The mani

for Natural

Religion.

as I have already urged elsewhere, for three important considerations. It is, first of all, to be remembered that the witness to God, starting from that universal instinct fold witness which has expressed itself in all the languages and religions of the world, is worked out by maturer thought, not along one line of thought, but along many. It has its speculative evidences appealing to the understanding and imagination. It has its moral evidences in the voice of conscience and of love. It is to be urged, next, that it is a fatal error to rely on one line of evidence only, as if it stood alone, and were intended to be all-sufficient; and that it is an almost equally flagrant error to treat the result of these various forms of witness as if it were only the sum total of the evidences of each, instead of being (as all laws of evidence, scientific or forensic, allow) infinitely stronger, in virtue of the convergence of independent evidences, than the sum of all put together. It is to be shown, lastly, how, by all considerations, both of reason and of analogy, we are irresistibly drawn to the expectation of some revelation of God Himself to the race as a race, clenching the moral certainty of all these combined evidences of Natural Theology, and adding to the law of induction the law of faith.

The mani

for Christi

anity.

For exactly these three principles I would contend in respect of Christian evidence. I hold that it is a complex evidence, having its various appeals to the reason, fold witness the conscience, the affections, and the spiritual aspirations of man. I hold that, next, the conviction produced by these various reasons for coming to Christ is infinitely greater than the sum of all put together, rising, as all convergent evidence must rise, with extreme rapidity from bare probability to absolute moral certainty. I hold that, lastly, the work of Christian evidence is done when it has brought men to Christ with the profound conviction that 'none can do what He does, except God be with Him,' and that, having the words of eternal life,' He can reveal what no mere man can discover or fully comprehend. Then, for the rest, comes in the law of faith. We have to sit at His feet, and, through faith rather than investigation, 'learn to know what passes knowledge, and so be filled with all the fulness of God.'

It is in this last contention of the need of an unreserved faith in the word of our Master, that Christians, as such, part company absolutely with those who believe in God, but, if they accept Jesus of Nazareth at all, accept Him only as one of His prophets. Perhaps in desire to appeal entirely to reason, perhaps in reluctance to break up the ranks of the host of Theism, the absolute necessity of this last contention has often been imperfectly dwelt upon by Christian apologists, and a stress accordingly has been laid on Christian evidences which they can hardly bear.

(d) Sum

IV. But it is infinitely important to have a clear view of what the Christian position is or ought to be. To sum up, therefore, what has been now put forward as to the actual and reasonable origin of the Christianity of mary of the nineteenth century, I should trace out its various stages thus.

results.

We are Christians, first, because we have inherited our Christianity under God's providence, just as we have inherited our freedom, our knowledge, and our civilisation. We accept the position, and teach our children to thank God that He has called us into this state of salvation.'

Inheritance.

We are Christians, next, because through the Bible and the teaching of the Church, which is its witness and keeper, we have been taught from our earliest days to learn Teaching. from Christ what He says, and to learn Christ, what

He is. Such teaching we hold to be the debt of society to each individual born into it. We accept it for ourselves, we resolve to give it in our turn to others.

We are Christians, again, because we have tried this Christian teaching and privilege by experience, and found in them a guide through the perplexities of life, a light to the understanding, a strength to the conscience, a new inspiration of our affections, and a satisfaction of our spiritual longings.

Experience.

So far, and so far only, all must go who are to be true Christians. Thousands stop there, contented, and reasonably contented. In faith so inherited, so learned, so verified by experience, they have Christ dwelling in them, and 'in Him can do all things,' both for life and for death.

But there are stages yet beyond, which to many it may be a duty and even a privilege to tread.

Study.

Here men are Christians because they have learned to study Christian truth, not only in its effects but in itself, and to draw out in a true theology the knowledge of God, the knowledge of man, the knowledge of God made one with man in Jesus Christ; and because, as they thus study, the truth grows upon them, and possesses their souls with an ever-deepening conviction of its reality, its sufficiency, and its supremacy.

Evidence.

So far it is a high privilege to go; but by necessity we may have to go further still, and say: 'We are Christians because, having been challenged to give a defence for the faith in us, we have looked into all the rich variety and complexity of that witness which leads men to Christ; we have convinced ourselves that it stands still, as it stood of old, unshaken by speculative or moral difficulty. Whatever points may still be dark, waiting for fuller light, still what we can see is sufficient, and more than sufficient,. to teach us that "He is the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Faith.

But, when we have done all, still, for the full understanding of the Christian mystery, we must at last rest by faith on Christ-in His word, His life, and His manifestation of Himself-content to believe that He knows what we do not know, and that what seem to us irreconcilable truths are to Him in a perfect harmony. Our religion is not a philosophy, but a faith; it rests not on abstract principles, but on a Divine Person.

Of this course of thought the present series of lectures has only to do with the last two stages. They are directed to two objects-to show, on the one hand, the variety and convergent force of Christian evidence; to assert, on the other, the necessary limitation of its function, as designed to lead on to faith, not to supersede it.

V. Before entering, however, on the examination in detail of Christian evidences, it will be well to consider the true order and method of that examination.

It seems to me right to start in thought, as we start in practice, with the actual power of Christianity in the intel

Christian

not the

same as in the first age.

lectual, moral, and spiritual spheres of our being, rather than go back at once to its first manifestation in the past. For it is surely true that, while the great principles The order of of Christian truth must always be the same, yet evidences there need not be, and cannot be, the same un- for us alterable character about the evidences by which the mind is led to that truth. The tide of thought advances here and recedes there. The hand of Time adds in one direction, while it takes away in another. Hence it would seem to be a mistake to throw ourselves back, so to speak, by historic imagination, into the earliest ages of Christianity, and to seek to reproduce-what is really incapable of any perfect reproduction-the power by which, in those days, the Gospel of Christ forced itself on a half-reluctant world. The real question rather is, what are the forces-partly the same, partly not the same by which it is brought home to us as living in this nineteenth century?

Thus, for example, when the Gospel was first preached to the world, we know the stress laid on two great evidences -the fulfilment of prophecy and the witness of miracle. It was perfectly natural, almost inevitable, that this course should be followed. For the fulfilment of prophecy claimed the past for Christ, and His miracles, bodily and spiritual, showed His power over the present. But it does not follow, as is sometimes assumed,' that these must be the chief evidences of Christianity to our day. We have a new past and a new present of our own; we equally claim them for our Master, but our method of advancing that claim may not be the same as that which was so cogent in days gone by.

(a) The argu

The argument from prophecy was addressed to a people to whom the prophecies of the Old Testament were the chief spiritual treasure, bound up with the very life ment from and hope of the Jewish dispensation, familiar as household words, habitually viewed in relation to the coming

prophecy,

phecy' are the two direct and fundamental proofs' of Christianity, compared with which all others are subsidiary.

of the Messiah. To show them fulfilled in Christ-whether in broad general principles or in vivid details-was an argument of marvellous power. It was, as has been said, to claim for Him the whole of the glorious past of Israel, and of the covenant which she held in trust for humanity; by showing that through the centuries, in ways often dark at the time, and made clear only by the event, the hand of God was preparing for His manifestation, as the one fulfilment of all the hopes of Israel, and as the culminating event of human history. From this it was most natural to begin, as St. Peter began on the day of Pentecost. But is it equally natural now? I doubt it; for to do so now is to sin against that very principle of the original teaching which gave it so vivid a power. Then the prophecies were living and familiar realities, connected with the actual spiritual life of the hearers. Now they have receded into the dimness of a far antiquity; they are to us, in some measure, only historic memories of surpassing grandeur; in parts their meaning is obscure to us, and has to be approached through subtle criticism and speculation; even when we can understand them and listen to them as still living words of God, we have to translate them out of ancient forms of thought into modern language and idea. They are certainly not the chief food of our spiritual life. It is not impossible that from this distance we may be able intellectually to estimate them better as a whole, to subordinate to leading principles the details which caught the eye of a nearer contemplation, and to view them in the instructive light of the event. But they cannot come home to us as they came home to St. Peter's hearers, in that vivid force and beauty which tell upon the heart. If the evidence of prophecy is not less substantial, it is certainly less immediate and less persuasive. It is not to it that we should turn at once, in confidence that by it we can forthwith make the minds and hearts of men burn within them. When we approach it, it should be through the medium of something which is more absolutely and familiarly our own.

So far we lose something. But there is a glorious compensation for our loss. History with us takes the place then occupied by prophecy. There is now a new past of eighteen