LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE i 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 yvjj-T. fi..ca*juu....SL^ 
 
 Class 
 
TO.<V 
 
 SILENCE OF GOD 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT ANDERSON, C.B., LL.D. 
 
 M 
 Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis 
 
 jjorh 
 
 DODD MEAD & CO 
 149-151 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 1897 
 

PREFACE 
 
 AS regards its chief aim this book may be 
 left to speak for itself. No preface is 
 needed save by way of appeal to the reader to 
 deal kindly with its faults. Written during a 
 busy year of a busy life, it may possibly claim 
 some little indulgence upon that score. 
 
 And as for the rest two prefatory words may 
 suffice. The one is this sentence from Froude's 
 " History of England " : " For the religion of 
 Christ was exchanged the Christian religion." 
 The other is the plea that, where controversy 
 comes in, the principles of civilised warfare 
 have here been kept to : every consideration for 
 the enemy, but no quarter for traitors. 
 
 39, LIXUEX GARDEXS, W. 
 
 112594 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGK 
 
 CHAPTER I. 1 
 
 " 
 
 33 
 
 V 48 
 
 61 
 VII. .... ?I 
 
 84 
 
 IX - . 96 
 
 X . 106 
 
 XI - . 117 
 
 . 146 
 APPENDIX . . . . .163 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 A SI LENT Heaven is the greatest mystery of 
 our existence. Some there are, indeed, for 
 whom the problem has no perplexities. In a 
 philosophy of silly optimism, or a life of selfish 
 isolation, they have "attained Nirvana!' For such 
 the sad and hideous realities of life around us 
 have no existence. Upon their path these cast no 
 shadow. The serene atmosphere of their fools' 
 paradise is undisturbed by the cry of the suffering 
 and the oppressed. But earnest and thoughtful 
 men face these realities, and have ears to hear that 
 cry ; and their indignant wonder finds utterance 
 at times in some such words as those of the old 
 Hebrew prophet and bard, " Doth God know ? 
 And is there knowledge in the Most High?" 
 
2 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 Society, even in the great centres of our modern 
 civilisation, is all too like a slave-ship, where, with 
 the sounds of music and laughter and revelry on 
 the upper deck, there mingle the groans of untold 
 misery battened down below. Who can estimate 
 the sorrow and suffering and wrong endured during 
 a single round of the clock even in the favoured 
 metropolis of highly favoured England ? And if it 
 be thus in the green tree, what shall be said of the 
 dry ! What mind is competent to grasp the sum 
 of all this great world's misery, heaped up day after 
 day, year after year, century after century? Human 
 hearts may plan, and human hands achieve, some 
 little to alleviate it, and the strong and ready arm 
 of human law may accomplish much in the pro- 
 tection of the weak and the punishment of the 
 wicked. But as for Gocl the light of moon and 
 stars is not more cold and pitiless than He appears 
 to be! 
 
 Every new chapter in the story of Turkish mis- 
 rule raises a fresh storm of indignation throughout 
 Europe. The conscience of Christendom is out- 
 raged by tales of oppression and cruelty and wrong 
 inflicted on the Christian subjects of the Porte. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 3 
 
 Here is a testimony to the Armenian massacres of 
 1895 
 
 " Over 60,000 Armenians have been butchered. In Trebizond, 
 Erzeroum, Erzinghian, Hassankaleh, and numberless other places 
 the Christians were crushed like grapes during the vintage. The 
 frantic mob, seething and surging in the streets of the cities, swept 
 down upon the defenceless Armenians, plundered their shops, 
 gutted their houses, then joked and jested with the terrified victims, 
 as cats play with mice. The rivulets were choked up with corpses ; 
 the streams ran red with human blood ; the forest glades and rocky 
 caves were peopled with the dead and dying ; among the black 
 ruins of once prosperous villages lay roasted infants by their 
 mangled mothers' corpses ; pits were dug at night by the wretches 
 destined to fill them, many of whom, flung in when but lightly 
 wounded, awoke underneath a mountain of clammy corpses, and 
 vainly wrestled with death and with the dead, who shut them out 
 from light and life for ever. 
 
 "A man in Erzeroum, hearing a tumult, and fearing for his 
 children, who were playing in the street, went out to seek and 
 save them. He was borne down upon by the mob. He pleaded 
 for his life, protesting that he had always lived in peace with his 
 Moslem neighbours, and sincerely loved them. The statement 
 may have represented a fact, or it may have been but a plea for 
 pity. The ringleader, however, told him that that was the proper 
 spirit, and would be condignly rewarded. The man was then stripped, 
 and a chunk of his flesh cut out of his body, and jestingly offered 
 for sale : ' Good fresh meat, and dirt cheap,' exclaimed some of 
 the crowd. * Who'll buy fine dog's meat ? ' echoed the amused 
 bystanders. The writhing wretch uttered piercing screams as some 
 of the mob, who had just come from rifling the shops, opened a 
 bottle and poured vinegar or some acid into the gaping wound. 
 He called on God and man to end his agonies. But they had only 
 begun. Soon afterwards two little boys came up, the elder crying, 
 ' Hairik, Hairik (Father, father), save me ! See what they've done 
 to me ! ' and pointed to his head, from which the blood was stream- 
 
4 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 ing over his handsome face, and down his neck. The younger 
 brother a child of about three was playing with a wooden toy. 
 The agonising man was silent for a second and then, glancing at 
 these his children, made a frantic but vain effort to snatch a dagger 
 from a Turk by his side. This was the signal for the renewal of his 
 torments. The bleeding boy was finally dashed with violence 
 against the dying father, who began to lose strength and conscious- 
 ness, and the two were then pounded to death where they lay. The 
 younger child sat near, dabbling his wooden toy in the blood of his 
 father and brother, and looking up, now through smiles at the 
 prettily dressed Kurds and now through tears at the dust-begrimed 
 thing that had lately been his father. A slash of a sabre wound up 
 his short experience of God's world, and the crowd turned its 
 attention to others. 
 
 ' ' These are but isolated scenes revealed for a brief second by the 
 light, as it were, of a momentary lightning-flash. The worst cannot 
 be described." Contemporary Review, January, 1896. 
 
 The following refers to still more recent 
 horrors : 
 
 "In no place in this region has the attack upon the Christians 
 been more savage than in Egin. Every male above twelve years of 
 age who could be found was slain. Only one Armenian was found 
 who had been seen and spared. Many children and boys were laid 
 on their backs and their necks cut like sheep. The women and 
 children were gathered together in the yard of the Government 
 building and in various places throughout the town. Turks, Kurds, 
 and soldiers went among these women, selected the fairest, and led 
 them aside to outrage them. In the village of Pinguan fifteen 
 women threw themselves into the river to escape dishonour." - The 
 77wes, December 10, 1896. 
 
 And what is the element in all this which most 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 5 
 
 exasperates the public sentiment? It is that the 
 Sultan has the power to prevent all this, but will 
 not. That, while possessing ample means to re- 
 strain and punish, he remains unmoved, and in the 
 safe seclusion of his palace gives himself up to a 
 life of luxury and ease. But has Almighty God 
 no power to check such crimes ? Even Abdul 
 Hamid has been shamed into laying aside the 
 dignity of kingship, and making heard his personal 
 voice in Europe to repel the charge his seeming 
 inaction has raised to his discredit. 1 But in vain 
 do we strain our ears to hear some voice from the 
 throne of the Divine Majesty. The far-off heaven 
 where, in perfect peace and unutterable glory, God 
 dwells and reigns, is SILENT ! 
 
 " So I returned, and considered all the oppres- 
 sions that are done under the sun ; and behold, the 
 tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no 
 comforter ; and on the side of their oppressors 
 there was power ; but they had no comforter." 
 And this in a world ruled and governed by a 
 God who is Almighty ! 
 
 1 The Marquis of Salisbury's speech at the Pavilion, Brighton, on 
 the 1 9th of November, 1895. 
 
6 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 And when we withdraw our thoughts from the 
 great world around us, and fix them upon the 
 narrow circle of His faithful people, the facts are 
 no less stern, and the mystery grows more in- 
 scrutable. Devoted men leave our shores, for- 
 saking the security, the comforts, the charms, the 
 countless benefits of life in the midst of our 
 Christian civilisation, to carry the knowledge of 
 the true God to heathen lands. But by and by 
 we hear of their massacre by the hands of those 
 whom thus they sought to elevate and bless. And 
 where is " the true God ' they served ? The little 
 band of Christian men who were in a special sense 
 His accredited ambassadors, noble women too, 
 who shared in their exile and their labours, and 
 little children whose tender helplessness might 
 excite the pity of a very devil, in their terror and 
 agony cried to Heaven for the succour which never 
 came. The God they trusted might surely have 
 turned the hearts, or restrained the hands, of their 
 brutal murderers. Is it possible to imagine cir- 
 cumstances that would more fitly claim the help 
 of Him whom they worshipped as all powerful 
 both in heaven and on earth ? But the earth has 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 7 
 
 drunk in their blood, and a silent Heaven has 
 seemed to mock their cry ! 
 
 And these horrors are but mere ripples on the 
 surface of the deep, wide sea of the Church's 
 sufferings throughout the ages of her history. 
 From the old days of Pagan Rome right down 
 through the centuries of so-called " Christian " 
 persecutions, the untold millions of the martyrs, 
 the best and purest and noblest of our race, have 
 been given up to violence and outrage and death 
 in hideous forms. The heart grows sick at the 
 appalling story, and we turn away with a dull but 
 baseless hope that it may be in part at least 
 untrue. But the facts are too terrible to make 
 exaggeration in the record of them possible. 
 Torn by wild beasts in the arena, torn by men as 
 merciless as wild beasts, and, far more hateful, 
 in the torture chambers of the Inquisition, His 
 people have died, with faces turned to heaven, 
 and hearts upraised in prayer to God ; but the 
 heaven has seemed as hard as brass, and the God 
 of their prayers as powerless as themselves or as 
 callous as their persecutors ! 
 
 But most men are selfish in their sympathies. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 Some private grief at times looms greater than all 
 the sum of the world's miseries and the Church's 
 sufferings. If ever there was a saint on earth, it is 
 the mother to whose deathbed sons and daughters 
 have been summoned from various pursuits of 
 business or of pleasure. In all their wanderings 
 that mother's piety and faith have been a guiding 
 and restraining influence. And now, thus gathered 
 once more in the old home, they are keen to watch 
 how, in the solemn crisis of her last days on earth, 
 God will deal with one of the loveliest and truest 
 of His children. And what do they behold ? The 
 poor body racked with pain that never ceases till 
 all capacity for suffering is quenched by the hand 
 of Death ! If human skill could give relief the 
 attending physician would be dismissed as heart- 
 less or incompetent. Is God, then, incompetent or 
 heartless ? To Him they look to relieve the death 
 agonies of the dying saint, but they look to Him 
 in vain ! 
 
 Or it may be some grief more selfish still. The 
 crash of some great sorrow that turns a bright 
 home into a waste, and leaves the heart so be- 
 numbed and hard that even the so-called "con- 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 9 
 
 solations of religion " appear but hollow platitudes. 
 Why should God be so cruel ? Why is Heaven so 
 terribly silent ? 
 
 The most prolific fancy, the most facile pen, 
 would fail to picture or portray, in their endless 
 variety, the experiences which have thus stamped 
 out the last embers of faith in many a crushed 
 and desolated heart. " There are times," as a 
 Christian writer x puts it, " when the heaven that is 
 over our heads seems to be brass, and the earth 
 that is under us to be iron, and we feel our hearts 
 sink within us under the calm pressure of un- 
 yielding and unsympathising law." How true the 
 statement, but how inadequate ! If it were merely 
 on behalf of this or that individual that God failed 
 to interfere, or on one occasion or another, belief 
 in His infinite wisdom and goodness ought to 
 check our murmurs and soothe our fears. And, 
 further, if, as in the days of the patriarchs, even a 
 whole generation passed away without His once 
 declaring Himself, faith might glance back, and 
 hope look forward, amidst heart searchings for the 
 cause of His silence. But what confronts us is 
 
 1 Dean Mansel. 
 
io THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 the fact, explain it as we may, that for eighteen 
 centuries the world has never witnessed a public 
 
 IQ 
 
 manifestation of His presence or His power. 
 
 "Doth God know?" At first the thought 
 comes up as an impatient yet not irreverent 
 appeal. But presently the words are formed upon 
 the lip to imply a challenge and suggest a doubt ; 
 and at last they are boldly uttered as the avowal 
 of a settled unbelief. And then the sacred 
 records which awed and charmed the mind in 
 childhood, telling of " mighty acts " of Divine 
 intervention " in the old time," begin to lose their 
 vividness and force, till at last they sink to the 
 level of Hebrew legends and old-world myths. In 
 presence of the stern and dismal facts of life, the 
 faith of earlier days gives way, for surely a God 
 who is entirely passive and always unavailable is 
 for all practical purposes non-existent. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ~\ ^THEN we turn to Holy Writ this mystery 
 of a silent Heaven, which is driving so many 
 to infidelity, if not to atheism, seems to become 
 more utterly insoluble. The life and teaching of 
 the great Prophet of Nazareth have claimed the 
 admiration of multitudes, even of those who have 
 denied to Him the deeper homage of their 
 faith. All generous minds acclaim Him as the 
 noblest figure that has ever passed across the 
 stage of human life. But Christianity claims 
 for Him infinitely more than this. The great 
 and unknown God had dwelt in impenetrable 
 darkness and unapproachable light seeming 
 contradictories which harmonise in fact in a 
 perfect representation of His attitude toward 
 
12 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 men. But now He at last declared Himself. 
 The Nazarene was not merely the pattern man 
 of all the ages, He was Himself Divine, " God 
 manifest in the flesh." The inspired prophets had 
 foreshadowed this : now it was accomplished. The 
 dream of heathen mythology was realised in the 
 great foundation fact of Christianity God assumed 
 the form of a man and dwelt as a man among 
 men, speaking words such as mere man never 
 spoke, and scattering on every hand the proofs of 
 His Divine character and mission. 
 
 But the sphere of the display was confined to 
 the narrowest limits the towns and villages of a 
 district scarcely larger than an English county. 
 If this was to be the end of it, a theory so sublime 
 must be exploded by its inherent incredibility. But 
 throughout His ministry He spoke of a mysterious 
 death He had to suffer, and of His rising from the 
 dead and returning to the heaven from which He 
 had come down, and of the triumphs of His power 
 to follow upon that ascension triumphs such as 
 they to whom He spoke were then incapable of 
 understanding. And in keeping with the hopes 
 He thus inspired, among His latest utterances, 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 13 
 
 spoken after His resurrection and in view of His 
 ascension, we find these sublime and pregnant 
 words " All power is given unto Me in heaven 
 and on earth." The position of avowed unbelief 
 here is perfectly intelligible ; but what can be said 
 for the covert scepticism of modern Christianity 
 which explains this utterance to mean nothing- 
 more than the assertion of a mystical authority to 
 send out preachers of the gospel ! 
 
 Accept the scheme of revelation as to man's 
 apostasy and fall, and his consequent alienation 
 from God, and the history of the world down to 
 the time of Christ can be explained. But type and 
 promise and prophecy testified with united voice 
 that the advent of Messiah should be the dawn of 
 a brighter day, when " the heavens should rule," 
 when all wrong should be redressed, and sorrow 
 and discord should give place to gladness and 
 peace. The angelic host who heralded His birth 
 confirmed the testimony, and seemed to point to 
 its near fulfilment. And these words of Christ 
 Himself ring out like a proclamation that earth's 
 great jubilee at last was come. Nor did the events 
 of the early days which followed belie the hope. 
 
14 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 If because of a great public miracle wrought by 
 them in His name the apostles were threatened 
 with penalties, they appealed from men to God, 
 and then and there God gave public proof that He 
 heard their prayer, for "the place was shaken 
 where they were assembled." I Sudden judgment 
 fell upon Ananias and Sapphira when they sinned, 
 and as a consequence " great fear came upon all." 2 
 " By the hands of the apostles were many signs 
 and wonders wrought among the people." 3 From 
 the surrounding villages " the multitude " that is 
 the inhabitants en masse gathered to Jerusalem 
 carrying their sick, "and they were healed every 
 one'' 4 And when their exasperated enemies seized 
 the apostles and thrust them into the common 
 prison, " the angel of the Lord by night opened 
 the prison doors and brought them forth." 5 
 
 At this very period it was, no doubt, that the 
 martyr Stephen fell. Yes, but ere he sank beneath 
 the blows showered upon him by his fierce 
 murderers, the heavens were opened, and revealed 
 to him a vision of his Lord in glory. If martyr- 
 
 1 Acts iv. 31. 2 Ibid. v. i-n. 3 Ibid. v. 12. 
 
 4 Ibid. v. 16. 5 Ibid. v. 19. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 15 
 
 dom brought such visions now, who would shrink 
 from being a martyr ! By a like vision the most 
 prominent witness to his death became changed 
 into an apostle of the faith he had resisted and 
 blasphemed. And when he in his turn found 
 himself in the grasp of cruel enemies at Philippi, 
 his midnight prayer was answered by an earth- 
 quake which shook the foundations of his prison. 
 Unseen hands struck off the chains which bound 
 him, freed his feet from the stocks in which they 
 had been made fast, and threw the gaol doors 
 open. 
 
 The Apostle Peter, too, had experienced a like 
 deliverance when held a prisoner by Herod at 
 Jerusalem, and this on the very eve of the day 
 appointed for his death. The record is definite 
 and thrilling. " Peter was sleeping between two 
 soldiers, bound with two chains ; and the keepers 
 before the door kept the prison, and behold the 
 angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light 
 shined in the prison ; and he smote Peter on the 
 side and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. 
 And his chains fell off from his hands." " The 
 iron gate " of the prison " opened to them of its 
 
16 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 own accord," and together they passed into the 
 street. 
 
 These are but gleanings from the narrative of 
 the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 Divine intervention was no mystic theory with 
 these men. " All power in heaven and in earth " 
 was no mere shibboleth. The story of the infant 
 Church, like the early history of the Hebrew 
 nation, was an unbroken record of miracles. But 
 there the parallel ends. Under the old economy 
 the cessation of Divine intervention in human 
 affairs was regarded as abnormal, and the fact was 
 explained by national apostasy and sin. And the 
 times of national apostasy were precisely the 
 period of the prophetic dispensation. Then it was 
 that the Divine voice was heard with increasing 
 clearness. But in contrast with this, Heaven has 
 now been dumb for eighteen long centuries. This 
 fact, moreover, might seem less strange if prophecy 
 had ceased with Malachi, and miracles had not 
 been renewed in Messianic times. But though 
 miraculous powers and prophetic gifts abounded in 
 the Pentecostal Church, yet when the testimony 
 passed out from the narrow sphere of Judaism 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 17 
 
 and was confronted by the philosophy and civili- 
 sation of the heathen world at the very time in 
 fact when, according to accepted theories, their 
 voice was specially required that voice died away 
 for ever. 
 
 Is there nothing here to excite our wonder? 
 Some of course will dispose of the matter by 
 rejecting every record of miracles, whether in Old 
 Testament times or New, as mere legend or fable. 
 Others again will protest that miracles are actually 
 wrought to-day at certain favoured shrines. But 
 here in Britain, at least, most men are neither 
 superstitious nor infidel. They believe the Biblical 
 record of miracles in the past, and they assent to 
 the fact that ever since the days of the apostles 
 the silence of Heaven has been unbroken. Yet 
 when challenged to account for this, they are 
 either wholly dumb or else they offer explanations 
 which are utterly inadequate, if not absolutely 
 untrue. 
 
 To plead that the idea of Divine intervention 
 in human affairs is unreasonable or absurd is only 
 to afford a proof how easily the mind becomes 
 enslaved by the ordinary facts of experience. 
 
i8 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 The believer recognises that such intervention was 
 common in ancient times, and the unbeliever most 
 fairly argues that if there really existed a God, all- 
 good and almighty, such intervention would be 
 common at all times. The taunt would be easily 
 met if the Christian could make answer that this 
 world is a scene of probation where God in His 
 infinite wisdom has thought fit to leave men 
 absolutely to themselves. But in presence of an 
 open Bible such an answer is impossible. The 
 mystery remains that " God, who at sundry times 
 and in divers manners spake in time past unto the 
 fathers," never speaks to His people now ! The 
 Divine history of the favoured race for thousands 
 of years teems with miracles by which God gave 
 proof of His power with men, and yet we are 
 confronted by the astounding fact that from the 
 days of the apostles to the present hour the 
 history of Christendom will be searched in vain 
 for the record of a single public event to compel 
 belief that there is a God at all ! * 
 
 1 See Appendix, Note I. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 T N the old time men worshipped false gods, as 
 they do still in heathendom to-day. Atheism 
 is the recoil from Christianity rejected. But the 
 unbelief of earnest men who are willing to believe, 
 but cannot, is not to be confounded with the blind 
 and bitter atheism of apostates. 
 
 Nor will it avail to plead that the miracles by 
 which Christianity was accredited at first still live 
 as evidence of its truth. That will not satisfy the 
 question here at issue, which is not the truth of 
 Christianity but the fact of a silent Heaven. That ' 
 in presence of the measureless ocean of human 
 suffering in the great world around us, and in spite 
 of the articulate cry so constantly wrung from the 
 
 hearts of His faithful people, God should preserve 
 
 19 
 
20 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 a silence which is absolute and crushing this is 
 a mystery which Christianity seems only to render 
 more inscrutable. 
 
 Here, however, we are assuming that miracles 
 are possible, and thus we shall incur the contempt 
 of all persons of superior enlightenment. But we 
 can brook their sneers. Nor will they betray us 
 into the folly of turning aside to enter upon the 
 great miracle controversy, save in so far as the 
 subject in hand requires it. Open infidelity has 
 made no advance upon the arguments of Hume. 
 Indeed the phenomenal triumphs of modern 
 science have only served to weaken the infidel's 
 position, for they have discredited the theory that 
 new discoveries in nature might yet account for 
 the miracles of Scripture. The only thing distinc- 
 tive about the infidelity of our own times is that it 
 has assumed the dress and language of religion. 
 Among its teachers are " Doctors of Divinity" and 
 Professors in Christian universities and colleges. 
 And as the disciples and admirers of these men 
 claim for them superior intelligence and special 
 vigour of mental perception, an examination of 
 these pretensions may not be inopportune. But 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 21 
 
 vivisection is to be deprecated, and mere abstract 
 statements carry little weight. How, then, are we 
 to proceed ? An Oxford Professor of the past 
 generation will do as the corpus vile for the 
 inquiry. Let us turn to the treatise upon " The 
 Evidences of Christianity" in the notorious " Essays 
 and Reviews." Its thesis may be stated in a single 
 sentence That the reign of law is absolute and 
 universal. From this it follows of course (i) that 
 a miracle is an impossibility, and (2) that Holy 
 Scripture is altogether unreliable. Inspiration, 
 therefore, is out of the question, save as all good- 
 ness and genius are inspired. 
 
 It may seem feeble to turn back now to the 
 " Essays and Reviews," but the last forty years have 
 made no change in the German Rationalism which 
 that epoch-making book first brought to the notice 
 of the average Englishman. These views are 
 being taught to-day in many of our schools of 
 theology. The future occupants of so - called 
 Christian pulpits are being taught that the miracu- 
 lous in Scripture must be rejected, and that the 
 Bible must be read like any other book. 
 
 Now what concerns us here is not whether this 
 
22 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 teaching is true : let us assume its truth. Nor yet 
 whether the teachers be honest : we assume their 
 integrity. But what can be said for their intelli- 
 gence ? Any dullard can trade upon the labours 
 of others. The most commonplace of men can 
 understand and adopt the tenets of the rationalists. 
 Where mental power will declare itself is in the 
 capacity to review preconceived ideas in the light 
 of the new tenets. Let us apply this test to the 
 Christian rationalists. The incarnation, the resur- 
 rection, the ascension of Christ these are incom- 
 parably the greatest of all miracles. If we accept 
 them the credibility of other miracles resolves 
 itself entirely into a question of evidence. If we 
 reject them the whole Christian system falls to 
 pieces like a house of cards. To change the 
 figure, when Christianity is exposed to the clear 
 light and air of "modern thought," what seemed to 
 be a living body crumbles into dust. Yet these 
 men profess unfaltering faith in Christianity. But 
 while their faith does credit to their hearts, it 
 : proves the weakness of their heads. Those who 
 believe in the Divinity of Christ while rejecting 
 inspiration and miracles, may pose as persons of 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 23 
 
 superior enlightenment in fact, they are credulous 
 creatures who would believe anything. Such faith 
 as theirs is the merest superstition. Appeal might 
 here be made to unnumbered witnesses among the 
 scholars and thinkers of our time, who in face of 
 this dilemma have found themselves compelled to 
 choose "between a deeper faith and a bolder 
 unbelief." 
 
 If Christ was indeed Divine, no person of 
 ordinary intelligence will question that He had 
 power to open the eyes of the blind, the ears of 
 the deaf, the lips of the dumb. If He had power 
 to forgive sins, it is a small matter to believe that 
 He had power to heal diseases. If He could give 
 Eternal Life there is nothing to wonder at in the 
 record that He could restore natural life. And if 
 He is now upon the throne of God, and all power 
 in heaven and earth is His, every man of common 
 sense will brush aside all sophistries and quibbles 
 about causation and natural laws, and will recog- 
 nise that our Divine Lord could do for men to-day 
 all He did for them in the days of His ministry on 
 earth. 
 
 But how is it that He does not ? I know that if 
 
24 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 in the days of His humiliation this poor crippled 
 child had been brought into His presence He 
 would have healed it. And I am assured that His 
 power is greater now than when He sojourned 
 upon earth, and that He is still as near to us as 
 He then was. But when I bring this to a practical 
 test, it fails. Whatever the reason, it does not 
 seem true. This poor afflicted child must remain a 
 cripple. I dare not say He cannot heal my child, 
 but it is clear He will not. And why will He not? 
 How is this mystery to be explained ? The plain 
 fact is that with all who believe the Bible the great 
 difficulty respecting miracles is not their occurrence 
 but their absence. 
 
 In his " Foundations of Belief," Mr. Balfour 
 reproduces the suggestion that if the special cir- 
 cumstances in which a miracle was wrought were 
 again to recur, the miracle would recur also. But 
 even if the truth of this could be ascertained, it 
 would have no bearing on the present problem. 
 Miracles, Mr. Balfour avers, are " wonders due to 
 the special action of Divine power." As then we 
 have to do neither with a mere machine nor with a 
 monster, but with a personal God who is infinite 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 25 
 
 in wisdom and power and love, how is it that in a 
 world which, pace the philosopher, cries aloud for 
 that " special action," we look for it in vain ? 
 
 In his " Studies Subsidiary to the Works of 
 Bishop Butler," Mr. Gladstone speaks in the same 
 sense, but still more definitely. In his discussion 
 of Hume's dictum, that miracles are impossible 
 because they imply the violation of natural laws, 
 he says : " Now, unless we know all the laws of 
 nature, Hume's contention is of no avail; for the 
 alleged miracle may come under some law not yet 
 known to us." But surely this admission is fatal. 
 The evidential value of miracles, against which 
 Hume is arguing, depends on the assumption that 
 they are due, as Mr. Balfour says, to " the special 
 action of Divine power," and that but for such 
 action they would not have occurred. That is to 
 say, it is essential that the act or event represented 
 as miraculous should be supernatural. If, there- 
 fore, the " alleged " miracle can be brought within 
 the sphere of the natural^ it is thereby shown not " c 
 be a real miracle. In other words, it is not a 
 miracle at all. 
 
 If a miracle were indeed a violation of the laws 
 
26 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 of nature, not a few of us who believe in miracles 
 would renounce our faith. For then the word 
 " impossible " would be transferred to the sphere 
 in which it is rightly predicted of acts attributable 
 to the Almighty. "It is," we declare, "impossible 
 for God to lie " : it is equally impossible for Him 
 to violate His own laws; He "cannot deny Him- 
 self." But this vaunted dictum owes its seeming 
 force solely to confounding what is above nature 
 with what is against nature. Beyond this it is 
 nothing but a cloak for ignorance. 
 
 Here is a stone upon the road. In obedience to 
 unchanging law it lies there inert and tends to sink 
 into the ground. Were it to rise from the earth 
 and fly upward toward the sky, it would, you say, 
 be indeed a miracle. But this you know is abso- 
 lutely impossible. Impossible ! A rude boy who 
 comes along snatches it from us and flings it 
 into the air. This mischievous urchin has thus 
 achieved what you declared to be impossible ! 
 " But," you exclaim, " this is mere trifling, we saw 
 the boy throw it up ! " Is it by our senses, then, 
 that the limits of possibility are to be fixed ? 
 This is materialism with a vengeance ! Suppose 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 27 
 
 the boy himself should fall over a precipice, and 
 you grasped him and drew him up again to safety, 
 would this be a violation of the law of gravitation ? 
 Why, then, should it be such if his rescue were 
 achieved by some unseen hand ? A miracle it 
 would be, no doubt, but not " a violation of the 
 laws of nature." As Dean Mansel expresses it, a 
 miracle is merely "the introduction of a new agent, 
 possessing new powers, and therefore not included 
 under the rules generalised from a previous 
 experience." 
 
 But some thoughtless person may still object 
 that matter can be put in motion only by matter, 
 and that to talk of a stone being raised by an 
 unseen hand is therefore absurd. Indeed ! Will 
 the objector tell us how it is he puts his own body 
 in motion ? The power of something that is not 
 matter over matter is one of the commonest facts 
 of life. The Apostle Peter walked upon the sea. 
 u Nonsense," the infidel exclaims, with a toss of his 
 head, " that would be a violation of natural laws ! " 
 And yet the phenomenon may have been as 
 simple as that produced when he himself shakes 
 his head ! It is possible, moreover, that the laws 
 
28 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 may yet be explained under which the miracles 
 were performed. 1 Nor would they cease to be 
 miracles if those laws were known ; for the test of 
 a miracle is not that it should be inexplicable, but 
 that it should be beyond human power to accom- 
 plish it. Whether or not the power in exercise 
 be Divine is matter of evidence or inference ; but 
 once the presence of Divine power is ascertained, 
 a miracle, regarded as a fact, is accounted for. 
 
 If a surgeon restores sight to a blind man, or a 
 physician rescues a fever patient from death, the 
 fact excites no other emotion than our gratitude. 
 But when we are told that such cures have been 
 achieved by Divine power without the use of 
 medicine or the knife, we are called upon to refuse 
 
 1 This possibly may be what Mr. Gladstone means in the state- 
 ment criticised at p. 25 ante. But if so, I am at a loss to under- 
 stand either his language or his argument. He seems to suggest 
 that the "alleged" miracles may yet be explained to us, just as 
 the predicted eclipse of the moon which terrified the South Sea 
 Islanders might afterwards have been explained to the savages. My 
 own meaning an illustration may make plain. That fire should 
 come down from the sky and kindle a pile of wood is a common- 
 place phenomenon. It might occur during any thunderstorm. 
 But if I heap wood together upon a certain spot, and at my word 
 lightning falls upon it and consumes it, this is a miracle ; and the 
 element of the miraculous is in the fact that I have set in motion 
 ' some power that is above nature and competent to control it. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 29 
 
 even to examine the evidence. The plain fact is . 
 that men do not believe in " Divine power," or the ' 
 " unseen hand." Disguise it as we will this is the 
 real point of the controversy. In the case of every 
 human being, " special action " is a duty if thereby 
 he can relieve suffering or avert disaster, but in 
 the case of the Divine Being it is not to be 
 expected or indeed tolerated ! It is accepted as 
 an axiom that Almighty God must be a cipher in 
 His own world ! 
 
 The doctrinaire infidel rejects Christianity on 
 the ground that the only evidence of its truth is 
 the miracles by which it was accredited at the first, 
 and that miracles are impossible propositions/ 
 both of which are untenable. The ordinary 
 infidel, on the other hand, bringing practical 
 intelligence and common sense to bear upon the 
 question, rejects Christianity because, he argues, if 
 the Christian's God were not a myth He would 
 not remain passive in presence of all the suffering 
 and wrong which prevail in the world. That is to 
 say, discarding the contention of the doctrinaire 
 philosopher that miracles are impossible, he main- 
 tains that if there really existed a Supreme Being 
 
30 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 of infinite goodness and power, miracles would 
 abound. And the vast majority of infidels belong 
 to this second category. But though the philoso- 
 phers are few, and their sophistries have failed to 
 take hold of the minds of common men, they have 
 well-nigh monopolised the attention of Christian 
 apologists. Common men, moreover, unlike the 
 philosophers, are apt to be both fair and earnest, 
 and ready to consider any reasonable explanation 
 of their difficulties. But the answer offered them 
 is for the most part either futile or inadequate. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, for instance, falls back upon 
 the plea that " if the experience of miracles were 
 universal, they would cease to be miracles." But 
 what possible ground is there for this? They 
 would cease to excite wonder, no doubt ; but that 
 is no test of the miraculous. In the beginning of 
 our Lord's ministry, and before the antipathy of 
 the religious leaders of the Jews took shape in 
 plots for His destruction, His miracles of healing 
 were so numerous and so free to all, that they 
 must have come to be regarded as matters of 
 course. He "went about," we read, " in all Galilee, 
 healing all manner of disease and all manner of 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 31 
 
 sickness among the people. And the report of 
 Him went forth into all Syria, and they brought 
 unto Him ALL that were sick, holden with 
 divers diseases and torments, possessed with 
 devils, and epileptic, and palsied : and He healed 
 them." * In presence of such an unlimited display 
 of miraculous power all sense of wonder must have 
 soon died out. But yet every fresh cure was a 
 fresh miracle, and would have been recognised 
 as such. 
 
 And so would it be in our own day, if, for 
 example, whenever a wicked man committed an 
 outrage upon his neighbour, Divine power inter- 
 vened to strike down the offender and protect his 
 victim, the event would cease to excite the least 
 surprise. But all would none the less recognise 
 the hand of God, and own His justice and 
 goodness. And there would be no infidels left 
 except, of course, the philosophers ! 
 
 The difficulty therefore remains unsolved. The 
 true explanation of it will be considered in the 
 sequel ; but at this stage the discussion of it is a 
 mere digression. So far as the present argument 
 
 1 Matt. iv. 23, 24 (R.V.). 
 
32 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 is concerned the matter may be summed up in 
 borrowed words : " The Scripture miracles stand 
 on a solid basis which no reasoning can overthrow. 
 Their possibility cannot be denied without denying 
 the very nature of God as an all-powerful Being ; 
 their probability cannot be questioned without 
 questioning His moral perfections ; and their cer- 
 tainty as matters of fact can only be invalidated 
 by destroying the very foundations of all human 
 testimony." J 
 
 1 Bishop Van Mildert's " Boyle Lectures," sermon xxi. Of the 
 truth of these last words Hume's celebrated treatise supplies most 
 striking proof. He takes exception to the evidence for the Chris- 
 tian miracles ; but when he goes on to speak of certain miracles 
 alleged to have occurred in France upon the tomb of Abbe Paris, 
 the famous Jansenist, he admits that the evidence in support of 
 them was clear, complete, and without a flaw. But yet he rejects 
 ( them, and that solely because of " the absolute impossibility, or 
 miraculous nature of the events " ! It behoves us to regard such 
 evidence with suspicion ; but to accept the evidence and yet to 
 reject the facts thus established, is indeed " to destroy the very 
 foundations of all human testimony." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 r I ^HAT Paley and those who follow him have 
 mistaken and misstated the evidential value 
 of the miracles of Christ may seem to some a 
 startling proposition ; but it is by no means a 
 novel one. To this error, moreover, it is that the 
 argument against miracles in John Stuart Mill's 
 " Essays on Religion" owes its seeming cogency. 
 
 The unbelief of the Christianised sceptic com- 
 pares unfavourably with the agnosticism of the 
 honest infidel. The one in rejecting miracles 
 destroys the authenticity of the Gospels, and thus 
 recklessly undermines the foundations of Chris- 
 tianity. The object of the other is a defence of 
 human reason against supposed encroachments 
 upon its authority. The one trades in sophistries 
 
 4 33 
 
34 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 which have been again and again refuted and 
 exposed. The other propounds arguments which 
 have never yet been adequately answered. The 
 pseudo-Christian practically joins hands with the 
 atheist ; for no amount of special pleading will 
 avail to silence Paley's challenge, " Once believe 
 there is a God, and miracles are not incredible." 
 The avowed agnostic seizes upon Paley's gratuitous 
 assertion that a revelation can only be made by 
 miracles, and he sets himself to prove that miracles 
 are wholly invalid for such a purpose. 
 
 Among English men of letters Mill's position is 
 almost unique. From the account of his childhood 
 in that saddest of books, his "Autobiography," it 
 would appear that he approached the study of 
 Christianity from the standpoint of a cultured 
 pagan. He was wholly unconscious, therefore, that 
 his argument against the theologian's position was 
 entirely in accord with the teaching of Scripture. 
 " A revelation cannot be proved Divine unless by 
 external evidence " : such is his mode of restating 
 Paley's thesis. And the problem this involves may 
 be explained by the following illustration. 
 
 A stranger appears, say in London, the metropolis 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 35 
 
 of the world, claiming to be the bearer of a Divine 
 revelation to mankind, and in order to accredit his 
 message he proceeds to display miraculous power. 
 Let us assume for the moment that after the 
 strictest inquiry the reality of the miracles is 
 established and that all are agreed as to their 
 genuineness. Here, then, we are face to face with 
 the question in the most practical way. If the 
 " Christian argument " be sound we are bound to 
 accept whatever gospel this prophet proclaims. 
 And no one who knows anything of human nature 
 will doubt that it would be generally received. 
 The Christian, however, would be kept back by 
 the words of the inspired apostle : " But though 
 we or an angel from heaven should preach unto you 
 any gospel other than that which we preached unto 
 you, let him be anathema." I In a word, the Chris- 
 tian would at once give up his "Paley" and fall 
 back upon the position of the sceptic in the 
 "Essays on Religion"! He would insist, moreover, 
 on bringing the new miracle-accredited gospel to 
 the test of Holy Writ, and finding it inconsistent 
 with the gospel he had already received, he would 
 
 1 Gal. i. 8 (R.V.). 
 
36 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 reject it. That is to say, he would test the 
 message, not by the miracles, but by a preceding 
 revelation known to be Divine. 
 
 That Christ came to found a new religion, and 
 that Christianity was received in the world on the 
 authority of miracles these are theses which com- 
 mand almost universal acceptance in Christendom. 
 It may seem startling to maintain that both are 
 alike erroneous, and that the Christian position has 
 been seriously prejudiced by the error. And yet 
 this is the conclusion which the preceding argu- 
 ment suggests, and to which full and careful 
 inquiry will lead us. Is it not a fact that those in 
 whose midst the miracles of Christ were wrought 
 were the very people who crucified Him as a 
 profane impostor? Is it not a fact that when 
 challenged to work miracles in support of His 
 Messianic claims He peremptorily refused ? J 
 
 " However," says Bishop Butler, in summing up 
 his argument on this subject, " the fact is allowed 
 that Christianity was professed to be received into 
 the world upon the belief of miracles," and " that 
 is what the first converts would have alleged as 
 
 1 Matt. xii. 38, 39, xvi. 1-4. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 37 
 
 their reason for embracing it." Language cannot 
 be plainer. The " first converts," having witnessed 
 the miracles, reasoned out the matter, and con- 
 cluded that he who wrought them must be sent of 
 God ; and thus became converts. But where is ' 
 the authority for such a statement ? As a matter 
 of fact not one of the disciples is reported to have 
 attributed his faith to that ground. 1 The narra- 
 tive of the first Passover of the ministry, which 
 may seem at first sight to refute this, is in fact 
 the clearest proof of it. Here are the words : 
 " Many believed on His name, beholding His 
 signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust 
 Himself unto them, for that He knew all men." 2 
 That is to say, He refused to recognise any such 
 discipleship. 
 
 Then follows the story of Nicodemus, who was 
 one of the number of these miracle-made converts. 
 He had reasoned himself into discipleship, pre- 
 cisely as Butler supposes ; but, as Dean Alford 
 expresses it,3 he had to be taught that " it is not 
 
 1 If any should quote the case of Simon Magus as an excep- 
 tion, they are welcome to their argument ! 
 
 2 John ii. 23, 24 (R.V.). 3 Greek Test. Com., John iii. 
 
38 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 learning that is needed for the kingdom, but life, 
 and life must begin by birth." Such is throughout 
 the testimony of St. John. Entirely in harmony 
 with it is the testimony of St. Peter, who shared 
 with him the special privilege of witnessing that 
 greatest of the miracles, the Transfiguration on 
 the Holy Mount. " Being born again (he writes), 
 not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the 
 Word of God."* 
 
 Still more striking and significant is the case 
 of St. Paul. As great a reasoner as Butler, and 
 moreover a man of unswerving devotion to what 
 he deemed to be the truth, the completed testimony 
 of the ministry and miracles of Christ left him a 
 bitter opponent and persecutor of Christianity. " I 
 obtained mercy" is his own explanation of the 
 change which took place in him. And again, 
 "It pleased God, who . . . called me by His grace, 
 to reveal His Son in me." Some may call such 
 language mystical. To others, who are them- 
 selves what St. Paul till then had been, it may 
 
 1 i Pet. i. 23. Still more definite are the Lord's words addressed 
 to Peter in response to the confession of His Messiahship, " Blessed 
 art thou, Simon Bar- Jonah ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed 
 it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven" (Matt. xvi. 17). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 39 
 
 even seem offensive. But whatever its meaning, 
 and however regarded, certain it is that it implies 
 something wholly different from what Bishop 
 Butler's words would indicate. 1 
 
 But if the miracles were not intended to be a 
 ground of faith in Christ, why, it will be asked, 
 were they given at all? They had a twofold 
 character and purpose. Just as a good man who 
 is possessed of the means and the opportunity 
 to relieve suffering is impelled to action by his 
 very nature, so was it with our blessed Lord. 
 When " the Word was made flesh and tabernacled 
 among us," it was, if we may so speak with 
 reverence, a matter of course that sickness and 
 pain and even death should give way before Him. 
 He " went about doing good and healing all that 
 were oppressed of the devil because God was with 
 Him'' The sceptics talk as though our Lord 
 were represented as stopping in His teaching at 
 intervals in order to work some miracle to silence 
 unbelief. The idea is absolutely grotesque in its 
 
 1 St. Paul's testimony gains in emphasis because of the vision on 
 the Damascus road which, but for his explicit words, might lead us 
 to call him a miracle-made disciple. 
 
40 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 falseness. On the contrary we read such state- 
 ments as this, that " He did not many mighty 
 works because of their unbelief." I As a matter 
 of fact, while there is not recorded a single 
 instance in the whole course of His ministry 
 where faith appealed to Him in vain and this 
 it is which makes the inexorable reign of law 
 to-day so strange and overwhelming neither is 
 there recorded a solitary instance where the 
 challenge of unbelief was rewarded by a miracle. 
 Every challenge of the kind was met by referring 
 the caviller to the Scriptures. 
 
 And this suggests the second great purpose 
 for which the miracles were given. With the 
 Jew politics and religion were inseparable. Every 
 hope of spiritual blessing rested on the coming 
 of Messiah. With that advent was connected 
 every promise of national independence and 
 prosperity. The pious few who constituted the 
 little band of His true disciples thought first and 
 most of the spiritual aspect of His mission. The 
 multitude thought only of deliverance from the 
 Roman yoke, and the restoration of the bygone 
 
 1 Matt. xiii. 58. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 41 
 
 glories of their kingdom. In the case of all alike 
 His chief credentials were to be sought in the 
 Scriptures which foretold His coming, and to 
 these it was that His ultimate appeal was always 
 made. "Ye are searching the Scriptures," He 
 said to the Jews, " and these are they which bear 
 witness of Me, and ye will not come to Me." z 
 " If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither 
 will they be persuaded though one rose from the 
 dead." 2 
 
 In this respect the evidence of the miracles was 
 purely incidental. It is nowhere suggested that 
 they were given to accredit the teaching ; their 
 evidential purpose was solely and altogether to 
 accredit the Teacher. It was not merely that they 
 were miracles, but that they were such miracles 
 as the Jews were led by their Scriptures to 
 expect. Their significance depended on their 
 special character^ and their relation to a pre- 
 ceding revelation accepted as Divine by those for 
 whose benefit they were accomplished. 
 
 1 John v. 39, 40 (R.V.). 2 Luke xvi. 31. 
 
 3 Very strikingly is this exemplified in John the Baptist's case 
 (Matt. xi. 2-5 ; see also John v. 36). 
 
42 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 And this suggests, it may be remarked in pass- 
 ing, another flaw in the Christian argument from 
 miracles, as usually stated. What is supernatural 
 is not of necessity Divine. " Every one who works 
 miracles is sent of God : this man works miracles, 
 therefore He is sent of God." The logic of the 
 syllogism is perfect. But the Jew would rightly 
 repudiate the major premises, and of course reject 
 the conclusion. As a matter of fact he attributed 
 the miracles of Christ to Satan, and our Lord met 
 the taunt, not by denying Satanic power, but by 
 appealing to the nature and purpose of His acts. 
 As they were manifestly aimed against the arch- 
 enemy, they could not, he urged, be assigned to 
 his agency. 
 
 The subordination' of the testimony of miracles 
 to that of Scripture appears more plainly still 
 in the teaching after the resurrection. " Beginning 
 (we read) at Moses and all the prophets He ex- 
 pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things 
 concerning Himself." And again, "These are the 
 words which I spake unto you while I was yet 
 with you, that all things must be fulfilled which 
 were written in the law of Moses and in the pro- 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 43 
 
 phets and in the Psalms concerning Me." J Nor 
 was it otherwise when the apostles took up 
 the testimony. St. Peter's appeal, addressed to 
 the Jews of Jerusalem, was to "all the prophets, 
 from Samuel and those that follow after, as many 
 as have spoken." 2 Such also was St. Paul's 
 defence when arraigned before Agrippa : " I con- 
 tinue unto this day (he declared) witnessing both 
 to small and great, saying none other things than 
 those which the prophets and Moses did say should 
 come." 3 And when we turn to the dogmatic 
 teaching of the Epistles we have the same truth 
 still more explicitly enforced, that Christ " was a 
 minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, 
 to confirm the promises made unto the fathers, 
 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His 
 mercy, as it is written" 4 
 
 Page after page might thus be filled to prove 
 the falseness of the dictum here under discussion. 
 " A new religion ! " It would be nearer the truth 
 
 1 Luke xxiv. 27, 44. This threefold division of the Old Testa- 
 ment was the one commonly adopted by the Jew the law, the 
 prophets, and the " Hagiographa." The Psalms stood first in the 
 third division, and thus came to give its name to the whole- 
 
 2 Acts iii. 24. 3 Acts xxvi. 22. 4 Rom. xv. 8, 9. 
 
44 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 to declare that one great purpose of Messiah's 
 advent was to put an end to the reign of religion 
 altogether. Such a statement would be entirely 
 in keeping with the spirit of the only passage in 
 the New Testament where the word occurs in 
 relation to the Christian life. 1 Christ was Himself 
 the reality of every type, the substance of every 
 shadow, the fulfilment of every promise of the old 
 religion. Whether we speak of the altar or the 
 sacrifice, the priest or the temple in which He 
 ministered, Christ was the antitype of all. His 
 purpose was not to set these aside that He might 
 set up others in their place He came, not to 
 destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil 
 them. The very details of that elaborate ritual, 
 the very furniture of that gorgeous shrine which 
 was the scene and centre of the national worship, 
 all pointed to Him. The ark of the covenant, 
 the mercy-seat which covered it, the most holy 
 place itself, and the veil which shut it in all were 
 but types of Him. The several altars and the 
 many sacrifices bore witness to His infinite per- 
 fections and the varied aspects of His death as 
 
 1 James i. 27. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 45 
 
 bringing glory to God and full redemption to 
 mankind. In plain truth, the attempt to set up 
 a religion now, in the sense in which Judaism was 
 a religion, is to deny Christianity and to apostatise 
 from Christ. 1 
 
 In the light of this truth the force of the 
 sceptic's argument is wholly dissipated. When 
 the Nazarene appeared, the question with the 
 Jew was not whether, like another John the 
 Baptist, He was " a man sent of God," but whether 
 He was the Sent One, the Messiah to whom all 
 their religion pointed and all their Scriptures bore 
 testimony. " We have found the Messiah : " " We 
 have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and 
 the prophets, did write." 2 Such were the words 
 in which His disciples gave expression to their 
 faith, and by which they sought to draw others 
 to Him. The question, then, is not whether a 
 revelation can be accredited by external evidence, 
 but whether such evidence can avail to accredit 
 a person whose coming has been foretold. And 
 this no accurate thinker would for a moment 
 dispute. 
 
 1 As regards the use of the word " Religion," see Appendix, 
 Note II. 2 John i. 41, 45. 
 
46 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 In Dean Swift's fierce invective against the 
 Irish bishops of his day he suggested that they 
 were highwaymen who, having waylaid and robbed 
 the prelates appointed by the Crown, had entered 
 on their Sees in virtue of the stolen credentials. 
 The whole point of this satire lay in the theo- 
 retical possibility of the suggestion. Nothing is 
 more difficult in certain circumstances than to 
 accredit an envoy. But if he be expected, the 
 merest trifle may suffice. An agent is sent upon 
 some mission of secrecy and danger. A mes- 
 senger will follow later with new and full instruc- 
 tions for his guidance. The messenger is described 
 to him, but his sense of the peril of his position 
 makes him plead that he shall have adequate 
 credentials. In response to his appeal I pick up 
 a scrap of paper, tear it in two, and handing him 
 the half I tell him that the other moiety will be 
 presented by the envoy. No document, however 
 elaborate, would give surer proof of his identity 
 than would that torn piece of paper. 
 
 Thus we see in what sense, and how certainly 
 and simply, " external evidence " may avail " to 
 accredit a revelation." And the sceptic's objection 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 47 
 
 being set aside, he is again confronted with the 
 irrefutable force of Paley's argument upon the 
 main issue. 
 
 But another question claims notice here, ignored 
 alike by exponent and objector. They have dis- 
 cussed the problem from the purely human stand- 
 point, whereas the revelation offered for our 
 acceptance claims to be Divine. Man is but a 
 creature ; can God not speak to him in such wise 
 that His word shall carry with it its own sanction 
 and authority ? To assert that God cannot speak 
 thus to man is practically to deny that He is God. 
 To assert that He has never in fact spoken thus 
 involves a transparent petitio principii. It might 
 be urged that the authenticity of prophecy and 
 promise has been established by their fulfilment. 
 But certain it is that the prophets declare how 
 God did thus speak to them, the Scriptures 
 assume it, and the faith of the Christian endorses 
 it. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 T N the preceding chapter it has been shown 
 * that on this question of the evidential value 
 of miracles the infidel is right and the Christian 
 is wrong. It is not true that a revelation 
 can only be made by miracles. The error of 
 Paley's thesis can be demonstrated by argument. 
 It can be exemplified moreover by reference to 
 the case of the Baptist, who, though the bearer 
 of a Divine revelation of supreme importance, 
 had no miracles to appeal to in support of it. 1 
 
 It has been further argued that, so far as 
 their evidential force was concerned, the "Christian 
 miracles" were for that favoured people "of whom, 
 as concerning the flesh, Christ came." And if 
 
 1 John x. 41. 
 
 48 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 49 
 
 this be well founded we shall be prepared to 
 find that so long as the kingdom was being 
 preached to Jews, the miracle abounded, but that 
 when the gospel appealed to the heathen world, 
 miracles lost their prominence, and soon entirely 
 ceased. The question remains whether the sacred 
 record will confirm this supposition. 
 
 Who can fail to mark the contrast between 
 the earlier and the later chapters of the Acts 
 of the Apostles ? Measured by years the period 
 they embrace is comparatively brief; but morally 
 the latter portion of the narrative seems to 
 belong to a different age. And such is in fact 
 the case. A new dispensation has begun, and the 
 Book of the Acts covers historically the period 
 of the transition. " To the Jew first " is stamped 
 on every page of it. The Saviour's prayer upon 
 the Cross * had secured for the favoured nation a 
 respite from judgment. And the forgiveness asked 
 for carried with it a right to priority in the procla- 
 mation of the great amnesty. When " the apostle 
 of the circumcision," by express revelation, 
 brought the gospel to Gentiles they were rele- 
 
 1 Luke xxiii. 34. 
 
 5 
 
50 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 gated to a position akin to that formerly held 
 by the " proselytes of the gate." I And even 
 " the apostle of the Gentiles " addressed himself 
 first, in every place he visited, to the children of 
 his own people. And this not from prejudice, 
 but by Divine appointment. "// was necessary" 
 he declared at Pisidian Antioch, " that the word 
 of God should first be spoken to you." 2 Even 
 at Rome, deeply though he longed to visit the 
 Christians there, 3 his first care was to summon 
 " the chief of the Jews," and to them " he testified 
 the kingdom of God." And not until the testi- 
 mony had been rejected by the favoured people 
 did the word go forth, " The salvation of God is 
 sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it." 4 
 
 But, it will be objected, the Epistle to the 
 Romans had been already written. True ; but 
 this only makes the narrative of the Acts still 
 more significant. Those who profess to account 
 for the Bible on natural principles seem ignorant 
 of some of the main facts of the problem they 
 
 1 Acts x. This is made still more clear by chap. xv. 2. 
 
 8 Acts xiii. 46 (R.V.) ; cf. xvii. 2, 10, xviii. 1-4. 
 
 3 Rom. i. II. 4 Acts xxviii. 17, 23, 28. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 51 
 
 pretend to solve. They give no explanation of 
 the omissions of Scripture. Contrast, for example, 
 the first Gospel with the fourth. The writers of 
 both shared the same teaching and were in- 
 structed in the same truth. How is it, then, that 
 Matthew contains not a single sentence which is 
 foreign to the purpose for which it was written 
 as presenting Israel's Messiah, the " son of 
 David, the son of Abraham"? 1 How is it that 
 John, which presents Him as the Son of God, 
 omits even the record of his birth, and deals 
 throughout with truth for all scenes and all 
 time? And so with the Acts of the Apostles. 
 As St. Paul's companion and fellow-labourer, the 
 writer must have been familiar with the great 
 truths revealed to the Church in the earlier 
 Epistles, but not a trace of them appears in his 
 treatise. Written under the Divine guidance for 
 a definite purpose, nothing foreign to that pur- 
 pose finds a place. To the superficial it may 
 appear but a chance collection of incidents and 
 memoirs, and yet, as has been rightly .said, 
 
 1 The prophetic utterance of Matt. xvi. 18 will not be deemed an 
 exception to this. 
 
52 , THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 "there is not a book upon earth in which the 
 principle of intentional selection is more evident 
 to a careful observer." J 
 
 The special and distinctive position enjoyed 
 by the Jew was a main feature of the economy 
 then about to close. " There is no difference" 2 is 
 a canon of Christian doctrine. Men talk of the 
 Divine history of the human race, but there is no 
 such history. The Old Testament is the Divine 
 history of the family of Abraham. The call of 
 Abraham was chronologically the central point 
 between the creation of Adam and the Cross 
 of Christ, and yet the story of all the ages 
 from Adam to Abraham is dismissed in eleven 
 chapters. And if during the history of Israel 
 the light of revelation rested for a time upon 
 heathen nations, it was because the favoured 
 nation was temporarily in captivity. But God 
 took up the Hebrew race that they might be 
 a centre and channel of blessing to the world. 
 It was owing to their pride that they came to 
 regard themselves as the only objects of Divine 
 benevolence. 
 
 1 The Bampton Lectures, 1864. '-' Rom. iii. 22, 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 53 
 
 When some great French wine-grower appoints 
 an agent in this country, he no longer supplies 
 his wines except through that agent. His object, 
 however, is not to hinder but to facilitate the 
 sale, and to ensure that spurious wines shall not 
 be palmed off upon the public in his name. 
 Akin to this was the purpose with which Israel 
 was called out in blessing. The knowledge of 
 the true God was thus to be maintained on 
 earth. I But the Jews perverted agency into a 
 monopoly of Divine favour. That temple which 
 was to have been a "house of prayer for all 
 nations" 2 they treated as though it were not 
 God's house, but their own, and ended by de- 
 grading it till it became at last " a den of thieves." 
 But the position thus Divinely accorded them 
 implied a priority in blessing. And this principle 
 pervades not only the Old Testament Scriptures 
 but the Gospels. To us indeed it is natural to 
 read the Gospels in the light of the Epistles, 
 and thus " to read into them " the wider truths 
 
 1 Such was the spirit of their inspired Scriptures. See, e.g., 
 2 Chron. vi. 32, 33 ; Psa. Ixvii. 1-3, &c. 
 
 2 Markxi. 17 (R.V.). 
 
54 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 of Christianity. But if the canon of Scripture 
 ended with the Gospels this would be impos- 
 sible. 1 
 
 Suppose again the Epistles were there, but the 
 Acts of the Apostles left out, how startling 
 would appear the heading " To the Romans," 
 which would confront us on turning from the 
 study of the Evangelists ! How could we account 
 for the transition thus involved ? How could we 
 explain the great thesis of the Epistle, that there 
 is no difference between Jew and Gentile, both 
 being by nature on a common level of sin and 
 ruin, both being called in grace to equal privi- 
 
 1 "If," says the author of "Supernatural Religion," "Chris- 
 tianity consist of the doctrines preached in the Fourth Gospel, it is 
 not too much to say that the Synoptics do not teach Christianity at 
 all. The extraordinary phenomenon is presented of three Gospels, 
 each professing to be complete in itself, and to convey the good 
 tidings of salvation to man, which have actually omitted the 
 doctrines which are the conditions of that salvation." This is a 
 fair specimen of the sort of statement which, owing to prevailing 
 ignorance of Holy Scripture, suffices to undermine the faith even of 
 cultured people in our day. The Gospels were not written " to 
 teach Christianity," but to reveal Christ in the different aspects of 
 His person and work as Israel's Messiah, Jehovah's servant, Son of 
 Man and Son of God. No one of them is " complete in itself" ; 
 and the Fourth alone expressly professes to teach the way of 
 salvation (John xx. 31). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 55 
 
 leges and glory? The earlier Scriptures will be 
 searched in vain for teaching such as this. Not 
 the Old Testament merely but even the Gospels 
 themselves are seemingly separated from the 
 Epistles by a gulf. To bridge over that gulf is 
 the Divine purpose for which the Acts of the 
 Apostles has been given to the Church. The 
 earlier portion of the book is the completion of 
 and sequel to the Gospels ; its concluding narrative 
 is introductory to the great revelation of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 But was not the death of Stephen, recorded in 
 the seventh chapter, the crisis of the Pentecostal 
 testimony ? Undoubtedly it was ; and thereupon 
 "the apostle to the Gentiles" received his com- 
 mission. But it was a crisis akin to that which 
 marked the ministry of our blessed Lord Himself 
 when the Council at Jerusalem decreed his de- 
 struction. I From that time He enjoined silence 
 respecting His miracles, 2 and His teaching became 
 veiled in parables. 3 But though His ministry 
 entered upon this altered phase, it continued until 
 
 1 Matt. xii. 14. 2 Ibid. xii. 15, 16. 
 
 3 Ibid. xiii. 
 
$6 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 His death. So was it in the record of the Acts. 
 Progress in revelation, like growth in nature, is 
 gradual, and sometimes can be appreciated only 
 by its developments. The apostle to the circum- 
 cision gives place to the apostle to the Gentiles 
 as the central figure in the narrative, but yet in 
 every place the Jew is still accorded a priority 
 in the offer of blessing, and it is not until, in 
 every place from Jerusalem round to Rome, that 
 blessing has been despised, that the Pentecostal 
 dispensation is brought to a close by the pro- 
 mulgation of the solemn decree, "The salvation 
 of God is sent unto the Gentiles." * 
 
 The hopes excited in the breasts of the dis- 
 ciples by their Lord's last words of cheer and 
 promise were more than realised. Converts 
 flocked to them by thousands, and " signs and 
 wonders were wrought among the people." And, 
 as already noticed, not only was Divine power in 
 exercise to accredit their testimony, but also to 
 deliver them from outrage, and rescue them from 
 bonds and imprisonment. Nor was St. Paul 
 behind the rest in these respects. But compare 
 
 1 See Appendix, Note III. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 57 
 
 the record of Pentecostal days with the narrative 
 of his imprisonment in Rome, and mark the 
 change ! When dragged to gaol at Philippi as 
 a common disturber of the peace, Heaven came 
 down to earth in answer to his midnight prayer, 
 the prison doors flew open, his gaoler became a 
 disciple, and the magistrates who had committed 
 him, besought him, with obsequious words, to 
 comply with commands they no longer dared to 
 enforce. But now he is "the prisoner of the 
 Lord." His bonds are known everywhere to be 
 for Christ. 1 In other words, there is no side 
 issue, no incidental charge, as at Philippi, to 
 conceal the true character of the accusation 
 against him. It is a public fact that it is only 
 because he is a teacher of Christianity that he 
 is held in bonds. If the received theory respect- 
 ing miracles be well founded, this is the scene 
 and here is the occasion for " signs and wonders 
 and mighty deeds," such as he had appealed to 
 in his earlier career. 2 But Heaven is silent. 
 There is no earthquake now to awe his per- 
 secutors. No angel messenger strikes off his 
 
 1 Phil. i. 13. 2 2 Cor. xii. 12. 
 
58 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 chains. He stands alone, forsaken of men, even 
 as his Master was, and seemingly forsaken of 
 God. 1 How natural the sceptic's taunt that 
 miracles were cheap with the peasants of Galilee 
 and the rabble of Jerusalem ! A miracle at 
 Nero's Court might indeed have "accredited 
 Christianity." In truth, it might have shaken 
 the world. But miracle there was none ; for, 
 the special testimony to the Jew having ceased, 
 the purpose for which miracles were given was 
 accomplished. 
 
 Like a day that breaks with unclouded splen- 
 dour, and approaches noontide in all the glory 
 of perfect summer, but then begins to wane, 
 and early closes in amidst the gloom of gather- 
 ing storm-clouds that shut out the sky and 
 darken all the scene, so was it with the course 
 of that brief story. At the first great Pentecost 
 three thousand converts were baptized in a single 
 day, the manifested power of God filled every 
 soul with awe, and those who were His own had 
 " gladness of heart " and " favour with all the 
 
 1 2 Tim. iv. 1 6. This passage disposes of the tradition that 
 St. Peter was Bishop of Rome. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 59 
 
 people." And when the first threat of persecution 
 drove them together in prayer, "the place was 
 shaken where they were assembled . . . and with 
 great power gave the apostles witness of the resur- 
 rection of the Lord Jesus." T The seeming check 
 of the first martyr's death was followed by the 
 conversion of him who caused it, the fierce perse- 
 cutor and blasphemer, won over to the faith he 
 had struggled to destroy, and chained to the 
 chariot-wheels of the triumph of the gospel. But 
 now we see that same Paul, albeit the greatest of 
 the apostles and the foremost champion the faith 
 has ever known, standing alone at Cesar's judg- 
 ment-seat, a weak, crushed man, given up to death 
 to satisfy the policy or caprice of Imperial Rome. 
 In days to come " the song of Moses and the 
 song of the Lamb " shall mingle once again in the 
 anthem of the redeemed : the song of Moses 
 
 I will sing unto the Lord for He hath triumphed gloriously, 
 The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea " 
 
 that song of the public triumph of Divine power 
 openly displayed ; and the song of the Lamb 
 
 1 Acts iv. 23-33. 
 
60 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 the song of that deeper but hidden triumph of 
 faith in the unseen. But now the song of Moses 
 has ceased, and the Church's only song is the 
 song of Him who overcame and won the throne 
 through open defeat and shame. The days of the 
 " rushing mighty wind," " the tongues of fire," the 
 earthquake shock, are past. The anchor of the 
 Christian's hope is firmly fixed in the veiled 
 realities of heaven. He endures " as seeing Him 
 who is invisible." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 '"T^HE Sovereign of the Universe is on the 
 whole a good Sovereign, but with so much 
 business on His hands that He has not time to 
 look into details. 1 Such was Cicero's apology two 
 thousand years ago for Jupiter's neglect of his 
 terrestrial kingdom. And the words would fairly 
 express the vague thoughts which float through 
 the minds of common men if they think of God 
 at all in relation to the affairs of earth. But there 
 are times in every life when, in the language of 
 the old Psalm, "heart and flesh cry out for the 
 living God." 2 The living God : not a mere Provi- 
 dence, but a real Person a God to help us as our 
 fellow-man would help if only he had the power. 
 
 1 Froude's " Cesar, a Sketch" p. 87. 2 Psa. Ixxxiv. 2. 
 
 61 
 
62 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 And at such times men pray who never prayed 
 before ; and men who are used to pray, pray with 
 a passionate earnestness they never knew before. 
 But what comes of it ? " When I cry and call for 
 help He shutteth out my prayer " : I such is the 
 experience of thousands. Men do not speak of 
 these things ; but, as they brood over them, the 
 cold mist of a settled unbelief quenches the last 
 spark of faith in hearts chilled by a sense of utter 
 desolation, or roused to rebellion by a sense of 
 wrong. 
 
 To some no doubt all this will savour of the 
 mingled profanity and ignorance of unbelief. But 
 by many these pages will be welcomed as giving 
 full and fair expression to familiar thoughts. And 
 the statement of these difficulties here is made 
 with a view to their solution. But where is that 
 solution to be found ? It is no novel experience 
 with men that Heaven should be silent. But what 
 is new and strange and startling is that the silence 
 should be so absolute and so prolonged ; that, 
 through all the changing vicissitudes of the 
 Church's history for nearly two thousand years 
 
 1 Lam. iii. 8 (R.V.). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 63 
 
 that silence should have remained unbroken. This 
 it is which tries faith, and hardens unfaith into open 
 infidelity. 
 
 Can this mystery be solved ? Mere speculations 
 respecting it are profitless. The solution must be 
 found in Holy Scripture, if at all. The Old 
 Testament, of course, will throw no light on it. 
 Neither will the Gospels afford a clew ; for these 
 are the record of " days of heaven upon earth." 
 Nor yet need it be sought in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, for, as already seen, the Book is the 
 record of a transitory dispensation marked by 
 abundant displays of the power of God among 
 men. Is it not clear that if the key to the great 
 secret of the Gentile dispensation can be found 
 at all, it is in the writings of the apostle to 
 the Gentiles that we must make search for it? 
 
 But here the ways divide. The wide and well- 
 worn highway of religious controversy will never 
 lead us to the truth we seek. That is reached only 
 by a path which the general reader will refuse. 
 Our choice lies between a study of these Epistles 
 viewed as disclosing the " Pauline " developments, 
 or perversions, of the teaching of the great Rabbi 
 
64 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 of Nazareth, or as containing that further revelation 
 promised and foreshadowed by our Divine Lord 
 in the later discourses of His ministry on earth. 
 The one road is deemed the highway of modern 
 enlightenment, the other is disparaged as a by- 
 path now disused, or frequented only by the 
 mystic and the unlearned. But in this sphere 
 popularity is no test of truth. Let the atheistic 
 evolutionist account for it if he can, the fact re- 
 mains that man is essentially a religious being. 
 He may sink so low as to deify humanity and 
 make self his god, but a god of some sort he must 
 have. 1 Religion is a necessity to him. The Chris- 
 tian religion prevails in Christendom ; other systems 
 hold sway among the decaying civilisations of the 
 world ; but neither the deepest degradation nor 
 the highest enlightenment has ever produced a 
 single nation or tribe of atheists. 
 
 This undoubted fact, however, may well give rise 
 to most serious thoughts. It cannot be admitted 
 
 i " We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his 
 constitution a religious animal ; that atheism is against, not only 
 our reason but our instincts ; and that it cannot prevail long " 
 (Edmund Burke). " Street arabs and advanced thinkers," is Mr. 
 Balfour's classification of the exceptions to this rule (" Defence of 
 Philosophic Doubt "). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 65 
 
 that the element of truth is of no account in 
 religion, or that all these religions are equally 
 acceptable. And once we come to the question of 
 their relative excellence the religion of Christen- 
 dom defies all comparison. May we, then, main- 
 tain that all adherents of the Christian religion are 
 assured of Divine favour? Let us for a moment, 
 forgetting what is due to " the spirit of the age," 
 assume the Divine authority of Scripture, and we 
 shall find ourselves confronted by doubts whether 
 religion in this sense is of any avail whatever. 
 Judaism was, indeed, a Divine religion. It had 
 " ordinances of Divine service and its sanctuary," z 
 Divinely appointed in a sense to which no other 
 system could pretend. And yet we read : " He is 
 not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that 
 circumcision which is outward in the flesh ; but he 
 is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is 
 that of the heart." 2 And again, " For neither is 
 circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a 
 new creature." 3 Now, if in a religion which 
 seemed to consist so much in externals, the ex- 
 ternals were absolutely of no value whatever save 
 
 1 Heb. ix. i (R.V.). ~ Rom. ii. 28. 3 Gal. vi. 15. 
 
 6 
 
f 66 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 as they had their counterpart and reality in a man's 
 heart and life, this surely must be still more true 
 of Christianity. May we not assert with confi- 
 dence that he is not a Christian who is one out- 
 wardly, but he only is a Christian who is one 
 inwardly ? May we not maintain that there is 
 a distinction sharp and clear between Christianity 
 and the religion of Christendom. 
 
 In the case of the Roman and Greek Churches, 
 this distinction becomes a deep and yawning gulf. 
 And further, as Mr. Froude has well said, in those 
 countries which rejected the Reformation, " culture 
 and intelligence have ceased to interest themselves 
 in a creed which they no longer believe. The laity 
 are contemptuously indifferent, and leave the priests 
 in possession of the field in which reasonable 
 men have ceased to expect any good thing to 
 grow. This is the only fruit of the Catholic 
 reaction of the sixteenth century." And he adds : 
 " If the same phenomena are beginning to be 
 visible in England, coincident with the repudia- 
 tion by some of the clergy of the principles of 
 the Reformation ; and if they are permitted to 
 carry through their Catholic * revival,' the divorce 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 67 
 
 between intelligence and Christianity will be as 
 complete among ourselves as it is elsewhere." 
 
 "Between intelligence and Christianity" a divorce 
 is impossible. But by " Christianity " the author 
 here means " the religion of Christendom " ; and 
 with this correction his assertion is irrefutable. | 
 Mr. Balfour's " Foundations of Belief" escapes the 
 difficulty here suggested by stopping short at the 
 very threshold. His work is " introductory to the 
 study of theology." And here his criticisms are 
 searching, and his logic is without a flaw. But 
 one step more would have brought him to the 
 point where the ways divide. What is the 
 theology he is aiming at? Is it the religion of 
 Christendom a human religion based on a 
 Divine ideal, framed to reach and regulate men's 
 opinions and conduct so far as the spiritual side 
 of their complex being is concerned ? Or is it 
 Christianity a Divine revelation commanding the 
 faith and thus moulding the character and con- 
 trolling the whole life of those who receive it ? 
 
 In the estimation of some the great religion of 
 Asia compares favourably with that of Christen- 
 dom, on account of its freedom from priestcraft and 
 
68 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 ceremonial observances, its repudiation of penance 
 and everything of mere asceticism, and the 
 singular truth and beauty of its doctrine of " the 
 middle path." But the comparison is altogether 
 dishonest. It is drawn between the ideal 
 Buddhism of our English admirers of Gautama, 
 and the Christian system in its more corrupt 
 developments. The practical Buddhism of Bud- 
 dhist races is a gross and degrading superstition, 
 and it cannot compare with the Christian religion 
 even at its worst. And even the refined Bud- 
 dhism presented by its Western exponents is 
 wanting in that ennobling element which is dis- 
 tinctive of Christianity. " The wholly legendary 
 and half mythical story of Gautama's life are a 
 poor equivalent for the well-ascertained facts of 
 the ministry of Christ. 1 Here let a witness speak 
 whose judgment is warped by no religious bias. 
 
 1 For a calm, scholarly, and crushing refutation of those who, 
 like de Bunsen, Seydel, c., represent Buddhism as the original of 
 Christianity, and of those who, like Sir Edwin Arnold, read Chris- 
 tianity into Buddhism, see Prof. Kellogg's " Light of Asia and 
 Light of the World " (Macmillan). 
 
 The Buddhism of Gautama, I may add, has no claim to be 
 reckoned a religion, for it has no God. It was not a religion at all, 
 but merely a philosophy. But his followers, in obedience to the 
 instinctive craving of human nature for a religion, made Gautama 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 69 
 
 "It was reserved for Christianity," says Mr. Lecky, 
 " to present to the world an ideal character which, 
 through all the changes of eighteen centuries has 
 filled the hearts of men with an impassioned love, 
 has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, 
 nations, temperaments, and conditions ; has not 
 only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the 
 highest incentive to its practice, and has exerted 
 so deep an influence that it may be truly said that 
 the simple record of three short years of active life 
 has done more to regenerate and soften mankind 
 than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all 
 the exhortations of moralists. This has, indeed, 
 been the well-spring oi whatever has been best 
 and purest in the Christian life. ^Amid all the 
 sins and failings, amid all the priestcraft, the per- 
 secutions, and fanaticism which have defaced the 
 Church, it has preserved in the character and 
 example of its Founder an enduring principle of 
 regeneration." 
 
 If the Christian religion, even in its outward and 
 
 himself their God. And the Buddhism of later times has invariably 
 assimilated some of the elements of the base polytheisms by which 
 it has been surrounded. 
 
70 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 human side, can justly claim such a testimony as 
 this, what words are adequate to describe CHRIS- 
 TIANITY in the higher and deeper sense? And 
 let no one carp at this distinction as fanciful or 
 forced. In fact, it is broad and vital. Just as the 
 religion of Asia is based on the life and teaching 
 of Gautama, so the religion of Christendom, re- 
 garded as a human system, claims to be based 
 on the life and teaching of the great Rabbi of 
 Nazareth. But the advent and ministry of Christ 
 were, in fact, introductory to the great revelation of 
 Christianity. Thus was crowned and completed, 
 as it were, the fabric which had been rearing for 
 ages. In the public aspect of it His mission had 
 relation to the economy about to close. He was 
 " born under the law." * He " was a minister of 
 the circumcision for the truth of God." Hence His 
 words, " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the 
 house of Israel." And as the result, infinite love, 
 and grace which knows no distinctions, were re- 
 strained. " I have a baptism to be baptized with," 
 He exclaimed, " and how am I straitened till it be 
 accomplished ! " 
 
 1 Gal. iv. 4. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JUST half a century ago the theologians of 
 Christendom were startled by the publica- 
 tion of Ferdinand Christian Baur's treatise on 
 Paul. It was an epoch-making book. The 
 author's critical researches had led him to assert 
 the unquestionable authenticity of the Epistles to 
 the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. 
 And fastening on these writings as our safest 
 guides in historical inquiries respecting the cha- 
 racter and rise of primitive Christianity, he went 
 on to demonstrate its Pauline origin. " These 
 authentic documents," he urged (to quote a recent 
 writer), "reveal antitheses of thought, a Petrine 
 and a Pauline party in the Apostolic Church. 
 The Petrine was the primitive Christian, made 
 
72 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 up of men who, while believing in Jesus as the 
 Messiah, did not cease to be Jews, whose 
 Christianity was but a narrow neo-Judaism. The 
 Pauline was a reformed and Gentile Christianity, 
 which aimed at universalising the faith in Jesus 
 by freeing it from the Jewish law and traditions. 
 The universalism of Christianity, and, therefore, 
 its historical importance and achievements, are 
 thus really the work of the Apostle Paul. His 
 work he accomplished not with the approval and 
 consent, but against the will and in spite of the 
 efforts and oppositions, of the older apostles, and 
 especially of their more inveterate adherents who 
 claimed to be the party of Christ." J 
 
 If we are to understand the sequel to the present 
 argument we must rescue from its false environ- 
 ment of German rationalism the important truth 
 which Baur thus brought to light and distorted. 2 
 We must needs recognise the intensely Jewish 
 character of the Pentecostal dispensation. And in 
 
 1 "The Place of Christ in Modern Theology," by Principal 
 Fairbairn, D.D., p. 267. 
 
 q 2 A dozen years before Baur's "Paul" appeared, the truth 
 thus attributed to him was discussed at the then celebrated 
 ' ' Powerscourt meetings " in Ireland ! 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 73 
 
 this connection we must also apprehend the two- 
 fold aspect of the death of Christ. The Cross 
 was the manifestation of Divine love without 
 reserve or limit ; but it was also the expression 
 of man's unutterable malignity. Did reverence 
 permit us to give play to imagination on such 
 a subject, we might suppose the death of Christ 
 accomplished by the Roman power in spite of 
 protests and appeals from an aggrieved and down- 
 trodden Jewish people. More than this, we might 
 suppose " the King of the Jews " given up to 
 death on grounds of public policy, yet treated 
 to the last with all the respect and homage due 
 to His personal character and royal claims. 
 
 And who will dare to aver that the atoning 
 efficacy of the death of our Divine Lord, how- 
 ever accomplished, could be less than infinite? 
 But mark the emphasis which Scripture lays 
 upon the manner of His death. It was " the death 
 of the Cross'' No element of contempt or hate 
 was wanting. Imperial Rome decreed it, but it 
 was the favoured people who demanded it. The 
 " wicked hands " by which they murdered their 
 Messiah were those of their heathen masters, but 
 
74 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 the responsibility for the act was all their own. 
 Nor was it the ignorant rabble of Jerusalem that 
 forced the Roman government to set up the cross 
 on Calvary. Behind the mob was the great 
 Council of the nation. Neither was it a sudden 
 burst of passion that led these men to clamour for 
 His death. Hostile sects forgot their differences 
 in deep-laid plots to compass His destruction. 
 The time, moreover, was the Paschal feast, when 
 Jews from every land were gathered in Jerusalem. 
 Every interest, every class, every section of that 
 . people shared in the great crime. Never was 
 there a clearer case of national guilt. Never was 
 there an act for which a nation could more 
 justly be summoned to account. 
 
 But Infinite mercy could forgive even that 
 transcendent sin, and in Jerusalem itself it was 
 that the great amnesty was first proclaimed. 
 Pardon and peace were preached, by Divine 
 command, to the very men who crucified the 
 Son of God ! But here prevailing misconceptions 
 are so fixed that the whole significance of the 
 narrative is lost. The apostles were Divinely 
 guided to declare that if, even then, the " men 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 75 
 
 of Israel " repented, their Messiah would return 
 to fulfil to them all that their own prophets had 
 foretold and promised of spiritual and national 
 blessing. 1 
 
 To represent this as Christian doctrine, or the 
 institution of " a new religion," is to betray 
 ignorance alike of Judaism and of Christianity. 
 The speakers were Jews the apostles of One 
 who was Himself "a minister of the circum- 
 cision." Their hearers were Jews, and as Jews 
 they were addressed. The Pentecostal Church 
 which was based upon the testimony was in- 
 tensely and altogether Jewish. It was not merely 
 that the converts were Jews, and none but Jews, 
 
 1 Though the revisers have reproduced St. Peter's words in 
 one important passage which the Authorised Version has misread, 
 yet to take these simple words in their plain and obvious meaning 
 is to risk being looked upon as either fool or faddist. The words 
 are: "Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins 
 may be blotted out, that there may come seasons of refreshing 
 from the presence of the Lord ; and that He may send the 
 Christ who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus ; whom the 
 heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, 
 whereof God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets. ... Ye 
 are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God 
 made with your fathers" (Acts iii. 19, &c.). The whole passage 
 should be carefully studied, and by all means see Alford's notes, 
 showing how fully and definitely all this refers to Jewish hopes 
 and promises. 
 
76 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 but that the idea of evangelising Gentiles never 
 was even mooted. When the first great perse- 
 cution scattered the disciples, and they " went 
 everywhere preaching the Word," they preached, 
 we are expressly told, " to none but to the Jews." * 
 And when after the lapse of years Peter entered 
 a Gentile house, he was publicly called to account 
 for conduct that seemed so strange and wrong. 2 
 
 In a word, if "To the Jew first" is character- 
 istic of the Acts of the Apostles as a whole, " To 
 the Jew only " is plainly stamped upon every 
 part of these early chapters, described by theo- 
 logians as the " Hebraic section " of the . book. 
 The fact is clear as light. And if any are 
 prepared to account for it by Jewish prejudice 
 and ignorance, they may at once throw down 
 this volume, for it is here assumed that the 
 
 1 Acts viii. i, 4 ; cj. xi. '19. It is noteworthy that at this time all 
 the believers went out preaching except the apostles. And yet 
 there are those who maintain that preaching is an exclusively 
 apostolic function ! 
 
 2 Acts xi. The words "they that were of the circumcision" 
 might seem to suggest that there were Gentiles at that time in the 
 Church. But, as Dean Alford says, Luke uses the phrase from 
 the standpoint of the time when he was writing : " In this case 
 all those spoken of would belong to the circumcision." 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 77 
 
 apostles of the Lord, speaking and acting in the 
 memorable days of Pentecostal power, were 
 Divinely guided in their work and testimony. 
 
 The Jerusalem Church, then, was Jewish. 
 Their Bible was the Jewish Scriptures. The 
 Jewish temple was their house of prayer and 
 common meeting-place. 1 Their beliefs and hopes 
 and words and acts all marked them out as Jews. 
 Hence the amazing number of the converts. On 
 the day of Pentecost alone three thousand were 
 baptized. 2 Soon afterwards their company would 
 seem to have more than trebled.3 At the time 
 of the sin and death of Ananias and Sapphira, 
 still further " multitudes, both of men and 
 women," were added to their company. And 
 at the time of the appointment of the men 
 who, by a strange vagary of tradition, have been 
 misnamed " the deacons," 4 it is recorded that 
 
 1 Acts ii. 46, iii. I, v. 42. 2 Ibid. ii. 41. 
 
 3 Ibid. iv. 4. If " the number of the men came to be about 
 five thousand," it is reasonably certain that the whole company 
 was double this number at least. 
 
 4 They are never so called in the Acts. Indeed, our English 
 word " deacon " has no equivalent in ancient or in Biblical Greek, 
 and if the Revisers had been true to their avowed principles of 
 translation the word would have disappeared. AiaKofog is used -\j j 
 
78 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 " the number of the disciples multiplied in 
 Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the 
 priests were obedient to the faith." I Nothing 
 was further from the thoughts of these men 
 than " founding a new religion." On the con- 
 trary, while hailing the rejected Nazarene as 
 their national Messiah, they clung with passionate 
 devotion to the religion of their fathers. 
 
 But what bearing has all this upon the ques- 
 tion here ? The Jews had crucified the Messiah. 
 But now, when vengeance swift and terrible 
 might have been expected to fall upon that 
 
 guilty people, Divine mercy held back the 
 q 
 
 judgment and called them once , again to re- 
 pentance. The testimony was full and clear, 
 and it was confirmed by a signal display of 
 miraculous power. But what was the answer 
 of the men who sat " in Moses' seat " the 
 accredited leaders and representatives of the 
 
 twenty-two times in the Epistles, and should be rendered 
 "minister" in every case, and especially in Phil. i. I, and 
 I Tim. iii. 8 and 12, where ministers are distinguished from 
 bishops. In the Gospels it occurs eight times, and always as 
 equivalent to "servant" in the common acceptation, save in 
 John xii. 26, where it is used in a higher sense. 
 1 Acts vi. 7. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 79 
 
 nation ? I By the murder of Stephen they re- p 
 enacted, so far as it was in their power to re-enact, 
 the supreme tragedy of Calvary. Having regard 
 to all the events which marked the interval, that 
 further crime betokened a more deliberate hate, 
 and therefore a greater depth of guilt even than 
 the Crucifixion itself. There was no popular 
 clamour now to blind their judgment. When, 
 some months before, in a formal meeting of 
 their national senate, 2 the plot to murder the 
 apostles was first mooted,3 it was one of the 
 great doctors of the Sanhedrin who intervened 
 on their behalf. Gamaliel's words, moreover, and 
 the action which the council took on them, give 
 proof how entirely the position and teaching of 
 the apostles were within the scope of Jewish 
 beliefs and hopes, and how thoroughly they were 
 regarded as a Jewish sect.4 But these men 
 
 1 Matt, xxiii. 2. 2 Acts v. 21, 33-40. 
 
 3 I use the word murder advisedly, for under the Roman law 
 the Jews had no power to put any one to death. The crucifixion 
 was a judicial murder ; the stoning of Stephen was murder pure , 
 and simple. See John xviii. 31. 
 
 4 Acts v. 34-40 ; cf. xxii. 3. A quarter of a century later 
 they were still known as "the sect of the Nazarenes " (Acts 
 xxiv. 5). See p. 85 post. 
 
8o THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 were so blinded by religious rancour that no 
 voice, human or Divine, could avail to restrain 
 them. 
 
 Heaven's best gifts, when perverted or abused, 
 often turn to what is virulently bad ; and reli- 
 gion, when divorced from spiritual life, appears 
 to have some mysterious power to narrow and 
 harden and deprave the human heart. " It 
 cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jeru- 
 salem ! " J The pathos of the words does not 
 conceal their scathing irony. Among common 
 men, however evil or degraded, a prophet might 
 pass unharmed : religious men alone would 
 persecute and murder him ! In every age, 
 indeed, religion has been the most implacable 
 enemy of God, the most relentless persecutor of 
 His people. Witness the tombs of the prophets ! 
 Witness the blood-stained pages of the Church's 
 history ! The Christian martyrs in unnumbered 
 millions for though their names are written in 
 heaven, earth has kept no record of them the 
 best and purest and noblest of mankind, have 
 been tortured and done to death in the name 
 
 1 Luke xiii. 33. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 81 
 
 of religion* How just is the infidel's taunt that 
 it radically vitiates the standard of human 
 morals ! 2 
 
 The men by whose hands the " first martyr " 
 died were the very men who had been " the 
 betrayers and murderers" of Christ. In times 
 of riot or excitement mobs will commit excesses 
 which, in his better moments, every man of them 
 would deprecate. But these men were not of 
 the class that mobs are made of. The high 
 priest presided. Around him were the elders 
 and the scribes. By the great Council of the 
 nation it was that the deed was done. Its 
 members were the acknowledged religious leaders 
 of the people. Many of them, like Saul of 
 Tarsus, himself the formal witness of the death, 
 were men of blameless life, of untiring zeal and 
 intensest piety. And as the cruel stones were 
 
 1 The victims of the so-called Christian persecutions have been 
 wildly estimated at over fifty millions ! Of the victims of pagan 
 Rome I have never seen any estimate. And pagan persecutions 
 also were in the name of religion ! From the death of Abel in 
 primeval times down to the massacres of Armenian Christians 
 to-day, religion has heaped up the tale of human guilt and 
 sorrow. 
 
 2 Mill's " Autobiography," p. 40. 
 
 7 
 
82 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 showered upon that face which had shone like 
 an angel's as they looked on it, it was hatred 
 to the Nazarene that fired their hearts. Their 
 King they had driven out : Stephen was the 
 messenger sent after Him to declare anew their 
 deliberate purpose to reject Him. 1 This was 
 their answer to the heaven-sent testimony of 
 c Pentecost. " All manner of sin " against the 
 Son might be forgiven ; they had now com- 
 mitted that deeper sin against the Holy Ghost, 
 for which there could be no forgiveness. 2 
 
 During the forty years of Jeremiah's ministry 
 the first destruction of Jerusalem was delayed. 
 So now well-nigh forty years elapsed before the 
 crash of that still more awful judgment which 
 engulfed them. God is very pitiful, and then, 
 as now, " He had compassion on His people 
 and on His dwelling-place. But they mocked 
 the messengers of God, and despised His words, 
 and misused His prophets, until the wrath of 
 the Lord arose against His people till there was 
 no remedy." 3 But though the public event 
 
 1 Luke xix. 14. 2 Matt. xii. 31, 32. 
 
 3 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, &c. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 83 
 
 which marked their fall was thus deferred, the 
 death of Stephen was the secret crisis of their 
 destiny. Never again was a public miracle 
 witnessed in Jerusalem. The special Pentecostal 
 proclamation * was withdrawn. The Pentecostal 
 Church was scattered. The apostle of the 
 Gentiles forthwith received his commission, and 
 the current of events set steadily, and with con- 
 tinually increasing force, toward the open rejection 
 of the long-favoured people and the public pro- 
 clamation of the great characteristic truth of 
 Christianity. Within that truth lies concealed 
 the key to the mystery of a silent Heaven. 
 
 1 Acts iii. 19-36. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 \7i TE have now reached a stage in this 
 * * inquiry where a retrospect may be 
 opportune. Expression has been given to diffi- 
 culties and doubts to which no thoughtful person 
 is a stranger. And these, it has been seen, are 
 rather intensified, than answered or removed, by 
 an appeal to the mere surface current of 
 Scripture testimony. The "Christian argument" 
 from miracles has been shown to be not only in- 
 adequate, but faulty. And we have turned to 
 the Acts of the Apostles to find how fallacious 
 is the popular belief that the Jerusalem Church 
 was Christian. In fact, it was thoroughly and 
 altogether Jewish. The only difference, indeed, 
 between the position of the disciples during the 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 85 
 
 " Hebraic period " of the Acts, and during the 
 period of the Lord's earthly ministry, was that 
 the great fact of the Resurrection became the 
 burden of their testimony. And finally we have 
 seen how the rejection of that testimony by the 
 favoured nation led to the unfolding of the 
 Divine purpose to deprive the Jew of his 
 vantage-ground of privilege and to usher in the 
 Christian dispensation. 
 
 The Divine religion of Judaism in every part of 
 it, both in the spirit and the letter, pointed to the 
 coming of a promised Messiah ; and to maintain 
 that a man ceased to be a Jew because he 
 cherished that hope, and accepted the Messiah 
 when He came this is a position absolutely 
 grotesque in its absurdity. It would not be one 
 whit more monstrous to declare that in our own 
 day a man ceases to be a Christian if and when 
 faith in Christ, from being a mere shibboleth of 
 hfe creed, becomes a reality in his heart and life. 
 
 Twenty years after the Pentecostal Church was 
 formed, the disciples were still regarded by their 
 own nation as a Jewish sect. " The sect of the 
 Nazarenes," Tertullus called them in his arraign- 
 
86 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 ment of Paul before Felix ; and Paul, in his 
 defence, repudiated the charge, claiming that the 
 followers of the Way were the true worshippers of 
 the ancestral God of his nation. 1 Israel fell, not 
 because the disciples, alive to the spiritual 
 significance of their religion, accepted Christ, but 
 because the nation rejected Him, and persisted in 
 that rejection, " despising His words and misusing 
 His prophets, till there was no remedy." 
 
 It would be an idle and profitless speculation 
 to discuss what would have been the course of 
 the dispensation if the Pentecostal testimony 
 had led the Jews to repentance. What concerns 
 us is the fact that Israel's fall was due to the 
 national rejection of Messiah, and that that fall 
 was " the reconciling of the world " 2 a radical 
 change in God's attitude toward men, such as 
 the Old Testament Scriptures gave no indica- 
 
 1 Acts xxiv. 5, 14. "After the Way, which they call a sect, so 
 serve I the God of our fathers" (see also xxviii. 22), and he goes on 
 to appeal to the law and the prophets. "The Way" came to be 
 the common expression for their teaching (see, e.g., Acts xix. 9, 
 23, xxii. 4, xxiv. 14, 22 R.V.). And speaking before a heathen 
 judge he purposely uses, not the Jewish expression, u QWQ TMV 
 Trarspwv i'ip.wv, but the term familiar to the heathen, 6 
 Qtoc, the ancestral or tutelary God. 
 
 2 Rom. xi. 15. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 87 
 
 tion of, and even the Gospels foreshadowed but 
 vaguely. We thus steer our course unswayed 
 by the ignorance of the Christian sceptic and 
 the animus of the avowed unbeliever. The one, 
 disparaging the Epistles, turns back to the Sermon 
 on the Mount to seek there an ideal Christianity : 
 the other has no difficulty in showing that the 
 teaching of Christ, when so perverted, is the 
 dream of a visionary. The Sermon on the 
 Mount combines principles of limitless scope with 
 precepts designed for the time at which they were 
 spoken, and the spiritually intelligent cannot fail 
 to discriminate between the two. It was for such 
 the Bible was written, and neither for infidels nor 
 fools.' 
 
 We conclude, then, as we study the records of 
 the Pentecostal Jewish Church, that the charac- 
 teristic truths of Christianity have yet to be 
 revealed. Turning back to the earlier Scriptures 
 with the knowledge we now possess, we may find 
 them there in embryo, but the full and formal 
 promulgation of them must be sought in the 
 Epistles. But here the parting of the ways will 
 
 1 See Appendix, Note IV. 
 
88 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 become still more definitely marked. In passing 
 away from the ministry of " the apostle to the 
 circumcision," we leave behind us, of course, the 
 religion of Christendom for is not St. Peter its 
 patron saint ? Mere Protestantism, moreover, has 
 but little sympathy with studies of this kind. 
 And as for that school of religious thought which 
 seems for the moment to stand highest in the 
 popular favour, we break with it entirely on 
 entering upon the inquiry which lies before us. 
 None such will accompany the truth-seeker as he 
 passes on his lonely way. 
 
 But while other schools will be simply indifferent 
 to this inquiry, open hostility will be the attitude 
 of those who claim to be the party of progress and 
 enlightenment. It may be well, therefore, to turn 
 aside once again to examine their pretensions. 
 No generous mind would willingly insult a man's 
 religion, whether he be Christian or Jew, 
 Mahometan or Buddhist. But when " religious " 
 men pose as sceptics and critics, they come out 
 into the open, and forfeit all "right of sanctuary.' 
 Courtesy is due to the religious man who stands 
 behind the labarum of his creed. Courtesy is no 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 89 
 
 less due to the agnostic who refuses faith in all that 
 lies outside the sphere of sense or demonstration. 
 But what shall be said for those who discard 
 belief in the supernatural while they claim to be 
 the true exponents of a system which has the 
 supernatural as its only basis ; or who deprecate 
 belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, while 
 they profess to hold and teach that to which, 
 apart from inspiration in the strictest sense, none 
 but the credulous would listen ? 
 
 These men pretend to mental superiority ; but 
 we only need to tear away the lion's skin they 
 masquerade in to find exactly what we might 
 expect ! Here is a dilemma from which there is 
 no escape. If the New Testament be Divinely 
 inspired, we accept its teaching ; we believe that 
 Jesus was the Son of God, that He was born of a 
 virgin, that He died and rose again, that He 
 ascended to heaven, and now sits as man at the 
 right hand of God ; in a word, we are Christians, 
 and to take any other position is to stultify our- 
 selves by dethroning reason itself. If, on the 
 other hand, the New Testament be not inspired, 
 no consensus of mere human opinion or testimony, 
 
90 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 however ancient or venerable or widespread, would 
 warrant our accepting figments so essentially 
 incredible ; in a word, we are agnostics : and to 
 take any other position is to pose as superstitious 
 fools who would believe anything. 
 
 The Christian and the infidel cannot both be 
 right, yet both are entitled to respect, for the one 
 position is logically as unassailable as the other. 
 But what shall be said for the unbelieving 
 Christian, or the Christianised infidel? If he be 
 dishonest he is almost bad enough for a gaol ; if 
 he be honest he is almost weak enough for an 
 asylum. The weak deserve our pity ; the wicked 
 our contempt. And their claim to be freethinkers, 
 their affectation of intellectual superiority, give 
 proof that with the majority the more generous 
 alternative is the true one. The old Jewish 
 proverb about straining out a gnat and swallowing 
 a camel well describes their attempt to combine 
 the most fastidious scepticism with the blindest 
 faith. These modern Sadducees talk " as though 
 wisdom were born with them " ; whereas, in fact, 
 , like their prototypes of old, they are the stupid 
 advocates of an impossible compromise. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 91 
 
 Let there be no misunderstanding here. It is 
 not a question of demanding faith on grounds 
 which are either false or inadequate. It is not a 
 question of trading on the superstitious element 
 in human nature, lest common men, in throwing 
 off the restraints of religion, should allow liberty 
 to degenerate into licence. This appeal is 
 addressed to the fair-minded, the intelligent, the 
 thoughtful. If we possess a revelation, and if the 
 doctrines of Christianity are Divinely accredited 
 as true, reason commands our acceptance of them, 
 and unbelief is an outrage upon reason itself. If, 
 on the other hand, we have no revelation ; or, 
 what comes to the same thing, if the Divine 
 element in Scripture is merely traditional, and 
 must be separated from abounding error picked 
 out like treasure from a dust-heap then we must 
 either give up our Protestantism and fall back on 
 the authority of the Church, or else we must 
 needs face the matter fairly, and accept and act 
 upon the dictum that " the rational attitude of 
 the thinking mind towards the supernatural is that 
 of scepticism." The superstitious will take refuge 
 in the former alternative ; the latter will commend 
 
92 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 itself to all free and fearless thinkers. The 
 former, indeed, is not only intellectually deplor- 
 able, but logically absurd. We are called upon 
 to believe the Scriptures because the Church 
 accredits them. The Bible is not infallible, but 
 the Church is infallible, and upon the authority 
 of the Church our faith can find a sure foundation. 1 
 But how do we know that the Church is to be 
 trusted ? The ready answer is, We know it upon 
 the authority of the Bible. That is to say, we 
 trust the Bible on the authority of the Church, 
 and we trust the Church on the authority of the 
 , Bible ! It is a bad case of " the confidence 
 trick." 
 
 But, it will be said, is it not to the Church that 
 we owe the Bible ? 2 Regarded as a book we owe 
 it indeed in a sense to the Church, just as we 
 owe it to the printer. But in a sense which 
 appeals to us more closely here in England we 
 owe it to noble men who rescued it for us in 
 defiance of the Church. Let not the Protestants 
 of England forget William Tyndale. His life- 
 
 1 This is the position assumed by " Lux Mundi." See specially 
 pp. 340-341- 
 
 2 The Old Testament we owe, of course, entirely to the Jews. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 93 
 
 work was to bring the Bible within reach even 
 of the humblest peasant. And for no other 
 offence than this the Church hounded him to his 
 death, never resting till it strangled him at the 
 stake and flung his body to the flames. 
 
 But the Bible is more than a book it is a 
 revelation ; and thus regarded, it is above the 
 Church. We do not judge the Bible by the 
 Church ; we judge the Church and its teaching 
 by the Bible. 1 This is our safeguard against the 
 ignorance and tyranny of priestcraft. But in our 
 day those who deprecate most strongly the tyranny 
 of the priest are precisely those who champion 
 
 1 The Church of England teaches unequivocally that there is 
 neither salvation nor infallibility in the Church, and that the 
 Church's authority in matters of faith is controlled and limited by 
 Holy Writ (see Articles xviii.-xxi.). And this is Protestantism ; not p 
 a repudiation of authority in the spiritual sphere, but a revolt 
 against the bondage of mere human authority falsely claiming to be 
 Divine. It delivers us from the authority of " the Church," that 
 we may be free to bow to the authority of God. " The Church " 
 claims to mediate between God and man. But Christianity teaches 
 that all pretensions of the kind are both false and profane, and 
 points to our Divine Lord as the only Mediator. Protestantism is ^ 
 not our religion, but it leaves us with a free conscience and an open 
 Bible, face to face with God. It is not an anchorage for faith ; but 
 it is like the breakwater which renders our anchorage secure. It 
 shields us from influences which make Christianity impossible. 
 
94 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 most loudly the tyranny of the professor and the 
 pundit. The occupant of a University chair cannot 
 fail to be eminent in the branch of knowledge in 
 which, he excels, and his value as a specialist is 
 unquestionable. But he may be so utterly un- 
 spiritual, and withal so deficient in judgment and 
 common sense, that his opinion may be worth less 
 than that of an intelligent peasant or a Christian 
 schoolboy. The fabric of the Bible, he tells us, 
 is wholly unreliable, but some of its most un- 
 believable mysteries are truths Divinely revealed. 
 But what claim has he to be listened to in such 
 a case? The setting of the trinket is worthless, 
 and most of its seeming gems are spurious, but 
 here and there he indicates a diamond or a pearl. 
 But the profoundest knowledge of mathematics 
 or Oriental dialects does not qualify a man to 
 judge of pearls and diamonds. Still less does it 
 fit him to recognise spiritual truths. 1 
 
 If the Bible has really been discredited by 
 modern research, let us have the honesty to own 
 
 1 These men declare that to them our faith in Holy Writ seems 
 foolishness. But Holy Writ warns us that ' ' the natural man 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolish- 
 ness unto him" (i Cor. ii. 14). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 95 
 
 the fact and the manliness to face its consequences. 
 But if the Bible has not been thus discredited, if 
 the results of modern research have been entirely 
 in its favour, 1 then let us show a bolder front in 
 our stand for faith. And let faith and unbelief 
 measure their distance once again. 
 
 The Bible was written for honest hearts. It 
 is addressed, moreover, to spiritual men. And 
 what is the practical test of spirituality? "If any 
 man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, 
 let him acknowledge that the things which I write 
 unto you are the commandments of the Lord " : 2 
 these words betoken, not the insolence of a priest, 
 but the authority of an inspired apostle. It is 
 as believers then, and in the spirit of faith, that 
 we turn to the Epistles. 
 
 1 To record the points on which the Bible was formerly attacked, 
 marking off those which modern research has disposed of this is a 
 task which awaits a competent pen. And when the book is written 
 it will astonish both friends and foes. 
 
 2 i Cor. xiv. 37. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 " T N Christ's grand and simple creed, expressed 
 ^ in His plainest words, eternal life was the 
 assured inheritance of those who loved God with 
 all their hearts, who loved their neighbours as 
 themselves, and who walked purely, humbly, and 
 beneficently while on earth. In the Christian 
 sects and churches of to-day, in their recognised 
 formularies and elaborate creeds, all this is repudi- 
 ated as infantine and obsolete ; the official means 
 and purchase-money of salvation are altogether 
 changed ; eternal life is reserved for those, and for 
 those only, who accept, or profess, a string of 
 metaphysical propositions conceived in a scholastic 
 brain and put into scholastic phraseology " J 
 
 To any one who aims at having clear thoughts 
 and well-based beliefs nothing is more helpful than 
 
 1 W. R. Greg's " Creed of Christendom." 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 97 
 
 adverse criticism. Hence the value of the words 
 here quoted. They may be taken, moreover, as 
 expressing the opinions of a large and important 
 class by whom the writer, though no longer with 
 us, may still be claimed as a champion and repre- 
 sentative. 
 
 A preliminary question which presents itself is, 
 Where are we to find this "grand and simple 
 creed" thus commended to our acceptance? If, 
 as the agnostic tells us, the Gospels are mere 
 human records, what can be sillier than to appeal 
 to them for the teaching of Christ ! It was a 
 conceit of ancient writers to put long speeches 
 into the mouths of their heroes, and the discourses 
 attributed, to the Nazarene fall at once into the 
 category of romance. But we are told that while 
 the evangelists are not to be trusted when they 
 record plain events of which they were eye- 
 witnesses, like the miracles of Christ, they are 
 to be believed implicitly when they profess to 
 record verbatim His prolonged discourses ! If the 
 Gospels be Divinely inspired, agnosticism is sheer 
 folly : if they be not inspired, our faith is sheer 
 superstition. 
 
9 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 The next thought which these words suggest 
 is that if eternal life be indeed reserved for those 
 whose character and conduct are marked by 
 absolute perfection, the whole human race is 
 doomed. Perfect love to God and man is a 
 standard which excludes even the saintliest of 
 saints, and common men may at once dismiss all 
 hope of reaching it. And yet the author is right. 
 It is thus and only thus that eternal life can be 
 inherited by any child of Adam. What concerns 
 us, then, is to inquire whether possibly some other 
 road to blessing may be open to us. Agnosticism 
 is Greek for ignorance ; may we not hope that 
 this particular agnostic is true to his name, and 
 that Divine love goes far beyond what he seems 
 ever to have realised or heard of? 
 
 The statements here challenged are important 
 as showing how seriously the great truth of the 
 Reformation is prejudiced by the very prominence 
 assigned to it in our Protestant system of theology. 
 That it should loom great in our estimation is but 
 natural, having regard to the fierceness of the 
 struggle to which we owe its recovery. And yet 
 the dogma that justification is by faith is but a 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 99 
 
 secondary truth, and ancillary to another of wider 
 range and more transcendent moment. " For this 
 cause it is on the principle of faith, that it may be 
 according to Grace." z GRACE is the characteristic 
 truth of Christianity. According to the great 
 doctrinal treatise of the New Testament, we are 
 "justified by grace," "justified by faith," "justified 
 by blood " that is, by the death of Christ in its 
 application to us, for such is the meaning of the 
 sacrificial figure of which the word " blood " is 
 the expression in the New Testament. Grace is 
 the principle on which God justifies a sinner ; 
 faith is the principle on which the benefit is 
 received ; and the death of Christ is the ground 
 on which alone all this is possible we are 
 " justified freely by His grace through the re- 
 demption that is in Christ Jesus." 2 
 
 And they who are thus justified can urge no 
 claim to the benefit on the ground either of 
 merit or of promise. For if we could earn a title 
 to it, there were no need of redemption ; and if 
 
 1 Aia TOVTO tic 7r(0Tw<; <Va Kara X"i lJ/ (Rom. iv. 1 6). Theology 
 has no better definition of grace than that given by Aristotle (Rhet. 
 ii. 7). 
 
 2 Rom. iii. 24. 
 
TOO THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 God had pledged Himself by covenant to grant 
 it, there were no room for grace. Grace is 
 sovereign, but it is free. 
 
 There are two alternative principles on which 
 alone justification is now theoretically possible. 
 The one is by man's deserving it ; the other is 
 through God's unmerited favour. Let a man, 
 from the cradle to the grave, be everything he 
 ought to be, and do everything he ought to do ; 
 let him, as our author puts it, love God with all 
 his heart, and his neighbour as himself ; walking 
 " purely, humbly, and beneficently while on earth," 
 and such an one will " inherit eternal life." But 
 all such pretensions betoken moral and spiritual 
 ignorance and degradation. All men are sinners ; 
 and being sinners they are absolutely dependent 
 upon grace. 
 
 Mr. Greg's words are based on the incident in 
 our Lord's ministry which called forth the parable 
 of " The Good Samaritan." " A certain lawyer," 
 desirous of testing the Saviour's doctrine, put to 
 Him the question, " Master, what shall I do to 
 inherit eternal life ? " He had heard no doubt 
 that the great Rabbi was heretical, disparaging 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 101 
 
 the law of Moses, and pointing the common folk 
 to an easy bypath to life. How great then must 
 have been his surprise when he got answer, 
 " What is written in the law ? How readest thou ? " 
 In response he repeated the well-known words, 
 so familiar to every Jew, enjoining love to God 
 and man. And surprise must have grown into 
 astonishment when the Saviour added, " Thou 
 hast answered right ; this do and thou shalt 
 live." The strictest legalist in the Sanhedrin 
 could find no flaw in teaching such as that ! 
 But the question was, how a man could inherit life, 
 and to such a question, one and only one answer 
 was possible. To hide his confusion the lawyer at 
 once proposed a further question, " And who is my 
 neighbour ? " thus seeking to escape upon a side 
 issue, as is the way with lawyers of every age. 
 And this drew from the Lord that exquisite story 
 which has taken such hold upon the minds of men. 
 The Greek word for " neighbour " is the one near, 
 and the lawyer's inquiry implied that he was not 
 bound to love every one with whom he came in 
 contact. The high-caste Jew, if such a phrase may 
 be allowed, would rather die than owe his rescue 
 
102 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 to a Samaritan, so the Lord brings a Samaritan 
 into the parable, contrasts his conduct with that of 
 the Levite and the priest, and asks which of the 
 three acted as neighbour to the poor wretch whom 
 the robbers had left half dead upon the roadside. 
 
 Such was the surface teaching of the parable, but 
 in common with every other parable, it had a 
 hidden and spiritual meaning. He had answered 
 the inquiry how a perfect being could inherit life : 
 He now unfolds how a ruined sinner can be saved. 
 The traveller upon the road from the city of blessing 
 to the city of the curse is robbed of his all, and 
 left wounded almost to death, and helpless. A 
 priest and a Levite pass by. Why a priest and 
 a Levite ? Because He would thus impersonate the 
 law and, in a word, religion. These could help a 
 man who w r as able to help himself, but for the 
 helpless sinner they can do nothing. " But a 
 certain Samaritan came where he was." Why a 
 Samaritan ? Because He would teach that the 
 Saviour is One whom, but for his ruin and misery, 
 the sinner would despise and repel. " And " let 
 us mark the words " when he saw him he had 
 compassion on him, and went to him, and bound 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 103 
 
 up his wounds, and set him on his own beast, and 
 brought him to an inn, and took care of him ; " 
 and at the inn he paid the reckoning, and made 
 provision for his future. 
 
 In every detail the story has its counterpart in 
 spiritual truth. It tells of a Saviour who saves ; 
 who comes to a sinner where he is and as he is ; 
 who binds up wounds that are deeper and more 
 terrible than any brigand's knife can inflict ; who 
 brings him out of the place of danger to a place of 
 security and peace, and provides for all his future 
 needs. And all this without bargain or condition, 
 and unconstrained by any motive save His own 
 infinite compassion. 
 
 How one longs that honest-minded men like 
 the author of "The Creed of Christendom" could 
 be brought at least to hear these truths and to 
 know that this is the gospel of Christianity! 
 Their writings give proof that here in Christian 
 England there are persons of enlightenment and 
 culture whose most legitimate revolt against 
 priestcraft and everything of mere religion has 
 thrown them back into pagan darkness. But in 
 the midst of this darkness light is shining. The 
 
104 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 agnostic's version of "Christ's grand and simple 
 creed " would make Pharisees of some men and 
 heaven is absolutely closed to such while it 
 would relegate mankind in general to the position 
 of hopeless and desperate outlawry. But Holy 
 Scripture testifies that " Christ died for the 
 ungodly" and that the man who believes in Him 
 is justified. 
 
 And believing in Him has nothing in common 
 with "accepting a string of metaphysical pro- 
 positions." It means bowing to the Divine 
 judgment upon sin, and accepting Christ as 
 Saviour and Lord. Distrust was the turning- 
 point in the creature's fall, for the overt act 
 of sin was but the fruit of unbelief. How 
 natural, then, that trust should be the turning- 
 point in his recovery ! There was a time in 
 England when the wearing of a certain flower 
 was the recognised avowal of loyalty or treason. 
 And this was a mere outward act which might be 
 insincere, whereas a man's beliefs are part and 
 parcel of himself. The tragedy of Calvary has 
 come to be regarded as a mere incident in 
 history, natural in the circumstances, and fitted to 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 105 
 
 emphasise and enhance the dignity of man. God 
 points to it as the world's " crisis," an event of such 
 stupendous moment that, in view of it, indifference 
 is impossible. He who died there does not seek . 
 either our pity or our patronage: He claims our 
 faith. It is a question of personal loyalty to 
 Himself. 
 
 But this chapter is a digression. Let us turn to 
 the teaching of the Epistle to the Romans. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 T^OSTSCRIPTS are proverbially important, 
 and apostolic postscripts are no exception 
 to the rule. But the final postscript to St. Paul's 
 Epistle to the Romans has been treated with 
 strange neglect by theologians. Witness the 
 extraordinary carelessness with which it has 
 been translated even by the Revisers of 1881 ! 
 With his own hand it was, no doubt, that, after 
 his secretary, Tertius, had laid down the pen, the 
 apostle added the pregnant words which end the 
 Epistle: "Now to Him that is able to stablish 
 you according to my gospel even the preaching 
 of Jesus Christ according to [the] revelation of a 
 mystery which hath been kept in silence through 
 
 times eternal, but now is manifested and by 
 
 106 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 107 
 
 prophetic scriptures according to the command- 
 ment of the Eternal God is made known unto all 
 the nations unto obedience of faith to the only 
 wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory for 
 ever." z 
 
 " MY Gospel." The words, three times repeated 
 by St. Paul, 2 are no mere conventional expression. 
 They are explained in several of his Epistles,3 and 
 with peculiar definiteness in his letter to the Gala- 
 tians. He there declares in explicit and emphatic 
 terms that the gospel which he preached among the 
 Gentiles was the subject of a special revelation 
 peculiar to himself. Not only was he not taught 
 it by those who were apostles before him, but he it 
 was who, by Divine command, communicated it to 
 " the twelve" ; and this was not until his second visit 
 
 1 Our English versions have distorted the passage, first by a punc- 
 tuation (I have followed Dean Alford's), which makes the mystery a 
 characteristic of the power to stablish us, whereas it characterises 
 the preaching by which we are stablished ; and secondly, by their 
 rendering of the words cW< re ypatytiv irpofyriTiKMv (cf. Matt, 
 xxvi. 56, "the scriptures of the prophets"). It claims notice also 
 that both " revelation " and " mystery " are anarthrous ; but while the 
 English idiom seems to require the article before the former word, 
 its insertion before "mystery" is not only unnecessary, but mis- 
 leading. 
 
 2 Rom. ii. 1 6, xvi. 25 ; 2 Tim. ii. 8. 
 
 3 See, e.g., Eph. iii.; Col. i. 25, 26. 
 
io8 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 to Jerusalem, seventeen years after his conversion. 1 
 It is certain, therefore, that his testimony was essen- 
 tially distinct in character and scope from anything 
 we shall find in the ministry of the other apostles, 
 as recorded in the Acts. And this, he declares, 
 they themselves acknowledged. "They saw," he 
 says, "that the gospel of the uncircumcision was 
 committed unto me, as the gospel of the circum- 
 cision was unto Peter." 2 The latter was a promise 
 according to the Scriptures of the prophets : the 
 former, a proclamation according to the revealing 
 of a mystery kept secret from eternity, but now 
 manifested in this Christian dispensation, and by 
 prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations. 
 What, then, were those writings? What the 
 mystery which was thus revealed ? 
 
 The rendering of the passage in our English 
 versions is a compromise between translation and 
 exegesis ; and that the exposition thus suggested 
 is erroneous is clear from the fact that it makes 
 the apostle's statement inconsistent to the verge of 
 absurdity. If it be by the writings of the Hebrew 
 prophets that the gospel is made known to all the 
 
 1 Gal. i. n-ii. 12. 2 Ibid. ii. 7. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 109 
 
 nations, it certainly was not a mystery kept secret 
 through all .the ages ! The words " by prophetic 
 writings" refer, of course, io the Scriptures of the 
 New Testament; and as the gospel thus made 
 known was entrusted, not even to the other 
 apostles, but only to " the apostle of the Gentiles," 
 it is again, of course, to the Epistles of Paul that 
 we must 'turn to seek for it. Do these Epistles, 
 then, contain any great characteristic truth or truths 
 which cannot be found in the earlier Scriptures ? 
 
 Our English word " mystery " means something 
 which is either incomprehensible or unknown ; but 
 this is not the significance of the Greek musterion* 
 In its primary meaning in classical and Biblical 
 Greek it is simply a secret ; and a secret when once 
 disclosed may be understood by any one. A patent 
 lock is a " mystery." It is as easily opened as any 
 other, provided we have the proper key, but without 
 the key it cannot be opened at all. The mysteries 
 of the New Testament are Divine truths which till 
 then had been "kept in silence"; truths which had 
 not been revealed in the earlier Scriptures, and 
 which, until revealed, could not be known. Once. 
 1 See Appendix, Note V. 
 
no THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 and once only, the word was used by the Lord 
 Himself, as recorded in the three first Gospels, and 
 it occurs four times in the Apocalypse. But with 
 these exceptions it is found only in St. Paul's 
 Epistles, where it occurs no fewer than twenty 
 times. 
 
 In some of these passages the word is used in a 
 secondary sense. In others, definite secrets are 
 revealed. And notably we find the following : 
 
 The mystery of Lawlessness, culminating in the 
 revelation of the Lawless One. 1 
 
 The mystery that at the coming of the Lord some 
 of His people will pass to heaven, as Elijah did, 
 "with death untasted and the grave unknown." 2 
 
 The mystery that in the present dispensation 
 believers are united to Christ in a special relation- 
 ship as members of a body of which He Himself is 
 the head.s 
 
 Here, then, we have specific "mysteries" respect- 
 ing which the earlier Scriptures are silent; and it 
 may be added that, though now revealed, they are 
 
 1 2 Thess. ii. 7, 8. Within the Church, of course. Lawlessness 
 in the world is as old as sin. 
 
 2 i Cor. xv. 51. 3 Eph. iii.4,6, v. 30, 32 ; I Cor. xii. 12, 13, &c. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD in 
 
 still unknown to the majority of Christians. But 
 these are truths essentially for the believer, whereas 
 the " mystery " of the apostle's postscript is em- 
 phatically a truth for ALL a truth to be "made 
 known to all the nations for the obedience of 
 faith." 
 
 The apostle's statement, however, assumes that 
 his words would be understood by those to whom 
 they were addressed. Therefore, as he had never 
 personally visited Rome, we may confidently turn 
 to the Epistle itself to find within it the truth 
 referred to. 
 
 First, then, it is a mystery truth a truth which 
 till then had been "kept in silence." Secondly, it is 
 a truth of universal scope and application. And 
 thirdly, it is a truth to be found in the Epistle to 
 the Romans. With these clews to guide us there 
 can be no difficulty in fixing upon the truth which 
 is here in question ; for one, and only one, will 
 satisfy these requirements. 
 
 In common with some other great truths of the 
 Christian faith Reconciliation has received but scant 
 notice from theologians. Many a page might be 
 filled with quotations from standard books which 
 
112 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 either misrepresent or deny it. But all attempts to 
 oust it from our creeds rest, as Archbishop Trench 
 declares, "on a foregone determination to get rid 
 of the reality of God's anger against sin." 1 Sin not 
 merely alienated man from God, it alienated God 
 from man. A just and holy God could not but 
 regard him as an enemy. But " while we were 
 enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of 
 His Son." And " through our Lord Jesus Christ " 
 they who believe " have now received the recon- 
 ciliation." 2 "All things are of God who reconciled 
 us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us the 
 ministry of the reconciliation, to wit, that God was 
 in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not 
 reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having 
 committed unto us the word of the reconciliation. 
 We are ambassadors, therefore, on behalf of Christ," 
 the apostle adds, " as though God were entreating 
 by us, we beseech men on behalf of Christ, ' be ye 
 reconciled to God '" 3 an appeal to the sinner, not, 
 
 1 " Synonyms," Part II. p. 123. 2 Rom. v. 10, n. 
 
 3 2 Cor. v. 18-20. This passage is inseparably associated in my 
 mind with an incident once narrated to me by the late Sir Robert 
 Lush. When Serjeant Wilkins returned to the Law Courts after an 
 illness which practically ended his career, Mr. Lush (as he then was 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 113 
 
 as too commonly represented, to forgive his God, 
 but to come within the unsought benefit which 
 God in His infinite grace has accomplished. For 
 (the apostle further adds) "Him who knew no sin 
 He made to be sin on our behalf, that we might 
 become the righteousness of God in Him." I 
 
 Words could not be simpler, and yet, as already 
 noticed, the truth so plainly taught is in many 
 quarters perverted or denied. Just as in our day 
 there are doctrinaire philanthropists who talk of 
 crime as though it were nothing but a natural eccen- 
 tricity of weak natures, so there are theologians who 
 delight in such representations of sin that if provi- 
 sion had not been made for it in the Divine economy 
 the omission would be entirely to the discredit of 
 
 saw him sitting with his face in his hands, and he noticed that tears 
 were falling from between his fingers. The Serjeant was not of his 
 acquaintance, but when he saw him 'hurriedly leave the court, he 
 followed him, and delicately referring to what he had seen, he asked 
 if he was in any trouble in which he could be of service to him. The 
 Serjeant gratefully acknowledged his kindness, but explained his 
 seeming distress by the fact that the words above quoted, which he 
 had been reading that morning, had come back to his mind as he sat 
 in court, and he could not restrain his emotion. The incident will be 
 appreciated by those who know the sort of man he was. Suffice it 
 to say it had not been his habit to read the Bible. But how many 
 such there 'are who turn to it in times of sickness or trouble ! 
 1 Cor. v. 18-21. 
 
 9 
 
ii4 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 the Deity. Others, again, so fritter away the great 
 truths of Divine love to the world and the recon- 
 ciliation of the world to God through Christ, that 
 the sovereignty of God degenerates into mere 
 favouritism, and the death of Christ is no more 
 than a means by which the favoured few can attain 
 the blessing. 
 
 This great truth of Reconciliation will be sought 
 in vain in the Old Testament Scriptures. The 
 revelation of it, indeed, was impossible so long as 
 the Jew held the position which he forfeited by 
 rejecting the Messiah. Reading the Gospel of 
 John in the light of the Epistles we can discern it 
 in the teaching of our Lord ; but without that 
 light no one would dare to formulate it. To the 
 Jew, indeed, the doctrine must have been astound- 
 ing, and even among Christians it is received with 
 hesitation and reserve. But the difficulties which 
 beset the exposition of the fifth chapter of Romans 
 relate only to the argument. The doctrine it teaches 
 is unequivocally clear. " As through one trespass 
 [the result was] unto all men to condemnation ; 
 even so through one act of righteousness [the result 
 was] unto all men to justification of life." If words 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 115 
 
 have any meaning this declares that the death of 
 Christ had effects as widespread and universal as the 
 sin of Adam. If that sin " brought death into the 
 world, and all our woe," so the great dikaioma 
 brought justification of life to all men in so far as 
 the Eden trespass brought condemnation to them. 
 But the work of Christ goes infinitely further 
 than this. The Eden trespass ushered in the reign 
 of sin. " Sin reigned unto death." " The wages of 
 sin is death," and sin claimed the very throne of 
 God as an agency for enforcing its just demands. 
 But Calvary has dethroned sin, and grace now 
 reigns supreme. And this not at the expense of 
 righteousness, but through righteousness. And as 
 sin reigned unto death, so grace now reigns unto 
 eternal life. Or, getting behind the magnificent 
 imagery of the Epistle, we grasp the amazing truth 
 that the Divine attitude toward men is one of uni- 
 versal beneficence. It is not that the Gentile has 
 attained to the special position of privilege from 
 which the Jew has fallen, for apart from "the 
 household of faith " there is no favoured people 
 now. " There is no distinction between Jew and 
 Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is 
 
ii6 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 rich unto all that call upon Him ; for whosoever 
 shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
 saved." J Eternal life is thus brought within reach 
 of every human being to whom this testimony 
 comes. 2 How, then, is it possible that so few 
 receive the benefit ? The answer to this question 
 claims a chapter to itself. 
 
 1 Rom. x. 12 (R.V.). 
 
 2 Such a statement will be resented by that school of religious 
 thought which boasts as its founder one of the greatest of the 
 Church's teachers. But let us appeal from the disciples to their 
 master. Here is Calvin's commentary upon the verse above quoted 
 (Rom. v. 1 8). " He makes this favour common to all because it is 
 propounded to all, and not because it is in reality extended to 
 all ; for though Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and 
 is offered through God's benignity indiscriminately to all, yet all 
 do not receive Him." 
 
 And the following extract from his commentary on the third 
 chapter of the Gospel of St. John is no less apposite. Referring 
 to the sixteenth verse he says : " Christ employed the universal term 
 whosoever both to invite indiscriminately all to partake of life, and 
 to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is the import of the 
 term world. Though there is nothing in the world that is worthy of 
 God's favour, yet He shows Himself to be reconciled to the whole 
 world when He invites all men without exception to the faith of 
 Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life." 
 
 And if any one ask, How, then, is Judgment possible ? the answer 
 is that Judgment is based upon this very truth. See c. xii. post. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 F^HE devil of Christendom is a myth. Just as 
 human fancy, working on a basis of fact and 
 truth, has impersonated an object for its worship, 
 so by a like process it has created a scapegoat to 
 account for the crimes and vices of humanity. A 
 mythical Jesus is the Buddha of Christendom ; a 
 mythical Satan is its bogey. In the one case as 
 in the other a gulf separates the myth from the 
 reality. 
 
 The Satan of Christian mythology is a monster 
 of wickedness, the instigator to every crime of 
 exceptional brutality or loathsome lust. The Satan 
 of Scripture is the awful being who dared to offer 
 his patronage to our Divine Lord. When a man is 
 
 led into evil courses " he is drawn away by his own 
 
 117 
 
u8 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 lust." x The human heart, our Lord Himself de- 
 clares, is the vile spring from which immoralities 
 and crimes proceed. 2 Using the word " immoral " 
 in its narrow, popular sense, there is no basis for 
 the belief that Satan ever provokes to an immoral 
 act. Indeed, if we leave out of account his incite- 
 ments aimed against Christ personally, the solitary 
 instance of Ananias and Sapphira alone affords a 
 pretext for asserting that he ever tempted any 
 one to do anything which human judgment would 
 condemn. 3 
 
 This statement may seem startling, but it is true, 
 and its truth can be established. Of the unseen 
 world we know absolutely nothing beyond what 
 Scripture reveals : to the Scriptures, therefore, we 
 must turn. And here the Old Testament is 
 eloquent by reason of its silence. If the popular 
 belief were well founded, is it possible that from 
 Genesis to Malachi not a word could be found in 
 support of it? In three passages only is Satan 
 mentioned. The first describes the fall of man, and 
 there the entire aim of the tempter was to alienate 
 
 1 James i. 14 ~ Mark vii. 21. 
 
 3 See Appendix, Note VI. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 119 
 
 the creature from God. In the role of philan- 
 thropist he appeared to our first parents, and sowed 
 in their hearts the seeds of distrust. 1 The next 
 passage describes his assaults on Job, and here 
 again his only aim was to lead the patriarch 
 to doubt the Divine goodness. 2 And the third 
 narrates that mysterious incident in which he 
 sought to hinder the high priest Joshua in the 
 discharge of his sacred office. 3 
 
 When we turn to the New Testament we must 
 avoid the popular error of confounding Satan with 
 the angels that " kept not their own principality, 
 but left their own habitation." 4 These are in 
 bonds, awaiting " the judgment of the great day." 
 They have no part in the course of human affairs. 
 Demons, again, are beings of a wholly different 
 order. It is assumed that they are subordinate to 
 
 1 Gen. ii. ~ Job i. ; ii. 
 
 3 Zech. iii. I, 2. In I Chron. xxi. i and Psa. cix. 6, the word 
 rendered Satan in A.V. is merely an adversary. And I cannot 
 avail myself of Isa. xiv. 12, &c. , and Ezek. xxviii. 14, &c. , much as 
 they would help me, because there is no way of ascertaining certainly 
 whether Satan is there intended. I have no doubt of it myself. 
 The word Devil does not occur in the Old Testament. In the four 
 places where "Devils" is used in A.V. the R.V. adopts other 
 words. 
 
 4 Jude 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4. 
 
120 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 the devil, and as some of them are expressly 
 called " unclean spirits," uncleanness is attri- 
 buted to Satan. But the assumption is based 
 only upon Jewish beliefs, and, even if a true 
 one, the inference is forced. A ruler may 
 have vicious subjects and yet not himself be 
 vicious ! I 
 
 But are not sins described as " the works of the 
 devil " ? And what of the words, " He that doeth sin 
 is of the devil"? Will the objector consider the 
 definition of sin to which this refers one of the 
 only definitions in the Bible ? " Sin is lawlessness." 2 
 The possession of an independent will is man's 
 proud but perilous boast. His duty and safety 
 and happiness alike demand that this will shall 
 be subordinated to the will of God, and all revolt 
 against the Divine will is sin. Lawlessness is its 
 
 1 In Matt. xii. 24-27, our Lord neither adopted nor rejected the 
 Jewish belief. How grotesque is the suggestion that at such a time 
 He should have discoursed to them on demonology ! Passing the 
 subject by, He turned their taunt back upon themselves by 
 the words, "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do 
 your sons cast them out ? " Unless the phenomena described by 
 spiritualists may be explained by delusions or fraud, they must be 
 attributed to demons; and there seems strong reason to believe 
 that some men are possessed by " unclean " demons. 
 
 2 i John iii. 4 (R.V.). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 121 
 
 essence; the element of immorality is entirely 
 accidental. 
 
 And this explains the apostolic comment upon 
 the precept " Be angry and sin not." x Anger may 
 in itself be right. But if cherished it is apt to 
 degenerate into vindictiveness ; and thus what in 
 its inception may betoken fellowship with God 
 for " God is angry every day " 2 may lead to 
 thoughts and even acts which are only evil. There- 
 fore the apostle adds, " Let not the sun go down 
 upon your wrath, neither give occasion to the 
 devil." The Satan myth leads men to read this 
 as though it were no more than a warning against 
 homicidal violence. But the closing passage of 
 this same Epistle 3 gives proof that the apostle's 
 theology of Satanic temptations relates to a far 
 different sphere. The normal conflict of the Chris- 
 tian life begins where the struggle with " flesh 
 and blood " has ceased. It is in the spiritual 
 sphere, and not in the domain of morals, that the 
 panoply of God is needed. The Pharisee or the 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 26. The words are quoted verbatim from Psa. iv. 4 
 (LXX). 
 
 2 Psa. vii. ii. 3 Eph. vi. 10-20. 
 
122 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 Buddhist can boast as high a standard of morality 
 as the Christian. Their motives may be lower, but 
 the outward results are the same. When some 
 man of repute is betrayed into acts of shame the 
 devil would be held accountable for his fall in any 
 ecclesiastical court. But not at the Old Bailey, 
 where prejudice avails nothing, and proof must be 
 full and clear. No one may assert that Satan 
 might not stoop to such means to attain his ends, 
 but we may aver that no " previous conviction " 
 is recorded to his prejudice. 
 
 " But," the objector will indignantly demand, 
 "did not our Lord Himself denounce him as a 
 liar and a murderer ? " Yes truly, such were his 
 words to the Pharisees who were plotting His 
 death. But what is their significance? Let us 
 consider them with open minds, for the Satan 
 myth has so obscured their meaning that the 
 commentaries will not help us. To the Jews' vain 
 boast of their descent from Abraham, the Lord 
 replied that the patriarch's children would walk in 
 their father's ways ; but as for them, they sought 
 to kill Him because he had spoken to them God- 
 given truth. They then fell back upon that fig- 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 123 
 
 ment of the apostate, the fatherhood of God, thus 
 bringing on themselves the scathing words, " Ye 
 are of your father the devil, and the desires of 
 your father it is your will to do. He was a 
 murderer from the beginning and has not stood 
 in the truth because truth is not in him. When 
 he speaketh THE lie he speaketh of his own, 
 for he is a liar and the father of IT." I These, 
 remember, are not words of vulgar invective. 
 They are the words of Christ Himself to men of 
 character and repute, honourable and earnest men 
 who, under their responsibilities as the religious 
 leaders of the people, deplored His teaching as 
 pestilent and profane. Such language addressed 
 by such lips to such men is awful in its solemnity ; 
 but what does it mean? 
 
 The devil was " a murderer from the beginning." 
 The beginning of what ? Not of his own ex- 
 istence, surely, for he was created in perfection 
 and beauty. Nor yet of the Eden paradise, for 
 Satan had dragged down others in his ruin long 
 before our earth became the home of man. His 
 being a murderer connects itself immediately with 
 
 1 John viii. 44. See Appendix, Note VII. 
 
124 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 THE truth which he has refused and THE lie of 
 which he is the father. As we listen to these 
 solemn and mysterious words of our Divine Lord 
 we are accorded a glimpse into a past eternity 
 when the great mystery of God was first made 
 known to " principalities and powers," the great 
 intelligences of the heavenly world. 1 Greatest 
 of them all was the being whom now we know as 
 Satan, and the promulgation of the purpose of 
 the ages disclosed to him the fact that a First-born 
 was yet to be revealed who was " in all things to 
 have the pre-eminence." 
 
 Science has poured contempt upon the old 
 belief that man is the centre of the universe. 
 And yet the old belief was right. But He who 
 claims this transcendent dignity is not the man 
 of Eden " vain insect of an hour ! " but the 
 Man who is " the Lord from Heaven." And He 
 
 1 This is probably the explanation of the " coincidences " between 
 Christianity and some of the old religions of the world. I do not 
 allude to Buddhism, for its seeming "coincidences" admit of a 
 much more prosaic explanation (see, e.g., Professor Kellogg's work 
 referred to at p. 68 ante, note) but to the cult of Tammuz and 
 ancient Babylon. Scripture warns us that in the future Satan will 
 travesty the Divine mysteries ; is it strange if he has done so in the 
 past? 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 125 
 
 it is who is the object of the devil's hate. In 
 compassing the fall of Adam he may perchance 
 have imagined that he was the promised first-born. 
 But it was not till the Temptation of Christ Him- 
 self that Satan and his lie were at last revealed. 
 Not one person in a thousand of those who read 
 the record of it attempts to realise its significance. 
 How could the Satan of Christendom dare to 
 stand before the Lord of Glory ! And how could 
 the suggestions of such a loathsome monster be 
 anything but hateful and repulsive ? Suppose the 
 biographer of some noble-minded and holy woman 
 sought to emphasise the purity of her mind and 
 the steadfastness of her character by recording 
 that she was once closeted with a man well known 
 to her as a coarse and shameless libertine, and 
 yet passed through the ordeal unscathed ! No less 
 preposterous does the narrative of the temptation 
 appear if we read it in the false light of the 
 Satan myth. 1 
 
 The Satan of Scripture is a being who claimed 
 to meet our Lord on more than equal terms. 
 Having " led Him up " and given Him that 
 
 1 See Appendix, Note VI. 
 
126 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 mysterious vision of earthly sovereignty, " the 
 devil said unto Him," we read, " To Thee will 
 1 give all this authority and the glory of them; 
 for it hath been delivered unto me, and to whom- 
 soever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt 
 worship before me it shall all be thine." 
 
 Is this no more than the raving of irresponsible 
 , madness or impious profanity? It is the bold 
 assertion of a disputed right. Satan claims to 
 be the First-born, the rightful heir of creation, 
 the true Messiah, and as such he claims the 
 worship of mankind. Men dream of a devil, 
 horned and hoofed a hideous and obscene 
 monster who haunts the squalid slums and 
 gilded vice-dens of our cities, and tempts the 
 depraved to acts of atrocity or shame. But, 
 according to Holy Writ, he " fashions himself 
 into an angel of light," and " his ministers fashion 
 themselves as ministers of righteousness." I Do 
 " ministers of righteousness" corrupt men's morals 
 or incite them to commit outrages ? 
 
 And this prepares the way for the further 
 statement that it is the religion of the world 
 
 1 2 Cor. xi. 14. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 127 
 
 which he controls, and not its vices and its crimes. 
 " The god of this world " is his awful title a title 
 
 o 
 
 Divinely conceded to the Evil One, not because 
 the Supreme has delegated His sovereignty, but 
 because the world accords him its homage. It 
 is in the sphere of religion, then, that the influence 
 of the Tempter is to be sought not in the 
 records of our criminal courts, not in the pages 
 of obscene novels, but in the teaching of false 
 theologies. 
 
 The lie of which he is the father is the denial 
 of the Christ of God, the Christ of Calvary, the 
 only mediator between God and men, the pro- 
 pitiation for the world's sins the " mercy-seat " z 
 where an outcast sinner can meet a holy God 
 and find pardon and peace. But " the god of this 
 world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving 
 that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, 
 who is the image of God, should not dawn upon 
 them." 2 Hence it is that men turn to the Church, 
 
 1 In I John ii. 2, and iv. 10 He is called the iXa^ot,-. In 
 Rom. iii. 25 He is called the \\aGTt]piov (mercy-seat). The word 
 occurs but once again in the New Testament, i.e., Heb. ix. 5. 
 
 2 2 Cor. iv. 4(R.Vr). 
 
128 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 to religion, to morality, to " the Sermon on the 
 Mount" making the Lord Himself minister to 
 their self-righteousness and pride in a word, to 
 anything and everything rather than to the Cross 
 of Christ. 
 
 What led to the discovery of the planet 
 Neptune was the apparent disturbance from some 
 unknown cause in the movements of other planets. 
 
 And have we not reason to search for a " Nep- 
 | 
 tune" in the spiritual sphere ? Is it not clear 
 
 that there is some sinister influence in operation 
 here ? How else can it be explained that in 
 the full light of our advanced civilisation, even 
 persons of the highest intelligence and culture are 
 gulled by the tricks and superstitions which form 
 the stock-in-trade of priestcraft ? 
 
 But " the lie " has other phases. The mind of 
 the Tempter is disclosed no less in some of our 
 most popular books of piety. Eternal judgment 
 and a hell for the impenitent, redemption by blood, 
 and the need of salvation through the death of the 
 great Sin-bearer these and kindred doctrines are 
 rejected as survivals of a dark and credulous age : 
 it is for man to work out his own destiny, and to 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 129 
 
 raise himself to the Divine ideal. And all this is 
 prefaced and made plausible by boldly insinuating 
 that plain words Divinely spoken are either mis- 
 understood or spurious. A new gospel some men 
 call this : it is the oldest gospel known. In every 
 point it reminds us of the old, old words : " Hath 
 God said ? " " Ye shall not surely die : " " Ye shall 
 be as gods knowing good and evil." The " Jesus " 
 of this theology bears a sinister resemblance to 
 the great philanthropist of Eden ! In the name 
 of that " other Jesus " * the Christ of God would be 
 again rejected if He returned to earth to-day. 
 
 During His ministry on earth the Lord's acts and 
 words to the fallen and depraved led to His being 
 branded as the friend of the dishonest and the im- 
 moral. And why? This question is best answered 
 by another : Did He not come to seek and to save 
 the lost? How then could He drive them from 
 His presence ? A strange Saviour such would be ! 
 Sin He could not tolerate, but for sinners His love 
 and pity were infinite. And His detractors mis- 
 took sympathy with sinners for sympathy with sin. 
 But when men refused to own that they were lost, 
 
 1 2 Cor. xi. 4. 
 10 
 
130 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 and separated themselves from Him by an impass- 
 able barrier of religion and morality, infinite love 
 was powerless. Omnipotence itself was baffled ! 
 And He who had wept in silence in presence of 
 human sorrow gave way to unrestrained outbursts 
 of grief as He contemplated their doom. 1 
 
 On yet another occasion He exclaimed, " How 
 often would I have gathered thy children together 
 as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and 
 ye would not'' 2 The hand stretched out to save 
 them they thrust from them with obliquy. And 
 what wonder ! Men of blameless morality, of the 
 deepest piety, of intense devotion to religion 
 men looked up to and respected by the people, 
 who acknowledged them as leaders, were told 
 that the degraded and depraved had better hopes 
 of heaven than themselves. His teaching was a 
 public scandal ; His mission was an insult to them. 
 And all truth and decency were outraged when 
 He openly called them " children of hell," and 
 told them they had the devil for their father ! 
 
 1 In John xi. 35 the word used betokens silent tears. The word 
 in Luke xix. 41 means to lament with every outward expression of 
 grief. 
 
 2 Luke xiii. 34. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 131 
 
 When a malignant tumour is eating at the 
 vitals the tenderness of the physiciajn is useless ; 
 the surgeon's knife must reach the mischief, let 
 the risk be what it may. And surely if He 
 who was so gracious, so " meek and lowly in 
 heart," spoke such scathing words as these, it was 
 because no tenderer treatment could avail. It was 
 because their own case was desperate, and their 
 influence was disastrous. And such men must 
 have successors and representatives on earth 
 to-day. Who are they, then, and where ? Let 
 the thoughtful reader work out the answer for 
 himself. But let him keep in view the factors of 
 the problem. It was not the " publicans and 
 harlots " who were branded thus as hell-begotten. 
 Alas for human nature, no devil was needed to 
 account for the sins of such ! But to the religious 
 Jews it was that these awful words were spoken. 
 And why ? Because the Satan cult is to be sought 
 for, not in pagan orgies, but in the acceptance of 
 the Eden gospel, and the pursuit of religious 
 systems, which honour man and dishonour Christ. 
 
 Here, then, is the answer to the question pro- 
 pounded at the close of the preceding chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 T7VERYBODY knows the little girl who, 
 - ' having heard her father complain that 
 his watch needed cleaning, stole away to clean 
 it in a basin of soap-suds ! The story is but a 
 grotesquely exaggerated instance of what we all 
 suffer from ignorant zeal, unintelligent desire 
 to please. No one but a brute would vent his 
 anger on his baby, when, with eyes sparkling and 
 cheeks flushed at the thought of having done a 
 kind and useful service, she brings him his ruined 
 watch. But if this were done by one who ought 
 to have known better, no such restraint would be 
 called for. To this every one will assent ; but no 
 one seems to take account of similar considerations 
 
 in our relations with the Deity. 
 
 132 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 133 
 
 " The chief end of man is to glorify and enjoy 
 himself for ever." Such is the present-day reading 
 of the first great thesis in the catechism of the 
 Westminster Divines. 1 And to attain this end 
 man wants a religion and a god, just as a prince 
 needs a private chaplain. But a chaplain should 
 know his place, and not intrude where his presence 
 would be embarrassing. And so with God. It is 
 intolerable that He should claim to decide in what 
 way alone we can please Him. In leading moral 
 and religious lives we " render to God the things 
 that are God's." And we must not forget what is 
 due to ourselves. But " the chief end of man is to 
 glorify GOD." This is what the Westminster 
 Divines really wrote ; but that was long ago, and 
 the Westminster Divines were ignorant, and knew 
 nothing of " the gospel of humanity " ! 
 
 In a word, God claims our homage, and we offer 
 Him our patronage. He claims the undivided 
 devotion of our life, and we offer Him religion and 
 
 * "The Scotch Catechism" it is commonly called, as though 
 Westminster were somewhere north of the Tweed ! This cate- 
 chism was compiled by pious and learned " Dons" of Cambridge 
 University, and adopted by "an assembly of learned and godly 
 divines " convened in Westminster Abbey. 
 
134 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 morality. But God does not want our patronage ; 
 neither does He want either our morality or our 
 religion. " Monstrous ! " the reader will exclaim, 
 preparing to throw down the volume. " Is it a 
 matter of indifference whether we are moral and 
 religious, or not ? " By no means a matter of 
 indifference as regards ourselves : not even as to 
 our life on earth, to say nothing of the judgment 
 to come. But of supreme indifference to God. 
 The man who struts about, inflated by the conceit 
 begotten of humanity gospels, is like the Jew who 
 supposed he was doing the Most High a benefit 
 when he piled " the fat of fed beasts " I upon His 
 altar the altar of the " God who made the world 
 and all things that are therein." 
 
 Strange though it may seem, God has a purpose 
 and a will ; and He is so unreasonable as to require 
 the recognition of that purpose, and compliance 
 with that will. But these are matters of revela- 
 tion ; and, therefore, here once again the ways 
 divide. Human religion in every phase of it is of 
 interest to men, and books about it will be read, 
 noticed, and discussed. But Christianity is a 
 
 1 Isa. i. ii. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 135 
 
 Divine revelation, and, therefore, to use a popular 
 vulgarism, it is "boycotted." But in the great 
 truths of Christianity, now so little known, is to 
 be found the only true philosophy, the only true 
 solution of the deeper problems of life, which so 
 perplex and grieve us. 
 
 God's judgments are righteous. And the prin- 
 ciples which govern them are clearly stated : He 
 " will render to every man according to his deeds : 
 to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, 
 seek for glory and honour and immortality, 
 eternal life." * Who will question the equity of 
 this ? The story is told of Bishop Wilberforce, 
 that a Hampshire railway porter, a hedge theolo- 
 gian of local fame, tried to pose him with the 
 question, "What is the way to heaven?" "The 
 way to heaven ? " said the bishop, as the train in 
 which he was seated moved out of the station 
 " turn to the right, and keep straight on ! " But 
 what is the right ? This is the vital question. 
 And this every man claims to settle for himself. 
 Whatever reason and conscience declare to be 
 right is right this is a maxim almost universally 
 
 1 Rom. ii. 6, 7. 
 
136 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 accepted. And in the absence of a revelation, it 
 is, within certain limits, practically true. But when 
 the Supreme makes known His will, compliance 
 with that will becomes the test of well-doing. 
 
 In the Mosaic economy, religion and morality 
 had prominence. And in the cult of Christendom, 
 which, in one aspect of it, is but a corrupted form 
 of Judaism, disguised by Christian phraseology, 
 religion and morality are everything. But the 
 era of religion and morality is past. These were 
 like guides which were followed in the darkness 
 till the goal was reached to which they led. The 
 Mosaic economy was a state of tutelage which 
 ended with the coming of Christ To set up 
 morality and religion now is to bring ourselves 
 within the denunciation of the words which follow 
 in the passage quoted : " But unto them that are 
 contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey 
 unrighteousness, indignation and wrath." Hence 
 the Lord's reply to the question, " What shall we 
 do that we might work the works of God ? " 
 " This," He replied, " is the work of God, that ye 
 believe on Him whom He hath sent." x " Then a 
 
 1 John vi. 28, 29. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 137 
 
 man may be as immoral as he likes, provided only 
 he ' believes,' as you call it." Such is the rejoinder 
 of the contentious. Such was the criticism of those 
 who heard His words. Reason told them it was 
 wrong ; and clinging to their morality and religion, 
 instead of believing in " the Sent One," they 
 crucified Him. 
 
 To set up an altar " to an unknown God " is the 
 highest possible attainment of natural religion. 
 But as St. Paul said at Athens, 1 even the light of 
 nature should teach men that God does not want 
 our service or our patronage "as though He needed 
 anything." He wished men to seek Him, even 
 though they had need to grope for Him blindly 
 and in darkness " to feel after Him and find 
 Him." And He could give them blessing in 
 spite of ignorance, for " He is a rewarder of dili- 
 gent seekers." If they but " turned to the right 
 and kept straight on," He could, to use the 
 apostle's words, " wink at the ignorance." " But 
 now," he goes on to say, " He commandeth all 
 men everywhere to repent." And the change 
 depends on this, that God has revealed Himself 
 
 1 Acts xvii. 22-31. 
 
138 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 in Christ, and therefore ignorance of His will is 
 sin that shuts men up to judgment. A new era 
 has dawned upon the world. " The Word was 
 made flesh and dwelt among us." The darkness 
 is past, the true light is shining. To turn now to 
 conscience or to law to religion and morality- 
 is to act like men who, with the sun in the zenith, 
 keep shutters barred and curtains drawn. The 
 principle on which God deals with men is the 
 same, but the measure of man's responsibility is 
 entirely changed. Such was the great truth so 
 plainly stated by our Divine Lord in His words to 
 Nicodemus. This, He declared, was the condem- 
 nation, not that men's deeds were evil though for 
 these there shall be wrath in the day of wrath 
 but that, because their deeds were evil, they had 
 brought upon themselves a still direr doom : light 
 had come into the world, but they turned from it 
 and loved the darkness. 
 
 Men cannot and will not believe that the great 
 controversy between them and God is altogether 
 about Christ. To most men, indeed, the very 
 statement seems to savour of mysticism. The 
 death of Christ is one of the commonplaces of the 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 139 
 
 philosophy, as well as of the theology, of Christen- 
 dom. Men boast of it as the highest tribute to 
 human worth. But God's estimate of it is vastly 
 different. " The Son of God has died by the p 
 hands of men ! This astounding fact is the 
 moral centre of all things. A bygone eternity 
 knew no other future ; an eternity to come shall 
 know no other past. That death was the world's 
 crisis. For long ages, despite conscience outraged, 
 the light of nature quenched, law broken, promises 
 despised, and prophets cast out and slain, the world 
 had been on terms with God. But now a tremen- 
 dous change ensued. Once for all the world had 
 taken sides. In the midst stood that cross in its 
 lonely majesty : God on one side with averted 
 face ; on the other Satan, exulting in his triumph. 
 And the world took sides with Satan." z 
 
 And in presence of that cross God calls upon 
 every one to whom the record comes to declare 
 himself on the one side or the other. But 
 men struggle to evade the issue. Many, of 
 course, ignore it altogether in a selfish or a vicious 
 life ; but not a few attempt a compromise by 
 
 1 " The Gospel and its Ministry," p. 12. 
 
140 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 turning to religion. But so far as this supreme 
 question is concerned the result is the same for 
 all. What the end will be of those who never 
 heard of Christ we know not. But there is neither 
 reserve nor mystery in Scripture as to what the 
 portion will be of those who " obey the gospel " 
 and of those who reject it. Upon that choice 
 depends the eternal destiny of each. Hence the 
 virulence with which the Bible is attacked ; for if 
 Christ be beyond our reach our responsibility is 
 at an end. Some there are indeed who affect 
 personal devotion to Himself though they dis- 
 parage or despise the Scriptures. But every 
 thoughtful person recognises that it is only 
 through the record that we can reach the person, 
 that it is only through the written Word that 
 we can reach the Living Word. Hence His 
 declaration : " He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth 
 not My words, hath one that judgeth him : the 
 word that I have spoken, the same shall judge 
 him in the last day." J 
 
 The consequences, then, of accepting or rejecting 
 Christ are eternal. No other question is open. 
 
 1 John xii. 48. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 141 
 
 Morality ! In morals, as in physics, the greater 
 includes the less, and the gospel teaches a higher 
 morality than conscience and law combined. But 
 in this Christian dispensation God is not im- 
 puting their sins to men. Were it otherwise the 
 silence of Heaven would give place to the thunders 
 of His judgments. Every question of judgment 
 was either settled for ever at the Cross, or has 
 been postponed to the day that is still to 
 come : God " knows how " " to reserve the unjust 
 to the day of judgment to be punished," 1 and the 
 day of judgment is not yet. 
 
 A red-letter day it must have seemed to the 
 village community of Nazareth when the great 
 Rabbi who had grown to manhood in their midst 
 reappeared in their synagogue, and stood up to 
 read the Sabbath lesson from the Prophets. 
 Opening the roll delivered to Him, He found 
 the passage beginning, "The Spirit of the Lord 
 is upon me, because He anointed me to preach 
 good tidings to the poor ; He hath sent me to 
 proclaim release to the captives, and recovering 
 of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 
 
 1 2 Pet. ii. 9. 
 
142 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of 
 the Lord -" : and abruptly closing the book, 
 He handed it back to the attendant and sat 
 down. Having stood forward to read the lesson 
 for the day, He stopped in the middle of the 
 opening sentence. What wonder that all eyes 
 were fastened on Him ! " This day," He broke 
 the silence by declaring, " is this Scripture ful- 
 filled in your ears." 
 
 " And the day of vengeance of our God " were 
 the words that followed without a break on the 
 open page before Him ; but He left those words 
 unread. " The acceptable year of the Lord " He 
 then and there proclaimed, and it still runs its 
 course, but the great day of judgment is even 
 now still future. 
 
 Not that the moral government of the world 
 is in abeyance. Even here and now men reap 
 what they sow. Righteousness prospers and 
 iniquity brings its own penalty. Not always 
 indeed, nor openly ; but generally, and with 
 sufficient definiteness to make it clear that this 
 is the rule the ordinary course of things. And 
 further, in the Divine economy provision is made 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 143 
 
 for human government ; and the sword is entrusted 
 to men that rulers may be a terror to the evil- 
 doer and a protection to the good. Were it 
 otherwise society would be impossible. But while 
 men are thus empowered to punish offences 
 against human laws, the judgment of sin is alto- 
 gether with God. 
 
 And here we recall another declaration of our 
 Divine Lord. " The Father judgeth no man, but 
 hath committed all judgment unto the Son." 
 " We believe that Thou shalt come to be our 
 judge" is upon the lips of thousands who in 
 their hearts imagine that He will mediate in 
 the judgment between them and an offended 
 God. But it is to the crucified One Himself 
 that in virtue of the Cross the Divine prerogative 
 of judgment has been assigned. And He, the 
 sinner's only Judge, is now the sinner's Saviour. 
 Purification for sins accomplished, He has " sat 
 down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." 1 
 The official attitude of Christ, if such a phrase 
 may be allowed, is one of rest. The work of 
 redemption is complete. The great amnesty has 
 
 1 Heb. i. 3. 
 
144 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 * 
 
 been proclaimed. Heaven is thrown open to the 
 lost of earth. Eternal life is brought within the 
 reach of the weakest and the worst of men. God 
 is not imputing trespasses, but preaching peace. 
 And the only Being in the universe who has 
 power to punish sin is now seated on the throne 
 of God as Saviour, and His presence there has 
 changed that throne into a throne of grace. 
 Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal 
 life ; for " the free gift of God is eternal life in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord." x 
 
 " How monstrous all this is ! The idea of sup- 
 posing that people who have consistently lived 
 religious lives are to be shut out of heaven, while 
 the worthless and depraved can obtain forgive- 
 ness and acceptance simply by believing in 
 Christ ! " Such will be the criticism these 
 statements will generally evoke. Monstrous it 
 may seem ; but before men hold it up to 
 censure or ridicule let them pause and reflect 
 what it is that they are thus rejecting. " To 
 Him bear all the prophets witness that through 
 His name every one that believeth on Him shall 
 
 1 See Appendix, Note VIII. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 145 
 
 receive remission of sins." J Nor is it a dogma 
 of " Pauline doctrine," but the teaching of one 
 of the simplest parables of Christ, that waifs and 
 tramps from the highways and the slums sit 
 down in the Kingdom of God, while the once 
 invited guests the moral and religious are ex- 
 cluded. 2 And the parable is explained by the 
 doctrine that His Divine mission was " not to 
 call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." 
 
 1 Acts x. 43 (R.V.). 2 Luke xiv. 15-24. 
 
 ii 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A SILENT Heaven ! Yes, but it is not the 
 * *- silence of callous indifference or helpless 
 weakness ; it is the silence of a great sabbatic 
 rest, the silence of a peace which is absolute and 
 profound a silence which is the public pledge 
 and proof that the way is open for the guiltiest 
 of mankind to draw near to God. When faith 
 murmurs, and unbelief revolts, and men challenge 
 the Supreme to break that silence and declare 
 Himself, how little do they realise what the 
 challenge means ! It means the withdrawal of 
 the amnesty ; it means the end of the reign of 
 grace ; it means the closing of the day of mercy 
 and the dawning of the day of wrath. 
 
 Among the statements which distressed the 
 orthodox in the late Professor Tyndall's famous 
 Birmingham address on " Science and Man," was 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 147 
 
 his reference to the Herald Angels' song. " Look 
 to the East at the present moment " (he exclaimed) 
 "as a comment on the promise of peace on 
 earth and goodwill towards men. The promise 
 is a dream ruined by the experience of eighteen 
 centuries, and in that ruin is involved the claim 
 of the ' heavenly host ' to prophetic vision." 
 But the angels' song was not a promise ; still 
 less was it a prophecy. That anthem of praise 
 was a Divine proclamation. The time was not 
 yet when God could enforce peace between man 
 and man ; but grace " came by Jesus Christ," and 
 with that advent peace and goodwill became the 
 attitude of God to men. And this "on earth," 
 even in the midst of their sorrows and their sins. 
 " He came and preached good tidings of peace." I 
 And " he that has ears to hear " can catch the - 
 echo of that voice as it still vibrates in our air. 
 If God is silent now it is because Heaven has 
 come down to earth, the climax of Divine reve- 
 lation has been reached, there is no reserve of 
 mercy yet to be unfolded. He has spoken His 
 last word of love and grace, and when next He 
 
 1 Eph. ii. 17 (R.V. inarg.}. 
 
148 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 breaks the silence it will be to let loose the 
 judgments which shall yet engulf a world that 
 has rejected Christ. For "our God shall come 
 and shall not keep silence." l 
 
 A silent Heaven is a part of the mystery of 
 God ; but Holy Writ declares that a day is fixed 
 in the Divine chronology when " the mystery of 
 God shall be finished." 2 And when that day 
 breaks, the heavenly host shall again be heard, 
 proclaiming that " The sovereignty of the world 3 
 is become our Lord's and His Christ's, and He 
 shall reign for ever and ever." And at this 
 signal the wonderful beings that sit on thrones 
 around the throne of God shall raise the anthem, 
 " We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, 
 which art, and wast, and art to come, because 
 Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and 
 hast reigned. And the nations were angry and 
 Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that 
 they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest 
 give reward to Thy servants the prophets and 
 to the saints and them that fear Thy name, 
 
 1 Psa. 1. 3. 2 Rev. x. 7. 
 
 TOV Kotrfiov (Rev. xi. 15). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 149 
 
 small and great, and shouldest destroy them 
 that destroy the earth." 1 Then at last He 
 will assume the power that even now is His 
 by right, and openly reward the good and put 
 down the evil. In a word, He will do then 
 what men think He ought to do now and 
 always. And if He delays to do this, it is not 
 that He is " slack concerning His promise." 
 God's own "apology" for His inaction is that 
 He is " longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that 
 any should perish, but that all should come to 
 repentance." 2 
 
 Through all the ages until Christ came the 
 course of human history was an unanswered 
 indictment by which every attribute of God was 
 seemingly discredited. The Divine power and 
 wisdom and righteousness and love were all 
 brought into question. But the advent of 
 Christ was God's full and final revelation of 
 Himself to man. There are mysteries, no 
 doubt, which still remain unsolved, but they 
 are mysteries which lie beyond the horizon 
 of our world. First among these is the origin 
 
 1 Rev. xi. 15-18. 2 2 Pet. iii. 9. 
 
150 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 of evil. Not the Eden fall, but the fall of 
 that wonderful Being to whose " devices " the 
 Eden fall was due. Why did God permit the 
 first and noblest of His creatures to turn devil? 
 But of all the questions which immediately 
 concern us, there is not one which the Cross of 
 Christ has left unanswered. Men point to the 
 sad incidents of human life on earth, and they 
 ask " Where is the love of God ? " God points 
 to that Cross as the unreserved manifestation of 
 love so inconceivably infinite as to answer every 
 challenge and silence all doubt for ever. 1 And that 
 Cross is not merely the public proof of what God 
 has accomplished ; it is the earnest of all that He 
 has promised. The crowning mystery of God is 
 Christ, for in Him " are all the treasures of wisdom 
 and knowledge hidden." 2 And those hidden 
 
 1 Anything which is manifest is of course raised out of the 
 sphere of doubt or question ; and God declares that in the Cross 
 of Christ His grace and kindness and love have been manifested 
 (Tit. ii. II, iii. 4; I John iv. 9). But, ignoring the stupendous 
 fact that, for our sakes, He "spared not His own Son," men seek 
 to put Him upon proof of His love ; and the test is whether He 
 complies with some specific appeal urged in the petulance of 
 present need or sorrow. 
 
 2 Col. ii. 2, 3 (R.V.). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 151 
 
 treasures are yet to be unfolded. It is the 
 Divine purpose to " gather together in one all 
 things in Christ." l Sin has broken the harmony 
 of creation, but that harmony shall yet be 
 restored by the supremacy of our now despised 
 and rejected Lord. In the very name of His 
 humiliation every knee in heaven and on earth 
 and in the underworld shall bow before Him, 
 and every tongue shall confess that He is 
 Lord. 2 
 
 And to believe in Christ is to own His Lordship 
 now. Hence the promise, " If thou shalt confess 
 with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe 
 in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, 
 thou shalt be saved." 3 The sinner who thus believes 
 in Christ anticipates now and here the realisation 
 of the supreme purpose of God, and he is 
 absolutely and for ever saved. 
 
 1 Eph. i. 10. 2 Phil. ii. 10. 
 
 s Rom. x. 9 (R.V.). The true Buddhist will declare himself by 
 the way in which he names his master, never omitting some title 
 expressive of his reverence for him. And the true Christian will 
 declare himself in the same way. If a man habitually writes or 
 speaks about "Jesus," we may be sure, whatever his creed may 
 be, that he is a Socinian at heart. " That Jesus Christ is LORD " i 
 is the special testimony of Christianity, and the Christian will not ' 
 forget it even in his words. 
 
152 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 It was in the power of these truths that the 
 martyrs lived and died. Here was the secret of 
 their triumph not " the general sense of Scripture 
 corrected in the light of reason and conscience " ; 
 not the insolent pretensions of priestcraft, degrading 
 to every one who tolerates them. With hearts 
 awed by the fear of God, garrisoned by the peace 
 of God, and exulting in the love of God, shed 
 abroad there by the Divine Spirit, they stood for 
 the truth against priests and princes combined, 
 and daring to be called heretics they were faithful 
 to their Lord in life and in death. 
 
 Heaven was as silent then as it is now. No 
 sights were seen, no voice was heard, to make 
 their persecutors pause. No signs were witnessed 
 to give proof that God was with them as they lay 
 upon the rack or gave up their life-breath at the 
 stake. But with their spiritual vision focussed 
 upon Christ, the unseen realities of heaven filled 
 their hearts, as they passed from a world that was 
 not worthy of them to the home that God has 
 prepared for them that love Him. But with us, 
 the degenerate sons of a degenerate age, faith 
 falters beneath the strain of the petty trials of our 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 153 
 
 life. And while He is saying " I will never leave thee 
 nor forsake thee," our murmurs drown His voice ; 
 and though professing to be " followers of them 
 who through faith and patience inherit the pro- 
 mises," our petulance and unbelief put from us 
 the infinite compassions of God. " They endured 
 as seeing Him who is invisible": we can see 
 nothing but our troubles and our sorrows, which 
 loom the greater because viewed through tears of 
 selfish grief, that blind our eyes to the glories of 
 eternity. 
 
 The dispensation of law and covenant and 
 promise the distinctive privileges of the favoured 
 people was marked by the public display of 
 Divine power upon earth. But the reign of grace 
 has its correlative in the life of faith. Ours is 
 the higher privilege, the greater blessedness of 
 those "who have not seen and yet have believed." 1 
 And walking by faith is the antithesis of walking 
 by sight. If "signs and wonders" were vouchsafed 
 to us, as in Pentecostal days, faith would sink to a 
 lower level, and the whole standard and character f 
 of the discipline of Christian life would be changed. 2 
 
 1 John xx. 29. 3 See Appendix, Note IX. 
 
154 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 The sufferings of Paul denote a higher faith 
 than " the mighty deeds " of his earlier ministry. 
 Not until miracles had ceased, and he had 
 entered on the path of faith as we now tread it, 
 was it revealed to him that his life was to be 
 " a pattern to them that should afterwards 
 believe." I 
 
 And what a life it was ! Here is the amazing 
 record : " Of the Jews five times received I forty 
 stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, 
 once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a 
 night and a day have I been in the deep ; in 
 journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of 
 robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in 
 perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in 
 perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in 
 perils among false brethren ; in weariness and 
 painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and 
 thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." 2 
 And all this not only without a murmur, but 
 with a heart exulting in God. Instead of grum- 
 bling at his infirmities he made a boast of 
 them. Instead of repining at his persecutions 
 
 1 i Tim. i. 16. 2 2 Cor. xi. 24-27. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 155 
 
 he learned to take pleasure in them. J Not 
 vainly nor morbidly, but "for Christ's sake," his 
 Master and Lord, for whom, he declared, "he 
 had suffered the loss of all things." Reviewing all 
 his privations and sufferings he describes them as 
 " light affliction which is for the moment, working 
 for us more and more exceedingly an eternal 
 weight of glory," and he adds, " while we look, not 
 at the things which are seen, but at the things 
 which are not seen ; for the things which are seen 
 are temporal, but the things which are not seen 
 are eternal." 2 
 
 How different this from the experience de- 
 scribed in the opening chapter ! 3 There it is 
 a case of those who, seeing nothing beyond the 
 events and circumstances of their life, turn away 
 
 1 Here is an ascending scale of experience : 
 
 " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? Hath He in anger shut up 
 His tender mercies ?" (Psa. Ixxvii. 9). 
 
 " I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it " 
 (Psa. xxxix. 9). 
 
 " I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be con- 
 tent " (Phil. iv. 11). 
 
 " Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities . . . 
 I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in perse- 
 cutions, in distresses for Christ's sake " (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10). 
 
 2 2 Cor. iv. 17, 1 8. 3 Page 10 ante. 
 
156 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 from God with hardened and embittered hearts. 
 But the sons of faith look away from the fierce 
 waves and threatening storm-clouds, for well they 
 know that 
 
 " Above the voice of many waters, 
 The mighty breakers of the sea, 
 The Lord on high is mighty." x 
 
 And thus, filled with glad thoughts of the 
 home beyond and of the glory to which He is 
 calling them, they can rejoice in Him, even 
 though in heaviness in manifold trials, for the 
 proof of their faith is precious. 2 
 
 Men understand and appreciate the asceticisms 
 of religion "will-worship, and humility, and 
 severity to the body" penances and ordinances 
 which are "after the precepts and doctrines of 
 men." 3 But these have nothing in common 
 with the life of faith. They are paths by which 
 men delude themselves in vain efforts to reach 
 , the Cross. But it is at the Cross itself that 
 the life of faith begins. And the spiritual 
 
 1 Psa. xciii. 4 (R.V. revised. The word voice is in the plural, 
 but it is obviously the Hebrew poetical plural : not several voices, 
 but " the great voice "). 
 
 2 i Pet. i. 6, 7. 3 Col. ii. 23 (R.V). 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 157 
 
 miracles of that life are more wonderful than 
 any which merely controlled or suspended the 
 operation of natural laws. Greatest of them all 
 is the miracle of the new birth by the Spirit of 
 God, with its outward side of conversion from 
 a life of selfishness or sin to a life of conse- 
 crated service. And those who have experienced 
 it can say in the words of Holy Writ, " We 
 know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
 given us an understanding, that we may know 
 Him that is true." z And carrying the truth to 
 others, they find it produces the same results 
 which they themselves have proved. And this 
 not merely in isolated cases or in favouring 
 circumstances. Recent years, during which so 
 many who have publicly pledged their belief that 
 the Bible is true, 2 and who are subsidised to 
 teach that it is Divine, have been labouring to 
 
 1 i John v. 20. 
 
 2 Every candidate for ordination must publicly declare, in reply 
 to the Bishop, that he " unfeignedly believes all the canonical Scrip- 
 tures of the Old and New Testaments." Whether such a pledge 
 ought to be required I will not discuss. The fact remains. And 
 this being so, when clergymen set themselves to discredit the Bible, 
 the primary question suggested concerns their own honesty. Has 
 the Church a lower standard of morality than the Clubs ? 
 
158 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 prove that it is unreliable and human these 
 have been precisely the years in which Christian 
 men have carried it to some of the most de- 
 graded races of the heathen world, with results 
 that surpass all previous records, giving over- 
 whelming proof of its Divine character and 
 mission. 
 
 To men like these there is a sense in which 
 Heaven is not silent. The science of to-day has 
 taught us that there are rays of light, till now 
 unknown, which can penetrate the densest sub- 
 stances. But these rays can only be evolved 
 when the atmosphere of earth has been excluded. 
 And such wonders have their counterpart in the 
 spiritual sphere. Those who can thus escape 
 from the influence of earth, and rise above the 
 seen and temporal, have eyes to see and ears to 
 hear the sights and sounds of another world ; 
 and with united voice they testify that God is 
 with His people and that His Word is true. 
 
 And behind these men are tens of thousands 
 of Christians at home, including not a few 
 of the greatest theologians, and thinkers, and 
 scholars of the age, who share their beliefs and 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 159 
 
 rejoice in their triumphs. Not that the question, 
 What is truth? can be settled by a plebiscite! 
 For truth has always been in a minority. But 
 there is no element of cohesion in error. Among 
 the children of error there is no bond of unity 
 save such as depends on common hostility to truth. 
 One generation kills the prophets ; another builds 
 their sepulchres. Those who shed the martyrs' 
 blood are repudiated and condemned by their 
 successors and representatives to-day. But the 
 children of truth in every age are one. Great 
 is the " cloud of witnesses " encompassing us 
 round the righteous dead of all the ages past. 
 And when our race shall have been run, we too 
 in time shall pass from the arena to join the 
 mighty throng, until at last, their rank's com- 
 plete, the ever-swelling host shall stand, a count- 
 less multitude, before the throne of God. 
 
 What a success this book might have been had 
 it but fulfilled the promise of its earlier pages ! 
 If only it had gone on to enforce the revolt 
 against faith suggested in the opening chapter, 
 
160 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 then indeed it would have been " reviewed " in 
 the newspapers and " called for " at the libraries. 
 But while sceptical attacks upon the Bible rank 
 with general literature, 1 any defence of it which 
 appeals to its deeper teaching is deemed unsuited 
 for notice in the secular press. And so it comes 
 about that everything which unbelief has to urge 
 is brought prominently before the public, but the 
 vast majority of people never hear of a book which 
 is distinctly Christian. 
 
 Religion and Scepticism are rival competitors 
 for popular favour. And yet there are many who, 
 though conscious of longings too deep to be satis- 
 fied by mere religion, make choice of religion 
 because they know of no other refuge from un- 
 belief. And there are others again who, "with 
 too much knowledge for the sceptic's side," drift 
 into scepticism in their recoil from priestcraft. 2 
 To some such, perchance, these pages may suggest 
 a better way. For Christianity delivers us not 
 
 1 Appendix, Note X. 
 
 2 The lives of the Newmans afford an apt illustration. Both 
 i made shipwreck of their faith the one in religion, the other in 
 ( infidelity. The "Apologia" and the "Phases of Faith" are 
 
 among the saddest of books. 
 
THE SILENCE OF GOD 161 
 
 only from scepticism on the one hand, but from 
 superstition on the other. 
 
 And to not a few this volume may be welcome 
 as affording a clew to pressing difficulties which 
 perplex and distress the thoughtful. Infidelity 
 trades upon the silence of Heaven, the inaction of 
 the Supreme. If there be a God, almighty and 
 all-good, why does He not use His power and give 
 proof of His goodness in the way men choose to 
 expect of Him ? The answer usually offered by 
 the Christian apologist fails either to silence the 
 opponent or to satisfy the believer. And rightly 
 so, for it is lacking not only in cogency but in 
 sympathy. The God of the Bible is infinite both 
 in power and in compassion ; and in other ages 
 His people had public proof of this. Why, then, 
 is He so silent? 
 
 The question is not why He does not always 
 declare Himself, but why He never does so. If, 
 as already urged, whole generations even passed 
 away without experiencing any direct manifesta- 
 tion of Divine power on earth, then, in presence 
 of some crushing sorrow, some hideous wrong, 
 His people might well exclaim with Gideon long 
 
 12 
 
162 THE SILENCE OF GOD 
 
 ago, "If the Lord be with us, why then is all 
 this befallen us? and where be all His miracles 
 which our fathers told us of ? " r But what con- 
 cerns us is the fact that throughout the entire 
 course of this Christian dispensation since Pente- 
 costal times, " the finger of God " 2 has never been 
 openly at work upon earth, never once has a 
 public miracle been witnessed "a single public 
 event to compel belief that there is a God at all ! " 
 Are we left to grope in darkness for the answer ? 
 Does revelation throw no light upon it? To 
 suggest the solution of this mystery these pages 
 have been written. 
 
 1 Judg. vi. 13. ' 2 Luke xi. 20. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE I. (page 18). 
 
 IN these pages I am dealing only with miracles 
 in the theological sense ; that is, with Divine 
 miracles. The phenomena of Spiritualism I have 
 never personally investigated ; but if genuine they 
 are clearly miraculous, and to reject, on a priori 
 grounds, the mass of evidence adduced in proof 
 of them in books like Professor A. R, Wallace's 
 " Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," seems to me 
 to savour of the stupidity of unbelief. Assuming 
 their genuineness, no Christian need hesitate to 
 account for them by demoniacal agency. To 
 attribute them to departed spirits is as unphiloso- 
 phical as it is unscriptural. It would seem that in 
 this Christian dispensation, when the third Person 
 of the Trinity dwells on earth, demons are subject 
 to restraints which were not imposed in a pre- 
 ceding age, but there is no reason to refuse belief in 
 
 their presence or their power. 
 
 163 
 
1 64 APPENDIX 
 
 Religious miracles also claim a passing notice 
 here. I do not allude to the tricks of priests, but 
 to cases of extraordinary cures from serious illness ; 
 and some at least of these appear to be supported 
 by evidence sufficient to establish their truth. The 
 phenomena of hysteria and mimetic disease will 
 probably account for the majority of cases of the 
 kind. Others again may be explained as instances 
 of the power of the mind and will over the body. 
 The diseases which are necessarily fatal are com- 
 paratively few. But when a patient gives up hope 
 his chances of recovery are greatly reduced. On 
 the other hand, the progress of disease may be 
 controlled, and even checked, by some mastering 
 influence or emotion which turns the patient's 
 thoughts back to life, and makes him believe he 
 is convalescent. But while the vast majority of 
 seemingly miraculous cures may thus be explained 
 on natural principles, there may perhaps be some 
 which are genuine miracles. There are no limits 
 to the possibilities of faith, and God may thus 
 declare Himself at times. 
 
 There is nothing in this admission to clash 
 with the concluding statement of my second 
 chapter, that in our dispensation, unlike those 
 which preceded it, there are no public events to 
 compel belief in God. I am there dealing, not 
 with the mere fact of miracles, but with their 
 evidential value ; and if there have been miracles 
 
APPENDIX 165 
 
 in Christendom, that element is wanting in them. 
 I may add that among Christians it is pestilently 
 evil to make the exceptional experience of some 
 the rule of faith for all. The Word of God is our 
 guide, and not the experience of fellow-Christians ; 
 and when this is ignored the practical consequences 
 are disastrous. The annals of " faith-healing," as 
 it is called, are rich in cases of mimetic or hys- 
 terical disease, but about the spiritual wreckage 
 due to failures innumerable they are silent. 
 
 NOTE II. (page 45). 
 
 According to the dictionary the primary meaning 
 of religion is " piety." But this, of course, is entirely 
 personal and subjective. In these pages I use the 
 word only in its original sense, in which alone it 
 occurs in our English Bible. " How little * religion ' 
 once meant godliness, how predominantly it was 
 used for the outward service of God, is plain from 
 many passages in our Homilies, and from other 
 contemporary literature." But though Archbishop 
 Trench, from whose " English Past and Present " 
 this sentence is quoted, suggests that such a use of 
 the word is now obsolete, I venture to maintain that 
 it is in this, its original, but now secondary, mean- 
 ing that it is commonly used at the present day. 
 
 And I may appeal to the fact that the Revisers 
 have retained it even in Gal. i. 13, 14, where "the 
 Jews' religion " is twice given as the equivalent 
 
1 66 APPENDIX 
 
 of "Judaism." In the only other passages where 
 it occurs (Acts xxvi. 5, and James i. 26, 27), it is 
 the rendering of the Greek OpriaKtia, a word which 
 means the outward ceremonial service of religion, 
 the external form, as contrasted with tvatfieia, a 
 word which, with one exception, is always translated 
 godliness in the fifteen passages where it occurs. 
 Qpr)(TKia is rendered worshipping in Col. ii. 18, thus 
 plainly showing that it is outward ceremonial it 
 implies. Its use in Acts xxvi. 5 needs no com- 
 ment, but in James i. its significance is generally 
 missed. " Pure religion," the writer declares, " is 
 this " and every Israelite (for to such the Epistle 
 was specially addressed) would expect a reference 
 to new ordinances in lieu of those of the bygone 
 dispensation ; but his thoughts turn in a wholly 
 different direction "to visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself 
 unspotted from the world." As Archbishop 
 Trench remarks, the very flprjo-icaa of Christianity 
 "consists in acts of mercy, of love, of holiness." 
 The words are intended, not to indicate a parallel, 
 but to suggest a contrast. In no more forcible 
 and striking manner could the apostle teach that 
 Christianity is not a OpiqaKeia at all. 
 
 NOTE III. (page 56). 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles is divided by theolo- 
 gians into three main periods : The Hebraic (chaps. 
 
APPENDIX 167 
 
 i.-v.) ; the Transitional (vi.-xii.), and the Gentile 
 (xiii.-xxviii.). But this classification is arbitrary. 
 The Hebraic section includes at least the first nine 
 chapters ; and if the view of the Book here advo- 
 cated be correct, the rest must be regarded as 
 transitional. That it is so in a real sense no 
 student can fail to recognise ; and that this is the 
 intention of the narrative I venture to maintain. 
 The admission of the Gentiles, recorded in chap, x., 
 was on strictly Jewish lines, as the apostles came 
 to understand, and James explained at the Council 
 of Jerusalem (xv. 13, &c.). Those that were 
 scattered by the Stephen persecution preached " to 
 Jews only" (xi. 19). The marginal note to ver. 20 
 in R.V. shows that the passage must not be strained 
 to imply a denial of this. That Paul's ministry 
 during the year he spent in Antioch was confined 
 to Jews, appears from xiv. 27. 1 When from 
 Antioch Paul and Barnabas came to Salamis " they 
 preached in the synagogues of the Jews" (xiii. 5). 
 When they came to Pisidian Antioch, they again 
 repaired to the synagogue (ver. 14). And it was 
 not till the Jews rejected the ministry that the 
 apostles "turned to the Gentiles" (ver. 46). 
 This passage marks one of the minor crises in 
 the narrative. At Iconium again the apostles 
 
 1 Because if Gentiles had been evangelised during his first visit, 
 there would have been no need to announce on his return that God 
 had opened the door of faith to Gentiles. 
 
168 APPENDIX 
 
 preached in the synagogue of the Jews (xiv. i). 
 As the " Greeks " here mentioned were attending 
 the synagogue, they were evidently proselytes, and 
 are not to be confounded with the " Gentiles " 
 of verses 2 and 5. Verse 27 of the fourteenth 
 chapter, makes it clear that Paul's ministry among 
 the Gentiles began with his sojourn in Pisidia 
 (chap. xiii.). 
 
 Chap. xv. claims far fuller notice than can here 
 be given to it. Any one can see, however, that it 
 records the session of a council of Jews to deal 
 with new problems to which the conversion of 
 Gentiles had given rise. Chap. xvi. 1-8 records 
 the apostles' visits to existing Churches. The 
 vision of ver. 9 then called them to Philippi 
 where (as probably at Lystra) they found no 
 synagogue. But on passing thence to Thessa- 
 lonica " Paul, as his manner was," frequented the 
 synagogue (xvii. 2). So also at Berea (ver. 10), 
 and at Athens (ver. 17). 
 
 From Athens Paul came to Corinth where 
 " he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath " 
 (xviii. 4). So also at Ephesus (ver. 19, and 
 xix. 8). Thence it was he turned towards 
 Jerusalem upon that mission which is regarded 
 by some as the fulfilment of his ministry, and 
 by others as a turning away from the path of 
 testimony to the Gentiles, seemingly marked out 
 for him to follow. Be this as it may, having 
 
APPENDIX 169 
 
 been carried a prisoner to Rome, his first care 
 was to call together not the Christians, much 
 though he longed to see them (Rom. i. 10, n), 
 but "the chief of the Jews," and to them to 
 give the testimony which he had brought to his 
 nation in every place to which his ministry had 
 led him. In his introductory address to them 
 he claimed the place of a Jew among Jews : 
 " I have done nothing (he declared) against the 
 people, or the customs of our fathers" (xxviii. 17) ; 
 but when these, the Jews of Rome, refused the 
 proffered mercy, his mission to his nation was at 
 an end ; and for the first time separating himself 
 from them, he exclaimed, " Well spake the Holy 
 Ghost through Isaiah the prophet unto your 
 fathers" and he went on to repeat the words 
 which our Lord Himself had used at that kindred 
 crisis of His ministry when the nation had openly 
 rejected Him (Acts xxviii. 25 R.V. ; Matt. xiii. 13, 
 cf. xii. 14-16). 
 
 My contention is that the Acts, as a whole, is v 
 the record of a temporary and transitional dispen- 
 sation in which blessing was again offered to the 
 Jew and again rejected. Hence the sustained 
 emphasis with which the testimony to Israel is 
 narrated, and the incidental way in which the 
 testimony to Gentiles is treated. Of the thousands 
 baptized at Pentecost a large proportion doubtless 
 were of the strangers mentioned in ii. 911; and 
 
i?o APPENDIX 
 
 these carried the testimony to the Jews in all 
 the places there enumerated. The 5,000 men 
 mentioned in iv. 4 were apparently resident in 
 Jerusalem, and these, when scattered by the 
 Stephen persecution, "went everywhere preaching 
 the Word," "but to the Jews only" (viii. I, 4, and 
 xi. 19). Surely we may assume that there was 
 not a district, not a village, inhabited by Jews, 
 where the gospel did not come. 
 
 Some, perhaps, will appeal to passages like Acts 
 xv. 12 to disprove my statement that miracles had 
 special reference to the favoured nation. The 
 careful student, however, will see that nothing in 
 the narrative is inconsistent with what I have 
 urged. For example, the miracle at Lystra was 
 in response to the faith of the man who benefited 
 by it (xiv. 9), and its effect on the heathen who 
 witnessed it was not to lead them to Christianity, 
 but first to make them pay Divine honour to the 
 apostles, and then, finding they were not gods but 
 men, to stone them. I have not said that there 
 were no miracles wrought among the heathen, but 
 that, when the gospel was carried to the heathen, 
 miracles lost their prominence, and that they ceased 
 absolutely just at the time when, if the recognised 
 hypothesis were true, they would have been of the 
 highest value. The great miracle of xvi. 26 was a 
 Divine intervention on behalf of the apostle. And 
 among the Jews of Ephesus (xix. 11) and the 
 
APPENDIX 171 
 
 Christians of Corinth (i Cor. xii. 10) there were 
 miracles, as doubtless elsewhere also. But there 
 were no miracles seen by Felix or Festus or 
 Agrippa ; and, as already noticed, when Paul 
 stood before Nero the era of miracles had closed. 
 The miracles of Acts xxviii. 8, 9 are chronologically 
 the last on record, and the later Epistles are wholly 
 silent respecting them. 
 
 NOTE IV. (page 87). 
 
 Every one recognises that the advent of Christ 
 marked a signal " change of dispensation," as it is 
 termed : that is, a change in God's dealings with 
 men. But the fact is commonly ignored that the 
 rejection of Christ by the favoured people, and 
 their fall in consequence from the position of 
 privilege formerly held by them, marked another 
 change no less definite and important (Rom. 
 xi. 15). And yet this fact affords the solution 
 of many difficulties and a safeguard against many 
 errors. As indicated in these pages, it gives the 
 clew to the right understanding of the Acts of the 
 Apostles a book which is primarily the record, 
 not, as commonly supposed, of the founding of 
 the Christian Church, but of the apostasy of the 
 favoured nation. But it also explains much that 
 perplexes Christians in the teaching of the 
 Gospels. 
 
 During the last Carlist rising in Spain a wealthy 
 
172 APPENDIX 
 
 Spanish marquis was said to have mortgaged his 
 entire estate to its utmost value, and to have 
 thrown the proceeds into the war-chest of the 
 insurrection. It was a reasonable act on the 
 part of any one who believed in the Pretender's 
 cause. To him, and to others like him, the acces- 
 sion of Don Carlos to the throne would bring 
 back their own, and far more besides. So was it 
 with the disciples in days when the kingdom was 
 being preached to the earthly people. Certain of 
 the Lord's precepts had reference to the special 
 circumstances of that special dispensation. Take 
 " the Sermon on the Mount " for example. Our 
 Lord was there unfolding the principles of the 
 promised kingdom, and giving precepts for the 
 guidance of those who were awaiting its estab- 
 lishment. It is all for us, doubtless, but not 
 always in the same sense that it was intended to 
 convey to them. Christians, for instance, pray the 
 kingdom prayer. But with us " Thy kingdom 
 come " is a general appeal for the advancement 
 of the Divine cause : with them it was a definite 
 petition for the near realisation of the promised 
 earthly reign. And what a meaning the prayer 
 for daily bread had for those who were enjoined 
 to carry neither purse nor scrip, but to trust their 
 heavenly Father to feed them as He feeds the 
 birds ; for, like the birds, they had " neither 
 storehouse nor barn " ! 
 
APPENDIX 173 
 
 Principles are unchanging, but the definite pre- 
 cepts recorded in such passages as Matt. v. 39-42 
 and vi. 25-34 were framed with reference to the p 
 circumstances of the time, and to the special testi- 
 mony which the kingdom disciple was to maintain. 
 The Christian, unlike the kingdom disciple in this 
 respect, is entitled to defend himself against outrage, 
 and to resist any invasion of his personal or civil 
 rights ; and he is expressly enjoined to make 
 provision for the future. Banking, insurance, and 
 thrift are not forbidden by Christianity. " Take 
 nothing for your journey," the Lord directed, as 
 He sent out the Twelve, " neither staves, nor scrip, 
 nor bread, nor money ; neither have two coats " 
 (Luke ix. 3). And referring to this, when He was 
 about to be taken away from them, He asked, 
 " When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and 
 shoes, lacked ye anything ? And they said, Nothing. 
 Then said He unto them, But now, he that hath a 
 purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip; and 
 he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and 
 buy one" (Luke xxii. 35, 36). 
 
 What can be plainer than this? In civilised 
 communities, of course, the State takes charge of 
 " the sword " (Rom. xiii. 4), and the individual 
 citizen is not left to defend himself; but the 
 principle is the same. One who is " instructed 
 unto the kingdom," the Lord declares, is like "a 
 householder who brings out of his treasure things 
 
174 APPENDIX 
 
 new and old" (Matt. xiii. 52). But Christians 
 nowadays are not thus " instructed." They are 
 rather like householders who, bringing out what- 
 ever comes first to their hand, give new milk to their 
 guests and old wine to their babies ! And as the 
 result Holy Scripture is brought into contempt, and 
 earnest and honest-hearted believers are stumbled 
 or perplexed. 
 
 Another clew is needed to guide us in the right 
 use of the teaching of the Gospels. Some of the 
 Lord's words were addressed to the apostles as such, 
 and we must remember this in applying them to 
 ourselves. 
 
 With reference to the Sermon on the Mount it 
 may be asked, Does any one imagine our Lord 
 supposed that people would wish to add twenty 
 inches to their height? Matt. vi. 27 should no 
 doubt be read as the American Revisers render it, 
 " Which of you by taking thought can add one 
 cubit to the measure of his life ? " 
 
 NOTE V. (page 109). 
 
 The primary and usual meaning of jivarfipiov 
 in Biblical Greek is indicated by its use in the 
 Septuagint. It occurs eight times in the second 
 chapter of Daniel (verses 18, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 47 
 (twice), and again in chap. iv. 9), and in every case 
 it is translated secret in our English version. The 
 word occurs also in the Apocrypha, and always in 
 
APPENDIX 175 
 
 this same sense. This, too, is its ordinary use in 
 the New Testament ; but the word was then 
 already acquiring the further meaning which 
 belongs to it in the writings of the Greek Fathers, 
 namely, a symbol or secret sign. And in this sense 
 it appears to be used in Rev. i. 20 and xvii. 5, 7. 
 In chap. x. 7 it occurs in its earlier meaning. So 
 also apparently in Eph. v. 32, though the Vulgate 
 understands it differently, using the word sacra- 
 mentum to translate it. If it is to be read in the 
 one way, the secret referred to is that believers are 
 members of the Body of Christ: if in the other 
 way, marriage is the symbol intended. 
 
 The Latin version of Eph. v. 32 is of special 
 interest as indicating the original meaning of 
 sacrament^ as " a mystery ; a mysterious or holy 
 , token or pledge " (Webster). Bishop Taylor thus 
 speaks of God sending His people " the sacrament 
 of a rainbow." And Hooker writes: "As often as 
 we mention a sacrament, it is improperly under- 
 stood ; for in the writings of the ancient fathers 
 all articles which are peculiar to Christian faith, 
 all duties of religion containing that which sense or 
 natural reason cannot of itself discern, are most 
 commonly named sacraments. Our restraint of the 
 word to some few principal Divine ceremonies 
 importeth in every such ceremony two things, the 
 substance of the ceremony itself, which is visible ; 
 and besides that, something else more secret, in 
 
iy6 APPENDIX 
 
 reference whereunto we conceive that ceremony to 
 be a sacrament" 
 
 In this passage, it will be noticed, the word is 
 used precisely in the secondary sense assigned to 
 it in Johnson's " Dictionary," viz., " An outward 
 and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." 
 Johnson's first meaning of the word is " an oath " ; 
 and the Latin word sacramentum may possibly 
 have acquired that meaning on account of some 
 outward act or sign which accompanied the taking 
 of an oath. According to Hooker's use of the word 
 sacrament, the English practice of kissing the 
 Testament would be so described. 
 
 NOTE VI. (page 118). 
 
 If the reader will take up the New Testament, 
 and with the help of a good concordance turn to 
 every passage where the devil is mentioned or 
 referred to, he will be startled to find how little 
 there is to give even a seeming support to the 
 popular superstition upon this subject. Three 
 passages only can I find that seem to suggest that 
 Satan tempts to acts of immorality. Of I John iii. 
 8-10, I have already spoken. The other two are 
 I Cor. vii. 5, and I Tim. v. 15 ; and with these 
 I will deal presently. 
 
 In the temptation of our Lord there was of course 
 no question of morality. The devil's aim was to 
 draw Him away from the path of dependence upon 
 
APPENDIX 177 
 
 God, and specially to divert Him from the path 
 which led to the Cross. It was this also which 
 brought such a terrible rebuke upon Peter when 
 the Lord addressed him as " Satan " (Matt. xvi. 23). 
 And when Satan asked to have Peter (as he had 
 asked to have Job) it was his faith he sought to 
 destroy. " I made supplication for thee," the Lord 
 added, "that thy faith fail not" (Luke xxii. 31, 
 32 R.V.). 
 
 And with the memory of this before him no 
 doubt it was that the apostle wrote the words, 
 " Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh 
 about, seeking whom he may devour : whom with- 
 stand stedfast in your faith" (i Pet. v. 8). In the 
 parable of the tares in the field, it is the devil who 
 sows the tares (Matt. xiii. 39). And in the parable 
 of the sower the devil's work is described as taking 
 away the word out of the hearts of those who hear 
 it, " lest they should believe and be saved." And 
 if Elymas the sorcerer was called a " son of the 
 devil," it was because of his " seeking to turn aside 
 the proconsul from the faith " (Acts xiii. 8, 10). 
 
 Two passages indicate his mysterious " power of 
 death," viz., Heb. ii. 14, and Jude 9, which tells 
 of his claiming as of right the body of Moses. 
 And two passages again indicate his power of 
 inflicting disease and pain, namely, Luke xiii. 16, 
 and Acts x. 38, but these may probably be ex- 
 plained by reference to the case of Job. 
 
i;8 APPENDIX 
 
 In Rev. xii. 9 (R.V.), he is called "the deceiver of 
 the whole world " (cf. Rev. xx. 10) ; and in that book 
 he is represented as the leader in the great coming 
 struggle between faith and unfaith, between the 
 acknowledgment of God and the denial of Him. 
 There is no need to quote the many passages which 
 indicate his malignant hatred of God and of His 
 people, but if he be the obscene monster of Christian 
 tradition, how is it that, from cover to cover, the 
 Bible is silent on the subject? In his "devices" 
 upon men the Satan of Scripture is the enemy, not 
 of morals, but of faith. 
 
 And if in view of the mass of testimony leading 
 to this conclusion we turn back to the two passages 
 above cited, we shall be prepared to read them in a 
 new light In I Tim. v. we shall read verse 15 in 
 the light of verse 12. The "turning aside after 
 Satan " there referred to is " the setting at nought 
 their first faithr And the Christian will not hesi- 
 tate to follow Calvin in understanding the " faith " 
 here intended as the faith of Christ. The word 
 Tnoroc occurs two hundred times in the Epistles ; 
 and in this sense only is it used, with the solitary 
 exception of Tit. ii. 10. There is the very strongest 
 presumption therefore against the suggestion that 
 here it means no more than a woman's " troth " to 
 her dead husband. Such a suggestion, moreover, 
 makes the apostle contradict himself. It makes 
 him say that young widows " have condemnation " 
 
APPENDIX 179 
 
 because they wish to marry again ; and yet 
 he ends by expressly enjoining that they are to 
 marry again! (ver. 14 R.V.). Verses 11-13 gi ye 
 his reasons for that injunction. The passage is 
 incidentally an overwhelming condemnation of 
 nunneries, but the usual construction put upon it 
 is an outrage upon Holy Writ and a gross libel 
 upon women. And I may add that if that con- 
 struction were the true one the limit of age at 
 which widows were to be provided for would 
 certainly have been fixed much earlier than sixty. 
 
 The expressions " waxing wanton against Christ," 
 and " turning aside after Satan," are to be explained 
 by reference to the Scriptural standard of spiritual 
 life and the Scriptural theology of Satanic tempta- 
 tions. So also of i Cor. vii. 5. The solemn practical 
 lesson there to be learned is that any departure 
 from prudence and propriety may give Satan an 
 advantage an occasion to undermine or corrupt 
 the Christian's faith. 
 
 As for Ananias, his story is so misread that the 
 lesson of it is lost to the Church. He was not a 
 bad man, but a good man. In the enthusiasm of 
 his zeal he sold his landed property that he might 
 devote the proceeds to the common fund. But 
 here the suggestion presented itself to him to put 
 aside a portion for his own use. His wife was in 
 the plot, and boldly lied to conceal it. But 
 Ananias spoke no lie, he only acted one, as people 
 
i8o APPENDIX 
 
 are used to do nowadays. If he lived to-day he 
 would be held in the highest repute. Indeed there 
 are few to be found in these selfish days who 
 could compare with him. The moral is not the 
 wickedness of man but the holiness and " severity " 
 of God, and the subtlety of Satanic temptations. 
 Satan tempted him, not to a vicious or " immoral " 
 act, but only to do what, as the apostle said, he had 
 an unquestionable right to do. He did not lie to 
 men so the Word expressly tells us but he lied 
 to God, and swift judgment fell on him. If God 
 were dealing thus with men in our day, the number 
 of the burials would be a serious difficulty ! 
 
 To the case of Judas I have not expressly 
 referred, because it so obviously falls within the 
 category of temptations aimed directly against 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 NOTE VII. (page 123). 
 
 The exegesis here offered of John viii. 44 is 
 not based on the grammar of the Greek article. 
 The revisers have adopted an unsatisfactory 
 compromise between exposition and translation. 
 "To speak a lie" is not English. In our lan- 
 guage the proper expression is " to tell a lie." 
 But no one would so render the Greek words 
 AaXav ro 7ro-uSoe ; and by inserting in the 
 margin the old and discarded gloss, the revisers 
 only betray their dissatisfaction with their own 
 
APPENDIX 181 
 
 reading. The words must mean either some 
 definite lie, or else in the abstract sense the 
 whole range of what is false. (See Psa. v. 6 
 LXX). In this view of the passage all speech 
 would be regarded as divided between truth 
 and falsehood God-speech and devil-speech. 
 But this is somewhat fanciful here, and, in 
 regard to the words which follow, somewhat 
 forced. And if, as I venture to urge, it is not 
 the false in the abstract which is here in view, 
 but a concrete instance of it, the question of 
 grammar is no longer open. And, thus rendered, 
 the connection is clear between Satan the liar 
 and Satan the murderer. He is not the instigator 
 to all murders, but to the murder there and then 
 in question, the murder of the Christ ; he is not 
 the father of lies, but the father of the lie of 
 which " the murder " is the natural consequence. 
 In Rom. i. 25, where both words (" truth " 
 and " lie ") have the article, I suppose both are 
 used in the abstract sense. In Rev. xxi. 27 and 
 xxii. 1 5 the word " lie " is anarthrous. But in 
 2 Thess. ii. 1 1 it is again the lie of John viii. 44. 
 The Lawless One who is yet to be revealed, is 
 described as he " whose coming is after the working 
 of Satan with all power and signs and lying 
 wonders." God does not incite men to tell lies 
 or to believe lies. But of those who reject " the 
 truth " it is written, " He shall send them strong 
 
182 APPENDIX 
 
 delusion that they should believe the lie." Be- 
 cause they have rejected the Christ of God, a 
 judicial blindness shall fall upon them that they 
 shall accept the Christ of humanity, who will be 
 Satan incarnate. 
 
 In these pages I have kept clear of prophecy, 
 for they are addressed in part to those who 
 have no belief in prophecy. But if the prophetic 
 student will shake himself free from the Satan 
 myth he will find the Divine forecast of the future 
 become radiant with new light. Terrible wars 
 are yet to convulse the nations, bringing famine 
 in their train. But the coming Man will bring 
 peace to the world. He will command universal 
 homage not merely by reason of his Satanic 
 miraculous powers, but because of his splendid 
 human qualities. The adherents of " the truth " 
 will, alone of all the race, have cause to mourn 
 his sovereignty. His reign will be the era of 
 man's " millennium," a time of order and pros- 
 perity unparalleled, when the arts of peace shall 
 flourish, and the Utopias of philosophers and 
 socialists will be realised. And that the Satan 
 cult which will then prevail on earth will be 
 marked by a high morality and a specious 
 " form of godliness," is plainly indicated by the 
 warning that, but for Divine grace, it would 
 " deceive the very elect." It is also, I venture 
 to think, plainly foreshadowed by current events. 
 
APPENDIX 183 
 
 Christians are trifling with sceptical attacks upon 
 Scripture. But the real issue involved in these 
 attacks is the Divinity of Christ ; and I venture 
 to predict that those of us who shall live for 
 another quarter of a century, shall yet witness 
 a widespread abandonment of that great truth 
 by many of the Churches. The decline of faith 
 during the last five-and-twenty years has been 
 appalling, and we are already within measur- 
 able distance of a more general acceptance of 
 the Satan cult a religion marked by a high 
 morality and an earnest philanthropy, but wholly 
 devoid of all that is distinctively Christian. "Free 
 from dogma " is the favourite expression : and 
 this " freedom " means the ignoring of the great 
 truths of Christianity. 
 
 NOTE VIII. (page 144). 
 
 According to English law " the Lord's day " 
 as Sunday is designated in the old statutes 
 is a day on which no judge or magistrate may 
 sit, and no jury may be empanelled. The criminal 
 may be taken red-handed, but all that the law 
 may do is to hold him in ward until the day of 
 grace has run its course, and a competent tribunal 
 may adjudicate upon his crime. If our law went 
 further in the same direction, and the functions 
 of the constable also were suspended, it would 
 
184 APPENDIX 
 
 afford an apter illustration of the great truth that 
 is here in question. But to make the parable 
 complete, we must go even further still, and 
 suppose not only that the criminal enjoys for 
 the moment freedom even from arrest, but that 
 there is an amnesty in force by which he may 
 secure absolute immunity from all the conse- 
 quences of his crime. 
 
 But to hold such language is to speak in an 
 unknown tongue ; and to turn to the words of 
 Scripture in support of it is to risk losing men's 
 attention altogether. The mystery of the gospel 
 is that God can justify a sinner, and yet be just. 
 He justifies the ungodly. "To him that worketh 
 not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the un- 
 godly, his faith is counted for righteousness" 
 (Rom. iv. 5). Here is another kindred statement : 
 "The grace of God hath appeared salvation- 
 bringing to all men." And the passage proceeds : 
 " For we also were aforetime foolish, disobedient, 
 deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living 
 in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 
 But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and 
 His love-toward-man, appeared, not by works 
 done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, 
 but according to His mercy He saved us" (Tit. ii. 
 11, 12, and iii. 2-5). Or if any would wish to 
 have words spoken by the lips of our blessed 
 Lord Himself, they will be found in many a 
 
APPENDIX 185 
 
 passage of the Gospels. Here, for example, is 
 His testimony to Nicodemus : " For God so loved 
 the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." 
 
 Are we not justified, then, in saying that for- 
 giveness and eternal life are brought within reach 
 of all ; that heaven is made as free to sinful men 
 as infinite love and grace can make it ? If words 
 have any meaning, this, and nothing less than this/ 
 is the truth. But how is this gospel treated ? In 
 the minds of the religious it excites the utmost 
 indignation. They no longer burn men at the 
 stake for proclaiming it, as in darker days they 
 used to do, but though their anger shows itself in 
 gentler ways it is just as real. And upon com- 
 mon men it makes no impression whatever. A 
 man once stood on London Bridge, for a wager, 
 offering real sovereigns for a shilling each. The 
 notice he displayed was plainly worded, and it 
 was read by hundreds of the passers-by. But by 
 all it was read incredulously, and therefore with 
 indifference. He won his wager : not a single coin 
 was taken from him ! And for the same reason 
 " the ^gospel of the grace of God " is ignored. It 
 will be thus ignored by hundreds who will read 
 these pages. Men are possessed by the belief that 
 eternal life can be attained only upon impracticable 
 conditions, and so their attitude towards the whole 
 
T86 APPENDIX 
 
 matter is one of apathy. But apathy gives place 
 to anger if any one dares to speak of eternal 
 judgment and a hell for the impenitent. No 
 blasphemy can be too daring to hurl at a God 
 who would not bring a sinner to heaven in the 
 same way a constable brings a drunken prisoner 
 to the lock-up without his will, or, if needs be, 
 against his will ! 
 
 But man, made in the image of God, is endowed 
 with a will, and to that will the Divine appeal is 
 addressed. " Ye will not come to Me that ye 
 might have life " was the Lord's yearning entreaty 
 to those who listened to His words, but refused 
 to give heed to them. " Whosoever will, let him 
 take the water o.f life freely." God's own heaven 
 is the home to which He is calling sinful men. 
 Hell has been prepared, not for such, but for the 
 devil and his angels. But if men refuse Christ and 
 take sides with Satan, they must reap what they 
 sow. 
 
 NOTE IX. (page 153). 
 
 " Of what value, then, is prayer? " some one will 
 ask, and " What place is there for it? " It is with 
 extreme diffidence that I venture to give expres- 
 sion to thoughts on this subject which have long 
 taken possession of my own mind. And 1 do so 
 only because it may possibly bring relief to many 
 
APPENDIX 187 
 
 who are sorely distressed at the seeming failure of 
 the prayer-promises of the Gospels. Words could 
 not be plainer than those in which our Lord im- 
 pressed on His disciples that Almighty power was 
 absolutely at their disposal, if only they had faith. 
 When they wondered that the fig-tree withered at 
 His word, He told them that they too could com- 
 mand this, or even the moving of a mountain. And 
 He added, " And all things whatsoever ye shall ask 
 in prayer, believing, ye shall receive " (Matt. xxi. 
 20-22). How many there are who in intensest 
 earnestness have claimed such promises, and have 
 reaped bitter disappointment which has staggered 
 their faith ! It is easy of course to explain the 
 failure by reading into the promise conditions of 
 one kind or another, though the Lord Himself 
 made no conditions whatever. But instead of 
 tampering thus with His words, let us consider 
 whether the true solution of the difficulty may not 
 be found in the truth which these pages have 
 endeavoured to unfold. 
 
 And here the striking fact claims attention that 
 while the record of the Pentecostal dispensation 
 presents us with the practical counterpart of all 
 such promises, the Epistles, which unfold the doc- 
 trine of the present dispensation, and describe 
 the life which befits that doctrine the life of 
 faith inculcate thoughts about prayer which 
 are essentially different, and which are entirely 
 
i88 APPENDIX 
 
 in accord with the actual experience of spiritual 
 Christians. 1 
 
 Some perhaps may urge that while the earlier 
 Gospels may thus be explained, 6Y. John cannot 
 be treated in this way. I can in reply but plead 
 with the thoughtful reader to consider whether 
 every word addressed to the apostles is intended 
 to apply to all believers at all times. Take John 
 xiv. 12 as a test of this. Is every believer to be 
 endowed with miraculous powers equal to or 
 greater than those exercised by the Lord Him- 
 self? We are prepared at once to limit the scope 
 of such words : is it so clear, then, that the words 
 which immediately follow are of universal applica- 
 tion ? We have the fact, I repeat, that both these 
 promises were proved to be true in the Pentecostal 
 dispensation, and that neither has been proved to 
 be true in the Christian Church. 2 So also of 
 chap. xv. 16, and of xvi. 23, &c. 
 
 But, it will be asked, Is not the promise explicitly 
 repeated in St. John's First Epistle (i John iii. 22 
 and v. 14, 15) ? I think not. It seems to me that 
 the apostles were in a special sense empowered both 
 
 1 James v. 13 may seem to be an exception. But without raising 
 the question where " the Elders of the Church " are to be found in 
 our day, it may suffice to notice that this Epistle, being expressly 
 addressed to Israel (chap. i. i), belongs dispensationally to the 
 Pentecostal era, which will be renewed when Israel is restored. 
 
 2 See Chap. V. ante. I am convinced that they will be equally 
 true in a dispensation which is still future ; but I do not enter on 
 such topics here. 
 
APPENDIX 189 
 
 to act and to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
 whereas the Christian should bow in presence of 
 the words, u according to His will." As Dean 
 Alford here remarks, " If we knew His will 
 thoroughly, and submitted to it heartily, it would 
 be impossible for us to ask anything, for the spirit 
 or for the body, which He should not hear and 
 perform. And it is this ideal state, as always, 
 which the apostle has in view." But the Christian 
 too commonly makes his own longings, or his 
 supposed interests, and not the Divine will, the 
 basis of his prayer ; he goes on to persuade him- 
 self that his request will be granted ; he then 
 regards this " faith " as a pledge that he has been 
 heard ; and finally, when the issue belies his con- 
 fident hopes, he gives way to bitterness and un- 
 belief. True faith is always prepared for a refusal. 
 Some, we read, " through faith," " obtained pro- 
 mises " ; but, no less " through faith," " others were 
 tortured, not accepting deliverance." 
 
 Some, perhaps, may think it a sufficient refuta- 
 tion of all this to appeal to what are called "striking 
 answers to prayer," such as certain Christians have 
 experienced in every age. But the appeal refutes 
 itself. They are justly regarded as " striking 
 answers " precisely because they are exceptional. 
 No one may dare to limit what God will do for 
 the believer. But to make the experience of some 
 the standard of faith for all is one of the greatest 
 
190 APPENDIX 
 
 errors and snares of Christian life. If these 
 promises are of universal application, the fact 
 that any answer to prayer should be considered 
 striking in any sense is proof of general apostasy. 
 A detailed examination of the passages in the 
 Epistles which refer to this subject would far ex- 
 ceed the limits of a note. One more may suffice. 
 I allude to the familiar words of Phil. iv. 6, 7 : "In 
 nothing be anxious ; but in everything by prayer 
 and supplication with thanksgiving let your re- 
 quests be made known unto God. And the peace 
 of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
 guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ 
 Jesus" (R.V.). It is a solemn thing to make 
 unconditioned demands upon God. To the 
 record of such prayers may often be added the 
 solemn words : " He gave them their request, 
 but sent leanness into their soul." Hezekiah 
 prayed in this way. He claimed a prolongation 
 of his life, and God granted his petition ; and the 
 added years gave him his son Manasseh, and the 
 consequences of Manasseh's sin (that God " would 
 not pardon ") still rest as a blight and a curse upon 
 that nation ! Such a prayer, I make bold to say, 
 is unfitting to the Christian. How different the 
 teaching of the Divine Spirit! It may be the 
 life of husband or wife, of parent or child, that is 
 in the balance : what then shall be the believer's 
 attitude ? To claim it, as Hezekiah did, and chance 
 
APPENDIX 191 
 
 the awful risks which the answer may entail ? Or 
 " by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving," 
 to leave the request with God ; and having thus left 
 it all with Him, to trust His love and wisdom with 
 the issue? It was thus the apostle prayed, when 
 he sought relief from that mysterious hindrance to 
 his ministry ; and the denial of his request, instead 
 of bringing bitterness of soul, only served to teach 
 him more of u the power of Christ " (2 Cor. xii. 
 8, 9). Above all it was thus the Master prayed in 
 the garden of Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 39, 42). 
 
 The prayer of the Pentecostal age was like 
 drawing cheques to be paid in coin over the 
 counter. The prayer of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion that is, of the life of faith is to make known 
 our requests to God, and to be at peace. If the 
 matter were one within the power of a friend 
 to deal with a friend whose wisdom we could 
 trust and of whose love we were assured should 
 we not be content to say, after telling him all, 
 " Now you know my feelings and my wishes, and 
 I leave the case entirely in your hands." And this 
 is just what God invites. 
 
 NOTE X. (page 160). 
 
 The sceptic seldom admits that any position 
 once held by him is untenable, and a signal ex- 
 ception to this is deserving of special notice. Not 
 
192 APPENDIX 
 
 content with making havoc of the Old Testament, 
 criticism has long been " running amuck " through 
 the New Testament also. " It has been demon- 
 strated " (says a recent writer) " that the selection 
 of the books composing it and their separation 
 from the vast mass of spurious gospels, epistles, 
 and apocalyptic literature was a gradual process, 
 and, indeed, that the rejection of some books and 
 the acceptance of others was accidental." I But 
 all this is now exploded by the greatest living 
 authority upon the subject, Professor Harnack of 
 Berlin. And his testimony is all the more telling 
 because he gives no sign of repentance as regards 
 his utter rejection of Christianity. Himself the 
 foremost champion of unorthodoxy, he freely owns 
 that in this matter the critics are wrong and the 
 orthodox are right. Here is an extract from the 
 preface to his recent work on " The Chronology of 
 the oldest Christian Literature " : 
 
 1 Mr. Andrew D. White's " Warfare of Science with Theology," 
 vol. ii. p. 388. This writer's appointment to the American 
 Embassy at Berlin will no doubt call increased attention to his 
 book. Real forensic skill is apparent in the use he makes of his 
 great erudition ; for, allowing for one important omission, his work 
 is quite encyclopedic. His indictment of "theology" is over- 
 whelming, and with much of it I am of course in thorough 
 sympathy. But of Christianity ', so far as appears from his treatise, 
 he knows absolutely nothing. To him our Divine Lord is merely 
 "the Blessed Founder" of the Christian religion the Buddha of 
 Christendom. Indeed he belongs to that large class of persons 
 who, without offence, may be aptly described as Christianised 
 Buddhists. 
 
APPENDIX 193 
 
 " There was a time the general public indeed 
 has not got beyond it in which the oldest Chris- 
 tian literature, including the New Testament, was 
 looked upon as a tissue of deceptions and forgeries. 
 That time is passed. For science it was an episode 
 in which it learned much, and after which it has 
 much to forget. The results, however, of the 
 fallowing investigations go in a ' reactionary ' 
 direction, beyond what can be described as the 
 middle position of present-day criticism. The 
 oldest Literature of the Church in all main points ^ 
 and in most details, from the point of view of 
 literary criticism, is genuine and trustworthy. In 
 the whole New Testament there is in all prob- 
 ability only a single writing which can be looked 
 upon as pseudonymous in the strictest sense of the 
 word i.e., the Second Epistle of Peter." 
 
 This is but one of many proofs that the tide has 
 turned which in recent years has threatened to 
 undermine the Christian faith. In the scepticism ( 
 of the day there is nothing distinctive save that so 
 many of its champions are men who are publicly 
 pledged and subsidised to teach what they deny. 
 It is only the unstable and the ignorant who are 
 overwhelmed by a book like that above cited. 1 
 Neither the well-instructed nor the spiritual can 
 be thus led to reject the Bible as a fraud and 
 
 1 " Warfare of Science with Theology." 
 14 
 
194 APPENDIX 
 
 Christianity as a superstition. They can under- 
 stand the difference between a Divine revelation 
 and human comments and commentaries. To 
 take a single example they do not regard the 
 Ussher-Lloyd Chronology in the margin of our 
 English Bible as " equally inspired with the sacred 
 text itself." I And while refusing to accept open- 
 mouthed the wild conjectures of certain Egypto- 
 logists as to the antiquity of ancient dynasties, they 
 recognise that the " conjectural periods " between 
 the Deluge and the Kingdom must be largely 
 extended. 
 
 If we eliminate the blunders of theologians and 
 " reconcilers " on the one hand and the theories 
 (as distinguished from the facts) of science on the 
 other, a ponderous treatise like Mr. A. D. White's 
 would be reduced to very small proportions. The 
 whole " Mosaic Cosmogony " controversy is ruled 
 out at once, and many questions which seem of 
 serious moment shrink into the background or 
 entirely disappear. Moreover, there is in Holy 
 Scripture a " hidden harmony " unknown to those 
 who ignore the scheme of type and prophecy 
 which permeates the whole. This study is a sure 
 antidote to scepticism. No student of prophecy 
 is a sceptic. And as regards the typology of 
 Scripture, which is the alphabet of the language 
 
 1 " Warfare of Science with Theology," vol. i. p. 253. 
 
APPENDIX 195 
 
 in which the New Testament is written, there is 
 not one of the rationalists who has given proof of 
 possessing any knowledge whatever. Ignorance 
 of the alphabet is a fatal defect in those who claim 
 to expound the text ; and this ignorance, which 
 Hengstenberg deplored in his day, is still absolute 
 in the case of all without exception who are 
 seeking to prove that the Bible is but a human 
 book. " Truth brings out the hidden harmony, 
 when unbelief can only, with a dull dogmatism, 
 deny." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, scope and 
 
 purpose of the, 49-60, 63, 76, 
 
 84, 166-170, 171 
 Alford, Dean, 37, 76;;, 107;;, 
 
 189 
 
 Ananias, 14, 77, 118, 179 
 Angels, fallen, 119 
 
 ,, the herald, 13, 147 
 Aristotle's Rhet., ggn 
 Armenian massacres, the, 3, 4 
 Atheism, 19, 64 
 
 Balfour, Mr. A. J., 24, 25, 64;;, 
 
 67 
 
 Bampton Lectures 1864, 52 
 Baur, F. C., 71, 72 
 Believing in Christ, meaning of, 
 
 104, 151 
 
 Bible, the, 92-95, 157 
 Buddhism, 68, 70, 124;;, 15 iw 
 Burke, Edmund, 647* 
 Butler, Bishop, 36, 37, 39 
 
 Calvin, Ii6, 178 
 Carlist insurrection, 171 
 Christ, advent of, 11-13, I 7 I 
 
 ,, divinity of, 22, 183 
 
 ,, lordship of, 151 
 
 Christ, testimony of the Bible 
 
 to, 41, 43, 44 
 Christianity, character, of, 36, 
 
 43, 66, 67, 69, 70, 173 
 Chronology of the Bible, 194 
 Church, authority of the, 91- 
 
 93 
 Church of England, teaching of, 
 
 93" 
 
 Cicero, 61 
 Cross, the, 73, 74, 139, 150, 156 
 
 " Deacons, the," 77 
 Demons, 118, 163 
 Devil, the, 118-131, 176-180 
 ,, see "Satan " 
 
 " Essays and Reviews," 21 
 Eternal life, how obtained, 
 98-104, 116, 144, 185 
 
 Fairbairn, Dr., 71-72 
 Faith, see "Believing" 
 Faith-healing, 164, 165 
 Froude, J. A., 61, 66 
 
 Gladstone, Mr. W. E., 25, 
 28;/, 30 
 
 197 
 
198 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grace, 99 
 
 Greg, W. R., 96, 100 
 
 Harnack, Prof., 192 
 Hengstenberg, 195 
 Hezekiah's prayer, 190 
 Hooker, 175 
 Hume, 20, 21, 25, 32;; 
 
 Infidelity, 20, 29 
 
 John, St., 38 
 
 ,, gospel or, 51,54;*, 1 88 
 John the Baptist, 41^, 48 
 Judgment, Christ's prerogative, 
 
 H3 
 Justification, 98-100, 184 
 
 Kellogg, Prof., 68, 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., 69 
 Lie, the, 128, 180, 181 
 " Lux Mundi," 92^ 
 
 Mansel, Dean, 9, 27 
 
 Martyrs, the Christian, 7, 80, 
 
 8in, 152 
 
 Matthew, gospel of, 51 
 Mill, John Stuart, 33, 34, 
 
 81 
 Miracles, definition of, 24, 27, 
 
 30, 161 
 
 ,, evidential value of, 
 25, 33-47, 48, 170 
 ,, possibility of, 17, 
 
 23-32, 34 
 , , Paley ? s argument from , 
 
 33 &c., 48 &c. 
 ,, of Christ, 12, 30, 31, 
 36, 37, 39 
 
 Miracles, cessation of, 10, 17, 18, 
 
 24, 49, 57, 58, 153, 
 161, 170 
 
 ,, rejection of, 20, 29 
 Missionaries, 157-158 
 
 ,, massacres of, 6 
 
 "Mystery," meaning of, in 
 Scripture, 109, 174-175 
 
 Neptune, discovery of, 128 
 Newmans, the, i6o;z 
 Nicodemus, 37, 185 
 
 Ordination pledges, 157 
 
 Paley, 33, 34, 48 
 Paris, Abbe, 32^. 
 Paul, St., conversion of, 15, 38, 
 
 39,55 
 ,, ministry of, 56, 57, 83, 
 
 107, 137, 167-169 
 ,, sufferings of, 154 
 Pentecostal dispensation, 16,56, 
 
 58, 72, 75, 169, 187, 1 88 
 Peter, St., 15,27,38,49,75,88 
 Prayer, 62, 186-191 
 ,, Hezekiah's, 190 
 ,, the Lord's, 172 
 Protestantism, 88, 93;;, 98 
 If 
 
 Rationalists, the, 22 
 Reconciliation, 114 
 Religion, asceticisms of, 156 
 ,, evil effects of, 80 
 ,, Christianity not a, 36, 
 
 43-45,66, 78, 1 66 
 "Religion," use of, in English 
 
 Bible, 165 
 
 Romans, Epistle to the, 50, 54, 
 1 06 
 
INDEX 
 
 199 
 
 "Sacrament," meaning of, 175, 
 
 176 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, fyi 
 " Samaritan, the good," 100-103 
 Satan, 117-131, 176-180, 181- 
 
 183 
 
 ,, controls religion, 127, 
 178, 182 
 
 ,, fall of, 150 
 Sceptics, the religious, 21, 23, 
 
 33, 88-94, 157, 193 
 " Sermon on the Mount," 87, 
 
 128, 172-174 
 Sin, 112, 120 
 Spiritualism, 163 
 Stephen, St., 14, 55, 79, 81, 
 
 82 
 " Supernatural Religion," 54;; 
 
 Swift, Dean, 46 
 
 Taylor, Bp., 175 
 Temptation, the, 125, 126, 176 
 Temptations, Satanic, 176-180 
 Trench, Archbp., 112, 165, 166 
 Tyndale, Wm., 92 
 Tyndall, Prof., 146 
 
 Van Mildert, Bp., 32 
 
 Wallace, Prof. A. R., 163 
 " Way, the," 86;z 
 Westminster Divines, the, 133 
 White, Mr. A. D., 192, 194 
 Wilberforce, Bp., 135 
 Wilkins, Sergeant, 112/2 
 
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