Part 26

If an assembly of 500 or 1,000 persons could be gathered together, in any city of Europe, or European America, it being provided that all of them should be intelligent, well-educated, high-principled, and well-living men and women; and if the question were put to each of them, "To what influences do you attribute your high character, your moral and social excellence?" I feel no doubt that nineteen out of twenty of them would, on reflection, reply, "To the influence of Christianity on my education, my conscience, and my heart." I will suppose a yet further question to be put to them, and it shall be this: "If you were to be assured that the object you hold dearest on earth would be taken from you to-morrow, and if at the same time you could be assured with undoubting certainty that Jesus Christ was a myth or an impostor, and His Gospel a fable and a falsehood, whether of the two assurances would strike upon your heart with the more chilling and more hope-destroying misery?" And I believe that nine-tenths of the company, being such as I have stipulated they should be, would answer, "Take from me my best earthly treasure, but leave me my hope in the Saviour of the world." This is the effect produced upon the most civilized nations of the world by the teaching of four years, and the agony of a few hours, of One who lived as a peasant, and died as a malefactor and a slave. "Whence had this man this wisdom and these mighty works?"

THE COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY

OF THE

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

BY THE

REV. F. C. COOK, M.A.,

CANON OF EXETER; PREACHER AT LINCOLN'S INN.

COMPLETENESS AND ADEQUACY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.

The evidences of Christianity form a department of sacred literature of vast extent, to which the most valuable contributions have been made in ages when the faith of the Church was most vehemently assailed, and her powers were developed by severe and protracted struggles.

It was the subject to which the ablest Christian writers of the first three centuries devoted their energies, carrying on in no alien spirit the work of the Apostles, meeting assailants at every point, demolishing with comparative ease the fabric of heathen superstition; winning a nobler and more fertile triumph over the intellect of Greece. Nor was the work thus well begun wholly intermitted during the ages which intervened between the overthrow of ancient, and the full development of modern, civilization; a civilization which owes whatever it has of life and power to its reception and assimilation of Christian principles.[152] But, as might be expected, the work had to be begun anew, new difficulties were to be met, new victories were to be achieved, when the spiritual and intellectual energies of Europe were set free by the vast upheaval of mind at the Reformation. The way was opened by representative men. Grotius, who combined in a most remarkable degree the accurate and profound learning and the clear dispassionate judgment characteristic of his countrymen, produced the first complete treatise, "_De Veritate Christianæ Religionis_," soon adopted as the standard work by Protestants, translated into every language of Europe, and by our own Pocock into Arabic, for the use of the East. England followed early in the field, and in the last century fairly won the place, which she still retains, among the foremost champions of the Cross. Nor did the persecution which arrested the progress of the Reformation in France, then, as ever, unhappy in her struggles for light and air, suppress the workings of spiritual thought. Of all advocates of the faith, none penetrated more deeply into its foundation, none ascended with a stronger flight or keener vision into its highest sphere, none combined more varied gifts of intellect and spirit than Pascal, a name bright with the gracious gleam of letters, dear to "science," dearest above all to Christian truth.[153] Germany, too, great in every field of intellectual power, has not been unmindful of the duty of maintaining and defending the deposit of truth--a duty specially incumbent upon her as first leader in the revolt against usurped authority--not wholly unmindful, though as yet she is far from having discharged her debt to Christendom, of late years perplexed and harassed by her reckless abuse of power. Still in the past, among other great names, Leibnitz, who represents, perhaps more fully than any one man, the peculiar characteristics of German intellect, laid the foundations of a system, in which the true relation between the Christian revelation and God's universe is examined. And at this present hour men sound in the faith, full of the love and light of Christ, are bringing the resources of profound learning and vigorous intellect to bear upon the chaotic turmoil of anti-Christian influences. Within this present year several works have appeared in which infidelity is confronted, both in the sphere of general cultivation, and in the abstrusest fastnesses of philosophy, by Luthardt, Steinmeyer, and Delitzsch.[154] One of the greatest works at present incumbent upon the Church of Christ is to bring together into a compact and systematic body the results of previous investigations, which from their very extent are inaccessible to the generality of inquirers. It is a work for which this society has been formed; it will only be accomplished by the combined efforts of men varying in gifts and powers, but animated alike by one spirit of fealty and love to our Lord.

On this occasion I propose, with all possible brevity, to show that those evidences of Christianity which are accessible to every careful inquirer are complete and adequate; complete inasmuch as they meet the fair requirements of our moral and rational nature, and adequate with reference to their purpose, which is to bring us into contact with the central and fundamental truths of our religion, and with the Person of its Founder. It may be assumed that persons who meet to consider the evidences of revealed religion have previously satisfied themselves of the existence and the personality of God; or at least that they have not accepted the theory, once deemed too irrational to need refutation, that the universe is but an assemblage of forces, self-existent, and uncontrolled by a conscious will. That is a question antecedent to our present inquiry. It would be useless to discuss the proofs of a supernatural intervention with one who held that there is no supernatural power to intervene. Materialism under any form, and Christianity in any stage, are mutually exclusive. They are not even, properly speaking, antagonistic; since antagonism implies a common field of action, and the recognition of some principle to which disputants can appeal. We can only argue now with those who admit the possibility of a revelation, and are therefore willing to examine the evidences, and to accept the conclusions to which those evidences may lead.

Our first object will be to see what conclusions are fairly drawn from those broad facts which first present themselves in the history of Christianity, and which no one thinks of disputing. Put yourselves, if possible, in the position of an inquirer to whom the facts might be new, and who had simply to satisfy himself as to their bearings upon his own convictions and upon the state of man.

Here is one fact. At the central point of the world's history, central both in time and in historical import, equidistant from the end of what men are agreed to call the prehistoric period and our own time, the man Jesus arose, and claimed to be, in a sense altogether apart from other men, the teacher and the Saviour of the world. He claimed a direct mission from God,--nay, more, to be, in a sense hereafter to be ascertained, the Son of God. He assumed that the truth which He had to teach was new, inasmuch as it was one which man could not discover for himself, but at the same time one to which man's conscience would bear testimony, which could not therefore be rejected without sin. As credentials of His mission, He appealed to works which those who accepted Him and those who opposed Him admitted could not be wrought without supernatural aid.[155] To one work, as the crowning work of all, He directed His followers to appeal, as one capable of being attested, and incapable of being explained away, even His own resurrection from the dead.

And now observe, the fact of this assumption, quite independent of the evidence by which it was supported, stands absolutely alone in the world's history. Consider the existing religions of the world. Three are associated with the names of individuals as their founders. Of Mahomet we need not speak. His doctrine was avowedly derived from Judaism, he claimed no special relationship to God, nor did he profess to work miracles; as coming after our Lord, we might have expected a far nearer resemblance in pretensions advanced by himself, and to some extent at a later period advanced by his followers. Two other men, however, stand before us with characteristics which attract our warmest interest, and enable us to understand the permanent influence they have exerted over the countless myriads of Asia. I know nothing in history more touching than the account of Siddartha[156] (called Sakya Monni, that is, monk of the royal race of the Sakyas), the founder of Bhuddism, whose tender and noble spirit was driven by the contemplation of human misery into desperate struggles to escape from this prison of the universe even at the cost of personal annihilation; but observe this, he did not even profess to support his strange gospel of despair by assertions or attestations which would necessarily imply the personality of God, and His sovereignty over the universe. If, again, you consult the four books in which Confucius[157] sets forth with singular simplicity and force the great principles of moral truth, you will find that he never presents them as revelations, as a message supernaturally imparted or attested, but as evolutions of man's inner conscience, as the product of a faculty inherent equally in all. Seekers after truth, honest, earnest, and noble seekers, to whom no Christian should refuse a tribute of admiration, the world has produced, but you will find no one man, save Jesus only, among the founders of existing religions, no one indeed within the historic period, who ever professed to be the _giver_ of a truth at once absolutely new and attested by works such as God only could enable him to perform.

And now consider this fact. The appearance of this man Jesus, unparalleled as it is shown to have been, was nevertheless _expected_. At present I have not to show that His person, His offices, His work, together with their permanent effect, had actually been foretold, or that the predictions referred to Him as accomplisher of a divine purpose; but this we know, as a fact beyond controversy, that when He began to teach and work, his countrymen were familiar with a long series of texts, beginning with the first, and continued to the end, of their sacred books, in which they recognized descriptions of such a teacher. You will remember that those descriptions included all particulars by which an individual could be identified. As for their accurate coincidence with what is recorded of our Lord, it is scarcely necessary to argue, since our ablest opponents hold that it is too close to be accounted for, save on the supposition that the records, whether consciously or unconsciously, were moulded so to produce the conformity. With that theory Mr. Row and others have dealt. I do not believe that it is likely to retain a hold on the minds of our countrymen, but it is a most striking attestation to an all-important fact which I request you most seriously to weigh, remembering that of this man Jesus alone in the world's history can it be asserted that such an expectation existed.

The next fact, again, is so obvious that men are in real danger of overlooking its significance. The faith in this Man took root. It took root at once, and so deeply that storms which might have sufficed to tear up any human institution, served only to fix it more firmly. This Man died, His followers were hounded to the death, man's passions, man's superstitions, man's intellect, during centuries of struggle, were opposed to this religion, and yet it prevailed. Will you say it did not prevail universally? Well, what is its actual extent? I answer, it is co-extensive with the civilization of the world. Is this assertion too strong? Look at the facts. Beyond the pale of Christendom, the great races of humanity, which in past ages have shown equal capacities for the highest culture, have at this present time no single representative nation, Turanian, Semitic, or Aryan, in which liberty, philosophy, nay, even physical science, with its serene indifference to moral or spiritual truth, have a settled home or practical development. The elements of civilization are there, capable undoubtedly of being evoked and energized, but as a plain matter of fact at this present time, after thousands of years for development, throughout the vast regions of Islamism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, not to speak of lower forms of paganism, they are stunted, distorted, and, to all human ken, in hopeless and chaotic ruin. It would not be difficult to prove that the special evils which have choked the human mind, and blighted its energies, are in each case distinctly traceable to evils inherent in those religious systems; but we are dealing now with facts not depending upon argument, nor demanding lengthened inquiries. It suffices to state the bare fact that the religion of the crucified Jesus, with its doctrines that were a stumbling-block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles, is at this day conterminous with human progress, with all advance in liberty, science, and social culture, with all that is substantially precious in the civilization of the world.

To these facts others might be added of a similar character, such as the recognition of our Lord Jesus as the true Master and Teacher of the world, by men acknowledged in every age of Christendom to be conspicuous for moral worth and intellectual power; such, again, as the pre-eminence in Christendom, in every age, of nations which profess at least to acknowledge Him as their Lord, and as the rapid disintegration or ruin of communities which have corrupted or abjured His religion. But the broadest and simplest facts thus stated are sufficient for the one purpose we have now in view; sufficient to induce every one who cares to know the truth to go at once to that Man, to ask what He has to teach. The inquirer will do this, as I should think, before he enters into the lengthened and very difficult inquiry into the origin or interpretation of the predictions or the words of which we have spoken. He will do it because, after all, no evidence has anything approaching the weight which attaches to the personal influence of a teacher, in this case, of one who declares Himself to be ready to receive inquirers, and to satisfy their wants, who claims to be the living and ever-present Teacher of man. The inquirer will certainly do this if he feels the same moral wants, and experiences the same moral difficulties and perplexities which beset the most thoughtful heathen before the coming of this Man; feelings well expressed in the Phædo of Plato by Simmias, a good representative of sturdy, even sceptical, but thoroughly honest seekers after truth. These are his words: "It seems to me, Socrates, as probably to you also, that to know the certainty about such questions in this present life is a thing either impossible or exceedingly difficult; yet that, nevertheless, not to test thoroughly whatever is said about them, or to desist until we have done our utmost by inquiring in every direction, would be sheer cowardice. For some one at least of the following results we ought to attain about them, either to learn from others how the truth stands, or discover it for ourselves; or, if neither should be possible, then, at any rate, to take the best and most irrefragable of human theories, and use it as a raft, so to speak, to convey us, though in much danger, through the sea of life, unless, indeed, one were enabled to accomplish the passage, with no risk of error or mishap, upon the firmer conveyance of a word from God."[158]

The question now meets us, How can we be sure that we have His teaching? Where can we find His own words? Where can we learn what He really did? Have we a thoroughly trustworthy, not to say unquestioned, record of the words He uttered? of the works He is asserted to have wrought?

Now there can be no doubt, that of all assaults upon the faith, the most effective in this age are those which have been made upon the documents which compose the New Testament. The reason for this is obvious. An investigation into the authenticity of any ancient book demands an amount of knowledge and critical ability, a soundness and keenness of judgment, which are the very rarest of qualifications. Turn to secular literature, and you will find critics arguing for ages, without any approximation to a settlement, touching the genuineness of works attributed to men whose peculiarities of genius and of style would seem to defy imitation. Who would venture on his own judgment to determine how much of the Homeric poems belong to

"That Lord of loftiest song, Who above others like an eagle soars?"

"Quel Signor dell' altissimo canto, Che sovra gli altri com' aquila vola."[159]

Look at the controversy between Grote, Jowett, and the latest German critics touching the authenticity of no small portion of the Platonic dialogues. Taken simply as a question of critical inquiry, no man of sense would venture to determine, on internal data, the authorship of any book in the New Testament, without years of laborious preparation. I will add, no prudent man at all conversant with the history of criticism would accept assertions, however confident, of critics whose known and avowed prepossessions would make it _à priori_ certain that they would be averse to the acceptance of documents which, if genuine, supply substantial grounds for belief in supernatural works and a supernatural Person.

What then are we to do? Well, in the first place we may inquire whether any portion of the documents in that book is admitted to be wholly unaffected by the corrosive solvent of negative criticism. This will give us at once a most important set of documents, no less than those epistles of St. Paul[160] which contain the fullest exposition of Christ's doctrine, and the most explicit statements of the supernatural facts on which that doctrine is based; above all, the fact of the Resurrection. There you will find Christ speaking, according to His own promise, by His Spirit. But we are not to be cheated of our heritage by a criticism of which the main negative results are repudiated, not only by all who believe in any form or degree of objective revelation, but by a great majority of avowed rationalists. One by one we recover, with their concurrence, the other general epistles of St. Paul, the first of St. Peter and of St. John, the Gospel of St. Mark, the discourses in St. Matthew, the two treatises of St. Luke, and, though hotly contested, as might be expected, considering its vital importance, still triumphantly, and I do not fear to say irrevocably, secured, attested by external evidence ever more perfect, and by internal evidence[161] daily more convincing, as you can witness, the Gospel of St. John. I might go farther still, and point to the reception of nearly all contested portions by some or other of our opponents, and show the cogency of the reasons which overcame deep-seated prejudices; but it is sufficient for our immediate purpose to argue _ex concessis_. If we take at first those books only which the severest critics, with the exception of certain scholars of the Tübingen school hold to be indisputable, we have Christ before us, the characteristics of His Personality, the cardinal events of His life, the subject matter of His teaching. Even Keim and Rénan admit that His mark is unmistakably stamped upon those discourses to which every inquirer will naturally turn at once, when he seeks to know what Jesus taught.

And here let me speak out frankly my own opinion. The whole result of inquiry into the truth of Christianity will depend upon the effect produced upon you by the Personality of Jesus Christ. If a careful study of His words, of His works, does not constrain you to recognize in Him a divine Teacher, if it does not lead you to discern the Being in whom alone humanity attained to that ideal perfection of which philosophers had ever dreamed, but of which they deemed that the realization was impossible, nay, more, a Being in whom the moral and spiritual attributes of Deity, perfect holiness, and perfect love, were manifested, then indeed I admit, nay, I am in truth convinced, that no other evidences will have any real or permanent effect upon your spirit. The completeness of those evidences may fill your minds with anxious questionings, their adequacy may leave you without excuse for their rejection; but without a personal influence they will also leave you cold, and in a position, if not of outward antagonism, yet of inward alienation. If, on the other hand, you accept Jesus as your Teacher and Master, simply and wholly because He has won your heart and conquered your spirit, then all other evidences will fall into their proper place; they will not be set aside, contemned, or neglected--had they been needless, they would not have been given--but they will be used as subsidiary and supplementary; enabling you to give a reason for the faith which is in you, both for your own satisfaction, and for the defence and advancement of Christian truth. The one great evidence, the master evidence, the evidence with which all other evidences will stand or fall, is Christ Himself speaking by His own word.