_Christian Theology
		by Milton Valentine, D.D., LL.D
		Copyright 1906,
		Lutheran Publication Society
		Printed Philadelphia, PA.
		by The United Lutheran Publication House_
			Pages 60-151
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
			CHAPTER IV.

		EVIDENCES OF REVELATION.

As conditional for thus taking the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments as the principal and decisive
source of theology, we must have proof that they are
indeed a supernatural revelation from God. Only thus
can they acquire authority to rule our faith. For faith
is not to be credulity but a firm confidence resting on
adequate evidences. The Scriptures can claim our cre-
dence and rightly dominate our minds precisely in the
degree in which they have such evidences. They pre-
sent themselves before us as rationally capacitated to
discern their credentials and meet our responsibility
in relation to them. As to essence the evidences
have been the same from the first, but they have been
much varied in form and relative emphasis according to
the changing character of skeptical attacks. From the
vast mass we must remind ourselves of some of the most
characteristic proofs, prefacing with some general con-
siderations.

I. _A special revelation is surely possible_. The possi-
bility becomes evident not only from our necessary con-
ception of God as able to do what He wills, but specific-
ally: _First_, from _His relation to the world_, as not only
_different from it and above_ it, but also _immanent in_
it, His eternal will and power touching it everywhere
and forever. "He is not far from everyone of us; for
in Him we live and move and have our being, Acts xvii
----------------End of Page 60-------------------------------
27, 28. With no right whatever can the created system
be supposed to form a limit to the possibilities of His
power in providing and dispensing needed moral help
for the creatures for whose welfare and destiny the phy-
sical order exists. Unquestionably the ruling teleology
of nature looks to humanity as the goal of its adapta-
tions; and God is certainly forever free among its
powers for the sake of the accomplishment of His eter-
nal moral purpose. Both his transcendent and imma-
nent relation to the world is thus a guarantee of the
possibility of His supernatural self-revelation. To His
free omnipotence there can be no objective hindrance.
_Secondly, from the trinitarian being of God_--the second
form of His subsistence, both by designation and Scrip-
ture explanation, pointing to an _interior_ relation for it in
the Godhead. Whatever may be thought of the idea
that the truth of the Trinity taught in the Scriptures, is
disclosed or required by the very conception of God, as
the self-existent, self-sufficing absolute Personality, we
may at least say with certainty that that truth opens to
view a divine reality suggestive of objective self-mani-
festation--a "basis of objectivity within the Godhead"
--whereby the infinite One may declare Himself to
creature intelligence. In the life of God is the eternal
"Word," the "Logos," ever "with God" and really
"God" (John i. I), through whom and the Sprit He
exhibits Himself in all the activities of creation; and
in this mystery of Triunity appears distinct evidence of
an interior or subjective condition for the divine self-
manifestation, self-expression. "The only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father"--"the effulgence
of His glory"--"He hath declared Him" (John i. 18;
Heb. i. 3). The infinite and absolute Being is not a
-------------------End of Page 61-----------------------
closed, unrevealable selfhood, existing in infinite exalta-
tion above all created things, without internal adapta-
tion to disclosure of His attributes and will to the beings
whom in His freedom He creates to know and enjoy His
love. And when in His providential order He adds to
creation a supernatural self-revelation, He moves out
through the same eternal Word and Spirit by whose
creational powers and activities He established the
world in open and living relations to Himself. _Thirdly,
from the constitution of man as made in His image_.
As a creature endowed with the powers of intelligent,
free personality, answering to those of God, man is ca-
pacitated to know Him and have fellowship with Him.
The personality of man, the highest existence on earth,
answers to the personality of the Maker of man. This
gives the principle of recipiency. Though not to a stone
or a tree, incapable of knowledge, yet to a creature gifted
with the attributes of personal intelligence and lifted
thus into divine likeness, God can surely reveal Himself.
He can communicate His thoughts into the human mind
and establish relations of fellowship.[1]

This possibility has, indeed been frequently and vari-
ously questioned. But when the main forms of doubt
are examined, they dissolve into shadows and their force
disappears. A few illustrations will suffice. (a) It is
often objected that as nature's forces are fixed in energy,
and act under the invariable law of cause and effect, in
a movement inherently balanced and necessitated, such
supernatural action as is involved in a special revelation
is necessarily excluded. Since such revelation belongs
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Christlieb's "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," pp. 109, 110,
270-273; Prof. Samuel Harris' "The Self-Revelation of God," pp.
82-84.
--------------------End of Page 62------------------------------
to the sphere of the "miraculous," it is said to be barred
out by the intrinsic and unbending constitution and
order of the world. But it is enough to point out in
reply, that nature's system, in its uniformity of sequence,
presents in fact no such rigorous exclusion of free or
special causation and accomplishment. It is so elastic
and pliable as to permit the human _will_, which stands
above mere nature's mechanism and uniformities, to act
every day and hour as a special cause upon nature and
produce effects which these uniformities themselves
could never bring about. Human will can establish for
human life new conditions, without breach or suspension
of nature's inherent order of cause and effect. Surely
the Divine Will, in its free omnipotence, has as much
power as the human. And when, in the order of His
moral purpose, God may desire to establish relations of
special instruction and help for man's need, the physical
system, over which man himself, as made in the divine
image, has been placed in "dominion," must necessarily,
without being infringed, serve, rather than bar, His re-
vealing love. (b) The possibility is denied sometimes
on the supposed ground _that there can be no relations
established between the Infinite and the finite_. They
are so apart, it is alleged, as not only to preclude com-
municative adjustment, but to be _unrelateable_. The ob-
jection arises from such forms of philosophy as imagine
that to think the Absolute or Infinite as sustaining
relations is necessarily to nullify its infinitude or abso-
luteness by the _limitations_ implied in the existence of
other things. But, as philosophy itself has abundantly
shown, it is an arbitrary and mistaken conception of the
Infinite to define it as being "without relations," or as
excluding the possibility of other existence to which it
--------------------End of Page 63------------------------
may assume relations. In truth, the psychology of the
idea of the Infinite makes it indubitable that the mind
finds it related to finite things in the very possibility and
necessity of the concept itself. For it is only on the
occasion and basis of our knowledge of finite exist-
ences that the idea of the infinite emerges intuitively as
_correlate_ of the finite. In the same way the idea of the
Absolute appears as the correlate of the known depend-
ent existences of the cosmos, and implies for it no ex-
clusion of relation but the single one of dependence.
Psychologically, therefore, we never have the idea of
"the infinite" or "the absolute" except as _correlates_
of the finite and dependent. Apart from this co-relation
the conception would become a blank. When, then,
these philosophical terms are used to designate God as
the Infinite or Absolute Being, they normally present
Him not _without_ but _in_ relation to the existences which
He has created. God is naturally conceived to be
"absolute," simply as dependent for what He is on no
other being, and "infinite" as without limitation to His
perfections. Any other conception of the terms is a
_pseudo_-conception. And when in His freedom He creates
other being than Himself He necessarily _relates_ Himself
as Creator, Preserver, and Ruler to the product of His
power. His self-revelation moves forward upon the open
and divine relation thus established by His creational
activity. (c) The _divine immutability is sometimes sup-
posed to exclude revelation_. So maintained Jacob Grimm
and David Frederick Strauss. "An isolated act of God
in time," it is said, "contradicts the idea of His un-
changeableness." But the difficulty with respect to
revelation is of no more force than with respect to crea-
tion. And as it is conceded by all, except atheists and
---------------------End of Page 64-----------------------
pantheists, that God _has_ created the world, in the free
action of His will, the cosmos itself, as a self-manifesta-
tion in time, makes indubitably clear that His immuta-
bility is no bar to free self-revelation. And in fact the
divine immutability, like the divine "infinity," is mis-
conceived when it is imagined to be inconsistent with
God's self-revelation. He _is_ indeed immutable, but is
immutable _in_ His self-revelaing nature, purposes, and
action. That is, in His essence and will He is unchange-
able; but His immutable nature and will is self-revela-
tion according to the needs of His children.

2. Another preliminary consideration is the _probabil-
ity_ of a revelation. The nature and relations of the
race raise a clear rational presumption in this direction.
For a revelation is clearly desirable and needful. To see
the force of this, we need only consider the facts in
man's constitution and relations, as natural information
presents him--a rational and moral being, placed in
unique and high pre-eminence above all other creatures
of the earth, with the lofty endowments of intelligence,
sensibility, and freedom, with profound adaptations and
affinities for truth and knowledge, a sense of obligation
to right and duty, and instincts which even crave fellow-
ship with the Divine thought anbd happiness, thrown
thus into the enormous responsibilities of life with all its
solemn and complex problems as to his origin, purpose,
and destination, his relations to his Creator and His
Creator's plan and will concerning him. Even apart
from any moral fall or degeneracy of the race, the con-
dition would have presented a manifest need of some
divine instruction and direction. That God should
crown His earthly creation with a race of beings of
such sublime and perilous endowments, whose welfare
--------------------End of Page 65-----------------------
would be dependent on their understanding and freely
meeting the requiremnets involved in their relations
and responsibilities, and leave them without any word of
information and instruction as to how they might
rightly achieve their life and destiny, would seem to be
inconsistent with all that we can reasonably think of
the character and goodness of God.[1]  In the very crea-
tion of such beings, with such responsibilities, God
Himself _created_ the need of a knowledge of Himself
and His will. Under the law of need and supply,
illustrated everywhere through nature, as light for the
eye, air for the lungs, objective provision for subjective
instincts, and the like, we would look for the light of
the knowledge of God and duty to meet the human
capacities and need for the spiritual direction of life.
It may, indeed, be said that sinless humanity, in the
unclouded perceptions of its intellectual and moral
faculties, might, from creation itself, have reached
sufficient truth for this self-direction, without super-
added help. It is questionable, however, whether such
human findings alone could have fully met the great
and many-sided need or rendered a higher revelation
superfluous. At any rate, the glimpse which the Scrip-
tures afford of primitive man exhibits him as placed
under open divine communication. This is certainly in
accordance with the reasonable probabilities in the case.
Much more is this necessary when the race has been
self-corrupted and darkened under sin. In this con-
dition of corruption new necessities of help arise. A
revelation of God's compassionate love, disclosing a
gracious forgiveness and a way of return to divine fel-
lowship and blessed life, became essential, if man was
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Wright, "The Logic of Christian Evidences," p. 117.
----------------End of Page 66------------------------------
still to realize the end of his creation. The condition
of pagan humanity, which, in the development of the
race and the progress of history, came to stand outside
of the onward movement of redemptory revelation, is a
most impressive witness to the sore and sorrowful need.
Allowed to try its own resources in finding the sufficient
light of life, whether in rudest tribes or most cultured
peoples, the result has always and everywhere been the
demonstration of a human want which a self-revealing
God alone could supply. If, therefore, we assume, as we
are entitled to, that God is good and deals with His
creatures consistently, according to the necessities of
their condition, this unquestionable and supreme import-
ance of the human interests involved furnishes an ante-
cedent probability of a divine self-manifestation for the
needed help and guidance of the race.[1]

3. _The positive evidence that the Christian Scriptures
are a supernatural revelation from God is fully adequate_.
The immense mass and variety of it preclude anything
like detailed and full presentation here. The scope of
this theological outline must be content not to unfold the
evidence, but simply to mark its different forms and
characteristics, with mere suggestions as to their force
and essential conclusion. For the developed form and
cogency of the proofs, the student or reader must con-
sult the special treatises in apologetics.

The chief evidences are usually and properly classed
under two heads: _First. The External_, consisting of
such as arises from History, Miracles, and Prophecy.
They stand not as identical with the substance itself of
the divine message, but as attending corroboration of
the divine hand in the gift. _Secondly. The Internal_,
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Stanton, "The Jewish and Christian Messiah," p. 16.
-----------------End of Page 67----------------------------
discerned in the very contents of Christianity as intrin-
sically divine, as self-evidently of God and the adequate
supply of humanity's religious and moral needs. The
chief of these appear in: (a) The Harmony of the
Scriptures, (b) The supernatural character of Christ, (c)
The supernatural Doctrines of the Bible, its transcend-
ent morality, the exact adaptation of its disclosures to
the needs of the race, and the supernatural power of its
truths.

We must mark the essential relations and force of
these in their order.

		THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCES.

The characteristic of these is that they express, not
the direct self-testifying force of Christian truth, but
the objective attendant testimonies authenticating the
supernatural facts in which God has revealed Him-
self and human duty. They are the public credentials
in the form of the outward events which embodied the
divine disclosure. Though they are closly joined with
the Internal Evidence, often blending on their marginal
meeting lines, they have their own characteristic feature
so strongly as to justify the distinction made between
them and the latter. They are pre-supposed by the in-
ternal evidence and required by the very form, the _his-
torical_, in which Christianity presents itself.

		_Historical Evidences_.

Since Christianity presents itself as grounded in a
providential movement in time, consisting of divine
activities in which God has progressively made known
to men His relations, character, and will, culminating in
sending His Son as the Saviour of the world, through
----------------End of Page 68------------------------------
whose ministry of teaching and propitiation a Gospel of
forgiveness and eternal life has been provided and
ordered to be preached to mankind, its primary and
fundamental evidences must necessarily be _historical_.
It claims to stand in great public facts, in the annals of
a covenant people, in the appearance and life of Jesus
Christ. The first and basal question of all must be:
"Did these things, as embodying these divine self-
disclosures, actually take place? Are these Scripture
accounts truly and firmly historic?" The proper proof
of historic events must be history. This fundamental
place of the historical evidences has not always been
duly appreciated. Recently--say beginning half a
century ago--the emphasis was so laid upon the internal
self-witnessing sufficiency of Christianity as to make
light of its historical foundations and to hold it as
relatively independent of them. A phase of this error
has been embodied in the Ritschlian school of teaching.[1]
But the error forgets both the primary nature of revela-
tion as "in act and deed," and the logical demand that
a historical religion must have its historical creden-
tials. And with the reawakening of the historical
spirit and method, in connection with the Higher Criti-
cism, the strong accent justly belonging to this kind of
evidence has been thoroughly restored. The very effort
of the Ritschlian tendency to continue Christianity
while detaching it from the objective facts which form
its historical embodiment, resulting often in elimination
of its supernatural content, surrendering the reality
while holding on to the name, has made it impressively
clear that Christianity in its integrity cannot live if its his-
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Prof. James Orr's "THe Ritschlian Theology and the Evangeli-
cal Faith," pp. 90-101. (Whittaker, New York.)
--------------------End of Page 69--------------------------
torical foundations be set aside. Its general theistic view
and its unique ethical system might still hold the respect
and homage of the minds of men, but its "Gospel" of
redeeming love, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life, as
summed up, for instance in the Apostles' Creed, would
have to disappear as an imposture or an empty dream
of myth-constructing imagination.[1]

This kind of evidences, therefore, lies at the foundation
of all the evidences.[2]  Dr. Stanton well says: "The value
of Christianity as a revelation, as a divine assurance of
God's forgiving love, gracious help, and of immortal life,
depends on its historical truth. This view of Christian-
ity has been the secret of its power in the past."[3]

This giving of the first place to these historical evi-
dences is attended by the logical advantage that, with
respect to the whole apologetic view, it brings us at once
to that in Christianity which is most outstanding and
incontrovertible--the founding of it and its actual exist-
ence. The mind is at once anchored to phenomena that
allow no doubt. At the present moment, over the face
of all the earth, Christianity is the greatest living histor-
ical fact of the world. Through the eighteen centuries,
running back into the past, it has been the shaping real-
ity and force in human history. If anything on earth
has indubitable historical existence and power it is
Christianity. The epoch of its establishment, though
appearing, like all other deep divine movements, as the
sequence of a long preceding history, was great and rev-
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] On the legitimacy of the historical method in the investigation of
a supernatural revelation, see Stanton, "The Jewish and Christian
Messiah," p. 17, seq.
[2] See Mitchell's "Critical Handbook," p. 3; Fisher's "Grounds of
Theistic and Christian Belief," pp. 105-106.
[3] "The Jewish and Christian Messiah," p. 7.
-------------------End of Page 70---------------------------
olutionary enough to give a new enumeration of the cen-
turies. And just as clear and indubitable is it that this
establishment was grounded in the unique Person, teach-
ings, life, and revealing deeds of Jesus Christ at the time
and place, and in the general circumstances, to which
history has credited it. We have thus unquestionable
starting point and beginnings from which to move,
through all other evidences, toward the true conclu-
sion.

Of the essential and true historicity of the facts in
connection with the life, teachings, and work of Christ,
in whom and in which the divine truth and authority of
Christianity stand and are vindicated, we have adequate
and abundant proof in the writings which the Church
has gathered together in the New Testament Scriptures,
sustained and corroborated by antecedent, collateral, and
consequent history. These writings, in their number
and variety, in the situation of the writers and the ex-
plicitness and concurrence of their testimony, constitute
a mass and weight of evidence such as is found to under-
lie but few of the undoubted and indubitable events of
the past. It is ample even according to the sacred inter-
ests involved.

If it be shown, therefore, that these New Testament
Scriptures, viz: the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apos-
tles, the twenty-one apostolic or sub-apostolic Epistles,
and the Apocalypse, or even the undisputed portion of
them, are truly _authentic_, we have in them all that is
necessary for the full historical validation of Christianity
in all its essential supernatural facts, truths, principles,
and doctrines. To exhibit this authenticity or historical
trusworthiness is the main task and service of this
branch of apologetics.
-----------------End of Page 71------------------------------
And what are the results of its showing? We can
here give only the main facts in outline.

I. Both the _genuineness_ and _authenticity_ of these four
histories of Christ, the Acts of the Apostles, and most of
the Epistles, are clearly and invincibly certified by nu-
merous and varied quotations from them and appeals to
their facts and teachings, from the very age of the apos-
tles down to the present. This great fact thus becomes
a twofold testimony. In its proof of their _genuineness_,
viz: that they are the productions of the authors whose
names they bear, it is the assurance that the accounts
are truly from the apostles or their immediate associates,
who as the contemporaries of Jesus Christ and witnesses
of His life and ministry were in the situation required for
making the true record. In its relation to their _authen-
ticity_, it not only implies that the writers were properly
related to the events which they record, but shows that
the writings were in fact accepted and used as the true
and authoritative account of the establishment and teach-
ings of Christianity. The full import of this twofold
testimony will appear further on, as the bearings of it
are specified.

The quotations begin with the _Apostolic Fathers_,
writers so called because of their immediate or close con-
nection with the apostles themselves, viz: _Clement_,
bishop of Rome, and an assistant of St. Paul, A. D. 93-
95; _Ignatius_, bishop of Antioch, A. D. 107-116; _Poly-
carp_, bishop of Smyrna, died A. D. 155, a disciple of
St. John; _The Disciple to Diognetus_, A. D. 120-140;
and _Papias_, a hearer of those acquainted with the
apostles, bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, A. D. 120-
160. "_The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_" belongs
to the date of these Apostolic Fathers, probably
------------End of Page 72------------------------------
about A. D. 100, and shares their evidential value.
Considering the relations of these writers, the imme-
diacy of their succession to the apostles, the specific
and limited aims with which they wrote, facing the thor-
ough familiarity of those addressed with the teaching
and deeds of Christ from the lips of the apostles and
evangelists themselves, we need not wonder that com-
paratively few direct and explicit quotations are made
by them from the writings now gathered into the New
Testament collection. Theirs was a transitional period.
It suited their situation rather to base their exhortations
and appeals upon the information which had by apos-
tolic instruction become the common or universal pos-
session of the believing community. Nevertheless,
taking them only in their undoubted genuine produc-
tions, we find clear and explicit recognition of the New
Testament writers and writings. In some cases refer-
ence and quotation are made directly and by name.[1]
But the chief force of their testimony, while thereby
scarcely inferior in value, is largely _indirect_, consisting
in the use of an immense number of passages, along with
numerous passages indubitably quoted from the Old Tes-
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Thus _Clement_ quotes St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians,
in his letter to the Corinthians, ch. xlvii., xlix., lxix; _Ignatius_
mentions St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, in his letter to them,
ch. xii.; _Polycarp_ quotes from St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians,
in his epistle to them, ch. i., xi., xii. The works of _Papias_ have
been lost; but _Eusebius_, "Eccl. Hist.," Book III., ch. xxxix. In
"The Teaching of the Twelve," Matthew's Gospel is quoted by name;
there are frequent references to passages in it and in Luke, and
apparent allusion to Acts, Ephesians, I Peter, and 2 Thessalonians.
--------------------End of Page 73------------------------
tament, _apparently_ drawn without name from the New
Testament writings. These passages abound, woven up
thickly sometimes into the woof and warp of their pro-
ductions. They naturally strike New Testament readers
as direct, self-evident quotations or references; and al-
most certainly they _are_ such. If so, they testify to
nearly all the histories and epistles in our New Testa-
ment. But we do not wish to take advantage of what
may be said to be apparent rather than real. For as the
minds of the writers were saturated with the traditional
oral teachings of the apostles, with its fixed forms of
statment of facts and truth, it may be claimed that
these passages may, after all, not really have been
drawn from the New Testament writings, but from
their authors' full spontaneous memories, or possibly
from other _written_ current memoranda or memoirs
or "_logia_" made by the first disciples. But fully allow-
ing all the proper force of this critical difficulty, we are,
nevertheless, justly entitled to say two things: (_a_) That
the passages still appear as actual quotations, made more
or less literally from our Gospels and Epistles--_in the
same manner of quoting as is found characteristic in
drawing from the Old Testament Scriptures); and (_b_)
That even if they could be shown to be simply the tra-
ditional forms of Christian expression or taken from lost
documents, their evidential value for the historical au-
thority of the New Testament records would scarecely be
diminished. For they show a thorough agreement with
the New Testament as to all the essential facts and
teachings of Christianity. If the apparent quotations,
instead of being drawn from our present _written_ records,
are simply echoes from the apostles' lips, reverberating
in the memories of the writers, they still stand as corrob-
-----------------End of Page 74-----------------------------
orative and invincible evidence of the essential identity
of the events and truths which created Christianity with
those recorded in our Scriptures. And the force of this
testimony, taken at its least, witnesses--assuming Papias
as reliably reported by Eusebius--to the _genuineness_ of
two of the Gospels and several of the Epistles, and to the
historical _authority_ of almost the whole New Testament.

But the testimony as to both advances and enlarges
in the _Church Fathers_ of the second century, when the
number of writers increased and the heathen assaults
upon the divine truths of Christianity drew forth schol-
arly vindication of its historical and supernatural foun-
dations. Introducing the period which has been well
characterized as "the age of apologetics," these writers
give us more explicit and abundant historic assurance.
The mention of only a few of them will suffice to illus-
trate the nature of their witness.

_Justin Martyr_, the first Chritian author of the sub-
apostolic period, a Palestinian Gentile, well educated, a
resident of Ephesus and Rome, whose writings exceed
in bulk all the remains of Christian literature before his
time, wrote not later than A.D. 145-150. His date and
position put him in most reliable relation to the earlier
Christian writings and historical sources for the begin-
ning of Christianity. He was, indeed, no ordinary man.
In his early life he was trained in philosophy, and while
a pagan seeking satisfaction for his religious needs, made
careful inquiry into various philosophical systems. After
his conversion, it is evident, he carried his habits of
learned and careful investigation over into his relation
to the question of the origin and truth of Christianity.[1]
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] For _Justins's_ account of his conversio, see "Dial. with Trypho,"
ch. ii.-viii.
------------------------End of Page 75--------------------------
In his first "_Apology_," [1] or vindication of Christianity;,
addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, he mentions
as authority for the facts and doctrines of Christ the
"Memoirs of the Apostles" and their companions, com-
posed by the apostles, calling them also "Gospels,"
which were read on Sundays in their assemblies of
Christian worship and made the basis for exhortation.
While Justin does not state the number of these "Mem-
oirs" or "Gospels," nor the names of their writers,
there can hardly be a doubt that they were our four
New Testament Gospels. For his references to the
evangelical history and teachings abound in passages
that are manifestly actual quotations, made more or less
literally from them. There are about one hundred and
twenty of these--some made from each of our four.
Many of them, it is true, are inexact. But so also are
many of those undoubtedly made from the Old Testament
Scriptures. It was evidently customary those days, as is
often done still, to quote writings _memoriter_. "In some
cases, moreover, Justin's quotations from the `Memoirs'
incorporate so exactly the specific variations of Matthew
and Luke from each other, that there can be no doubt
that the text of those Gospels was before him."[2]  Should
we, however, set aside all the evident probabilities in
the case and admit the unproved and unprovable asser-
tion that Justin drew his matter from other and lost
"Gospels," we are still justified in holding his testimony,
like that of the Apostolic Fathers, under similar sup-
position, as thoroughly assuring the authenticity of our
canonical Gospels, by its wonderful corroboration of
--------------------------------------------------------
[1] Harnack puts it a few years later than A.D. 150
[2] "Apol.," I., ch. lxvi., lxvii., and "Dial. with Trypho," ch. ciii.
Wright's "Logic of Christian Evidences," p. 191.
-------------------End of Page 76-----------------------
their historical and evangelical correctness. Indeed, on
that admission, the evidence would rather be strength-
ened. For it would mean the multiplication of mutually
supporting testimonies. Could it be shown that in Jus-
tin's time there were four "Memoirs" of Christ, accepted
and used as "composed by apostles and their compan-
ions," though now lost, from which he drew all these
quotations tallying so fully with our New Testament
Gospels and sweeping through most of the great facts
of Christ's life, it would surely be a most impressive
evidence that these Gospels have brought down to us
the original and essential truth. But we need not take
this secondary conception as the true view. For, as the
result of the long and exhaustive examination of the
matter by historic scholarship, especially helped by re-
cently discovered early Christian writings, it has been
incontrovertibly settled that Justin's "Memoirs com-
posed by the apostles and their companiions" were the
four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as in-
corporated, a little later, by his _pupil_ Tatian, into the
Harmony or fourfold combination called the "_Diatessa-
ron_"[1]

Another great writer, a little later, _Irenaeus_, bishop of
Lyons, in Southern Gaul, throws a flood of light on the al-
ready plain facts. Born early in the second century, pro-
ably some time between A.D. 115 and 125, in Asia Minor,
the region "where two such eminent apostles as John
and Paul had lived and labored," he had been a pupil of
Polycarp. He was a man of conspicuous ability and in-
tegrity, with the best advantages for acquiring a know-
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Given in Vol. IX. of the "Ante-Nicene Fathers," (Chn. Lit. Co.,
New York). For bearing on this, see Wright's "Scientific Aspects of
Christian Evidences," (New York, 1898), pp. 225-230.
---------------End of Page 77----------------------------
ledge of the condition of the churches in Asia Minor
and Italy as well as in Gaul. Besides perpetual direct
references and quotations in his chief work, "Against
Heresies, Irenaeus _names_ the four Gospels and gives a
statement of their composition. After declaring how
the risen Christ had sent, and by the Holy Spirit em-
powered, his apostles to teach and preach, he says:
"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the He-
brews in their own dialect.... Mark, the disciple and
interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing
what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the com-
panion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached
by him. Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who
also had leaned on His breast, did himself publish a
Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia."[1]
These Gospels and no others, he assures us, were ac-
knowledged by the churches. This testimony, written
about A.D. 180, and woven into the very texture of his
defense of Christianity, and accompanied with incessant
quotations from all parts of the New Testament, leaves
no room to doubt what were the fundamental historical
authorities for the belief of the Christian churches at
that date already throughout the Roman empire.

Contemporaneously with Irenaeus in western Europe,
_Theophilus_, bishop of Antioch in Syria, was defending
Christianity in the East where believers were first called
Christians. In his brief plea for it to _Autolycus_, he dis-
tinctly quotes from Matthew, Luke, and John, the last
by name, classing John among Spirit-bearing [inspired]
men, the authors of "the holy writings which teach
us."[2]
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Book III., i., I.
[2] "Ante-Nicene Fathers," Vol. II. "To Autol," Book II., ch, xii.
------------------End of Page 78----------------------------
Passing from Asia and Europe over to Africa, we
have, only a few years later, the testimony of two most
eminent and scholarly writers--_Clement_, of Alexandria,
in Egypt, and _Tertullian_, of Carthage, both born about
A.D. 160. The former quotes numerously from the
New Testament Gospels and most of the Epistles. He
marks these Gospels as the "four Gospels which have been
handed down to us," distinguishing them from an apoch-
ryphal Gospel "according to the Egyptians,"[1]  and setting
forth the order in which they were written.[2]  The latter,
in the fourth of his five books against the heretic Mar-
cion, mentions our four Gospels by name, and inveighs
against Marcion's mutilation of Luke in his heretical in-
terest, and affirms, in an extensive showing, that in these
four Gospels alone the true Gospel of Christ had been pre-
served "from the very beginning," "From the apostles,"
"as a sacred deposit in the Churches of the Apostles,"[3]

It is needless to adduce testimony from later writers.
For from the close of the second century onward the
historic recognition of the New Testament writings
sweeps on in broadening and deepening volume. We
must not, however, omit to observe how the strength
and conclusiveness of the testimony from the two earliest
centuries has been recently assured by new histori-
cal and archaeological disoveries. The unparalleled
researches of our day have brought, not doubt, but
fullest confirmation. Some of it has come through
finding, in 1887, in the Convent of St. Catharine, on
Mount Sinai, a Syriac copy of the Apology of Aristides.
The existence of this Apology in the early Church was
--------------------------------------------------------
[1] "Strom.," Book III., ch. xiii.
[2] See Euseb., "Eccl. Hist.," Book VI., ch. xiv.
[3] "Against Marcion," Book IV., ch. ii.-vi.
-----------------End of Page 79---------------------------
mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome, as having been
presented to the Emperor Adrian. When thus recovered,
it at once threw verifying light on the conditions and life
of the Church in the sub-apostolic period, especially
making evident its establishment upon the fundamental
facts and teaching of the records in our New Testament.
Presented to the Emperor in 125, and referring him
directly to "the writings" held by the Christians as
authoritative for their belief and practice, this Apology
of Aristides certifies the very conditions among them
which are implied in Justin Martyr's Apology to Anto-
ninus Pius about twenty-five years later. Still happier
corroboration has come from the recovery of a complete
copy of Tatian's long-lost "_Diatessaron_."[1]  This has
indubitably identified the "_Memoirs of the Apostles and
their Companions_," mentioned by Justin Martyr as read
in Christian worship, with the four Gospels of the New
Testament. For it is found to be a veritable compila-
tion from all these four essentially as we have them
to-day; and, as Taitan was a _pupil_ of Justin, he cannot
reasonably be imagined to have used for his composite
Harmony _other_ four accounts than those which his
eminent teacher and the churches of his day accepted
as the authoritative records of their faith. The effect of
this obtaining of the actual text of the "Diatessaron" is
thus to convert Justin's statement about the "Memoirs"
into one concerning our four canonical Gospels. It has
given final documentary verification. A similar result
has come from the finding, in 1887, of a fragment of the
apocryphal "Gospel of Peter," a very early production
referred to by some of the Church Fathers.[2]  All taken
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Given in "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. ix., pp. 33-130.
[2] Given in vol. ix., pp. 7,8 "Ante-Nicene Fathers." For a brief
---------------End of Page 80-----------------------------
together, the recovery of these ancient documents has
had the effect of throwing back the sure date of the
Church's universal acceptance and use of _all our four
Gospels, the Acts of Apostles, and nearly all the Epistles
into the first half of the second century_, not more than
twenty or thirty years after the death of the Apostle
John, and within the lifetime of many who had received
the Gospel message from apostolic lips.[1]  The decisive
import of this fact can be rightly estimated only
when we keep in mind the relations and wide ter-
ritorial extent of the phenomenon. For this acceptance
is found to be no mere temporary or local thing, but a
fixed, widespread fact, resting back on abundant tra-
ditional and written evidence from out the still earlier
period and passing on organically into the living move-
ment of the after time. It is a _massive_ fact. It
marks the whole Church throughout the Roman Empire
with its thousands and thousands of believers, from the
valleys of the Euphrates on the east to Gaul on the
west, and along the African shores of the Miditerranean.
Theology must take note at this point how utterly futile
is the critical theory which alleges that the New Testa-
ment Gospels are made up largely of myths and legends
which, forming in the interval between the death of
Christ and the writing of these Gospels, took the place of
the actual history and claims of Jesus, metamorphosing
Him from a human into a divine being. The time is
--------------------------------------------------
exhibition of its evidential value, as well as that of the other
recently found documents, see Dr. G.F. Wright's "Scientific Aspects
of Christian Evidences," ch. vii.
[1] As an illustrative instance, Polycarp, who had been about fifty
years contemporary with St. John, suffered martyrdom A.D. 155 or 156.
For this date of Polycarp's death, see Lightfoot's "Essays on Super-
natural Religion," pp. 102-104.
---------------End of Page 81----------------------------
too short for such a process; and as the apostles at once,
from the day of Pentecost, began the delivery of their
message, "beginning at Jerusalem," and extending
their personal ministry in the establishment of churches
east and west, in Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, it
becomes impossible to conceive that subsequently com-
posed Gospels, with a transformed message, could have
been palmed off upon all these apostolically-taught
Churches.

2. Thus far we have referred only to the literature of
the post-apostolic day for the historical authority of
our Gospels. But we must go back to still earlier
documents. The _New Testament Epistles_ form an inte-
gral part of the historical evidences. Their place and
value require special emphasis. The post-apostolic testi-
monies, as we have found, distinctly recognized them
along with the Acts of the Apostles, as concurrent
authority for facts and truths. They are part of that
great body of records in which historical Christinanity
rests, and their genuineness and value having been at once
acknowledged after the apostles' day, they become them-
selves immediate witness to the original fundamental
facts. No one will, indeed, claim that the very existence
of Christianity as a divine revelation depends upon a
positive proof of the personal authorship of every indi-
vidual letter or book included in the New Testament
collection. Yet nearly all of them, as already indicated,
at once vindicated themselves to the mind of the early
Church as genuine apostolic productions; and ever
since, through and after all the searchings of honest and
even hostile criticism during the passing centuries, the
Church has seen no adequate reason to reverse its origi-
nal judgment giving them canonical standing. The
----------------End of Page 82----------------------------
utmost that that criticism has effected is an uncertainty
as to the real authorship of a few of them, without
excluding them from the position of historical authority.

The extremest of the destructive critics themselves
confess the genuineness of the four great Epistles of St.
Paul, the two to the Corinthians, that to the Romans
and to the Galatians. And it has often been justly re-
marked that even if these alone were left us, we would
still have amply sufficient to prove the full acceptance
by St. Paul of the facts and truths of Christ's life as
given in the Gospels. But we are not at all fairly lim-
ited to such a reduced remnant. The genuineness of
the great body of the Epistles as well as of the Acts of
the Apostles and the Apocalypse remains secure through
the fires. Taken together, and supported by the few
which, even if of unknown authorship, unqestionably
belong to very early date, they form an impressive combi-
nation of direct contemporary testimonies, concurrent
with the accounts in our four Gospels. In incidental
way mostly, they touch upon the history and teachings
of Christ so contantly and variously, in clear, distinct
allusions and assumptions, as to make it incontrovertible
that they wrote with the same substratum of facts as to
Jesus' life, character, deeds, and teaching as is given by
the four evangelists. Though the "Epistles were not
written with historical aim, but for practical direction
and encouragement of the Churches, they abound in his-
torical references and implications. The correspond-
ences between them and the Gospels fit the fact that one
set of the apostles and their fellow-disciples were writing
the "Memoirs" of Christ and another set were, at the
same time, sending letters of instruction to the Churches
and pleading for the true life of faith in the same Christ.
---------------End of Page 83-------------------------------
Almost all the leading biographical features of the Sav-
iour reappear as we look into the Epistles, as the great
shadows from the bank on the shore-line of waters ap-
pear when we gaze into the stream--the same super-
naturalism along with the life that was natural, the same
marks of humanity, the same signs of Divinity, the same
Son of man, the same Son of God, the same fact of pre-
existence, the same assurance of resumption of glory and
dominion. The Epistles thus carry back the testimony
of the post-apostolic period to the same Gospels which
have brought the sacred records down to us. Where is
the chance for the alleged process in the mythical and
legendary theories, to give us, in our New Testaments, a
miracle-working and Divine Christ out of an original
simply human Jesus?

 But beyond this common witness of the Epistles and
the Acts of the Apostles, a special and unique value be-
longs to that of St. Paul. For, as an apostle, he sus-
tained a peculiar and exceptional relation. He had been
superadded to the list of the original apostles. The re-
lation of the original company, as seems to have been
demanded for their appointed service, made them attend-
ant beholders and hearers of Christ's life and ministry,
on to the close in His death, resurrection, and ascension.
But St. Paul stood apart from them in the mode of his
call to the apostleship and the way in which he became
acquainted with Christ and the Gospel. He had not
been a witness of Christ and His humiliation. He dis-
distinctly and emphatically declares that he received the
Gospel, not from man or through man, but directly,
"through revelation of Jesus Christ, "the ascended, _glo-
rified, enthroned_ Christ.[1]  What he preached and wrote
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Gal. i. 11, 12, 17; Eph. iii. 3.4.
---------------------End of Page 84---------------------------
was not "after man," something evolved out of his own
thought or framed from his imagination, but as his affir-
mation necessarily means, supernaturally communicated
to him by the glorified Christ Himself. He declares,
further, that the truth was made known to him through
the Holy Ghost.[1]  It cannot be fairly maintained that
St. Paul did not, in his intercourse with those who were
apostles before him, hear them narrate much of Christ's
life and teaching. But he was not dependent on this.
He had other and supernatural source for the essentials
of his knowledge and convictions. His Gospel was given
him in direct communications from the exalted Saviour
and His Spirit. This makes his testimony that of a dis-
tinct and independent witness, with whatever of unique
force it may and should have from the fact of its being
a direct _divine_ attestaion of the same Gospel which
comes to us in the canonical Gospels of the New Testa-
ment.

But St. Paul's peculiar relation carries his witness to
still greater cogency. For it reaches to the part of the
Saviour's existence and saving activity which began
after He had passed beyond the sight of the twelve.
The revleation or communications directly given by
Christ to these twelve, on which they based their preach-
ing and writing, covered the term of His earthly life and
limitations, closing with the ascension, and assurances
of a continued invisible presence and help. But the
Gospel of redemption and salvation through the earthly
manifestation and work of the Son of God implies also an
enthronement of "Christ, a redemptive administration with
all power in heaven and earth, as Head over all things
to the Church. The proper _sequel_ to His earthly work
-------------------------------------------------------
[1] I Cor. ii. 10-13; xiv. 37; 2 Cor. ii. 17.
-----------------End of Page 85--------------------------
is His heavenly dominion and the carrying of the re-
demptive purpose into accomplishment. During His
humiliation and state of self-limitation, He declared
that He had `many things to say to His disciples which
He could not say yet.' It was an implied assurance that
after His departure He would "say" some things to them,
inform them of the significance of His death and resur-
rection, give an authoritative interpretation of what He
had done. It was an intimation that He would not close
the term of His direct supernatural revelation until He
had fully endowed the circle of apostles with the facts
and truths neceassary for their peculiar vocation of preach-
ing and recording, for the ages, the whole Gospel of for-
giveness and life. But is the distinction of St. Paul
that he was called to the apostleship through a wonder-
ful and impressive post-ascension Christophany, and that
thus his entire apostolic witness, in all its proclmation
of the truth as immediately and supernaturally "re-
vealed" to him, has been made a special testimony at
once to the Gospel of Christ incarnate and crucified and
the Gospel of an ever-living, glorified, transcendent
Christ, reigning as one with the Father, in the everlast-
ing kingdom of God. It would have been a distinct loss
to the Church had there been, after Jesus' disappearance
from the disciples, nevermore a word from Him, never
again a single putting of Himself in certifiable and as-
sured communication from beyond the veil of invisible
existence. If it formed, as it surely did, a part of God's
providential care that the portion of the Saviour's work
in His state of humiliation should be attested by apos-
tolic witnesses, may it not be a part of the same provi-
dence that the call and endowment of the one great
apostle added after the ascension should make him in a
---------------End of Page 86----------------------------
peculiar and eminent sense, the representative apostle of
the glorified Saviour? His unique position makes his
apostleship, carrying the supernaturally communicated
message, the crowning testimony to the complete Gospel.
Most inadmissible is the plea that theology should "go
back to Christ," if by this is meant that we shall in any
wise set aside the historical and didactic authority of the
genuine Epistles of this great apostle.[1]

3. The historical trusworthiness of these New Tes-
tament writings, thus thoroughly accredited to their
authors, is commended by the _situation of the writers_.
They stood in closest possible relation to the things of
which they testify. They were eye-witnesses and ear-
witnesses, or only a single degree removed from such
personal relation. Through the whole of Christ's per-
sonal ministry, the twelve were His attendants, seeing
and hearing, having opportunities for most intimate ob-
servation. They were in the closeness of pupils to their
Teacher, watching His ways, entering into His experi-
ences, treasuring up His sayings, filling their memories
with His life. They were, as all the accounts imply,
men of positive personality, by no means over-credulous,
but rather slow of conviction, yet desirous of finding the
truth without mistake, serious, sober-minded, honest
men. Of the second and third Gospels, the authors,
though one degree removed from this position, were re-
cipients and recorders of the facts and doctrines as these
were communicated from the lips of those who had them
at first hand. The Epistles of disputed authorship verify
their _authenticity_ by their internal essential unity with
the undoubted apostolic writings. It is almost impossible
-----------------------------------------------------------
[1] For the peculair relation of St. Paul's testimony and teaching, see
Prof. H. C. Wilkinson, Homiletic Review, July and August, 1899.
------------------------End of Page 87-------------------------
to conceive of reporters or historians in better relation
to the facts they narrate.

 And when the time of this close association had paassed,
after the period of early questioning and doubt, of grow-
ing conviction, of listening to truths such as had never
been spoken before, of beholding signs and wonders of
kindness and power, after the shock and bewilderment
of the crucifixion, the mysteries of the resurrection and
ascension--after the three years of this relation and expe-
rience were ended and lay behind them, these apostles
felt constrained, in the face of obloquy, persecution, and
death, to bear testimony to the things they had seen and
heard, the unique wonders of Christ's life of teaching,
miracles, goodness, and saving power. They did not
count their lives dear to themselves, but were ready to
suffer the loss of all things in finishing their appointed
course of testifying to the Gospel of the grace of God.
No supposed earthly advantage, adequate to explain
that course, is conceivable. They could have had no
sufficient reason, impelling their heroic courage and self-
sacrifice in persisting in proclaiming the Gospel, or even
in preaching it at all, apart from their sense of obligation
to the truth, and their _spiritual_ interests as involved in
that truth. In the case of St. Paul, after the arresting
Christophany of the glorified "Jesus of Nazareth" whom
he had been persecuting, and the revelation of the Gospel
to him, a complete moral and spiritual transformation of
life took place. The bitter persecutor became the most
self-sacrificing disciple and most heroic witness and mis-
sionary. The very phenomenon of his conversion and
his long after-life of steady, unfaltering apostolic minis-
try through opposition, perils, persecutions, accepting
the martyr's death at last, is one that defies reasonable
-------------------End of Page 88--------------------------
solution except on the ground of his own assured cer-
tainty of the truth of the Gospel thus made known to
him, and the sincerity, strength, and commanding power
of his fidelity to the truth as he knew it. Witnesses
of such high moral integrity, with no conceivable ade-
quate motive for falsifying, speaking out of their direct
knowledge, are surely entitled to be believed when they
testify to facts.

The _dates_ of the New Testament writings necessarily
become elements in the situation of the writers. The
effort of hostile criticism to use this against the relia-
bility of their statements, utterly fails under the plain
fact of the case. Two points make this sufficiently
clear. _First_, that from the close of Christ's ministry to
the date of the writings, the interval lies well within the
safe command of the historical recollection. _Second_,
that in an extraordinary degree, in this case, the recol-
lection was kept alive and cetain by the constant em-
ployment of the aposltes in proclaiming the Gospel, from
immediately after the ascension, on continuously in
their misssionary labors of founding and instructing the
Churches. Besides, it is surely fair to take account of
written notes or memoranda, probably made and used
among them in their preaching, and to recall the greater
efficiency of "tradition" or oral repetition of facts and
teaching in that period when, before the art of printing,
the traditional method was in such popular use. The
wonderful events in the history of Christ and the impres-
sive precepts of His teaching had entered deeply into
their minds, and their continual rehearsal of them in their
missionary labors necessarily carried them into fixed
familiarity. They built the life and teachings of Christ
into themselves as they built up congregations upon
------------------End of Page 89-----------------------
them. The conclusions of the fullest investigation place
the dates of the New Testament books within the period
extending from A.D. 50 to 95, nearly all of them in the
earlier part of this period, when the writers were in the
midst of their apostolic preaching. And the trustworthi-
ness of their direct and living grasp of the historical and
doctrinal materials is strongly sustained by the fact that
all along the lines on which the Gospels touch each
other, or the rest of the writings touch the Gospels and
one another, through immensely diversified settings and
order of staement, there is an impressive agreement
among _all_ the writers as to the essential facts and teach-
ings. At whatever date or place they wrote, from first
to last, underlying the writing is found substantially one
and the same Gospel in all the Gospels and Epistles, com-
pletely negativing the idea of either a gradual forgetful-
ness of the original truths or a metamorphosis by unhis-
torical changes or accretions in the course of time.

4. For, in the indissoluble connection with this closeness
and self-sacrificing conscientousness of the apostolic wit-
ness, stands the _acceptance of it as given in the New Testa-
ment accounts by the Churches founded and taught by the
apostles_. According to the evidence already given, these
accounts are found referred to as authoritative for the
Christian history and truth in the Churches in all parts
of the Roman Empire, in the early part of the second
century, shortly after the death of the apostls. These
Churches had been gathered and instructed by the differ-
ent apostles and their associates in missionary labor.
They were familiar with the story of Christ and of His
work. Their faith rested on it, and it had been incor-
porated into their very life. They had been grounded
and confirmed in it by its original witnesses. Only,
------------------End of Page 90-----------------------
therefore, as accordant with the original history and
teaching could the Gospels, Epistles, and other offered
writings be received or installed in position of authority.
And we must remember the _combinations_ of concurrent
testimonies which the reception, so accorded to these
writings, thus implied. It meant not only an agreement
of the written Gospels with the Gospel preached by the
apostles, of the Epistles with the evangelical histories,
of the Churches of one country with those in another,
but, most strikingly, the substantial sameness of the
truth of Christ as lodged by the preaching of the differ-
ent apostles in the mind of the Church with the episto-
lary communications of _other_ apostles. For the Epistles,
so received, came not only from the hand of the apostle
who had given the oral teaching. The correspondence
crossed the lines of personal ministry. Skeptical criti-
cism has sought to find a naturalistic perversion or
obscuration of the simple Gospel of Jesus through a
compromise of divergent Gospels by Peter and Paul.[1]
But the Petrine and Pauline types can be magnified so
as to create doubt only by ignoring the force of the facts
here in view. A certain evidential value belongs to St.
Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians as written to his own
"children in the Gospel."[2]  But there is added significance
when St. Peter writes to the Churches of Asia Minor,[3]
founded and taught by St. Paul and his helpers, and the
Epistle is at once unqualifiedly received, and is found,
while exhibiting distinctly Peter's manner of presenta-
tion, to set forth essentially the same doctrine as is given
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Christian Baur and the Tuebingen School. For examnination of
this theory, see Dr. G. P. Fisher's "Supernatural Origin of Chritian-
ity," pp. 172-183.
[2] I Cor. iv, 14, 15.
[3] I Peter i. 1.
------------------End of Page 91------------------------
in the Epistles of Paul. Of like import is it that
St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, written before he
had seen them, was received as supporting the same
Gospel as they already believed, though the Church there
had not been established by _any_ of the apostles, but
through carriage to the capital city by converts from other
places. The total fact of this _acceptance_ of these Gospel
histories and the Epistles, therefore, exhibits, in peculiarly
massive force, the essential historical agreement reached
at the end of the apostolical period, viz: the agreement
of the end with the beginning, of the different apostles
with one another, of their written testimonies with their
oral witness, and of the Churches with each other through-
out their wide territorial extension. We have an almost
unparalleled coherence and strength of confirmation.

5. The thorough reliability of the accounts which
have come to us is sustained, further, by a _verified and
assuring exactness of these accounts in all matters archaeo-
logical, geographical, biographical, or personal, alluded
to or implied_. These allusions are freqent and almost
numberless. They appear mostly in incidental ways.
They relate often to things quite local, sometimes to
things of wide-reaching interest. The trustworthy
historian, the truthful writer, is always revealed in con-
nection with these things. The situation in Judea at that
time was much in the eye of the world. Changes were
going on rapidly. The religious movement was making
its way in constant contact with both Jewish and Roman
life peculiarities. The situation was dangerous ground
for the inventor of a story, or a writer of inadequate infor-
mation or without steady regard for truth. The authors
of our New Testament books, tracing, amidst such change-
ful and complex condition, the ongoing course of events
-----------------End of Page 92-----------------------------
recorded in their histories, or giving epistolary instruc-
tion and guidance to the Christian communities, all
involving continuously so many relations of place,
time, customs, laws, and local circumstances, were neces-
sarily subjected to a most severe test as to the correctness
of their knowledge and careful fidelity to it. Most
wonderfully have their writings vindicated them in both
these respects. With an unually large historical appa-
ratus for the detection of mistake or the discovery of fraud,
criticism has not convicted them of any positive error in
these collateral or circumstantial references. Their exact-
ness is sometimes remarkable, as in St. Luke's designa-
tion of Sergius Paulus as _proconsul,[1]  though this was long
assumed to be a mistake till Greek history was found to
verify it;[2]  or his terming the magistrated of Philippi who
were attended by lictors strategoi,[3]  while he designates
those of Thessalonica politarchai,[4]  a distinction based
upon a somewhat obscure and remote difference in their
relation to the Roman government;[5]  or, still further, as
his implication of two "taxings," or enrollments, made
under Cyrenius (Quirinus),[6]  which has received veri-
fication only in recent times through the finding of
scholarly research.[7]  Estimated merely in the character
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Acts xiii. 7.
[2] See Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Letters of St. Paul" (Scrib-
ner, New York), Vol. I., pp. 145-145; Lightfoot, "Essays on the Work
Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'" (Macmillan & Co., 1889), pp.
291-294
[3] Acts xvi. 20, 35, 36.
[4] Acts xvii. 6.
[5] Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Letters of St. Paul," Vol. I.,
p. 333.
[6] Luke ii. 1-3.
[7] See A. W. Zumpt's "Das Geburtjahr Christi" (Leipzig, 1869);
also P. Fairbairn "Hermeneutical Manual," Appendix, pp. 504-520.
-----------------End of Page 93------------------------------------
of human writings, the literature of the world furnishes
no historical authorities better accredited, in this respect,
than the historical books and the Epistles of our New
Testament Scriptures.[1]

6. The testimony of Pagan and Jewish writers,
though small in amount, is of large historical weight.
Coming from adversaries, who, in their distant and hos-
tile attitude, utterly failed to understand the reality and
spirit of Christianity, this is found only in forms of inci-
dental and contrained allusion. The witness does not
go into the minutiae, but so far as it goes, it recognizes
the same origin of Christianity as its own writers declare,
and gives evidence of the spread of the faith and the
sufferings and heroic fidelity of its adherents. The chief
value of it is that it comes from a source that cannot be
suspected of complicity.

Here falls into place the great Roman historian,
_Tacitus_. Writing about A.D. 100, and narrating the
burning of Rome and Nero's desperate effort to relieve
himself from the odium of firing the city, by imputing
it to the Christians and enacting a horrible persecution
of them, Tacitus makes record of quite a number of
facts as to the rise and progress of Christianity, mention-
ing the source of the designation "Christians," in the
name of their leader, "Christus," the crucifixion of Christ
by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius, the spread
of the religion in Judea despite the ignominious death
of its founder and the opposition met by its followers,
and its propagation to other parts of the world, even
to Rome, where already in Nero's time Christians had
--------------------------------------------------------
[1] For whole subject of this paragraph, see Paley's "Evidences,"
ch. ix.; Blunt's "Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings of the
Old and New Testaments;" Paley's "Horae Paulinae."
-----------------End of Page 94---------------------------
become very numerous, "a vast multitude," who, in
this persecution were pursued with such exquisite cruel-
ties and awful tortures as to awaken commiseration even
in the heathen mind, and lead to the impression that they
were not so punished out of regard to the public welfare,
but to gratify the imperial cruelty.[1]

We lay no stress on the passage sometimes quoted
from _Juvenal_[2]  and _Martial_[3], contemporaries with Taci-
tus, except as probably reflecting the fearful forms of
punishment in the Neronian persecution, and thus becom-
ing witnesses to the sufferings and courage of the Chris-
tians. Equally small emphasis need be laid on the
records made by _Suetonius_, of the banishment of the
Jews, under leadership of Christus, by Claudius, the
punishment of Christians by Nero, and the destruction
of Jerusalem by Titus.[4]

But in the celebrated letter of _Caius Pliny_, Governor of
Pontus and Bithynia, A.D., 107, we have an indiput-
able, prominent public pagan record, left for all ages,
which, like that of Tacitus, clearly, as far as it extends,
identifies the Christian facts, principles, doctrine, wor-
ship, and spirit with those presented in the New Testa-
ment Scriptures.[5]

These notices, though few and remote, afford us as
much as could be expected, considering the unfriendly
and averted attitude of the pagan mind. They fit the
situation and are quite enough for the needed historical
certification. And they are followed by a rapidly enlarg-
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] See "Annals," Book XXV., ch. xliv.; or Lardner's "Jewish and
Heathen Testimonies," Vol. I., ch. v.
[2] Sat. I., v. 155.
[3] Book X., Epig. 25.
[4] Lardner's "Jewish and Heathen Testimonies," Vol. I., ch. viii.
[5] Ib., Vol. II., ch. ix.
---------------End of Page 95------------------------------
ing number of references, as advancing Christianity
developed further and broader contacts with pagan life
and power. These bring up to the reports of long-con-
tinued bloody persecutions, and the published assaults of
_Celsus_, Porphyry_, and the Emperor _Julian_, who con-
ducted their attacks on Christianity, not by rejection
of its records, but as appealing to them and quoting
them.[1]

Of Jewish writing of that day, but little has come
down to us. But of the one great author left us, _Jose-
phus_, allowing the passage speaking directly of Christ
to be spurious, his "Wars of the Jews" is history's great
record of the fulfillment of Christ's fore-announcement
of the destruction of Jerusalem, and in the _Mishna_ of
Jewish traditions, reduced to writing about A.D. 190,
there are distant, but well assured allusions to the same
event, and they suggest no contradictory origin for
Christianity.[2]

7. All these testimonies, with the religion whose ori-
gin they unfold and attest, are organically joined with
the long centuries of precedent history and with the ages
of history ever since. They interlock with the records
both before and after. They present but a link in a
movement that stretched from the earlier time, reaching
down to our day. This is a feature of the historical
evidences of the highest moment. The self-revelation
of God in Jesus Christ was not a sudden isolated thing.
It is indisputably and confessedly the outcome of a clear
and marked development which, in the Old Testament
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Lardner's "Jewish and Heathen Testimonies," Vol. II., ch. xvii.,
sec. 3; Vol. III., ch. xxxviii.; Vol. IV., ch. xlvi.; Paley's "Evi-
dences," sec. 9.
[2] Ib., Vol. I., ch. i.-vii.
-----------------End of Page 96-------------------------------
discipline with the posterity of Abraham, had for tho-
sands of years been promising a divine redemption, and
drawing a most significant and deep line of movement
and historic record through the world's preceding his-
tory. The movement made its own track inerasable for-
ever, verified and vindicated to-day by still newly-found
monuments of its progress and touch on the lands and
nations along the way. It is but reasonable to believe,
upon any fair theistic conception of the world, that the
great ruling purposes of God would mark themselves in
the leading, prolonged trends or lines of human history.
Things deep in the design of God must hold their way
through all human changes. We justly apply the prin-
ciple here. The establishment of Christianity was noth-
ing detached, alone, or sporadic, but the completion of
long centuries of unmistakable Providence. The New
Testament records are buttressed by the whole history
of the covenant Hebrew people, and our Biblical Scrip-
tures form an organism of divine as well as human wit-
ness to redemption.

Thus as to the linking of the Gospel history into firm
antecedent history. The integration into that which
has been made and written since suggest the magnitude
and immovable strength of the aggregate historical tes-
timony to Christianity. For, passing on from the last
writers whom we have quoted or referred to, Christianity
has been making history in the face of all the world,
and making it a synonym of the world's best life and
progress.[1]  Some special points are to be noted here.
(a) That the evidence of a real revelation of God in
Jesus Christ was such that, immediately and right on
-----------------------------------------------------
[1] See R. S. Storr's, "The Divine Origin of Christianity Indicated
by Its Historical Effects," pp. 35-357.
---------------End of Page 97------------------------
the spot, men, by the thousands, were constrained to be-
lieve, who, under ineradicable conviction of the truth
of this revelation and their sense of obligation to it, as
well as of their spiritual intersts in it, confessed their
faith, and maintained it in the face of opposition and
danger, and at the sacrifice of worldly advantage and
comfort. Their faith entered into their lives as a spiri-
tual regeneration, the power of a new, pure, strong life
of unselfish love and good works. They were ready to
do or die for the Saviour, in whom they had found Isra-
el's promised divine Messiah, the forgiveness of sin, con-
scious fellowship with God, and assurance of immortal
life. (b) The Church also, as the fellowship of the faith,
taking organization under the apostolic preaching and
writing, has brought down continuously, not only its
own existence, but that of the two permanent sacra-
mental rites and the observance of the Lord's day, as
perpetual witnesses to the historic events out of which
they rose. These sacraments and this observance are
historic facts whose origin is based in events found in
the Gospel records, but which, apart from the real his-
toricity of these events, is utterly unaccountable. Some-
thing impressively real, in each case, must explain the
starting of these rites or observances. Could our Fourth
of July celebration have become a national order without
the Declaration of Independence? Could these rites
have started without any such facts or warrant as the
apostles have laid at the basis of their establishment?
Or could the apostles, considering their heroic sincerity
and fidelity, have fraudulently established them as de-
vices of their own while writing as they did to the
Churches? And if these ordinances stand truly based
as they are represented,--as seems the only credible ex
---------------------End of Page 98-----------------------
planation--do they not carry us into some of the realities
which form central features of the divine, supernatural
redemption, the atoning death and the victorious resur-
rection of the Son of God and the Son of man as the
Church has always held?

These and collateral historical evidences lie at the
basis of all the Christian evidences. Christianity is the
greatest phenomenon of history--its unfolding preparat-
tions of Old Testament record, its complete constitution
and full founding giving new date for the centuries, its
progress and influence producing the earth's highest civ-
ilizations. Its accredited records show where, when, and
how it came to exist, with endowment to work its exhib-
ited results. Looked at in the light of the claims of
these records, it has been established through a historic
supernatural self-revelation of God, providing for man
salvation from sin and purifying power for the holy char-
acter and immortality for which his creation designed
him. Admitting this claim, the great phenomenon is
solved. Denying it, no reasonable solution appears pos-
sible. Admission of the claim involves, indeed, the
reception of some mysteries; yet, no more mysteries
and fewer seeming impossibilities than connect them-
selves with rejection. Mysteries are inseparable from
the limitations of human understanding, and are thick-
strewn even through nature. But the point to be here
observed is that, plainly, this _historical_ evidence is prop-
erly the primary and basal evidence, to whose conclu-
sions all other forms of evidence are contributory and
confirmatory. In these othe forms the historical claim,
as made at the beginning and interpreted by Christen-
dom, finds rich and abundant verification. At the chief
forms of these we must glance.
----------------End of Page 99----------------------------
	_Evidence from Miracles._

The long strife on the subject of miracles has cleared
the conception of their nature and evidential relations.
Most of the difficulties brought to view in the discussion
have been found to arise from false notions as to what a
miracle really is and how it is related to the gift of a
revelation. To this source, as has become plain, is due
not only the oft-asserted impossibility of a miracle, but
its severe strain upon faith even when conceded to be
abstractly possible, and the consequent disposition on
the part of some Christian apologists to abate from its
evidential value. The clearing of the conception of it,
under exact definitions, and with correct showing of
its essential place in redemptory divine self-disclosure,
has resulted in fixing it, not indeed exactly in its old po-
sition but in one more vitally organic in the revelatory
process, and of equal but diffent evidential worth.

There can be no doubt that the Biblical histories asso-
ciate miracles with the progress of revelation. There are
records of them in the Old Testmanent and in the New.
They are woven into the accounts as essential parts of
revelation itself or as normal accessories. They are
integrated in the person and work of Christ. They con-
tinued, in a measure, in the ministry of the apostles.

For our purpose of explaining their occurence and
their bearing as evidence we may confine our reference
particulary to the miracles of Christ. For the Christian
view of supernatural revelation centres it in _Him_ in
His mediatorial and redemptory manifestation. The
miracles before Christ were tokens of His preadvent
mediatorial revelation, blossoms of the "fullness of
time." Those afterward were signs of His continued
-----------End of Page 100----------------------------
invisible presence and power, working, for exigent reasons
for a season, through His chosen agents. No fair treat-
ment of the New Testament narratives can eliminate
the miraculous element. This is the conclusion, sum-
ming up the verdict of German historical criticism.[1]
"Whatever view men may take nowadays of the mir-
acles attributed to Christ, three things are practically
certain: that the people among whom He lived be-
lieved that He wrought them; that this belief was a
chief element in attracting men to Him as their Master,
and confirming their faith in His divine mission; and
that Jesus Himself meant and taught them so to
believe."[2]  Prof. Seeley well wrote: "The fact that
Christ appeared as a miracle-worker is the best attested
fact in His whole biography."[3]  The apostolic reporters
of them were competent witnesses, of sober, conscien-
tious mind, affirming not from hearsay, but from personal
knowledge, assured by three years of close observation.
With respect to the critical suggestion, that these
witnesses, as only _observers_, reporting the phenomena
simply as seen and repesenting them as divine tokens,
thus transcended the reach of external observation with
an _interpretation_ of the _cause_ which was beyond sight,
and in which they may have been mistaken, it is enough
to remind ourselves that they were sustained in their
interpretation by Christ Himself, who, as the worker of
the miracles, was consciously cognizant of their cause
or the source of the power operative in them, and who,
at the same time, _claimed_ to be working them as God's
-------------------------------------------------------
[1] See "Andover Review," June, 1889, pp. 561-569.
[2] Rev. D. W. Forrest, "The Christ of History and of Experience,"
p. 114.
[3] "Ecce Homo," pref., p.9.
------------------End of Page 101-------------------------
clear witness to His Messiahship and divine mission.[1]
The miraculous basis of Christianity is asserted all
through the apostolic writings. Whatever may be
thought of Schleiermacher's concession that a belief in
miracles is not directly involved in the faith of a Chris-
tian, he was certainly right in regarding a denial of them
as destructive, because of its blightening effect in over-
throwing confidence in the reliability of the apostolic
account of Christ.[2]

The chief aspects of the function of the miracle
become plain through a glance at the following points:

I. DEFINITION. The New Testament designates
them as "signs" (semeia),[3]  "wonders" (terata),[4]
"powers," or "acts of power" (dunameis).[5]  But these
designations do not give a definition. They present
only certain aspects or uses of the phenomena. A
miracle may, in general, be said to be an unusual event
in physical nature wrought by direct action of God work-
ing for a moral end. More specifically, it is defined as " _an
event in the physical world wrought by God independ-
ently of the sequences through which He ordinarily works_."
It is the production, by the exercise of divine power, of
a definite effect which could not otherwise take place.

Analysis of this definition discloses its included ele-
mental conceptions.

(a) It is based on the theistic conception of the world.
It views the universe as the work of God, who is a per-
sonal Being of infinite power, creating and sustaining it
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Matt. xi. 2-6, 20-24; Luke xi. 20; John v. 20, 36; x. 25,
32, 37, 38; xv. 24.
[2] "Der Christliche Glaube," Vol. II., p. 88.
[3] John ii. 18.
[4] Acts ii. 19.
[5] Matt. xi. 20, 21.
-------------------End of Page 102---------------------------
in rational and worthy purpose. And it declines to con-
ceive of His power and efficiency as all transferred into
the forces and laws of nature or as restricted to its estab-
lished uniformities. We must avoid, as the Scriptures
require and the best philosophy demands, both a panthe-
istic confounding of God with nature and a deistic
separation of Him from it. Nature does not move on
as an independent or inflexible mechanism. While
God is above it as its Creator, He is also immanent in its
forces and order, which depend and move in and on His
abiding omnific Will. His free but permanent Will is
the reason and source of all forces and their order.
God and nature do not stand to each other in merely
external relation, but He is in ever-living communica-
tion with it. "He uphold all things by the word of
His power." "He is above all and through all and in
all." "In Him we live and move and have our being."

(b) The definition assumes the reality of the distinc-
tion already made between nature and the supernatural.
Much of the difficulty in the case comes from obscuring
or refusing this clear and fundamental distinction. But
just as soon as it is clearly seen and distinctly remembered
that physical nature, with its divinely fixed uniformities,
exists for an end beyond its own being and motion,
viz.: as the presupposition and basis of a divine free
moral administration for the life, welfare, and destiny of
mankind, the difficulty ceases. For, at once, in connec-
tion with the further fact of humanity's lapse into sin,
there opens to view both room and need of the whole
supernatural providence of redemptive provison and
help, in connection with which alone the miracles are
declared to have been wrought.

(c) It implies for miracles no "violation" or "suspen-
-----------------End of Page 103-------------------------
sion" of the laws of nature. Definitions have often been
given which involved such a conception of them. Hume
and others have endeavored in this way to put them be-
yond the range of rational belief. But they imply no such
antagonism to nature, and are not to be thought of as
clashing with its proper order. They are due to a
special and direct exertion of the divine will-power,
without annulling any natural force or its sequences of
cause and effect. God inserts His direct power for its
own effect; and the natural forces admit the effect with-
out either annihilation or interruption. The reality
may be fairly illustrated in the operation of the _human_
will-power. When this, through science and skill,
inserts its directive touch in nature's ongoings, and
turns water or electricity into driving forces for
industry or commerce, or shapes the transparent glass
into lenses for bringing the distant stars into view, no
law of nature is violated or suspended. The result is
accomplished by a special _free_ causation--the free causa-
tion conforming its directive power to nature's laws, yet
transcending them--for the special effect. When this
free human power lifts a hand or casts a stone into the
air, the law of gravitation is not infringed--every par-
ticle of matter in hand or stone still gravitating as
before. The weight that is felt in lifting the stone or
holding up the outstretched arm at once measures the
continued gravitation and becomes proof that it does not
surrender its rights while free-will causation seems to
violate them or interrupt their action. When the sons
of the prophets cut down a stick and cast it into the water
and the ax-head swam (2 Kings vi. 6), neither the specific
gravities of the water or iron were altered, nor was the
law of gravitation suspended.
---------------------End of Page 104-----------------------
(d) This conception of miracles at once answers all
allegations of their _impossibility_. Such allegations have
been made to rest mostly on a supposed contradiction of
miracles to the scientific principles of cause and effect and
the consequent reign of the law of uniformity in nature
--sometimes viewed as an _a priori_ presupposition of
science, though generally held rather as a conclusion
_inductively_ established by it. This law of continuity
has sometimes been interpreted as constituting the phys-
ical universe in a balance of forces and necessitated
movemnent that allows no break or disturbance what-
ever.[1]  How this continuity of ongoing forces in the
universe is conceived of is illustrated in Fichte's well-
known supposition about the sand-grain on a seashore:
"Let us imagine this grain of sand lying some few feet
further inland than it actually does. Then must the
storm wind that drove it in from the seashore have been
stronger than it actually was. Then must the preceding
state of the atmosphere by which this wind was deter-
mined have been different from what it actually was,
and the previous changes which gave rise to this partic-
ular weather," etc.[2]  And Fichte goes on to picture the
disasters which such a range of antecedents different
from the actual ones might have involved, all "in order
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Baden Powell, in "Essays and Reviews," p. 150, where he
speaks of "The grand foundation conception of universal law...
the impossibility even of _any two material atoms_ subsisting together
without a determinae relation; of any action of the one or the other,
whether of equilibrium or of motion, without reference to a physical
material agents, unless through the invariable operation of an eter-
nally impressed consequence, following in some necessary chain of
orderly connection."
[2] Quoted from Prof. H. L. Mansel, "On Miracles," etc., in "Aids
to Faith" (D. Appleton, New York), p. 26.
-----------------End of Page 105-----------------------------------
that a grain of sand might lie in a different place." The
overdrawn illustration suggest the Buddhist philosophy
which identifies every human act, as well as every
physical event, as the unescapable effect of all precedent
causation operating in unbroken line. Rhys-Davids
puts it thus: "The history of an individual does not
begin with his birth, but has been endless years in mak-
ing; and he can never sever himself from his surround-
ings, no, not for an hour. The tiniest snowdrop droops
its fairy head just so much and no more, because it is
balanced by the universe. It _is_ a snowdrop, not an oak,
because it is the outcome of a Karma[1]  of an endless ser-
ies of past existences, and because it did not begin to be
when the flower opened, or when the mother plant first
peeped above the ground or first met the embrace of the
sun, or when the bulb began to shoot above the sod, or
at any time which you or I can fix."[2]  With respect to
this conception of man and nature, offered by the athe-
istic philosophy of Buddhism, with its dismal fatalism,
it is enough to say that it stands utterly apart from the
Biblical and theistic conception of the world. It knows
of no personal God for self-revelation. With regard to
the force of Fichte's illustration, implying a material-
istic fatalism almost equal to the Buddhistic, it is suffi-
cient to remind ourselves how entirely the difficulties
suggested disappear, if we simply think of the sand-
grain, not as carried by the storm or wave, but as thrown
by the hand of human freedom those few feet farther
inland. In this case, what becomes of the imagined
necessity of all those different physical antecedents, or
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Necessary causation, or working.
[2] "Religious Systems of the World" (London and New York), p.
146.
-------------End of Page 106---------------------------------
the destructive consequences of their removal? This
conception of nature is constructed, not by science, but
by _fancy_, when it is represented as moving in such close-
linked sequences as to exclude _free_ causation from effect-
ing alterations. As a matter of fact, assured by universal
experience, nature's system, though under the "reign of
law," openly shows a _flexibility_ or _elasticity_ in which it
becomse delicately susceptible to even human will-power,
submitting itself marvelously to the dominion and uses
of man. Human free-will is all the time laying hold of
matter and force, inserting its efficiency into the midst
of nature's ongoings and working thousands and millions
of effects which nature, left to itself, could never work.
Nature makes no watches, builds no steam engines, con-
structs no telegraphs, tunnels no mountains. But truly
understood, it is so plastic and yielding to the intelligent will
as not only to suffer a sand-grain to be moved without
ages of linear physical causation, and without consequent
disorder, but to permit human freedom to mass together
the weight of cities, change the face of continents, har-
ness steam for the transportaion of commerce, and make
electricity an obedient servant to bear our messages
around the world. In constructing the physical world
in this combined invariable uniformity of its own forces
and this plastic susceptibility to volitional force, God
not only adapted it as a proper dwelling-place of man
for his use and the exercise of his free activity, but at
the same time provided room for the display of miracu-
lous powers--one and the same system of nature, open
in limited measure to the action of the human will, open
without limit to the Infinite Will. Used within the
human limit we do not call the result a "miracle," be-
cause it is simply a _human_ affair, made possible in the
--------------End of Page 107--------------------------
natural constitution, yet a "sign" of man's "dominion."
Used by God it is _superhuman, divine_, a witness to His
truly supernatural presence and power. The point cer-
tified and illustrated in these facts is the facile and thor-
ough openness of nature's system to action of free _will-
power_. If so to the human will, then certainly to the
Almighty Will.

2. THE PLACE OF MIRACLES. This is rightly seen
only in the light of the teleological principle. God has
a supreme purpose in the world, in connection with the
moral life, welfare, happiness, and destiny of mankind;
and miracles manifestly have their place in the soterio-
logical redemptive economy, with which alone the Scrip-
tures associate them. They are no part of the natural
system with which science deals, and belong not to any
necessity for the order or completion of the physical
cosmos; hence no objection can be raised against them
as derogatory to God in implying such a failure in His
creative wisdom and power as to require the help or cor-
rection of after-intervention. It is only when we recall
the great truth that through the aggregate natural world
God is aiming at a moral product in the free life of man,
and further, that there is such a thing as _sin_, which has
disturbed the true life, order and happiness of humanity
and created a need of God's coming forth for relief and
help, that we see the true position and import of mirac-
ulous action. It is part of the supernatural administra-
tion, in which, without destroying the natural system
established in creation, God, in His freedom, adds a re-
medial system to meet the condition brought in by
human freedom, and to conduct the world onward to its
true design.

And it has place only in _creating and inaugurating_
------------End of Page 108------------------------------
the supernatural remedial administration. The truth in
the case requires us to distinguish miracles as only a
limited and temporary _part_ or feature of the supernatural
system. They were necessities for its _initiation_ and
establishment. They all centre, as already said, in
Christ, bringing, introducing, and setting up redemptory
provisons and conditions, whose work was marked
necessarily by "powers," "wonders," and "signs."
Those of the Old Testament were the preadvent steps
of the supernatural preparation of His coming. Special
periods in that preparatory economy were particularly
marked with them. In the Mosaic period, when the
authority and supremacy of Jehovah needed assertion
and display, and again in the days of Elijah and Elisha,
when the truth of monotheism required vindication
against the encroachments of idolatry, they appear in
striking prominence. Those of Christ were the appro-
priate manifestation of His supernatural person. Those
of the apostles were from the same source.[1]  Around
the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, the eternal
Word made flesh as the Saviour of men, the full pres-
ence and action of miraculous power culminated and
accomplished its work. When the complete provisions
of redemption were wrought out and the new kingdom of
grace was certified by miraculous activities, the miracle,
as a special extraordinary event, ceased and disappeared
in the regularly constituted supernatural action of grace
through the word of the Gospel under the power of the
Holy Spirit. The miracle is never to be considered
something isolated, apart from this supreme, divine pur-
pose with respect to humanity.

3. THEIR CREDIBILITY. The abstract possibility of
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Acts iii. 16.
-------------End of Page 109-------------------------------
miracles being conceded, the question of their _credibility_
stands in new light. It becomes simply a question
whether any adequate reasons appear for God's working
them. They cannot be understood _in vacuo_, void of all
relations to a rational, worthy purpose, or as idle or use-
less exhibition of divine power. This is one of the
emphatic points which Origen made concerning the
heathen prodigies or marvels which Celsus sought to
set in opposition to the Christian miracles--that those
fabled wonders or exploits of sorcerers were of no
use, had no serviceable aim or power for human welfare,
no such force for the establishment of beneficent insti-
tutions for the moral benediction of the race, as would
show them to be part of the counsel of Heaven;
whereas the mighty works of Christ showed an aim and
actual benediction worthy of God. [1] We may well
regard as incredible and unworthy of belief the thau-
maturgic deeds of men, wrought for applause or gain,
often immoral, always manifestly apart from any living
connection with God's moral purposes in the world.
They could have no claim on our faith. Reverence for
God requires repudiation of the vain trifling. But the
miracles of Christ belong to the grandest conceivable
moral purpose, a purpose meeting the greatest and most
deeply felt need of the human soul, and showing itself
efficient for the true life and highest interests of mankind.

They look to the end for which even the whole physi-
cal system has been constructed and preserved. Nature
is teleologically ordered, in ascending grades, to that
which is designed to stand as highest. Matter is for spirit.
The material world is not for itself, but for the life and
immortality of the race made in the "divine image,"
-----------------------------------------------------------
[1] "Contra Celsus," Book I., ch. lxvii.; Book II., ch. li.
------------------End of Page 110-----------------------
the heavenly Father's children, meant for likeness of
character with Him, high in spiritual excellence and
happiness. The supreme _moral_ aim of the world, in
connectin with whose realization, despite even the
human lapse into sin, miracles are presented as finding
their only place, is already incorporated and certified in
the teleology of the physical constitution itself. The
likelihood of a miracle, or a series of miracles, can never
be fairly estimated if shut off and held apart from the
whole moral aim and adjustment of the world. For it
is not for the rectification of physical nature, but for
introducing means of rectification of man's perverted
views of God and his ways of sin and misery--rectifica-
tion in the realm of moral and spiritual life, the supreme
realm to which the cosmic constitution as well as God's
providential purpose looks. The same degree of credi-
bility must attach to miracles as attaches to the idea of
the superiority of moral order and spiritual good over
the mere mechanism of nature. If there is no invincible
improbability that God as Holy Love should give to man
needful information as to his duties and the conditions
of his welfare, beyond that which may be gathered by
reason; and, further, should make know a way of for-
giveness of sin and redemption from its bondage and
misery, concerning which nature is silent, there can
surely be no insuperable improbability of supernatural
revelation. History and ethnology unquestionably show
that men, outside the circle of special revelation, have
striven for more light as to human duty and destiny and
salvation from the woes of moral evil. But such
special supernatural revelation is itself intrinsically
miraculous. The alledged incredibility of miracles,
therefore, entirely disappears, in this true, broader view
---------------End of Page 111-----------------------------
of the question, taking in the facts as a whole. The
proper proof of them is simply adequate testimony.
Hume's argument, that no amount of testimony could
prove them, is now universally recognized as shallow
and sophistical.

4.  THE PROOF OF MIRACLES. The supposed _impos-
sibility_ of miracles having disappeared in the light of
correct definition and a deeper view of the open recep-
tivity of nature to special causation by Will Power, both
human and divine, and their _credibility_ made clear by
the manifest and almost infinite moral reason for them
in the human need of a divine redemption and help, the
_proof_ of them plainly depends upon, while it requires,
adequate testimony. Like the whole supernatural
economy in connection with whose establishment they
are reported, they may be duly certified to rational faith.
The evidence which attests them is of one piece with
that historical testimony which assures the aggregate
facts in which Christianity has been founded. They
are interwoven with the very warp and woof of the
history of redemption. As divine "powers," "wonders,"
and "signs," they blend with the _revelation idea_ that
runs in transparent clearness through it all. The Bibli-
cal history is found, in fact, to yield to no history in the
world in the clearness and accuracy of its statements.
Investigation in the archaeology of the long-buried past
is still continually coming upon memorial evidences of
the veracity of its records.

No historico-critical endeavor has been able to impeach
the credibility of the testimonies to the miracles without
discrediting the entire history of which they form an
integral part. The testimonies were given with a calm-
ness and conscientiousness that remained unshaken in
------------------End of Page 112------------------------
the face of suffering, persecution and death. If _such_ testi-
mony is worth nothing, no testimony on earth is of valid
force for facts, and any human witness may arbitrarily be
set aside. To the alleged incompetence of mere spectators
to assure the invisible _cause_ of the phenomena, we must
remember Christ's own testimony from His _immediate_
knowledge. Similarly, in case of the apostolic miracles,
it is the worker of them who reports them, not as human
deeds, but as wrought by the divine power of Christ.[1]
To reject Christ's testimony, and that of the apostles
in this relation, amounts to the absurd allegation that
both He and they were impostors carrying on a scheme of
deception. This charge would be valid against Christ
even if He, knowing His diciples to be crediting His
mighty deeds to "the finger of God," had simply al-
lowed them to remain under a delusion. Moreover, the
objection that as witnesses they, in their unscientific age,
were uncritical and disposed toward the marvelous, and
therefore easily mistook appearances for reality or re-
ported false perceptions, or mininterpreted phenomena
for miracles of God, has but little force, if we remember
two things, viz: First, that they were, in fact, ready to
accept miracles at all only as they were to accept the
reasonable truth that God is present in supreme power
in the world and at hand with the help for His People
which the great moral emergency required, and which
they warrantably believed had been promised. Secondly,
the phenomena, in large part at least, were of such a
kind as to stand clearly above the reach of human abil-
ity. They were forced to locate them in superhuman
power. And with what judgment and justice they placed
them there becomes evident in that through all the pro-
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Acts iv. 10; xv. 12; xix. 11; Heb. ii. 4.
---------------End of Page 113---------------------------
gress of science revealing the laws and possibilities of
nature, and the ability of the human intelligence to
effect wonderful phenomena, those miracles have not to
this day been brought within the sphere of natural or
human working. The advance of science, with its mar-
velous achievments, instead of reducing Christ's mir-
acles to natural or human products, tends to confirm
their supernatural character. For, as science goes on
toward an entire and exhaustive disclosure of nature's
laws and possibilities without revealing the secret of
Christ's miracles in natural force and opening them to
human repetition at will, it lessens the likelihood that
it will ever be able to do so.

But the full strength of the proof is seen only when
the miraculous history is taken all together and viewed
in its unity. It is not a question of the proof of this
miracle, or that miracle, or some other, isolated and con-
sidered in itself, but of the whole supernatural redemp-
tive providence and working which have established and
endowed Christianity with its saving power. Adverse
criticism has been wont to take advantage of an unfair
way of calling out the Christian miracles separately, for
single assault, or broken apart from the great age-long
revelatory movement for human salvation. It has be-
come abundantly evident that it is impossible to repudi-
ate the miracles as false perceptions, misinterpreted nat-
ural phenomena, merely human marvels, or myths or
legends manufactured by the religious temper of those
far-away times, and still hold to the generic supernatur-
alism and redemptory character of Christianity, includ-
ing the divine call of Israel, the gift of the Law, the
institution of a typical worship, the inspiration of pro-
phecy, the incarnation of the Son of God, the aggregate
-------------End of Page 114-------------------------------
"wonder" of His life and teaching, the crowning mir-
acles of the resurrection and ascension, and the living
Christ of history since. The subordinate supernatural-
ism of the miracle-records is so integral a part of the
whole redemptory revelation and provison that they in-
evitably stand or fall together. To repudiate the reality
of incidental miraculous phenomena logically carries
with it a repudiation of the entire supernaturalism of
Christianity, as is constantly illustrated in the case of
deniers of the Gospel miracles. But as long as Bible
Christianity stands, belief in miracles must form part of
the Christian faith. And the point to be particularly
observed is that the strength of the _proof_ justifying this
faith is seen only in the clear and thorough transcend-
ence of the structural contents of Christianity taken as
a geat whole, so that without miraculous action of di-
vine power its establishment is unaccountable and its
doctrinal content is lost. The proof of a miraculous
founding of Christianity  is Christianity itself, grounded
in its fundamental miracle of the incarnation, "God
manifest in the flesh," the miracle of miracles and the
explanation of all others. Christ appeared as a super-
natural Person in whom the natural continuity of human
sin was superseded by a moral perfection that knew
no sin, a teaching superhuman in its reach and divine in
its adaptations, offering effectual sacrifice and propitia-
tion on the cross, crowned with the sealing miracle of
resurrection from the dead, the divine ascension and en-
thronement in a kingdom which is not of this world
but whose extension carries regenerating power to hu-
manity's moral and spirtual life wherever its light and
power are accepted. All this beneficent reality, all this
grand phenomenon through the centuries, supplying the
------------------End of Page 115---------------------
necessary light and forces for humanity's highest welfare,
which no resources of nature have otherwise or elsewhere
furnished--all this is the great "sign" and "wonder"
and "power" that demonstartes that the foundations of
Christianity were laid in God's miraculous working.
Christendom itself in the high moral and spiritual pro-
ducts and benedictions it exhibits, and the mighty powers
and adaptations it shows for character, life, and blessed-
ness, incomparably above all the products of the word's
efforts, is indeed a permanent miracle. In its original
reality, in both event and doctrine, Christianity is pene-
trated all through with the miraculous. The incidental
manifestations were but the normal witnesses to the
Divine activities that were establishing it.

5. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. This has
been differently estimated at different times. In the
early Churchy;, Middle Ages, and Protestant theology,
apologetics made large use of them as proof of the
divine authority of Christianity; but since the rise of
modern deistic and pantheistic philosophies, and the
recent development of physical science with its emphasis
on the conservation of force and the reign of law in
nature, energetic and persistent assault has been made
upon the Biblical miracles, and the appeal to them has
been less used--not because not valid, but as less avail-
able. Opponents of Christianity have represented them
as not the triumphant proof of its truth, but the great-
est impediment to its reception. Hence apologetics
has tended to rest the proof more on other forms of
evidence. They have, thus, often been thrown into the
background, as tenable, indeed, by faith, but not its
support or warrant. But this persistent and many-
sided assault and depreciation have stimulated Chris-
-----------------End of Page 116-----------------------
tian thought to deeper study and led to profounder
views of the real import of miracles and of their position in
the redemptory economy. The advance not only corrects
the false forms of definition which long allowed them to be
thrust into untrue antagonism to nature, but holds them
in closer and more living relation to the whole divine
activity for the spiritual regeneration of man, and espe-
cially emphasizes their indissoluble union with the very
life and work of the Mediator as God manifest in the
flesh.

The truth in the matter, as now thoroughly vindi-
cated, concedes, indeed, that while as to the original wit-
nesses, in the state of mind into which their training had
brought them, the very sight of the miracles was power-
fully adapted and actually efficient for evoking faith, as
to the world, since the full institution of the Church, _faith
is required for their acceptance, i.e._, the historical faith
that responds to adequate historical testimony to their
occurrence, in connection with conditions and historical
movements which furnish a reasonable ground and jus-
tification of them. It concedes, too, that in them-
selves, as isolated phenomena, they are not to be held as
the _alone_ evidences of the divine truth, or as _per se_ neces-
sarily effecting faith. Christ Himself called attention
to the _self-witnessing_ power of His _teaching_, the _self-
verifying divinity of His truth_, as an evidence which
ought to have made a "sign-seeking generation" less
dependent on the attending miracles--reproaching them
for their low spiritual sense that would not believe
except on sight of these objective "wonders,"[1]  or that
would, perhaps, remain unbelieving though one would
rise before them from the dead.[2]  Nevertheless He asserted
---------------------------------------------------------------
[1] John iv. 48.
[2] Luke xvi. 31.
----------------End of Page 117------------------------------
their real evidential value as proof, and wrought them
in explicit connection with this purpose,[1]  even staking
His Messianic claims and divine authority upon their
reality.[2]  When faith was not evoked through the
higher _moral_ force of the appeal of self-verifying truth,
He still pointed to the attesting miracles: "Though ye
believe not me, believe the works."[3]  These "mighty
works" were a means of carrying the beholders' minds
up to the divinity of the truth taught, and causing the
view to rest upon the divine Christ Himself, upon His
whole _supernatural claim, office, and work as the
Redeemer and Saviour of the world_. Their evidential
value was not in what they were in themselves, but as
"signs" of what _He_ was as "God manifest in the flesh,"
accomplishing redemption and teaching the way of life.
And it is only when Jesus is viewed in the illuminating
light of the miracles, which show themselves in His
Person and ministry, that we are impressed with their
transcendent value for assuring His full divine authority.

Only a comprehensive and discriminating view of
the miracles of Christ will bring this relation and sig-
nificance into clear relief. (a) The first and lowest rela-
tion was that of given _credentials to a divine commission
or office_ to teach or act in the name of God. In this
sense miracles might be attached to the ministry of
prophet or apostle, as bearers of God's truth. In the
case of Christ they were certificates of appointment and
authority.[4]  As such they were of great weight, as guar-
antee for faith in the message. (b) In the life of Christ
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Matt. ix. 2-6.
[2] Matt. xi. 2-6, 20-24; Luke xi. 20; John v. 20, 36; ix. 4-7;
x. 25-32, 37, 38; xv. 24.
[3] John x. 38.
[4] John iii. 2; Matt. xi. 2-6; Luke xi. 20.
-----------------End of Page 118--------------------------------
they were the normal or natural manifestations of His
_supernatural Person_. If the whole conception of the
Old Testament promises and the New Testament claims
was realized, the Messiah was the Eternal Word "made
flesh,"[1]  the incarnate Son of God, living and acting in
the presence of men. That this supernatural Person
should exhibit supernatural deeds, as well as teach
supernatural truths, is but according to the law of cause
and effect and the principle of self-consistent personal
action. Allowing for the difference between physical
and free causation, the supernatural would ray out in
His activity as naturally as light from the sun. When
out of His personal divinity Christ wrought miracles,
He was but expressing Himself. It was a part of His
_teaching_, teaching concerning _Himself_, the same truth
that His words were freqently uttering, and with an
added verifying power beyond the capacity of words
alone to give. Had Jesus confined Himself to verbal
teaching, and day after day and year after year of His
public ministry there had never appeared in His action a
sign or token, a manifestation or suggestion of supernatu-
ral power, what a large, if not fatal, loss it would have
been to the evidence that He was, indeed, the Son of God,
as He claimed to be! What a loss to the impressiveness
of the demonstration of His divinity! But by as much
as the loss would have dwarfed the proof, by so much do
His miraculous deeds sustain His teaching and accredit
His whole supernatural claim and authority. They be
come a vital, essential proof of what He was, completing
and crowning His divine self-expression.[2]  (c) They stand,
also, in direct connection with the highest and divinest
moral ends. They are articulated into a spiritual aim
-------------------------------------------------------------
[1] John i. 14.
[2] I John i. 1-3.
----------------End of Page 119------------------------------
than which none of larger moral grandeur has ever
been conceived in human thought--the entrance of
men into a state of peace and fellowship with God,
the regeneration of life under the divine truth and
Spirit,[1]  and the establishment of a spiritual kingdom to
bring righteousness and love into sway through the
earth, with entrance thence into everlasting life. Accord-
ing to the whole picture given by the evangelists, Jesus'
entire personal life was pervaded by the love and kind-
ness, the goodness, holiness, and moral elevation which
accorded with this beneficent purpose. His miraculous
activity, therefore, stood in unity with His whole bene-
ficent aim, and took on all the value which belongs to
the great object toward which His ministry was directed.
(d) They certify the _power_ needed to redeem. The pur-
pose of Christ's coming extended to deliverance from
the physical as well as the moral evil which sin had
wrought. The system of nature is an organism, and
man's physical well-being is tied close to the direction
which the spiritual movement takes. Human sin bore
fruits of physical disorder--disease and death. The
Deliverer must be Lord of all nature. The "kingdom
of heaven" must not only bring forgiveness and renewal
of heart, but include arrest and reversal of the physical
fruits of transgression. Hence Christ's ministry showed
dominion over nature. Wherever He touched it or
spoke to it, it was obedient to His power--in storm and
sea, in tree and man, in disease and death. Had Christ
been helpless before the physical consequences of moral
evil, which exact "the uttermost farthing of penalty,"[2]
had no "signs" of saving "power" in this relation
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] John iii. 3-5.
[2] D. W. Forrest's "The Christ of History and Experience," p. 120.
--------------End of Page 120--------------------------------
appeared in His person, the absence would have been
fatal to faith in His claims. But the loss by such sup-
posed absence only measures the sublime value of their
presence. And this consideration leads to a further:
(e) His miracles form the beginning of His actual
redemptive work. They are more than signs of power.
In rescuing from sickness, suffering, and death, as well
as in forgiving sins and restoring to fellowship with
the Father, He _is seen at His redemptive work_, pre-
senting first-fruits. His deeds, therefore, _complete_ the
view of His person and saving work, and carry all the
evidential value which this necessary relation gives.

Most indubitable does it thus become that the miracu-
lous activity of Christ is normal and essential evidence
of the divine foundations of Christianity. It is synony-
mous with the proof of His supernatural Person, and of the
supernatural redemption He was accomplishing. The
assertion, sometimes made, that "the Bible does not need
the attestation of miracles," is utterly misleading, if the
supernaturalism of the Christian revelation is not to be
surrendered. The absence of these supernatural "signs
and wonders," in teaching, life, and deeds, from the al-
ledged revelation and from the life of Christ, would leave
them without their proper and essential divine signature,
and without correspondence with the fundamental claims
and mission of Christianity.

	_Evidences from Prophecy._

As a miracle of knowledge, prophecy, especially pre-
dictive prophecy, has an evidential value closely akin to
that of other forms of miracles. Two things underlie
and vindicate its force in this relation. First, the fact
--------------End of Page 121-------------------------------
that it gives a clear and specific fore-announcement of
events utterly beyond the reach of simple human fore-
sight, and secondly, the sure principle that God would
not authenticate falsehood by bestowment of the pro-
phetic gift. It becomes God's seal to His messenger and
message.

A clear vein of prophecy runs through the Scriptures.
A divine forecast enters into the very texture of the
Biblical revelation. It becomes organic in the revelation
because the revelation is a historical movement whose
inspiring goal is opened to the apprehension of faith at
every step of the progress. Sometimes the prediction is
of events in the near future, marked by very definite
features and bounds. This form is well illustrated in
the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah foreshadowing the
Assyrian and Babylonian captivities of the Jews and the
destruction of Babylon. Such predictions, with their
clear and indubitable fulfillment, stand as impresssive
proof of the divine revelation of which they form a part.[1]
But of far greater force are those prophecies that, in
Messianic forecast and promise, drectly pre-announced
Christ and Christianity. Beginning with the first God-
pel declaration concerning a conquering "seed of the
woman,"[2]  on through the Abrahamic call at the root of
the Jewish separation, and the multitudinous assurances
of a coming Deliverer and Saviour, lighting up the ad-
vancing pages of the Old Testmanet Scriptures to their
close--all accompanied by a distinct corresponding his-
torical, national, and religious organization and move-
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Isa. iii. 8, 25, 26; vi. 11, 12; xxxix. 6, 7; Jer. xxv. 11, 12.
[2] Franz Delitzsch well points out that even if the Pentateuch be as-
signed to the later date of the critics, this "first promise," neverthe-
less, has its logical and real place with the beginning of the race.--
"Messianic Prophecies," ch. i., sec., 1.
-----------------End of Page 122--------------------------
ment in the Hebrew people--these Messianic prophecies
appear in increasing frequency and clearness. They have
an augmented impressiveness from the very fact that they
attend and explain that great historical Hebrew develop-
ment in which they are a constituent part. They justify
the movement by holding forth the goal of it. The New
Testament exhibits the prophecy of the blossom, but
with the difference that while the fruit comes from the
blossom by regular course of nature, the New Testament
fulfillment stands entirely apart from any simply natural
law to account for it.

It will suffice for presenting the value of the evidence
from prophecy simply to adduce from the great continu-
ous web of it and its fulfillment a few illustrative ex-
amples.

1. From Gen. xii, 1-3: "Now the Lord said unto
Abram, Get thee out of they country and from they kin-
dred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I
will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation,
and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be
thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee,
and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee
shall all the families of the earth be blessed." This as-
surance that in Abraham all the "families" or "nations"
of the earth should "be blessed" was repeated to him
in different relations--first in connection with the prom-
ise of a son in his old age, and again when his faith was
tested on the mount of sacrifice (Gen. xviii. 17, 18 and
xxii. 15-18). As the heirship of Abraham's covenant
position fell to his son Isaac and then to Jacob, it was
renewed and reiterated to them, confirming the descent
of the promise through his seed (Gen. xxvi. 4; xxviii.
-----------------End of Page 123----------------------------
10-15). The promise is found to lie, in fact, at the root
of the peculiar historical development exhibited in the
Jewish race, shaping the course of events for thousands
of years and giving direction to the pens of the long list
of Old Testament writers in the profoundest thought and
structure of their poductions.

The true historicity of this convenant fore-announce-
ment is firmly accredited by the whole unquestionable,
unique development, postition, and literature of that pecul-
liar race, to which that announcement forms the fitting
initiation, and which repeats itself in ever onward-look-
ing prophecies. The Hebrew mind, indeed, seems never
to have taken in the full scope of the "blessing" or the
way in which it was to reach "all nations." It did not
comprehend all that the Spirit within "did signify" in
thus testifying beforehand.[1]  But from our position for
reading the meaning and reality of history, it is certain
that the advancing devlopment of the national exist-
ence was still carrying the promise and the divine design
it expressed on toward fulfillment.

It is absolutely certain that no fulfillment can be traced
under any interpretaion that would apply the promise
to Abraham's seed or posterity in the natural sense, or
simply as a people collectively. For, though they pos-
sessed a higher and better knowledge of God and His
will than surrounding peoples, they were isolated by
their civic and religious organization and narrowed into
a dominantly exclusive temper. Though they made
some proselytes, incorporating them into Judaism, they
remained bitterly hostile to the idea of any extension of
the prerogatives and divine favors of the "children of
Abraham" to the alien Gentiles. Nor did the narrow
---------------------------------------------------
[1] 1 Peter i. 11.
-----------------------End Of Page 124---------------
and dwarfing separateness, which indeed guarded and pre-
served the divine truth and purpose incorporated in their
existence and mission, allow them to become a mighty,
conquering world-power, that by arms and victories
might extend its higher faith and beneficent adminstra-
tion into a universal dominion, as some in our times
seem to think a Christian empire may do. Neither dur-
ing the continuance of the Jewish commonwealth, nor
since its extinction at the beginning of our Christian era,
can the prophecy of that covenant race be shown to have
had a merely naturalistic aim or accomplishment. Down
to the present time, apart from the opening of the foun-
tains of spiritual truth and life in Christianity, there is
hardly a people on earth whose incoming and presence
are less accepted as a blessing "to all nations." While,
in their strange dispersion and unparalleled exclusive
separateness, they have gone everywhere through the
world, almost everywhere they have been put under
bans of legal repression and pursued with persecuting
antagonism.

But just as true and indisputable is it that human ex-
perience and history have traced and are still tracing a
clear and high fulfillment through  _the Messiah_, "_the
Christ_," that "seed of Abraham,"[1]  whose coming the
Hebrew Scriptures, under their true interpretation,
throughout held forth as the end of the specialistic
Jewish development. "The Scripture, foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith, preached
before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall
all nations be blessed." "If ye be Christ's, then are
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
That most peculiar development of the covenant and
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Gal. iii. 8, 9, 18, 29.
-----------------End of Page 125--------------------------
Jewish life was conducted to a divine fruit in Chritian-
ity, which _has_ ever proved and still proves the rich bene-
diction of reconciliation with God, renewal of heart. and
all the blessings of the higher civilizations, culture, wel-
fare, and happiness, to all the families, individuals, and
nations to which its message and power come. The
progresss of the earth to-day, in all that lifts human life
to what is best and worthiest, and strong in the elevating
anticipations of immortality, is, as a matter of fact, wit-
nessing fruits of the actual fulfillment, and still progress-
ive fulfilling, of that divine promise and Jewish unfold-
ing. There is, therefore, a mysterious link connecting
that pledge to Abraham in Haran with the times of
Christ and the course of history ever since--the divine
foresight and superintendence stretching across the long
inverval and certifying itself _as_ divine to-day.[1]  It illus-
trates the evidential force of prophecy.

2. Isa. liii. This chapter is too familiar to require
insertion here. While Isaiah abounds in predictions of
Christ, this is the most remarkable of them. Some
facts in regard to it must be borne in mind. (a) The
prophecy was written about 700 years before Christ.[2]
(b) It was translated into the Greek of the Septuagint
version about two hundred years before the birth of
Christ. So no criticism can question the priority of the
prophecy to the events of the New Testament. (c) The
"Servant," of whom the prophecy speaks is interpreted
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Prof. W. H. Thomson's "The Great Argument" (New York),
pp. 45-63.
[2] This is on the view that Isaiah was the author of the second divi-
sion of the book. Should the theory of a deutero-Isaiah be followed,
the later date of the Captivity leaves in the prophecy all the essential
evidential conditions untouched. See Delitzsch's "Messianic Prophe-
cies," pp. 197-206.
-------------------End of Page 126----------------------------
even by the Jewish Targums as the Messiah.[1]  This
shows an agreement by the early Judaism with the
Christian interpretaion of the reference. Jewish expos-
itors who reject Christianity find the reference a crux;
and the variety and vanity of their attempts to discover a
solution adjusted to their rejection have made their fail-
ure thus far a most convincing proof ot the impossibility
of doing so. Indeed, many Jews have been brought to
faith in Jesus Christ by the force of this prophecy.

Its divine app[lication to the Messiah is immovably
sure.[2]  It is woven, orderly and closely, in the texture of
the total Isaianic representation of the Coming One, the
anointed Deliverer of Israel--a representation that, while
giving due recognition to the Messianic vocation and
position of the whole posterity of Abraham or the Jew-
ish people collectively, as holding and assuring spiritual
deliverance and high exaltation, yet carried on the view
beyond that suboridnate and subsidiary range and con-
centrated it finally upon the Messianic office in the single
Divine Person who should arise in the midst of Judah,
the special "seed of Abraham," and "of David," in which
it was to be really and fully accomplished, not simply
through the functions of prophecy and rulership, but
also that of priestly propitiation. And the delineation
stands in the mould furnished elsewhere by the entire
body of Messianic prediction and promise by the proph-
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Pool's "Annotations," Isa. lii. 13; Paley's "Evidences," Part
II., ch. i., note; Delitzsch on Isa. lii. 13.
[2] See Dr James Orr's "The Problem of the Old Testament," pp
32, 33. Dr. A. B. Davidson ("Old Testament Prophecy," p. 411),
quoted by Dr. Orr, says: "There is not one of the better class of
critics who does not recognize the pertinence of the question, In whom
are the features of the Servant to be recognized? or who does not give
the same answer to the question as the orthodox theologian."
------------------End of Page 127-------------------------------
ets before, contemporaneous with, and after Isaiah--all to-
gether completing and irrefutably assuring the applica-
tion to Christ. Jewish ingenuity has been able to find
the counterpart to the description in no other personality
of Hebrew history; and its chief resort in applying the
description to the nation as a personified whole breaks
up into utter confusion through refusal of the language
to unite in grammatical coherence and relevancy, or tally
with any experience of the Jews as such. But the whole
portraiture becomes a clear mirror, reflecting in every
part, in almost startling distinctness, the position, char-
acter, experience, aim, meekness, vicarious suffering and
propitiatory death of Jesus Christ, making of Himself
an offering for sin and an intercession for transgressors,
through which He passes into an exaltation and triumph
in which He realizes His high joy in seeing may justi-
fied in His righteousness.[1]  Across the interval of those
centuries the Spirit of prophecy traced in terms of ex-
plicit history, the unnparalleled realities which, so long a
time after, became conspicuously actual in the rejection
and crucifixion of the divine Messiah and the saving
power that has come from Him ever since. This Scrip-
ture is thus another illustrative example of the evidential
value of prophecy.

These two are types of the Old Teatmanent _method_.
The individual prophecies are too numerous and varied
for rehearsal here. But we can see the full force of the
evidence they furnish only when we recall _how many
distinct things were thus foretold of Christ_. Of these we
must note His descent from Abraham (Gen. xii. 1-3);
from Judah (gen. xlix. 10); from David (Jer. xxiii. 5);
the time of His coming (Dan. ix.24; His divine and hu-
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Delitzsche on Isa. liii.
-------------End of Page 128----------------------------------
man natures (Isa. ix. 6; the place and circumstances of
His birth (Micah v. 2; Isa. vii. 14); His threefold office,
as Prophet, Priest, and King (Deut. xviii. 15, 18; Ps.
ii.; Ps. cx; Zech. vi. 13; Isa. lxi. 1); His preaching (Isa.
ix. 2; lxi. i, 2); His miracles (Isa. xxxv. 5. 6); His
sufferings and death (Isa. liii.; Zech. xiii. 7); His resurrec-
tion and ascension (Ps. lxviii. 18); the consequent gift of
the Holy Spirit (Joel ii. 28); and the extension of the
Gospel (Isa. liii.; ix. 7; xxxv.).

If we consider how grand is the concert of the Scrip-
tures, historic, didactic, and devotional, by so many
writers widely separated and extending through more
than ten centuries, all keyed to this Messianic idea, im-
bedded at the same time and carried forward continu-
ously in peculiar institutions of government and worship,
typical sacrifices, rites, and festivals, forming a distinct,
unparalleled movement unfolding into the events of the
Gospel histories, and the Church and life of Christendom,
it becomes impossible to doubt that the Old Testament
really foretold Christ and Christianity--so sealing both
the Old and New Testaments as of God.

It may be said that the rejection of the Christ
by the great body of the Jews when He appeared
discredits the validity of this conclusion. But the
conclusion rightly rests, not on the conduct of the
Jewish leaders and the mass of the people when He
came, which then, as often before, failed to reflect
the full light of their training, but upon the whole
prophetic view, embracing the entire range and combin-
ation of Messianic forecast, in all its forms, as _now_ seen
to have been actually fulfilled and to be actually fulfill-
ing still, in the historical Christ and the establishment
of Christianity. The reality and reach of prophecy be-
-------------End of Page 129-------------------------------
come clear and certain, not by its being viewed _pros-
pectively_ or in _contemparary_ movements, but especially,
if not _only_, after the historical fulfillment has thrown the
light of clear interpretation and verification on it, and it
lies unmistakably defined and fixed in historic retrospect.
The question is not what the Jewish  rulers did, nor even
what they might have known, enabling them to see in
Jesus Israel's long-promised Messiah, but what _we_ now
may see and understand in the light of the whole New
Testament record and with the entire history of Chris-
tianity before us.

The rejection of Christ by the Jews is easily explained
by incontrovertible facts--facts which leave the acutal
fulfillment of the Messianic assurances untouched. One
fact is that these prophecies had lodged in the Jewish
mind of that period a deep and strong _expectation_ of the
Messianic appearing. Proof of this is abundant in the
post-canonical Jewish literature, aporcyphal, and pseud-
epigraphic.[1]  The hope burned intensely in the national
life. Another fact is that in the troublous times of the
Maccabean wars and under the chafing bondage of
Roman wrong and oppression, the highest _spiritual_
feature in which the prophets had delineated the com-
ing Messiah were obscured and lost sight of in notions
which resolved the promised blessing to Israel into polit-
ical and national deliverance and the divine Deliverer,
if at all viewed as a person, into a God-sent, heroic
Leader or Prince, who should consummate the victorious
power of Israel and exalt it into an attractive world-
dominion. After the voice of prophecy had ceased in
the land, the spiritual and true import of the Messianic
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Lectures IX.-XI. of Edersheim's "Prophecy and History in
Relation to the Messiah" (London and New York).
----------------End of Page 130------------------------------
idea passed under a deep, dark eclipse, through the
perverting national longings and varied misleading
influences. The features of the Messiah of the prophets
faded out from the vision of the people and their religi-
ous guides. The whole stress of the Messianic concep-
tion was centred in the kingly function as mighty heir
to David's throne. In the blindness of passionate long-
ing and fanatical expectancy for a kingly ruler, the face
of the Messiah could not be seen in the meek, gentle,
patient Teacher and suffering Saviour. They naturally
failed to recognize Him when He came. "He came unto
His own, and His own received Him not"--though to
"as many as received Him He gave power to become the
sons of God." But the veil of obscuring, blinding
influence has been removed from the minds and hearts
of men, who now can trace under the clear illumination
of _fulfillment_ the whole prophetic delineation in the
divine Son of God and Son of man and the "kingdom
of heaven" as established on earth.

3. There is a great and indisputable New Testament
prophecy that integrates itself in the Biblical system
and further illustrates the prophetic reality. We refer
to Christ's fore-announcement of the destruction of
Jerusalem and the Jewish nation (Matt. xxiv. 1-34;
Mark xiii. 1-23; Luke xix. 41-44; xxi. 5-24). This
stands as a connecting and transitional link between
the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Christ and
the consequent onward prophetic realizations after Christ
had incorporated in the revelation His own far-reaching
unfoldings for the verification of the Christian centuries.

It is indubitably certain that this pre-announcement of
the approaching utter overthrow of the sacred city was
made and published before the event took place. No
--------------End of Page 131----------------------------
plea that the overthrow preceded the prediction can be
sustained. Almost the entire weight of the historical and
critical authority affirms that the three evangelists who
record it wrote before the year A.D. 70, in which the
event occurred, and this is confirmed by the fact that
in none of them is there the least intimation, even by
incidental implication, of the fulfillment of the prophecy.
And equal silence, it is true, obtains in the Gospel of
John, who did write afterward; but John made no
record of the prophecy itself, and his entire silence on
the whole subject is easily explained in the fact that it
lay outside the scope of his purpose in his particular
delineation of the Master. But in view of the mighty
impression made by that woeful destruction, it is mani-
festly incredible that the three evangelists who record
the prediction at length should, or could, have failed to
add a hint of the awful realization.  So the priority of
the prophecy to its fulfillment cannot be questioned.[1]

And the warning pointed out the overthrow not
merely in general terms, which might suit various dis-
similar cases of possible occurence, but in distinct, spe-
cific, minute, peculiar features, a succession and combi-
nation of particulars never before drawn. The terms can
be made to tally with no experience in Jewish history save
the one named in advance. And beyond the particular-
istic declaration of the complete destruction stands the
fatal, far-reaching word: "They shall be led away captive
into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of
the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."[2]
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] For other proofs on this point, see Paley's "Evidences of Chris-
tianity," Part II., ch. i. Renan concedes this. See Row's "Reasons
for Believing in Christianity," p. 145.
[2] Luke xxi. 24.
----------------------------End of Page 132--------------------
The actual destruction of Jerusalem, corresponding to
the prophecy, is one of the unquestionable and outstand-
ing events in the world's history, and the effects and
memorials of it are still visible throughout the world.
Josephus, the great Jewish historian, who has included a
full detailed account of it in his "_Wars of the Jews_,"
written at Rome, writing as an eye-witness of the long
and dreadful tragedy, and as an enemy to Christianity,
has yet left a description ot if which covers all the
terms of the divine prophecy.[1]  Under the tracing of
his historic pen we read to-day the details of the cruel
siege and terrible famine, the strange successions and
unparalleled combinations of suffering, horror, and deso-
lation, in which we see every feature of Jesus' prediction,
even the most improbable, completey fulfilled. The
calamity swept on till the site of the city was turned by
the plowshare, and the remnant of its inahbitants cap-
tive and scattered into an exile "among all nations," a
dispersion in which they still wander--an unequaled
phenomenon of race separateness and persistence, a liv-
ing monument to the divinity of that fore-knowledge to
which this whole history lay in open, infallible vision.

	THE INTERNAL EVIDENCES.

It should be expected that a religion or revelation
from God, given through a course of divine self-mani-
festations historically accredited, would at the same time
shine in its own light, authenticating and commending
itself directly to the intellect and heart of the race. The
divinity of its Source must be reflected in its contents.
Its origin must appear in its intrinsic power and fruits.
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Books V.-VI.
--------------End of Page 133-------------------------------
This evidence Christianity possesses in clear and tri-
umphant measure. We must remind ourselves of some
of the chief forms of it.

1. _The Peculiar and Profound Harmony of the Scrip-
tures_. To see this clearly and to estimate its force cor-
rectly, we must keep in mind the actual facts in the case.
These Scriptures consist of sixty-six books, written by
about forty different writers, of different degrees of cul-
ture and in different positions in life, from kings and
statesmen down to herdsmen and fishermen, in regions
widely remove from each other, some in Central Asia,
some in Judea, some in cities of Greece, some in Rome,
at different periods extending through about fifteen cen-
turies. They reflect widely different environments, the
presence of diverse types of personal, industrial, and
social life, habits, customs, and influences, variously
modified and changed, often through sweeping revolu-
tions, as time went by. But though the authors, so
numerous and separate from each other, wrote independ-
ently and with an individuality that appears in thought
and style; and though the books comprise history, biog-
raphy, poetry, and letters, dealing, under the most varied
circumstances, with the great subjects of God, creation,
man's place and relations, religion, law, government,
human duty, opportunity, and destiny, they are found
to harmonize as a record of one movement, presenting
and developing the same fundamental or ruling truths
and principles, progressively contructing a single system
of theistic teaching, divine providence, and human sal-
vation--a movement penetrated and dominated by one
great unitary aim, which appears at last in the establish-
ment of Christianity. The concert in the strains of the
many and distinct writers must have been keyed by a
----------------End of Page 134------------------------------
divine inspriation; for it is not after the manner of hu-
man writers thus to agree--so that the notes heard in
the opening utterance reverberate through the long prog-
ress and come to clear and ringing resonance when the
revelatory voices proclaim the conclusion. If we take
any similar collection of writings, extending over an
equal space of time, and composed by an equal number
of authors, we shall find nothing like this in history."[1]

This unity and harmony of the Biblical revelation has
been set in fresh light by the distinctness with which all
modern scholarship has recognized and persented the
_progressive_ character of that revelation. We are thus no
longer perplexed by the seeming discrepancies, between
some passages in the Old Testament and the New. They
are only the noramal phenomena resulting from the ad-
vance from the earlier and partial to the later and full
disclosure of spiritual truth, or the advancing training
toward and into the full standard of moral relations and
life, as men could be prepared for reception of the perfect
law of duty. The unitary harmony is not a formal one but
vitally pervades the record of a great divine, providen-
tial, practical movement, progressively lifting spiritual
thought and moral life, through redemptive provison
and adapted instruction, all based in fundamental truths
which from the first implicitly embraced the conclusion
--a moving light which, like the rising sun, shines "more
and more unto the perfect day." This harmony of the
Biblical literature, organizing itself upon the one great
fundamental idea of spiritual salvation and an eternal
kingdom of God for man; centering in a complex and
prolonged sytem of prophecies, types, sacrificial rites,
laws, social intitutions, history, and promises of a divine
-----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Row's "Bampton Lecutures," 1877, p. 209.
--------------End of Page 135------------------------------
Messiah and Saviour to come; closing at last in the fully
accredited New Testament records of the birth, life,
teachings, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension
of Jesus Christ, in whom the whole Old Testament
movement was completely realized, thus proving itself
the fulll provision of a regenerating power for universal
humanity--this is not only a literary phenomenon with-
out a parallel on earth, but is in itself so manifestly
superhuman as to attest itself as divine to the reason
and the heart.

2. _The Supernatural Character of Christ_. As Jesus
Christ is the centre of Christianity, at once the realiza-
tion of the Old Testament preparations and the substance
of the New Testament truth and authority, it is fair
to concede that if, as He claimed to be, He is truly the
Son of God and full revelation of the Father, the evi-
dences of it must necessarily appear in His own personal
character and life. The divine life must needs be self-
evident in its own divinity. As we need no other light
than its own shining to see the sun, so we should recog-
nize the supernatural light in Him who can truly say,
"He that seeth me hath seen the Father."

The advance of learning, the discoveries of science,
the progress of knowledge, though often conducted in
critical temper, have failed to furnish a naturalistic ex-
planation of the unique personality of Jesus Christ, or
bring His total personal character, in mind, heart, and
life, within the measure of mere humanity. Unbeliev-
ing thought has worked at the task through all these
centuries, but the longer and more fully the gaze of the
human soul has been calmly and honestly fixed on the
problem, the more evident has become the impossibility
of classing Him as only and simply a man among men.
-------------End of Page 136------------------------------
United in a life most genuinely human are the inefface-
able features of a supernatural presence and superhuman
thought and movement. This is a "sign" that has not
been cut off.

Increasingly impressive, for instance, abides the won-
derful _originality_ of His character. This marked, pri-
marily, His intellectual life, but it showed itself in His
whole bearing. In a profound sense and large degree,
men are the product of their times, place, and conditions.
The forces of ancenstry and environment, the limitations
and trends of circumstances, give and explain the mould
of their thought and lives. This does not destroy free
personality, but usually greatly narrows the range in
which it acts. It does not necessarily prevent original-
ity, but it ordinarily limits its action within easily ac-
countable variations. Long centuries of observation and
science have well certified both the possibilities and the
limits of humanity in this respect. In Jesus Christ the
movement was on transcendent lines. Measured from
the point of observation from which we now view Him,
it is clear that while He truly fitted the need of His place
and times, His circumstances and times could not have
produced Him. Born and reared a Jew, inheriting the
result of influences which for many generations had been
making Jewish thinking and character distinct and in-
tense; circumscribed within a narrow, humble sphere,
without contact with schools or training other than of the
traditonal and current views, He nevertheless moves
before us in His ministry, from first to last, in a range
of thought so free and lofty as to enlarge, elevate, revise,
and transform the whole realm of moral and spiritual
truth. It could not fail to call forth the conviction:
"Never man spake as this man," and awaken the won-
-------------End of Page 137-------------------------------
der: "Whence hath this man this wisdom?"[1]  Though
He underlaid His teaching deeply and fundamentally
with the great spiritual, religious and ethical truths of the
Jewish Scriptures, assuring that one jot or tittle of these
could not fail, He threw upon them a radiance that never
shone on them before and gave them a depth and large-
ness of meaning beyond the apprehension of His age or
any earlier age, thus furnishing a fresh and higher rev-
elation while interpreting what was involved in the rev-
elation divinely bestowed in the past. He gave a new
faith to His day and a new type of character to the
world. If it be said that in this He was but the prod-
uct of the intense Messianic hope that, out of the He-
brew Scriptures, filled the mind of His generation, it
suffices to remember that that Jewish hope, so prevalent
and passionate, embodied none of the features presented
in the lowly, gentle, suffering Jesus of Nazareth and His
teachings, but so darkened out of view the prophetic
delineations as to secure an emphatic national rejection
of His claim. His conception was the opposite of that
which prevailed--peculiar and original. If, then, it be
suggested, that Jesus' views were shaped _directly_ by the
Old Testament Scriptures instead of through the false
notions of His nation and times, even this explanation
reminds us in what a strange and pure elevation above
His generation the mind of Jesus moved--a superhuman
superiority to formative conditions, utterly unaccounta-
ble in the simply natural life of the Nazarean Carpenter.
Though a Jew, with only Jewish environment, He rose
into a range of conception and teaching in which He
becomes the one catholic man for all human races.[2]  And
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] John vii. 46; Matt. xiii. 54.
[2] See Row's "Manual," pp. 64, 70-72.
-----------------End of Page 138-----------------------------
this intellectual transcendence becomes more impressive
when some of its particulars are traced out. It has
features that make it stand alone. For instance, Jesus'
thought maintained a luminous, distinct, undisturbed
self-consistency throughout His ministry. It advanced
in straight lines from beginning to end. He took no
tentative positions. He never revised any of His views
--never corrected earlier judgments. Though His teach-
ing was progressive, when the cumulative advance pre-
sented His completed thought, every truth declared from
the first was found corporate in the total doctrine--an ag-
gregate teaching that made a new epoch in the knowl-
edge and intellectual progress of the world. That the
humble son of Mary, from His lowly Galilean home
and Jewish training should thus stand forth intellectu-
ally so superior to and apart from the spurious Messian-
ism of His age and country, so clean of the inveterate
exclusivism of the Jewish race, so clear of their preju-
dices and misconceptions, so independent of Rabbinic
interpretations and Pharisaic errors; announcing Him-
self so calmly and positively as divinely sent to establish
among men the kingdom of God--which would, through
Himself, gather up and unify all the Sacred Scriptures
and realize their foreshadowings of grace and redempt-
tion--whose establishment, as openly declared, would
be marked by the fall of the Holy Cithy and the end of
the Jewish comonwealth, and then reach on in a uni-
versal extension through the earth--that He should do
all this simply as a man, without superhuman endow-
ment of mission, is plainly inexplicable on the basis of
all that we know of human possibilities and limits.

This transcendent originality is further assured by
remembering another of its marked characteristics-
------------------End of Page 139------------------
the calmness, sereneness, and effortless spontaneity of
His thought and teaching. It in no way appears as a
tax upon inadequate resources. It was unlabored, inar-
tificial, the easy expression of the normal mind, the quiet
flow of the elevated fountain. Nowhere is there the least
appearance of strain or mental endeavor, studied elabor-
ation or maneuver. But everywhere the transcendent
thought and truth manifestly came freely, or as we may
say, _naturally_ from the high, full life that was in Him,
the exalted level at which He saw and explained all truth.
This unique feature of unlabored spontaneity and calm
certainty is attested by the evidence, everywhere arresting
attention in the biographical delineations of His teaching,
of the astonishing _reserve_ resources, ready in His mind
and serving all sudden occasions day by day with the same
quiet ease and appositeness, on the sublime range of His
intellectual and spiritual vision. This whole marvelous
reality is not after the manner and measure of men. Com-
pare Jesus, in this respect, with the most renowned think-
ers, originators of widespread pagan religions, say Gaut-
ama Buddha, with his long years of painful self-discipline,
ascetic seclusion, laborious study, and artificial elabora-
tion, or Confuscius, or Zoroaster, with their recondite
speculations and studiously wrought-out rules. All fair
reason and just spiritual insight cannot but become con-
scious, through the comparison, of the immense trans-
cendence of the mind of Jesus, moving ever in a unique
elevation, freedom, readiness, clearness, breadth, and
spontaneous self-consistency, giving to mankind a full
humanity elsewhere has been unable to present, and
which holds, in ever-enlarging space over the world, the
reason and confidence of the race
----------------End of Page 140-----------------------------
Beyond this superhuman intellectual character, Jesus'
_moral_ transcendence is even more impressive. Before
the ethical consciousness of mankind the elevation of
His spiritual life compels the recongition of the wonder
of a human life "without sin." This reality of sinless-
ness is not something simply assumed or unwarrantedly
accepted on the basis of a non-historical or mythically
formed report concerning Him, but is a truth of the web
and woof of the whole account of the man, and verifi-
able to the view of all times. If it impressed itself
ineffaceably upon the souls of His chosen disciples, it
impresses itself, out of the artless portrayal of His acts
and words and temper, upon us as well. If we know
anything about Jesus at all, this is one of the most cer-
tain of all the facts of His history. It fits the whole
claim made by Him of being the Messiah and Son of
God. It is involved in His asserted supernatural virgin-
birth.[1]  It is one of His own specific and emphatic
claims, put forth with challenge for disproof in the
presence of His enemies.[2]  The apostles, who were with
Him through all His ministry, in closest contact with
His inner as well as outward life, testify to His stainless
holiness.[3]  But these special testimonies are simply the
vocalization of the witness of the life itself of Jesus as
He moves in act and speech, in temper and spirit, in aim
and motive, in attitude and endeavor, in the simple
accounts of the Synoptists and the fourth Gospel. The
accounts present not a single action or word or feature
of character that can be justly catalogued as sin or
------------------------------------------------------
[1] Luke i. 35.
[2] John v. 30; vi. 38; viii. 29, 46.
[3] Matt. iii. 17; Acts iii. 14; 1 Pet. i. 19; ii. 22, 23; Heb. iv. 15;
vii. 26; 1 John iii. 5.
------------------End of Page 141------------------------
lacking in true conformity to the law of righteous-
ness or goodness. Strained effort has sometimes been
made to find fault in His conduct.[1]  But it is only by
forced and illegitimate exegesis that these passages can
seem at strife with an unstained holiness. And the
marvel of this personal sinlessness grows upon the view
as it stands out in the light of the peculiarities which
it naturally and necessarily involved. It cannot be
doubted that Jesus had a clear, deep, moral conscious-
ness. His spiritual discriminations were distinct and
strong, throwing such pure light as to uncover to those
who were about Him _their_ faults and sins that lurked in
their temper and lives. His ethical sensibility was
undoubtedly quick and comprehensive. And yet in all
the Gospel records there is not found, as falling from
His lips, a single expression that betrays the least con-
sciousness of sin or guilt, or any compunction for any
deed or word or thought in His own relations to God or
men. He shows no sense of any shortcomings. He
prays much, but there is no indication that He ever
sought forgiveness. He said to His disciples: "After
this manner pray _ye_:" "forgive us our debts," but there
is no instance of His so praying Himself. There is no
evidence that He ever joined them in common prayer.
While His sympathy drew them to Him, His mysteri-
ous superiority and spiritual elevation awed them and
held them in worshipful regard. While a sense of
sin and unworthiness has ever marked the genuine
piety of the devoted souls of men, and Christ made this
feature, with its petition for pardon, fundamental in the
order of Gospel grace and salvation, there is a total
absence of it all from Him who is the founder of Chris-
-------------------------------------------------------
[1] As the cursing of the fig tree, the answer to His mother at Cana.
-------------------End of Page 142------------------------
tianity. While the true and real humanity of Jesus is
an essential truth of His personality, and so prayer was
involved in His incarnate position, this absence of sin
and His positive harmony with the divine holiness
nevertheless allowed no place for this element of human
prayer. His soul was "like a star and dwelt apart"
from the blight of depravity. The note of contrition
evermore marking the most saintly men is totally alien
to His life; and yet He consistently stands as the high-
est pattern of saintly piety.

We need to remember, moreover, the _fitness_ of this
fact and the evidential force that belongs to it. It is
the primary and continuous _moral miracle_ of His per-
sonality, in which the continuity of depraved nature is
interrupted in human life, suggestive of the redemption
which His presence and work were meaning for man-
kind and illustrative of its saving power. It agrees with
His ceasless conscousness of being the Son of God,[1]
"one with the Father,"[2]  and with His law of obedience:
"I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in
His love;" "I do always the things that are pleasing to
Him."[3]  It accords with the fixed rule that only one that
is without spot or blemish can be the true "Lamb of
God," giving His life a ransom for the sin of the
world. It accounts for the attractive, mysterious moral
impression made by His personality upon all His dis-
ciples, awing them into reverence while holding them
with cords of love. It explains that unity and coherence
under which all His personal claims of Messiahship,
divine sonship, spiritual supremacy, authority, and judge-
----------------------------------------------------------
[1] Luke ii. 49; John ii. 16; Matt. xi. 27; John v. 22, 23;
x. 17, 36-38.
[2] John x. 30.
[3] John xv. 10; viii. 29.
---------------End of Page 143------------------------------
ship, everywhere assumed, blend in complete harmony,
and attest themselves as the revealings of the character
and redeeming love of God. It holds together in beau-
tiful symmetry all the parts and relations of the every-
where proclaimed purpose to found a "kingdom" in
which, through human restoration to holiness, the will
of God may be done on earth as it is done in heaven.
This image of the sinless Christ, everywhere visible in
each separate narrative of His life, as well as in the total
portrayal of the four Gospels, enforces upon every open-
minded reader the recogniztion of a character mysteriously
wonderful and supernatural.[1]

These two leading characteristics, marked in the
thought and moral perfection of Jesus, run out into vari-
ous particular manifestations, and form many special
features of His life, which intensify this sense of His
supernatural pre-eminence. But there is no need of
tracing these here. The two, in their simply general
form, suffice to stamp His personality as utterly unac-
countable on naturalistic principles. While so truly
and nobly human, He yet rises so far above the human
as to stand uniquely alone in the race. His thought
transcended all the master minds of the ages, giving to
human vision a new and imperishable horizon, and,
through His spiritual quality, touching the life and prog-
ress of mankind with regenerative force and victorious
spiritual powers over sin--powers which , so far as
accepted and yielded to by men, actually lift them
into a transoforming fellowship with God and unite
-------------------------------------------------------
[1] For discussions, see Uhlman's "Sinlessness of Jesus;" Row's
"Bampton Lectures," 1877; Goerge P. Fisher's "Grounds of Theistic
and Christian Belief;" Bushnell's "Nature and the Supernatural,"
ch. x.; Canon Mozley, "Lectures and Other Papers," pp. 116-135.
------------------End of Page 144---------------------------
them into the true human brotherhood of love and
good-will.

It is of prime importance to remember that the eviden-
tial force of the character of Christ is direct and sure,
and independent of all confusions from Biblical criticism.
It depends on no particular theory of inspiration, nor,
indeed, upon the inspiration of the Gospels at all. It rests
not on perfect integrity of the text. All this is easily made
apparent. For, unquestionably, this picture of Jesus' tran-
cendent thought and superhuman character is transpar-
ent and indubitable in the records of His life as they are
before us, however we may account for the writing of
them. We are face to face with it in the reading the simple
story of His teachings and conduct, the plain recital of
what He said and did. Leave aside all theories of inspi-
ration, examine every suggestion concerning the origin,
authorship, dates, sources of composition, manner of pro-
duction, and integrity of text of the Gospels, still the
essential portrait remains the same, and no adequate
naturalistic explanation of it is afforded or comes in sight.
For all theories of a manufacture of fictitious portrait-
ure by the evangelists, helped, perhaps, by addition
of legendary or mythical idealizations, go down before
the evident fact that neither the evangelists nor others
_could_ have produced the picture in any such way, or
apart from the actual life, as essentially sketched. No
single one of them was competent for the invention of
such a character. It was an indisputably sane and just
judgment of J. S. Mill when he wrote: "It is no use to
say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not his-
torical. ... Who among His disciples or among their
proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed
to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed
----------------End of Page 145--------------------------
in the Gospels. Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee,
certainly not St. Paul,... and still less the early Chris-
tian writers."[1]  Equally certain is it that _many_ writers
among a narrow and credulous people, separately inven-
ting memoirs of Jesus, could not originate the material or
transmit legendary traditions whose possible combination
or juxtaposition would enshrine and reflect the unity,
purity, elevation, symmetry, and faultlessness of Jesus of
the Gospels. Leaving thus all questions of inspiration
aside, and over and above all theories of criticism, there
is no possible explanation of the portraiture except as a
genuine delineation of a historical reality, a true and
consistent record of a personal history.[2]  This historically
assured character, to which there is no antecedent or
subsequent parallel, the supreme miracle, self-testifying
before the gaze of mankind, is an imperishable witness
to Christianity.

3. _The Supernatural Truths and Doctrines of the Bible_.
The value of truth, in our times, has received its supreme
emphasis. This is because it means _reality_, and realities
are the things with which life has to do and in which all
welfare and destiny are concerned. Doctrines, as exhi-
bitions of truth, must, therefore, bring us into the pres-
ence of God who is the ground and source of all truth.
As, by concession of all theists, man, as "the offspring
of God," is a creature with rational personality in His
image, he is capable of reading God's thoughts after
Him in nature and history, and also of recongizing His
thought as it may be given in special self-revelation.
It is particularly to doctrines and truths distinctively
-----------------------------------------------------------
[1] "Three Essays on Religion" (Holt), p. 253.
[2] For presentation of this point, see Row's "Bampton Lectures,"
1877, pp. 178-198.
---------------------End of Page 146-------------------------
religious that we here refer. Some of these, indeed,
impress themselves upon the human mind through the
light of nature. Others may be wholly undiscoverable
by reason merely from the natural constitution of the
world. But through whatever channel they reach us,
they bear in their own character the divine signature.
A few illustrations will suffice.

For instance, the _pure theism_ of the Scriptures shines
in unmatched pre-eminence. The result of the last cen-
tury's almost exhaustive investigation of all the ethnic
religions of the world has been to make this pre-eminence
more striking and indisputable. Take the best of them,
in their highest reaches, among the most developed races
of ancient or modern times, and their conceptions of God,
crude, confused, partial, everywhere passing into the cor-
ruption of multitudinous polytheisms, are found to be in
every way inferior. They cannot be compared with the
lofty and pure theism that shines out of the Biblical dis-
closure, whose very first pages exhibit Him as, through
the free word of His power, the Creator of all things,
almighty, holy, and good, and then in progressive teach-
ings illuminate the conception with all the attributes of
perfect being and character, until in the New Testament
Scriptures He is seen in the full, precious, inspiring light
of His eternal fatherhood, love, and redeeming goodness.
There is nothing like it round the world. Even the
Christian thought of many centuries has been only grad-
ually comprehending the full meaning of this revelatory
teaching. Measuring the possibilities of the natural hu-
man reason for forming a doctrine of God by the outcome
of its world-long endeavor, as found in the crudeness,
uncertainty, and inadequacy of its best achievements,
we are compelled to regard the Scripture doctrine, in its
-----------------End of Page 147------------------------
distinct, positive clearness and unequaled elevation, as
supernatural. Our reason, created as an open recipiency
into which the divine may reflect itself, distinctly recog-
nizes the "true God" in this teaching, and the teaching
itself as from above.

Similar the Scripture doctrine of God's relation to
the world bears witness to itself. Outside of the illumin-
ating reach of these Scriptures even His relation as
Creator has ever remained under darkness or confusion.
Where creatorship has been attributed to Him, His po-
sition has been reduced to mere demiurgism, fatalistic
necessity, or something else far inferior to the truth of
His being the free and absolute Author of the entire
cosmic existence and order. With respect to the further
truth of His continuous and abiding relation to the uni-
verse, non-Christian thought or theory has ever oscillated
between pantheistic identification of God with nature,
substituting blind, unpurposive energy for the divine
personality; and the extreme contrast to this, a deistic
separation of God from the world, placing Him off some-
where in empyrean isolation, without active connection
with cosmic progress or human history, an "absentee
God" simply observant of the movement, exercising no
purposive providence for the welfare of mankind, reveal-
ing Himself in no instruction, answering no cries of
prayer, drawing near in no help against want or misery.
Between these two extreme tendencies, the conception
has run into almost endlessly diversified forms, alike
degrading to the nature and character of God and want-
ing the prime and essential adaptations to the condition
and necessities of His bewildered children, groping
through the mysteries of life and anxious concerning
the mysteries that may lie beyond. But when we open
-------------End of Page 148--------------------------
the Christian Scriptures and receive their teaching, new
and definite light breaks over the momentous question.
God has not withdrawn nor forgotten His creation. The
contrasted transcendence and immanence come into unity
in the reality of omnipresence. Everywhere in these
Scriptures, as the Creator of the world, God is both
_before_ and _above_ it--a supreme transcendence, Every-
where, as its Preserver and providential Ruler, He is also
_in_ it, a living immanence--the power of His abiding
Will being the energy that upholds and continues the
whole created system, the so-called "laws of nature"
expressing the uniformities of that Will for the phys-
ical universe. He is _free_ to act everywhere--for moral
and spiritual purposes with respect to man for whose
use, well-being, and happinesss He prepared the earth,
and to whose right destiny He is looking in the pres-
ervation and government of it. It is made clear that
in His supremacy over nature and pervasive efficient
presence in it, He has come so near to us that "in Him
we live and move and have our being"--that while He
has made nature plastic to our touch and use, He has
kept it responsive to His own touch, and has been ap-
proaching mankind from His transcendent place with
supernatural moral and spiritual instruction, soteriologi-
ical provision and administration. We are assured that
He has related Himself in an attitude of unspeakable
love toward the world, revealing the laws of duty and
welfare, guiding with precepts and warnings, sending
grace and truth for safety and holy life, and exercising
such a providential care that, while holding the issues of
the earth's whole history to His plan of love, He numbers
the hairs of His children's heads.

No equal to this doctrine of God's relation, in its spe-
---------------End of Page 149------------------------------
cific parts or as a whole, can be found elsewhere in the
literature of the world. It is above all the sages of
naturalistic philosophies and religions. Its pure pre-
eminence attests the supernatural source of Christianity.

A like superhuman light brightens the Biblical doc-
trine concerning _man_. His origin, as the "offspring"
of God; his endowment, in the "image" of God; his
position, as meant to establish a dominion of reason
and goodness over all order and life on earth; his desti-
nation, as formed for an immortality of blessedness,
lift up the anthropological view into a definiteness and
elevation nowhere else found. While pagan peoples
have ever groped in bewildered uncertainty as to whence
man came and whither he is going, hearing no assuring
word from nature as to his destiny, the revealed doctrine
at once exhibits his divine lineage, and completes its show-
ing by giving to this brief life a horizon that reaches
beyond and widens under eternal skies. The divine
constitution of the family, the value and sacredness of
the individual in his rights and responsibilities, the law
of natural brotherhood, which, with its unitary force and
harmonizing power, is adjusted to bind the whole race in
bonds of good-will and peace in an all-embracing happi-
ness--these are teachings that distinguish Christianity
above all non-inspired antropologies. Man has never
been adequately revealed to himself apart from this Bibli-
cal revelation.

But it is especially in the great doctrine of _redemption_
that the superhuman range and quality of teaching
become self-evident. There is no necessity for human
life and character more profoundly recognized in the con-
sciousness of the race than that of deliverance from the
bondage of moral evil and its blight upon the nobler
--------------End of Page 150-----------------------------
attributes of character and welfare. There is nothing
felt to be more inveterate than this bondage and its ever-
wasting miseries, or that so excludes the race, in mass or
as individuals, from a realization of the noble manhood,
well-being, and happiness clearly meant for them in the
endowments of their nature. There can be no doubt
that though the better life in man, under higher aspira-
tions, has struggled against the alien thraldom, it has,
nevertheless, found itself incapable of winning the
necessary emancipation for the unhindered true life. The
natural religions, without exception, are mute as to any
redemptive provision for moral deliverance. Man is left
to his own resources.
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