EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

LECTURE I.

OBJECT OF THE COURSE.

RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN FOR THEIR OPINIONS.- REVELATION PROVABLE. THIS SHOWN FROM A COMPARISON OF MATHEMATICAL AND MORAL EVIDENCE, AND FROM AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARGUMENT OF HUME.

IN entering upon this course of lectures, there is one impression against which I wish to guard at the outset. It is, that I come here to defend Christianity, as if its truth were a matter of doubt. Not so. I come, not to dispute, but to exhibit truth; to do my part in a great work, which must be done for every generation, by showing them, so that they shall see for themselves, the grounds on which their belief in the Christian religion rests. I come to stand at the door of the temple of Truth, and. ask you to go in with me, and see for yourselves the foundation and the shafts of those pillars upon which its dome is reared. I ask you, in the words of one of old, to walk with me about our Zion, and go round about her, to tell the towers thereof, to mark well her bulwarks, to consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following.*

Persons to be benefited. — In doing this, I shall hope to be useful to three classes of persons.

First Class. To the first belong those who have received Christianity by acquiescence; who have, per

* Psalm xlviii. 12, 13.

haps, never questioned its truth, but who have never examined its evidence. This class is large, it is to be feared increasingly so, and it does not seem to me that the position of mind in which they are placed, and its consequences, are sufficiently regarded.

The claims of the Christian religion present themselves to those who enter upon life in a Christian country, in an attitude entirely different from that in which they were presented at their first announcement, when they made such rapid progress, and when their dominion over the mind of man was so efficient.* Then, no man was born a Christian. If he became one, it was in opposition to the prejudices of education, to ties of kindred, to motives of interest, and often at the sacrifice of reputation and of life. This no man would do except on the ground of the strongest reasons, perceived and assented to by his own mind. Christianity was an aggressive and an uncompromising religion. It attacked every other form of religion, whether Jewish or pagan, and sought to destroy it. It turned the world upside down" wherever it came; and the first question which any man would naturally ask was, "What are its claims? What are the reasons why I should receive it?" And these claims and reasons would be examined with all the attention that could be produced by the stimulus of novelty, and by the deepest personal interest.

Now, however, all this is changed. Men are born nominally Christians. The truth of the religion is taken for granted; nothing leads them to question it, nothing to examine it. In this position the mind may open itself to the reception of the religion from a perception of its intrinsic excellence, and its adaptation to the deep wants of man; but the probability is that doubts will arise. The occasions of these are abundant on every

* See Whately's Logic, Appendix, p. 325.

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hand-the strange state in which the world is; the number of sects; the conduct of Christians; a companion that ridicules religion; an infidel book. One objection or doubt makes way for another. The objec tions come first, and, ere the individual is aware, his respect for religion, and his confidence in it, are undermined. Especially will this be so if a young man travels much, and sees different forms of religion. He will see the Hindoo bowing before his idol, the Turk praying toward Mecca, the Papist kneeling before his saint, and the Protestant attending his church; and, as each seems equally sincere, and equally certain he is right, he will acquire, insensibly perhaps, a general impression that all religions are equally true, or-which is much the same thing that they are equally false, and any exclusive attachment to the Christian religion will be regarded as bigotry. The religion itself will come to be disliked as a restraint, and despised as a form. It is chiefly from this class that the ranks of fanaticism, on the one hand, and of infidelity, on the other, are filled; and it will often depend on constitutional temperament, or accidental temptation, whether such a one shall become a fanatic or an infidel.

At this point, there is doubtless a fault both in Christian parents and in Christian ministers. Where there is a proper course of training, this class can never become numerous; but it is numerous in all our congregations now. Needless doubts are not to be awakened, but it is no honor to the Christian religion to receive it by prescription. It is no fault to have those questionings, that desire for insight, call them doubts if you will, — which always spring up in strong minds, and which will not be quieted till the ground and evidence of those things which they receive are distinctly seen.' Are there such among my hearers? Them I hope to benefit. I hope to do for them what Luke did for the

cer-.

most excellent Theophilus-to show them the " tainty" of those things in which they have been in structed; to refer them, as he does again the same person in the Acts, to those "infallible proofs " on which the religion rests. Second Class. To the second class whom I hope to benefit belong those who have gradually passed from the preceding class into doubt and infidelity. For such, I think, there is hope. They are not unwilling to see evidence. Their position has led them to look at objections first, and they have, perhaps, never had time or opportunity to look at the embodied evidence for Christianity. They have fallen into infidelity from associa tion, from vanity, from fashion; they have not found in it the satisfaction they expected, and they are willing to review the ground, or rather to look candidly, for the first time, at the evidences for this religion.

Exceptions. Besides this class of infidels, there are, however, two others, whom I have very little hope of benefiting. One is of those who are made so by their passions, and are under the control of appetite, or ambition, or avarice, or revenge. As these were not made infidels by argument, argument will not be likely to reclaim them. "They never think of religion but with a feeling of enmity, and never speak of it but in the language of sneer or abuse." Another class is of those who have been well characterized as "a cold, speculative, subtle set of skeptics, who attack first principles and confound their readers or hearers with paradoxes." Apparently influenced by vanity, they adopt principles which would render all argument impossible or nugatory, and which would lead to fundamental and universal skepticism. This class seems not to be as numerous or as dangerous at present as at some formier times.*

* Alexander's Evidences, p. 9.

CERTAINTY AND ITS EFFECTS.

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Third Class. The third class whom I hope to benefit consists of Christians themselves.

Certainty and Efficiency.—It is one of the conditions of Christian character and efficiency, that, on some ground, there should be such a conviction of the truth of Christianity as to form a basis of action and of selfsacrifice, which, if it should be required, would be carried even to martyrdom. The grounds of such a conviction cannot be too well examined. There is no man, who finds himself called to act upon any conviction, who does not feel his self-respect increased, and his peace of mind enhanced, and his strength for action augmented, when he has a clear perception of the ground' of the conviction upon which he acts. And even though he may once have seen the Christian evidences in all their force, and been astonished at the mass of proof, and have been perfectly convinced, yet, after a time, these impressions fade away, and it is good for him to have them renewed. It is as when one has looked at the Falls of Niagara, and stood upon the tower, and gone round upon Table rock, and been rowed in the little boat up toward the great fall, and had his mind filled with the scene, but has again been occupied in the business of life till the impression has become indistinc on his mind. He would en gladly return, and have it renewed and deepened.

This feeling of certainty seems to have been one of the elements of the vigorous piety of ancient times. They believed; therefore they spoke. They knew whom they believed; therefore they were ready to be offered. They spoke of "certainty," of "infallible proofs," of being "eye-witnesses," of the "more sure word of prophecy." Their tread was not that of men who were feeling their way in the twilight of doubtful evidence, but that of men who saw every thing in the light of clear and perfect vision.