to their discredit, since they do not profess to give those facts in the order in which they oc- curred. 3. In their account of the same facts, not only does one relate circumstances which another omits — as the most veracious wit- nesses and narrators are apt to do — but in a few instances they relate the same circumstances differently. Thus for example, in their accounts of the Saviour's resurrection, whilst they agree fully in regard to every material fact, they relate several of the circumstances differently. Take one of them as an illustration of the whole. Whilst they all agree that Jesus rose from the tomb early in the morning, and that Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb and discovered that he was not there, yet they differ as to the precise time of her coming. Matthew says that she 96 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. came when the day began to dawn ; — Mark says that she arrived there at sunrise ; — Luke says less definitely that it was " very early in the morning ;" — and John says that it " was yet dark." Such are the variations of the evangelists in regard to this cir- cumstance : and what is the amount of discrepance among them? I answer, Little or nothing ; for if you suppose that John by its being yet dark meant a dusky twilight, and that Mark by "sunrise" meant a clear twilight, such as occurs when the sun's rays first touch the high mountains, and then alk)w for the time that Mary Magdalene was on the way, perhaps a mile in length, and surely there is nothing here over which a man should blow the trumpet of infidelity. And as to the other circumstance, that John mentions Mary Magdalene alone on this occasion, and that the others mention another Mary as having gone with her, it is merely an instance of omission by one evangelist of what another mentions. Mary Magdalene was the one to whom alone Jesus showed himself on that occasion : therefore John names her alone in his account of the matter. Tliese variations in the evangelical histories, instead of invali- dating, serve rather to confirm the substantial t.ruth of their nar- ratives ; for they show that the authors did not copy from one another, but wrote independently and drew their information from independent sources. Who does not know^ that the most truthful witnesses, when they testify what they have observed respecting the same event, always differ in the same manner in their state- ments. An exact agreement in every particular would raise a strong presumption that they borrowed of one another, instead of giving independent testimony. There is no reason, therefore, to doubt that we have in the four evangelists a substantially true report of what the twelv'e apostles testified respecting the life and miracles of Jesus Christ. The sim- ple, unaffected, truthful manner in which they tell the wonderful story, adds no little to their credibility. And finally, as no other or contradictory account of what the apostles preached has ever been heard of among ancient records or traditions, I feel authorized to assume that we have the recorded testimony of the apostles in the New Testament. I may also assume that we have there a sub- stantially true history, so far as it goes, of what the apostles did and suffered as witnesses for Christ, as well as what they testified respecting his doctrine and miracles. MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OP CHRISTIANITY. 97 Let us now consider what credit is due to their testiinoii)'^ as competent, as honest, and as independent witnesses. First, then, were the}- competent to give us a correct account of such miraculous events as we find recorded in the Gospels? Were they sufficiently intelligent, accurate, and cautious observers to raise them above the suspicion of having been deluded, either by the arts of another, or by their own stupid credulity ? The}^ were, it is true, but simple and unlearned men, they had nothing of the philosopher or the skeptic about tliern, but the} were, nevertheless, as their own candid writings, and the writings of others about them, plainly show, men of good, sober, common sense ; on some points rather hard to convince, especially in re- gard to the great miracle on which the truth of Christianity mainly depends, that is, the resurrection of their crucified master. There is nothing that indicates a want of competency on their part to observe and report with accuracy such facts as are record- ed in the Gospels. Be it observed, that we do not depend on their testimony for anything but simple facts, open to the senses, and requiring nothing but the sober senses and common memory of mankind to observe and to report. Give us these and we can judge for our- selves, whether there was any fraud in the exhibition, or any mir- acle in the facts exhibited. Let us take for illustration, the case of the paralytic, of whicii we have an account in the 2d chapter of Mark. What were the facts and circumstances that presented themselves to the witness- es? Simply these: when Jesus is preaching to a crowded house in Capernaum, four men come to the place, bearing a helpless paralytic on a bed. Unable to press in through the dense crawd^ they have to mount the low roof of the house and to let tlieir patient down before the feet of Jesus, and consequently also in full view of many who were present. " When Jesus saw their faith. he said to the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."' Some scribes were sitting there, who inwardly charged him with blasphemy, in assuming the Divine prerogative of forgiving sins. Jesus then put the question to them, " Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy. Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say. Arise, take up thy bed and walk." Then he commanded the patient to rise, take up his bed and go home, and (says Mark) immediately he arose, took up his bed, and went forth before them 7 98 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. all ; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, say- ing, We never saw it in this fashion. Such were the facts of the case, according to the testimony of tlie witnesses. Could not a fisherman observe and relate those facts as truly and as accurately as a philosopher ? We care not how the witnesses reasoned about them. Let us know all the material facts — all that they saw and iieard, and we can do the reasoning for ourselves ; and thus it is, that like a lawyer before a court, I argue that the witnesses in this case could not have been deluded in respect to what they saw and heard ; for the facts were as plain and evident to the senses as any in the world, and were exhibited in open day before a throng of spectators almost touching the paralytic, and some of them scribes, disposed to watch and find fault with every act of Jesus. Nor can we pre- sume that they were imposed on by a pretended paralytic. He was no doubt a man of the same town, known to some of those present. His looks and actions would also have betrayed him, had he attempted a deception. Had Jesus undertaken to delude people with a false paralytic and a false cure, he would not have chosen to try the experiment in open day before such a crowd of witnesses, and in a town where, according to the evangelists, he had many enemies. Whether the cure was miraculous or not, every one may judge for himself All that we want from the witnesses are the facts as they occurred. The apostles were surely competent to give them. Therefore no objection can lie against the witnesses on the score of competency. The next question is in respect to their honesty or disposition to tell the truth. This is the main point. If we can rely upon the conscientious veracity of the apostles, their testimony respect- ing plain, simple matters of fact, like those just mentioned respect- ing the cure of the paralytic, must have great weight. We must judge of the honesty of the apostles, as we judge of all ancient men, — that is, by their actions as recorded in history, by their writings and speeches, by the opinions of those who knew them, and by circumstances from which something may be inferred concerning them. In one way or another, we have, I think, all the evidence necessary to enable us to form a well-grounded judgment of the apostles. And first, I may assert, negatively, that there is no evidence of any sort that tends to convict the apostles of dishonesty, worldly MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 99 ambition, hypocrisy, deceit, covetousness, or any base or selfish design in their labors as missionaries of Jesus Christ. All the evi- dence that we have, goes to establish their sincerity and disinter- estedness. Their own writings, and all that others wrote of them in their own time and country, bear them witness that they fully believed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world, and that they believed it on the evidence of his miracles wrought in their presence, and especially on Ihe evidence of his resurrection from the dead. Let us consider for a moment this miraciihini crucis, this deci- sive miracle of the resurrection, as affording the most natural solution of the conduct of the apostles, and the best criterion of their moral character. Ask yourselves the question. Did the apostles believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again, or did they not? Then reason on each supposition, — that they did, and that they did not believe so, — and see which of the two will enable you to account most rationally for their conduct. Suppose, first, that they did believe what they published to Jews and Gentiles at the expense of so much labor and suffering, and at the frequent hazard of their lives ; then if they were sincere good men, seeking the glory of God and the salvation of mankind, how natural was their conduct, how probable was all that others wrote of them ! How consistent with nature and with truth are the style and matter of their own writings ! How easily understood the origin and the institutions of the church ? But again, suppose that they did not believe their own story of the death and resurrection of Christ, then, how can you solve the problems that instantly present themselves ? The voluntary labors and privations of the apostles ; their unshaken constancy, their indomitable fortitude, the unwavering consistency of their testimony ; and amidst occasional differences about personal mat- ters, their enduring co-operation to the last in fulfilling their high commission, and establishing the great truth, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and rose again. If they believed not their own statements, then they were wilful liars, and unprincipled impos- tors : in that case they must have acted from a selfish motive ; they must have promised themselves some personal advantage. But what motive? What advantage? How can you account for their conduct? Yet their conduct must have been such as the New Testament represents it ; or how can you account for 100 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. the existence of the church, and the doctrines and institutions that have come down to us from the age of the apostles ? And do you not feel the force of St. Paul's reasoning in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians ; which is directly to the point of our argument? "I delivered unto you first of all that Christ died for our sins, — that he was buried, — that he rose again, — that he was seen of Cephas (Peter), then of the twelve apostles, and after that of above 500.brethi'fen at once; after that he was seen of James, and then again of all the apostles." So Paul reasons about the fact of the resurrection. Then he reasons about the motives of those who preached this fact, " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain : yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ." He adds another consideration. " If in this life only we (apostles) have hope in Christ, w^e are of all men most miserable." And so they were among the most miser- able of mankind ; they sacrificed the present life to propagate a lie, without a hope of the life to come. . So they felt, and so they reasoned ; and who can deny either the force of their reasoning, or the sincerity of their belief, tliat Christ had risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept 1 And with such evidence as these twelve men alleged for the death and resurrection of Christ, — the evidence of their senses fortified by the evidence of many others, — who could doubt ? or who could be mistaken ? The same men affirmed that they had witnessed the miracles which Christ wrought during the years of his ministry, and that they were themselves endowed with miracu- lous gifts of the Holy Ghost, as a confirmation of their testimony. If they lied in regard to the one fact of tlie resurrection, so they did in regard to all the rest ; so that if they were not honest wit- nesses, they were thorough-paced liars, full of all hypocrisy and de- ceit, and utterly destitute of moral principle. In such a case there is no medium. They cannot be considered as well-meaning en- thusiasts acting under a delusion ; nor as a compound of the self- deluded enthusiast and the wilful impostor, who, believing his ends to be good, beheves that he may promote them by pious frauds. Such characters have often appeared, but such the apostles could not have been. The whole body of their ends and views was founded on the miraculous facts which they professed to have wit- nessed, and if these were false, all was false and wicked. Ma- homet was a saint compared with these unscrupulous, untiring, MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 101 unblushing, insane, propagators of lies concerning Jesus Christ ; — lies which they invented to impose on mankind for no con- ceivable end of advantage to themselves or to others ; lies which they solemnly affirmed in the name of God to be facts wit- nessed by themselves. How base, how thoroughly depraved must these twelve apostles have been, if they were not honest men ! Yes, the whole twelve, without a single exception, were thoroughly base and unprincipled. No bandits were ever more dishonest. But on the supposition that they were such abominable liars and hypocrites, several circumstances are unaccountable. How shall we account for it, that these lying apostles and hy- pocritical reprobates should have devised and propagated a reli- gion supereminently holy and benevolent? — That such unprin- cipled impostors should have set forth, as the Saviour of the world, a character of such purity and loveliness as that of Jesus Christ? — That in everything except their falsehoods about mir- acles, they should appear, in all they did and all they said and wrote, to have been simple-hearted, good men, haters of every- thing false, deceitful, or any way dishonest? — That they should have pointedly condemned all pious frauds, — that is, the practice of doing evil that good may come, and of promoting the glory of God by falsehood and deception ?* And then if these men were lying impostors, how strange is it that in all that we read of them, especially in their own writings, we should see such numerous and evident tokens of the artless simplicity of their character, and such unmistakable signs of unaffected zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of men, and in their writings, such ardent outpourings of the heart, as could spring only from a deep conviction of the truth of what they in- culcated. I need not quote passages from their writings in proof of this : for you cannot read any part of their epistles and dis- courses, without perceiving the evident signs of an unwavering faith in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, and of an ardent zeal for the salvation of sinners. Finally, if the apostles were a set of lying impostors, who banded together to deceive mankind, how can you account for it that not one of them ever confessed the imposture, and that every one of them, and of their coadjutors, adhered to the false- hood under every temptation and trial, and either suffered mar- * See Romans iii. 5-8. 2 Peter ii. 1-3. Also Ephesians iv. 14-25. 2 Timothy Hi. 10-14. 102 MIEACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. tyrclom, or was ready to suffer it, in attestation of these useless and unprofitable fictions ? I conclude that the apostles could not have been such wicked and unprincipled impostors as they must have been, if they were not honest men and sincere believers in the miracles, the resurrec- tion, and the Divine mission of Jesus Christ. We must therefore embrace the alternative, that they were honest men, and sincerely persuaded of the truth of what they testified concerning Jesus Christ. Therefore, so far as the facts which they stated were of the natural and ordinary sort, you and all rational men would readily believe their testimony. But as some of those facts were miracu- lous and therefore in their nature improbable, you may reasona- bly suspend your belief until you have duly considered whether the testimony has sufficient weight to overcome the improbability of the facts. We have considered the testimony of the apostles only so far as it derives weight from the competency and honesty of the wit- nesses. It remains to consider whether the testimony derives any additional weight from the independency of the witnesses. Although I think that we might safely rest the argument upon what has been already advanced, it is proper to consider also whether or not the testimony of the apostles and evangelists can be regarded as in any measure independent. As the apostles w^ere often together, both during the Saviour's ministry and shortly after his crucifixion, it might seem at first view, that they cannot be considered as independent witnesses. But the mere fact that they had opportunities of communicating with one another about the matter of their testimony, does not pre- clude us from considering them as independent witnesses. The independence of witnesses does not arise from their having no com- munication with one another about the matter in question, but on the fact that each witness speaks from his own knowledge, and not from the suggestion or information of another. The circum- stance that the witnesses have had no communication with one another, is important only as a proof of their independence. But other circumstances may afford sufficient proof of independence. When we perceive that each witness tells the story in his own way, agreeing substantially, but not in all points circumstantially, with the rest, this is a strong argument of independence ; especially when the manner and matter of each one's testimony bear that impress of personal knowledge in the witness, which is more easily MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 felt than described, when we hear the testuiiony. It consists partly in a certain promptitude and sincerity of manner, and partly in the incidental mention of minute circumstances. There is nothing in the histoiy or in the testimony of the apos- tles inconsistent with the supposition that they were independent witnesses. We have not on record the distinct testimony of every one: we must judge, therefore, from the specimens that we have. We have the testimonies of Matthew and John in the gospels which they wrote. They bear infallible evidence that these two apostles did not borrow from one another, nor from any common source. Mark and Luke were not apostles ; but as their accounts were evidently not borrowed from Matthew or John, but derived from independent sources, we may justly consider them as being at second hand the testimony of other apostles and original wit- nesses. We have also in the Acts and apostolical Epistles fre- quent allusions to the actions, sufferings and resurrection of Christ, taken not from the four Gospels, but either from the personal knowledge of the writers, or from the mouths of original witnesses, and therefore favoring the hypothesis of independent testimony. On the whole, we may from all these facts conclude that the apostles and other original witnesses testified independently. I do not affirm that the independence of their testimony is perfect, and carries with it as much weight as under other circumstances it might have done. But your candor will lead you to admit, that whilst the occasional differences in small matters show the inde- pendence of the witnesses, the general coincidence in their testi- mony affords no small evidence of its truth, independent of the personal character of the witnesses. Let us now endeavor to sum up the amount of the evidence, and to form some notion of its force. I shall not presume to measure it with mathematical precision, though as heretofore I may use numbers to aid our conceptions, without pretending that they give an exact expression of the quantities which they represent. We have then, on reliable authority, the testimony of twelve competent and honest witnesses of our Saviour's miracles, and particularly of his resurrection from the dead. Though, for want of documents, we cannot distinctly exhibit what every one of these witnesses testified, yet we have satisfactory evidence that they all concurred in the material facts and circumstances of their testimony, that we have in the four Gospels the sum and substance of what they all avowed respecting Jesus of Nazareth. 104 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, If any of you still think that something more should he adduced before we can rely on having the testimony of twelve good wit- nesses to the gospel history, then I refer you to the great quan- tity of auxiliary evidence which the New Testament records pre- sent ; for we can doubtless rely on these records for facts so ordi- nary in kind and so probable in themselves, as the fact that others, not few in number, besides the apostles, professed to have wit- nessed some at least of Christ's miracles. You will bear in mind that the apostles began their preaching and testimony only a few weeks after the crucifixion of Christ ; that they began at Jerusa- lem, where he was crucified, to proclaim his resurrection before the multitudes of Jews collected from all parts of the land at the great festival of Pentecost ; — that they exercised their ministry for several years in various parts of the Holy Land, where Jesus himself had travelled and exhibited the evidence of his claims as a missionary from God ; and that not only had multitudes gathered around him, many believed in his mission, and many others, especially scribes and Pharisees, watched and opposed him, ascribing his mighty works to the devil — but the apostles, after his crucifixion, going over the same ground, and testifying before the same generation the fact of his resurrection, converted thousands, and established numefous churches on the faith of his miracles when alive, and of his resurrection after death. Now if there be any truth in these statements, which cannot be reasonably denied, then the apostles were far from being the only witnesses who testified to the same facts. If the apostles told the truth, many others must have corroborated their testimony; if they published falsehoods, many others must have been able to contradict them : for they not only gave the facts of their story specifically and circvunstantially, but they gave the times and places, and thus exposed them to decisive investigation, and vir- tually referred them to other witnesses for confirmation or denial. It is true that Jesus did not after his resurrection show himself openly to all the people. This would have been useless, for he could not have been infallibly recognized, except by his intimate acquaintances, and by them only after an inspection so close and minute as would necessarily confine it to a few individuals. Rec- ollect the instances recorded in history, of impostors successfully passing themselves off for dead princes, and how often you have yourselves, upon a shght or distant view, mistaken one man for another. MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 105 Recollect, also, that it was not easy for the apostles to be fully satisfied of Christ's identity after his resurrection. The fact was so extraordinary, so difficult of belief, that it was not until they had irresistible evidence of its reality, that all their doubts were removed. He had to appear to thera at divers times and in divers manners ; to eat with them, converse with them, and submit his body to a tactual examination, before all of them were satisfied. Yet these men had been with him in close companionship for years. How then could a public exhibition of himself have de- cided the question of his resurrection, even if he had submitted himself before his enemies to a desfradin^ course of examinations, which would after all have afforded th.em an occasion for pretend- ing- that it was all a piece of imposture? Not only was it more consistent with his dignity, but a more conclusive mode of proof, to verify his resurrection by first giving his chosen witnesses in- fallible evidence of his identity, and then confirming their testi- mony by " signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost." Now, to say nothing of the five hundred brethren to whom, as St. Paul informs us, he appeared once after his resurrection, we may affirm that all who witnessed the apostolical miracles, could afterwards by means of this testimony of God, confirm the testi- mony of the apostles by their own. When St. Paul, writing to the Galatians, appealed to the miracles which he had wrought among them, would not the testimony of these witnesses of his miracles afterwards corroborate St. Paul's own testimony respect- ing the truth of Christianity? Thus supposing that the apostles testified what the New Tes- tament records uniformly declare that they did testify, and sup- posing that they professed to confirm their testimony by miracles, as the same records declare, — then if these records are not wholly spurious and false, which no one can reasonably suspect, it fol- lows that the apostles did not stand alone in their testimony. They could not have stood before unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, in the same places and in the same years in which all those alleged miracles, Christ's and their own, were exhibited, if ex- hibited at all, and have appealed successfully to those miracles, unless others besides themselves could be appealed to in corrob- oration of their statements. I conclude, therefore, that we have for the miracles of Christ what is more than equivalent to the estlmony of twelve honest 106 MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. men, speaking independently from personal knowledge, that these men had no motive of interest or of passion to swerve from the truth, that their conduct and writings afford the strongest evidence of honesty and sincerity. I have before shown that they w^ere fully competent to observe and report such plain facts as they relate concerning Jesus Christ. Considering these things, what degree of credibility would you assigQ to each apostle's testimony, leaving out of view the nature of the facts to which he testifies? How often do you think that a man of such character would, ordinaril}^, tell the truth, before he would solemnly bear false witness? Surely, an upright, con- scientious man would not, in ordinary cases, tell less than ten thousand truths to one lie. But it is enough and far more than enougli, if we can assign a probability of only one thousand to one, for the truth of each apostle's testimony. Then the concur- rence of two apostles would produce a probability of truth amounting to a thousand thousands, or a million to one. A third concurring would again raise it to one thousand millions ; a fourth would swell it to a million millions to one. The twelve would multiply it to an inconceivable magnitude of evidence in favor of Christ's miracles. Subtract from it whatever amount of improbability you can reasonably assign to his miracles, and there must still remain an immense balance of evidence for the miracles of that purest and best of the sons of men, Jesus who died for our sins according to the Scriptures. But this weight of evidence will be greatly augmented if we combine with the character of the apostles as honest men, their character of independent witnesses, whose manner of giving their testimony, so far as we know it from the records, shows that they did not borrow from one another. If we allow that only a few of them were independent, or that we have only a moderate probability in favor of the independence of the twelve as wit- nesses, then their testimony will come with greatly augmented weight against the improbability of the facts. Should the result of my reasonings on the evidence for Christ's miracles surprise any one, because the weight of apostolic testi- mony appears to be astonishingly great ; I refer him to his own experience. Let him consider this. He places full ccmlidence in the testimony of two or three witnesses of common honesty, when they concur, when there is no opposing testimony, when they appear to be independent, and when they sacrifice much in MIRACLES, AS AN EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. ' 107 giving such testimony. The fact to which they testify must be exceedingly improbable to raise even a doubt that the witnesses speak the truth. But suppose that other witnesses are called, and one after another confirm the statements of the former, till twelve have testified, and all the twelve suffer much in conse- quence of their testimony, yet adhere firmly to it all their lives long. Is there any miracle recorded in the Gospels which he would not believe, or you would not all believe on such testimony 1 Surely not. Such testimony has irresistible force upon minds open to conviction. Many in the apostolic age heard the testimony of the apostles without believing it. This is not surprising. They were im- bued from the cradle with other religions and were filled with various sorts of prejudices. Not many heard the testimony of more than one or two apostles, after these witnesses left Jeru- salem on different missions ; and the notion that demons could work miracles enabled unbelievers to evade the force of evidence which we reasonably consider irresistible. Here I close this long argument, too long if the subject had been less important or could have been satisfactorily discussed in less time. I was not willing to make a lame and impotent de- fence of our religion on the most essential part of its evidence as a revelation from God. I have been compelled to omit many things which might be adduced with advantage to the argument. The prophecies of the Old and New Testament being sensible interpositions of God in control of the established course of things, which no natural causes can explain, are as really mi- raculous as any of the wonderful works of our Lord ; and have the additional advantage of being subjected in their proof to our own observation : but as this topic has been assigned to another, I have of course entirely omitted it in the present discussion. If what God has enabled me to say shall tend to strengthen any man's faith in the Divine mission of our Lord Jesus Christ — who loved us and gave himself for us — then to our merciful Father in heaven be the praise. Amen. i mi- ^rnpjinij, BY KEY. ALEXANDER T. M'OILL, D.D. PROFESSOR IN THE WESTERN THEOLOG CAL SEMINARY, ALLEGHANV, I'A. It will not be denied, that sacred prophecy was extant, with its text completely finished, four hundred years ago ; when the Bible was first printed, with movable metallic types, by Gut- temberg of Mentz. The last four hundred years, however, have been the most impenetrable of all eras, to the exercise of human foresight ; teeming with more numerous, involved, and utter con- tingencies, than pervade the whole duration of ages before. The passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope ; the discovery of a western hemisphere ; the great reformation in Europe ; the revo- lutions in England, America, and France ; not to speak of magical changes, by means of science, invention, and art ; — all these have made the history of man a maze of transformation, compared with which the former times were vista, obstructed by this laby- rinth alone. Surely, it can be no human foresight, which could delineate, in the lapse of such a future, lands devoted to the exception of a curse; and say, that this and that particular country, or people, would be palsied by the side of universal progress— not affected materially, nor affected at all, by the extreme vicissitudes and overwhelming emergencies which have come on the whole world besides. Least of all would human sagacity have ventured to aflfirm, that Egypt, Palestine, and Syria would be as they now are ; for until that very time, these countries had been a theatre of perpetual changes, and the most wonderful events that burden the pages of history. Simultaneous with that primitive impres- sion of the Bible, was the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Ottoman Turk: and who, with less than superhuman prescience, could have told, that here the waves of eastern revo- lution would be stayed, that Turkish turbulence itself would not break the stillness of desolation henceforth, that the day of civil redemption for all civilized nations, the day of liberty and com- merce, art and science, would not first dawn, nor dawn at all, on 112 PEOPHECY. the regions of rapid and extreme revolution, througli all previous time. Defer then, if you please, the whole question of date, integrity, and preservation of these oracles ; and the faithful corroboration, with which all history details the facts of their fulfilment, until you subject their minute vaticinations to the inquest of living observers, and the verdict of journalizing infidelit)'^ itself. We have not only the general condition of ruin, yet to be seen, just as the Scriptures foretold it, over lands wiiich have as delicious a climate, and as fertile a bosom, by nature, as any others on the face of the earth — itself conclusive proof that these prophets " spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" and the general exemption from change, during a period of unparalleled changes, everywhere else, in lands, which, down till tire accession of Mo- hammed the 2d, had been a battle-field of every power and every principle that struggled for mastery in human afTairs — which monotony of ruin is also, of itself, a miracle in forecast ; but we have minute accomplishments of the ancient letter, within these last four hundred years — n. touch of Providence, here and there, upon the general picture, which might convince a skepticism, low enough to doubt all evidence anterior to tlie age of printing. "The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth," said Isaiah, in foretelUng the judgments of God upon his country: and what traveller does not verify, to its letter, the truth of this pre- diction, since the Turk established his empire over Palestine? "In the interior of the country," says Volney, " there are neither great roads, nor canals, nor even bridges, over the greatest part of the rivers and torrents, however necessary they may be, in win- ter. Nobody travels alone, for the insecurity of the roads. The roads among the mountains are extremely bad, and the inhabit- ants are so far from levelling them, that they endeavor to make them more rugged, in order, as they say, to cure the Turks of their desire to introduce their cavalry." " Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot," said the prophet Jeremiah, in bewailing the same future desolation. And Volney has detailed the accom- plishment, with a minuteness of description which no other testi- mony has surpassed. After enumerating a long list of pastoral marauders, who infest the whole region of Syria, in which he includes Judea — Curds, and Turkomen, and Bedouin Arabs — he informs us, that the most sedentary inhabitants are compelled to PROPHECY. 113 become wandering bandits, in self-defence, and that, "under a government like that of the Turks, it is safer to lead a wandering life, than to choose a settled habitation." "I will give it into the hands of strangers, for a prey," said Ezekiel, " and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil. The rob- bei^ shall enter into it and defile it." " When the Ottomans took Syria from the Mamelukes," says the infidel tourist, " they con- sidered it as the spoil of a vanquished enemy. The government are far from disapproving of a system of robbery and plunder which it finds so profitable." Even the prophecies of Moses, on the same subject, never had their accomplishment written out, with more striking exactness, than by the pen of this great academician. "The stranger," says Moses, " that cometh from a far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid on it — Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land — what meaneth the heat of this great anger?" "Good God !" exclaims Volney, who did come from a far land, a stranger in every sense to the scene he surveyed — " whence proceed such melancholy revolutions — for what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed— why are so many cities destroy- ed— why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetu- ated?" These are specimens, taken at random, from only four ancient prophets, relating to a single topic, restricted to the latest era of fulfilment, and confirmed by the unwilling testimony of a skeptical philosopher. Evidence, precisely similar, might be multiplied to any extent of modern travel — in regard to Samaria, Judea, Philistia, Tyre, Aramon, Edom, Egypt — every country whose doom is recorded in prophecies of Scripture. Everywhere, minute and incidental, but not less forcible demonstrations of their truth, have been enacted, since the day when cliirography resigned to the press that toil of transcription, which infidelity is fain to cover with suspicion of unfaithfulness. Now, if enlightened observers, like Volney, are so much aston- ished at the singular and constant desolation of those Eastern countries, with the whole operation of second causes fully before them, surely, no intelligence of man could have ventured four, (much less thirty) centuries ago, to draw such a picture : not even with the clear anticipation of despotic Islamism, firmly established, during this period : for, in the light of histor}^, all those regions 114 PROPHECY. wanted to retrieve their melancholy wastes was rest — rest, though burdened with tyranny rapacious as that of Roman procurators, under whom, according to Josephus, Galilee alone contained more than two hundred towns and cities crowded with industrious people. Geographical accuracy itself, in these predictions, might be called a miracle of truth. Where is the author, not to say the score of authors, from Strabo, to Malte Brun, whose description of places and manners referred to in the prophets, though far less particular, is not contradicted, on almost every page, by travellers and v/riters more recent? But all the researches, of believers and unbelievers alike, conducted with the utmost help of science, liter- ature, and leisure, have not hitherto discovered one mistake among the innumerable assertions and allusions, of the many authors, in this holy volume. And yet, instinct with its own ag- gressive life and truth, it will not rest in this freedom from valid contradiction. Where, from the poverty of ancient annals, it had i)€en left a lone witness to facts on which its prophecy was based, in the luxury, magnificence, and crime, of cities and countries, over which it uttered the doom we witness at the present day ; and after it has waited long for the accomplishment of one partic- ular, that men v/ould not even know where that ruined grandeur reposed, it comes, with the spirit of this eager age, to dig its ter- mitms a quo, from the bov/els of the earth, or scale it on the desert rock, and g«ide the hermeneutics of science herself, by the !liints of obsolete prophecy. Another proof, that these predictions are a miracle, even if their •date could not be traced beyond the epoch of a printed Bible, is the condition of the Jewish people. At the middle of the 15th century, what sagacious diviner among men, judging from the tendency of visible events, would not have said, that the Jews would soon become entirely merged in other nations, and cease to i>e knowia as a distinct and singular people? The golden age of their modern learning had just pre-occupied the admiration of Europe', and it was not the learning which had signalized the palmy days of ancient Israel — historical writing, chronicles, and genealogies, that were naturally conducive to their perpetuity as a separate family. They had now become the best of medieval philosophers — the physicians, astronomers, and political econo- mists, of dawning science. Their poetry itself had been divorced from national traditions, and from the imagery of altar and sacri- PROPHECY, 115 fice, tabernacle and temple, as well as the parallelism of its He- brew metre ; and become localized and fresh, as the lays of the Troubadour. The agricultural industry which had been their ancient pride, and which more than any other pursuit of life, would isolate a people, had been relinquished ; not for mysteries of art, reserved to themselves and their children; but for the busi- ness of exchange, open and wide as the commerce of the world. Add to this, the many particular facts, which had just trans- pired then, especially on the greatest theatre of observation, at that time, in the civilized world — Catholic Spain — where amalga- mation itself threatened their extinction as a separate people, and inquisitors complained, that almost every noble family in the realm had become tainted, by intermarriage with the mala san- gre of the house of Judah, and where thirty -five thousand converts from Judaism had been made, by the eloquence and legerdemain of one St. Vincent Ferrier alone. And yet, the lapse of four hun- dred years, intensely working all the while, with influences, and agencies, and accidents, which have never failed in any other case, with less than half their force, to annihilate a nation, has left them still a distinct and singular people. Take but the land of their fathers, from any primitive tribe on this continent, in North, or South, or Central America, and they fade from the earth. No matter what beautiful lands of prairie and forest you give in exchange, and what pains you take, to perpetuate their own barbarous tongue, and what beneficence you exert, to heal their diseases, teach their ignorance, and encourage the arts of husbandry and peace and independent self-government — come to their place, and they perish from the nations. Similar, if not so frail, is the tendency of all distinctive national existence to vanish away at the contact of heterogeneous civilization, or change of language, law, intercourse, or custom. But here is the unparal- leled exception. Bred, in every diversity of language and custom under heaven — steeped in every element of social, civil, and re- ligious change — scattered and peeled, within this period, by more horrid persecutions to the constancy of individual fortitude, than ever befel their fathers, at the hands of Adrian and Heraclius — and then, again, released, indulged, caressed ; made richer in the old world, than Solomon himself " in all his glory," and freer in the new world, than judges of their ancient commonwealth — it is all the same. " A full end," according to one of these prophe- cies, approaches to Spain, and Portugal, 'and every modern na- 116 PROPHECY. tion, distinguished for oppressing them, just as it has been com- pleted on Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, and every ancient " rod" of vengeance in the hand of ahuighty truth — but they survive! Why, the miracle of this anomaly itself, might well bespeak the credibility of oracles, sent down through such a living mystery among us ; but when we know, it was foretold, ages before the contingencies that shape it could have been imagined, how irresist- ible the inference, that God alone foretold it, and must liave given the Bible ; where alone these marvels can be explained ; where, even the portions they reject, inform us, that the mystery of this preservation is the completion of prophecies, yet to be effected by their instrumentality. What is there peculiar, in the past and present condition of the Jews, that was not prophesied, and threatened more than promised, in the prophecies, and therefore most unwillingly fulfilled ? Their dispersion among all nations, and yet everlasting immiscibility ; their blindness and suffering, feebleness and fearfulness ; their ceaseless agitation, compulsion to idolatry, and temptation to hypocrisy ; their obdurate unbelief, deep malignity, avarice of wealth, and exposure in every age to robbery, mockery, and remorseless oppression — all were foretold by their own early prophets, and among these, even the meekly pa- triotic leader of their exodus from bondage, over the infancy of their national existence, while as yet they were a most fickle and fluctuating people, so changeable, as to surprise him with a com- plete revolution of sentiment, during his absence of forty days on the mount, although the thunders of Sinai had been commis- sioned, meanwhile, to keep them in constancy. II. But it is time to advance from our gratuitous position, and to indicate the boundless field of confirmation, which the true date of these predictions will throvv'^ open. We received the Old Testament prophecies from the Jews ; and certainly, no corrup- tion of the text can have occurred, within the last 1800 years of deposit in the hands of Christians, for Jews and Christians have checked each other, all the while, with a vigilance which has never slept: and galled, as the former have always been, by the evidence of fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth, they would have exposed, with loud and long reprehension, the slightest alteration of the text that could have crept into Christendom. Before the advent of Christ, the integrity of every book, and the truth of ever}^ date, were guaranteed beyond a doubt by the PROPHECY. 117 superstition, whicli numbered the words and the letters, and de- nounced death on the man who would alter a point or iota ; by the jealous animosity of parties in opposite schools, or political factions, which were founded on diverse interpretations, and ex- isted from the days of the prophets themselves ; by the public reading in the synagogue, which engraved the words on the mem- ory of the people ; by the existence of translations, and especially the Greek, at Alexandria, nearly 300 years before the Christian era, and in a metropolis of learning, where religious eclecticism was the fashion of philosophy, and would be sure, in the hands of both Jew and Greek, to fix a special attention upon this won- derful volume : these considerations, and others, such as the inter- nal evidence, from language, allusion, and order, prove most clearly that no post €ventum interpolation can have mingled with these prophecies, and no surreptitious date can have cheated the church under any dispensation. True, the temerity of unbelief has often assailed this clear demonstration. Porphyry said the book of Daniel must have been written after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, because the events of his reign are so minutely described — thus, in fact, yielding the argum»ent ; and leaving us no more to refute than a cavil of criticism, which hardly stands to be told — a play upon words, which he discovered in some apocryphal appendage, that was published with the Greek translation of Daniel ; from which he conjectured that the book had been written in Greek, originally, and translated into Hebrew : and yet, beyond all question, the book was extant, in Greek, more than a hundred years before the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, which, itself, suffices for the argument. When we know that this is all an accomplished adversary, sixteen hundred years ago, with all his pains and opportunities, could do, in discrediting the date of these predictions, we may well suppose, that any hardihood like his, in modern times, would slaver worse in the infatuation. And so it happens with renowned neology ; the very fame of which has propped the infidelity, that never read a page of German exegesis. This new era of interpretation is perfectly explained, so far as our subject is concerned, when we say, that it has brought all the learning and ingenuity of man, to argue in a circle, that there can be no proper prophecy at all — no revelation of the contingent future. This negation of our faith is always presumed in order to be proved ; anc now, that they have had 118 PEOPHECY. a century of time for the work of their own great doctrinal pre- judice, in their own way of logical injustice, what are the results? We ask not for a system, coherent and complete, which they have built on the ruins of our supernatural faith ; for system they never proposed ; and, in destruction to the objective bulwarks of religion, they have destroyed .one another in quick and constant succes- sion. But what principles of interpretation may we glean from the vast researches, and progressive development, with which the rationalistic criticism would emancipate man from belief in the marvellous ? Just enough to subvert all historical evidence, and cover with doubt the whole authenticated past. Whatever has come down to the eighteenth century, undisputed and unchallenged, through ten thousand generations, of the learned and the unlearned, must, of course, be considered spurious until the contrary be proved. By this canon the prophecy of Isaiah has been set aside. Whatever, on the other hand, has met a challenge, at any time, in the course of criticism or of con- troversy, however long posterior to its proper date, must be also rejected. By this canon, Daniel and the Apocalypse are both set aside. Wherever another reading can be conjectured, materially different from that which has been received, it is to be the true reading until the other can be proved : and wherever the fertility and taste of any author, avoid the use of a remarkable expres- sion, more than once, that expression must be considered an in- terpolation by some later hand. By these canons, all prophecy is rifled of its pure vaticination, and left a turgid rhapsody, without even the gems of literature to commend it. — No other limit shall be imposed on the hcense of critical acumen than a man's own critical feeling : and wherever, by the dictates of this critical feel- ing, there may be internal proof of genuineness and integrity in any book, this proof can establish no more than a good imitation by a subsequent writer. By these canons, all revelation becomes a subjective chameleon, forever uncertain to the most believing individual. Such are some of the axioms which must be the basis of, all exposition, and the bottom of ail deep research, if you follow these guides in biblical study ; or venture any mvestigation whatever, with that same refinement of criticism which three generations of progressive neology have attained, by seeking rest in letters fgr the foot of enlightened infidelity. And is it no4. enough to establish the truth of every date, and the integrity of PROPHECY. 119 every text, that we point you to this amazing fatuity of gifted scholars and profound philologists, who have devoted a lifetime to the work of their repudiation? Deadly recoil forever attends the impotent endeavor. But now, that the true antiquity and antecedence of these prophecies will bring all history before us, in the range of their accomplishment, compared with which, the attestations we have indicated, within the last four hundred years, are but a glance at the sepulchre as it remains until this day — where shall we begin or end the illustration of our theme : or how compute the greater cogency of this great argument, when the retrocession of the date, not only multiplies the number, but enhances the contin- gency of prophesied events, by so many more intervening threads of complicated influence and incident? Thebes, and Petra, and Rabbah, and Gaza, and Tyre, and Samaria, and Jerusalem, and Nineveh, and Babylon — cities in particular, whose greater minute- ness of destiny wonld be far less adventured by human conjec- ture than countries or kingdoms — all had their downfall described, and their present condition of ruin foretold, in remote antiquity, and at the very time when each in its proud glory was most rampant and secure. Go, we beg you, to the most rigid and careful examination, with the Bible in one hand, and history in the other. So numerous are the prophecies before us, that no less than two hundred distinct predictions may be counted in relation to the family of Abraham alone ; most of which have been already fulfilled to the very letter, none of which have ever been falsified, and such as remain to be accomplished, guaranty the certainty of that event, not only by words which have never failed, but by facts, submitted to the observation of every age, in the standing miracle of Arabic as well as Jewish nationality. Despairing of justice to any part of this great field, and oppressed with the magnitude of its claims to a full investigation, we shall merely stand for a little at the central theme of inspired predic- tions, the truth of every promise, the substance of every siiadow, the mystery of God manifest in the flesh. Four thousand years, at least, before the birth of Jesus Christ, it was announced that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent ; a most frivolous declaration, in the most dignified and sublime of all compositions, if it mean anything else than the promise of a great avenger on the agent of our ruin, to spring from the mother of mankind. More than two, 120 PROPHECY. thousand years afterwards the spirit of prophecy began to de- velop and define that primeval promise ; foretelling its fulfilment in the seed of Abraham, then of Isaac, then of Jacob, then of Judah, and at length of David. And, along with these succes- sive limitations of his lineage in the flesh, were successive revela- tions of his character, and the constitution of his person, bywords and ^y types, until the waxing adumbration became the burden of song. All the powers of imagination, and depths of emotion, and fountains of tender affection, and intimacies of personal ex- perience, in the trials of life, and succors of grace, and conduct of Providence — the whole inner life of the Hebrews — became a sentiment of mysterious anticipation, which passed over even to the heathen around them, and spread with every dispersion of the Jews, until it imbued the literature of pagans, and became a world- wide expectation. The prophets of Israel availed themselves of this great Messianic idea in the popular mind to arouse, rebuke, console, or encourage the nation, according to circumstances : so that abrupt transitions to it and from it, as well as latent intima- tions of it, were perfectly natural, in view of this general senti- ment among the people, as well as extatic impulse of the seer. A splendid succession of prophets followed the Psalms of David for the space of five hundred years ; each one revealing a new feature, while rehearsing in the color of his own genius and times what others had uttered ; until the portraiture was finished, four hundred years before the actual advent. And what a sum of special criteria does it embody, by which to test his absolute identity and their true inspiration of God ! It foretells that he will come in lowly condition ; born of a virgin, at Bethlehem ; of the family of David, when it shall have sunk to the lowest depression; — that a forerunner, in the spirit of Elijah, will herald his entrance on a public ministry ; and a copious effusion of the Holy Ghost will be his great inauguration ; and Galilee of the gentiles the principal place of his beneficent working and teach- ing ; — that his formal entrance into Jerusalem will be upon an ass, amidst the loud acclamations of a multitude, while the second temple is yet standing to receive him, the recesses of which will ring with hosannas of little children in his praise ; — that his authority will be rejected, his salvation refused, his per- son despised; and surrounded by malignant persecutors, betrayed into their hands by his own familiar friend, and that for thirty pieces of silver, he will be devoted, with his own meek submis- PKOPHECY. 121 sion, to extreme insult, mockery, and abuse, until his hands and feet are pierced, and his life cut off by their violence ; cut off in the midst of malefactors, and for the transgression of others ; without a spot of guilt on his own soul, or one taint of iniquity on the whole of his life ; — that his murderers will distribute his clothing by lot ; and he will be laid in the grave of a rich man at his burial; but not long enough to see corruption in his body, for he will rise from the dead with power, ascend to heaven with a shout of angels; and usher down the glories of a new adminis- tration, with a great effusion of the Spirit, upon all classes and conditions of men ; and glad tidings will be everywhere pro- claimed, the burden of Levitical rites will be abolished, and guilty Jerusalem destroyed ; — and all these wonderful and particular things are fixed, in time, precisely, by a computation of weeks and half weeks, five hundred years before they occurred ! What possible ingenuity of unbelief can evade this overwhelm- ing demonstration at the centre of our theme — "more sure," ac- cording to Peter, than an audible voice from the throne of heaven ? No one can deny that these things, and many others predicted, were exactly fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth ; and no one will say, without absurdity, that if all the parties concerned in working out the accomplishment had joined together in per- fect concert, they could have made so many contingencies work together at the very time and place. But who does not know that they were completed, not only through strange conjunctures, sudden and signal, but in spite of confusion, hostility, ignorance, and counteraction, to the utmost extent of man's perverted will? From the close of the Old Testament prophecy to the coming of Christ, the interval was one of incessant agitation over all the world, and especially Palestine, where not only was the Jewish commonwealth "overturned, and overturned, and overturned," by every change of politics, and the crown of David flung as a baubl* from hand to hand of the insolent victors ; but schools of arrcJgant pretension, arose in the bosom of the nation, which de- praved the Messianic apprehension of their pious fathers, and would have utterly prevented, without one external disturbance, the manifestation of a Saviour like ours, as the product of his age, or psychological effect of a national sentiment for ages maturing, or, in any sense whatever, a self-evolution, by the operation of causes — like the many false Christs, that so often appeared, in the sequel, to please and punish a morbid expecta- 122 PEOPHECY. tion. He came, after all, a surprising' fact, a great historical emergency, which the manifold and minute predictions '• that went before upon him," could do no more than attest and iden- tify to a reluctant world. The Great Prophet himself would, of course, mingle the future in his own teaching and preaching. And the companions of his life recorded, with care, not only predictions, which they lived to register beside the accomplishment, but predictions which they left unfulfilled, and sent forth, a liability for all men to seize ; with all that was dear and true in their holy convictions, gaged on the occurrence of improbable contingencies. Such was the prophecy of our Lord respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, pubhshed by three of the evangelists, wide as the empire, many years before that catastrophe; and which the unbelieving Joseph us, and the pagan Tacitus, and the Jewish Talmud itself, were left to confirm or confute according to events. Near forty years before the armies of Vespasian entered Judea, a casual conversation took place at the temple, where the disciples of our Lord, looking with fresh admiration at the huge foundation stones of that magnifi- cent edifice, one of them said to him, " Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here !" " Jesus, answering, said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings ? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Was it probable, then, that the Roman empire would suffer any power on earth to spoil, with such deletion, the glory of that temple, the pride of the East, and cherished trophy of her own invincible arms 1 — and still more, that she herself would do it, so pleased of late with the loyal munificence of Herod, and so in- tent on pleasing a nation, renowned for obstinate courage, and numerous now, even to the banks of the Tiber? — and that in the Augustan age, of magnanimity and taste, of all others, the most averse from vandalic violence to monuments of art, or habitations of the local divinities she conquered? Yet we know it was done, with a vengeance, by the Roman himself, in a freak of exaspera- tion, which even military orders could not prevent. The very name has been transmitted, of the man, Terentius Rufus. who drove a ploughshare through the ground on which the temple was built. The very caprice of a Roman leader, who advanced, in the mean- time, with a powerful army against Jerusalem, when it might have been taken without a battle, and then retreated, and retreated PKOrHECT. ' 123 without a reason, does not escape the eye of this Prophet. (Matt, xxiv. 6.) All the intervening casualties, of any account, are minutely predicted as signs of that dreadful consummation — false Christs, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and fearful sights from heaven, as well as war among the Jews, and persecution of the Christians — any one of which, foretold with similar precision, would have made a god of the most besotted pagan on the earth. And could we conceive that all these were but fortunate conject- ures, or astute speculations, on the temper of a turbulent and seditious people, how is it that he would hazard a measure of time for the whole accomplishment? — and such a measure — itself a miracle of foresight — it was to be within the life of a man, at that lime in his presence. Compare Matt. xvi. 28 and xxiv. 34. John, his own disciple, did outlive the destruction of Jerusalem ; and he is the only evangelist who did not record the prophecy, as he is the only one who could have tinged its terms, with jjost eventum observation. And still more than this, the most im- probable thing in the world is expressly predicted as another ante- cedent: "The gospel must first be published among all nations" — a gospel which was not yet understood by the most intimate and wise of his own disciples, and which, by the direction of his own lips, had been confined to the limits of Judea — a gospel for the world promised by a Jew, and to be spread by the instrumen- tality of Jews, the very genius of whom was monopoly of reli- gious advantages. Universal promulgation ! — the thought of which had never entered the mind of man before — for any system of religion, morals, or philosophy : godlike, the lone idea, without a prophecy to promise it — much more to promise it so soon, while as yet there was not a " mustard seed" of visibility portending it. And yet it came to pass. The empire had been all traversed over, and the remotest regions of the East, in all probability, ex- plored, before the torch of the soldier had touched the temple, or the energy of Titus had completed his trench. A word was dropped respecting the continuance of the desola- tion which w^ould follow. " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Never has that city ceased to be so trodden down, as you know, since " the abomination" made it desolate ; never did the flaming sword in Eden more efl!*ectually bar the fallen progenitors of men from returning to the garden than these potential words have barred the Jew from reinstatement at Jerusalem. Three hundred years 124 PROPHECY. after they had fallen from the Saviour's lips, Julian, with all the resources of the empire in his hands, and the energy of heroic vigor in his soul, and the hatred of apostate conscience in his heart, and the alacrity of a million homeless Jews at his side, dared to countervail this oracle of the Crucified One ; and actually attempted to rebuild Jerusalem, and restore the Jews, for one monument, at least, of falsehood among the prophecies of Chris- tianity,— when balls of fire issued from the earth to blast the workmen, and fearful portents interfered on every hand to hinder and deter the impious determination — ^a fact which all contempo- raneous histor}^, civil and ecclesiastical, pagan and Christian, will unite to establish. And call that strange plienomenon anything you please, or call its occurrence at all a sheer fabrication, which even Gibbon would not do, still we find the word of prophecy ful- filled, " quick and powerful," to the minutest incident of its utter- ance, and vindicated marvellously, in the naked fact, that a mighty preparation for a mighty work was instantly abandoned, and the last imperial foe was hurried away, from audacious battle with his dead Galilean, to perish at the meridian of life, by the lance of a Persian soldier. We would gladly pursue the outline of distinguished prophecies, already completed since the ascension of the Saviour, such as the dispersion of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, the rise of Mohammedan fury and delusion — and especially the grejit event of Antichristian apostasy, minutely, foretold in 2 Thess. ii., and so precisely accomplished in the whole history of Papal Rome. It would be worth the space and labor of many an entire lecture, to see hov/ the very objections to Christianity, from its early corrup- tion and rapid degeneracy, prove the divinity of its origin ; by the fact, that these things were all foretold, with an exactness of delineation, which nothing but a supernatural inspiration could have dictated. But we have passed our limits ; and it remains to attempt a more direct and condensed exhibition of the argu- ment in anott.er lecture. PROPHECY. 125 11. To say what is required of prophecy, as an argument for the truth of revealed rehgion, hardly becomes the ignorance of man. The amount of conviction, the manner and means of it, are for Him only to devise, who comprehends our need, and the right edu- cation of our fallen and disordered understandings. There is an extravagance of incredulity, in many minds, which it were not worth the cost of other important interests, in the plan of God's moral government, to convince. There would be insult to reason itself, in that redundancy of demonstration, which the unbelief of aversion demands — an unbelief, which, if it were convinced to- day, would be as uncertain as ever to-morrow. And ho\v far the moral evidence should be furnished, to persuade the sincere and earnest man, at every grade of intellectual power, and leave un- reasonable incredulity to sink in its own abyss, of wretched inqui- etude and doubt, we dare not undertake to define. But we ven- ture, on this occasion, to affirm, that there is no conceivable requisition for evidence, on the part of a well-balanced mind, which is not satisfied, with the ample demonstrations of this ar- gument from prophecy. 1. It is required, that true 'projyhecies claim to he such, when they are first delivered to men : not a bundle of rhapsodies, which may be labelled poetry, history, or prophecy, according to the fancy of men, or chance of tradition, or advent of some verisimili- tude. Let the title be clear. Let the claim be promulged in ad- vance. Let all generations know, that these are predictions, the credit of which is entirely staked on developments in the future, which ten thousand uncertainties hide from the eye of human foreknowledge. Now, this is eminently true of scripture prophe- cies ; as it would be superfluous to prove. Not only do they everywhere profess to anticipate the future, but they often apprize the reader, that they do it for the sake of argument, in order to prove the exclusive claims of this revelation ; arming, in this way, all men with an edge of scrutiny against them. How striking tjie contrast, in this particular, with that significant evasion, with which other vaticinations doff the title, until time shall have de- cided on the luck of their adventure. 126 PROPHECY. 2. It is required, that these 'prophecies he so expressed^ as to be, in no proper sense, the canse of their own fulfdment. They must have some meaning, of course, to the anterior student ; ex- citing in him hope, and energy, and comfort, as well as anxious investigation : but they must be sufficiently obscure, in the form of expression, or in regard to the manner and means of their ac- complishment, to preclude his own designing and direct oxertions from achieving it. Otherwise, free agency might be constrained ; the event might follow the prediction, as effect follows the cause ; and prophecy would differ, only in the tense, from actual history. This perfection of enigma is peculiar to these inspired predictions : it could never be attained by man's contrivance. The Sibyl leaves, when tossed a little with the wind, were nonsense. The Delphic oracles, when articulate with future contingency, were always ambiguous, and so artfully constructed, that they might be fulfilled in any one of two or more contrary events. How many, like Croesus, and like Pyrrhus, were deceived, at the most critical moments of life; and destroyed, by the fallacious hope, which those cunning impostures had contrived, to please the votary, in return for his gift, and yet retain the plausibility of truthfulness, under any sort of circumstances in the future. But no such ambiguity is here. Definite and sure, these oracles are always a warrant for the faith of him who trusts them, which will never deceive his honest hope : and yet, no skill of interpretation can write out the precise accomplishment, before its own time. And the only disappointment which they have ever produced, has been inflicted on the presumption, that disregards this divine enigma, so inscrutable to man. The Jews, for instance, familiar with so many predictions clearly realized in their own history, came at length to interpret all prophecy in the light of past fulfihnent: and obliterating the plain distinction, between terms of history and symbols of prophecy, their confident exegesis, of the great messianic burden of the Bible, became a tradition of fatal preju- dice, to the exercise, alike, of faith, and reason, and sense, when the true completion in its season arrived — a memorable warning for the dogmatism of every age, that would affect to decipher, what God has purposely hidden, for the hand of his own Al- mighty Providence, to work out, with wonder, to the observation of men. 3. It is required, that the fulfilment remove all obscurity of sense from the prediction. Wf ile there is a secret mark of iden- PROPHECY. 127 tification, couched among the symbols of prophetical, language, that always invites and rewards, without satisfying the ingenuous reader, before the accomplishment — "serving the threefold pur- pose, of being a bUnd to the incurious, a trap to the dogmatical, and an exercise of modesty, of patience, and of sagacity, to the wise" — there is always in the true fulfilment, the evolution of a test, which settles forever the solution of the sacred enigma. Look at the prophecies relating to the Saviour of men, and to every kingdom and metropolis of ancient times ; to the overthrow of Persia by Macedon ; the subsequent division of the Grecian empire, among the successors of Alexander ; the spread of the Roman arms, described by Moses and Daniel ; and the ultimate dissolution of that stupendous power ; all foretold, with a skill of implication, which no sublunary intelligence could unravel, nor even the prophets who delivered them divine, beyond the use of adoring trust in the Providence of God ; but which now lies be- fore us, with all the specialties of history to be seen in its folds — completeness and precision of adjustment, among the metaphors, that rival the most graphic details of the chronicle itself. It is true, indeed, that ignorance may blur, in man's apprehen- sion, the most beautiful economy of God's wisdom. The drapery of symbols may not be rightly understood ; the deposition of history may not be faithfully gathered, and fairly collated ; the power of prejudice may cloud the most erudite mind with Egyp- tian darkness ; and there may be, at times, in the web of pro- phecy itself, a complexity of thread, through the long series of futurities, often foretold together, which the best learning and ex- perience are yet too immature to comprehend, as the scheme is but partly unfolded — these, and other considerations, may fully account for the disagreement among interpreters, respecting a few predictions, which have transpired already in events. 4. It is required that these prophecies he manifold, hi order that no chance may account for the comjpletion of all ; and no ignorance, or oversight, may jeopard the force of this argument, by the waste to which we have just adverted. Any shrewd observer of the world might venture a prediction of some future event, from the tendency of causes at work in his day, tlie pro- gress of human development already observed, or even the whim- sey of wanton conjecture ; and among the myriad occurrences, in every age, it were strange if such adventure of prophecy would not be followed, sometimes, with strikint, coincidence of facts. 128 . PEOPHECY. Varro informs us, that he heard an augur in his day, Vettius Valens, assert, that the twelve vultures which appeared to Ronju- lus, when he stood on the Palatine hill, contending with his iMother Remus, respecting the name of the city they had agreed to build on the Tiber, signified twelve centuries, through which the Roman empire was destined to endure ; and history has re- corded the fact, that the empire, of which Rome was the centre and capital, was overthrown, almost exactly according to this expository presage, 500 years after it was given. Again, Seneca sung, (if he be the author of " Medea") the dis- covery of America, 1400 years before it occurred ; in the following general, but most remarkable language : — -venient annis Secula seris, quibus Oceanus Vincula reium laxit, et ingens Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos Detegat orbes ; nee sit terris Ultima Thule.' Again, it is said, that M. de Cazotte predicted, some years before 1787, w4th much minuteness, to a large company of intelligent persons in Paris, the atrocities of the Reign of Terror in France — telling Condorcet that he would die in prison, of poison, admin- istered by his own hand, which actually happened — predicting, also, the fate of Louis XVI. and his Q,ueen, and persons are yet living, it is said, who heard these utterances distinctly given, before any one of them was yet fulfilled, and while the prophet was laughed at for his pains. It is well known, also, that tradi- tionary soothsayings are abundant in many places of Germany, Westphalia in particular, and all along the Rhine, some of which, it is said, have been remarkably accomplished, in the memorable agitations of 1848 and '49. And a learned Professor in Edin- burgh has even broached the hypothesis of a physical medium, between certain highly sensitive constitutions, and the near ap- proach of eventful things, in highly excited times. Yet what are all these scattered facts — most of them so much like guessing in the vagueness of their terms — although a thousand times better attested than they are, and a thousand times remoter from suspicion of being the cause of their own accomplishment, or being shaped by the mouth of tradition, as it suits the course of probabilities — compared with the vast array of particular pro- phecies in Scripture, not one of which has ever failed of fulfilment PROPHECY. 129 'in its time ! Forget not the millions of falsified prediction and augury that are sunk on every side of them, when those " rari in gurgite nantes" are so flippantly proposed ! Not only are the prophecies of inspiration many and various in themselves, but they are, in all important cases, reiterated Ijy many different prophets, at long intervals of separation, in the course of time ; thus making the first announcement, by the para- phrases of succeeding seers, a fixed and inflexible cognition, which no ingenuity of man could torture into correspondence with an ultimate event; as might have been the case with a single utter- ance ; and as really is the case with the solitary sights of unin- spired prevision. Nor is it number and repetition alone, which defy the versatility of chance, and privacy of interpretation to enact a tithe of the accomplishment ; but the dignity and importance of their import also — a public concernment, almost always ; which could never achieve its fulfilment in a corner; embracing in the range of its wonderful extent, all the mighty monarchies of ancient time, the cities, the countries, the kings, the warriors, the people ; Pheni- cians, Egyptians, Idumeans, Arabians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, as well as Jews ; and the whole mag- nitude of middle and modern history besides ; from the ruin of Pagan Rome, and the rise of Mohammedan imposition, to the downfall of Antichrist, and the reign of Millennial glory — all his- tory forecast in this epitome — with a greatness of particulars, which no philosophy of actual history could equal, in the choice ; and not one of the particulars ever taking back its gage, to drop from the oracle in convenient oblivion ; not one particular without its own minuteness of specialty, which neither man nor angel can elicit in advance, but which the complete event will recognize to demonstration. 5. It is required, that these predictions, which would prove a revelation from God, he connected in system, and exhibit a scheme and scope of design, worthy of Him, whose infinite wis- dom, elsewhere, always appears in unity of purpose. If, instead of a few surprising coincidences, of a rival character, picked up, here and there, upon the tide of time, we should find them innu- merably more than we have reckoned, and more even than the prophecies of inspiration, yet, if they are all disconnected and aimless, while these are compact, and conspicuous for unity of aim, running through all ages, we might still make good the 9 130 PROPHECY. demonstration of Divinity on these pages, and on these alone. More difficult would it be, for chance to account for ten related facts in a series, than for ten thousand facts without rela- tion or connection. Nay, more, should we concede, that every jj|ausible response of heathen oracles, and every sagacious or lucky prognostication of any age, were genuine utterances of su- pernatural knowledge, yet if these predictions of the Bible are the only utterances of the kind, adduced for a particular purpose, and that purpose not only godlike in its meaning, but perfectly unique through all the successions and transmutations of time, the argu- ment stands against all competition. You never reject the testi- mony of an adequate number of unimpeachable witnesses in court, merely because there may be a multitude of men without, asserting a thousand particular facts, which have no connection with the case on hand, or the point at issue. Why then demur at the result of this converging deposition, which so many voices, throughout so many ages, harmoniously deliver, because forsooth, the world has been replete with other voices, equally mysterious and unearthly, yet all-discordant as the babblers on the plain of Shinar ? What boots it the sciolist, when he has gathered the whole magazine of emulous predictions, by pagan augury, tripod, or cave ; by the wise politician, the mystical monk, the delirious fanatic, or the mesmeric dreamer; since they are ruled altogether out of court, by the common law of evidence, because they have nothing to say, that is relevant on the suit of man's immortal aspirations— because, v.athout the smallest injury to their preten- sions, they cannot witness anything, and much less agree to wit- ness anything — while here is an immense^array of perfect agree- ment, in the most positive declaration that ever was made ; a redemption from sin, sorrow, and death, which no imagination of man had ever conceived; and the only religion of facts, doctrines, and morals, which this supernatural attestation was ever employed to estabhsh ? The unity we have here, is not only one of positive testimony, which rival pedictions have never attempted, and one of internal concord in which every particular deposes something connected with the great subject of revelation, but one of progressive de- velopment, in which a mighty seminal truth is brought forth by each succeeding ray of prophetical announcement, until the manifestation fills earth and heaven with the grandeur of its com- plete significance. " The test'unony of Jesus is the spirit of PROPHECY. 131 prophecy P He is the grand subject, sum, and centre : there is not a word in this great volume of prophetical wonder which does not relate to Him, in his person, character, or kingdom. Now, one prophecy such as we have thus far defined, would be sufficient to commend a revelation — would be itself a revelation ; and when hundreds of such prophecies on every variety of sub- ject, interesting and important to man. combine, without a contra- diction, to challenge our faith, we must concede there is some- thing supernatural in the claim. But when this great variety is all convergent and unique, each particular prediction radiating illustration upon all the rest, each past fulfilment sustaining the expectation of a future, and all, though scattered along scores of centuries in their track, ever pointing to a great refulgent centre, beaming with light, and love, and immortality, for man — who will compute the force of this demonstration, or doubt that the system is entirely from God, omniscient and omnipotent? Try the cavils and objections of infidelity by the touchstone of this peerless unity. Is it said, that other well-authenticated instances of successful augury and prophecy, in ancient and in modern times, are so in- explicable, that we may well decline investigating similar mys- teries in the Bible? We answer, that, because irregularities appear in every department of nature which cannot be explained, you might just as well decline the study of her laws, that cannot surpass her strange anomalies, either in number or consistency, more than the perfect prophecies of scripture surpass, in variety and system, those casual mysteries of soothsaying which could stand authenticated if the world had taken pains to search them out with the rigor of historical exactness. Far better say, that, because the comet is not traced with satisfaction through its eccentric flight in the abyss of heaven, therefore, we need not watch the planetary orbits, or care to investigate the ordinary movements of our solar system. Is it said, that man's free agency, as a moral creature, is subverted by the notion of such a particular and almighty exercise of Providence as the sure fulfil- ment of inspired prophecy involves ? We answer, that, the freest agency of man is that which acts under the government of laws in the regular administration of a system ; and it is the casual and aimless prediction only, which could by irregular accomplish- ment, infringe upon his freedom. But when you see his destiny involved in the complications of such a system as this, a trans- 132 propjIecy. dipt from the counsels of eternity, so full of grace, for the de- velopment of which the world itself is but a platform, and time a handmaid to unroll its resolutions, we might better say, it is free- dom to will and act beyond the dictates of nature and reason, than beyond the purview of this influence. But the double mea7iing, so prevalent in these predictions, we are told, is no better than the ambiguity of pagan oracles. This cavil, besides being logically unfair, is at once confuted by the view of that connection which binds together all ages and all events in one great consummation. Here, " the double sense" can never mean that either of two possible events may fulfil a prophecy, but that both of them must fulfil it. Nothing, in fact, more clearly bespeaks the authorship in God himself, than this very manifoldness in the fulfilment of his word, evincing that the true speaker must have had an infinite comprehension and disposal too, of agencies at work in the world, when he could frame a promise or a threat with such expression, as to embrace many similar events (while chiefly referring to but one) which would be effectuated by the most dissimilar means, and in the most diversified and unequal circumstances. Let the objector mark, that the great hypothesis on which we argue is the identity of authorship in prophecy and providence. God only could or- dain affinity between the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and that from Babylonish captivity, and that from Syrian cruelty, and that from heathenish darkness, and that from Antichristian despotism ; and when we find that one primordial prophecy will include this whole kindred series of events to come, and a later one will make the first of the series when fulfilled an historical basis, for the metaphors with which the remaining mercies are predicted, and for the hope with which they are expected, must we not, so far from stumbling on a doubtfulness in the double sense, perceive that it is the very stamp of God's foreknowledge, as it is the earnest of his own unfailing faithfulness? Who will say, again, that the warning voice of Moses, when he foretold the terrible details of punishment, which would await the apos- tasy of Israel, was less divinely prophetic, because his word would suit a thousand dispersions of the Jews, which have oc- curred since it was uttered; or the proud elevation of " the stranger" in their land, either in the yoke of Chaldean, or Syrian, or Roman, or Turkish oppression ; or " the tender and delicate woman" eating her own offspring, in the straitness of the siege, PKOPHECY. 133 when it was accomplished in the siege of Samaria, and in the siege of Jerusalem, nearly a thousand years asunder, and the first more than a thousand years after the prophet ; or the insult and wrong, to which they- would be doomed, when these were done continually, from the days of Nebuchadnezzar, to those of Frederick the Great in Prussia ? Without a thread of system, such oracular skill had been in- finitely beyond the forecast of Apollo, that never framed even an equivocation, without appearances of near probability : but when we see it travel down a pathway of development, in every age, grouping sequences, of more and more definite and brilliant at- testation ; by which an honest faith is nourished, from the first apprehension of an ancient promise, till the last exultation of joy, when " the mystery of God is finished" and '• the headstone is brought forth with shoutings" — its double sense is only double demonstration, that the inspiration of the Almighty must have given it the very words. So thought Lord Bacon : and speaking of these prophecies, considered in their double sense, he says, " They are of the nature of the Author, with whom a thousand years are as one day ; and therefore, they are not fulfilled punc- tually at once, but have a springing and germinant accomplish- ment, throughout many ages, though the height and fulness of them may refer to one age." Thus, also, is explained the hyperbole, with which the prophets describe comparatively small events, near to be fulfilled, in terms that seem to be out of all proportion to their importance. It is the splendor of an ultimate event, in the chain of homogeneous benefits, of which the nearer one, however humble, is an earnest and precursor, that suffuses, in this way, the rapt prevision of the seer. Had there been a prophet commissioned a century since, as in the old theocracy, to counsel the governors of Virginia, in times of fear and trouble, and promise them a triumph over French and savage hostilities upon the border, portraying the peace and prosperity which would follow such a vindication — how naturally would the prophet, on the supposition of a divine afflatus, revealing the future, indefinitely, in regard to all events of the same prosperous kind, describe the proximate deliverances predicted for the colony, in a style of magniloquent expression, borrowed from the ulterior glories of this great Republic, in which the nascent commonwealth he came to comfort, would bear a great proportion. Just in this way, was many a temporal mercy 134 PROPHECY. promised to the visible church, under the old dispensation ; the ultimate and crowning mercy under Christ peering on the prophet's soul, with enrapturing and often abrupt captivation, which he himself did not fully understand. And why should any man of literary taste and culture object to the secondary sense in prophecy, w^ien it is the charm of genius in the earth-born inspirations of epic and dramatic poetry ? Take from the ^neid of Virgil a pervading allusion to Augustus Caesar, and what an insipidity of import is left to the whole design, as well as many a most beautiful passage. Take from the Divina Commedia of Dante the political factions of Florence, and what a crude conceit would be many a terrible coruscation. Take from the Fairy dueen of Spenser the reign and court of Eliza- beth, and what remains to give it soul or immortality ? There is, in short, through all the best creations of human genius, an intense endeavor after that very perfection which infidelity repu- diates in the prophecies of celestial inspiration — a double sense — a primary import, which profits and pleases, most of all, because it bears to the understanding a secondary import, on which the whole production rests, as an ultimate basis of unity and mean- ing, without which the book would never have been written, and would soon cease to be read or understood. It is this central unity and perfect system, again, which will explain the confinement of prophecy to one nation, and that one comparatively obscure in secular history, undistinguished by arts or arms, commerce or wealth, though seated in the most conspicu- ous place upon the globe of ancient geography. The gaze of all men must be fixed on this peculiar people, for one thing alone : "To them," said Philo, "was intrusted the prophetical office for all mankind." Had these prophecies been scattered among many different nations, how impossible would it have been to see the beautiful connection and convergent meaning, which give them all their true significance: or had they been imparted to a people renowned for learning, like the Greeks, or political greatness, like the Latins, how much would they have been overlooked and neg- lected in the groves of the academy, the bustle of senates, and the turmoil of camps. But imparted to one people, whose whole des- tiny was the conservation of this lone deposit, how comprehen- sively might all men see the unity and truth of revealed rehgion, when its light was matured at length for universal promulgation, PROPHECY. 135 and its slowly concentered sun broke forth, like the gathered liguL- ning of heaven, to shine from one end of the world to the other. 6. It is required, that these prophecies he commensurate ivith all time : the past, the present, and the future, being covered alike with the scope of their full annunciation. However per- fectly connected all events may be in this prophetical economy, no experience or learning can ever enable any man to foretell the recurrence of similar events : for this mighty system, whose centre is Christ, has only one cycle for the world to see, and that, the duration of the world itself: so that there is no repetition of the same things, in a series of cycles, as some have vainly ima- gined ; but all is progress, in a line of plainer and plainer develop- ment, until time shall be no longer. You ask for miracles continued. Here they are — witliout dis- turbing nature — in the continued accomplishment of ancient prophecy ; which will go on to confirm the truth of our holy reli- gion, with new demonstrations, till the end of the world. Nor will these consist in new disclosures, merely, of old attestations, dug from the dust, or read from the hieroglyphic, by Layards, Champollions, and Ghddons ; but in mighty deeds, which are yet to be done by the faithful Providence of God — the downfall of Anti- christ from his throne of spiritual despotism — the conversion of the Jews from their hardened infidelity — the extension of the gospel over all benighted paganism — the return of peace, and unity, and love to the Avhole distracted body of the faithful. These are some of the magnificent things which prophecy has promised, to the hope of our day ; and all of them, you will say, ■ quite improbable to the anticipations of reason. What, then, must you think of a religion Avhich would venture to promise them — in an open Bible, scattered abroad over mountain and val- ley, as dew-drops of the morning? Either it has nothing to lose in losing veracity, or it is more than human. Surely, no religion of man would hazard what ours has gained, and possesses, on such obvious uncertainties, for such prospective advantages. Where are all your soothsayers now? Or, have they left a frag- ment of vaticination on this earth, to bide the trial of a coming accomplishment? Why, like Elijah of old, are we left alone at this altar, to call down this fire, and forecast the future time, through all the sahent points, and eventful epochs, that are to fill the remaining volumes of the world's great history? "Lively oracles," indeed, they are, ever glowing in the heart of piety, ever 136 PROPHECY. gliding" in the hand of Providence. Ask me not for living prophets on the very eve of these great changes. We would rather have the ancient — whose expression, like old wine, is all the better for a voyage over many billows of intervening revolution, and half the globe, in the time of its duration. Tell me not that Augustan civilization saw the end of them, and with its searching glance of light put them to silence forever. Precisely then they broke the silence of many centuries, and ceased not their proclama- tions until the keystone was fixed in the arch, and all remaining time was spanned with its extension. 7. It is required, that they he 'philanthropic and benign. When the Cumsean Sibyl came to Tarquin with her books, which were nine in number, she offered to sell them for a price which the tyrant deemed enormous, and refused. She disappeared im- mediately, and destroyed three books ; and then came back, de- manding as much for the remaining six as for the nine. It was again refused, and she retired in wrath to burn three more ; and then returned to ask as much for the remaining three as for the whole original number — thus withholding from Rome, and from the world, what the gods had commissioned her to write, because •3he could not obtain her price in gold. This legend illustrates, far too faintly, the notorious venality and avarice of all heathen oracles. The poor man could never obtain responses from the Delphic Apollo. The rich man was swindled by a hundred frauds, enjoining new lustrations, additional sacrifices, and cost- lier gifts ; and after all, dismissing the tantalized victim without • an answer, as often as the case admitted of no safe equivocation. And even when the tripod, or the cave, did respond with its best articulation ; and the pillaged votary obtained the most formal and categorical answer to his anxious query ; what hope was soothed, what misery assuaged, what virtue strengthened, and what vice reformed? Only the cruel projects of ambition, or the horrid necessities of war and crime, came to those impure retreats for counsel and encouragement. How different the prophets of the living God. No bribe could buy a Balaam, when filled with the impulse of their true inspira- tion. Not even a servant to their persons, dared accept a trifling present, from the richest beneficiary, without being blasted with leprosy for life. How^ calm, and kind, and frank, and dignified, as well as earnest and disinterested ! And how pure the morality always inculcated. The primary object of inspired prophecy, was PROPHECT. 187 the publication of absolute and eternal principles of truth and righteousness, as they are centred and sanctioned in the Lord Jesus Christ : and disclosures of futurity were added, because He was future, in respect to incarnation, and because these were needful, in every age, to secure a credit for the lessons of redeem- ing truth. Like the miracles of Christ, they were twice blessed ; they always had a present benefit to work, while founding a sohd deposition for the faith of future ages ; always some hope to cherish, or sadness to cheer — some oppression to rebuke, or wick- edness to warn, while furnishing the latest days, with bulwarks of evidence for the truth of this holy religion— which time was deputed to build out and up, until she herself would find a sepul- chre, in some crypt of their deep foundations. 8. They must^ after all, transcend the requisitiotis of human reason. We have now gone over, as we thint, all the conditions, which man could dictate, for the full persuasion of his mind, that prophecy is divine and supernatural, and that, therefore, the re- ligion it authenticates must be of God, true, and holy, and all important. The claim must be woven on its face, and published in advance — the terms must be, in the main, so purely enigmati- cal, as to bar any conscious causation of their own accomplish- ment : and yet significant enough, meanwhile, to answer the present need of faith and hope. — There must be some mark of specialty concealed among the terms, which the fulfilment will recognize, beyond a doubt, wherever there is knowledge enough to read the symbols, and observe aright the facts of history. — There must be great number and variety ; so that no chance may ac- count for the completion of all, and no failure of recognition, in some cases, jeopard the utility and force of the whole conclusion. They must be connected in a system, which is worthy of infinite design, in which they have a great scheme to develop ; where every particular instance will shed light on every other instance, and the most occult, and indirect, and secondary meaning, may be made the ultimate strength and beauty of the whole. They must always grow in demonstration, and gratify the demand for marvels, in every age, miracle without suspending nature's laws ; which they continually work, as new fulfilments of ancient prophecy occur. They must be ever benignant, disinterested and pure, without a single taint of selfishness, or meanness, or corruption in morals. These are your requisitions ; and all of them reasonable, considering the high claims of my subject ; and 138 PROPHECY. are they not more than met, in the exuberant perfections of in- spired prophecy ? It may be, tliat I have failed, for want of time, or ability, or both, to meet objections rightly, with that ample and adequate solution, which the subject fairly affords. But I am sure, your faith would not be satisfied, if I had succeeded in relieving reason from her whole embarrassment with prophecy: for its very nature implies an immediate communication, of an infinite mind to finite minds, and therefore some incomprehensibility, which, for us to remove, would be the greatest failure that could occur, in such investigation. It would be not to solve a problem, in the way of lodging light in the soul ; but to dissolve a link, which connects our theme itself with the source of all light and knowledge. It cannot be from God, and yet circumscribed by man. The only discussion, that dares to tread the whole circumference of its con- nections, is absurd Neology — which always begs the question, in order to deny it — which would quench the sun, at meridian day, for no other reason, than because it is fixed in heaven, and take a lamp through the universe, because it is portable to " the crit- ical feeling." We may not comprehend, how the soul of man is subject to the heavenly aflflatus ; how the peculiarity of each prophet's genius and taste, should be suffered to tinge the pure revelation of God by his mouth ; or how he could faithfully and fully enunciate times and events which he did not himself understand. We may not comprehend, why the centre of prophecy was fixed just where it is, in the progressions of time ; why the promise of God to the Fathers, was placed so dimly and distantly before them, and the triumphs of the great accomplishment with us, have been so par- tial, and slow, and clouded in prospect — a thousand minor em- barrassments like these may spring up, which this man and that may answer or not, to his own satisfaction, and that of others. But we answer them all, with the simple averment, that, were they a hundred-fold more embarrassing and dark, they would only confirm the conviction of well-regulated reason, with the crown- ing demonstration they afford, of God's finger — whose traces can- not be perfectly explained, unless the finite can measure the in- finite, or human reason, like the Aeon of Valentinus, in her vain ambition to comprehend the Almighty, should propagate a Demi- urge from heaven, whose hand detailed the Jewish prophets, and whose work of perversion, and prophecy, alike, the Christ came PROPHECY. 139 only to destro)^ Wicked absurdity, or silly fable, must always be the refuge of that proud wisdom, which doubts the attestation of divinity, because the signet of Omniscience is not altogether like our own ; because a part of his ways must be the limit of his condescension ; and because he would incite our trust and ad- miration, through a whole eternity, by the simple and sublime conviction, that " we shall know, if we follow on to know the Lord." '31 .?t^^ M "W- "W.^ J «>r^ Cjie Mliaritij nf tjie liirrti Cannn, THE INTEGRITY OF THE SACKED TEXT TWO LECTURES. KEY. F. S. SAMPSOK, D.D., PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LITERATORE IN UNIOK THEOLCGICAL SEMINARY. I. Respected Audience — With hearty good-will and real pleasure, and yet not with- out feelings of sadness, I revisit the scenes of one of the most delightful periods of my life. It was here that I received my first lessons in science from venerated instructors, most of whom have gone to other fields ; some of them — alas, how soon and sud- denly ! — to " That undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns." I came here a babe in Christ. The first five years of my new and better life were spent within these classic walls. Sacred hours, and sacred spots, and Christian friends, and youthful associates, are fondly remembered still. I would thank God that, through my brief life, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places : but I have seen few better days than I have seen amid these scenes and friends of my youth. Amongst these especially dear were those with whom, when as yet there was here no Ambassador of God, no Sanctuary, no Bible Society, no Sabbath-school, — I might almost say, no Sab- bath,— in our lonely dormitory I often met, and spake, and prayed for better days to our beloved Alma Mater. The days came sooner than we had believed. God was with us. The little seed germinated and grew : and watered and fostered by his care, it became a tree with goodly branches and some precious fruit. I rejoice that it still lives and flourishes ; and count it one of the most delightful privileges of my life, to return in my maturer, though scarcely realized manhood, and endeavor to contribute something towards helping this tree to strike deeper its roots, to spread wider its branches, and to bear more abundant and yet more precious fruit. I am called to maintain before you the authority of the Sacred Canon and the integrity of the Sacred Text, as part of a 144 THE AUTHOEITY OF THE SACRED CAN'ON. Course of Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, The sub- ject is both copious and difficult, and might well have demanded me to enter immediately on its discussion. But I could not deny myself, and you, I trust, will excuse these brief introductory reminiscences. I proceed now to the duty assigned me. I propose, then, so to present the history and authority of the Sacred Scriptures, and the history, preservation, and integrity of the text, as to show them to be the Word of God, and Chris- tianity to be divine. In order to make the argument as short, and yet as comprehensive and conclusive as possible, I shall en- deavor to maintain a series of propositions, which involve all that is essential to a just view of the subject. I. My first proposition is, that the Books of the New Testament are ge7iuine : that is, they were written, as they profess to have been written, by the Apostles and attendants on the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity at our day is a great fact, wide-spread over the world. We trace it back through every generation to the days of Augustus Caesar, and find its origin in a crucified Jew. Tacitus and Suetonius, both reliable historians who flourished in little more than fifty years after the time, give unequivocal testi- mony on the subject. The former tells us, in his Annals,* that " Christus, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a crim- inal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate : that he originated a re- ligiont in Judea, which, though checked for a while, broke out again and spread through Judea, and soon extended to Rome : that his followers from him were called Christia7is, and were very numerous at Rome in the reign of Nero (some thirty years after his death) : that here thay were exceedingly hated as crimi- nal, and yet were subjected by the emperor, in order to avert from himself the infamy of having commanded the city to be set on fire, and to gratify his own wanton cruelty rather than to pro- mote the public welfare, to such grievous and numerous suffer- ings as to excite the commiseration of the people." The latter, in his life of Nero,+ says, that " the Christians were punished, — a sort of men of a new and magical (or perniciousj) superstition." Upon the testimony of Tacitus, the infidel Gibbon remarks : " The most skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this extraordinary fact, II and the integrity of this celebrated pas- * Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. f Superstitio. X Sueton. Nero. xvi. § Maleficje. | That is, the persecution of the Cliristians. THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACKED CANON. 145 sage of Tacitus. Tlie former is confirmed by the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Neio inflicted on the Christians, 'a sect of men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition.' The latter may be proved by (he consent of the most ancient manuscripts ; by the inimitable character of the style of Tacitus ; by his reputation, which guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud ; and by the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they pos- sessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of mankind." Pliny, the younger, who lived about the same time, while Governor of Pontus and Bithynia (a.d. 107), wrote a letter* to Trajan, the emperor, requesting advice as to the proper manner of proceeding against tlie Christians. From this letter we learn, that "they were now (some seventy years after Christ) very numerous in those regions, embracing every age and rank and sex, and pervading, not only the cities, but the lesser towns and the open country also : that they were brought before the civil tribunals, and tried for no crime but their Christianity, and punished for their obstinacy if they refused to abjure it : that it appeared from these investigations, that they were wont to meet together on a stated day, and sing among themselves a hymn to Christ as God, and to eat a meal in common, but without any disorder ; and to bind themselves by a solemn oath (sacramento), not to commit wickedness, but to abstain from theft, and robbery, and adultery, and falsehood, and unfaithfulness ; while they steadfastly refused to invoke the gods, and to make supphcation before the emperor's image : and that by their influence the tem- ples had become almost forsaken, the sacred solemnities inter- mitted, and victims went begging for purchasers :" — all which, you cannot but observe, while, like the other passages, it proves the remarkable spread of Christianity and the cruel persecutions of the early Christians, throws not a little light on the atrocious crimes oi which Gibbon speaks as charged by Tacitus upon them, and on the pernicious character which Suetonius ascribes to the neio superstition. Now it is every way probable that one who had successfully founded such a society, would, either by his own hands or the hands of his more intimate and chosen disciples, give out his doc- trines and precepts in writing. It is every way probable that « Plin. Ep. b. X. ep. 97. 10 146 'IHE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". such writings would be highly valued by all his followers : and that as the sect multiplied and spread, copies of these writings would also be multiplied and spread ; and that they would be carefully preserved, and constantl)^ appealed to, as the standard of opinion and practice acknowledged by all of the new persua- sion. Our New Testament Canon contains no book that professes to have been written by Christ. It consists, as you know, oi Jive Historical Books, twenty- one Epistolary, and one Prophetical. Of the Historical Books, four, called Gospels, are ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and contain brief histories of the birth, doctrines, works, death, and resurrection of Christ ; and i\\& fifth, called the Acts, and also ascribed to Luke, contains an account of Christ's ascension to heaven, of the early propaga- tion of his principles, and organization of his church by his dis- ciples amongst both .Tews and Gentiles, and of the miraculous con- version and call, and subsequent labors of Paul till his imprison- ment at Rome. Of the Epistles, /owr/eeyi are ascribed to Paul; and the remaining seven, called Catholic, are ascribed one to James, /ii?o to Peter, three to John, and one to Jude. These were all written on different occasions, to different churches and indi- viduals, and contain further developments of the doctrines and precepts which Christ would have to govern his Church. The only Prophetical Book, the Revelation, is ascribed to John, the author of the Gospel and the three Epistles. Of these authors, all were Apostles of Christ, duly commissioned to go forth and teach, and do mighty works in his name, excepting two, Mark and Luke. These, according to the books themselves, and all ancient tradition, were attendants on the Apostles, — or, as the Fathers called them, apostolical men, who wrote with the knowl- edge and approbation of the Apostles. While, then, none of the books profess to have been written by Christ, all of them are handed down to us as from the Apostles and apostolical men. From what I have already said, it must be admitted that there is no presumption against their genuineness ; but the presumption is decidedly in their favor. It is obvious, from the very inspection of the books, that they were written at different times and .places, to different churches and individuals, on various doctrinal and practical subjects, just as circumstances called for them. At first, therefore, of course, they were separate, and scattered over different countries, in the possession of the dif- THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACREE JANON. 147 ferent churches and individuals to whom they were originally sent. The collection of them into one volume was a subsequent work, — upon which we may remark, in passing, the books were, in no degree, dependent for any authority to which they might be justly entitled. -AH churches, especially those Avhich had been founded by the Apostles, and perhaps had received of their wri- tings, such as those of Rome,* Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi, Ephesus, Colossae, Galatia, and all private Christians, who could defray the expense, especially those who had been conversant with the Apostles, would exert themselves to obtain copies of all such writings as were either composed or sanctioned by them, as au- thoritative exponents of the principles of the great Founder of their faith. In this way, there would soon be found in the hands of different churches and private individuals more or less complete collections of the Sacred Books. Some of the books, we may sup- pose, Avould come more slowly into general circulation than oth- ers : — such, for example, as were very brief and comparatively/ unimportant ; such as were sent to private persons, and therefore were less known ; such as were very obscure, and therefore not so much read. And for this very reason that they had at first less circulation, were less known, and consequently less quoted, — as well as for other reasons,— we may suppose that they would afterv.'ards be more or less doubted by churches and private per- sons, who desired to liave only the genuine works of the Apostles and such as were endorsed by them. After due time, however, and after full inquiry, to which the interest that was felt in the books would naturally prompt, the general consent would become settled on the books which ought to be received as genuine : and thus the Canon of the Sacred Books would finally become fixed and acknowledged in the church. — What we have here hypolheti- cally imagined, is abundantly confirmed by a careful examina- tion of the books themselves, and by the statements of those who lived and wrote nearest to the times of the Apostles. The result, early attained, was, that the books which we now have were the genuine works of the Apostles and their attendants who wrote with their sanction. These prefatory remarks will prepare the way for the evidence which I shall now exhibit cf the genuineness of our New Testa- ment Canon. I shall appeal to the same kind of testimony that * The founders of the churches at Rome and ColossaBare not known. The former certainly, and probably the latter, enjoyed the ministrations of Paul 148 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. we appeal to, in order to establish the genuineness of all other books that have come down to us from antiquity. I shall appeal not to the decisions of General Councils, or to any man, or any set of men, as invested with authority from heaven to declare what books proceeded from Apostles, and what from uninspired men : 1 expressly deny that there ever was any such council or other luiman tribunal, invested with authority from God to settle this question, otherwise than by the evidence which may be fairly ad- duced to prove the genuineness or the spuriousness of all other ancient books. I shall appeal to the marks of genuineness which are found in the books themselves, and to the testimony of those, whether friends or foes, who lived nearest to the times of the writers, and who. therefore, had the best opportunities of knowing what they wrote. A. I adduce, then, first, the internal testimony. Examine the books themselves, and you find 1. The language and style such as altogether to favor their genuineness. The language clearly shows that tliey emanated from Jews who spoke Greek, while the difference in style proves beyond all doubt, that they proceeded from different authors. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the various dialects of the Greek became, as you know, mingled, and this mixed or common {koivt^ dialect, as it was called, was extensively diffused over the East. We have the most satisfactory testimony, espe- cially from Josephus, that many cities in Palestine were, in large part, inhabited by Greeks. Jews too, who were born in foreign parts and spoke Greek, frequently visited the land and city and temple of their fathers. The Herods did no little to innovate Grecian customs ; and it would seem, that, while the Greek was the court-language of the Romans in the East, even the Jewish Rabbins were not unfavorable to its use. While, therefore, the Syro-Chaldaic, or Hebrew, as it is called in our New Testament, was the vernacular tongue of the Jews who resided in Palestine, Greek was certainly very extensively spoken as the language of commerce. But the Greek thus learnt, from the intercourse of common life, not from books, and spoken by Jews residing in Pal- estine, must largely partake of the idiom of their native tongue. From the Roman dominion too over the country, and the exten- sive and easy intercourse that was then carried on with the East and the different parts of the Roman Empire, we would expect some traces of the Latin and other languages. Such precisely is THE AUTnOPJTY OF THE SACRED CANON. 149 the language of the New Testament. It is the common Greek dialect cunent at the time, of which Attic was the base, largely colored by the Hebrew, or Syro-Chaldaic, which was vernacular to the writers, and exhibiting just such other foreign corruptions as we might expect to find in such writings.* All acknowledge the diversity of style in the different books. Matthew's style is very different from that of Luke, John's from Paul's, James' from Peter's. The style, too, corresponds strikingly with the education, character, and habits of the several writers, as far as we know them. Matthew and Mark write in the plain, simple style of unpolished men, whose object is truth, not to var- nish a tale : John in the simple, but smooth, flowing style of confi- dence and affection. Luke exhibits more of educational culture ; while Paul shows the fire and energy of true genius and strong powers, melted and inspirited with the grace of the gospel. James is sententious and ornate, Peter earnest, and Jude vehement. We have, therefore, in these books, precisely the peculiarities of language and all the diversities of style, which we should have expected from just such authors, living at that period, and in those countries. We discover also 2. Strong marks of genuineness in the circumstantiality of the narratives^ and the nmltitiide of minute allusions to existing cus- to'ms and relations, which are found more or less in all the books. I cannot here, without going into detail, which the occasion does not allow, do more than indicate the nature of the argument. I regret this the more, because it is only by such details that the full strength of the argument can be exhibited. t Suffice it, how- ever, to say, that the writers show an easy and familiar acquaint- ance with the times, which proves them to be, as the authors of these books profess to have been, contemporaneous with the events. No man after them was sufficiently acquainted with the times to have wrought into his fictitious narrative such mul- lipUed and accurate allusions and statements. They freely give dates, places, persons, circumstances ; and refer to the social, civil, religious, pohlical, geographical, and historical relations of the times, with a readiness and profusion which are possible only to contemporaneous authors. There is none of that generality and conflict with the existing relations of the time, as ascertained from other reliable sources, which so often serve to detect and * See Winer, Gramraatik A neatest. Sprachidioms, §§ 1, 2, 3, 4. f See this well done, Hug's Introduction to the K T. (Fosdick's Translation) § § 3, 4, 5. 150 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". demonstrate forgeries of later writers. Abounding as the allusions do on almost every page, all our researches into antiquity serve but to illustrate and confirm them. Now I do not assert that the internal testimony alone could demonstrate the genuineness of all the books. But I do not hesi- tate to affirm that the books, as a whole, contain as strong inter- nal marks of the age to which they belong, as the book of any other ancient author or authors whatever. We have no con- temporary testimony to the history of Herodotus, still less to the works of Homer. But they have strong internal testimony, and there is no external testimony against them ; and hence their antiquity, and the genuineness of the former at least, are now universally admitted. In the case of the book before us, the testimony is stronger and still more decisive. The language is the Greek, of a particular age and region, and all the minute cir- cumstantial allusions are allusions to the relations and customs of times and countries, than which none others are better known to us in ancient history. What single forger of the second cen- tury,— and later it would be absurd to suppose, — could have writ- ten so many books in so many different styles, so peculiar in their matter, and abounding with so many minute references to the relations of a former period? What combination of men could have done it, and the thing not be known and duly noted in his- tory? How is it that the men of that age allowed themselves to be thus amazingly imposed on? And if it be allowed that they were written in the period to which we refer them, why attribute them to other authors ? Who so likely to write them as the fol- lowers of Christ? And amongst these, who so properly with the authority w^iich these writers claim for themselves, as those who attended personally on his instructions and ministry, and were by him commissioned to go out and instruct others? B. I proceed now to lay before you the external evidence of the genuineness of these books. Here again I have to regret that I cannot give you more and fuller quotations from ancient writers, both Christian and infidel, so that you might receive the just impression of the argument. * My time allows me to do little more than present an abstract of the more important testimony. 1. I begin with the testimony of those who lived, wholly or in part, in the very age of the Apostles, and were more or less con- versant witl^ them, and, therefore, are commonly called Apostoli- cal Fathers. These are Bar?iabas, of Cyprus, frequently men- THE AUTHORIXr OF THE SACKED CANON. 151 tioned in the New Testament as a co-laboier of Paul; Clement^ who is also mentioned as a fellow-laborer of Paul, afterwards Bishop of Rome ; Hennas^ most probably the same who is saluted by Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans ; Ignatius, Bishop of An- tioch, in Syria, where he is said to have been ordained by Peter ; Polycarp, a disciple of John, ordained by him Bishop of Smyrna, where he died a martyr; and Papias, the companion of Poly- carp, and possibly conversant with the Apostle John. Of these we have only a few writings and fragments preserved. The Shepherd of Hermas nearly equals all the rest ; but, unfor- tunately, it is of such a character as allowed him to quote the New Testament but little. Yet in one and another of these we find nearly all the books in our New Testament Canon quoted or alluded to — although generally not by name. The laborious and cautious Dr. Lardner has carefully collected and weighed their statements;* from him I take these results: — \n Barnabas the allusions are few, and not so clear. Clement, of Rome, expressly ascribes 1st Corinthians to Paul, and more or less clearly quotes or alhides to Matthew, Mark, Luke, Romans, 2d Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st Thessalonians, 1st and 2d Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, James, 1st and 2d Peter. Hennas alludes to Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st Corinthians, Ephesians, James, and Revelation. Ignatius ex- pressly ascribes Ephesians to Paul, and makes plain allusions to the Gospels of Matthew and John, and probably Luke, to the Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1st Thessalonians, 2d Timothy, 1st Peter, 1st and 3d John. Poly- carp plainly ascribes Philippians to Paul, and quotes Matthew, Luke, 1st Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1st and 2d Thes- salonians ; and makes undoubted references to Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 1st and 2d Timothy, 1st Peter, 1st John, and probably Hebrews, doubtful ones to Colos- sians and Jude. Papias bears express testimony to Matthew and Mark, quotes 1st Peter, and 1st John, probably refers to Acts, and received Revelation. I am well aware that a more recent and skeptical criticism has discarded, or questioned, very many of these supposed quotations and allusions. But, after making every deduction that can rea- sonably be claimed, it remains, that in the brief writings and fragments of these few Apostolical Fathers which have descended * See his works (Lond. ed.) vol. L p. 283 seq. iii. p. 99 seq. 152 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON. to US, we fmd nearly all ihe books of our New Testament quoted or alluded to: — not indeed, generally, so as to determine the authors ; but so as to show that the books were in existence, and were known and read and apjireciated by contemporaneous wri- ters, and those to whom they wrote. Conversant as these writers were with the Apostles, they could not thus have received and used these books, unless they had believed that they were truly from them. Neither would it seem that they thus recognized any other books that are not in our Canon. 2. We descend a little later into the second centiuy, and pass- ing by others whose testimony would help us, w'e examine the writings of Justin Martyr, a.d. 140 ; of IrencBus, a.d. 178 ; of Cleme/it of Alexandria, a.d. 194 ; and of TertuUian, a.d. 200. The first of these was a native of Palestine, a man of learning and a traveller. The second was a native of Asia, acquainted with Poly carp, and Bishop of Lyons in Gaul. The third was a learned president of the celebrated catechetical school at Alexan- dria, in Egypt. The fourth was a presbyter of Carthage, and a man of liberal learning. Like the Apostolical Fathers who preceded them, none of these have given us catalogues of the Sacred Books. But they make so many statements respecting them and their authors, and so freely quote them and allude to them as sacred and authoritative Scriptures, that we might, with goodly satisfaction, make out the Canon of the New Testament from them alone. I am sorry that I have not time to quote them at length : but I am compelled to content myself with the statement of the substance and the most important points of their testimony. Justin tells us that the Memoirs or Records of the Apostles and their companions, — plainly meaning our four Gospels, which only he received, — vi^ere read and expounded in the assemblies of Christians for divine worship on the Sabbath day. Irenseus says expressly, that there were but four Gospels, — the very ones that we now have. In divers passages they both quote these, and many other of the Sacred Books. Clement, likewise testifies to the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John : refers Acts to Luke ; thirteen Epistles to Paul, omitting only Philemon : quotes of the Catholic Epistles all but James, 2 Peter, and 3 John : and ascribes Reve- lation to John, the Apostle. TertuUian, also, received but the four Gospels, of Matthew and John who, he says, were Apostles, and of Mark and Luke, who were apostolical men : refers Acts THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CANON". 153 to Luke; thiiteeii Epistles' to Paul, including Philemon, but as- cribing- Hebrews to Barnabas : and quotes 1 Peter, 1 John, Jude, and Revelation, ascribing the last expressly to the Apostle John. '• Visit," says he to those who would exercise a commendable curios^ity in matters of their salvation, — " visit the apostolical churches, in which the very chairs of the Apostles still preside ; in which their very authentic letters* are recited, sounding forth the voice and representing the face of each one. Is Achaia near you ? you have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi and Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus, &c." Putting together their statements, and the statements of others coeval with them, we learn that the books of the New Testament were at this period current in two volumes, called ^/ie Gospels and Aposiles ; that there were four Gospels universally received, two of them from the Apostles Matthew and John, and two from .Mark and Luke, who wrote respectively with the authority of Peter and Paul ; that the Acts were written by Luke, and fourteen Epistles by Paul, though Hebrews was doubted by some ; that of the seven Catholic Epis- tles all were known and quoted, excepting that we find no men- tion of James and 3 Jolin ; and that Revelation was received as the work of the Apostle John. I wish you particularly to note, that amongst the books thus early received as genuine, are several of those which we shall presently see were afterwards doubted. Thus Justin Martyr quotes 2 Peter ; Irenajus quotes and Clement received 2 John ; Justin, Ireneeus, Clement and Tertullian, all received Revelation as John's. There were other books now in circulation, some of them written by good men, others falsely ascribed to Apostles : but whilst these were read and sometimes quoted, it does not appear that they were ever received as genuine works of the Apostles or apostolical men, without which they could not have been deemed sacred and canonical. I wish you further to note, that as none of the writers of this period furnish catalogues of the Sacred Books, but only quote them or alkide to them as they had occasion to do so, it is manifest, that the omis- sion'to quote them or refer to them by no means proves that they did not know and receive them. The wonder rather is, that within one hundred years after the last of the Apostles, though no writer, as far as we know, saw fit to prepare a formal cata- logue of the Sacred Books, — a fact which argues a very general * IpsjB authentice literce. 154 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SACRED CAJSrON. consent in regard to them, — we yet have, in the remaining writ- ings of only a few authors, the most satisfactory proof of the reception of nearly every one of them as genuine and authorita- tive. " In the remaining works of Irenaeus, Clement of Alexan- dria, and Tertullian (though some works of each of them are lost), there are perhaps," says Dr. Lardner,* " more and larger quotations of the small volume of the New Testament, than of all the works of Cicero, though of so uncommon excellence for thought and style, in the writers of all characters for several ages." He elsewheref uses nearly the same language of the quotations in Tertullian alone. For reasons which I have already suggested, it was natural that by this time doubts should be felt and expressed in regard to some of these books. The fact, too, that in some cases, books, which were admitted to be the works of uninspired men, were read in the churches as profitable books, while some, as Revela- tion, which were admitted to be the genuine works of inspired men, were not read on account of their obscurity or for other reasons, would help to induce doubts where before there had been none, and make it necessary for those who had the learning and the opportunity, to investigate the grounds on which the various books had been received into the churches, and the authority to which they were entitled. This was accordingly done: and there have descended to us some thirteen well-authenticated cata- logues of the genuine and canonical books, prepared by leading men in the two following centuries. 3. To the substance of these ancient Cataloguesl I now invite your attention. Thej^/\ race, which, had they assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words, because they own religion ■as their principle — sink into narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch no chord in the heart- of this writer ; his imagination remains unkindled ; his words, though they main- tain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argu- mentative, and inanimate. Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous coloring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of Mahometanism ? But who would not have wished the same justice done to Christianity?" But in the place of devoting his noble energies to the celebra- tion of the virtues of confessors and martyi^s — the elite of the earth — he gives his pity or his scorn to these, and reserves his 16 242 THE SUCCESS OP CHRISTIANITY. admiral-ion for those who bounded all their aims and aspirations by the narrow horizon of life — and coming forth in the pomp of a diction that " dazzles to blind," he seems to cast even the beau- tiful vesture of truth around sentiments false and dangerous. With such address, and animated by such a spirit, he proceeds (o exhaust the resources of his ov/n gifted mind, and of infidelity itself, in the attempt to set in array such assignable human causes, as may forever obviate the necessity of referring the triumphs of Christianity to any supernatural power, by endeavoring to show that it was propagated in accordance with the ordinary laws which control human affairs, just as other systems and creeds had been, which had attained to great popularity and power among the nations. The spectacle of one enriched with extraordinary abili- ties, thus prostituting his genius to an undertaking so unworthy of such endowments, reminds us of a celebrated description, some of whose features, at least, we may apply to our distinguished author : — " He seemed For dignity composed, and liigh exploit, But all was false and hollow : thougli bis tongue Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason to perplex and clash Maturest counsel. Yet he pleased the ear And with persuasive accents thus bec/an." " We may be permitted," says Mr. Gibbon, " though with be- coming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Chris- tian church." And he assigns as the first, " The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Chris- tians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which instead of inviting, had de- terred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses." It is conceded that the zeal of the primitive heralds of the (Jospel was steadfast, ardent, undaunted by perils, and uncon- (juerable by persecution ; but there is not a shadow of a reason for deriving this zeal from a Jewish origin. The early advocates of Christianity belonged, most of them, to the Jewish race — but to ascribe the spirit which imbued them, as soon as they embraced a new faith, to their old principles, is as miserable an absurdity, as it would be to impute the hallowed enthusiasm of modern con- verts fj-om lieathenism, to their previously bigoted and intolerant THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 243 zeal for idolatry. The Apostles ascribed their fervor to their con- fident belief in the resurrection of Christ, and to their warm, constraining, entrancing love for him. But whatever its origin might be, its manifestations were very unamiable in Jewish eyes, for it was directed against Jewish as well as against Gentile pre- judices, and was perhaps even more offensive to the Hebrew, than to the Greek or barbarian. The zeal of Peter would indeed im- pel him to the most active efforts for the salvation of his country- men, but was it his fiery intolerance which made him so success. ful in gaining proselytes among them? When he stood in the very city which had witnessed the crucifixion of Christ, and ad- dressed the very men who had enacted that tragedy, and said, " whom ye by wicked hands have crucified and slain," did the severity of the charge /W^^/ew them into faith in the victim of their rage ? Or was there such an attractive power in this accu- sation as to bring over thousands of them in a single hour to the Christian standard ? To derive such an effect from such a cause as the mere zeal, and above all the injlexihle and intolerant zeal of the Apostle, would be a miserable iio?i seqiiitur. The truth is, that neither the Jews who believed, nor the Jews who rejected, nor the Apostle who preached Christ, ever thought of ascribing such wonderful results to blind and pertinacious zeal. And when the Apostles turned to the Gentiles, although they were still so inflex- ible in their principles, and so intolerant of error, as to refuse either to accommodate the doctrines they proclaimed to the tastes of their hearers, or to adapt their forms of worship to the cherished preferences of idolaters, yet can it be supposed that this stern and unyielding attitude was calculated to conciliate the people toward whom it was assumed? Such a course was not only im- politic, but offensive to the last degree. Such have never been the tactics of false religions in making aggressions upon any peo- ple. Mahomet, indeed, was intolerant when the "Koran, death, or tribute," was his demand, but Mahomet preached at the head of an army, and cut his way through all objections with the edge of the scimitar. There is nothing more surprising in his rapid conquests, than in those of Tamerlane or any of the daring mili- tary usurpers who have so often changed the fortunes of the Eastern world. But the zeal of the primitive missionaries was not fortified or impelled by any earthly power. And exhibited in a character so unlovely as that represented by our author, without any adventitious aid, it must have disgusted and repelled. And if 244 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. the primitive Christians were, as Mr. Gibbon asserts, " not less averse to the business, than to the pleasures of this world" — if they "refused to take any part in the civil administration, or the military defence of the empire" — if they "displayed an indolent and criminal disregard to the public welfare" — if they would not tolerate the most innocent amusements — if, as he declares, " they shut their ears against profane harmony of sounds" — if affecting sin- gularity in personal appearance and habits, they thought it sinful to "shave their beards," or sleep on " downy pillows" — (because Jacob had, some centuries before, reposed his head one night upon a stone,) — if they refused to mingle with the heathen either in the relations of business, or in the walks of social life, how was it pos- sible for them to disseminate their religious opinions ? What op- portunity could they have enjoyed for making proselytes ? What materials could their zeal act upon ? How could it expend itself? Thus pent up, and yet raging, it must have consumed only the zealot. But if under such circumstances of grim seclusion, and non-communion, they did, nevertheless, by their mere zeal, suc- ceed in proselyting thousands, there must have been some secret power in their zeal transcending the miraculous ! But Mr. Gibbon overlooks one important fact in his argument. He imputes this excessive zeal to the iceaker party, and makes no allowance for the counteracting zeal with which it would be met by the numerous and formidable sects which, with one accord, bent all their energies not only upon the defeat of Christianity, but upon its destruction. Had Judaism, menaced with the over- throw of its venerable institutions, its splendid ceremonials, its imposing temple service, no conflicting zeal? Had Polytheism with its threatened loss of brilliant honors, and unbounded wealth, and gigantic power, no resilient countervailing zeal? Did both fall before the fanatical and intolerant phrensy of a feeble and despised sect? We have already admitted that the propagation of Christianity was in a great measure instrumentally due to the energetic, per- severing labors of its early advocates. But theirs was a " zeal" very different from the blind and mad phrensy which Mr. Gibbon has imputed to them under that name. It was a rational, well- founded zeal, tempered with charity, and attended by a regard for all the proprieties of life. While it was an instrumental cause — one of the subordinate agencies employed by Divine Providence for the extension of his Church, it was in itself an effect^ produced THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 245 by a higher — the highest cause. It was the result of an unal- terable conviction of the truth of Christianity, produced by a divine influence upon the minds and hearts of the heralds of salvation. Had it been anything else — above all had it been a mere emana- tion of senseless bigotry, it would have occasioned evils disastrous to the progress of religion. It would have been regarded only as raving fanaticism, at first amusing, then irritating, then exaspera- ting. Had it been such a zeal as that described by Mr. Gibbon, it would for a time, have produced results exactly the opposite to those ascribed to it, and then being unsustained by any evidence of the truth of the system it advocated, it would of itself, like a fire unreplenis-hed with fuel, have speedily burnt out. When was there ever so ridiculous a thing known, as for a rational man to change his favorite opinions, without any conviction of their erro- neousness, merely because he came in contact with a more obsti- nate man than himself, of a different way of thinking? If head- strong and passionate ardor were sufficient to effect such changes, then, any Hotspur in controversy might obtain the victory over the most logical opponent, who chanced to be less stubborn than his adversary. Would Mr. Gibbon himself have abandoned his infi- delity and become a champion for the Christian faith, had he been assailed day by day, by some unavoidable and flaming zealot ? If so, it is unfortunate that this expedient was not adopted to secure the services of so accomplished a writer. Indeed he was puvsued by Mr. Davis, of Oxford University, through all the devious paths of his great history, and by that ardent and pertinacious gentleman attacked on all sides, yet so far was this siege from making a con- vert of Mr. Gibbon, that, on the contrary, it provoked him to write a vindication of his history, in which he manifests no symptoms of conviction, and no kind regard for Mr. Davis. Had the Apostles gone forth imbued with the principles, and gov- erned by the policy, which actuated the disciples of Ignatius Loyo- la, instead of displaying to the world " an inflexible and intolerant zeal," they would have adapted their teachings to the prejudices, habits, and even passions of their proselytes. They would have permitted them to retain their ancient superstitions, merely graft- ing upon them certain Christian rites and ceremonies. They would have profited by the credulity of the ignorant, and flattered the independent free-thinking of the educated — they would have been severe only upon the vices of the poor, and ever indulgent to the inclinations of the rich. They would have graduated their mo- 246 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. rality to the age. propensity, and rank of their neophytes. They would have imposed no heavy burdens either upon the consciences or callings of men — in a word, they would have made it a very convenient and pleasant matter to bear the Christian yoke. Had they not been penetrated and fired with the most irresistible con- viction of their high and solemn mission, they never would have pursued the line of conduct which characterized their whole career, nor would their labors, severe and unremitting as they were, have been crowned with such sublime success, had they not been owned and signally blessed of Heaven. Their zeal was a divinely inspi- red zeal, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. The second reason which our author assigns for the rapid propa- gation of Christianity, is, " The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth." He specifies these favoring circumstan- ces. One of them he declares to be " the universal belief that the end of the world, and the kingdom of Heaven were at hand" — the hourly " expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all the various races of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their Divine Judge." But from whom could the early Chris- tians have derived such an apprehension of the impending de- struction of the world? Not from the Author of Christianity himself, for he, when speaking of the time of Judgment, expressly declares, " Of that day, and of that hour, knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in Heaven." Nor could it have been derived from the chief of the Apostles, for his unequivocal language is, " We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, nor troubled, neither in spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means." He then proceeds to enumerate certain great events which must oc- cur before the coming of that day — events, which are having their fulfilment even in our own generation. If the Apostle Paul had 110 supernatural insight into futurity, then he accidentally pre- dicted a state of affairs which actually existed 1800 years after the prophecy was uttered. But if these coming events were supernat- urally revealed to him, then he could not have been deluded by the belief of the speedy dissolution of nature, and his statements show how anxious he was to guard others from delusion. Another of Mr. Gibbon's " weighty circumstances" which he THE SUCCESS OF CHKISTIAXITY. 247 supposes gave efficacy to the doctrine of a future life, was, the behef tliat the personal advent of Christ was at hand, (a millen- nium wholly unlike that which is still anticipated, when Christ shall extend his spiritual kingdom over all the earth) — " Vv'hen the saints who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously pre- served, w^ould reign on earth until the time appointed for the last and general resurrection." That such an expectation was in ex- istence^ is evident from the fact that some of the most eminent writers in the primitive church positively denied and refuted such a doctrine. But it was never taught by a single Apostle, nor gen- erally received by the Church. These "weighty circumstances" which Mr. Gibbon would con- vert into supports for his proposition, are themselves unsupported, and must fall to the ground. And as to the proposition itself, if no divine power attended the proclamation of a future life, what in- duced such multitudes to believe it? There being no associated circumstances arising from the delusions of men to give it efficacy, it was the simple doctrine of a future life, which myriads em- braced. Why were they overcome by the presentation of this truth? What irresistible influence accompanied its publication? Are we to look back to the first cause assigned by Mr. Gibbon for that mysterious influence? Was it begotten by the "intolerant zeal" of the Apostles ? Was this also potent in constraining a whole generation to embrace their revelations respecting futurity ? But our author overlooks some great obstacles to the spread of such a doctrine. The first is that the Apostles made this doc- trine dependent on the resurrection of the dead. In an age when the immortality of the soul was scarcely be- lieved, no assertion could have been more provocative of ridicule and scorn, than that the bod-y which had seen corruption, and returned to its native earth, would be revived, reanimated, and clothed with immortality. It was the annunciation of this doctrine which caused the Apostle to be regarded as a madman by the Roman. And when he visited Athens, whose inhabitants were ever eager " to hear some new thing," he presented to their minds a novelty too strange and startling. When he spoke of Jesus and the resurrection, they characterized him as a " setter forth of strange gods" So vague were their ideas of his meaning, that they seem to have regarded the resurrection (^Jfaaiauis) as one divinity, and Jesus as another, and when more fully informed as 248 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. to the Apostle's meaning, they turned away in disgust from a tenet so incredible. What ! were they to be told that the bodies which had moul- dered and mingled with their kindred dust, and then been dissi- pated by all the winds of heaven — that the bodies whose very tombs had crumbled to atoms, and vanished not only from the sight but from the remembrance of men — were to be raised to life again ? Were they to be persuaded that the elements would ever disgorge the particles which they had swallowed up ? — that not only the earth, but that the sea should give up its dead ? that the forms of those who went down into the fathomless caverns of the deep, in the shock of battle and tempest, would emerge from their hidden chambers, and darken the blue bosom of the ocean as they arose to be judged with those who had slept in the earth? Would the warm pulses of life again throb in the scattered dust of Aristotle 1 Would Socrates, and Plato, and those ancient sages who had indulged rather in the fond hope, than in the con- fident belief of a future existence, again stand erect upon the earth, and gaze upon that sun which centuries ago had looked down upon their graves ? No, a doctrine so startling and in- credible was worthy only of mockery. But there was another, and far greater obstacle to the preva- lence of such a view of a future life as that presented by the Apostles. The Heaven which they revealed to the faith of mor- tals was no such Elysium as that which mythology had delighted to present; no flowery abode of sensual joys and pleasures minis- tering to the natural tastes and passions of men ; — no Paradise where feasting and revelry ruled the hour, where black-eyed Houris reposed in every bower, and whose perfumed air ever vibrated with dulcet melodies, such as Mahomet promised to the faithful (and of which he permitted them to enjoy such large prelibations in this life) — but a world whose element was holiness, one which excluded all but the pure in heart, which did not offer one at- traction to the covetous, the ambitious, the licentious, or the re- vengeful— one which could be attained only by a path narrow, rugged, and difficult of ascent. Point out to men a heaven where the pleasures of sense may be enjoyed in a more exquisite degree, and enjoyed forever ; a heaven to which Dives may go with his purple robes and rosy wine ; where all the natural inclinations and unhallowed propen- sities may find unbounded gratification, freed from the restraints THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 of law and the checks of conscience ; — and men will rivet their eager eyes upon it, and if possible force the gates and scale the ramparts of a paradise so alluring. But discarding the doctrine of a divine influence, what could so change the natural heart of man as to cause it to aspire to the pure spiritual joys of a heaven like that revealed in the gospel ? Whence did myriads obtain those tastes which gave them a relish for the hallowed enjoy- ments and employments of glorified beings? Whence did im- pure grovelling mortals derive those qualifications which prepared them for the exalted services of a world of purity, for the dignity and the dominion of kings and priests unto God? If such a heaven became attractive to the eyes and hearts of mortals, it was because their eyes were opened, by some divinely exerted power, to the perception of spiritual beauty to which they had been blind before, and their hearts to the reception and love of truths which otherwise had been objects of disgust and aversion. But Christianity asserted the existence of a Hell. If its pic- ture of heaven was not calculated to engage the affections of mankind, was there anything calculated to gain the credence of mankind in its representations of a world of torment and despair? The ancients indeed prated of a Pluto and Tartarus, but be- fore the publication of Christianity the belief in the future pun- ishment of the vicious had almost become obsolete, not only among the learned, but it was openly denied in the forum in public arguments before the populace. This fact Gibbon admits, and forcibly states. " We are sufiaciently acquainted," says he, " with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Cassars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious connection of the rewards or pun- ishments of a future state. At the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that doctrine as an idle and extrava- gant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man of a liberal education and understanding." Such being the state of popular feehng, it is evident that before such an article in the Christian creed as the doctrine of a hell, could work upon the fears of men, it must be believed. But what is to compel their belief? The assertions of a company of ignorant, despised, itin- erant Galileans ? If these humble fishermen had no other means of verifying 250 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. their assertions than iheir bare word, (and what was that worth, when made the vehicle of a most improbable and unwelcome statement?) would it not excite rather the taunts than the ter- rors of the proud Romans? Would it not exasperate rather than intimidate, when they observed how their deified heroes and sages were consigned to eternal flames, and that too for what they esteemed the most exalted virtues? And if it was true, as Mr. Gibbon asserts, that some of the early Christians were weak and wicked enough, loudly to rejoice in anticipating the torments of unbelievers, what reception would the whole community whicli witnessed such indecent and savage joy, give to the doctrine and its advocates? But it is notorious that these representations of futurity, improbable, and uncongenial as they were, did exert a controlling influence, a commanding power, over the minds and lives of thousands. What natural principle will account for a result so contrary to all that human foresight could predict? Have we not here another mark made by the finger of God? The third cause assigned by Mr. Gibbon is, " the miraculous powers ascribed to ihe primitive church." Had he been pleased to say, the miraculous powers conferred on the Church, or exer- cised by the Church, then we could at once throw this reason out of the list, for miraculous power actually possessed, could have come only from God, and this would have been a j)rimary and not a " secondary" cause of the success of Christianity. But ap- prehensive of such an inference, he hastens to throw every possi- ble discredit upon the primitive miracles. With a Hume-like hatred of miracles he insinuates, although he does not assert, that they were the pretences of imposture, and he labors to make this impression on the minds of his readers by a variety of ingenious cavils and cunning suggestions, interspersed with a certain grave irony. But let us bring the matter to a direct issue. The miracles performed by the Apostles were '^vrought by the pov/er of God, or they were the legerdemain of cunning and wicked impostors. If they were produced by supernatural power, then they were real, and demonstrate Christianity to be of divine origin. If they were the impostures of men, could they have possibl}^ escaped detection and exposure? If any one chooses to answer this ques- tion by asserting that simulated miracles have been employed successfully in imposing upon the credulity of men, as in the case of the pagan priests who made dupes of the multitude by their THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY, 251 lying wonders, we reply that there is no parallelism in the two cases. Pious frauds have never been successful except when they have been resorted to by a religion already in power, and when exhibited to the unenlightened multitude, already predisposed in their favor, and willing to be deceived. There is no analogy be- tween such shams and the miracles of Christ and his Apostles. They went unattended by confederates, often alone, and always were surrounded by those whose prejudices were adverse, and not favorable. Their miracles were submitted to the scrutiny of envy, interest, wounded pride, and all the acumen which the most enlightened and skeptical nation in the world could bring to the investigation. It is evident, then, that mere pretension to miraculous power would have been a suicidal policy: it would have been exposed and rebuked ; it would have overwhelmed the already despised Apostles with ignominy; it would have annihilated the prospects of the infant Church. It has always been a ruinous policy when resorted to in enlightened communities, even when a powerful confederacy has been formed among the parties interested, to give them support and credit among the people. In the celebrated case of the alleged miracles at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, many cir- cumstances conspired to give them the greatest possible eclat in the community. The memory of the Abbe was held in profound and affectionate veneration by the people. All the power of the adroit and influential Jansenists was concentrated in the attempt to give these miracles credit, and that too among persons pre- possessed in their favor. And yet how simple a matter to suppress them ! By order of the government, the tomb of the saint to whom these miracles were ascribed, was concealed by a wall, and then — the performance was ended ! Soon after a placard was attached to the wall, on which was written the witty French couplet : — De par le roy defense a Dieu • De faire miracle en ce lieu, " By order of the King, God is prohibited from working any more miracles in this place." The most stupid man could see the point of this epigram, for if these miracles were genuine, how could a brick-mason shut out Deity? But thereafter the ashes of the Abbe rested in peace, evermore. He could not work miracles through a wall. After the most careful analysis of Mr. Gibbons long dissert-v- 252 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. tion in support of his third " cause," we can discover but two prop- ositions, with an inference^ which he only hints at, but evidently hopes his readers will draw from the premises which he furnishes them. 1. If genuine miracles had been wrought by the early heralds of Christianity, men must have been convinced of its su- perior claims. 2. Miraculous powers were asserted by the primitive Church, but never really possessed. Insinuated inference — there- fore, the Church grew because of the popular delusion that it was endowed with such power. A very unwarrantable and absurd conclusion, indeed, but such is the character and climax of our author's logic. We rest satisfied with another, and very different conclusion of the whole matter — tliat if the miracles of the primi- tive Church were real, they should have no place among Mr. Gibbon's assigned secondary causes ; if they were false, they would have resulted in the extinction, and not in the extension of the Church. We come now to the fourth of the enumerated causes — " the pure and austere morals of the Christians," which our author very properly ranks among the influences which gained for Christianity the respect of mankind. But the pleasure we experience from such an admission on the part of an adversary,is instantly checked when we find that in immediate connection with this concession, he retails the foul slander of their enemies, " that the Christians allured into their party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash away in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past con- duct, for which the temples of their gods refused to grant them any expiation." Mr. Gibbon condemns this calumny, and declares that it was a reproach suggested by the ignorance or malice of infidelity. Why then does he introduce it ? How could he have been so unguarded as to jeopard his reputation for cautious pru- dence, as well as for candor, by resorting to a method of defama- tion so commoji, and so easily detected? It is an old and vulgar device to assail character by volunteering some malicious scandal, with the hope that it will make its impression, although the retailer of the libel attempts to screen his own character b}'^ disavowing all belief in it ? And is it not easy to discover his motive when he adds in the same vein of pretended vindication, that "after the example of their divine Master, the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society of men, and especially of women, op- pressed by the consciousness, and very often by the efl!ects of their THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 253 vices." The design of these insinuations, in such a connection, is obvious. As he could not deny the superior virtues of the Chris- tians— affording as they do so powerful an argument for the truth of religion — he attempts to divert our attention from the elevated source of these virtues, by assigning low and ignoble causes for their existence, and by retailing calumnies calculated to diminish our estimate of their purity. This habit of suggesting the malignant charges of others calculated to make an impression upon the memory, and to be associated with recollection of whatsoever things are lovely, pure, and of good report, we conceive to be one of the most criminal, and at the same time dangerous artifices of this historian. Were this of unfrequent occurrence, we might regard it as accidental, or fail to notice it altogether ; but so perpetually does it recur, that when- ever he makes any admission complimentary to the virtues of the early Christians, we expect, before the paragraph closes, to find something calculated to mar or defile the chaste image which had arisen in the mind. While it is true that the proclamation of salvation through Christ, was freely made to all men, it is 7iot true that the Apostles devoted themselves mainly to the reformation of the weak, the illiterate, or the abandoned. They preached the same gospel, and its provisions were as ne- cessary, to Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy counsellor, as to the wretched publican, to Dionysius, an Athenian judge, as to Barti- meus, the highway beggar, to Damaris, an honorable woman, as to Magdalen the sinner, to the treasurer of queen Candace as to the thief on the cross, to king Agrippa as to the jailer at Philippi. And if men whose crimes had been great, smitten with corres- ponding remorse, found in the provisions of the gospel a solace which they vainly sought in the institutions of Paganism, then this but invests the gospel with new glories. That single word, utter- most, in one of the promises of the sacred Scriptures, has infused hope and joy into many a despairing heart. Terrible indeed are the scourges of a guilty conscience — fierce, burning, agonizing are the pangs of remorse. Men of old were tormented by demons, but what foul fiend ever tormented the soul like the demon-king, remorse 7 What are all the pleasures, the honors, the distinctions, the riches of the world, what is all the sympathy of friends, what all the endearments of love, to a soul racked with remorse ? It permits no rest to the wounded spirit. It has made the unsus- 254 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. pected man come forth and charge himself with crimes whose burden was too heavy to bear. It has compelled the judge to come down from the bench and take the place of the prisoner at the bar. It has made men prefer death — with all that lies beyond death — to a life maddened by invisible stings. It has driven men to rush unbidden on eternity, under the persuasion that its flames would be more tolerable than present anguish — that hell would prove a refuge, and damnation a release. Remorse cannot find any "expiation in the temples of the gods" — it defies all the con- solations of earth, and mocks at their attempts to minister ease to the stricken despairing soul. To its victims the gospel alone can whisper comfort. It has a promise for the worst of men. The greatest criminals, when aroused to a sense of their guilt, are of all others, in greatest need of the consolations of the gospel. No wonder that such should avail themselves of a solace which Pa- ganism could not offer. Ancient annals tell us of the restless anxiety which distracted Tiberius, of the phantoms of horror which haunted Caracalla, of the fearful visions which murdered the sleep of Nero — and other criminals of equal guilt, but less notoriety, have had their terrors too, which Paganism could not assuage. But no case was ever beyond the reach of " salvation to the utter- most." There were converts from among debased and double- dyed transgressors. But Christianity did not go to the dens of infamy, and to the jakes of debauchery for her recruits. She found them chiefly among honest, industrious, virtuous poor. She never made selections among classes or characters. She uttered her voice in the streets, and her address was, " to you, O men, I call." But our author does not represent the virtues and the private lives of any class of Christians in an attractive light. Had the peculiarities of character, and of the habits of the primitive be- lievers been such as he depicts, their exhibition would rather hare extinguished than kindled the admiration of the world. In illus- trating this view of his subject, Mr. Gibbon, according to custom, throws in so many dark hints and satirical comments, as quite to neutralize his admission with regard to the pure and blameless lives of the primitive Christians, and almost to stultify his own assignment of it as a cause of the diflf'usion of Christianity. He ascribes their exemplary deportment to most unworthy motives. He accounts for the sanctity of their lives by the smallness of their number, by the vigilant espionage which they exercised over each other, and by their desire to keep up the reputation of THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 255 their sect in the eyes of tlie world. In a word, he surmises that they abstained from sin rather through fear of detection than from love to virtue, and maintained their religious consistency from motives of policy and sectarian ambition. In our author's sardonic merriment over their self-denial, their deadness to the allurements of sensual pleasure, their morbid tenderness of conscience, their immaculate chastity, their whim- sical marriage rites, their occasional frailties, their spiritual pride, their aversion to business as well as to the amusements of society, , — we have ample evidence of the inward derision and contempt which possessed him when he penned that acknowledgment of the pure and austere morals of the primitive Christians. It would be difficult to find in the writings of any infidel, condensed in so small a space, more disparaging reflections, bitter mockery, and derisive scorn, than Gibbon exhibits in his dissertation on the virtues of the infant Church. It is Mephistophiles grinning be- hind a grave-looking mask. The fifth, and last cause which this historian assigns for the wide diffusion of Christianity, is what he calls " the union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an increasing and independent state in the heart of the Roman em- pire." Alas, that there should have been so little union in the Christian republic in any age. Even before the death of the Apostles there were numerous heresies, schisms, and divisions. If among the discordant voices of the first century there were multitudes heard exclaiming, I am for Paul, and I am for Cephas, and 1 for Apollos, so in all subsequent ages the Church has been vocal with the party watchwords of interminable sects arrayed under the banners of rival leaders. There has indeed been a delightful fellowship and bond of union among all evangelical be- lievers, formed by their attachment to a common Saviour, but how could Gibbon seriously have ascribed to any organized con- federation those rapid and unparalleled conquests of Christianity, which were achieved, according to his own showing, a hundred and fifty years before any such federative union was formed? Let us observe his own statement of the matter. "The societies which were instituted in the cities of the Roman empire were united only by the ties of faith and charity. Indepejidence and equality formed the basis of their internal constitution." And then forgetting that he had made "the discipline" of the Church one of the great causes of its extension, in his zeal to 256 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTLUSTITY. introduce something to its disparagement, he adds, " The uant of discipline was suppHed by the occasional assistance of the proph- ets, who were called to that function without distinction of age, of sex, or of natural abilities, and who as often as they felt the divine impulse poured forth the effusions of the spirit in the as- sembly of the faithful." But it is not the discipline, but the al- leged federative union of the Church which now occupies our attention. What is his own testimony on the subject ? " Every society formed within itself a separate and independent republic ; and although the most distant of these little states maintained a mutual as well as friendly intercourse of letters and deputations, the Christian world was not yet connected by any supreme au- thority or legislative assembly." "Such was the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians were governed more than a hundred years after the death of the Apostles. But before one /ia//" century had elapsed, the gospel had spread not only throughout the Roman empire, but even to Parthia and India. It was not," says Mr. Gibbon, until " towards the end of the secotid century that the churches adopted the useful institutions of provincial synods," borrowing the idea, as he supposes, from the Amphictyon council, the Achaean league, or the Ionian assemblies. After this organization, " the Catholic church soon assumed the form and acquired the strength of a great federative republic." Now we need not consult Tacitus, or any pagan historian, we need not turn to church history, or to the sacred Scriptures themselves — we need only refer to Gibbon as our authority to be informed that the most splendid triumphs of Christianity were witnessed before any such federative union was formed, and yet he assigns this union as one cause of the rapid growth of the Christian Church ! He is equally mistaken too when he refers this rapid increase to the strict discipline maintained in the Church. This might be effect- ual, to some extent, in retaining the members already within its fold, but how could the fear of ecclesiastical censures draw stran- gers and heathen into the pale of the Church? And even with regard to those who were already in connection with it, is it prob- able that the fear of ecclesiastical censures would be as powerful in keeping them within its fold as the fear of the racks and flames of persecution would be in driving them out of that fold ? These are the five famous natural or "secondary causes" of Mr. Gibbon, by which he seeks to explain the wonderful promulgation of the gospel independent of any supernatural agency. Some of these THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 257 assigned causes are wholly irrelevant ; others are valid so far as they prove that Christianity \\a.s greatly favored by such cir- cumstances, and such human agencies as God chose to make use of in establishing his Church ; (for no believer in the Great Author of Christianity, doubts either that he adapted it to the world, or that he prepared the world by providential arrangements for its reception — compelling even " secondary causes" to further the great and glorious purposes of his grace;) but no candid man. with the simple facts of the case before him can be satisfied that Mr. Gibbon, with all his labored array of human instrumentalities has been able to solve that mystery of a church without worldly influence, wealth, learning, rank, or power, represented by men ignoble and despised — declaring open war upon all the vanities, vices, selfish interests, cherished propensities and deep-rooted super- stitions of the world — yet triumphing over prejudice, argument, eloquence, philosophy, established religion, the sword of persecu- tion, and finally clothing itself with the glory and the honor, the dominion and the power ! But make a single admission. Ascribe these victories to the superintendence and to the imparted aid of the Omniscient and Omnipotent, and then all wonder ceases — all mystery vanishes. Indeed, willing or unwilling, we are forced to this conclusion. There are no principles or causes of production and change in the worlds of spirit and of matter, which are not either natural or supernatural ; but having seen that the former is insufficient to explain the phenomenon before us, we are forced back upon the supernatural. Many of the causes enumerated by Mr. Gibbon were in fact effects — effects produced by a cause which it did not suit his pur- pose to recognize, and his method of explaining the creation of the Christian Church resembles the ancient Mythology which repre- sented the earth as resting upon the back of a tortoise, but which did not inform us what supported the tortoise. Says Hume, "when we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must pro- portion the one to the other." Here then is the great incontro- vertible fact of a religion triumphant over a thousand obsta- cles, any one of which would seem sufficient to arrest its pro- gress. To refer such an eflfect to a human cause, and above all to such feeble and inadequate causes, as infidelity with its best in- genuity has been able to assign, is certainly a shocking violation of the principle of the great skeptic. The t/i.^proportion is mon- 17 258 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. stious. A church resting upon its spire would be a nc "elty in architecture, but it would have as stable a foundation as that which infidelity gives to Christianity. Regarding the Christian church as an edifice whose maker and builder is God, we delight to contemplate the lofty spire springing /row the temple, and pointing to heaven, to remind us of the Almighty architect. The divine influence to which the Christian ascribes the success of (Christianity is sufficient to account for every anomaly, and ade- (juate to the production of every effect. Sustained and developed by omnipotent power, we can see how Christianity, at first appear- ing as a twinkling star, surrounded by clouds and thickest glooms, shonld nevertheless increase in magnitude and splendor, and cleaving the surrounding veil of darkness shine forth as the me- ridian sun. Urged on by the hand that moves the worlds, it can understand how the greatest results were accomplished by the feeblest instrumentalities — we see that the selection of humble fishermen as the heralds of salvation, instead of men of rank, and genius, and eloquence, was because " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things v/hicli are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath (^od chosen, yea and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are ; that no flesh should glory in his presence," and that the power might be seen to be of God. Plain men convinced by the miracles which they saw Christ perform of the truth of his doc- trine, and able to convince others of the same truths, by the mir- acles which they wrought — with love to God and love to men throbbing in every pulsation of their hearts, and sending the thrill of a diviner life through every limb, impelling them to all daring, never flagging action — men thus inflamed and thus nerved, went forth into the field of the world, and sowed the good seed which has never perished, and from which thousands in all generations have reaped the harvest of life everlasting. The frimary cause of the success of Christianity was the oper- ation of the Divine Spirit on the minds and hearts of men, giving to them spiritual perception — subduing their opposition to the truth, and endowing them with the expulsive and impulsive power of a new affection. "Tsrry ye," said our Saviour to his disciples, " in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." This was doubtless a trying command to men in their situation, certain of the resurrection of their Lord, assured that his kingdom would one day fill the earth with its THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 259 glory, and knowing- that the salvation of the race depended upon the reception of the gospel offer. With such tidings to commu- nicate, with such a glorious King to proclaim, they must have longed to advance, at once, to the prosecution of their work — but the time had not yet come. A new and peculiar influence must descend from heaven and rest upon them ere they could be quali- fied for the undertaking. As the statue of Memnon on the shores of the sea stood tuneless and mute, until the rays of the morning sun gilded its brow, so these heralds of the gospel had neither gifts nor tongues for their sublime proclamation until the light and fire from heaven should descend upon their heads, illuminating and kindling them, and causing them in turn to illuminate and kindle others. But baptized by this heaven-descended influence, though ignorant, they became wise, though weak, they became resistless, though timid, they became animated with a courage, which noth- ing in life or death could daunt. By this supernatural agency, they were endowed not only with the gift of tongues, but with the power of working miracles. And now their most extraordinary successes are no longer inexplicable. What though they are ob- scure, unlettered men, standing perchance in the presence of rank and power, what is to prevent them from elevating the humble cross, and challenging the admiration and love of beholders for a crucified Saviour, while they bear in their hands the credentials of heaven, and by signs and mighty wonders are able to display to the senses and inmost convictions of men the evidences of an Omnipotent and present God, bearing miraculous testimony to the truth and importance of their doctrine ? What is there longer unaccountable in the success of Christianity, the moment that the Son of the lowly Virgin is demonstrated to be the Son of God, and when his poor, unlettered, timid followers, are seen to be girded with strength from on high ? What is to prevent the triumph of doctrines which exhibit the impress of the same Almighty hand which has left its autogragh on every leaf of the Book of Nature? Should all other miracles be blotted from record, this miracle of the swift and universal spread of Christianity would remain a mon- ument of its celestial lineage, immovable as the everlasting hills. And to the same power which gave to Christianity its first victories, must we ascribe its preservation in the world during so many centuries, and its present existence, p3wer, and progress. There was a period — we need not now trace the path which led to it — when all that was pure, and spiritual, and divine, in Chris- 260 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. tianity seemed to have been swallowed up,, and buried under a mass of dead forms and living corruptions — when superstition and ignorance brooded over the earth as darkness did upon the face of the deep when the earth was without form, and void. But Christianity, though disastrously eclipsed, had not been utterly extinguished. Deep beneath the smouldering ashes a brand from the altar lay buried. It was glowing unseen, like the internal fires which are smothered in the deep abysses of the volcano, pres- ently to burst forth and shoot up their flames to the empyrean. Through all the dark ages the religious element was working, and though misdirected, as in the case of the Crusades, it was not annihilated. The word of God, though bound, was not utterly silent, and even when its whisper was heard, the still small voice was glorified. There were not wanting even in the bosom of the apostate Church, witnesses for the truth as it is in Jesus. Claudius of Turin, in the 9th century, and Peter of Bruys, Arnold of Brescia, in the 12th century, Pierre Valdo, Wiclif, Jerome of Prague, Anselm of Canterbury, and Savonarola, in later times, all testi- fied against the abuses which had corrupted the Church, and above all the Vaudois formed a long-continued chain of witnesses for the truth, holding up the cardinal doctrines of the gospel even as the Alpine mountains which they inhabited lifted up their summits above the plains to be bathed in the pure sun-light of heaven. The Waldenses nestling in the valleys of Piedmont, holding fast to their integrity, served God in ancient purity of worship, and never bowed the knee to Baal ; and even when the sword of the persecuting foe smote among them, they were not destroyed, but when scattered, went forth into all parts of Europe sowing the good seed of the word of life. It was the noble heroism of this band which inspired that immortal sonnet of Milton, so truly descriptive of their wrongs, and of the fruit of their sufferings. " Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ; Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our Fatliers worshipp'd stocks and stones Forget not ; in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and m their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roU'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 261 O'er all th' Italian fields ■where still doth sway The triple tyrant ; that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who having learn'd the way Early may fly the Babylonian woe." When at last the light of the Reformation blazed forth, it was evidently kindled by the same spirit ^ hich came down in tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost. It was not by might, nor by human power, that the Reformation was accomplished. Various temporal princes resisted Rome, but one after another (to use the fine metaphors of D'Aubigne) they broke in pieces at the base of the mighty colossus they undertook to overthrow. Learning too awoke and came to the rescue, but learning became subsidized, and kissed the feet of the power it attempted to de- throne. At last the apostate church undertook to correct its own abuses, but corruption could not purify corruption, nor could the festering wound originate its own cure. But finally the regen- erative power which erected the church of the 1st century on the ruins of Polytheism, built up its demolished walls on the ruins of Babylon. The divine oracles, so long imprisoned, again spoke forth, and the word was life and light. Pure Christianity revived. Old things passed away and all things became new. Since the glorious era of the Reformation, Christianity has illustrated her indestructibility by coming forth unscathed from the assaults of other foes. Even under its noon-tide radiance, and in the enjoyment of the richest blessings which the gospel has communicated to the world, there has arisen an order of men whose hearts are filled with rancorous hatred to its doctrines, and who have exerted all their powers in the attempt to dislodge its truths from the memories and affections of their fellows. Casting aside the old weapons of force, the assault has been not upon the bodies, but upon the minds of men.* In this campaign Infidelity has marshalled all its hosts, it has sent forth its ponderous tomes of grave scholastic argument, it has come forth arrayed in the imposing garb of philosophy. It has assumed to itself all the panoply of science. It has mingled its dogmas with the voice of * Some years ago, the author of this Lecture found some remarks on the various guises and atrocities of Infidelity (as he thinks), in a newspaper or magazine. Bemg pleased with their animation he carelessly copied, or rather made a running para- phrase of them, never expecting to use the paper. The general drift of these re- marks he has endeavored to give above. Were it in his power he would quote them accurately, and doubtless in a more condensed and striking form. 262 . THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. history. It has infused its poison into the fountains of Hterature. It has blended its notes with the sweet cadences of poetry. It has chanted its blasphemies in softest strains of music. It has crept into every house in the garb of fiction. It has shot forth the polished arrows of satire, and decked itself with the charms of wit and sentiment. It has borrowed the livery of heaven, and transformed itself into an angel of light. It has pretended to be the only true friend and ally of freedom. It has spread its lures for the feet of the aged, and stolen with velvet tread into the chambers of youth and innocence. Since the era of the Reforma- tion, it has joined hands as did Polytheism of old with persecut- ing power. It has again drawn the sword, and kindled the fagot, and quarried the prison, and set in order its implements of cruelty. It has thundered its denunciations against the heralds of the gospel, and armed its myrmidons against the followers of the meek and lowly Lamb. It has abolished the temples of the Most High, attempted to raze the foundations of the Church, and to overwhelm in a tempest of fire and blood, all who professed to be followers of the crucified Redeemer. And still the Church survives, God being her refuge and strength, and very present help in time of trouble. There is another and very different illustration of the " success" of Christianity, to which we would fain advert, viz. to its instru- mentality in relieving human wants and woes, its amehoration of the wrongs and evils of society, the solace it brings to the wounded spirit, and its happy influence on the temporal prospects of men. Wherever it has gone it has rebuked oppression, re- pressed violence, and compelled vice, abashed, to skulk in dark- ness. It has given to us, as a nation, the free institutions which command the admiration and excite the hopes of the down-trod- den in all lands. It has given to Christendom the power which it now exercises over the destiny of the whole world. While Infi- delity is like the molten lava which, spouting up from the infernal depths of the volcano, overwhelming vineyards and human habi- tations in its fiery sweep, then settles down upon the blackened ruins, hardening itself to stone— Christianity descends like the gentle dews of Heaven, steals through the silent valleys, diffusing fertility and fragrance as it goes, causing the dry land to become springs of water and the desert to blossom as the rose, while before it siffhinff and sorrow flee away, and in its train come thanksgiving and the voice of melody. THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 The author of that admirable little work entitled "The Bible True," remarks, that " there are two effects produced by the word of God ou the hearts of those who embrace it, which are peculiar to revelation. One is elevated purity. This effect is not confined to the virtuous part of mankind, but is witnessed also in the despe- rate, and outrageous, and lawless, who are brought under its power. Men fierce as wild beasts, as cruel as death, and ungovern- able as the storm, have often felt its purifying power. This has been the case from the first. An early Christian writer says, "Give me a man of a passionate, abusive, headstrong disposition; with a few only of the words of God, I will make him gentle as a lamb. Give me a greedy, avaricious, tenacious wretch ; and I will teach him to distribute his riches with an unsparing hand. Give me a cruel and blood-thirsty monster ; and all his rage shall be exchanged to true benignity. Give me a man addicted to in- justice, full of ignorance, and immersed in wickedness ; he shall soon become just, prudent, and innocent." Such was the testimony of one who witnessed the power of Christianity in the primitive age. Let us content ourselves with a single illustration of its influence in modern times, as exhibited in the following narrative extracted from an annual report of the Bible Society, issued some years ago. "In 1787, the ship Bounty sailed from England to the Pacific in quest of young bread-fruit trees to be replanted in the West Indies. On her way home the crew mutinied, placed the master and eigh- teen others in a frail open boat, with scanty provisions, and com- mitted them to the mercy of the ocean. Strange to tell, that boat accomplished a voyage of more than 4,000 miles and reached England in safety. The mutineers, twenty-five in number, set sail for some island in the Pacific. They quarrelled and separated. About half of the whole number were captured by an English vessel-of-war, carried home and hung in irons. Nine of these desperadoes went to Tahiti, took on board nineteen natives, seven men and twelve women, and sailed for some uninhabited island in the ocean. They found one, Pitcairn's Island. Shortly after land- ing, the Tahitian men murdered five of the mutineers, upon which the twelve women rose at night and killed their seven countrymen. Of the four remaining mutineers, one invented a distillery, and becoming delirious leaped from a cliff into the sea and was lost. Another was shot for attempting to destroy his messmates. Of the two then left, one died a natural death, and the other, named 264 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. John Adams, alone survived. Here their hiding-place was undis- turbed until 1814, when it was visited, as also in 1825. Strange alterations had taken place. The number of inhabitants had in- creased to seventy. There was no debauchery amongst them. Good order prevailed. Filial affection and brotherly love pervaded the entire society. The blessing of God was invoked on every meal. Prayer was offered every morning, noon and evening. The laws of civilized society were in force. The rights of property were respected. A simple and pure morality was prevalent. How was this? What had made the change? Had vice wrought its own cure? Had there been some good principles combined with the mutiny and murder, the heathenism and devilish passions, which this gang had been guilty of? No. These evils never work their own cure, except by consuming, like a fire, their own mate- rials. The cause of the change was this. Adams had saved, hid and preserved a Bible, and when his comrades were dead, he studied it, embraced its promises, believed God's testimony concern- ing his Son, was converted, read and taught its truths to his family and neighbors, and God blessed his word to their conversion also. That very Bible is now in this country. It is a small volume, printed in 1765. The salt sea and the salt tears of old Adams have taken away its gloss and dimmed its print ; but it contains God's testimony of Jesus. That was the secret of its power. The worm has eaten it through and through. But the glad tidings to sinners can still be read in it. That Bible has travelled round the globe, has been the means of reforming a whole community of outlaws, and still lives to proclaim its divine Original and its life-giving power. When Adams was brought to his death-bed, he was old in years, but strong in faith. The friends of the old salt collected around him and asked: 'Well, John, what cheer?' ' Land ahead !' was his characteristic veply. After a few days they again gathered around him and said : ' Well, John, how now ?' He replied : ' Rounding the point into the harbor.' At last he lay upon his dying pillow, and his relations were standing all around in tears, and yet in hope. One said : ' Brother, how now ?' ' Let go the anchor,' was his dying exclamation, and he fell asleep." Having taken this general but extended view of the rise, prog- ress, and effects of Christianity, we may be permitted, in conclu- sion, to cast a single glance toward the future. We have seen enough to convince us that our holy religion is THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 265 indestructible in its nature, possessing within itself no elements of decay, but the principle of immortality. The shield of God is spread over it, and the bosses of that buckler are eternal truth and power. There let infidelity hurl its darts until with nerve- less, withered, wasted arm, it abandons the contest, with the con- fession that such assaults are more idle than casting straws against the impenetrable scales of Leviathan. Its past history gives the bright presage of its future victories. Amidst all the revolutions of ages, amidst all the desolations of time, amidst all the changing, vanishing creeds and institutions of the world, Christianity still survives ; and rises to the view as beautiful and glorious, as on the day when arrayed in its primal loveliness, it came down from Heaven to redeem and regenerate the earth. "Serapis fell with Thebes, Baal with Babylon, Apollo with Delphi, and Jupiter with the capitol, but Christianity has often beheld the demolition of her sacred temples without being convulsed by their fall." It derives its vitality from Him who only hath immortality, and its shrine is not material walls, but the hving heart of the good man. When its temples have been overthrown, and its disciples compelled to flee the haunts of civilized life, its hymns have charmed the solitude of the desert, its prayers have hallowed the damp walls of the dungeon, its sacraments have been celebrated in the dens of the earth, its most illustrious triumphs have been witnessed upon scaffolds, its brightest glories have blazed forth from the funeral piles of its martyrs. Other creeds have been like the clouds, for a time piled up in dizzy heights and bathed in the golden beams of the sun, while Christianity, like the sun itself, shines undimmed and unwasted, with none of its original glory obscured. Every day its expansive power becomes increas- ingly manifest. Its missionaries now traverse all lands, dare all climates, and tempt all seas. With each returning Sabbath the praises of its exalted Author are murmured from ten thousand tongues ; the strain is caught up from church to church, and from land to land, until the music goes echoing round the world. And can we for a moment believe, that a religion so benign, so adapted in its provisions to the necessities and woes of the world, teaching sweet lessons of resignation under present sorrow, in- spiring such joyous anticipations of future blessedness, can ever perish? No — these celestial hopes whose untiring wings waft the soul above all that is terrestrial, these sublime aspirations, whose 266 THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY. angel fingers point to the illimitable sky, and cheer the spirit with the foretaste of a destiny full of glory, honor, immortality, eternal life — oh no — these can never perish — they are heaven- born and indestructible. They can never be supplanted by a sul- len, cheerless infidelity, which submits because it must, to inexor- able fate — which has no prospects, but a cold, bleak world around, and a rayless eternity beyond — whose best discovery is, a grave without a resurrection, and a world without a God. ^-^-7^ # *«»• SMpirntinit nf tlie |rri|iteM : MORELL'S THEORY DISCUSSED AND REFUTED. THE KEY. T. V. MOORE, RICHMOND, VA. Has God spoken in an authenticated form to man ? is one of the most momentous questions that man can ask or answer. If he has not, then a thousand demands of duty and of destiny crowd upon us for solution. What am I? Whence am I? Whither am I bound? Why am I here? What relation has my here to my hereafter? and kindred queries, rise clamorous and pressing upon the soul. We bend over the cradle to learn the mystery of our origin, but no note of intelligence comes from the little unconscious one that nestles there. We strain our gaze into the gloom of the grave to unravel the problem of our destiny, and ask " if a man die, shall he live again ?" but no reply comes up from the voiceless dwelling of the worm, the clod, and the coffin. We turn to the living multitude, the rushing tide^f men, and ask, what is truth? What is duty? What is happiness? What is safety ? and there come up to us the infinite voices of a Babel confusion. The philosopher says it is here ; the poet says it is here ; the Brahmin says it is with me ; the Gnostic says it is with me ; the Academy and the Porch, the stern Stoic and the courtly Epicurean all cry that the hght has come only to them ; the Moslem points to the pale gleam of the Crescent and the Jew to the red glare of Sinai ; the idealist and the materialist, the mystic and the sensationalist, the skeptic and the traditionalist, the eclec- tic and the indifferentist, all affirm that they only have the true voice of reason, and the true theory of existence. If then, there is no utterance from the eternal verity, who shall tell us what is the truth amidst this chaotic din of multitudinous voices? If there is no spear of Ithuriel, who shall disenchant for us the lurking spirit of falsity, and give us a test to distinguish the true from the untrue? If there is no clue to this tangled thicket, who shall thread the thorny labyrinth, and pluck for us the fruit of the tree of life? Alas! if we are left to ourselves, with our purblind vision, our flickering light, and our faltering step, the mournful 270 INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. fate of those who have preceded us, relying on the same aids, warns us of what must be our inevitable destiny. If God has not spoken to man, why did he give him the cruel capacity for such questions as these? If he meant to doom him to the brute's uncertainty, why did he not give him the precious boon of the brute's blank ignorance and content? Why did he furnish liglit for the eye, sound for the ear, fragrance and food for their respective organs, and a supply for every rightful demand that rises in our nature, but this highest, deepest, most moment- ous want of the soul? But has he thus left us? Can it be, that he who preserves man and beast, who feeds the callow young of the sparrow, and hears the lions' whelps when they cry, has forsaken his noblest, greatest work, precisely at that point where it was most important that the law of supply existing below it, should continue to act? Has he left his crowning creature in the crowning purpose and need of his existence, as the ostrich leaves her egg in the lone and trackless desert, without parental oversight and bereft of parental supply? No ! The deepest instincts of our nature, the widest generalizations of our experience, and the calmest conjec- tures of our reason unite in saying, it cannot be ; God must have spoken ; and if his words can but be recognized in the thousand- voiced din of this earthly Babel, we shall learn the truth to be believed and the duty to be performed. If then he has spoken, the query arises, is it in a form accessi- ble to all, the high and low, the ignorant and learned, the weak of mind as well as the mighty? And is it in a form sufficiently reliable to be made trustworthy to all who have access to it? These questions are equivalent to the inquiry, is such a thing possible to the human soul as the inspiration of the. Almighty ? If so, can its results be made certainly available to any other mind than that which originally receives it? This throws open to us the whole question of inspiration, its psychological possibility, its nature, its extent, and its existence as a fact in the writings of the Old and New Testament. The views of those who have written on this wide question vary from the extreme of credulity and word-worship on the one side, to the extreme of skepticism and man-worship on the other. But they may all be thrown into two grand categories ; they who affirm in some form, the plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible, and they who in form or substance deny it. Of those who affirm INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 271 it, some contenl Avith J. D. Michaelis, and a few writers of the Sociniau school, tiiat some portions of the canonical Scriptures are thus inspired and some are not. Others, with Calamy, Haldane, and Gaussen,* in their otherwise excellent works on this subject, contend for the theory of verbal dictation, affirming that the canonical writers were the mere amanuenses of the Holy Ghost, writing just the very words that they were directed to write, and directed always to write the very words which they did write ; a theory, however, which when defined and explained as they hold it, is found to be rather an unfortunate and extravagant statement of the truth, than an assertion of positive error. Others again, with Twesten, Smith, Dick, Parry, Wilson, Henderson, Chalmers, and the great body of Protestant theologians, hold, that whilst we need not and cannot affirm that the writers were mere scribes, recording with mechanical accuracy the mere and ipsissima verba dictated to them by the Holy Spirit, so that the subjective state of mind of Matthew in recording the fact that Christ was born in Bethlehem, was precisely the same with that of Micah in predicting it ; yet that in every case there was such an influence of the Holy Spirit on the minds of the writers as infallibly to direct them what to say and what to omit, so that we should have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as far as was necessary to the main object of the Bible ; and that whilst the very words were not in every case dictated to the writers, yet such an influence of the Spirit extended to the words selected, as to prevent the use of any that would express an error or an un- truth. Of those who deny the plenary inspiration of the Scrip- tures, some take the old ground of imposture and fraud, with the French school ; others like Priestley and the low rationalistic party, admit the substantial truth of the facts, and veracity of the writers, but deny any divine influence to them, and assert either that the facts are not miraculous, or the record not correct ; others, with Strauss, make the entire book a bundle of myths, ranking it with the legends of all ancient nations concerning the heroic ages of their history ; whilst others, with Schleiermacher, admit an inspiration, but deny that it is either miraculous, infallible or peculiar to these writers. The old theory of imposture is now abandoned by nearly all intelligent skeptics, and left to the mere canaille of infidelity. It * Gaujsen has recently disclaimed this theory, and indeed condemned it as mis- chievous See D'Aubigne'3 Authority of God, p. 267. 272 INSPIKATION OF THE SCKIPTUllES. is seen that it fails to account for the admitted facts of iJie case, to furnish any satisfactory explanation of the conduct of these men, or to account for the existence and influence of Christianity and the Bible as existing facts in human history. It is felt that these men must have been earnest, true, and sincere, to account for their impress on the world's life, by any of the ordinary laws of human nature ; whilst to affirm any other laws, would be to allege a miracle for which there was no proof, to set aside miracles for which there was proof; and therefore to admit a miracle more incredible than those that were rejected. But modern criticism will take a further step than this, and admit that these writers were the actual recipients of a real divine enlightenment, but will deny that they were so enlightened as to be the infallible expoun- ders of truth and duty, or that their writings can be called inspired in any other sense than the word may be loosely and inaccurately applied to the writings of any great, earnest and enlightened men, who have been the subjects of an afflatus of genius. This we believe to be essentially the view presented by Carlyle in his essay on Yoltaire, and Sartor Resartus, book iii. ch. 7 ; by Bailey, Leigh Hunt, the Westminster Review, and other organs of literary skep- ticism or free thinking on religious subjects in our own day. We have thought it best in an exercise like the present, not to attempt a discussion of the whole subject, which must be little better than a meagre epitome of the common-places of apologeti- cal theology ; but to refer you to the works already named for a full treatment of the whole theme, and grapple directly with what is the most prevalent form of error on this subject at present in the minds of educated and literary men. Happily for our pur- pose, we have this theory set forth in a detailed and scientific form, which gives us something tangible and definite to encounter. Mr. Morell, who gained no small reputation by his History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, has pubhshed a Philosophy of Religion, in which he presents this theory in the most formal and elaborate manner, and sets up for it the most able and suc- cessful defence that we have seen in our language. As the alter- native is confessedly between this theory and the old one of plenary inspiration, the overthrow of the one will be the admitted establishment of the other. We propose then to subject to a detailed and crrtical examina- tion, Mr. Morell's Theory of Inspiration, as set forth in his Phi- losophy of Religion. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 273 His theory of Inspiration is based on Iiis psychology, but yet may be described in terms sufficiently exphcit, without entering into the details of his system of intellectual philosophy. Adopt- ing the division of the mental operations naturalized in our language by Coleridge, under the terms Reason and Understand- ing, or as Mr. M. prefers to designate them, the Intuitional and the Logical Consciousness, he affirms inspiration to be exclusively a phenomenon of the pure reason. It is simply an elevation of the intuitive power to a clearer perception of spiritual truth than could ordinarily be attained, but not an influence extending to the reasoning faculties of the writers so as to insure accuracy of prem- ises or conclusion ; nor to their memories, securing accuracy of recollection; nor to their judgments, ensuring a proper selection of facts and opinions ; nor to their writing of these views, reason- ings or recollections, ensuring a fair, truthful and infallible record : that this inspiration is not generically different from that whicli poets and other men of genius enjoy, or from a high degree of per- sonal holiness ; that in no proper sense can the phrase be applied to the Bible so as to assert it to be an infallible rule of faith and practice ; that the writers of Scripture do not claim any such in- spiration for their writings ; nor is any such consistent with the nature of the human mind. Such is the theory which he ad- vances as the only rational hypothesis, and as that which is grad- ually taking its place in the opinions of the literary and philo- sophical world. Let us first look at the arguments on which he rests it, and then at the positive evidence against it. It is affirmed that inspiration being a state of the mind, it is impossible that a book can be inspired any more than that a book can reason or feel. At first sight this would seem to be a mere quibble and play upon words, but the prominence given to it by Mr. M., especially in his chapter on Revelation, shows that he regards it as present- ing a plain impossibility in the way of the common theory. Bui, in spite of the value which he evidently attaches to it, it is obvi- ously equivalent to the allegation, that because genius is an at tribute of the mind, therefore there can be no such thing as a work of genius ; or because imagination and reasoning are opera- tions of the mind, therefore there can be no work of poetry or logic. Granting for the present, that the inspiration of the canon- ical writers w'as not generically different from that of the poet or the philosopher, it will at least follow, that they are governed by 18 2f4 INSPIRAIION OF THE SCRIPTURES. the same laws. Now it is certain, that there is no impossibility in giving a record of the mental operations of the poet and the philosopher, which shall be a fair and reliable transcript of the subjective states of mind existing in each particular case, and which shall be rightfully termed poetry and philosophy. Now, if the inspired mind perceives spiritual truth, as the poet and phi- losopher perceive poetic and philosophical truth, why should that be impossible in the one case, which is possible in the other? Why should the power that produced the inspiration be supposed incapable of extending to the record, and securing a faithful tran* script ? This is a power which even a man possesses in regard to his fellow, why should it be denied to God ? If one man may suggest thoughts to the mind of another, may induce him to re- cord them in his own language, and may superintend that record so as to secure a faithful representation of these thoughts in words, why should the same power be denied to that God who created man and gave him all his power? It would surely be possible for God to cause a human mind to perceive a perfect system of mathematical truth, it would also be possible for him so to influ- ence that mind, that it would make a correct record of this system in mathematical language. Such a record would then be an in- fallible arbiter to which an appeal could be carried in every case of disputed mathematics. Why is the same process impossible as to religious truth? It is said with an air of triumph in reply to this, that such a record of religious truth would be no revelation to a mind that was not raised to the same level of spiritual intuitions. Granted, but would it not be a rev^elation to one that was ? The revealed system of mathematical truth would not be a revelation to one who had no mathematical perceptions, but would it not be to one who had? So that even were it true, that the inspired writers recorded nothing but that which could be comprehended only by one who was capable of like spiritual intuitions, still it would be true that to such an one the record might be an infallible tran- script of the subjective state of the inspired writer. But it is not true, that either the value or the comprehension of every part of this record, is limited to minds capable of like spir- itual intuitions, any more than it is true that the value and com- prehension of every part of Newton's Principia are limited to minds capable of the same mathematical perceptions. There are many scientific truths which ordinary minds could never have dis- INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. I7S covered, but which they readily comprehend when discovered, as Columbus has shown with his memorable egg. So there are many things which the unaided human mind could never have originated in regard to spiritual and eternal realities, or if origin- ated, could never have verified, but which, when once stated in language, are clearly and readily comprehended. We do not as yet affirm, that the Scriptures are verbally inspired, because of the inspiration of the writers, but we do affirm that there is nothing impossible in such a declaration of facts. As an executive proclamation may be declared authoritative be- cause of the authority of him that issued it ; as a will may he called testamentary because of the devisory powers vested in the testator; as a book may be called mathematical because of the thoughts which a mathematical mind has embodied in it ; so may the Scriptures in the same sense be called inspired, because they set forth in true and faithful manifestation the mental and spirit- ual state of their inspired writers. This preliminary difficulty being removed, we meet Mr. M. on the ground where, after all, the issue must be decided, the con- tents of the book itself. He affirms that these contents contra- dict the theory of plenary, verbal inspiration, and demand the one under discussion. It is said that if the Bible had come from God in this plenary sense, it would have been given in a more perfect and finished form, and not in that fragmentary and successive manner, in pur- suance of which, most of its books seem to have been forced into existence by the exigencies of existing circumstances, rather than as the result of a settled plan for revealing a complete system of religious truth. We ask in return, has not the earth come forth from the imme- diate hand of God ? W^hy then are not its materials arranged with greater regularity ? Why are its rocks not located accord- ing to a perfect system of geology, its flora according to a perfect system of botany, and its animals according to a perfect system of zoology ? If there are reasons of convenience to man requir- ing such an arrangement of God's material revelation of himself, may not the same arrangements be required in the spiritual reve- lation of the same great Nature? And if these arrangements do not blot out the mighty sign-manual of Jehovah in the enduring rocks, the waving forests, and the roaming tribes of living things, or cause us to doubt their immediate issue from his hand, why 276 INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. should they have this effect in the unfoldings of himself in his word ? If he built not the might}'^ masonry of the Alps accord- ing to any of the five orders of architecture, and channelled not the rolling rush of the Amazon according to the rules of the engineer, why should we demand that a yet more wonderful revelation of himself should come forth, Minerva-like, in the hard, polished and inflexible panoply of a rigid methodical science? If it be replied that the objection is rather to the successive and gradual development in fragments of this alleged revelation, than to its want of scientific arrangement, then we answer this by another question. Docs not the geologist tell us that the earth passed through many stages of existence, countless ages before it was fitted for man in its present form ? Is it not passing through such changes now ? Does this gradual and successive unfolding of its states militate against its origin immediately from the hand of God ? Why then should the same fact prove that the Bible in the same plenary sense cannot be the product of the immediate hand of Jehovah ? If it be objected to this analogy, that the revelation of God adduced is one that was made in blind unconscious matter, and not in living and conscious spirits, we meet the evasion from an- other direction. Those with whom we argue now, assert that God is in human history, and that aside from and beyond the agency of man, there is a direct and immediate exertion of the Divine finger in unfolding its great principles and results. Now has not the Bible, as to the point objected to, come forth precisely according to the unfoldings of human history? Has it not a clearness of arrangement, an unity of purpose, and a completeness of parts, that cannot yet be affirmed of that history ? If then we contend that in like wise, above and beyond the human im- ,pulses and agencies engaged in the production of the Bible, there ivas a Divine power specially directing and determining, to the kst jot and tittle, its form and structure, shall the fact which does not disprove such an interposition in the world's history, dis- prove it in the Scriptures? But we go further and affirm, that this state of facts was more imperatively demanded in the case of the Scriptures than in any of the others. Why was God made manifest in the flesh? Ob- viously because the great purposes designed to be effected in and for the human race by the incarnation, demanded that the Divine should be manifested through the human, and not through the INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 277 angelic, or any new form of created personal existence. Now the very same necessities demanded likewise that the revelation of the Divine to man in tliought, emotion and word, should be made through human minds and human iiearts. And that it may come in contact with human nature at all its points, it must not be made through but one man, or one class of men, but. through such a variety of men as would enable the Divine afflatus to breathe through the whole gamut of human sympathy, emotion and character, from the lowliest fisherman of Galilee, and the humblest herdsman of Tekoah, to the loftiest sage of Egypt, the sublimest bard of Judea, and the subtlest logician of the school of Gamaliel. And the same reasons that made it needful that he who was " God over all, blessed forever," should manifest himself in human form in the " seed of David," made it also necessary that the revelation of the same God in word, should be through this same wondrous Hebrew race. Were the human race all moulded in precisely the same matrix of char- acter, thought, emotion and external position, this objection to the Bible as coming directly from the hand of God, might pos- sibly lie. But with all the varieties and inequalities of human condition, it is as absurd as to challenge the Divine origin of the wondrous vesture of atmosphere that wraps the round earth, be- cause at one time it lies thin and cold on the mountain top, at another dense and heavy in the valley ; at one time hangs red and fiery over the far-stretching desert, at another cool and transparent over the dewy landscape of spring ; and at one time sleeps softly and pulselessly in the still calm, and at another rushes wildly and fearfully in the terrible hurricane. Variety marks God's handi- work in nature, and cannot therefore disprove it in revelation. The defective morality of the Old Testament is objected to its plenary inspiration. If this means that the standard of actual attainment in prac- tical ethics was lower under the Old Testament than under the New, we concede it, but this fact does not touch the question of the inspiration of these books. They record the precise facts of the case with infallible accuracy, and on the correctness of this record we can rely, for the very reason that it is an inspired docu- ment. If however the objection means that the standard of requisition was lower, we meet it with an emphatic denial. Christ gave no moral law that was not found in the Old Testa- ment, and corrected nothing of what was said in the old time but 278 iNSPiSATlON OF THE SCRIPTtJKES. the corrupt glosses and traditions of the fathers. The evil con- duct of Noah and David are recorded in warning and condemna- tion in the Old Testament precisely as we have that of Judas and Peter in the New. And in regard to acts and customs which are there approved, such as are not and ought not to be permitted now, we affirm that under the particular circumstances of the case, they were perfectly consistent with the immutable principles of morality. The Levirate law, the law of the avenger of blood, the water of jealousy, the judicial rule of the lex talionis, and similar institutions, had their origin in that partly nomadic and imperfect state of social life from which the Hebrew tribes sprang, and were sanctioned and regulated because it was better to allow them temporarily to exist than violently to abolish them ; and existing by consent of society and permission of God, they violated no principle of morality. The spoiling of the Egyptians, the ex- termination of the Canaanites, and similar acts, were done by the command of God ; were right then, and if commanded by God would not be wrong now. The rights of life and property are not absolute in man, but only contingent on the will of God, and he may take them away, either by a pestilence and a whirl- wind, or by the squadrons of an invading army. Men in such cases are but the executioners, and surely it will not be denied that the right to dispose of human life and property according to his will, is vested in the Creator and Sovereign of all, in the highest and most absolute sense. In all this then there is noth- ing that contradicts a plenary verbal inspiration. ^- The inconsistency of the Bible with the results of modern scientific research is also objected. There is usually much inattention or much disingenuousness evinced in pressing this argument. It is affirmed with great triumph that the writers of the Bible were ignorant of many of the facts of natural science, and hence have used language in regard to the phenomena of the physical world to which they at- tached conceptions scientifically incorrect. This is deemed suf- ficient to prove that the}^ did not possess a plenary inspiration. We grant that these writers often used language to which they may have attached notions in their own minds, which, owing to their ignorance of natural science, were scientifically false. But we affirm that this language, when fairly interpreted, does not as- sert these scientific errors, and that, as we shall subsequently show, their remarkable preservation from t le declaration of scientific INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 279 error is one of the most signal indications of the superintending inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Nor is this peculiar to the lati- g^uage that refers to natural phenomena. The writers of Scrip- ture often used language the real and full signification of which they did not and could not understand. The Apostle Peter directly affirms this fact when he states (1 Pet. i. 10-12) that after the ancient prophets wro^e their prophecies they sat down reverently to study their meaning, •' searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testi- fied beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow : unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven." When Malachi declared that Elijah must come, we cannot suppose that he thought of John the Baptist. And when David declared " they parted my garments among them, and on my vesture did they cast lots," we cannot believe that he saw the gambling of the Roman soldiers on Calvary. But in these and similar cases, the writers used language attach- ing certain conceptions to it, which we now see, not only fairly bears another signification, but was actually designed to have such a meaning, and hence we give it that interpretation. So we af- firm that in precise accordance with this general principle which runs through the whole Bible, Moses, Job, Joshua and David used language referring to natural phenomena, to which they attached conceptions corresponding with the cosmogony and astronomy of the age ; but we contend that in no case have they been allowed to assert the truth of these scientific misconceptions. They either used language that is susceptible of an interpretation conformable to the truth, or they used the popular forms of speech that describe things as they seem to be, and not as they are. We are flippantly told that Joshua talks of the sun standing still ; that David speaks of a Hades, which he supposed to be under the earth ; that Paul speaks of a third Heaven which he supposed to be just beyond the stellar dome ; and that all the writers on the work of redemption speak of the earth as possessing an impor- tance which astronomy shows it does not possess in the universe. But we ask the objector, does not every treatise on practical as- tronomy speak of the sun rising, and setting, and crossing the line of the equinox, when in strictness these things are not so ? Bui is any one ever deceived ? Is not this use of language an abso - 280 INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. late necessity unless we would talk nonsense or confusion ? And whatever David thought, does he anywhere assert that Hades is under the earth ? Does he ever do more than use language in- telligible to his contemporaries? And does Paul anywhere assert that Heaven is a mere third story in the great ascending circles of the creation ? If then, to show those to whom he wrote that he meant, not the atmospheric or stellar Heaven, but the Paradise of God, he used the common designation, the third Heavens, did he affirm any proposition that Lord Rosse's telescope shows to be un- true? And when the Scripture doctrine of redemption gives the earth an importance of position that is not assigned to it by as- tronomy, does it follow that these representations are mutually contradictory? Does not history give to Thermopylae, Actium and Waterloo an importance that geography does not? But are these representations, though both correct, in any real contradic- tion? Would not any man be called a fool who would question the statements of history as to the stupendous influence that the scenes there enacted have had on the world's destiny, because these spots are not as large as many a gentleman's plantation ? When, therefore, the Bible asserts that the earth is the very Ther- mopylse of the universe, shall this same objection be flaunted in our faces, as a mark of superior wisdom and scientific culture? Suppose a fragment were found in some writer anterior to the age of Hesiod, asserting that the sky which hung over the north pole was not upheld b}^ the walls of a crystal sphere as some contended, but was suspended over the void of empty space, and that the earth itself was self-poised over nothing, would not such a passage be triumphantly adduced by the scholar as a most ama- zing anticipation of astronomical science in later times ? And yet when we find in a writer older than the very language of Greece, the sublime couplet, " He spreadeth the north over the empty space, And hangith the earth upon nothing:"* such a fragment is skipped over with a contemptuous fling at He- brew cosmogony. The same unfairness appears in the objections drawn from geology. The Bible nowhere affirms that the matter of the world is but six thousand years old. On the contrary, when it speaks of the earth as compared with the race of man that lives upon it, * Job xxvi. 7. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 281 it. represents the one as the fitting type of that high and solitary One who is from everlasting to everlasting, while the other is as the grass which in the morning flourisheth and groweth up, and in the evening is cut down and withereth. It simply affirms of the Heavens and the earth that in the beginning they were created by God. Does geology contradict this ? It also affirms that about six thousand years ago, the earth received in six days substantially its present arrangement, from a pre-existent state of chaotic con- fusion, and it describes this sublime scene with graphic and dra- matic beauty, as it would have appeared to a spectator standing on the earth and gazing on these mighty changes as they went forward. Does geology contradict this, or show it to be impossible 1 It asserts that some four thousand years ago there was an univer- sal deluge of waters, miraculously and judicially spread over the earth. Now even if the flood-marks that were once pointed out as traces of the deluge, may be explained on other grounds, is there anything in geological researches that contradicts the testi- mony of history and tradition in regard to this great and awful fact? Does geology do anything more than leave it an open ques- tion? Whilst then we admire this young Titan of the sciences a? it upheaves the foundations of the earth, and shows us the mighty corner-stones of its structure ; and whilst we are grateful to it for its contributions to natural and even remotely to revealed theology ; yet when it leaves its pickaxe and hammer among the rocks, and attempts on some Pelion or Ossa of gigantic speculation to scale the battlements of God's own council chamber, and impeach the fidelity of a record with which it has legitimately nothing to do, we must meet it with the stern words that came to the startled Emir of Uz, from the dark throat of the storm — " Who ia this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a man ; I will put questions to thee, and do thou inform me. Where wast thou when I founded the earth? Declare, if thou hast knowledge ! Who then fixed the measure of it? For thou knoweBt! Who stretched the line upon it? Upon what are its foundations settled ? Or who laid its corner-stone ? When the morning stars sang together. And all the sons of God shouted for joy ? Who shut up the sea with doors In its bursting forth as from the womb ? When I made the cloud its garment, 282 INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. And swathed it in thick darkness ? I measured out for it my limits, And fixed its bars and doors ; And said, thus far shalt thou come, but no further, And here shall thy proud waves be stayed !"* Whilst we know the dignified and reverent response that will be made by the truly philosophical geologist to this sublime chal- lenge ; whilst we rejoice to meet in the Bucklands, the Pye Smiths, the Millers, and the Hitchcocks, men not more eminent for their love of God's works than their reverence for God's word ; and whilst we freely acquit this noble science of any antagonism or hostility to revelation honestly interpreted, yet we also know that the stern rebuke it conveys is richly deserved by the sciolist and the smatterer, who ignorant or forgetful of the legitimate province of human science betakes himself to world-building and world- dreaming about " the natural history of creation." We cannot go into any farther detail in meeting this class of objections, having said enough to indicate the general principles on which all the alleged discrepancies of scientific truth with revelation, may be fully and fairly met and set aside. When the Bible is fairly interpreted, there is no such discrepancy with any established fact of science. The fancies of interpreters and the fancies of philosophers may conflict, but fancies are not facts, and neither science nor revelation should be held accountable for the follies of their friends. God speaking in his works, can never contradict God speaking in his word, and we need give ourselves no anxiety about any possible inconsistency between the two utterances. The watchful and hostile jealousy with which science has sometimes been regarded by good men, as something fraught with possible danger to the truth of revelation, is as impolitic as it is unreasonable. Let the students of each explore their own department without any jealous or suspicious reference to the other, and their results in the end, when clearly reached, will be found as perfectly consistent as the laws of astronomy and the facts of geology; like them, the one is of heaven and the other of earth, but both the interpreters of him who has made both heaven and earth. We do not affirm that everything in the Bible is true, but we do affirm that everything which the Bible says to be true, is true. We do not affirm that all the opinions set forth, and all the acts * Job xxxviii. 1-11. Barnes' translation. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 283 recorded there are right ; but we do aflirm that these opinions were held and these acts done, pre^.sely as they are represented. We do not affirm that Moses understood geology, David the Coper- nican system, or Paul the categories and predicables of logic ; but we do affirm that neither Moses nor David have declared any- thing to be scientifically true, which is scientifically false ; and that if. Paul sometimes reaches his conclusion by one gigantic bound, mstead of climbing the slow ladder of an authorized syllogism, he yet never reaches a conclusion that is untrue, or asserts a premise that is untenable. And if the grinders of Kant's categories say that they cannot understand some of Paul's reasonings, and that they seem to them palpably illogical, we have only to remind them of the gruff response of the old literary Leviathan to a similar objection, "Sir, I am bound to furnish you with arguments, not brains." It is affirmed that the writers of the Bible do not claim such a power as we ascribe to them. If by this is meant, that each writer does not in express and formal terms always announce, that he is commissioned to write by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, we grant it. Suppose that they had made this constant reiteration of plenary authority, would it not then have been objected, that this anxious solicitude to assert these pretensions implied a secret conviction that there was too much ground to question them? Is not this uneasy assertion of divine authority, such as we see in the Koran or the book of Mormon, one of the recognized marks of imposture? If this feature had been found in the Bible as the objection demands, would not the philosophic eye have detected in it the want of that grand and lofty indiflfer- ence, that feeling of the self-evidencing character of their claims, that is the characteristic of all true power and all divine impulse? Does every message of a President or a King contain a formal statement of the right by which he thus speaks? Does every act and record of a legislature contain the commissions and certificates of election by virtue of which its members enact laws? Does every paper of an ambassador contain a formal assertion of his plenipotentiary powers? Would not such a thing be either sus- picious or ridiculous? Why then is it demanded of the writers of the Bible ? Do you say that it is unreasonable to ask you to receive these books as authoritative, without some authentication of their author- ity? We grant it; but reply that it is equally unreasonable to 284 INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. demand this particular form of authentication, and be satisfied with no other, when it is freely dispensed with in analogous cases. Let the authority of a man to write, speak or act, be distinctly recognized and sanctioned by those competent to decide on his qualifications, and whether he asserts it or not, we are bound to admit it on the endorsement of these competent judges. If then these writers have sometimes asserted positively that they were speaking the very words of God, using such formulas as " thus saith the Lord," &c. ; if, in other cases, they have asserted it impliedly by the awful authority they claim for the words they utter, and the terrible sanctions they assert as belonging to them ; if, in other cases, an authentication was given them by those whose circumstances enabled them to decide upon the proofs of their commission ; if the entire volume was regarded by them as the work of the Holy Ghost, and designated by specific titles, such as the oracles of God, the Scriptures, RACTICE, AND NOT A FORM IN TRANSITU TO A HIGHER AND MORE COMPLETE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEA. BY KEY. JOHN MILLEE, PHILADELPHIA. There is a tendency in modern science to the doctrine of de- velopments. Anatomists believe that a skull is a developed ver- tebra, and botanists that a flower is a developed leaf-bud ; and the tendencies of science might be expected to intrude upon religion. The tendency of science to find a development in religion is as- sisted by the fact that religion is developed. Heaven, and (if our ideas are realized) the Millennium, are developments of Christi- anity. They develop its facts, for heaven and the Millennium are developed facts of Christianity. They develop its knowledge, for now we see through a glass darkly, but in heaven face to face. They develop its methods, for they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for all shall know him from the least to the greatest. We are not blind therefore to acknowledged progress in religion. The infidel schemes we would oppose will sufiiciently define them- selves in the progress of our discussion. Development may be of two kinds, in the inventions of man or in the revelations of God, and these two might adequately divide our subject. The " religious idea" might be man's idea, and then Christianity is m transitu from one mythology to another. Or the " religious idea" may be God's inspiration, and then Chris- tianity may be a step in transitu in the development of revealed religion. This is the division which we had first agreed upon, but it clears the way to another which is fuller, more easily remem- bered, and more strikingly in unison with facts in general. All possible developments are in three forms. First, there is a development of art : as for example, the steam- engine has been developed from the toy of Hero. Secondly, there is a development in nature : as for example, the oak is a development from the germ of the acorn. And thirdly, there is a development of science : as for example, the Copernican system has been developed from the spheres of the Greek astrologers. 20 306 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. Each of these forms of development has been imagined by dif- ferent infidels as obtaining in Christianity. I. First, they have imagined a developed inveiition^ and adopted the theory that Christianity is a myth developed and cultivated from the ancient fables. Whether it is a fable or no broadly, or as a general question, will not come up under this head, for that would be taking the work of all our colleagues. The whole circle of the " Evidences" would be contained under such a division ; nor if it be a fable, whether it is developed and cultivated, for that we would be per- fectly willing to acknowledge. What we are concerned in is the proof of the theory derived from the theory itself; or the meeting of the idea that Christianity is a cultivated mythology, as it is rendered plausible by the likelihoods in the very idea of the devel- opments proposed. Now a skull is thought to be a developed vertebra from its like- ness to that out of which it is thought to be developed. A flower is thought to be a developed leaf-bud, because it is like a leaf- bud. It has its parts and properties. And the grand method of maintaining a development of faiths is, that Christianity is like its predecessors, and that we can see in Boodhism and the fables of the Greeks, the shapes and patterns out of which its principles have been derived. Let us pursue this method in the instance of the gospel. Suppose the question to be deliberately asked, how I know that Jehovah is better than Jupiter, or Christianity any different the- ology from the myths of ancient religion? The first feeling is one of indignation. But part of this is un- questionably prejudice ; and let us place ourselves in an avenue of approach where as much of this as possible shall be done away, and where the classic veil that hides us from the past shall be penetrated, and we enter among the men and women of the old worship. Let us go up a street of Pompeii. Here is a bakery. Across over the way is a drinking shop, and the steps worn by the feet of the inebriates. Above was an apothecary, and in his shop the pots and vials that he used in })is craft. On the street are the ruts of the carriage-way, and m the yard of a house a well grooved by the rope as it rubbed incessantly on the marble twenty centuries ago. These sights break a spell ; and instead of the toga'd Latin, CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 807 half fabulous like the books of his own religion, we see actual men — pictures and carved work and pans and lanterns, thrift anJ taste and poverty thoughts and frailties like our own. We go up the street, then, and on a corner lot is a temple to Jupiter. We see it in its home relation. The baker and the apothecary built it for a want like ours. And as we look at it in its actual intention through the Ides and Kalends of the year as a resort for the townspeople, and as a place to which tottering old men and widowed matrons went for the consolations of religion, it be- gins to steal over us as an arrangement like the others : here, if anywhere, we can indulge the skepticism that religion is a pro- gress, and the question actually presses, why is not here the leaf- bud? Why are not here the likenesses on which philosophers rely? Why was not this a preparation? And why is not Chris- tianity, too, an achievement of the mind working itself clear toward a higher and more mature religion? Now it so happens that the objections you instantly propose, are the most startling analogies on which the suggestion could depend. 1. Your first attitude is mere resistance. In the inert moment of hearing the plan, you are perfectly tranquil, and when you analyze your feelings, it is one of mere assurance. This skepti- cism does not ruffle you. You have not the slightest idea of its plausibleness. And if you had, a certain jealous terror would hurriedly close all the avenues to any infidel opinion. But unfortunately this is a family tendency. The religions of mankind deal in the profoundest confidences. The Mohammedan nourished in Islam, is awe-struck at the teachings of the Chris- tian. The Romanist in the shadow of the church, rejects with scorn the faith of the Reformers. And this temple in the street shows on its gorgeous front the intensity of the feeling that in- spired its architectural designs. See the columns. Observe the capitals how exquisitely they are wrought. The faculties of men are not stimulated without an object. And the patience of the labor shows a resoluteness of will and a warmth of principle and purpose unequalled in Christian Uinds. 2. You may say theirs was an ignorant age. But how easily might the infidel contradict it. When we wish to polish our styles, or to frame the thinking of our universities upon a generous model, we go back to the idola- 308 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. ters. We defer to them in every point. We leave Shakspeare and Milton, and take Homer. We leave Fox and Pitt and Chatham, and take Demosthenes. We study a dead language. We incur the re- proach of inutility to get back to the thinking of that early period. Our artists tell us that the " Apollo" dug up within our own century is perfectly inimitable. And we who have no experience in the art, are constantly surprised at the coolness with which they consent to the opinion, that the antique is hardly to be at- tained to by any modern application. Here is an age then living upon the achievements of another. Our students ripen their minds by the pabulum of ancient wit. And when Kant and Hegel are mouldering in their tombs, we have no reason to be sure that Plato will not still be safe, and will not still be reaching to the centuries the volumes of his sense and eloquence. 3. But the philosophers, you instantl}'' reply, were the ancient skeptics, and it is a favorite method of Christianity to condemn the temples by the admission of the grave and learned. But how would it answer in the instance of Christianity herself? When the lighter literature of the time had floated ofT, Hume and Gibbon and the more learned of the German school, Descar- tes and Leibnitz, and in our own time Carlyle and even Macaulay might be gleaned from to undermine the gospel. And it might be said, See; whenever a mind rose above the level of the multitude, he descried the sophistries, and whereas a cultivated form might be less exposed to such a defection, Christianity would still furnish enough to give it the likeness of being a cultivated fable. The heathen are in the hand of enemies. The ancient books have been studied to brace up the gospel. Let our literature be committed to the skeptics, and what might they not glean from it of infidel confession. 4. But you say, the vices of the heathen are the grave evidence against their system. Then there we encounter the vices of the Christians. Del Monte and Ceesar Borgia and the laxer of the Popes would stand side by side with Apollo and the goddes- ses. And in the church herself the infamy of the cloisters would hold, for a cultivated religion, a proportionate grade with the obscenities of the temple. Seneca tells us,* vices were not a part of their religion. And * De Vita Beata, ch. 26, g 5-6. See also Karsten Phil. Yett. Reliquie, vol. 1, p. 43 et seq. CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 309 looking upon Christianity as she was, a future mylhologue might find in her persecutions and bloody wars enough to characterize her as having a hkeness with the idolaters. 5. But you say Paganism is a perfect labyrinth. There is no order in its myths, and it is an intellectual impossibility to embrace it as a system. It has gods and demigods. We have hardly fancied one, before it is confounded with another. They trace themselves alike. We have hardly gotten an origin for Jove, be- fore it is laid claim to in the theology of Bacchus ; and in the endless confusion of traits and influences and clashings in the ar- rangement of their empire, we find a practical confession that it is not a system to be believed. But, for a cultivated religion, there are some contrarieties with us. My neighbor near me conceives of Christ as a man. I conceive of him as a God. Let our writings go to a stranger, and you have no idea of the confusion they will cause. We will not pursue this subject. You can easily see how to a future antiquarian perse- verance and its opposite, eternal punishment and its opposite, re- generation in its different methods, Pelagianism and the doctrine of depravity, would present a chaos of belief impervious to any system. 6. Your next attack is against the puerilities of the heathen. You say, their myths are so gross as to be hopelessly incredible, and there is a carnality about their worship in its images and bloody sacrifices, that renders it easy to dismiss it as monstrous and absurd. But now (with reverence be it spoken ; for we would bring out the fair weight of the infidel scheme) is there a due simplicity in the doctrine of the gospel ? What are we to think of the Trinity? What are we to think of atonement and a bloody crucifixion ? What are we to think of Jesus and an incarnation of the Holy One ? How are we to judge of miracles like that of Jonah or the one of Gadara ; or of prophecies like this, " When Israel was a child then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt ?" What are we to think of morals where Jesus creates wine, or Moses licenses divorce and encourages polygamy ? The method of induction, and the whole sweep of the modern sciences, help in this species of skepticism. Men have gotten to expect simplicity, and to beat at the gates of the future with a satisfaction in nothing else. Nature when rifled of her secrets, 310 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. gives them to us in simple laws, and men have grown to be confi- dent of her that she has not told us the reality till she sends it to us in a plain response, orderly and regular like her own designs. And if there be a God, plain, a lumen albiis, without the color- ing of cross or Trinity, is it not likely that that is the idea, and that we are to stand yet on the basis of law, and to be judged by a sim- ple government according to the deeds done in the body? This is fascinating. -kj And remembering, moreover, that our cumbrous faith is a legacy from the days of our fathers, and that when we cross the sea, the Boodhist and the Mussulman have the same faith in their hereditary doctrines, we are considerably shaken, and the avatars of the East and the incarnation of our own divinity seem a sister company, and seem to waive their rights all of them before a simpler theism. Thus then we have in considerable order, and with a plainness that will be advantageous to the truth, a sketch of the reasoning on \vhich this first scheme of development depends : we have a right in the outset to know what specifically is the j^oiiit that the infidel values in the considerations that have been given. Here is a series of facts constituting a series of resemblances. Does he depend upon the facts, or does he depend upon the re- semblances ? 1. He cannot depend upon the facts. 1st. It is a i) armless fact that Christians believe the gospel. That Boodhists believe and Mussulmans is the resemblance. That we believe is a harmless and nowise discreditable fact. 2d. It is a harmless fact that the ignorant believe or the learned, as the case may be. The gospel offers itself to all, and that any believe is only a token that it fulfils its mission. 3d. That the learned disbelieve is harmless. " Not many wise, not many mighty," is a text, of Scripture. That Zeno and Socrates disbelieved is the analogy. That Gibbon disbelieved is in full consistency with the truth of Scripture. 4th. It is a harmless fact that Christianity should be contami- nated with vice ; and, 5th. That it should be confused with heresy ; for both these are consistent. That cannot be charged against a system that would disprove it if it were not the case. If Christianity distinctly affirms that Christians will be wicked and Christendom vexed and divided, the fact free of the analogy would only be consistent if it was as it is found to be. CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 311 6th, It is a haiQiless fact that the gospel is not simple. And this we place on the foundation that the infidel is deceived in his notion of a God. God is never simple. Simplicity has two lodging-places, a place in the truth and A place in the mind by which it is apprehended. The truth is always simple. But the mind from the feebleness of its powers prevents that simplicity from being manifest. To this category belongs the Deity. He is simple. And the Trinity makes him simple. But how it operates to complete the unity of the Godhead we are utterly unable to conceive. But can the infidel conceive other things? The feeling of plausibleness that started in your mind was due to the idea that a simplicity was just before you. The idea seemed easy. Give us only a soul, or according to Varro a simple spirit of the universe, and our idea is complete, for then we have a simple King, a revvarder and punisher of all our actions. This is your system. But why were the ancients perplexed by it ? You object to a Trinity, but how do you explain the mystery of the creation ? The Deity is infinite. The creation is finite. The creation is the history of the Deity. The creation had a beginning. The Deity had no beginning. An eternity, therefore, before he offered to create, he was without a government, and without an active history. This so perplexed the ancients that they deified matter, or at least denied the period of its creation, and held that it had existed from the eternity of God. Again, you object to a Redemption. But how do you simplify ordinary justice? Where are its punishments? Virtue is de- throned and vice elevated. Is this simple? The ancients were so pressed by it as to invent metempsychosis, and by the stages of a transmigration to bury in a cloud what they could not solve by an immediate government. But this is not simple. And if we are to have any expedient, why not take the good one, and if we have no King simple in act and imme- diate in purpose, why not take the one that is revealed by Jesus Christ reconciling the world through the gospel? You are stumbled by the Incarnation. 3-12 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. But can you explain any of the subsistences of the creature? Why does that pillar stand? It stands by an energy residing in it of the Almighty. Dismiss that energy and it falls, and it falls so as to seem nothing but energy. Then actually what is it? The ancients solved the difficulty by inventing Pantheism. And can any one explain how a thing can be nothing in such a sense that it vanishes when energy is withdrawn, and yet be dis- tinguished in its essence from the essence of the energy itself? The infidel objects to Imputation. But can he account for sin ? The ancients invented Platonism. In laboring for a simple God they were embarrassed by the presence of calamity, and rather than ascribe pestilences and vices to the same divinity they invented two, and defended the simplicity of one by adding the complexity of another. Here then we have been miserably deceived. There is no fresh theism such as we imagined, but an old, exploded fantasy. And taking our Christianity, on which all nature looks down with evidence, which explains sin and accounts for pain and suf- fering, which arranges life, and takes up again the ravelled thread of justice and providential things, we are to compare it, not with reason or some simple form imprinted in its beauty on the soul, but with the ghastly and forbidding shapes of ancient and ex- ploded superstition. 2. But next as to the resemblances : is not the resemblance of Christianity to so many mythologies an evidence that it is one of them? We confess that it is. If the Copernican system has been preceded by fifty astrono- mies, the prima facie evidence is, without waiting much for analo- gies, that it is false like the rest. If the world were to entertain a hundred metaphysics, and the last were now to be brought for- ward, the prima facie evidence would be that it would be only tem- porary. But here are some things obviously in our favor. First, such hkenesses are inevitable. If man discovered a true metaphysics, its analogies would be in the nature of things. Map out all your consciousness, and the map would be dimmed, and dimmed by likeness. False systems would claim your facts, and did you do it by inspiration, analogies would confuse your map, and men could hardly receive from you a true philosophy. That which assails all truth can hardly be fatal to anything. CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 318 Take the Copeinican system. It has all species of analogy with the plan of Tycho Brahe. Both considered motion. Both classified and connected motion. Both established periodicity: both calculated periods. Both advo- cated truth, however one had mixed it with ignorance and error. And yet are we to abandon Copernicus on the faith of the analo- gies? Both had m3'steries. Both had ignorant friends, and both learned enemies. And yet who believes in a transition? Who is * waiting for another system to be found ? and does not take Co- pernicus as a last revealer of those laws in the frame of nature ? It is true, analogy is powerful. 1 am timorous about doubting Christ, but I cross the sea, and I find a Turk as timorous about questioning Mohammed. It impresses me. I go to a Boodhist, and ask him for a miracle. 1 go to a Christian, and ask him for a miracle, and they at this particular age are neither ready ; they point me to the past. I go to Plato, and he laughs at the temples ; I go to Hobbes and 'Spinoza, and they laugh at the churches, and this impresses me. The only question is, what are oar arguments? Are they multi- pHed enough? And are we able to heap them 'up sufficiently against the opposing likelihood ? Physicians tell us that jellies and concentrated essences are not good for the nourishment of the system. Food to be good must be coarse. Lions to be strong must hunt their prey. And the mind to be vigorous must not stumble upon truth, but dig for it in a period of study. So it is in regard to our probation. Error is an ore of truth, and analogy is the law that holds its ingredients together. It is healthy for us to forge out our faith. And though the " evi- dences" are literally of every sort, prophecy, miracle, fact and tes- timony, yet we are not to receive them like the devils, who believe and tremble, but like inquiring men ; and the difficulties that dis- turb shall be edifying in their influence on the mind. II. It is time, however, that we should notice the second species of development which is that of nature, that Christianity is a step in the omvard development of something that exists in fact, but in a very immature condition. We can illustrate by facts in its own origin. Adam received the message, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." This was the religion cf the time. Buthowgerminalit was is seen in the fact that subsequent developments have entirely relieved 314 CHRISTIANITY A VERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. it, and the very persons that received the message, are exalted higher than before thejr iniquity occurred. So of the protevangehuin. " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," was the gospel of its time. And Christians might be ready to confess that it imparted few ideas, and some of these imperfect and distorted in their reception by the people. The same is true of the system of Abraham. It noticed little a hereafter. It was crude and dark : and the apostles them- selves confessed that it was a bondage under the rudiments of the world. Now what are we to say of the like in Christianity? We are no judges. We are living in the system. The men of the time cannot detect the crudities of their own opinion. The argument from simplicity is wasted : for the simple threat "in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die," was a simpler information for practice, than all the light and all the precept of our superior religion. This is an interesting idea. The protevangelium, " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head" put Adam in a simpler state than us, for without the complexities of Christianity, he learned only that out of the sins that were beginning to reign, and out of the evils that were beginning to afflict him, the offspring of the woman was to appear for his deliverance. Now the theory may be advanced. Christianity is germinating yet. It is the mere embryo of a sublimer manifestation. And our zeal in considering it as perfect may only be the fondness of the misguided Hebrew who would rest in the shadows of the law, rather than embrace the substance of the gospel. It would seem a natural way of replying to this theory to take up the doctrines of the cross, and show that they are final in their nature. So under the head of invention we might have denied development, and showed that Christianity reached back from the beginning, and could not historically have been derived from myths. But this, and more that we could have done in showing that myths were derived from Christianity, would have involved us in contro- versy, and called up a multitude of questions, that we could not have despatched in the limits of our lecture. We are driven, therefore, to a shorter method. ■ We say, grant there may be a development. Literalists believe that Christ is personally to reign. It is a harmless doctrine in contrast with infidelity, and no one would CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 815 implicate the two, lest pious persons should believe in the first and be harassed by connections with the other. But if Christ come, that is a developed Christianity, Personal interviews with men would develop our intelligence, and free intercourse for ages would bring out wonders, and fill, as it will be in heaven, all our minds with believing admiration. It is better therefore to meet the idea of development not with an iron-bound denial, but an appeal to the nature of things show- ing that the most glorious development of light must be only a kindling of the twilight of the gospel. Naturalists have imagined that the world was in a state of progress. They imagine the nebular hypothesis that all things existed originally in a state of vapor, and that by a series of changes, some of which have been calculated, central masses and concentric rings, and finally revolving planets have resulted from the principles of nature. Attributing to matter further powers to vivify and improve itself, they have skeptically imagined a progression by which germs and motions and finally plants and life have been succes- sively evolved from this ceaselessly improving materiality. Now this will illustrate the instance of religion. If .matter be developed in the manner stated, it must either be by God or by a system in itself. If it be by God, then it must be truthfully, or if it be by matter, then eminently it must be truth- fully by some order. The vapor out of which the universe is to evolve must be singularly instinct with a truthfulness to its whole design. Now this we claim in respect to religion. If it is a develop- ment of a series of phenomena, these phenomena must be con- tinually facts. If a leaf-bud is to generate a flower it must be instinct with the flower at the beginning. If a chaos is to evolve a world it must be instinct with the world ; and so of religion. If it is a series of developments, whether they are of God or some- thing else, the moulds or patterns of the whole must be in it from the beginning. Now the doctrine of development carried to the undermining of Christianity would make Christianity singular among things. There is a certain order in growth. The solid parts are first attended to. The gneiss and granite of the hills have been laid, so we are to understand, before the marble. The spine and the blood-vessels appear in the earhest orders of the creatures ; the 816 CHRISTIAJSriTY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. root and the leaf-stem, in the gigantic ferns. And so in religion, the essential root, Christ reconciling the world by his death ap- pears in the earliest ova, if you prefer to speak so, of the Chris- tian religion. Then now another principle. Things develop themselves till their parts at last are thoroughly identified. The fossil megalo- saurus has a distinct eye and a distinct shoulder ; and so, rising ia the scale, a lion or a man has distinct organs that have come at last to be identified, and in respect to which it is impossible to entertain a doubt however much the species might be elevated. The stars revealed themselves to the Chaldees in the distinctest motions. Astronomy was in its crudest state, and yet some facts were settled. And if you ask me how, I answer by intuitive per- ception. The facts stared at them from the skies, and the mind seized on them as her own, and has retained them as her per- petual possession. We can illustrate by the system of Coper- nicus ; a thousand crudities had prevailed, but the facts finally fell into their places like type into a form, and now it would be just as impossible to shake the conviction of astronomers as the conviction of a child about his plainest verity. How much then can the infidel assail us, if he will grant us two facts, first, that as nature develops, her improvements sink steadily in structural importance, and therefore her prime things are present in the beginning ; and, secondly, that as slie develops, her parts successively identify themselves, and that by discoveries of the mind as certain as if the whole were there? We pretermit, therefore, the argument that there will be no other revelation, and sufl^er the infidel to indulge the highest hopes of future light. We only say that the development at- tained already, binds him down to a sufficient gospel. The statement that Christ died and rose again, never can be developed into a doctrine that he never descended from the Father. The statement that he died for our sins according to the Scriptures, never can be developed into a naked Deism. The statement, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desper- ately wicked, never can be developed into the statement that it is as it was meant to be. And the statement that he that be- lieveth on Christ hath everlasting life, never can merge itself into some after-faith resting our hope upon mere obedience to the law. We pass on next to the third head. CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. 317 III. The third species of development is a development under which Christianity is regarded as a form in transitu to a higher development of religious knowledge. This is the species of Morell. Morell's metaphysics as a separate introduction to tlie case need not trouble us, for we can admit :hem all and still show its utter impracticability. This perhaps were the better way- It is the part of a logician to deny only what is necessary of an adversary's system. And as this, which is essentially German, is spreading among men, it is best perhaps to stand clear, and not let our argument depend upon anything fundamental in a favorite psychology. We may say a few things, however. First, we object to the very elements of Morell's system. The " logical consciousness," and " the intuitional consciousness," as an anal3'^sis of our thinking,* are a solecism. Logical conceptions are as much intuitional as the conceptions of their subject matter. Rea- soning is a series of intuitions ; and when we affirm the relation between truths we as much appeal to an intuitional power as when we see justice or see beauty in the facts around us. We quarrel, therefore, with the division ; but we would be sorry to implicate with that a belief in Christianity. Again, we object to a second step. Religion, we are told, in its essence is a feeling of dependence.! Now religion is a broad state. We might as well say it was patriotism or a motherly atlection. We might as well say it was giving of alms or shouldering a bur- den. We might as well say it was love or hatred. If we might narrow it down to any fact, we might call it knowledge. Knowledge, in its broadest sense, includes our tastes and the notitise of conscience. What a blind man cannot see is part of our knowledge ; and what a painter appreciates in beauty and proportion above an ordinary eye is part of his knowledge; and so also is our cognizance of light, and our appreciation of excel- lence of character. In this sense religion's essence is in knowledge, if you will allow that term to be inseparable from one accompany- ing fact: I mean attendant emotion. So faith is a low stage of knowledge. Obedience springs from knowledge. Love and penitence flow from knowledge. " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye * Philos. of Religion, Am. Ed chs. 1 & 2. t lb. cb. 3. S18 CHRISTIANITY A PERFECT AND FINAL SYSTEM. seeth thee. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." Again, we object strongly to the idea of revelation as a height- ened consciousness.* Morell in his apparently candid division of historic facts and conscious intuitions, ignores a third species of truth which does not come out either under the added head of * logical constructions.'! 'Logical constructions' he defines to be the formal stating of our material intuitions. Now there is something more than this. There are doctrinal revelations. Historic facts he alleges could be gotten by an eye-witness, and then nothing more would be necessary to write the Scriptures than a heightened conscious intuition. But there is a third thing required — doctri- nal fact. Who explained the historic fact? Who clustered about Christ a system of atoning life? Who told us what he was? This is not history but exposition, and could appear no more upon the face of the crucifixion, than it could be stirred up within us by our interior consciousness. There is a tertium quid, therefore, that Morell has not noticed. His logical construction is a mere ex- pounding of our intuitions, and the doctrine of a Trinity could as poorly spring up in that way, as sights and odours without the in- strument of sense. Again, we object to the idea that inspiration depends upon piety.t and strange to say, this we refute consistently with the theory of Morell. Piety is but one intuition. There is an intuition of justice, an intuition of power, an intui- tion of truth, generally. Balaam had intuitions that were any- thing but intuitions of piety. Grant that inspiration were all intuition, there are a thousand intuitions that unite besides the intuition of moral excellence. If piety were all our intuition, the most pious men would be the most doctrinally intelligent. Abra- ham would be more doctrinally intelligent than we, and a pious slave necessarily more so than his master ; which is so far from being the case, that the most learned doctrinal disquisitions have been of those who had no piety at all. Again, we object to a new organon.§ Bacon's method is as old as the creation. It is like the brain, congenital. Adam used it in naming the beasts. The Baconian method is the instinctive organon of children. The office of Bacon, like a lecturer upon the * Philos. Relig. chs. 5