The need to assert it as super natural. was in the great religious revivals which followed the victorious close of the Deistic controversy of the last century. Against a rationalising infidelity it was well to show how Christianity was rational; but it needed something above reason and morality to overcome the dead weight of practical godlessness and sin, and to rekindle the sacred flame of religious enthusiasm. Such, indeed, has been the experience of all ages of the Church. Christianity has a work to do and a claim to sustain, which imperiously demand a firm faith and a bold proclamation of its unique and ultimate authority. It is not more resolute against the open blasphemy of the more vulgar infidelity, than against that half patronising, half admiring appreciation, which accepts it as one imperfect form of thought, the best perhaps of many, which are all destined to be fused in a higher expression of truthas 'the last and noblest of the mythologies' doomed soon to vanish away in the cold dry light of science. It must be less than this, or more. If it be only this, then, in order to clear its preachers from the charge of presumption and superstition, its whole history must be rewritten, and its whole language changed. For otherwise that result must be realised which St. Paul holds out as a kind of reductio ad absurdum. The faith which regenerates the hearers can only be a beautiful dream; the victorious word of the preacher a falsehood, a glorious falsehood in appearance, but in reality the worst of all lies-a lie in the name of God. bining both At all times, however, both elements of the truth are necessary; at this present time especially necessary, when The present the scornful denial on the one side of all superneed of com- natural agency, going so far as to obliterate even assertions. the line between the material and the spiritual, is met on the other by a kind of reckless delight in all that wears the appearance of the supernatural even in the physical sphere, in a tendency to denounce or decry the advance of natural science, in a rebound towards the superstition, which fancies or multiplies miracles, and turns. means of grace into charms. The necessity of the full truth is urgent. Happily, by all thoughtful Christians that necessity is amply recognised. It will be, as I have said, the object of these lectures to con tribute, so far as may be, one to the many voices enunciating this fulness of Christian truth in many tones. The line of be followed. VII. Glancing at Holy Scripture as a whole, I shall seek first to trace out the actual method of its dealing, both in the Old Testament and in the New, with the revelation of God and the spirituality of man, in that close thought to connexion with each other in which all Natural Theology forces us to view them. Here it will be my endeavour to show how it meets the natural searchings of man after God with the calm certainty of a Divine message. In the spirit of St. Paul at Athens, it recognises in them a real, a not unsuccessful search after a God, known to be, though in attributes unknown' or dimly seen; and while it accepts for Him'the ignorant worship,' declares Him as revealed in Jesus Christ for their more perfect knowledge. Side by side with this evolution of the Scriptural revelation of God, and of man as in unity with God, I shall seek to draw out its teaching on the mystery of evil, in respect of its source, its nature, its present power, and its future overthrow-with a view in this case to show how Christianity meets those needs of humanity which Natural Theology can indicate, but cannot satisfy, by the proclamation of what St. Paul calls a mystery, hid from all generations, but now made manifest,' even to the simple and ignorant, those hard workers and patient sufferers who make up the rank and file of humanity. sic evidence. Possibly this consideration may fairly claim a distinct and not unimportant place in the actual evidences of Christianity.' On the belief, tested by experi- (a) Its force ence, that the Gospel can guide men through the as an intrinperplexities and contradictions of life, and nerve them both to dare and to endure all things, the practical Christianity of the mass of believers rests. On this I will venture to say that it ought always to rest, until it is challenged and often, perhaps, when it has been challenged by speculation and criticism. Many a man may rightly say, with the homely bluntness of the blind man at Siloam, 'Whether it can be proved to be of God' by a proof which shall satisfy every mind, and dispel every difficulty, 'I know not.' 'But one thing I do know,' that without it 'I am blind;' with it I can see '-see my way through the bewildering mists of temptation, through the gloomy cloud of suffering, even through the thick darkness of death. Till you can offer me some better light, I will walk in this. (b) Its func paratory to But even if this may not be our case, and if accordingly we must go on still to scrutinise the positive evidences on which Christianity bases its claim to the allegiance tion as pre- of faith, still it is clear that the temper in which positive evi- we shall scrutinise them, and the force of evidence dence. which we shall rightly require for conviction, will greatly depend on our understanding that, claiming to be supernatural, and justifying its claim by revelation of what the natural man cannot conceive, it yet contradicts nothing which he has known about God, nothing which he has felt to be true of himself. Hence I believe that this line of thought ought to have a real value, both to the believer and to the doubter. To the believer it should both deepen and widen his conception of the Christian revelation in its twofold aspect, and thus teach him to accept all natural light gladly, though he trusts ultimately in the supernatural. To the doubter, if it cannot bring positive conviction, it may, at least, help to remove some of those difficulties which, prior to all consideration of the evidences of Christianity, incline him to pronounce such examination needless and hopeless. As this line of thought looks on to the future examination of the actual Christian evidences, so it looks back also to that (e) Its rela- argument from the many voices of Natural Theology, tion to the which has been already pursued elsewhere. previous argument. It is as though, by various convergent paths, we had been brought to the threshold of the mystery of God. As we have moved along each towards that central mystery, there has been a light before us and a voice of solemn import in our ears. Now the everlasting doors of the shrine fly open, and One stands before us, claiming to be the manifestation of God. As we gaze on Him, we see that in His crown of light there shine, blended together in perfect harmony, all the various rays of light which have hitherto been our guides. As we listen to the music of His voice, we recognise the tones which have so long been sounding dimly in our ears. But yet in His face there is a glory beyond what we have ever conceived, and the story which His voice tells unlocks to us mysteries beyond our highest thought. What can we do but fall down before Him, and acknowledge that 'God, who in sundry times and divers manners spake to men from the beginning by His servants, has at last spoken to us once for all in His Son '? The general argument re-stated. Christianity in the Bible and in the CHAPTER II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COVENANT WITH GOD. 'And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you.'-Gen. ix. 9. THE thesis of these lectures has now been generally stated. Looking upon Christianity as the one accepted representation of 'supernatural religion,' they are to be devoted to show that in Christianity we see the highest exemplification of the great law 'supernatural not preternatural;' which we observe to rule in respect of all the narrower senses of the word 'natural,' and to be, in fact, the principle at once of unbroken unity and continual development, in that which in the largest and ultimate sense is 'the natural '—the whole actual system of the world and man. I. In order to exhibit this great characteristic of Christianity clearly at the very outset, it was enough to concentrate our attention for the moment on that remarkable creed of the doctrine of Christ in the Epistle to the Philippians, which set forth His manifestation as the ultimate truth, at once complementary and supplementary to the inductions of Natural Theology. But, if the argument is to be worked out, it is necessary to contemplate Christianity not merely in its central idea, but in its actual historic growth and existence. There are two ways in which this task may be attempted. For Christianity, as to the individual it is at once a faith and a life, so exhibits itself to the world as embodied in a Bible and a Church. It proclaims, that is, on the one hand, a great body of truth, of which that Bible is the authoritative source, and which has been for eighteen centuries drawn out and systematised in the creeds and the theology of Christendom. It professes, on the other hand, to embody in the Church a supernatural power of spiritual life or grace, which Church. |