and then even earnest seekers may well inquire narrowly in a matter of so profound importance. We must expect, therefore, that men will demand other evidence. They will say,-you claim for this system that it is a divine interference in human history;-you claim that it was conveyed to man from heaven by a Being of divine glory, who wrought miracles upon the earth for three years in attestation of his declarations, who died upon a cross at the hands of a Judean proconsul, and who rose from the dead by the mighty power of God. Now these are historical facts, and they are susceptible of proof, as such, if they are true. What is the historical evidence you bring for them?

And we have to confess that this proof is not of the clearest character; that it falls unquestionably far below the highest degree of historical certainty, and is such as to furnish room for much questioning and even doubt.

It is true, first of all, that the Saviour's life was placed in one of the most quiet and retired provinces of the Roman empire, and where it would be least likely to reach the notice of the world at large. It is true, moreover, that even there it was an obscure life, attracting no universal and lasting attention. It was thus every way out of the scope of great events, and little likely to fall under the eye of general history.

This is in fact the case. No general historian speaks, from direct knowledge, of Christ; and even Josephus, living in the very next age, and writing Jewish history, does not mention him. The accounts of his life, which we possess, are histories written by his disciples, and turn within the circle of his discipleship almost entirely. Even at that they lack the highest possible proof. It is the demand of Strauss that the gospels should not only come to us, claiming to be the productions of disciples and eye-witnesses of the Saviour, but testified to by their friends and contemporaries as being their compositions, and in such a way as to leave no doubt that the books we possess are the identical ones they wrote. This requirement also is not met. The four evangelical records stand almost singularly alone. Two of their authors are quite unknown outside of those works, and the confirmation which Luke and John get from their other writings is only partial. How great a help

Infidelity derives from this source is evident from the trouble it finds with Paul. The mythical theory which runs so smoothly through the earlier history halts fearfully when it comes to Paul; indeed quite breaks down upon the doctrine of the resurrection, because he maintained it. His clearer and stronger historical position is not easily done away.

But this isolation is not the only difficulty in the gospel narrative. Apparent inconsistencies, in frequent minor points, do undoubtedly occur; nor are we disposed to deny that in some cases these inconsistencies may be real. It is almost impossible satisfactorily to explain them away, and we should hardly hesitate in any other case to acknowledge them.

And, then, to crown the whole, all this is true when it might have been entirely otherwise. This, in the case of Christianity, is a most significant fact. If Jesus had been simply a remarkable and peculiarly interesting man, the mere circumstance that his life was an obscure one and recorded by obscure men would serve not at all to discredit it. The fact that four apparently sincere and truthful histories of the man had come down, professing to be written by his friends and disciples, and in the main coincident, would be regarded as all the proof which the case admitted; nor would apparent inconsistencies, in the details of the biographies, be looked upon as anything more than the natural and even requisite confirmation of their individuality.

But this is all very different in such a case as that of Christianity. The life of Christ claims to have been supernatural. It was attended with miracles. It was an immediate interposition of God. It might, therefore, have been sustained by proofs such as could not be resisted. This was wholly in the power of its great author; and it is claimed to be incredible, on the supposition it was from God, that it was not done.

This is the great presumption which Infidelity brings against Christianity, derived from the doubts attending it. We have here a miraculous life, it urges. That of itself is too much for

a man to believe; but, if true, why was it left in such a state of uncertainty? Why was it not confirmed by evidences such as could not be denied? Strauss's book is full of this. It

is quite the burden, more or less openly, of the more recent infidelity in general.

And it has a portion of truth. We do not and cannot for a moment deny that, if it had pleased God, He might have so ordered the system of Christianity that it should be supported by proofs which could not be even questioned. There can be no doubt that the facts of Christ's life might have been placed in the great current of the world's affairs, and made of equal historical authority with those of Julius Cæsar or of Washington. Its great events, and its chief miracles, might, for all that we can see, have been supported by an amount of evidence so great that it would have been in vain to attempt to overcome it, whilst even appearances of inconsistency might, to human view, have been avoided.

Perhaps this would have satisfied infidelity itself; but if not, more might have been done. If it had so pleased God, (and we speak of such a possibility, because it seems once to have been suggested by Christ himself,) the system might have been so changed as to be presented to all minds with the very evidence of sight, as it was to the disciples. The Saviour, after his resurrection, might have continued in the world. When the great revelation of Himself had been finished, when the great sacrifice had been accomplished, and when the great inertia of the cause had been overcome by His actual and wonder-working presence in the world, still the Saviour might have lived on through all the ages without change, the print of the nails in His hands and His feet, the print of the spear's point in His side, traversing the world, as he did Galilee, and sending forth chosen apostles, clothed also with His divine power, to spread his name and glory through the earth.

All this was possible to the great Author of our system—this absolute crushing out of infidelity, this enforcing the universal acknowledgment of Christian truth. And yet, instead of this, we find a narrative so remote, contained within so narrow a period of time, so humble, nay even obscure in its relations to the world, and so entirely human in its appearance of inconsistencies.

Is there any reason for this? Is there any object to be

attained by it? Does Christianity present anything, in the very ends it seeks, which can be better accomplished if it have a portion of doubt adhering to it than if it shine in the blaze of utter certainty? This is the problem presented to us;—a problem which the defense of Christianity is bound to answer.

Turning first to the Bible itself we meet the significant fact that here there is no uncertainty or hesitation upon this point. It is clearly the implication of the Bible,-a thing, indeed, taken for granted in the whole gospel system,-that there is room left in it for doubt; and that it is far better that it should be so.

This is expressed in many single passages. "It is expedient for you," said Christ on the night of his arrest, "it is expedient for you that I go away," else you will not have the Holy Spirit. I have been present hitherto to your sight, but it is better that henceforth ye should live by the secret influences of the Holy Spirit, believing where ye cannot see; better for you, and for those who shall believe on me through you. This thought is still more clearly expressed in the Saviour's reproof of the doubting disciple: "Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed." Blessed, in other words, is a faith that can triumph over doubts, and believe, even, when there is a chance to disbelieve! What else than this, too, was expressed by the Saviour's commendation of the Syrophenician woman? This foreign woman, with so little of the helps to faith which the Jew has, with so much more reason to doubt than they, this foreign woman believes;-blessed, doubly blessed, is she therein!

Now instances such as these, and there are many of them. in the Holy Scriptures, have a power, even when taken singly; they mean something;-but their great significance lies in this, that they are but exponents of an element contained throughout in the very idea of Christian faith. Christianity is a great faith system. This is its distinguishing feature. Nothing else is so insisted on. But what does this mean? What but faith in distinction from knowledge or sight? It gives no absolute certainty. It does not compel acceptance. It will

have its followers trust something, and believe against the possibility, nay, even the temptation not to believe. This surely is the very nature of Christian faith, its central and inalienable idea. It is, as expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, confidence as to things hoped for, the firm conviction of things not seen. Nor shall we fail to find that, as such, it is divinely adapted to the accomplishment of the ends which Christianity proposes. Christianity is the great truth system. It comes to man in his degradation, and presents to him God, and love, and immortal life, as the only objects worthy of a soul. It seeks to win him unto these from out his sin; and we claim that it is especially and divinely fitted to this object, because it is a faith system. We claim that it has a great and indispensable power to renovate and save, for the very reason that it comes to us in such a way as to admit of the pos sibility of doubt; that its facts can be questioned, and its declarations contested, and that it is only in the exercise of man's great capacities as a reasonable soul, that it can be fully accepted.

I. Regard man as one whose intellect requires with the rest to be subjected to a new and higher activity. No one will deny that the mind in man has suffered in the general deterioration. Turned away from its high and true exercise, and employed upon objects unworthy of it, what else could happen, save that it should become confined in its scope, enfeebled in its activity, and obscured in its perceptions. We find, accordingly, if we carefully observe, that this is true to a most strange and lamentable extent.

The mind of man, as regards its higher exercise, that is, its relation to the higher truths, is so narrow, slothful, and obtuse, that even Christ himself, coming, as Infidelity is forced to confess, with the sublimest of all truths, instead of exciting a profound attention, scarce obtains an indifferent regard. How fearful a deterioration does this indicate in an intellect for which the great themes of Immortality are but the appropriate sphere!

This difficulty, so far as it is possible to provide against it, is met by the feature of the gospel which we are considering.