BISHOP PADDOCK ,; LECTURES A.U. 1QOO ^i^. ;t^:iT- ^^ 1f^ PRINCETON, N. J. ^ Presented by CJ ^ (S OWA^f^OV, Division V.^: BT 1101 .S55 1900 Shields, Charles W. 1825- 1904. The scientific evidences of revealprJ rpliainn THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF EEVEALED RELIGION THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTUEES FOR THE YEAR 1900 BY // Rev. CHARLES WOODRUFF SHIELDS, D.D., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF THE HARMONY OF SCIENCE AND REVEALED RELIGION IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AND A TRUSTEE OF THE GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH NEW YORK ^ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1900 Copyright, 1900, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDINO COMPANY NEW YORK (3Co THE RIGHT REVEREr^D THE BISHOP OF LONG ISLAND ABRAM NEWKIRK LITTLEJOHN SCHOLAR • PRELATE • FRIEND THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES In the summer of tlie year 1880, George A. Jarvis, of Brooklyn, N. Y., moved by his sense of the great good which might thereby accrue to the cause of Christ, and to the Church of which he was an ever- grateful member, gave to the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church certain securities, ex- ceeding in value $11,000, for the foundation and main- tenance of a Lectureship in said seminary. Out of love to a former pastor and enduring friend, the Eight Kev. Benjamin Henry Paddock, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts, he named the foundation "The Bishop Paddock Lectureship." The deed of trust declares that : " The subjects of the lectures shall be such as apper- tain to the defence of the religion of Jesus Cheist, as revealed in the Holy Bible and illustrated in the Book of Common Prayer^ against the prevailing errors of the day, whether materialistic, rationalistic, or professedly religious, and also to its defence and confirmation in re- spect of such central truths as the Trinity , the Atone- ment, Justification^ and the Inspiration of the Word of God; and of such central facts as the Church's Divine Order and Sacraments, her historical Reformation, and her rights and powers as a pure and national Church. And other subjects may be chosen if unanimously ap- viii THE BISHOP PADDOCK LECTURES l)roved by the Board of Appointment as being botli timely and also within the true intent of this Lecture- ship." Under the appointment of the board created by the trust, the Ilev. Charles Woodruff Shields, D.D., LL.D., Professor of the Harmony of Science and Revealed Ke- ligion in Princeton University, delivered the Lectures for the year 1900, contained in this volume. PREFACE The literary form of the following papers has been predetermined by the occasion for which they were prepared, as Lectures in the Chapel of the General Theological Seminary. In the first two Lectures it became necessary to touch upon some current questions of biblical criticism so far as they are involved in the relations of Science and the Bible. As these questions could not be thoroughly discussed within such limits, I have added several es- says designed to unfold more fully the special topics to which they refer. The lecture on " Bishop Butler's Contribution to the Christian Evidences " would naturally serve as an his- torical introduction to the whole course of lectures. It was originally delivered in the Theological Seminary of Virginia and afterward repeated in the General Theo- logical Seminary in New York. The article on " The Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible " is here repro- duced by permission from the Century 3Icujazine. The other papers have not before been published. It should be added that occasionally arguments and expressions have been taken from the second volume of my Philosophia Ultima in anticipation of a revision and completion of that work. On the basis of the principles premised, I have en- X PREFACE deavored in this volume to collect evidences in favor of revealed religion from the sciences of astronomy, geol- ogy, and anthropology. Similar portions of evidence should yet be collected from the sciences of psychol- ogy, sociology, comparative religion, and from the philo- sophical sciences, in order to complete the whole body of the Scientific Evidence. The materials for this remaining task have already been gathered for future publication. Charles W. Shields. Princeton University, October, 1900. CONTENTS PAGB The Logical Nature of the Scientific Evidence 1 The Christian religion now assailed in the name of science. — Present state of parties, — Duty of uniting the old and new schools of biblical study in defence of the Faith, on scientific ground. — Historical origin of the Scientific Evidence. — Its logical premises — Theism, Revelation, the Canon. — Popular fallacies now hindering its due api»reciation : First, " The Bible was designed to teach nothing but religion and morals" — False in its premise, in its process, and in its product — The Bible in its scope in- clusive of Science as well as Religion. — Second Fallacy, " The Bible con- tains scientific errors " — Based on a questionable theory of inspiration — Proves too little, or too much, when consistently applied. — The so-called errors are approximate truths and partial revelations. — Unfortunate use of the word "error" in connection with the sacred writings. — The Bible neither teaches science nor anything contrary to science. n The Logical Value of the Scientific Evidence 24 Third Fallacy : " The Bible is literature to be studied like other books" — New literary interest in the Bible — Superficial resemblances between litera- ture and Scripture — The one fundamental difference — Prophets and apostles not mere poets and philosophers. — Their personal errancy outside of their inspired writings — Their personal freedom as organs of the Holy Spirit— The Divine unity of the Scriptures. — Other requisites of l)il)lical study besides the literary : 1. Logical — Mere higher criticism not fully applicable to inspired writings ; 2. Scientific problems not to be solved by mere liter- ary methods — The Higher Criticism becoming too unscientific — Its barren xii CONTENTS results; 3. Spiritual discernment more important than literary taste. — Irreverence and rationalism of the Radical School of higher critics. — The reverent conservative school to be distinguished from them and welcomed on the basis of the foregoing principles of the Scientific Evidence.— High qualities of the Scientific Evidence. — Its four sources and forms : Evidence of scientific authorities, scientific facts, scientific theories, and scientific marvels. — Its value in relation to the other Christian Evidences; to the scientist himself ; and to the interests of civilization. Ill PAGE The Evidence from Astronomy 51 1. Historical growth of the astronomical evidence. — The testimony of as- tronomers.— 3. Perfect agreement of astronomical facts and revealed truths. — Astronomical literature illustrative of the Divine attributes.— 3. Provis- ional agreement of astronomical hypotheses and revealed doctrines. — Series of nebula;, suns, and planets. — The constancy or the evolution of cosmic types in relation to the doctrine of creation. — The babitability or unhabitability of planets in relation to the doctrine of angels. — A permanent cosmos or a final chaos in relation to the doctrine of new heavens and earth. — Overwhelm- ing problems of astronomy. — 4. Astronomical miracles. — Standing Still of the Sun, Dial of Ahaz, Star of the Nativity, made credible by marvels of modern science.- Remaining difficulties of faith. — The apparent insignifi- cance of Earth and Man in the astronomical universe. IV The Evidence from Geology 79 Its historical growth. — Testimony of geologists. — Geological facts and re- vealed truths.— Rich geological literature illustrating the divine wisdom and goodness. — The nebulous earth and the biblical chaos. — The Catastrophists and the Uniformitarians in relation to the Six Creative day.s. — Exegetical questions.— The human and Divine Sabbath.— Critical questions.— The sta- bility or the dis.solution of the globe in relation to the New Earth.— Geo- logical miracles : The Deluge, Burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Ex- odus, etc.— Comparative strength of the geological evidence.— Difficulty of conceiving geological time.— Biblical predictions of geological events and their spiritual lessons. CONTENTS xiii PAGK The Evidence from Anthropology 107 Definition of anthropology as the chief biological science, embracing ethnology, philology, and archeology. — Early stage of its evidence. — Testi- mony of biologists and physiologists. — Revealed truths in anthropology. — Its religious literature. — The constancy of the human .species or the evolu- tion of animal into human species as advocated by ethnologists, philologists, and archfeologists. — Relation of these speculations to the First Adam. — The unity or plurality of races in reference to the Fail of Adam. — Exegetical questions. — Critical questions. — The physical corruptibility or perfectibility of the species in relation to the Second Adam. — Miracles of the Ark, Tower of Babel, Gift of Tongues, etc., in the light of modern science. — Problems of anthropology as connected with geology and angelology. — The theory of human evolution not irreconcilable with revealed religion. — Difficulty of reconciling pain and death in inanimate nature with the divine benevolence. — Beautiful adaptation of external nature to the sesthetical faculty of man, as shown by the three physical sciences which have been reviewed. VI Bishop Butler's Contribution to the Chris- tian Evidences 140 The personality of Butler.— The Epoch of Butler.— His Literary Deficien- cies. — Alleged Logical Deficiencies. — Metaphysical Deficiencies. — Religious Deficiencies.— His positive contributions.— His valuation of Christian Ev- idence. — His use of Inductive Logic or Scientific Analogy. His statement of the Problems of Scientific Evidence.— Consequent Principles of the New Scientific Evidence. VII The Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible . 188 Admitted Literary Imperfections. — Some Historiographical Defects. — Textual Glosses as in all literature, but no Scientific Errors strictly so called. — The Physical teaching of the Bible distinguished and summarized. xiv CONTENTS It is never described in Scripture as erroneous.— It is not separable from the spiritual, with which it is implicated.— Both the physical and the spir- itual teaching are non-scientific in form.— The one no more reconcilable with popular fallacies than the error.— Both have a permanent and uni- versal import as well as local reference.— The physical teaching adapted to our intellectual wants and capacities.— Its relative importance.— Its eviden- tial value. — Its metaphysical value in complimenting empirical science. Its philosophical value in consummating the Science of Sciences. — The im- pending battle for the truth of Holy Writ.— At first, an unequal Contest.— Duty of all friends of Humanity to unite with Christian believers in defence of revealed truth. VIII PAGE The Mythical Theory of Kevealed Keligion . 217 The latest and most subtle form of unbelief.— Plausibility of the Myth- ical Theory. — It? logical consistency. — Its philosophical origin in German philosophy, and biblical criticism. — Definition of the myth. — Criteria for distinguishing philosophical or historic myths, as defined by Strauss. — Neg- ative marks. — Positive marks. — Illustration from the Annunciation. — Ar- guments for the theory. — Their Refutation. IX The Historical Evidence of Eevealed Ke- ligion 240 The problems of universal history as stated in Holy Scripture : 1. The existence of Evil ; 2. A plurality of races and nations ; 3. Different forms of civilization; 4. Different forms of false religion. — Relation of these problems to the revealed scheme of human redemption.— The Pre-Christian periods of experiment and preparation. — The Post-Christian periods of appropriation and realization.— Tendencies toward a final form of Christian Civilization.— Social as well as individual regeneration through Christianity. THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF REVEALED EELIGION THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OP REVEALED RELIGION I THE LOGICAL NATURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE After the lapse of nineteen centuries the Christian religion is again on the defensive. In the present in- stance it has been driven to its defences by an assault more desperate than any it has ever before sustained. It is an assault made falsely in the name of Science and with scientific weapons. The assailants have arrayed against it those bodies of human knowledge which are most certain in their nature and popular in their im- pression. Astronomy, they tell us, now declares no other glory in the heavens than that of Newton, La Place, and other discoverers of their laws. Geology has shown us that the earth was not created in six days, but has been self-evolved through unmeasured time. An- thropology is teaching us that man was not made in the image of God, but emerged in the likeness of an ape. The other, higher sciences, psychology, sociology, com- parative religion, they assure us, are taking a like offensive bearing against the ethical and religious teach- ing of the Bible. And to all these successive attacks, it is claimed that the Christian religion has offered but a feeble and ineffectual resistance ; that it has hither- to retreated before every advance of scieijce ; that its 2 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION miraculous evidences have already been reduced to mere myths and legends ; that its most essential doc- trines are being steadily undermined by scientific re- search ; and that it is only a question of time when it shall be left without any defence and without anything worth defending. Present Scientific Crisis. At such a crisis it would be idle to disguise the fact that the defenders of the Faith are not presenting an unbroken front to its assailants. The line of defence may be firm at the centre, but at the extremes it is un- equal. At the extreme left appears the new school of biblical critics, conceding, step by step, the ground in- vaded in the name of science. For the avoAved interest of Christian truth they are admitting that the Bible teaches false astronomy, false geology, false anthropol- ogy, even defective ethics and theology, and now that all that remains to be contended for in Holy Scripture is a certain essential faith to be somehow distilled from its errors by means of learned criticism, or perhaps new dogmatic definitions by the Church. At the ex- treme right remains the elder school of biblical students, denouncing such concession as weakness or treachery. Taking their stand on the Canonical Scriptures with the doctrine of plenary inspiration they are insisting that the teaching of the Bible is to be held true in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology, no less than in ethics and theology, and that the whole book, without a show of compromise, must be maintained as contain- ing and being the very Word of God written. Mean- while, those who stand at the centre between these ex- tremes, can see that, if the right wing has been too NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 3 rashly advanced, yet the left wing has already wavered and broken away, with banners trailing in the dust, amid the exultation and derision of their foes and the indignation and dismay of their friends. Duty of United Defence, Now while it is our duty to repel all assailants of re- vealed religion, it is also plainly our duty, as far as possible, to make common cause wdth all its defenders. We should endeavor to stand wdtli and stand by even those apologetes who may seem to us mistaken or mis- guided. If we may, if we can, we should rally them back to positions which perhaps they have too hastily deserted. For the sake of that Book wdiich is the source of our common Christianity and civilization, and for the sake of that Church which originally pro- duced it and has faithfully kept it through the ages and triumphantly borne it as a standard never low^ered be- fore any foe, we cannot but beg them to keep in line as true defenders and not as mere critics of the AVord of God. To this end, speaking for myself, I would hope to complement their opinions instead of antagonizing them, and seek to conserve all that is just and sound in their authorities and methods. If they have read with admiration Dr. Draper's "History of the Conflict be- tween Science and Keligion," I would remind them that there is another counterpart history, which Dr. Draper did not write, of that true religion and true science, be- tween which there never has been and never can be any conflict. If they have been charmed with the scholarly pages of Dr. Andrew White's " Warfare of Science with Theology," I would remind them that Dr. White does 4 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION not show that scieuce has ever waged warfare with re- vealed religion, but only with some theological dogma or tenet which has usurped the authority of revelation or invaded the sphere of science. If they have followed our learned brother Dr. Briggs in his luminous '' Bibli- cal Studies " so far as to look for scientific errors in the Bible, I w^ould remind them that Dr. Briggs himself has found some scientific truths in the Bible, and that it is not even thinkable that its divine Author could have re- vealed anything contrary to the most advanced human science. In a word, if they are beginning to fear that modern science casts some doubt or discredit upon the traditional Christian Evidences, as they figure in our standard treatises, I would invite them to consider an- other class of evidences, which modern science itself is affording, and which, in the strictest sense, deserves to be called pre-eminently the Scientific Evidences of Be- vealed Beligion. Here let me say that the honor of being invited to give these lectures touches me with some feeling of embarrassment. I cannot forget that I have come as a comparative stranger to a renowned seat of sacred learning, whither the most gifted sons of the Church have been bringing their scholarly tributes ; and it may even seem that I have chosen a theme which had bet- ter been left in the practiced hand of a learned Pro- fessor within whose province it falls. I am reassured, however, when I remember that every lecturer upon the Paddock foundation may be supposed to contribute something of his own, however humble, to its noble objects ; and that the wide field of Christian Evidence in our day calls for many laborers and much special NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 5 research, especially in that section of the field embraced within the relations of science and religion, to which I am devoted. I have therefore thought I could not better serve the ends of this Lectureship and show a due appreciation of my present position than by bring- ing with me the fruits of some life-long studies in de- fence of the Christian and Catholic Faith. The Netv Scientific Evidence, The general evidences of Kevealed Keligion date from its very origin, and have been accumulating for thousands of years. Before the Christian era, they served practically to distinguish the true revealed re- ligion from the false natural religions of the ancient world. Since the Christian era, after coming in contact with gentile culture, they have assumed logical form as a growing body of proof, handed down from generation to generation through nearly twenty centuries of time. It will be found that each age or critical period of civ- ilization has had some peculiar conflict with Christian- ity, and as the result some issuing contribution to its evidences. Its successive conflicts — first Avith Judaism in the life of our Lord ; then with Paganism in the age of the Apostles ; then with philosophy in the age of the Church fathers ; then with Mohammedanism in the age of the schoolmen; then with Italian naturalism, English deism, French atheism, and German rationalism since the age of the Reformers — have yielded vast masses of evidence, much of which is stowed away in its apologetic literature as the logical trophies of its conquering march through the centuries. In like man- ner in this pre-eminently scientific age we are involved 6 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION in a seeming conflict between science and tlie Bible, with its issuing contribution of Scientific Evidence. The origin of the Scientific Evidence, as we know it, dates from the time of the Eeformation, which inchided a revival of Science as well as of Eeligion. It is true that in the first Christian age there were some prelu- sive strifes between Greek philosophy and the theology of the Church fathers, but the issue w^as a mere con- quered peace which was false and premature. It is true, also, that in the middle ages a few enlightened schoolmen asserted the rights of free scientific inquiry, but their efforts seemed only to strengthen an ecclesias- tical and dogmatic bondage which was becoming intol- erable. It was not until the Reformation had liberated both religion and science that they both sprang at once into new relations, sometimes hostile, sometimes indif- ferent, but often friendly and fruitful. Pre-eminent among the forerunners and leaders of the last named harmonizing movement, stands the great apologete, Bishop Butler. In a former lecture,"^ which I had the honor of presenting to this Seminary, I claimed for Bishop Butler the singular merit of having contributed to the General Evidence of Eevealed Religion the be- ginnings of that Scientific Evidence which is peculiar to our epoch. It was shown that he made this contribution by conceiving religious problems in a thoroughly scien- tific spirit ; by applying to them the scientific method known as the inductive logic ; by laying a logical foun- dation for the harmony of Science and revelation in the analogy of nature and religion ; by enunciating prin- ciples applicable in the Scientific interpretation of the Bible; by giving prescient hints of a coming agree- * See Lecture VI. in this volume. NATURE OF SGIENTIFIG EVIDENCE 7 inent of the Bible with Science and consequent growing proof of Christianity ; and by building up, albeit un- consciously, a substantial part of the philosophic struct- ure of Science itself. Without renewing these discus- sions I pass at once to our next topic, the logical nature of the Scientific Evidence. Its Logical Premises. As all reasonable evidence involves facts or princi- ples upon which it is based and from which it proceeds, we need to define clearly, if but briefly, the premises of Christian Evidence in general, but especially the evi- dence before us. In the first place, since there could be no revelation without a God to reveal, we must assume, not indeed as unproved, but as at least provable, some theistic theory of the world as affording the conditions of intelligent communication between the absolute rea- son of God and the finite reason of man. The sceptical philosopher who regards Jehova as a mere mythical per- sonage, like Jupiter, or a bare abstraction termed the Unknowable, would simply make a revelation metaphys- ically impossible or logically inconceivable. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all schools of thinkers, even some agnostics, allow a theory of absolute being, more or less consistent with the idea of revelation. Theism in some form underlies the best thought and belief of mankind, and in starting with theism we take ground common alike to philosophy and religion. Besides this universal tenet, we must still further assume, as in the process of proof, the existence of a divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. The evidence of this revelation, as we have said, has been accumulat- 8 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION ing for ages until now it amounts to the highest prob- ability in many minds, and in some minds to moral cer- tainty itself. It has been tested by the searching criticism of each successive generation ; and it equals the best- reasoned science in the kind if not in the degree of its certitude. The burden of disproving it rests upon the objector to it. If it is to be hereafter called in ques- tion at every step of this inquiry, we shall only be ever returning upon our own path and make little or no prog- ress toward any good result. Rather let it be our aim to advance with and beyond the Miraculous, Propheti- cal, and Historical evidences of former ages, to the new Scientific evidence of our own day. As a third premise, it is quite logical to assume the integrity of the canonical Scriptures as containing divine revelation in distinction from all other sacred writings. It is more than twenty centuries since the Old Testament Canon was closed, and about fifteen centuries since the completion of the New Testament Canon. During all that time the consent of Christen- dom in them both has been practically unanimous. The genuineness of the sacred books w^ould seem fairly pre- sumable. While free discussions of the canonicity of each book may still be allowable and of the highest impor- tance among expert scholars and divines, who are spe- cially fitted and called to purge the Canon from spurious ingredients, yet if we admit them rashly and crudely into our popular lectures and treatises we shall only be perpetually tearing up the foundations upon which we are trying to build. As an oriental scholar, you may endeavor to trace all the sacred books of the East, in- cluding the Bible, to a primitive tradition or universal revelation, but it is still a fact that the maxims of Con- NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 9 fucius or the Zend-Avesta were not included within the Canon. As a Church antiquarian, you may value highly the apocryphal and patristic writings which were discarded after full trial ; but the Book of Tobit or the Epistle of Barnabas has not been restored to the Canon. As a Christian thinker, you may believe that devout genius differs only in degree from divine inspi- ration ; but the " Imitation of Christ " or the " Paradise Lost " has not yet been exalted into the Canon. As a Biblical critic, you may doubt the inspiration of some of the Sacred Books, but the Song of Solomon or the Epistle of Saint James has not been ruled out of the Canon. Whatever may be your private opinions on such points, yet as a loyal Churchman, to say the least, you will accept the Canon as it stands and find in it the written Word of God. Some things may be considered as settled by the wisdom of the Christian ages and the general consent of the Catholic Church. Popular Fallacies, After thus defining the premises of the new Evidence as including theism, a revelation, and the Canon, it be- comes important next to repel certain fallacies which assail it at the present time and may thwart its direct and full effect upon the mind. These fallacies should be challenged at the threshold, not, as I have said, with the view of offending any apologists who may practise them, but simply to clear away all rubbish from the common ground where we are to stand together in de- fence of the Faith. I shall state them in the popular form under which they have become current. The first fallacy relates to the aim and scope of reve- 10 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION lation. It is expressed in the dictum, '* The Bible was designed to teach nothing but religion and morals." This is a specious sophism. That the Scriptures prin- cipally teach matters of faith and duty lying within the realm of theology is obvious enough ; but it does not follow that they may not also, incidentally and second- arily, teach some other matters lying within the realm of other sciences. The fallacy is false in its premise, false in its process, and false in its product. The Bible as Prejudged, Its premise is a masked form of rationalistic prejudg- ment. Bishop Butler, while ever commending reason as our only faculty for judging anything, even revela- tion itself, is careful to make reason a critic only of the evidences of revelation, not of its contents ; and he has a masterly chapter on '' Our incapacity of judging what were to be expected in a Bevelation." In the nature of the case, the aims and topics of any divine communica- tion lie beyond the reach of human faculties. A Reve- lation, in any proper sense of the word, implies our pre- vious ignorance of its whole purpose and purport. If we could know a priori what the Bible should teach us and how it should teach us, we should need no Bible at all, and we might soon prove that the one we have is not worth having if we approach it in this sj^irit. Such prejudgment, moreover, may become not merely irrev- erent, but irrational. It is as unphilosophical to pre- judge the phenomena of Scripture as the phenomena of Nature ; to prescribe the course of revelation as the course of science. Experience has shown, as Butler proves, that in either case we are liable to infinite mis- NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 11 takes ; and especially in the latter case, that we could not even furnish a good inventory of the wants which a revelation should supply. Men have absurdly hoped to find in the Bible exact rules of life and business, full political codes, elaborate systems of divinity, precise information concerning the future life, a panacea for bodily ills, a talisman against harm, a fortune-book to conjure with, in short almost anything that it does not contain. And we are quite as likely to preclude from it what it does contain. It is but a truism to say that the Bible was designed to teach simply what it is found to teach. And if it is found to teach geological truth in the first chapter of Genesis, as well as theological truth in the first chapter of St. John, we can only infer that it was designed to teach such truth in each instance. In a word, the design and full purport of Holy Scripture are not the proper problems of Introductory Criticism, but are simply questions of devout Exegesis ; and the very last questions rather than the first. Not until we have thoroughly studied the Bible in all its actual con- tents and possible relations can we affirm that it was never designed to teach scientific as well as religious facts and truth. The Bible as Mutilated. But the sophism before us is as fallacious in its pro- cedure as in its premise. Sometimes, instead of starting as a prejudgment, it claims to have been a sort of gen- eralization on the face of the Bible, to the effect that it is manifestly a book of religion and morals, and there- fore teaches nothing else. Very soon, however, this mere crude generalization becomes a foregone conclu- sion, to which all the contents of Scripture are thence- 12 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION forth to be adjusted. As superficial investigators will choose the facts of Nature, so they will choose the texts of Scripture, to suit their favorite hypothesis, while ig- noring or distorting all the rest. And the worst of the mistake is, that the hypothesis often contains a large amount of truth with its error, and explains many of the relevant facts, though not all of them. In this way, good men, from the best motives, in order to exalt the religious teaching of the Bible, will wholly neglect or reject its physical teaching as connected therewith. Selecting certain portions of Scripture supposed to be purely ethical and theological in their purport, they will disparage all remaining portions as unimportant or quite worthless, because astronomical, geological, or his- torical in their bearing. And having thus exscinded sci- entific truths, they will go on to mutilate religious truths, culling proof texts around their favorite tenets, Calvinis- tic or Arminian, Baptist or Methodist, Presbyterian or Episcopalian, Protestant or Catholic, until the only di- vine standard of unity is made a source of endless dis- sension throughout Christendom. " This is the Book where each his dogma seeks, And this the Book where each his dogma finds." In short, the fallacy before us, as applied in the study of the Bible, tends to narrow its scope even as a book of religion and morals. Tlie Bible as Ignored. A mutilated Bible can only bring cumulative evils in its train. It is not strange therefore that reasoning so false in its premise and in its process should be also NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 13 false in its product. Not only are the Holy Scriptures marred and wrested by its unscientific treatment of their phenomena ; but it engenders a growing breach between divine knowledge and human knowledge, with an issuing conflict of opinions and interests in every region of civ- ilization. History shows us that if we may err by seek- ing too much in the Bible, we may also err by finding too little in it. Time was when the former error pre- vailed. Revelation was claimed as the ancient fountain of all knowledge both in Pagan and in Christian philos- ophy. The whole cyclopaedia of the natural sciences was derived from Genesis, the Book of Job, and the Psalms, with their so-called Mosaical Mathematics, Script- ure Geology, Biblical Physics, Sacred Zoology, and all the rest. And by consequence religion itself became allied with superstition and conceit, while science was enslaved and philosophy degraded. But ever since the Reformation we have been reacting toward the other extreme of finding too little in the Bible. The springs of all philosophy are now sought outside of revelation in the mere human reason alone. Great Christian thinkers in our day no longer feel their intellectual need of a revelation in framing their theories of knowl- edge and systems of science as they may still feel their spiritual need of it in moulding their faith and practice. Imagine such thinkers standing with St. Paul before the Athenian altar to the Unknown God ! Then, imagine his trenchant challenge, " Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you ! " And the result is that the natural sciences are now openly detached from Holy Scripture, if not arrayed against it, as no longer consistent with its teachings. It is to be held as important in its theology and ethics, but 14 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION worthless in its astronomy, geology, and j)liysics. Even the higher psychical sciences are beginning to assert a like independence in the form of a naturalistic ethic, and a comparative theology or science of religions divested of miracle and prophecy and discharged of all Scriptural ideas. Let the breach go on, and the whole circle of the sciences will break into mere splendid fragments of knowledge, philosophy will sink into hopeless nescience and unbelief, and the discredited Bible will become the jest of the pulpit as well as of the club and the newspa- per ; no better than was the derided oracle, or augury, amid the decaying culture of Greece and Eome. The True Scope of Revelation, It is plain that such evils can be checked only by taking a new point of departure and changing the entire mode of procedure ; by approaching Holy Scripture as containing an attested and accepted revelation ; by sub- mitting our human reason to the dictates of the divine reason in the divine Word, with at least as much docil- ity, j)atience, and candor as we practise in a scientific inquiry in the realm of Nature ; by laying aside all pre- possessions as to its aims and uses, and keejoing our- selves within its own divinely prescribed limits; and there awaiting a full inductive investigation of its con- ' tents. Such an investigation will show that, while the Bible mainly traverses the realm of the mental and moral sciences with its revelations, yet it also extends into the realm of the natural sciences, and includes more or less of their ground and material within the scope of its teaching. It thus includes astronomy in connection with its revealed doctrine of creation and the angels ; NATURE OF 3GIENTIFI0 EVIDENCE 15 geology in connection with its revealed doctrine of the Sabbath and of the old and the new earth ; anthropol- ogy in connection with its revealed doctrine of the First and the Second Adam ; psychology in connection with its revealed doctrine of regeneration and resurrection ; sociology in connection with its revealed doctrine of Christian brotherhood and the Church ; and the science of comparative religion in connection with its most pe- culiar doctrines, the incarnation, the trinity, and the atonement. There is, in fact, no science which is not more or less included within the scope of revelation as found in the Scriptures. Alleged Scientific Errors, Another popular fallacy relates to the content of revelation. We now hear it said on all sides, " The Bible contains scientific errors in dictinction from its religious truths." The dictum, as often joined to the before-mentioned fallacy, becomes mere reasoning in a circle and begging of the question. At one time it is assumed, as a sort of axiom, that the Bible was not designed to teach scientific truth, and thence inferred that its scientific teaching is erroneous. At another time it is assumed, as a matter of fact, that its scientific teaching is erroneous, and thence inferred that it was never designed to teach scientific truth. And so with each return of the circle the fallacy grows, that the Bible contains scientific errors. We can only escape from the vicious circle by thoroughly testing its covert assump- tions.* *This question is more fully discussed hereafter in the paper (VII.) on "The Alleged Scientific Errors of the Bible." 16 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION A Questionable Theory, At the first glance, it will be seen that it is based upon a questionable theory of inspiration. It assumes that the divine guidance of the sacred writers was limited and variable, so limited as to make them inerrant only in religious matters, but in all other matters, especially scientific matters, to leave them exposed to their own erring faculties and to the errors of the unscientific ages in which they lived and wrote. This theory of in- spiration is held by reverent minds from the best motives. It would loyally exalt religious truth over all scientific truth in importance, and judiciously separate the essential Word of God from a supposed erroneous book which merely envelops and contains it. Unfor- tunately, however, it not only prejudges the pui-port of revelation, but proposes a false discrimination between /'scientific Scripture and religious Scripture which is simply impossible, if only for the reason that all relig- ious truths involve some scientific facts, and all scientific facts involve some religious truths, in endless complex- i ity. Moreover the inspired writers themselves never thus discriminate between the divine teaching in different spheres of human interest. Nor can such discrimina- tion be made by any devout exegete. Logically, if not morally, we are as much bound by the geological writ- \ ings of Moses as by the theological writings of St. Paul, \ even though we should like neither or think one less j important than the other. In point of fact, as will ' hereafter be more fully shown, each kind of truth is im- portant in its own time and place, and both are so im- plicated and combined in the Biblical system that they NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 17 must stand or fall together as in a massive arch which, if any segment be removed, would tumble into ruins. The Fallacy Proves too Little, But besides thus sheathing a mere assumption, the fallacy before us is a sword which will cut both ways. It will prove too little or too much according to the strictness with which it is applied. It will prove too i little, if the meaning merely be that the Bible does not teach science, nor use the technical phrase of science, / but couches its revelations in the language of appear- ance common to all men in all ages, though not always scientifically accurate. Its astronomy thus speaks of a ' sunrise and sunset. Its geology describes the earth as made in six days, each with a morning and an evening. Its anthropology depicts man as formed out of the ground like a clay image. Its historiography has seem- ing discrepancies as to events, dates, and numbers. And it also contains allegories, parables, and other liter- ary forms which lack scientific exactness. Let such in- accuracies or discrepancies be accounted as errors, and every scientific text-book will be found full of them. In fact no book could possibly be written without them. The Bible, considering its antiquity, is remarkably free from them. Many of them can be readily explained. But even granting all of them, any list of them that has ever been made would appear as mere specks in the pure marble of its shrine or spots upon its sun of truth. 18 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIQION The Catholic Doctrine, It may be well to observe, in passing, that this is no mere Protestant invention or new Presbyterian tenet ; it is Catholic doctrine. Fifteen centuries ago said St. Augustine : " To those books which are already styled canonical I have learned to pay such reverence and honor as most firmly to believe that none of their authors has committed any error in writing. If in that literature I meet with anything that seems contrary to truth, I will have no doubt that it is only the manuscript which is faulty, or the translator who has not hit the sense, or my own failure to understand it." The Greek Church fathers, as well as the Latin schoolmen, em- phatically deny the possibility of errors in the Canon- ical Scriptures. The Roman Church has simply exalted the pope as an infallible interpreter of the infallible Bible. The Anglican Articles admit that Churches have erred, but not that the Scriptures have erred, leaving that point undefined. And though it be true, that the first Protestants held the Bible to be infallible, yet it is also true that the fallibility of the Bible is largely a notion of Protestant growth; and has become one of the extreme issues of the Reformation. In opposition to all past catholic teaching, some Christian writers in our day are maintaining, not only that the Church is fallible, but that the Bible is fallible, and that the in- dividual reason is practically an infallible interpreter and judge both of the Bible and of the Church. The result is that certain textual and literary difficul- ties which have long been known within the circle of Christian scholars are now bruited abroad in the NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 19 Church as proofs of a general errancy of the inspired writings.^ The Fallacy may Prove too Much. We have seen that the fallacy before ns proves so little of biblical error, in one view, as to prove scarcely any at all, at least none of a scientific nature. But it will prove entirely too much, if it is consistently and thoroughly applied, and the lack of scientific phrase and accuracy is not confined to the phj^sical realm of revelation, but as rigorously extended throughout its spiritual realm. The Bible no more teaches the science of theology than any other science, and its anthropo- morphism in the one sphere is quite as unscientific as its phenomenalism in the other. If it be an error to say that the sun rises and sets, then it is an error to say that Jehovah hath his throne in the heavens and thun- dereth marvellously with his voice. If it be an error to say that in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, then it is an error to say that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. If it be an error to say that Jehovah formed man out of the ground, in the image of God, then it is an error to say that Jehovah repented that He had made man and cursed the ground for his sake. And such theological errors are much more flagrant than such astronomical or geological errors. In the light of modern culture, what were the biblical pictures of the curtained heavens, or of the dramatic week of creation, as compared with the biblical picture of Jehovah as countenancing slaugh- * The different forms of infallibilism are more fully presented and discussed in my " Philosophic Ultima," vol ii. , pp. 372-91. 20 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION ter and slavery and polygamy, or as a jealous God, angry with the wicked every day, and holding aloft a cup of wrath from which to pour out famines and wars and pestilences over the earth ? Approximate Truths, It need scarcely be said that the whole fallacy lies in admitting that there is any error whatever in either class of statements. The so-called errors are simply ap- proximate truths or partial revelations adapted to a rude age and people, and yet to be completed and explained by later revelation or scientific research. The gross an- thropomorphism of the Old Testament was thus ex- plained by our Lord and his Apostles consistently with the purer and fuller theism of the New Testament. And the crude phenomenalism of the same Scriptures has been likewise explained, and is now used consis- tently with the more exact and complete science of our day. In neither case was any error once committed ; in neither case is any error now conveyed. Men still speak truthfully, as they always have spoken truthfully, and always will speak truthfully of a sunset and a sun- rise which are apparent physical motions, no less than of a wrath and a love of God, which are seeming human passions. As to all the alleged errors of the Bible within the domain of religion or of science, it is enough to say in general that they appear as errors only when detached from their proper connection in the Holy Scriptures considered as a gradual revelation, by means of which the chosen races of mankind have been educated and developed, from the rudiments of Judaism to the doc- NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 21 trines of Christianity, and from primitive barbarism to modern civilization. And as to the alleged scientific errors in particular, it should further be said that they seem precluded by the fact that the Author of Scripture is also the Author of Nature, and any seeming contra- diction between them must be due either to some false induction from Nature or to some wrong exegesis of Scripture. A Dangej'ous Fallacy. It will be seen that I have not assumed any existing doctrine of inspiration, plenary or limited, verbal or ideal ; and that I am not now advocating any special theory of the errancy or inerrancy of Holy Scripture. I am simply maintaining, for the purpose of these Lectures, that those who do hold an extreme theory of scientific errancy should hold it consistently and take the consequences. They must be prepared to hear of error in the religion of the Bible as well as in its sci- ence ; in fact, of worse error in its religion than in its science; and, also, much greater evidence of its relig- ious error than of its scientific error. Such has been the actual, as well as logical result in some schools of Christian learning. For this reason it is very unfor- tunate that the word " error" has become so current in connection with the sacred writings. As applied to their mere literary imperfections, or seeming inconsis- tencies, or typical rites and obsolete precepts, it is mis- leading. As used in biblical study it opens the door to destructive criticism ; and in common life it leads to irreverence and unbelief. Begin by admitting error into the written Word of God, in any strict sense of the word "error," and the book might continue interesting 22 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION as a body of Hebrew and Greek literature, beautiful as "a well of English undefiled," perhaps instructive as a thesaurus of pious themes and mottoes, but as a Canon, as an authoritative rule of Christian faith and practice, as a criterion of any essential truth, it would become, sooner or later, not worth the paper on which it is printed. Nor will an intelligent public long listen to preachers who declare their very texts to be erroneous. The Key-note of these Lectures. The only just, wise, and safe position for us to take is, that while our human interpretation of the Script- ures is always fallible and often errant, as we know to our cost, yet the divine revelation contained in the Scriptures, so far as ascertained and ascertainable, can- not but be infallible and inerrant, the very Word of God. And this is especially the true position to take in re- gard to the relations of science and revealed religion. The Bible is neither a scientific book nor an anti- scientific book. It does not teach science, nor does it teach anything contrary to science. It does not teach any theories in astronomy, geology, and other sciences ; nor does it teach any errors in astronomy, geology, and other sciences. On the contrary, as will hereafter be shown, it does teach some astronomical, geological, and other scientific facts, both natural and supernatural, and also certain extra-scientific truths or revealed doctrines which are logically essential to the sciences themselves in any complete philosophy or system of perfect knowl- edge. This is the key-note of the folloAving lectures ; and the proofs of it will accumulate as we proceed. NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 23 The whole question lias a practical side wliich should not be forgotten. As "the witness and keeper of Holy Writ," this Church is distinguished by the abundance of Holy Scripture which she provides in her liturgy. The lessons, psalms, epistles, and gospels read in a single day sometimes exceed the amount read in a whole week in other communions. And this is in accordance with apostolic precept and divine command. St. Paul re- minded a young divinity student that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make him wise unto Salvation and to render the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The same Apostle warned him as a custodian of the Faith to avoid oppositions of science falsely so called, and to be- ware of such philosophy as is vain and deceitful, after the rudiments of this world and not after Christ. II THE LOGICAL VALUE OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE We approach the last and most serious of the popular fallacies which are now hindering the appreciation and reception of the scientific evidence of revealed religion. I shall crave the liberty of discussing it without reserve and with that directness which the importance of the subject demands. If I do not carry with me the full consent of all minds, I may at least hope to stimulate inquiry and to present some aspects of the Biblical question which seem to have been forgotten or under- valued at the present juncture and yet are needed be- fore coming to a final judgment. The two fallacies already noticed refer to the scope and to the content of revelation, the one excluding scientific truth from its scope, the other including scientific error in its content. The fallacy now to come before us refers to the form of revelation and tends to depreciate its value. We meet with it in a current phrase everywhere repeated as if it were an axiom : " The Bible is literature, to be studied as we study other literature." Having been charged with error by some of its own friends, perhaps it is not surprising that it should sink toward the level of mere human writings, or that, in the literary excess of our times, it should be overrun with a species of criticism which is largely iesthetic, sometimes rhetorical in its aim and spirit. 24 VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 25 We seem threatened with "a book religion," in a new sense of the phrase. A fresh literary interest in the Bible pervades even the secular press. One might al- most fancy the Book had lost its unique sacredness as he hears applied to it the technical terms once confined to the productions of ordinary literature, and reads in his morning paper of Hebraic myths and legends and Bibli- cal dramas and lyrics and idyls and the rest. I am not about to say that there is anything positively false in this phase of Biblical study or that it is not in itself de- serving of unstinted praise or that it may not even be a healthy symptom in the present diseased state of opin- ion. I would simply give it its due place and impor- tance, as it bears upon the question of connecting the Sciences with the Bible as evidences of revealed religion. The Bible diore than Mere Literature. The assertion that the Bible is literature is true — but it is not the whole truth. The Bible is more than mere literature. It is divinely inspired literature as collected within the sacred Canon in distinction from all other literature, ancient and modern. In a limited though not the most important sense it is a literary product or rather a collection of literary products, resembling in some respects the productions of the masters of literary art. Its chronicles, proverbs, psalms, prophecies, gospels, and epistles may be likened, as they have been often very favorably likened, to certain corresponding literary types with which it is now the fashion to class them and sometimes to confound them. But at that point the superficial resemblance ends. It does not extend to the revealed content enveloped in these literary 26 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION forms, the divine purport of the human language. There is still a fundamental difference between literature and Scripture. In distinction from all other books, this volume contains the accredited mind and will of God, otherwise unknown and unknowable by any unaided genius of man. While the poet and the philosopher only voice the common human heart and conscience, the prophet and the apostle claim to bring us divine ideas in inspired words ; and, if we admit the evidence of their claim, it becomes not merely undevout, but illogical, to read the prophet Isaiah as we would read the poet Virgil, or the apostle John as we would read the philos- opher Plato. x4ls I have elsewhere said, when St. Paul stood among the masterpieces of Greek art and lit- erature at Athens, he quoted a saying of Aratus and Cleanthes with the polite acknowledgment, " As certain of your own poets have said" ; but Avhen he cites a text from Moses and David, it is with the devout preamble, " As the Holy Ghost saith." The Bible no 3Iere Ancient Classic, If the literary forms of the Bible suffer in comparison with those of the ancient classics, it is because they were produced by a somewhat rude people whose gov- ernment was a theocracy, whose art, so far as they had any, was subordinated to religion, and whose literature was made a vehicle of divine revelation. There is no evidence that prophets and apostles studied mere rhetorical effect, like poets and orators. And, therefore, the two cannot be classed together. As to content and purport, the Genesis of Moses is not to be named with the Theogony of Hesiod ; nor the prophecies of Isaiah VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 27 with the Iliad of Homer ; nor the story of Jouah Avith the adventures of Ulysses ; nor the psalms of David with the Odes of Horace ; nor the parables of our Lord with the fables of ^^sop. Under greater beauty of form there is an essential difference in matter Avhich stamps the classical writings as merely human works. "Wliile Greek sages and Koman poets fancifull}^ claimed the aid of the Muses, Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Bible. Free from Pagan Science. And this divine import of the Holy Scriptures, in contrast with all other ancient writings, appears even in the sphere of science as well as in the sphere of religion. Although the Hebrew prophets may have been, and doubtless were, greatly inferior to the Assyrian, Egyp- tian, and Greek sages in scientific knowledge, 3^et their expressions betray none of the grotesque absurdity which disfigures the astronomy or geology of their con- temporaries as found in the sacred books of the East, or even in the more artistic mythology of the Greeks. Compare the confused and trivial cosmogony of the Chaldean tablets with the lucid and stately method of Genesis. Compare the gross Egyptian picture of the earth as a chaotic egg conceived by the sable-winged bird of Night, with the simple statement of the Divine Spirit's agency in creation. Compare the fanciful feats of Hellenic gods and goddesses in producing plants, animals, and men, with the sublime fiats of the one Creator of heaven and earth. Compare the trivial fables of Prometheus and Pandora Avith the profound teaching of the story of Adam and Eve. AVhy is it that 28 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION the Books of Moses have outlived scientific discovery and criticism, while those of Orpheus, Hesiod, and Tliales have long since lost all scientific interest and value ? How comes it that these " semi-barbarous He- brews," as they have been contemptuously styled, have so exceeded the science of their own time, and even their own personal knowledge, that they have written what is still true for our time, and is likely to be true for all time to come? It is simply because they were under divine guidance even when moving in the realm of natural science, and spake as the Spirit gave them utterance. Personal Errmicy of Ins^nred Writers. In thus accepting the sacred writers as organs of the Holy Spirit we do not need to palliate any of their faults and vices as committed outside of the divine com- munications. Why should we doubt the inspiration of sinning David or erring Peter, when we behold a Bacon or a Shakespeare, notwithstanding their personal fail- ings, made the Providential instrument of conveying immortal truth and benefit to mankind ? Their personal errancy is quite apart from their oflicial teaching, and, instead of tingeing Holy Scripture with errors, some- times only enhances its truthfulness by contrast, as when a royal psalmist so freely confesses his own sins and the shameful lapse of an apostle is so fully portrayed I by an evangelist. Even if the author of Genesis shared , the geological errors of his age, as he may have done, I yet there is no trace of them imparted in the revealed history of creation as we can now read and interpret it i in the light of modern science. VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 29 Personal Freedom of Inspired Writers. Nor need we imagine any loss of the individuality and freedom of the inspired writers as exercised within the divine communications. Was Isaiah less fervid or Paul less logical because filled with the Holy Ghost ? Do we not sometimes see ordinary minds inspired and governed by some superior mind, yet acting as freely and characteristically as if their own masters ? We could not, if we would, conceive of prophets and apostles as mere machines or automatons without thought and volition ; and never, even while receiving their divinest messages, do we lose sight of their human peculiarities, whether it be an austere reformer who is proclaiming the vengeance of Jehovah, or a well-bred scholar who is reasoning out the mysteries of godliness. Though we accept Genesis as a work of the Holy Spirit, we are not blind to the dramatic form of the divine story of creation or to the allegorical drapery in the inspired picture of primeval man. Divine Unity of the Scriptures. Still less may we find any difficulty in the varied idiosyncrasies of the inspired writers, their diversities of idiom, style, diction, purpose, temperament, and envir- onment ; in short, the manifold human element which appears on the face of Holy Scripture. As a collection of writings by different authors, in different ages, under different circumstances, the Bible has been called " a library." But it is a library selected by divine wisdom, preserved by divine Providence, animated by divine in- 30 EVIDENCES OF HEVEALED RELIGION telligence, organized and unified by divine purpose, and unfolding one divine scheme of individual and social regeneration from the primeval promise of redemp- tion to the fulness of millennial glory ; from the gen- esis of the heaven and earth in the ages past to the apocalypse of the new heaven and the nmv earth through the ages to come. To revere the divine truth and glory of such a book is not bibliolatry. The true bibliolater is your mere literateur admiring only certain lyric, dra- matic, and epic beauties which are but as the jewelled crown, sceptre, and robe of the Spiritual Monarch who wears them whilst reigning in the hearts of man- kind. We have still to consider the inferential fallacy that the " Bible should be studied as we study other litera- ture." This, also, expresses only half of the truth. It is true enough that the student of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures needs the same literary appliances which are needed in the study of the Greek and Latin classics, such as grammar, lexicon, text-book, critical skill, literary taste, and that linguistic tact which comes as a gift or with long practice — in other words, the fur- niture of the art of Higher Criticism. But this is not all that he needs. He needs pre-eminently certain other qualifications which are not needed in the study of any other book, ancient or modern. Logical Fre-requisites of Biblical Study. At the outset, he needs logically certain postulates or principles without which his whole literary equipment will be worse than useless. The Bible in its presup- positions is so fundamentally different from all other VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 31 literature that it cannot be judged by the same literary standards. It assumes the existence of the one true God on every page ; it claims to be a miraculously at- tested revelation to man from the beginning to the end of the world, and it has been set apart by the whole Church as a genuine product of the Holy Spirit. And such premises are not mere traditional prejudices or dog- matic obstructions, but rational presumptions, imbedded in the very phenomena of Scripture itself, and supported by the best historical evidence which the world affords. They are not found in any contemporaneous literature, Assyrian, Egyptian, Grecian, or Eoman A critic repu- diating them, an atheist, an agnostic, a denier of miracles, inspiration, and the historic canon, is simply a critic who has already prejudged the whole case. His atti- tude, to say the least, is illogical and unreasonable. He is ignoring the only true premises of the whole argu- ment. It is as if he were about to discuss a treatise on physics without regard to the mathematical axioms from which it proceeds, and which it everywhere in- volves. He may be fully competent to criticise class- ical authors; but he is not fully competent to criticise the Holy Scriptures. And he shows his incompetency as soon as he enters the field of biblical criticism. He brings his sceptical spirit with him, he comes in search of superficial analogies between heathen mythology and revealed religion ; and naturally enough he finds in Jeho- vah only an Israelitish Jupiter, in the prophetic reve- lations mere Hebrew oracles, in all the Bible stories nothing but Jewish myths, and in the whole miraculous history of revealed religion a purely natural development of universal religion embellished with Syrian conceits and oriental fancies. This is the logical and inevitable 32 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION result of using the higher criticism without regard to the essential distinction between classical and biblical literature."^ 3Iisapplied Classical Criticism. And a like mistake is made by some Christian schol- ars of the same school, who, though accepting the fun- damental principles of biblical literature, will proceed to forget them or even protest continued belief in them while undermining them. When such critics come upon a seeming discrepancy or verbal inaccuracy, instead of endeavoring to explain it or retaining it simply as a still unexplained difficulty, they will straightway f)roclaim it as an " error," implying incompetency or deceit in an inspired w^riter. If they regard the story of Eden as a spiritual allegory they do not directly connect it with tlie Holy Spirit as its real author, but incorrectly style it " a myth " or mere human fable, and sometimes rashly trace it as such to a Persian or Chaldean origin. They seem to handle a sacred book as if it were a literary forgery to be self-convicted by means of its grammatical solecisms and anachronisms ; and would, if they might, reconstruct the entire canonical scriptures as if they were some chance miscellany that has drifted down to us on the stream of profane tradition. While theoreti- cally accepting the Holy Scriptures as inspired of God, they practically treat them as they might treat the works of Homer or of Livy. The principle that the rules of classical criticism should govern biblical criticism was first judiciously broached by Ernesti, the German Cicero, but pushed ♦ This subject is more fully treated hereafter in the paper (VIII.) on the False Mythical Theory of Revealed Religion. VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 33 to rash extremes by Eicliliorn, De Wette, and Herder. It does not follow even on philological or literary grounds that a good critic in one language will be a good critic in another language, and with reference to another class of themes. The great Bentley himself was a striking example to the contrary. After he had vanquished all his opponents in the famous " battle of books " by triumphantly proving that the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of iEsop were forgeries, he might have remained the acknowledged master of the critical art, had he not been tempted in a rash moment to try his pen upon the great English epic of Milton. He fancied that there Avere certain literary blemishes in the Paradise Lost, which must have been interpolated by the amanuensis or the redactor of the blind old poet, and which might be removed by his own critical sagac- ity and conjecture. What havoc was wrought by such emendation may be shown by one or two specimens. On etymological grounds the infuriate legions of Satan were made to draw their " blades " instead of their " swords," and brandish them toward the " walls of heaven," not toward the " vault of heaven," according to Milton's grander conception. Topographical inac- curacies were found in the scene of Raphael's leave- taking, '* So parted they; the angel up to heaven, From the thick shade ; and Adam to his bower. ' ' Bentley argued that Adam could not have left his bower, and substituted the ponderous reading, ' * So parted they ; the angel up to heaven : Adam to ruminate on past disGoi(,rse.'^ 3 34 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION The well-known line, suggesting the dim interior of Hell, "No light, but rather darkness visible," was elucidated so as to read, "No light but rather a transpicuous gloom. " Disraeli tells us that there are a thousand such critical emendations in Bentley's Milton ; and exclaims, " Let it remain as a gibbet on the high-roads of literature and serve as a terrifying beacon to all conjectural criticism." The school of Bentley, however, still survives in some biblical critics of acknowledged learning, who naively think to prove their points by imagining a redactor be- hind every difficult text, translating the divine name Jehovah as " Jahveh," calling the first section of the canon the " Hexateuch," and ascribing its various por- tions to the initials of imaginary writers. Abuse of the Higher Criticism, The method of the Higher Criticism is sound enough when rightly used and applied within reasonable limits. Its value, though sometimes exaggerated, is undisputed in determining the date, structure, and authorship of ancient writings, whether sacred or profane ; and in this age of light and liberty it is practically as unfettered as the wind. The question of its free use by biblical scholars is a false issue. Asa matter of fact, it is already freely used by biblical scholars of all classes, by the most orthodox as well as by the most infidel. But it is also abused and perverted and may lose the essential qualities of Christian scholarship. When it is applied VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 35 to the Scriptures regardless of their divine origin and claims, it cannot but become fallacious and destructive ; and when its crude results are forced into popular ser- mons to the unsettling of the common faith, it becomes, if not a breach of clerical ethics, yet a strange inconsist- ency and just cause of offence. Scientific Pre-requisites, ^ In the second place, the biblical student needs scien- tific aid, scientific in distinction from literary appliances. Unlike all other ancient books the Bible is found to em- brace the whole field of the sciences, physical and psy- chical, in manifold connection with its revealed doc- trines ; and no mere literary critic is competent by mere literary methods to settle questions lying partly or wholly within the province of any of these sciences. Without astronomical knowledge he cannot tell whether the as- tronomical scriptures are in accord with the discovery of suns and planets. Without geological knowledge he cannot tell whether the order of the creative days agrees with the order of the earth's strata. Without ethnological knowledge he cannot tell Avhether the Mosaic genealogies include or exclude pre-Adamite and co-Adamite races of mankind. Without archaeological knowledge he cannot tell whether the Mosaic cosmog- ony was of Hebrew or Chaldean origin, or derived from primeval tradition still more ancient ; nor whether the Elohist and Jehovist sections were original writings or compiled documents ; nor whether Moses wrote the whole or parts of the books which have always bonie his name. Without historical science he cannot tell whether the Mosaic codes formed a logical or chrono- 36 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION logical series ; nor whether they date before or after the Babylonian exile. And without some knowledge of psychology, sociology, and comparative religion he cannot even approach the higher problems of the soul, the Church, and the future of Christianity. In a word, no amount of mere literary criticism, however learned and acute, can settle these and other complex scientific questions connected with the Old and the New Testa- ment, but extending quite outside of Hebrew and Greek literature, into other fields of modern scientific re- search. Unscientific Higher Criticism^ Moreover, though we dare not say that the literary spirit is peculiarly errant, yet it is fair to say that it has hitherto greatly needed more of the scientific spirit to check and guide it. Its vagaries for the last hundred years, especially in the schools of Germany, have made it the scandal of Christian learning as well as of com- mon-sense. Some of us began acquaintance with it nearly fifty years ago, when we were young and eager students of divinity, and we cannot now be charged with ignorance of it by those who are hailing it as a novelty. Nor, indeed, is it necessary for anyone to master all its details, in order to see that it has lacked the inductive method of true science ; that it has proceeded from as- sumed facts, with inadequate hypotheses, to illegitimate conclusions, and that it is largely mere critical conject- ure based upon critical conjecture, brilliant erudition without solid knowledge. Upon its polychrome Bible might be written what Bossuet wrote upon a charming- treatise of Malebranche, " pulchra, nova, falsa." Its fas- VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 37 cinating symbols, E, J, P, and D, howsoever combined, still figure in an unsolved problem, for the simple reason that the personages indicated by them, the Elohist and the Jehovist, the Deuteronomist and the Priestly Codi- fier, with the ubiquitous Kedactor, are purely ideal, without even the despised evidence of tradition to make them real. Indeed, for the sake of such mere modern fancies, it has set aside the historical evidence of the entire Jewish and Christian Church, the direct testi- mony of the nearest inspired and contemporary writers, and the biblical knowledge of our Lord himself, to say nothing of his divine knowledge. And now, as the result of all this literary guesswork, it offers us, in place of the received canon, a medley of pseudonymous fragments behind which the true authors and editors, it would seem, have been masquerading as inspired prophets and apostles for thousands of years. In all reason and frankness it is time to protest against such speculations among Christian scholars. Not because they are beyond the right and liberty of research (this is a false issue) ; not because they are necessarily ra- tionalistic or heretical (this some critics deny) ; not even because they are unwelcome (we might almost wish some of them were true) ; but simply because they are unscientific ; because they are contrary to the liter- ary phenomena and the historical facts ; because, even if true, they would add but little to our stock of biblical knowledge; because, in a w^ord, they are either not proved or not worth proving. We take the ground of the Higher Criticism against them. We will believe them when we can believe that Shakespeare did not write the dramas of Shakespeare, or that the Waverley novels had an unknown redactor in Sir Walter's private 38 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION secretary, or that the Anglican Prayer-book was a post- exilic production of the Pilgrim Fathers. Spiritual Pre-requisites, But besides scientific aid, the biblical student also needs spiritual aid before and above all literary requi- sites. The Bible should not be studied as we study other books, for the eminent reason that unlike any other book, ancient or modern, it claims to be a product of the Holy Spirit and requires for its fall comprehen- sion the inward illumination of its divine author. No mere grammatic or literary study can exhaust the infinite mind of the Spirit which the natural mind receiveth not. It is old-fashioned doctrine, but it is doctrine which has been tested, that spiritual discernment rather than gesthetic taste is the primary requisite of biblical study. Having that requisite, a reader of our English Bible, though ignorant of Hebrew and Greek and as de- void of literary culture as a Bunyan or a Moody, may become mighty in the Scriptures, versed in those di- vine mysteries which were in the bosom of God at the beginning of the world and which our Lord declared had been hidden from philosophers and sages and re- vealed unto men as unsophisticated as babes. On the other hand, the most accomplished literary critic, if destitute of these primary graces of reverence, docility, and faith, will betray a fatal lack of spiritual insight, and will find in the Scriptures only what he finds in other ancient books, at t-active myths and legends, sagas and folk-lore, excellent moral and religious maxims, to- gether with abundant mistakes, absurdities, and errors ; in short a Bible without miracle or prophecy or in- VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 39 spiration or authority. Have we not seen him thus in- vading the shrine of revealed truth unabashed, and tak- ing prophets and apostles by the beard? No wonder that the deep things of the Spirit vanish under his critical dissection of the letter. The Wounded Dove flees from his scalpel. He has cut the divine documents as with the pen-knife of Jehudi. " And it came to pass that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the pen-knife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth." * Rationalistic Criticism, It is not merely naturalism, hostility to the super- natural and miraculous, which must be charged against such critics : it is a false rationalism. It is a rational- ism which is itself irrational. It is a rationalism which perverts our God-given reason and will not take the place of right reason, lowly yet exalted, before the One Absolute Reason. It is a rationalism which does not even recognize the limitations of reason, but would at- tempt transcendental problems, which a revelation alone could solve and has solved. It is a rationalism which refuses to submit the finite mind of man to the infinite mind of God as revealed by his Holy Spirit in his Holy Word. It is a rationalism which reveres neither the inspired Bible nor the illumined Church, but is ever handling the word of God deceitfully and evap- orating the creeds and forms of the Catholic Faith. And its mere naturalistic tendency is not so much to be dreaded as its imbelieving spirit. Let it explain away, 40 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION if it can, the whole supernatural element of the Bible, as now popularly conceived. Let it exhibit, if it will, every miracle as a natural event, and the entire evolu- tion of revealed religion from Genesis to the Apocalypse as a natural process under natural laws, as Bishop But- ler long ago conceived it ; but let it not touch with rash hand that divine revelation which the miracles attest, around which the supernatural shines, of which proph- ets and apostles are the heralds, and before which the tallest seraph in glory reverently bows, alike with the little child at its mother's knee. Conservative Higher Criticism. At this point it is important and only right to dis- ciiminate carefully between the Keverent and the Ra- tionalistic schools of biblical study, known as the Con- servative and Radical wings of the Higher Criticism. The former disclaim the rash and destructive conclu- sions of the latter and are fairly distinguishable from them by having the spiritual requisites which we have just noticed. Some of them use the Higher Criticism learnedly in defence of the traditional authorship and historicity of the sacred records, exhibiting their sub- stantial consistency without the aid of hypothetical docu- ments, scribes, and redactors. Others contend that the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures can be con- served, though it be proven that they were largely an ac- cretion or collection of sacred traditions, documents, and codes compiled by pious hands, before and after the time of Moses, to whom they were popularly attributed by our Lord and his apostles. Still others also maintain that revealed religion need lose none of its supernatural VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 41 character and claims, if it be shown to have had a his- tory or a development since the Exodus, which seems forbidden by literal statements of the sacred narratives, but may be traced in them by a literary expert versed in Hebrew antiquities. Without inquiring how far these views are self-consistent, sound and valuable, I shall endeavor scrupulously to give them due considera- tion and weight, and be ready to welcome such critics in the ranks of sincere defenders of the faith on the basis of the principles laid down in the previous discussion. These principles are, that the Bible extends its revela- tions within the realm of the physical sciences as well as the psychical sciences ; that it is to be held no more erroneous in the one realm than in the other ; and that for its proper study it requires scientific knowledge and spiritual insight no less than literary scholarship. Higher Qicalities of the Scientific Evidence, Having thus cleared the Scientific Evidence from the current fallacies which hinder its due appreciation, w^e are now ready to examine its logical qualities more directly. In general, it may be said to share the qualities of sci- ence as distinguished from ordinary vague knowledge. First of all, it shares the certitude of science. Like all true science it is founded upon unquestioned facts rather than upon assumed principles. When we argue from the Divine wisdom and goodness, that a revelation should be made, we assume principles w^hicli are not generally admitted ; and when we argue from miracles and prophecies, that a revelation has been made, we as- sume facts Avhich are still questioned ; but when w^e show that astronomical facts or geological facts are in 42 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION agreement with corresponding truths in Holy Scripture, we show that the Author of Scripture is also the Author of Nature, and has made known nothing in the one vol- ume contrary to what has been found in the other. The proof of natural religion is largely a matter of abstract reasoning, and the proof of miracles and prophecies is mainly a matter of historic testimony ; but the glory of Jehovah as magnified by astronomy and unfolded by geology is purely a matter of Scientific evidence. This evidence also shares the impartiality of science. It is a just boast of true science that it is absolutely unprejudiced and disinterested ; that in its quest for facts it will not be governed by authorities, traditions, or precedents, however venerable ; that it is neither swayed by the passions and infirmities of mortals nor turned back* from its course by persecution, torture, or death itself ; and that when it reaches its conclusions it seems to have no regard for human interests the most dear or sacred, but becomes impassive as nature and merciless as fate. History shows us that it has often forced its own votaries to abandon their most plausible hypothe- ses, reverse their cherished opinions, and at length ac- cept the very results from which they had recoiled. History shows us, too, as in the case of Galileo, that it has sometimes compelled even divines, priests, and popes with infallible claims to reconstruct their long-es- tablished interpretations of Scripture, but, after seem- ing to menace Scripture itself, has only opened new and larger views of its meaning and left it like a sun cleared of clouds, to shine with increased radiance and glory. Now when astronomy thus becomes a Avitness to the truths of revealed religion, it is no interested advocate pleading a cause, no specious apologist defending a VALUE OP SGIENTIFIG EVIDENCE 43 claim, but it is Science itself giving evidence at the bar of Omniscience. This evidence still further shares the cumulative power and fulness of Science. As we study the sciences philosophically we find that they are not mere scattered fragments of knowledge, but a linked series helping one another forward in a general progress toward perfect knowledge. AVe find also that as thus arranged they have a common ground with the Bible where their own discovered facts become accordant with revealed truth as fast as they attain scientific exactness and clearness. Into this common ground, therefore, they enter not as wrangling disputants with chance testimony, but as competent witnesses with an ever-growing consistency pointing forward to the ultimate demonstration of the whole Word of God by the reason of man and the per- fect coincidence of human Science with divine Omni- science. But the high qualities claimed for the Scientific Evi- dence may appear more clearly as we now proceed to define its sources and the various forms in which it is afforded. These are fourfold, to be here announced nec- essarily in general terms, but hereafter to be more spe- cially and fully illustrated : Tlie Evidence of Scientific Authorities. First. The chief authorities in each science can be cited in favor of revealed religion. Much of the cur- rent evidence of Scientific knowledge rests upon author- ity and testimon3^ We are in the position of laymen or learners in respect to the Masters of Science, and ac- cept the results of their researches, sometimes without 44: EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION unclerstandiDg the processes by which such results have been reached, and often without mastering the details of such processes, even if made intelligible to us. We thus believe the scarcely credible discoveries which have been made in astronomy or in geology, though ourselves unable to verify them. When, therefore, leading men of science declare their discoveries to be not in conflict with the truths of the Bible, and hold their religious faith consistently with their scientific knowledge, this is testimony of the highest authority. If there w^ere any necessary antagonism between science and revealed religion, then such men would be the first to feel and show it and the last to quit the battle against the Faith ; but on the contrary, as a class, with exceptions which only prove the rule, they have given their united and unequivocal evidence in support of revealed truths. It will be found that the history of the sciences is full of such personal evidence of scientists themselves. The Evidence of Scientific Facts. Second. The ascertained or demonstrated portions of each science can be shown to be already in harmony with revealed religion. After centuries of research and criticism, we possess, especially in the physical sciences, large bodies of exact knowledge, resting upon observed facts, susceptible of demonstrative proof, and no longer challenged as admitting of a doubt. The portion of astronomy known as celestial mechanics rests upon such a certain basis ; and the portion of geology known as terrestrial physics is approximating a like certitude. Now if these well-ascertained facts of science stood in glaring contrariety with any revealed truths to which VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 45 they are directly related, tins would tend to show that the author of Scripture is not also the author of Nature, or that the human authors of Scripture had communi- cated divine knowledge in a form inconsistent with hu- man knowledge. But instead of this result it is found that the two portions of knowledge, the divine and the human, logically require one another, that neither can do without the other, and both together serve at once to support science and illustrate revelation. As we review the sciences we shall find them yielding this species of evidence in proportion to their maturity as bodies of certain knowledge. The Evidence of Scientific Theories. Third. The problematical or hypothetical portions of each science can be provisionally adjusted as in suffi- cient harmony with revealed religion. In distinction from the demonstrated portions of scientific knowledge, the whole field of investigation is covered with masses of unsolved problems for the solution of which men of science have framed various conflicting hypotheses or tentative constructions of fact, all of which cannot be true, though each may have elements of truth. Astron- omy and geology, for example, are filled with such problems and hypotheses concerning the origin, the development, and the destiny of the heavens and the earth, and astronomers and geologists are accordingly divided as in hostile camps upon a battle-field. Now it is not "the business of the reconcilers " — as Mr. Huxley is pleased to term us — to reconcile scientists among themselves, nor need we be troubled to reconcile their mere conflicting speculations with any revealed truths 46 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION which they may seem to menace. All that we need do or can do is to exhibit the problem of opinion, to state the relative agreement or disagreement which would ensue when all the facts are known and the true theory has been obtained. And we shall find, in regard to these conflicting hypotheses, that while some of them would leave existing interpretation of Scripture undis- turbed, others would only require that interpretation to be modified favorably, and that, which ever hypothesis may ultimately prevail, the essential truths of revealed religion will remain unimpaired, if not enhanced and illustrated. The history of the more advanced Sciences will show us how a scientific evidence which at first seemed hostile has at length become friendly and all the more conclusive because tried and purged in the fires of controversy. The Evidence of Scientific Marvels. Fourth. The marvels of modern science may serve to explain and illustrate the miracles of revealed religion. It would seem that the supernatural signs and wonders by means of which Christianity originally obtained cre- dence in the world have become incredible to some per- sons who fancy that the Science of our day has demon- strated their intrinsic impossibility or shown that there is nothing analogous to them in modern experience. While it is true that such miracles are no longer wrought because no longer needed to attest the claims of inspired writers, the book of revelation having been closed and the canon completed, yet it should not be forgotten that science itself is unfolding before us more stupendous marvels than any miracles recorded in the VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 47 Old or New Testament, and is thus by the achievements of man rendering the wonderful acts of God more easily conceivable and more credible. It is showing us that what is possible with man cannot have been impos- sible with God. You may have deemed it impossible that iron should swim, as Elislia caused an axe-head to swim in the brook by means of a wooden staff; yet perhaps you crossed the ocean last summer in a huge iron bowl which swam at the rate of twenty miles an hour. You may sometimes have thought it incredi- ble that our Lord should have raised Lazarus from the dead, j'et before experience it would have been no more credible that men should talk together across the Atlan- tic and girdle the globe with their instantaneous thought. Miracles could not have happened ? Miracles do hap- pen ! In some cases science even helps us to conceive how a miracle may have been wrought through divine knowledge and skill in due consistency with natural laws. In fact there is no modern science within whose province ancient miracles did not occur, which now have their parallels in its own marvels and achieve- ments. While, then, some sceptics are ever invidiously telling us that the age of miracles is past, science itself is showing us that the age of miracles has come again. Valuation of the Scientific Evidence, It only remains to estimate the value of the Scien- tific Evidence. And let it first be remarked that its value is imperfect only in so far as science itself is still imperfect. If it consists largely of probable evidence rather than of demonstrative proof, it is because all sci- ence rests largely upon such evidence, being mainly an empirical collection of facts ; and if it be more complete 48 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION in some sciences than in others, it is because some sci- ences are more complete than others, according to their different stages of advancement toward perfect knowl- edge. These distinctions being always premised, its value will appear in three respects. It is valuable in relation to other Evidences, the Mi- raculous and the Prophetical, the External and the In- ternal. Without it, indeed, other evidences would be weak or worthless. No ancient miracles or prophecies would now have any evidential value if science could falsify them as the myths and legends of a former rude age and people ; still less would any external evidence of this dubious kind uphold a supposed revelation con- taining scientific errors and absurdities, such as appear in the Chaldean tablets or the Book of Mormon. But when science is found to explain miracles and prophe- cies as quite possible and credible expressions of divine power and knowledge, when astronomy and geology are seen illustrating the divine perfections revealed in Scripture, and when each science appears coming into agreement with revealed doctrines as fast as it ap- proaches scientific completeness, then there will be a convergence and accumulation of all the evidences, both external and internal, toward the highest degree of moral certainty. It is valuable in relation to the scientist himself. All science is, in one good sense, agnostic toward religion. At the end of its empirical research it comes to a meta- physical void, where its torch goes out, and any further light must be the light of a revelation. Were there no evidence of a revelation, agnosticism might be justified and unbelief become sane and rational. But when such evidence is at hand, evidence strictly scientific in its VALUE OF SCIENTIFIO EVIDENCE 49 sources and quality, evidence as scientific as the evi- dence of the solar system or of the theory of evolution, then there is no longer any room for reasonable doubt and ignorance. Such scientific evidence will have come to the modern scientist craving knowledge, as of old the prophetical or philosophical evidence came to the Greek seeking wisdom, and the miraculous evidence came to the Jew requiring a sign. It is valuable in relation to all the interests of civili- zation. We must not forget that our whole civilization is essentially Christian and has its roots deep down and far back in revealed religion. Our art is full of Chris- tian ideals. Our philosophy is saturated with Christian thought. Our jurisprudence is transfused with Chris- tian Ethics. Our States are irradiated with Christian Churches. Our philanthropies are Christian Charities. Kill or sap the roots of this wondrous culture with ag- nosticism and unbelief, and all its goodly flower and fruitage will wither away. But support it with scien- tific evidence, animate it with scientific faith, and fresh life will flow from its roots into all the branches. Our art will repent and return from the husks and the swine. Our philosophy will unite revelation with reason in the search for perfect knowledge. Our politics will aim to preserve law with liberty, and social with individual rights. Our Churches will have become united with our States in the one Catholic Faith. And our philan- thropy will ever keep its face toward the predicted reign of universal love and peace. Timeliness of the Scientific Evidence, Need it be added that the value of this evidence is timely and practical? We live in an age of science, in 60 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED UELIQION the chief epoch of science. During the last three cen- turies science has made greater progress than in the previous twenty centuries ; and during the last fifty years, greater progress than in the previous three hun- dred years. It is entering the new century like a con- queror with his trophies. It has gained vast possessions in astronomy, in geology, in chemistry, in physics, in the mental sciences, and it has brought with it marvel- lous inventions — the rail-car, the steamship, the tele- graph, the photograph, the spectroscope, the lucifer match, electric lighting, Eoentgen rays, an?osthetics, antiseptic surgery. Justly therefore its votaries have become the idols of the people, to be applauded as heroes while living, and when dead to be entombed among kings, nobles, warriors, and poets, as benefactors of the race. Unhappily, however, as if intoxicated with all this success and worship of science, some rash hands are driving her car of triumph as a war-chariot into the sacred domain of religion, across the fair pastures of the Church. And now, in this seeming conflict with sci- ence Ave can only overcome scientific unbelief with sci- entific evidence. It is a battle which can only be fought with the weapons of Science. And the victory, when it comes, will be a victory of Science, her last and noblest victory. Not the mere physical comforts, which she is multiplying among us ; not alone the arts of utility and beauty which she is nourishing; not even the humane charities which she is promoting, will be her crowning achievement, but, over and above these, and as the primal source of them all, will be her own dem- onstration of the truth, the beneficence, and the glory of the Christian religion. Ill THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY On entering the field of the Scientific Evidence we are at once impressed by its vast extent and embarrassed with its varied materials. It is as vast as the domain of science itself, embracing both the physical sciences, astronomy, geology, anthropology, and the psychical sciences, psychology, sociology, comparative theology ; and it is as varied as the contents of Holy Scripture, extending into the Old Testament as connected mainly with the ph ysica l sciences, and into the New Testament as connected chiefly with the psychical sciences. It would be impossible, in a few lectures, to traverse this entire field of investigation, and exhaust all its riches of proof and illustration. We must confine ourselves to the physical sciences, astronomy, geology, anthropology ; and from these sciences we shall be able to cull only a few specimens of the evidence which they so abundantly afford. Groivth of the Astronomical Evidence. Astronomy, as the oldest of the exact sciences, was the first to come into seeming conflict with revealed religion, and has been the first to yield it a large body of striking evidence. In its early stages, as cultivated by the Greeks, it was repelled as false science by the 51 52 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION Church Fathers, who continued to expound the astronom- ical psalms in a strictly literalistic manner and des- canted upon the glory of God in the heavens as there displayed by a star-spangled curtain or canopy stretched over the earth. In its later stages, during the reign of the Ptolemaic theory, it was accepted by the schoolmen who derived the same biblical argument, in a purely phenomenalistic manner, from an illuminated dome of crj^stalline spheres, which were supposed to revolve around the earth with sun, moon, and stars attached to them as means of j^roducing the wonderful vicissitudes of day and night, summer and winter. But in the mod- ern stage of the science, with the rise of the Copernican theory of the solar system, the discovery of the rotun- dity of our planet and its orbital motion around the sun, the whole orthodox conception of heaven, earth, and hell was revolutionized ; the literalistic and phe- nomenalistic interpretation of Scripture was abandoned ; the ancient canopy of the sky was rent in twain ; the great dome of the crystalline heavens was dashed to pieces ; and there issued a breach between the Bible and astronomy, more alarming than any that now seems to yawn between the Bible and other sciences. It was as if the very throne of God had been removed from the firmament, the abode of the angels destroyed, and any- thing like a revelation to our little world made impossi- ble. Galileo was compelled upon his knees to abjure his discoveries as deadly heresies. Nevertheless, as the new astronomy gradually compelled assent and ad- miration, efforts were made to readjust it to the Script- ures by a more scientific interpretation, which should magnify divine revelation in consistency with the pop- ular and phenomenalistic language in which it had nec« THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 53 essarily been conveyed. It was found that, after all, the rationale of the biblical argument, which the fathers and schoolmen had so crudely conceived and imper- fectly used, remained unimpaired, and in fact could now be based upon more unquestionable premises, and unfolded with a more Avonderful richness and potency. The divine glory in the heavens, being no longer ob- scured by a false astronomy and a false exegesis, began to shine forth with all the added brilliance of myriads of suns and planets, and the Scriptures acquired a fuller meaning indicative of the omniscience Avhich had in- spired them. The result is, that a science which at first so seriously menaced revealed truth is now yield- ing it abundant evidence. AVe shall find by adducing a few specimens, that it affords each of the four spe- cies of evidence which were described in the introduc- tory lecture. Testimony of Astronomers. The first is the testimony of the chief authorities of the science. It is not surprising that astronomers, as a / class, should be devout and Christian. The grandeur of the starry universe, and the impotence of human reason to comprehend it, conspire to lift their thoughts toward the Creator as its only adequate cause, and justify the poets' verdict that any intellect must be abnormal that can resist such impressions — "An undevout astronomer is mad." Certainly the exceptions can be better explained by some idiosyncrasy, or defect of training, or inveterate prejudice, than by any supposed sceptical tendency in the science itself. If Lalande could jestingly dismiss religious considerations from the field of astronomy, he spake as an atheist and a revolutionist rather than as the 54 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION accomplished astronomer that he was. It is said that Laplace never mentioned the name of the Supreme Being without a reverent gesture, and when, therefore, the French King remarked that he seemed to have allowed no place for a God in his cosmogonic specula- tions, it was simply, as a strict scientist, not as an athe- ist, he replied, that he did not need the hypothesis of a God in so purely empirical and inductive an inquiry. The examples of unbelieving astronomers have been few, and many of them, when historically traced, will be found to have been less astronomers than unbelievers who have made their little knowledge do service to their prejudices. Devout Astronomers. On the other hand, we find that nearly all the great names in the science have been harmoniously associated with the Christian faith. The chief discoverer of modern astronomy, Copernicus, lived as a faithful priest, and died, requesting that his epitaph might be the prayer of the penitent thief on the cross, " Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy Kingdom." Galileo did not abjure the Holy Gospels upon which he was forced to abjure the opinion of the earth's mobility. Kepler, as he cried Eureka at the close of his researches into the motions of the planet Mars, declared that he could wait a century for a reader, since the Almighty had waited thousands of years for a discoverer. Newton, after dis- covering and proclaiming the law of God in the heavens, turned devoutly to study that other law of God revealed in his holy Word. The Herschels, father and son, had their tomb inscribed to that divine faithfulness which is established in the heavens and on earth, and in their THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 55 family maintained from one generation to another. The brilliant and versatile Arago did not deem it unscientific to support his celestial speculations with religious truths and arguments. The late Stephen Alexander thought of himself as a child spelling out the divine story of the stars, and crowned his life-long studies with a matured confession of his faith. And the great living astrono- mers, with scarcely an exception, have let it appear that Christian truth is either theoretically or practically combined with their astronomical knoAvledge. Revealed Truths in Astronomy. The second source of evidence is found in the perfect agreement of astronomical facts with revealed truths. This will appear by simply bringing the two together and observing their correlations ; in other words, con- necting what has been certainly discovered with what has been surely revealed in reference to the heavenly bodies. On the one hand, it has been discovered, contrary to all appearances, that our earth is a huge globe or planet poised in space Avith the moon as its satellite ; that the sun and stars are also great globes, but immensely larger in size and inconceivably distant ; that the stars are innumerable companies of these suns, planets, and satellites, under fixed mechanical laws, careering, with incredible swiftness, through orbits and periods, practically infinite in space and time. On the other hand, it has been revealed, in the common lan- guage of appearances, that the heavens declare the glory of God ; that by his understanding hath he made them and garnished them by his Spirit ; that his throne is over the heavens, and in the heavens hath he established 56 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION his faithfulness ; and that He is the High and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Now, is there any contrariety between these scientific facts and these religious truths ? Are they not rather the logical complements or counterparts of one another ? In the view of philosophy as well as of faith, what were the vast celestial mechanism without some sufficient cause, such as the revealed Jehovah, to give it rational support and consistency? And what were that revealed Jehovah without some adequate illus- tration of his infinite attributes, such as astronomy alone can afford ? Take either without the other and see what would remain. Take astronomy without the Bible and there would remain a mere causeless and purposeless mass of worlds, sun, planet, and satellite, whirling blindly through the ages toward nothingness. Take the Bible without astronomy, and there would remain the infinite and absolute Jehovah enthroned in the skies of our little planet as the only scene of his abode. But bring the two together, and at once the author of Scripture be- comes the author of nature with all his revealed attri- butes in full manifestation ; with his immensity extend- ing through the boundless regions of celestial space ; with his eternity unfolding through the endless periods of celestial time ; with his omnipotence expending its potential energy in the tremendous forces and velocities of the celestial orbs ; with his immutability expressed in the mechanical and physical laws Avliich govern these ceaseless movements ; and with his omniscience dis- played in a universe of order and beauty and grandeur which all our science has but begun to apprehend. Astronomy thus yields overwhelming evidence in favor of revealed religion. THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 57 Critical Questions. And this evidence is quite independent of any ques- tion raised by literary criticism as to the origin, compo- sition, and inspiration of the Bible itself. The most ex- treme ground may be taken in regard to such questions. Let it be assumed that Genesis, the Book of Job, the Psalms, and other scriptures which contain astronomical allusions were written by unknown authors, or compiled from pre-existing documents, or derived from some primeval revelation in the form of mere legendary fragments. Yet the fact remains that in this ancient book alone can be found that pure sublime theism which astronomy now requires, verifies, and illustrates. Let it also be granted that our modern astronomy was wholly unknown to the sacred writers, whilst they were freely speaking as organs of revelation, and that the psalmist beheld in the firmament nothing more than a star-lit expanse or an embroidered canopy Avr ought by the Divine fingers. Yet it will still be true that in the light of science his inspired words have acquired an in- finite meaning which no mere human genius could fore- see and of which he may never have dreamed when he exclaimed, "The heavens declare the glory of God." The demonstrated portion of astronomy, known as descriptive astronomy or celestial mechanics, affords evidence of those revealed attributes of Jehovah which imply his relations to the material universe, to illimi- table space, time, matter, and force, such as immensity, eternity, omnipotence, immutability, omniscience, to- gether with some incidental proofs of the divine wisdom and goodness in the adaptation of the celestial system to our planet and its inhabitants. 58 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION Evidential Literature, AVitli the rise of the modern astronomy such concep- tions were inevitable, if not irresistible in all religious literature. The earlier astronomers themselves, such as Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, did not scruple to mingle pious reflections Avith their scientific discoveries, llichard Bentley, the first Boyle lecturer, in his sermons on the " Confutation of Atheism," from a survey of the origin and frame of the world, expounded the Principia of Newton against the Epicurean doctrine of eternal matter and motion, at the same time unfolding scientif- ically that ancient proof of the divine beauty and order of the firmament, the cosmos and mundus, which kin- dled the adoration of Plato and Cicero no less than of Moses and David. William Derham, the learned Can- on of Windsor, whose once popular " Astro-theology" seems to have been the first distinct treatise of the kind, also demonstrated the being and attributes of God from a survey of the heavens, especially enlarging upon the usefulness of the celestial " globes " as then for the first time becoming apparent in their ascertained figures, motions, orbits, and attractions. The versatile Wins- ton, in like manner, treated of the " Astronomical Prin- ciples of Natural and Eevealed Religion," on the basis of the Newtonian philosophy. And the same argument Avas continued by Ray and Paley. Dr. Whewell, in his Bridge water Treatise on the " Connection of Astronomy with Natural Theology," still more scientifically vindi- cated the benevolent design of the cosmical arrange- ments against the insinuation of Laplace that it was easy to conceive of a better solar system or of one more THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 59 advantageously adapted to human welfare. The late Professor Ormsby Mitchell, in his " Astronomy of the Bible," not only sought to illustrate the divine omnipo- tence, eternity, immutability, and wisdom from the celestial mechanism but to discern an occult inspired acquaintance with it in the very language of the Script- ures ; finding in the Hebrew expression of Job, " the sockets of the earth," implied knowledge of its diurnal rotation, and in the binding " influences of the Plei- ades" an anticipatory allusion to the attraction of the solar system, and other astral systems, about a centre of universal gravity, which Madler has placed in that constellation. And hosts of popular writers, not pro- fessed astronomers, but accepting their discoveries and embodying the results in magazines, lectures, and ser- mons, are still unfolding the astronomical argument for the being and attributes of deity as revealed in the Scriptures. Astronomical Hypotheses, The third source of evidence is found in the provis- ional agreement of astronomical hypotheses with re- vealed doctrines. Leaving the ascertained facts of the science, we now enter the field of its unsolved problems concerning the origin, the development, and the destiny of the celestial universe. As to each of these problems we shall find astronomers holding rival hypotheses with purely scientific motives and from no religious bias whatever. And these hypotheses, being still imperfect and conflicting, might simply be left unnoticed so far as they seem to menace revealed doctrines, but if brought into relation with such doctrines can be hopefully ad- justed to them by showing that at their worst they 60 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION would only require some modification of our existing in- terpretation of Scripture ; that they are already more or less reconcilable with Scripture ; and meanwhile, which- ever of them shall at length prevail, the one essential truth of Scripture remains untouched and indestructi- ble, if not greatly enhanced and illustrated. In other words, astronomy even in its most problematical and hypothetical portions admits of prospective harmony with revealed religion. A Primitive Cosmos. As to the first of the unsolved problems, the origin of the celestial universe, rival hypotheses have been held almost from the dawn of the science. The one hypoth- esis is that of a primitive cosmos or mundus, which from the beginning has continued and ever since remained as a finished Avorld of order and beauty. Not a few as- tronomers, in a strict scientific spirit, such as Galileo, the younger Herschel, Lamont, and Newcomb, have ab- stained from speculative inquiries into the origin of the heavenly bodies as unknowable, except on metaphysical or religious grounds, and have confined their researches to the existing order of things as now proceeding under fixed mechanical and physical laws. In their view, our solar system, as we now know it, whatever may have been its primitive condition, is a piece of self-adjusting mechanism, ever maintaining its equilibrium against disorder ; and the planetary bodies of which it is com- posed, the sun as a great globe of fire at the centre ; tor- rid Mercury ; fair, bright Venus ; snow-capped Earth ; blood-red Mars; belted Jupiter; Saturn with double rings and moons; Uranus and Neptune, wandering THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 61 darkly in the outermost void, are but so many different species of cosmic forms with no more trace of transition or development than we can find in the different species of organic forms of plants and animals which subsist side by side in our planet. In like manner, beyond our solar system, throughout infinite space, are innumerable other solar systems, or stellar systems, each star a sun with planets, revolving around some universal centre of gravity, and displaying other cosmic forms as incon- ceivable to us as the scenery, flora, and fauna of unvis- ited countries. And it is claimed that the telescope has proved the truth of the hypothesis by resolving the nebulae or cloud-like masses of the Milky Way into clus- tered suns, even galaxies of suns, all together compris- ing a fixed series of worlds, or scale of cosmic types, varying from the crudest asteroid that wanders in space up to the most richly garnished planet that careers around the Central Sun of the Universe. A Primitive Chaos, The other hypothesis is that of a primitive chaos or crude material mass from which the existing universe w^as developed and is still advancing through various stages of progress. Accepting this Oriental and He- brew conception, some astronomers, with a specula- tive turn of mind, like Kepler, Laplace, Herschel and Humboldt, instead of limiting their researches to the heavenly bodies as they now appear, have sought to trace them back under fixed mechanical and physical laws of evolution to their original condition. From their point of view, our Solar System, uncounted ages ago, was a vast nebula or fiery cloud which, as it whirled in swift 62 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED HELTQION vortices, cooled and condensed, first into a central igneous body like the Sun ; then into rotating rings like those around the planet Saturn ; then successively into gaseous and watery globes, like Jupiter and Ura- nus ; and at length into solid shells like that which en- closes the fiery core of our Earth as a finished world of mature growth. In like manner the whole sidereal region of space beyond our solar system, Avith all its constellations, is supposed to be a vast nursery of worlds in different degrees of cosmic development, co- existing like trees in a forest, but so distant that the most brilliant suns can now appear only as lucid dots in a film of light long ages after their rays have reached the eye of man. And it is now claimed that the spectro- scope is verifying the truth of this speculation by re- vealing in the chemical constitution of different stars the successive phases of nebula, sun and planet, as plainly as you can trace the seed bursting into the leaf and the flower at your feet. Hie Doctrine of Creation, Now, in more or less direct relation to these two as- tronomical hypotheses stands the revealed doctrine of creation : — that in the beginning God created the heav- ens and the earth ; that wisdom was with Him when He prepared the heavens ; that by His word or rea- son the world was made and without it nothing was made that was made, and that through faith we under- stand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. And the state of the question is this : If we accept one of these hypotheses our existing THE EVIDENCE PROM ASTR0X03IT C3 iuterpretation of Scripture remains undisturbed; if we accept the other, it can be favorably modified ; but whichever shall at length prevail, the error will have been solely in our fallible interpretation and not in that infallible word of God which abideth forever. Take the hypothesis of a primitive cosmos, or of finished worlds of order and beauty, and then, in accordance with the long received and still popular conception of an instan- taneous creation, the whole assemblage of suns and planets will ap^oear starting into being full-born as by a fiat of Jehovah. Take the other hypothesis of a prim- itive chaos, or of worlds in different stages of evolu- tion, and then, in accordance with the newer and more scientific conception of a continuous creation, an end- less variety of suns and planets will be seen ever unfold- ing the infinite attributes of Jehovah in all their rich- ness and glory. But whichever hypothesis you take, Avhether you conceive of creation as an act or as a proc- ess, it will still be true, as it always has been and always will be true, that " in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Our Planet Alone Inhabited. The second unsolved problem relates to the develop- ment of the heavenly bodies into habitable worlds ; and for its solution two conflicting speculations have long been current. Some astronomers, like Galileo, Herschel, Whewell, and Proctor, have maintained that our planet is the only inhabited world. It has been argued that other worlds do not possess the organic conditions of habitability ; that the asteroids and comets are plainly incapable of sustaining life ; that the Moon is like an 64 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION extinct crater without even an atmosphere ; that the Sun is but a ball of incandescent mist ; that the inner planets, Mercury and Venus, are composed of cinder and slag ; that the outer planets, Jupiter and Uranus, are mere globes of water and ice, while our Earth is situated between the extremes of heat and cold, in that temjDerate zone of the Solar System where alone the life of sentient and intellectual beings has become possible. As to the innumerable suns and planets which are supposed to be clustered together in the constellations, in Orion, Cassiopea, and Capella, it has been boldly surmised that these are not worlds at all, but mere sparks, meteors and comets, still coruscating throughout the heavens from the great fire-wheel of that solar nebula of which our planet is the most sub- stantial remnant. And it is also urged that geology, by showing how many ages have rolled away ere the earth could have become ready for man, has rendered the chances as millions to one against any other world than ours being inhabited at the present time. Otlier Planets Also Habit able. Other astronomers, however, such as Kepler, New- ton, Arago, Oersted, Flammarion, have favored the idea of a plurality of inhabited worlds. In support of this idea it has been maintained that there may be forms of planetary life and intelligence for which our planet affords no analogies ; that some of the planets at least, like Mars and Venus, have climatic zones, seas and continents, suggestive of their habitability ; that if others, like Mercury and the Moon, have long since passed the habitable stage and become extinct worlds, THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 65 yet Jupiter and Saturn are but advancing in an earlier stage and will yet become encrusted with strata, fur- nished with florge and faunae, and tenanted b}^ intellect- ual races ; and that even the Sun itself bears thronging inhabitants upon the opaque body hidden behind his dazzling photosphere. It is declared that no limit can be set to the prodigal richness of Nature. With daring- fancy the speculation has been pushed into the stellar regions, and the ponderous globes, gross organisms, and meagre furniture of our solar system have been put in contrast with sublimated spheres of light in Cassiopea, Orion, and Capella, where myriads of ethereal creatures are supposed to bask under many colored suns in eter- nal summer and perpetual youth. And it is even an- ticipated, in proof of the speculation, that the spectro- scope may yet reveal conditions of life on the remotest stars, and that upon some of the nearer planets will soon be descried by the telescope such works of art and genius as have no type or semblance in the wildest ro- mances of our little orb. The Doctrine of Angels. Here again the state of the question is the same as in the previous problem. Two opposite speculations of as- tronomers are to be adjusted to the revealed doctrine of angels. That doctrine is, that Jehovah is worshipped by the whole host of heaven in the very heaven of heav- ens ; and that the heavens are the abode of the Father and the angels, even of our Father who is in the heav- ens and of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. As yet, we have no final interpretation of these and other like Scriptures and no full comprehen- 5 66 EVIDENCE.^ OF REVEALED RELIGION sion of their meaning. On the first supposition, that our world alone is inhabited, the long received interpre- tation can be retained. The biblical heavens will con- tinue to be viewed as a mere appurtenance of our Earth. The unseen hosts of angels and archangels, dominions, principalities, powers, may be fancied, ac- cording to the Dantean conception, ascending rank above rank, toward the empyrean above our atmosphere, where the Trinity is ever enthroned as the object of their ceaseless worship. On the other supposition, how- ever, that other worlds as well as ours are inhabited, this picture would vanish and the old interpretation be changed. Our mental horizon would expand beyond our planet, beyond the solar system, into the very heaven of heavens, until it embraced the whole amphitheatre of countless worlds with the angelical hierarchies dwell- ing in them as in the many mansions of our Father's house. And to the physical affinities between their dwellings and ours, would be added their spiritual at- traction toward our earth as the scene of a special theophany with unfolding mysteries into which they desire to look, and every trophy of which, though but one repenting sinner, they hail with joy. Be all this, however, as it may, to whatever extent we seek to iden- tify the biblical with the astronomical heavens, the rev- elation standeth sure, that the heavens are the abode of the angelic hosts, and that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the church that manifold wisdom, the mystery of human redemp- tion which was hidden in the bosom of God from the beginning. THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 67 A Final Chaos. The third problem refers to the destiny of the celes- tial universe ; and for its solution two opinions have been advanced. Some astronomers and astronomical writers, like Newton, Helmholtz, Stephen Alexander, and Winchell, have inclined to the notion of a final chaos. Amid all the order and beauty of the heavenly worlds they have read signs of decay and warnings of disaster. It has been held that the incursion of comets is ever a menace to the stability of the solar system ; that its own perturbations are cumulative and destruc- tive ; that the planets are cooling, shrinking, and spin- ning more feebly in their orbits, and slowly losing their life-bearing powers ; that the Moon is already a dead world, with its pallid face upturned to the Sun ; that the tires of the Sun itself are steadily dying out ; and that sooner or later the time must come when sun, planet, and satellite shall be precipitated together and collapse into the igneous dust from which they sprang. It is taken as an axiom that there can be no perpetual mo- tion in the machinery of the heavens, and that the po- tential energy of the universe must at length be dissi- pated. The presage of disaster has been carried beyond our solar system into the sidereal heavens, and the nebu- lous forms of the broken ring, the firewheel, and the spiral are supposed to indicate a stupendous disruption and dispersion of suns and systems throughout those distant parts of the universe. And as if to make the prediction more plausible its advocates have depicted the awful scene which must ensue when inexorable laws have run their course, and the planets shall have turn- 68 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION bled as charred ruins into the sun, and the sun shall have fallen like an exhausted warrior, among the dying stars, and universal night and death shall have settled upon the spent powers of Nature. A Permanent Cosmos, Another class of astronomers, however, like Laplace, Madler, Mayer, and Poisson, have leaned toward the notion of a permanent cosmos. In spite of any signs of occasional disturbance in the celestial system, they have gathered auguries of all - preserving order and never-failing beauty. The popular dread of comets, they tell us, has already been dissipated by showing their vaporous nature and periodical recurrence; and it has been mathematically proved that the perturba- tions of the solar system are self-correcting and conser- vative ; that there is no uncompensated shrinkage and cooling of its great masses ; that the furnace of the Sun is ever fed by meteors and aerolites ; and the planets ever supplied with heat and light to insure their life- bearing powers. It is assumed that there is a per- petual conservation as well as dissipation of the energy of the universe. The hopeful prevision has been ex- tended throughout the stellar regions, where the nebu- lous forms and star clusters are to be viewed, not as painted in our distorting fancy, but as so many astral systems, revolving with our own solar system, around the bright star in Alcyone, through millennial summers and winters, with ever-changing climates and histories. And as if to crown the splendid vision, it has even been boldly conjectured, that the evolution of nebulae into planets and dissolution of planets into nebula?, if they THE EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY 69 occur, may be periodic rather than catastrophic, a sort of normal birth and death of worlds, throughout infinite space and time. The Doctrine of Old and Neiv Heavens, It will be seen, at a glance, how the two astronomical opinions bear upon the revealed doctrine of the de- struction and renewal of the heavens. Each has in it an element of truth which is in accordance with Script- ure, while both together tend to unfold its full mean- ing. On the one hand, the opinion of a final chaos or dissolution of planets, as Helmholtz admits, will answer quite well to the biblical descriptions of the day of judg- ment, as depicted in popular language, when the sun shall be darkened, the moon shall become as blood, the stars shall fall like meteors, the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and vanish like smoke, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. On the other hand, the oj^inion of an ensuing or fresh evolution of planets is in agreement with the prediction of Isaiah, the vivid picture of St. Peter, and the vision of St. John in the Apocalypse, that after the first heaven and the first earth shall have passed, Jehovah shall create new heavens and a new earth, purged by the fires of judg- ment, as an abode of righteousness. And then, taking the two opinions together, we shall understand anew the transitoriness of the whole visible heavens as viewed by the Psalmist and the Apostle, in contrast with the eternal Jehovah, who wears them as but the changing garb of his glory : *' The heavens are the work of thy hands : they shall perish, but thou remainest : yea all of them shall wax old as doth a garment ; and as a vest- 70 EVIDENCES OF REVEALED RELIGION lire shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed ; but thou art the same and thy years fail not." Tlie Stupendous Problems of Astronomy. The whole speculative problem of astronomy, as now brought before us, has become too vast for the mind of man to compass. The spectacle of evolving and dissolv- ing planets, suns, and galaxies, in our bewildered fancy, " Glitters like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." No hand of man can unravel it. We can solve the problem only by the aid of revelation. If we yield our- selves to scientific evolutionism alone, it will land us in the pessimistic view of a universe at once causeless and purposeless, beginning in irrational force and end- ing in impotent reason. But if we blend such evo- lutionism with the biblical theism we may rise to the view of a universe of order and beauty, originating in the potential energy of one Absolute Will and unfold- ing the purposes of one Infinite Keason, even that re- vealed Creator who inhabits yet controls his own crea- tion, immanent yet transcendent, making and unmaking world after world, world without end, yet ever remaining the eternal and self-existent Jehovah, I-am-that-I-am, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, which was and is and is to come, the Everlasting, of whom and through whom are all things, to whom alone be glory. Astronomical llarvels. The fourth source of evidence is found in a compari- son