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 A PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 POPULAR INSTRUCTION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 EVIDENCES OF r HRlSTIANlTY; 
 
 A Paper Read before the Centre Wellington Ministerial 
 
 Association, anu the Wellington County 
 
 S. S. Association. 
 
 By JAMES M 1 DULE M 1 SS 
 
 Mtmstcr o] Chahiitn' Church, Elora. 
 
 TORONTO. 
 PRESBYTERIAN PRINTING HOUSE, 5 JORDAN STREET. 
 
 1883. 
 
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 TC<C< 
 
 A PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 POPULAR INSTRUCTION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 F. VIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY: 
 
 A Paper Read before the Centre Wellington Ministerial 
 
 AsSOCIvnoN. AND THE WELLINGTON CoUNTY 
 
 S. S. Association. 
 
 By JAMES MIDDLEMISS, 
 
 Minister ofChalmtn' Church, Elora. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 PRESBYTERIAN PRINTING HOUSE. 5 JORDAN ST.<EET 
 
 1883. 
 
 tA 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 THE following paper is submitted to my fellow-labourers in the work of 
 Christian instruction, in the hope that it may be of service in the way of 
 calling attention to the important subject to which it refers. It was originally 
 prepared, about a year ago, for the Ministerial Association of Centre Welling- 
 ton, and was afterwards read at the Annual Meeting of the County S. S. 
 Teachers' Association. It is now published in accordance with a desire 
 expressed by the latter Association, whose membership includes all the mem- 
 bers of the Ministerial Association. Any hesitancy I had in complying with 
 this desire has been removed by consultation with a friend, who occupies a 
 prominent position in the Presbyterian Church, and for whose judgment I 
 have such respect, that, had he expressed any doubt as to the propriety of the 
 publication of the paper, I would probably have given up all thought of it. 
 
 Having, in view of publication, looked into the books on the subject that I 
 had ready access to, I did not find anything in them of such a nature as to 
 suggest any modification, even in expression, of the views presented in the 
 first part of ihe paper. It is therefore published, almost word for word, as 
 it was read. I could not, however, refrain from giving, in a note, some ex- 
 tracts from Haliburton's "Essay Concerning Faith," a short treatise of per- 
 manent value, in which a man of a high order of intellect and of great 
 reasoning power, handles the subject of the internal evidence in such a way 
 as to show how well he knew, as a matter of personal experience, that, not- 
 withstanding his intellectual superiority and the extent of his acquirements, 
 he was on the same level as the unlearned Christian, in respect of the grounds 
 of a full persuasion of the divine origin and authority of the teachings of 
 Scripture. 
 
 The second part having been at first written somewhat hastily, I felt that I 
 could not present it to the public, without such a measure of expansion as 
 might remove the offence arising from the disproportion between the two 
 parts of the paper in its original form. In accordance with the suggestion 
 of the friend referred to, I have appended a note on Hume's Argument 
 against Miracles ; and, lest any one should think that I wish to evade by 
 mere strength of assertion a difficulty that, in these times, is the chief per- 
 plexity of many sincere Christians, I have added a third note, containing 
 two extracts which, I think, candid readers will regard not only as sustaining 
 the assertion of the text, but as illustrating the fact that, while some minds 
 are open to conviction in reference to Divine revelation, other minds are 
 fast closed against it. 
 
 Elora, May 15, 1883. 
 
i 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
A PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 POPULAR INSTRUCTION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 THE period during which our Lord appeared and asserted 
 His claims as a divinely commissioned teacher was one 
 distinguished by the diffusion of the highest form of ancient 
 culture. The golden age of the literature and philosophy of 
 Greece had passed away; but its best and most enduring pro- 
 ductions had become the study of thoughtful men throughout 
 the Roman empire, including the country where Jesus of Naza- 
 reth was born, and to which His personal ministry was confined. 
 We can see the wisdom of God in arranging that Christ should 
 appear, not in an age of intellectual darkness and among a 
 barbarous people, but at a time when the highest form of ancient 
 culture was most fully developed and most widely diffused, and 
 among a people who possessed a sacred literature which pre- 
 sented exalted views of the Divine nature and perfections, such 
 as were nowhere else to be found. It resulted from this, that 
 His claims were subjected to such a searching examination as 
 they could not otherwise have been ; and we know, as a matter 
 of history, that those claims were established to the satisfaction 
 of multitudes of all classes in all parts of the empire. 
 
 The validity of the claims of Jesus of Nazareth may be satis- 
 factorily established in more ways than one. In other words, 
 there are various lines of argument fitted to produce a rational 
 conviction that He was a teacher sent from God. But, I pre- 
 sume, we are all agreed that there is one wav which has the 
 great advantage over all others, that it is open to all and is more 
 

 satisfactory than any other. I refer to the way of which our 
 Lord Himself speaks, when he says, •• If any man will do" (or, 
 as you may be aware, more precisely and correctly, according ta 
 the original, "if any man is willing to do") "the will of God, he 
 shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God, or wiiether I 
 speak of myself," John vii. 17. This, of course, does not imply 
 either a perfect knowledge of the will of God, or a perfect con- 
 formity to it in conduct ; but simply an honest desire and aim to 
 do the will of God, on the part ot a man who may be very igno- 
 rant of God's will, and conscious of much imperfection, short- 
 coming and sin, in his best endeavours to do it — a desire and 
 aim, his possession of which is proved by his actually, though it 
 may be very imperfectly, doing what he already knows, or has 
 reason to believe, to be the will of God, and actually using 
 means such as are accessible to him to obtain further light in 
 regard to it. 
 
 We can all see the wisdom and goodness of God, in the way 
 here indicated of attaining a conviction of the divinity of the 
 teachings of Jesus. For, (i.) It is a way open to all. It does 
 not require qualifications which only a few men can possess ; but 
 simply a qualification which all men may and ought to possess. 
 — we might even say, far less than they ou^ht to possess. It does 
 not require that men should be philosophers, or scientists, or 
 adepts in history; but simply that they should possess a willing- 
 ness to do the will of God. There are other ways in which a 
 rational conviction may be produced in the mind, that the teach- 
 ing of Jesus of Nazareth is divine. It can be proved historically 
 that he appeared in Judea at or near the time usually assigned 
 to His appearance ; that He astonished His countrymen by His. 
 works and His teaching; that, having been put to death as an 
 impostor and blasphemer, He rose from the dead and thereby 
 fully vindicated His claims. The facts of the Gospel history^ 
 including the resurrection of Jesus, can be proved by evidence 
 incomparably stronger than any evidence that can be adduced 
 in proof of any of the other events of ancient history, the evidence 
 being not only greater in amount, but of a kind altogether 
 peculiar — for such is the suffering testimony of the early Christian 
 witnesses. But comparatively few can make a thorough study 
 of this evidence. An unlearned Christian must accept the facts 
 of Gospel history {i.e., in their historical character) just as he 
 accepts other and well-known facts of history. Ana, in the one 
 case as well as in the other, it is an outrage on common sense to 
 say that he has no good reason to accept them. He is, on the 
 contrary, fully justified in the persuasion, that neither the facts 
 of the Gospel history nor the facts of ancient common history 
 could have commanded the general acceptance that they have 
 
 
» 
 
 done, except for their truth. It is very easy, of course, for one 
 who is so disposed to start difficuhies which an unlearned 
 Christian is unable to solve; just as Dr. Whately has proposed 
 difficulties in relation to the first Napoleon which only one well 
 acquainted with the history of his time could satisfactorily 
 answer. But while the unlearned Christian has good reason to 
 accept the facts of the Gospel history, just as unlearned men 
 have good reason to accept the facts of common history, he is 
 not competent to reason out the matter in detail, in the face of 
 the man who chooses to question them. If, therefore, Jesus had 
 made the full assurance of the divinity of His teaching to depend 
 on the historical evidence of the facts of the Gospel history, the 
 attainment of such assurance would he quite beyond most men ; 
 because very few men have, or can have, the mental training 
 and the historical knowledge that are necessary in discussing the 
 questions that may be raised. The Gospel, in that case, would 
 have been a Gospel for the few, and not for the many, or for all. 
 Only think of Jesus Christ telling men that in order to come to a 
 satisfactory assurance of the divinity of His teaching, they must 
 become philosophers, or scientists, or adepts in historical studies ! 
 The wisdom and goodness of God have determined otherwise. 
 Jesus Christ came into the world, not with good news for learned 
 men and philosophers, or for other men through them, but with 
 good news directly for all men, including the poor and the un- 
 learned, whom the pride of social distinction and of intellectual 
 culture despises. In accordance with the design of God's loving 
 regard for all classes of men, not only is the peculiar Gospel 
 itself level to the apprehension of the meanest rational capacity, 
 but the full and firm persuasion that it is from God depends not 
 on qualifications which few can possess — not on high intellectual 
 development, or on large acquisitions of knowledge — but on a 
 qualification that all men may possess, and ought to possess — 
 a moral qualification, consisting in a simple willingness to do 
 the will of God. 
 
 (2.) The demand for this qualification cannot be regarded as 
 a hard requirement. This could not be said of a demand that a 
 man should become learned in history, in order to his being 
 capable of a full assurance of the divinity of Christ's teaching. 
 Compliance with such a demand were an impossibility in per- 
 haps ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But Jesus makes no 
 such demand. He accords no advantage either to the adepts in 
 philosophy, science, or history, who are necessarily few, or to 
 the smatterers, whose name is legion. He requires nothing 
 beyond a wiUingness to do the will of God — a requirement such 
 that no other can be thought of so simple, reasonable, and prac- 
 ticable. Who can possibly find fault with the requirement that 
 
8 
 
 a man shall be what every man ought to be ? And far less than 
 this is the requirement, seeing it is neither a perfect knowledge of 
 the will of God, nor a perfect conformity with it in practice that 
 is demanded, but only the sincere and honest desire and aim to 
 do the will oif God, associated, it may be, with much ignorance 
 and imperfection. 
 
 The sequel of this paper will show that I have no wish to 
 depreciate the historical evidence of Christianity. But I believe 
 it is of no little importance that prominence should be given to 
 the great truth, that the highest and most satisfactory evidence 
 of the divinity of Christian teaching is equally accessible to all, 
 as depending not upon intellectual qualifications such as can be 
 possessed only by a few, but upon a moral qualification that all 
 ought to possess, and the want of which is highly blameworthy. 
 And at the same time, it would be well, in dealing with this sub- 
 ject, to endeavour to make it plain to the intelligence of our 
 people that this evidence is, in its very nature, at once the 
 highest obtainable and satisfying beyond any other. For, I 
 believe, we can give a most sufficient answer to the question 
 which it is natural to ask: " How can a man who is destitute of 
 learning, who has little or no historical knowledge — it may be 
 even a child — not only understand the Gospel, but have a well- 
 grounded persuasion that it is from God ? " Of course, if such 
 a persuasion is attained otherwise than by a competent acquaint- 
 ance with the external evidence, the ground of it must lie in the 
 Gospel itself. Nor is it anything but what is in accordance with 
 reason that the doctrine of a teacher sent from God should be 
 such as to approve itself divine, and that it should do so not to 
 all men indiscriminately, but only to such, and surely to such as 
 are willing to do the will of God. Let us illustrate this. 
 
 There are two ways in which we may have a satisfactory 
 persuasion regarding a man, that he is possessed, say, of great 
 integrity and benevolence. Trustworthy persons may testify to 
 his possession of these qualities. But we may have an equally 
 reasonable, and even far stronger persuasion, without any testi- 
 mony. We may know the man by intimate acquaintance with 
 him, so that we can ourselves certify to others his possession of 
 these qualities, instead of needing to have it certified to us. 
 Again, there are two ways in which we may have a full per- 
 suasion that a certain piece of writing is the production of some 
 particular man. We may have trustworthy information that he 
 is the author of it. Or we may be so well acquainted with his 
 style of thinking and writing, that we have no sooner begun to 
 read than we know with the fullest conviction that he, and no 
 other man, is the author. And so it is with the teaching of 
 Christ. A man may have a reasonable and strong conviction 
 
that it is from God, by his study of the evidence of the facts of 
 the Gospel history. But he may have an equally reasonable and 
 far stronger conviction, derived from the teaching itself. He 
 may, as our Lord very distinctly and decidedly intimates, have 
 such a knowledge of God as to be able to recognize God's voice 
 when He speaks. Is it not in the highest degree reasonable to 
 suppose that, if there is a God who is the perfection of all that is 
 great and good, a creature that he has made capable of knowing 
 Him, should so know Him as to be able to recognize His voice, 
 or, in other words, able to determine, from the character of a 
 professed message from Him, whether that message is really from 
 Him; while another creature, though also capable of knowing 
 Him, may be so ignorant of Him as not to be able to recognize 
 His voice? Is there such a difference between one man's know- 
 ledge of a human author and another man's knowledge of him, 
 that the one knows at a glance that a certain piece of writing is 
 his production, while the other is utterly incompetent to form 
 any judgment in the matter; and may there not be such a differ- 
 ence between one man's knowledge of God and another man's 
 knowledge of Him, that the one can recognize the voice of God 
 when He speaks, while the other cannot ? It is so, according to 
 the teaching of Christ. And, in accordance with this teaching, 
 it is a matter of fact in human experience, that there are men 
 who can recognize God's voice and men who cannot. These 
 two classes of men are respectively those who are willing to do 
 the will of God and those who are not. The man who is willing 
 to do the will of God comes to know that the teaching of Jesus is 
 from God, by attaining such a knowledge of Him as to oe able 
 to recognize His voice — an ability which the man who is not 
 willing to do the will of God cannot acquire. 
 
 There can be no objection to the views now presented, arising 
 from the fact of man's native depravity and ignorance of divine 
 things, neither of which frees him from the obligation resting on 
 him as God's rational creature. As we have already said, a man 
 who is very ignorant of the will of God, and conscious of much 
 imperfection and sin may, notwithstanding, be truly willing to 
 do the will of God ; and he certainly is so, if ht actually, though 
 very imperfectly, endeavours to do the will of God in so far as 
 he knows it, and uses available means to know it further. Did 
 our limits permit, or were it required by the object of the present 
 paper, it might be shown in detail that the man who is willing to 
 do the will of God is no other than the sinful man who, under 
 <:onviction of sin, has been led to inquire what he must do to be 
 saved. But, masmuch as it is in connection with conviction of 
 sin, or the awakening of conscience, that what is commonly 
 •called the moral evidence of Christianity passes into what is 
 
10 
 
 known under the distinctive name of the experimental evidence^ 
 it is not out of place to say that it is to the latter especially that 
 the promise of our Lord must be considered as having respect. 
 The experimental evidence is not less moral in its character than 
 what is usually so named. If they differ it is only as genus and 
 species. Or, perhaps, it is more correct to say that the experi- 
 mental evidence is but the moral in its highest and full develop- 
 ment. A man, whose conscience has not experienced the awak« 
 ening which we are accustomed to refer to under the expression, 
 conviction of sin , may doubtless have an appreciation of the mor- 
 ality taught by Jesus, more or less strong, according to the moral 
 tone that his mind may have acquired under the operation of 
 good influences of various kinds; and the moral teaching of 
 Jesus may so impress the mind of such a man, as to be to him 
 strong evidence that Jesus is a teacher sent from God. But it 
 is only the man whose conscience has been awakened that is 
 capable of so apprehending the teaching of Jesus as to know, and 
 that experimentally, or as a matter of experience, that it is from 
 God. It is only in the case of such a man that the full persuasion 
 of absolute certainty is, or can be, attained. The process, if we 
 may so speak, whereby this full persuasion is attained is, at every 
 step, a moral one ; which implies that a man's progress towards 
 full persuasion will correspond with his sustained and increasing 
 willingness to do the will of God. The motive of a man who, 
 under conviction of sin, is led to inquire what he must do to be 
 saved, may at first seem very low, and some may affect to despise 
 it ; but He who knows our guilt and depravity, and appeals to 
 our own self-interest, will not despise the cry of the sinner who, 
 feeling that he is ready to perish, would know what God would 
 have him to do. However low his motive may be, it is enough 
 meantime that it is effectual to start him on the way of doing the 
 will of God. He will be actuated by higher motives as he pro- 
 gresses. Meantime, feeling that he is a lost sinner, having no 
 hope or light save what comes from God, he will, by keeping the 
 way on which his conviction of sin has started him, have, in due 
 time, a full persuasion, arising out of his own personal experi- 
 ence, that the teaching of Christ's Gospel is divine. 
 
 In connection with this aspect of our subject, we are not to 
 overlook the agency of the Spirit in the production of this full 
 persuasion, but rather to give prominence to it, and that especi- 
 ally because of its practical bearing as constituting at once an 
 obligation and an encouragement to prayer. We are to give no 
 uncertain sound in relation to the truth, that though men may 
 be influenced by historical testimony and by other lines of argu- 
 ment, yet a full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth 
 and divine authority of the teaching of Jesus is from the inward 
 
II 
 
 work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the word in 
 men's hearts. I3ut it is to be noted that not the less on that 
 account is the process by which this full persuasion is attained a 
 moral process ; and that not the less is the persuasion itself to be 
 regarded as a reasonable persuasion, i.e., a persuasion that rests 
 on grounds which sound reason approves of. For, in the first 
 place, the man who is under conviction of sin recognizes as the 
 voice of God those utterances of the word respecting human 
 depravity, guilt, and blindness, which are so offensive and repul- 
 sive to many. And, in the second place, there is such a fitness 
 between man's moral necessities, which the teaching of Jesus 
 assumes, and the provision which it announces — the provision 
 so fits into the necessities — that the fitness constitutes the strong- 
 est evidence of the divinity of Christ's teaching, to the man wha 
 is able to see it, that is, to the man who is willing to do the will 
 of God; while, of course, to another man, who cannot see this 
 fitness, because of his want of the necessary qualification, it has 
 no force or value. And, yet once more, the doctrine of Jesus, ia 
 giving to a man who is willing to do the will of God not only a 
 knowledge of sin, but a power and success in his conflict with it, 
 which all else fails to give, so approves itself to him as divine, 
 that he becomes entrenched, as it were, in a stronghold of cer- 
 tainty from which nothing can dislodge him. 
 
 If the views that have now been presented are, as we all 
 believe, in accordance with Scripture, and borne out in human 
 experience, they fully warrant a certain very definite and decided 
 mode of procedure or style of utterance on our part in relation 
 to the infidelity that is current. In particular, I would say that 
 both in our public teaching and in our private intercourse, as. 
 we may be called or have opportunity to refer to the subject 
 under consideration, we should have no hesitation or dubiety in 
 expressing ourselves in very decided terms in reference to three 
 important points. 
 
 1. We should insist, certainly not in a headlong and indis- 
 criminate way, but without any of the hesitancy that would indi- 
 cate dubiety in our own minds, that the root of all infidelity in 
 relation to Christ and His teaching is in the will, and not in the 
 intellect — in the heart and not in the head. If a man lacks learn- 
 ing he is not at any disadvantage, and if he is possessed of 
 learning it gives him no superiority, in so far as the attainment 
 of a full persuasion of the divine authority of Christian doctrine 
 is concerned. In the one case as in the other, the acceptance 
 with full conviction of the claims of Jesus depends on a moral 
 qualification which both are equally bound to possess. " If any 
 man," learned or unlearned, "is willing to do the will of God," 
 he shall surely come to a persuasion of the divine authority of. 
 
12 
 
 Christ's teaching. It follows from this, that if a man does not 
 attain such a persuasion, it can only he on account of his being 
 unwilling to do the will of God. He may not allow that he is 
 so. He may think he is not ; and we may not be able to convict 
 him of his unwillingness. But such is the judgment of Christ 
 Himself; and that is enough to determine our judgment, and to 
 warrant our pressing the charge on men's consciences. The 
 man may not be immoral in the ordinary sense of the term ; but 
 there are other ways besides immorality in which unwillingness 
 to do the will of God operates. And I have no doubt that, if 
 such a man were honest with himself in taking note of his own 
 spirit and ways, he would see that the root of his infidelity is his 
 unwillingness to do the will of God. With the judgment of 
 Christ to sustain us, we should have no hesitation in affirming 
 that, while we admit and deplore the evils of fanaticism and 
 hypocrisy, their existence, and even their currency, cannot be 
 legitimately pleaded as in the least discrediting the great truth 
 that there is, as Christ teaches, a state of mind in which a man 
 can recognize the voice of God when He speaks. Nor, in view 
 of that judgment, constantly verified as we know it is in men's 
 experience, should we have any hesitation in largely discounting 
 the current talk about honest doubting, as being, to a very great 
 extent, the cant of infidelity. 
 
 2. We should, while not forgetting the necessit; of great dis- 
 crimination in our judgments respecting individual men, have no 
 hesitation in pressing the criminality of infidelity. If a persua- 
 sion of the divine authority of Christian doctrine depended on 
 qualifications which few men can possess, then the great majority 
 of men would be excusable in having no such persuasion. But 
 wlien it depends on a qualification which all ought to possess ; 
 when, that is, the true cause of infidelity is unwillingness to do 
 the will of God, infidelity can be nothing short of criminal. We 
 shall afterwards refer to the perplexity of mind in relation to 
 Christian truth that may be engendered by the utterances of the 
 sceptic or the scoffer ; but no sympathy that we may have with 
 such as are perplexed, should lead to hesitation in the mainten- 
 ance of the position that when the man, who is allowed on all 
 hands to be the moral wonder of human history, puts the full 
 proof of his claim as a divine messenger to the test of such a 
 simple issue, no estimate can be formed of the criminality of the 
 man who declines the issue, and fails to obtain satisfaction, for 
 the sole reason that he is unwilling to do the will of God. 
 
 3. We should urge, and that not unfrequently, as required by 
 the circumstances of the present time, the need that there is for 
 advancement in that great attainment which is the privilege of 
 all true Christians — the capacity to recognise the voice of God 
 
13 
 
 when He speaks. For the vast majority of behevers, this must 
 be their great safety in relation to Christian truth and duty, in 
 these days when every pecuHar truth of the Gospel is assailed, 
 and every distinctively Christian duty discredited by plausible 
 reasonings. Our people should be constantly reminded that 
 while the natural man cannot receive or even know the things of 
 the Spirit of God — can neither rightly apprehend nor truly be- 
 lieve them, there is a power of spiritual discernment possessed 
 by believers, in which it is their duty and privilege to grow — a 
 power in the exercise of which they can discriminate between 
 the voice of God and that of the father of lies.''' 
 
 While impressed in accordance with the views now presented, 
 with a conviction of the supreme value of the internal evidence 
 of Christianity, we are not disposed to overlook the importance 
 of the external evidence. On the contrary, we believe that, 
 while it is of such a nature as to be peculiarly attractive and in- 
 teresting to some minds, it possesses a force which only strong 
 prejudice can resist, and that it can be presented to any one of 
 fair intelligence in such a way as to exhibit its force and make a 
 powerful impression on his mind. And we cannot but think 
 that while there has always been, and ever will be, a verification 
 in men's experience of the saying of Christ which we have so 
 largely dwelt upon, there has been a serious neglect of the exter- 
 nal evidence in connection with popular religious instruction; 
 and that, while comparatively few can make a thorough study of 
 the historical evidence, it is possible, and not at all difficult, to 
 convey to our people such an apprehension of it as may be of 
 great use to them. We have not merely to consider the personal 
 safety of true believers, as infallibly secured by the word of God 
 and through its instrumentality; we have to consider also their 
 comfort and usefulness, which in these times especially are in 
 danger of being greatly hindered, and are, no doubt, greatly 
 hindered in many instances by the difficulties and perplexities 
 that are occasioned by the constant reiteration of doubts, honest 
 or dishonest. And I am persuaded that many sincere Christians 
 whose safety is assured, might not only have their own perplex- 
 ities removed, but be very helpful to others, if they only had a 
 distinct apprehension, (i) of the way in which the facts of the 
 Gospel history are proved in common with other historical facts, 
 and that by an amount of evidence far exceeding that which can 
 be adduced in proof of other universally accepted facts of ancient 
 history; and (2) of the way in which objections of various kinds, 
 whether inherited from former times or peculiar to modern times, 
 can be met to the satisfaction of a mind that is not prejudiced 
 
 • See Note A. 
 
14 
 
 by invincible disaffection towards the God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the behef that our people generally, including at least a 
 considerable proportion of our Sabbath Scholars, are perfectly 
 capable of such an apprehension, I would submit the following 
 practical suggestions : — 
 
 I. That in dealing with the subject of the miraculous attesta- 
 tion of the divinity of Christianity, attention should be largely 
 concentrated on our Lord's resurrection as proving the divine 
 authority of his teaching. I make this suggestion, because, while 
 the resurrection of Christ is of the essence of the Gospel, and a 
 fact whose acceptance carries with it the acceptance of all that 
 is distinctive of Christianity, it is a fact on which the light of 
 historical evidence shines more fully than it does on any other 
 fact, whether ordinary or miraculous, of the Gospel history. I 
 do not except even the death of Christ, because it is not the fact 
 of His death, but that of His resurrection, that is sustained by 
 the whole force of the suffering testimony of the early Christian 
 witnesses. Now, surely, it cannot be difficult to make it plain to 
 any person of ordinary intelligence, that the famous argument of 
 Hume, which still continues to be implicitly relied upon by 
 almost every assailant of Christianity, involves the fallacy of 
 confounding all kinds of testimony, so as to attach to the highest 
 the suspicion that belongs only to the lowest, and overlooks the 
 fact that our confidence in the testimony of a man, even should 
 we otherwise know nothing of him, is inversely as we see that 
 his own interests are promoted or injured by the testimony that 
 he gives; or, in other words, that this argument which, strange 
 to say, is still made to do duty in the service of infidelity as vig- 
 orously as ever, proceeds on the assumption that, though the 
 testimony of the Apostles and the other early martyrs, being not 
 only disinterested, but given at the expense of every interest of a 
 temporal nature, is the highest kind of testimony possible, it 
 must have laid upon it all the suspicion that attaches to the 
 testimony of witnesses of the most discreditable character.* 
 Nor can it be difficult to make plain to an ordinary understand- 
 ing, that the primitive martyrs are not to be classed with those 
 who have, in all ages, evinced their sincerity by suffering for 
 their religious beliefs or opinions, whether right or wrong; but 
 that they suffered as witnesses of a fact respecting which, accord- 
 ing to their own showing, they could not have been mistaken ; 
 or, in other words, that it was not as sincerely holding certain 
 religious opinions that they suffered the loss of all things, but as 
 the witnesses of a fact within the compass of their own personal 
 
 • See Note B. 
 
m; 
 
 15 
 
 observation. This distinction, important as it is, and, one 
 would think, sufficiently obvious, is like the distinction over- 
 looked by Hume, persistently disregarded by the opponents of 
 Christianity, and is eloquently overlooked or kept out of sight by 
 the author of " Supernatural Religion." Nor, again, can it be 
 difficult to show to an ordinary understanding, that the univer- 
 sally current assumption of the more modern infidelity, that any 
 reported fact of a miraculous nature, such as the resurrection of 
 Christ, is to be at once discredited and set aside, without any 
 consideration either of the proof by which it may be sustained, 
 or of the possible end it may have been designed to subserve, 
 involves nothing less than the assumption of man's competency 
 and capacity to sit in judgment upon God, and to determine the 
 procedure proper for Him in all possible circumstances; where- 
 as, repudiating an assumption so monstrous, the Christain apo- 
 logist's assumption is simply that of our competency to judge of 
 our own human nature, by the knowledge we have of it from 
 actual experience and observation, — a knowledge which, in- 
 cluding as it does a knowledge of the laws that regulate human 
 action, fully warrants the affirmation that the falsehood of cer- 
 tain kinds of testimony, or of testimony in certain circumstances, 
 is immeasurably more incredible than the event, in whose favour 
 it is given, is extraordinary and improbable. Nor, once more, 
 can it be difficult to make it plain that it is unreasonable to ex- 
 pect, as the current infidelity insists, that God's revelations of 
 Himself should be accompanied by such an amount of evidence 
 as would carry conviction to the minds of all men indiscrimin- 
 ately, however they may be affected towards God ; inasmuch as 
 such an expectation can have no ground except the unwarrant- 
 able assumption that the attainment of full satisfaction of mind 
 in relation to divinely revealed truth cannot, in any way or in 
 any degree, depend on men's moral condition; whereas on the 
 contrary, the most important moral purposes may be designed, 
 as we can clearly see they are actually subserved, by God's giv- 
 ing just so much light as He does give and no more. 
 
 2. Our notice of the assumption last referred to, naturally 
 leads to a suggestion respecting the mode of dealing with objec- 
 tions in connection with religious instruction. The objection to 
 the divinity of Christian teaching involved in that assumption 
 is often expressed with such confidence, and is so much a com- 
 monplace or first principle of unbelief, that its unreasonableness 
 should be not unfrequently insisted on. It is said by one, for 
 example, " There ought not to be the least shadow of a doubt 
 whether a given book is from God or not." And again, " If the 
 handwriting of Jehovah in the Scriptures be doubtful, it cannot 
 be divine." The objection is not simply that the evidence of the 
 
i6 
 
 divinity of Christ's teaching is not demonstrative, but that it is 
 not indiscriminately demonstrative, i. e., equally demonstrative 
 to all alike. Now certainly it is not demonstrative in the sense 
 of our being warranted to write Q. E. D. at the end of it. But 
 no less certainly it is, as we have already seen, if not demonstra- 
 tive in the technical sense of the term, demonstrative in the 
 sense of being sufficient to produce a full reasonable persuasion 
 of mind. It is simply not indiscriminately demonstrative. Its 
 production of a full persuasion depends on the state of the mind, — 
 on the possession of a moral qualification that all ought to 
 possess. And no man has a right to say, as the objection does 
 in effect say, that God ought, if He speaks to men, to speak to 
 them in such a way that their moral condition, or the way in 
 which their minds are affected towards Him, shall count for no- 
 thing in respect of their capacity to recognise His voice. You 
 may be familiar with a phrase of recent introduction, '• the im- 
 pieties of the pious." It is, no doubt, believed by its author to 
 express in a pungent way, his condemnation of our persuasion 
 of certain truths about Himself which, we believe, have been re- 
 vealed to us by a Being whom he confidently affirms to be 
 utterly unknowable. But he and those who think with him are 
 strangely blind to the obvious fact, that their own assumptions 
 imply, on their part, a knowledge of God far beyond anything 
 we can pretend to — indeed an infinite knowledge of Him. Take 
 as a specimen the assumption now before us. I think I may 
 confidently say that no considerate person can fail to see which 
 of these two positions is that of reverence and humility: — i. The 
 position of the man who says (and in the very saying of it ex- 
 presses his confidence that he knows God so well as to be able 
 to say it), that God not only cannot, but should not make any 
 revelation of Himself to men, except in such a way that the evi- 
 dence of His making it shall be demonstrative; that he cannot 
 and should not reveal Himself in such a way as shall be morally 
 discriminative ; that he cannot and should not reveal Himself in 
 such a way that a man's moral condition shall have the slightest 
 influence on, or be in the smallest degree tested by, his acceptance 
 of the revelation ; or, 2. The position of those who, believing 
 that there may be a God to whom we are related as our Crea- 
 tor, Sustainer, and Moral Ruler, and who can communicate to 
 us information respecting Himself in such measure and in such 
 ways as His infinite wisdom may determine, profess to value 
 what they think they have sufficient evidence to believe He does 
 make known to them, to see its adaptation to their felt moral 
 necessities, and to see that important purposes are subserved by 
 His giving just such evidence as He has given — purposes that 
 
rlearlv could not l)e subacrvud by His giving evidence thai 
 Would carry conviction to the minds of all men indiscriminately? 
 I trust 1 have not given undue prominence to the objection 
 id)ove referred to. I think prominence should be given to it, 
 because, though it is in arrogant opposition to the wisdom of 
 (iod, and is in itself altogether unreasonable, there are very 
 many who, on the ground of it, consider themselves justified in 
 paying no attention to the claims of religion. This leads me to 
 remark that, as a matter of fact, almost all who reject the teach 
 ing of Christ do so on the ground of objections, without any 
 thought of their obligation to give serious attention to the evid- 
 ence which is fully sufficient to prove its divinity. In view of 
 this fact, an obvious suggestion is, that it is of importance both 
 that the minds of our people should as much, and, I would add, 
 as early as possible, become more or less familiar with the evid- 
 ences of Christianity in their principles atul outlines, if not in 
 detail ; and that they should be strongly imjjressed with the con- 
 viction that it is at once unreasonable and morally wrong for a 
 man to attach weight to objections, while his mind is perhaps a 
 perfect blank or little more in relation to the evidences, Objec 
 tions, reiterated after having been sufficiently met hundreds ot 
 times, will have comparatively little power to unsettle and perplex 
 the mind of one who has, in some good measure, taken in the 
 force of the Christian evidences ; especially if he has been time- 
 ously impressed with the belief that many of these objec- 
 tions will lose all their force with his advance in knowledge, 
 and with the conviction that the difficulties involved in 
 others are necessarily incapable of solution by us, owing to 
 the limited nature of our capacity in relation to the things of 
 God, and that similar difficulties present themselves in connec- 
 tion with other departments of human knowledge, notwithstand- 
 ing the great progress that has been made in them. I cannot 
 well imagine how any candid mind, that is impressed with the 
 immense strength of the Christian evidences, can be shaken in 
 its conviction of the divinity of Christ's teaching by any or all of 
 the objections that are brought against it. It will easily be made 
 to appear to such a mind that the proof of the divinity of Christ's 
 teaching cannot be set aside without discrediting all history and 
 making it impossible, and without withdrawing all confidence 
 from every universally-trusted record of ancient times, not one of 
 which has come down to us with a hundredth part of the evidence 
 we have for the purity, genuineness, and authenticity of some of 
 the Christian records. 
 
 It is not in accordance with the design of this paper that I 
 should go into details in dealing with objections, whether moral, 
 historical, or scientific. That must be left to the judgment of 
 2 
 
iS 
 
 the Christian instructor. These objections, of whatever kind. 
 can be shown to be of httle or no weight in comparison with the 
 strength of the evidence ; many of them can be shown to be 
 groundless, or founded on misapprehension ; others can be so 
 explained as to fortify the Christian position. And even the 
 great objection in which the unbelieving mind has revelled in 
 later times — I mean the objection drawn from speculations in 
 cosmogony — can be so handled as to strengthen the proof of the 
 inspiration of the Mosaic record. '■' Without going into details, 
 my object has been to show that much good might be done, and 
 much evil prevented, by a little systematic instruction bearing 
 upon the issues raised by infidelity, which, while immensely im- 
 portant, are really much less numerous and far simpler than is 
 generally supposed. Sooner or later, the objections to Chris- 
 tianity involved in these issues come to be presented to our 
 young people ; and the question is. Shall they, as they grow up, 
 first hear of these objections from those who would lead them 
 astray, or shall their religious instructors anticipate the efforts of 
 the destroyer ? Is it not far better that their minds should be 
 preoccupied, by their being made acquainted with the way in 
 which these objections can be met, than that their first know- 
 ledge of them should come to them in such a way as to lead them 
 to think that they have been imposed upon with fables ? How- 
 ever assured we may be of the safety of the genuine Christian, it 
 can hardly be questioned that the great majority of our young 
 people do not grow up so surrounded by an atmosphere of piety 
 as to make their early conversion likely ; and that accordingly 
 the great majority of them do not give any very satisfactory evi- 
 dence of their possession of genuine piety. And, though we 
 shall always find that there are many who will not take their 
 views of Christianity except from those who oppose it, and mis- 
 represent or even caricature its teachings, we shall find many 
 others — some of them " not far from the kingdom of God " — for 
 whom much has been done, not without valuable results, in the 
 way of instilling good principles into their minds ; and if, with 
 the training of their conscience and their sympathies in connec- 
 tion with Christian truth, there were combined appeals to their 
 understanding, in relation to the important issues above referred 
 to, their minds might be so intelligently prepossessed on the side 
 of Christianity, that they would not be injuriously affected by 
 assaults before which many succumb, and would also be helpful 
 in preserving others. 
 
 ! 
 
 • See Note C. 
 
"9 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note A, p. 13. 
 
 Extracts from Halihurtons " Essay concerning the Nature of 
 Faith." 
 
 1. 
 
 " That light or objective evidence, whereon we are obhged to 
 beheve, and all who are subjectively enlightened do believe, the 
 Scriptures," " is such that a more intelligible account by far may 
 be given of it to those who have no experience of it than can be 
 given of the objective evidence of visible objects to persons who 
 have no experience of sight." 
 
 II. 
 
 " That many read the Scriptures, without discerning any- 
 thing of this light, is no argument against it. For, 
 
 " I. Many want that supernatural ability, that understanding 
 whereby God is known, whereby Christ's sheep know His voice 
 from that of a stranger, and so, not being of God, they cannot 
 hear His words. 
 
 " 2. Many want and are utterly destitute of any tolerable 
 notions of God. It is impossible that such should discern what 
 is suitable to Him. 
 
 " 3. Many have perverse notions of God riveted on their 
 minds, and that both among the learned and unlearned, and 
 finding the Scripture not suited to, but contrary to, those false 
 preconceived impressions, they look on it as foolishness. 
 
 " 4. Many want that humble frame of spirit which has the 
 promise of divine teaching: ' The meek He guides in the way.' 
 It is they who are fools in their own eyes who get wisdom. 
 
 " 5. Many are proud and conceited deeply, and no wonder, 
 then, that they know nothing. 
 
 " 6. Many have the vanity of their minds uncured, and so 
 hunt after vam things, and fix not in observation of what is solid, 
 and thereby their fooHsh hearts are hardened, and their minds 
 darkened and diverted. 
 
 " 7. Not a few are under the power of prevailing lusts, dis- 
 ordered affections, and, out of favour to them, they are so far 
 
30 
 
 from desiring an increase of knowledge that, on the contrary, 
 they like not to retain God in their knowledge. What they 
 ali?ady know is uneasy to them, because contrary to their hists, 
 and therefore they would be rid of it. 
 
 " 8. Many there are that despise the Spirit of God, reject 
 His operations, seek not after Him, contemn Him : and no 
 wonder such as refuse the guide lose their way. 
 
 " 9. Many, for those and other sins, are judicially left of God 
 to the ' god of this world,' who blinds the minds of them that 
 believe not. 
 
 " 10. Many never attempt to do His will, and so no wonder 
 they come not to a discerning whether the word spoken and 
 written is of God. And if all these things are considered, we 
 shall be so far from questioning the truth, because many see not 
 the evidence, that this very blindness will be an argument to 
 prove the truth, and a strong evidence of the need of it, and of 
 supernatural power to believe it. 
 
 " Finally, Persons sober and attentive want not some darker 
 views of this evidence, which may and should draw on to wait 
 for more. And I take the honourable concessions in favour of 
 the Scriptures, made by adversaries, to have proceeded from 
 some fainter view of this sort." 
 
 III. 
 
 " This power, whereby the Word evidences itself to be the 
 Word of God and not of man, is nothing else save that authority 
 and awful efficacy which He puts forth in and by it over the 
 minds and consciences of men, working divinely, and leaving 
 effects of His glorious and omnipotent power in them and on 
 them. It enters into the conscience — a territory exempt from 
 the authority of creatures and subject only to the dominion of 
 God ; it challenges, convinces, threatens, weakens, sets it aroar- 
 ing, and the creation cannot quiet it again. It commands a 
 calm ; and the sea that was troubled before is smooth, and devils 
 and men are not able to disturb its repose. It enters into the 
 mind, opens its eyes, fills it with a clear, pure, and purifying 
 light, and sets before it wonders imknown concerning God, our- 
 selves, our sin, our duty, our danger, and our relief, the works, 
 the ways, the counsels, and purposes of God. It speaks to the 
 will, converts it, and powerfully disengages it from what it was 
 most engaged to, what it embraced, and was even glued to be- 
 fore, so that no art or force of eloquence, argument, fear, or hope 
 could make it quit its hold. It makes it hastily quit its em- 
 braces, and turn its bent another way, the quite opposite way, 
 and with open arms embrace what nothing could make it look 
 
I 
 
21 
 
 to before ; takes away its aversion, makes it willingly not only 
 go but run after what it bore the greatest aversion to before. It 
 enters the affections, makes them rise from the ground, gives 
 them such a divine touch that, though they may through their 
 fickle nature be carried at a time by force another way, yet they 
 never rest but point heavenward. It comes to the soul, sunk 
 under the pressure of unrelievable distresses, sticking in the miry 
 clay, refusing comfort, and in appearance capableof none,it plucks 
 it out of the clay, raises it out of the horrible pit, sets its feet upon 
 a rock, fills it with joy, yea, makes it exceeding joyful, while even 
 all outv/ard pressures and tribulation continue, yea, are in- 
 creased. It enters into the soul, lays hold on the reigning lusts 
 to which it formerly had submitted, and that with delight ; it 
 tries and condemns those powerful criminals, makes the soul 
 throw off the yoke, and join in the execution of its sentence 
 against and on them. Now, where the case is as thus stated, 
 how can the soul that feels this powerful word, that comes from 
 the Lord Most High, do otherwise than fall down and own ' that 
 God is in it of a truth ? ' " 
 
 Note B, h. 14. 
 
 Hume's " Argument on Miracles '" is to the effect that, while 
 it is contrary to universal and uniform experience that a miracle 
 should occur, it is quite in accordance with experience that testi- 
 mony (on whicii alone we must depend for proof of any reported 
 miraculous fact) should be false ; and that, therefore, no testi- 
 mony can have such force as to prove a miracle. Hume admits 
 that " there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual 
 course of nature of such a kind as to admit of proof from human 
 testimony," and supposes an instance, while he thinks no such 
 instance can be found in the records of history. But he con- 
 tends that his argument applies with full force against a miracle 
 in connection with any system of religion. In any such case, 
 he says, a reported miracle is not only to be rejected, but to be 
 rejected " without examination '" of any testimony by which it 
 may be supported. 
 
 However plausible the argument may appear, it would be 
 difficult to find in any writer of name so large an amount of fal- 
 lacy compressed into so small a space. 
 
 It is to be noted, in general — i. That, if the argument is 
 sound, it rnust apply universally, and not be limited to miiacles 
 in connection with religion. If any discrimination is to be made. 
 
22 
 
 it must be not against, but in favour of, a miracle that may be 
 designed to authenticate a divine revelation, because such a de- 
 sign constitutes a reason for the miracle. 2. The argument is 
 not against the possibility of a miracle, but against its credibility ; 
 it does not say that a miracle is impossible, but that even if a 
 miracle did occur, its occurrence is beyond the possibility of being 
 proved. The unreasonableness of this position is exhibited by 
 Hugh Miller, in his own powerful style, in a chapter on the 
 Bearing of the Experience Argument, in "Footprints of the 
 Creator. " 
 
 But apart from the above general considerations, it is to be 
 noted, in particular, that the argument involves two fallacies, 
 technically called i. Petitio principii, or Begging of the question ; 
 2. Sophisma a dicta secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, or 
 reasoning as if what is true only in particular circumstances were 
 true universally. The former fallacy is evident, without using a 
 syllogistic form, if it be considered that the universality of expe- 
 rience which is affirmed is in reality the question at issue, that 
 question being. Whether there is not in the experience of certain 
 persons, e.g., the early Christian witnesses, an exception to the 
 general experience ? To say, as Hume does, that the experience 
 is uniform and universal is the same thing as to say that there is 
 no exception to it ; or, in other words, it assumes wiiat has to be 
 proved. 
 
 The second fallacy, which is the one referred to in the paper, 
 is apparent, if it be considered that, while it accords with expe- 
 rience that human testimony may be false, every kind of testi- 
 mony is not equally liable to suspicion. Whatever suspicion 
 may attach to testimony given in certain circumstances, there 
 are other circumstances in which testimony may be given that 
 place it above all suspicion. We may suspect the testimony 
 that a man gives, when his giving it is seen to lie in the line of 
 his own interests ; but we attach weight to his testimony given 
 in a matter in which his own interests are not concerned. And 
 we are warranted, from what we know of human nature, to hold 
 that the falsehood of testimony given by men, with no prospect 
 but that of evil in relation to the most valued temporal interests, 
 's simply incredible. We may safely say of it, as we cannot say of 
 ; miracle, in the ordinary sense of the term, that it is contrary to 
 ' "form and universal experience. In the testimony of the early 
 (.i.rK;(ian witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, we have testi- 
 ng, y cf the highest kind possible ; and to throw upon it the sus- 
 picion that attaches to the most untrustworthy class of wit- 
 nesses, as Hume does, is an instance of sophistry of the highest 
 order. 
 
23 
 
 Note C, p. i8. 
 
 That the assertion of the text is not hghtly made will, I 
 think, be manifest from the following extracts,— the one from a 
 believer in the divine origin of the Mosaic record, and the other 
 from one who rejects divine revelation. Professor James D. 
 Dana, in the article on Cosmogony in his " Manual of Geology," 
 hi which he shows the correspondence between the order of events 
 in the Mosaic cosmogony and that inferred from the combined 
 study of geology and astronomy, sees in this correspondence a 
 proof of the divine origin of the Mosaic record. " This docu- 
 ment,'' he says, " if true, is of divine origin. For no human 
 mind was witness of the events ; and no such mind in the early 
 age of the world, unless gifted with superhuman intelligence, 
 could have contrived such a scheme— would have placed the 
 creation of the sun, the source of light to the earth, so long after 
 the creation of light, even on the fourth day, and, what is equally 
 singular, between the creation of plants and that of animals, 
 when so important to both ; and none could have reached to 
 the depths of philosophy exhibited in the whole plan. Again, 
 ff divine, the account must bear the marks of human imperfection, 
 since it was communicated through man. Ideas suggested to a 
 human mind by the Deity would take shape according to its 
 range of knowledge, modes of thought, and use of language, un- 
 less it were at the same time supernaturally gifted with the pro- 
 found knowledge and wisdom adequate to their conception ; and 
 even then they could not be intelligibly expressed, for want of 
 words to represent them." After showing the correspondence 
 between the Mosaic order and that deduced from science. Pro- 
 fessor Dana concludes — " The record in the Bible is, therefore, 
 profoundly philosophical in the scheme of creation which it pre- 
 sents. It is both true and divine. It is a declaration of author- 
 ship, both of Creation and of the Bible, on the first page of the 
 sacred volume." — Manual of Geology, pp. 845 et seq. 
 
 The other extract is from Professor Haeckel's *' History of 
 Creation." " The Mosaic history of creation," he says, " has 
 enjoyed, down to the present day, general recognition in the 
 whole Jewish and Christian world of civilization. Its extraordi- 
 nary success is explained not only by its close connection with 
 Jewish and Christian doctrines, but also by the simple and 
 natural chain of ideas which runs through it, and which con- 
 trasts favourably with the confused mythology of creation current 
 among most of the other ancient nations. First, the Lord God 
 creates the earth as an inorganic body ; then He separates light 
 from darkness, then water from the dry land. Now the earth 
 
24 
 
 has bt-conie iiihabitahU- for organisms, and plants art; first 
 created, animals later — and among the latter the inhabitants of 
 the water and the air first, afterwards the inhabitants of the dry 
 land. Finally, God creates man, the last of all organisms, in 
 His own image, and as the ruler of the earth. 
 
 '• Two great and fundamental ideas, common also to the non- 
 miraculous theory of development, meet us in this Mosaic hypo- 
 thesis of creation, with surprising clearness and simplicity — the 
 idea of separation or differentUxtion, and the idea of progressive 
 development or pcrfcctinjr. Althougli Moses looks upon the re- 
 sults of the great laws of organic development as the direct 
 actions of a constructing Creator, yet in his theory there lies 
 hidden the ruling idea of a progressive development and a differ- 
 entiation of the originally simple matter. We can therefore 
 bestow our just and sincere admiration on the Jewish lawgiver's 
 grand insight into nature, and his simple and natural hypothesis 
 of creation," but he adds, " without discovering in it a so-called 
 divine revelation." — History of Creation, pp. 37, 38. 
 
 Haeckel's not '• discovering a divine revelation " where Dana 
 and others see it, is owing, of course, to the fact that his mind 
 is previously made up that there can be no such thing as divine 
 revelation, and that his " scientific materialism," to use his own 
 words, " positively rejects every belief in the miraculous, and 
 every conception, in whatever form it appears, of supernatural 
 processes." His first objection against the reception of the 
 Mosaic record as a divine revelation, viz., that it asserts (so he 
 says) that the earth is the fixed central point of the whele uni- 
 verse, one would have thought too stale for repetition in our 
 time. The second objection. That man is represented as the 
 premeditated aim of the creation of the earth, might be expected 
 from one who scouts final causes, and excludes all purpose from 
 the order of things. 
 
/■■i.-. ii^^si;*.''^-''" "i-^Orp-*