Chapter VII — Repentance
Section I. The nature and necessity of a public profession of religion.
Section II. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The nature, design and efficacy of these ordinances.
Section III. Obligation to attend upon the Sacraments. Qualifications for the proper discharge of the duty.
Section I. The nature of true religion.
Section II. The means of sanctification.
Summary
THE WAY OF LIFE
OF GOD.
Section - I. The Internal evidence of the divine origin of the Scriptures.
It often happens that those who hear the gospel, doubt whether it is really the word of God. Having been taught from infancy to regard it as a divine revelation, and knowing no sufficient reason for rejecting it, they yield a general assent to its claims. There are times, however, when they would gladly be more fully assured that the Bible is not a cunningly devised fable. They think if that point was absolutely certain, they would at once submit to all the gospel requires.
Such doubts do not arise from any deficiency in the evidence of the divine authority of the Scriptures; nor would they be removed by any increase of that evidence. They have their origin in the state of the heart. The most important of all the evidences of Christianity, can never be properly appreciated unless the heart is right in the sight of God. The same exhibition of truth which produces unwavering conviction in one mind, leaves another in a state of doubt or unbelief.
And the same mind often passes rapidly, though rationally, from a state of skepticism to that of faith, without any change in the mere external evidence presented to it.
No amount of mere external evidence can produce genuine faith. The Israelites, who had seen a long succession of wonders in the land of Egypt; who had passed through the divided waters of the Red Sea; who were daily receiving food from heaven by miracle; who had trembled at the manifestations of the divine majesty on Mount Sinai
— within sight of that mountain, made a golden calf their God. The men, who saw the miracles of Christ performed almost daily in their presence, cried out, Crucify him, crucify him. Hence our Savior said that those who will not hear Moses and the prophets would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead. We may confidently conclude, therefore, that those who now do not believe the gospel, would not be persuaded had they seen all the miracles which Christ performed.
It is important that the attention of the doubting should be directed to the fact that their lack of faith is to be attributed to their own moral state, and not to any deficiency in the evidence of the truth. If our gospel is hidden, says the apostle, it is hidden to those who are lost; in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, should shine unto them.
There is nothing in the doctrine stated here, that is out of analogy with our daily experience. No truth can be properly apprehended unless there is a harmony between it and the mind to which it is presented. Even abstract or speculative truths are not seen to be true, unless the understanding is duly cultivated to apprehend them. With regard to objects of taste, unless there is a power to perceive the correspondence between them and the standard of beauty, there can be no appreciation of their excellence. And still more obviously in regard to moral and religious truth, there must be a state of mind suited to their apprehension. If our moral sense were entirely destroyed by sin, we could have no perception of moral distinctions; if it is vitiated, what is true in itself and true in the view of the pure in heart, will not be true to us. A man who has no adequate sense of the evil of sin, cannot believe in the justice of God. If you awaken his conscience, he is convinced at once, without the intervention of any process of proof.
No one can fail to remark that the Bible demands immediate and implicit faith from all who read it. It may lie neglected in the study of the philosopher, or in the chest of the outcast sailor; or it may be given by a missionary still ignorant of the language of the heathen to whom he ministers. The moment it is opened, however, in these or any other circumstances, it utters the same calm voice, He that believes in the Son has everlasting life; he that does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Joh 3.36 If this demand was confined to the educated, we might suppose it to rest on evidence which only the educated are able to appreciate; or if it was made only of those to whom the scriptures are presented by regularly commissioned ministers, we might suppose it rested on their authority; but it is not thus confined. It is inseparable from the word itself. It is as imperative when the Bible is read by a child to a company of pagans, as when it is proclaimed in a cathedral. But if this demand of faith goes with the word wherever it goes, it must rest upon evidence contained in the word itself. The demand of faith cannot be more extensive than the exhibition of evidence. Therefore, unless we restrict the obligation and the benefits of faith to those who are capable of appreciating the external evidence of the Bible, we must admit that it contains its own evidence.
To make the testimony of others to the truth of Christianity, the ground of faith, is inadmissible for two obvious reasons. In the first place, as already intimated, it is not sufficiently extensive. The obligation to believe rests on multitudes to whom that testimony is not addressed. In the second place, it is entirely inadequate. The great mass of men cannot be required to believe, upon the testimony of the learned few, a religion which is to control their conduct in this world, and to decide their destiny in the next. Besides, learned men testify in behalf of the Koran as well as in favor of the Bible.
Therefore, that cannot be an adequate ground of faith, which may be urged in support of error as well as of truth. To require average people to be able to see why the testimony of learned Christians may safely be relied upon, while that of learned Muslims should be rejected, is to require of them a task as severe as the examination of the historical evidences of Christianity. There is, therefore, no way of justifying the universal, immediate and authoritative demand, which the Bible makes on our faith, except by admitting that it contains within itself the proofs of its divine origin.
It may not be easy, or perhaps possible, to give any adequate exhibition of the nature of this proof to those who profess not to see it. However, enough may be said to show that it is a rational and adequate ground for implicit confidence. Every work bears the impress of its maker. Even among men, it is hard for one man to successfully counterfeit the work of another. Is it wonderful, then, that the works of God should bear the inimitable impress of their Author? Don't the heavens declare his glory? Doesn't the mechanism of an insect as clearly evince the workmanship of God? Why then should it be deemed incredible that His word should contain inherent evidence of its divine origin? If the Bible is the work of God, it must contain the impress of his character, and thereby evince itself to be divine.
It may be objected that we're not competent to judge this evidence. If it requires so much cultivation of the intellect to judge the excellence of human productions, and so accurate an acquaintance with the character of their authors, in order to decide on the genuineness of such productions, who can pretend to a knowledge of God which will enable him to judge what is, or what is not worthy of His hand? This would be a fatal objection if the internal evidence of the scriptures consisted in their intellectual excellence. It loses its force, however, when it is remembered that this excellence is, in great measure, moral, and that goodness carries with it its own evidence. To appreciate evidence of this kind requires no great degree of knowledge or refinement. It requires merely right moral feelings.
Where these exist, the evidence that goodness is goodness, is immediate and irresistible. It is not because the Bible is written with more than human skill, and that its discrimination of character or its eloquence is beyond the powers of man, that we believe it to be divine. These are matters of which the mass of men are incompetent judges. The evidence in question is suited to the apprehension of the humblest child of God. It is partly negative and partly positive.
It consists, in the first place, in the absence of everything incompatible with a divine origin. There is nothing inconsistent with reason, and there is nothing inconsistent with goodness. If the scriptures contained anything contrary to reason or to right moral feeling, then belief in its divine origin would be impossible. Such a belief would involve the ascription of folly or sin to its author. There is more in this negative evidence than we are apt to imagine. It can not be urged in behalf of any other book but the Bible, claiming a divine origin. An impassable gulf is thus placed between the scriptures and all apocryphal writings. The claims of the latter are in every instance disproved by the fact that they contain statements which cannot be true.
It is, however, the positive internal evidence of a divine origin, which gives power and authority to the claims of the Bible. This evidence consists mainly in its perfect holiness, in the correspondence between all its statements respecting God, man, redemption and a future state, and all our own right judgments, reasonable apprehensions, and personal experience. When the mind is enlightened to see this holiness; when it perceives how exactly the rule of duty prescribed in the word of God agrees with that enforced by conscience; how the account which it gives of human nature coincides with human experience; how fully it meets our whole case; when it feels how powerfully the truths presented there operate to purify, console, and sustain the soul — then the belief of the scriptures is a necessary consequence. The idea that such a book is a lie and a forgery involves a contradiction. The human mind is so constituted that it cannot refuse its assent to evidence, when clearly perceived. We cannot withhold our confidence from a man whose moral excellence is plainly, variously, and constantly manifested. We cannot see and feel his goodness, and yet believe him to be an impostor or deceiver. In like manner, we cannot see the excellence of the scriptures, and yet believe them to be one enormous falsehood.
The Bible claims to be the word of God; it speaks in his name, it assumes his authority. How can these claims be false and yet the Bible be so Holy? How can falsehood be an element of perfect excellence? The only possible way of shaking our confidence in the competent testimony of a man, is to show that he is not a good man.
If his goodness is admitted, confidence in his word cannot be withheld, and especially when all he says finds its confirmation in our own experience, and commends itself to our conscience and judgment. Thus it is also impossible that we should discern the excellence of the scriptures and feel their correspondence with our experience and necessities, and yet suppose them to be untrue.
When the woman of Samaria reported to her townsmen that Jesus had told her all that she ever did, many of them believed. But after they had themselves listened to his instructions, they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of your saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. Joh 4.42 No Christian can be surprised at this declaration, or think the faith in Christ, founded on what he said, is either irrational or enthusiastic. We can well believe that there was such an ineffable manifestation of goodness in the Redeemer's countenance, manner, and doctrines, as to conciliate entire confidence. Those who were rightly affected could not fail to believe all he said: that he was the Christ, that he came to seek and save those who are lost, to lay down his life for his sheep, and to give himself a ransom for many. Can we doubt that the goodness of the Savior, the elevation, holiness and power of his instructions, their correspondence with our own nature, experience, and wants, would of themselves constitute an adequate ground of faith? All this we have. Every man has this, who reads the Bible. There the Savior stands in the majesty of unapproachable excellence. He utters in every hearing ear the words of eternal life; declares his origin, his mission, the design of his advent and death; offers pardon and eternal life to those who come to God through him. There is the most perfect accordance between his claims and his conduct; between his doctrines and what we know and what we need. To disbelieve him, is to believe him to be a deceiver; and to believe this, is to disbelieve our own perceptions. For we know what goodness is; and we know that goodness cannot deceive, that God cannot lie.
It makes very little difference as to the force of this kind of evidence, whether we personally saw and heard the Savior for ourselves, or whether we read the exhibition of his character and the record of his instructions. For the evidence lies in his goodness and in the nature of his doctrines. It is the same to us who read the Bible, as it was to those who heard the Savior. There is therefore the same violence done to reason and duty, in our rejecting it, as was offered by those who did not believe because they were not his sheep — that is, because they were insensible to the constraining influence of the grace and truth which were in Him. Does anyone ask, then, how we know that the Bible is not a forgery? Let him consider what such an assumption involves. It supposes either that the authors of the Bible were fools, which we can no more believe than to believe Newton was an idiot; or that they were wicked, which no man can believe who knows what goodness is. Therefore, wherever the Bible goes, it carries with it, evidence that is irresistible (when attended to and appreciated), that its authors were neither dupes nor deceivers.
It may be asked, If the Bible contains such clear evidence of its divine origin, why are there so many unbelievers? To this it may be answered that there are two things necessary in order that evidence should produce conviction. The first is that it should be attended to; otherwise it might as well not exist. Of the many millions of people in Christendom, comparatively few give the Scriptures any serious attention. That such persons should have no effective faith, is no more a matter of surprise than that they should be ignorant of what they never learned. The second requisite for the reception of evidence, is that it should be understood or really apprehended. If this evidence is addressed to the understanding, there must be enough strength of mind to comprehend its nature and bearing; if addressed to the moral faculty, there must be moral sensibility to appreciate it, or it will be like light shining on the eyes of the blind.
The internal evidence of the scriptures is in a great measure of this latter kind. It consists in their perfect holiness. In proportion to men being corrupt, they are blind to this kind of evidence. It may exist in all its force, and men be insensible to it. Another part of this evidence consists in the accordance between the scriptures and the religious experience of men. Those who don't have the experience, cannot see this accordance. Still another portion of the evidence is made available by the power of God in subduing sin, in purifying the affections, in diffusing peace and joy through the heart. Those who have never felt this power, cannot appreciate this kind of proof. The fact, therefore, that so large a proportion of mankind have no adequate faith in the Scriptures, affords no presumption against the existence of sufficient evidence. This fact is in exact accordance with what the Bible teaches about the moral state of man.
Another objection to the view of the ground of faith given above, is that it leads to enthusiasm (baseless emotionalism), and breaks down the distinction between true and false religion. Every enthusiast, it is said, thinks he sees wonderful excellence in the pretended revelations which he embraces. It is a sufficient answer to this objection to ask, whether the scholar has less faith in the excellence of the great standards of poetry, because the writers of doggerel rhymes have had their admirers? That the sensual, selfish and cruel character of Mohammed appears good in the eyes of a Turk, does not prove him to be an enthusiast who bows with reverence before the supreme excellence of Jesus Christ. That the pagan world saw evidence of the existence of their gods in the heavens and in the course of nature, does not make him an enthusiast, who recognizes in the works of God the manifestations of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. It is most unreasonable to assume that we must not feel the force of truth and excellence, because others have ascribed these attributes to error and vice. It is not according to the constitution of our nature, that one man should cease to know a thing to be true or good, because others do not see it.
The evidence is complete for him, though all the world rejects it.
If it is asked, where the standard is; what criterion of excellence exists by which I am authorized to decide that what I call goodness is really such; the rule is given in the nature of man. We know that benevolence is better than malice, veracity than deceit, humility than pride; and by the same rule we know that Christianity is better than Hinduism, and the blessed Redeemer than the Arabian impostor. No judgment can be more sure than this, no persuasion more intimate, no confidence either more firm or more rational. Therefore, it is no objection against admitting the excellence of the Scriptures as proof of their divine origin, that besotted or deluded men have ascribed excellence to folly and wickedness.
Section II. The internal evidence of their divine origin is the proper ground of faith in the Scriptures.
The Scriptures themselves clearly teach that the faith which they demand is founded upon the authority of God, manifesting itself in them by the excellence and power of the truth which they contain.
Throughout, they represent faith as the effect and evidence of right moral feelings, and unbelief as the result of moral or spiritual blindness. Our Savior said to the Jews, If any man does His will, he will know whether the doctrine is of God. Joh 7.17 Again, He that is of God, hears God's words; therefore you do not hear them because you are not of God. Joh 8.47 On another occasion he said, you don't believe, because you are not my sheep; my sheep hear my voice. Joh 10.26-27
The apostle speaks to the same effect: Hereby you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is of God. 1Joh 4.2-3 We are of God. He that knows God, hears us; he that is not of God, does not hear us. Hereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1Joh 4.6 In like manner Paul says, The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. 1Cor 2.14 And again, If our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost; in whom the god of this world has blinded the eyes of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
But God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2Cor 4.3-6 The doctrine taught in these and similar passages, is that there is in the word of God, and especially in the person and character of Jesus Christ, a clear and wonderful manifestation of the divine glory. The natural man is blind to this manifestation, and therefore does not believe; but those who have the Spirit of God discern this glory, and therefore believe.
It is in accordance with this view that unbelief is represented as so grave a moral offense, and faith as so important a duty. Atheism is everywhere regarded as a crime, because the evidences of the existence of God are everywhere present, above us, around us, and within us. They are addressed to the moral constitution, as well as to the speculative understanding. They cannot be resisted without the same violence to moral obligations, or the authority of moral considerations, that is involved in calling virtue vice, and vice virtue.
Hence the Scriptures always speak of unbelief as a sin against God, and the special ground of the condemnation of the world. He that believes in him is not condemned, but he that does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Joh 3.18 Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-Christ who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son, does not have the Father. 1Joh 2.22-
23 Disbelief of the Son as revealed in the Scriptures, is an offense of the same nature as the denial of God. In both cases, supreme excellence is revealed and disregarded. Much to the same effect the Savior says, He who hates me, hates my Father also. Joh 15.23
On the other hand, faith is represented as the highest act of obedience, as a moral act of great worth in the sight of God. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. 1Joh 5.1 As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed in his name. Joh 1.12 And our Savior told the inquiring Jews, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. Joh 6.29 These representations cannot be reconciled with the assumption that faith is founded on external testimony, which does not address itself to our moral nature; and an assent which has so little concern with moral character. All is plain, however, if we are required to believe in the Son because his glory as of the only begotten of the Father is presented to us; and to receive the Scriptures because they bear the impress of the divine perfections. If this is the ground of faith, then unbelief is indeed a crime. It is a refusal to recognize wisdom and holiness, and to acknowledge the manifested excellence of God.
This view of the ground of faith is confirmed by the effects ascribed to that grace. It works by love, it purifies the heart, it overcomes the world, it produces peace and joy. It is indeed conceivable that the conviction of truths affecting our interests, however it is produced, should call forth fear, sorrow or joy according to their nature. But it is not conceivable that belief of moral or religious truths, founded on the testimony of others, should control our affections. A man may believe on authority, or on merely rational grounds, that we are under a moral government, and that the law by which we are bound is holy, just, and good; but such a faith will not subdue his opposition. He may be convinced of the existence of God by argument or miracle; but such a faith will not produce love. Faith therefore cannot have the effects ascribed to it, unless it is founded on a spiritual apprehension of the truths believed.
Hence it is that faith is represented as the gift of God. The evidence indeed is presented to all, or there would be no obligation to believe; but men are morally blind, and therefore the eyes of their understanding must be opened that they may understand the things which are freely given to them by God. The apostle therefore says to his believing brethren, You have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it, and that no lie is of the truth. The anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you don't need any man to teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you about all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in him. 1Joh 2.20, 21, 27 It is taught here, as in other passages already quoted, that believers are the recipients of an influence, an unction from the Holy One, which convinces them of the truth, and makes them see and know that it is truth. Hence Paul says, his preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that the faith of his hearers might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God; 1Cor 2.4-5 that is, that their faith might not be the effect of skillful reasoning, but of the spiritual perception and experience of the truth.
All this is confirmed by the constant practice of the inspired teachers.
Though they appealed to all kinds of evidence in support of the doctrines which they taught, to signs and wonders, and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, yet they by no means rested the obligation to believe either exclusively or mainly upon these external signs. In many cases, faith was demanded by those inspired men who never wrought miracles of any kind, as was the fact in the case of some of the prophets; and still more frequently, it was required of those among whom no such wonders had been performed. When the Jews demanded a sign and the Greeks demanded wisdom, the apostles preached Christ, and him crucified, as the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. Their constant endeavor was by the manifestation of the truth, to commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And if their gospel was hidden, it was hidden to those who are lost.
Therefore, it is plainly the doctrine of the scriptures themselves, that the word of God is to be believed because of the authority or command of God manifesting itself in them, in a manner analogous to the exhibition of His perfections in the works of nature. If, as Paul teaches us, the eternal power and godhead are so clearly manifested by the things that are made, that even the heathen are without excuse; and if their unbelief is ascribed not to the lack of evidence, but to their not liking to retain God in their knowledge; Rom 1.20, 28 we need not wonder that the far clearer manifestation of the divine perfections made in the scripture, should be the ground of a more imperative command to believe.
It is the experience of true Christians in all ages and nations, that their faith is founded on the spiritual apprehension and experience of the power of the truth. There are multitudes of such Christians who, if asked why they believe the scriptures to be the word of God, might find it difficult to give an answer, whose faith is nevertheless both strong and rational. They are conscious of its grounds, though they may not be able to state them. They have the witness in themselves, Rom 2.15 and know that they believe, not because others believe, or because learned men have proved certain facts which establish the truth of Christianity. They believe in Christ for the same reason that they believe in God; and they believe in God because they see His glory and feel his authority and power.
If then, the truth of God contains in its own nature a revelation of divine excellence, the sin of unbelief is a very great sin. Not to have faith in God, when clearly revealed, is the highest offense which a creature can commit against its Creator. To refuse credence to the testimony of God, when conveyed in the manner best adapted to our nature, is to renounce our allegiance to our Creator. To disregard the evidence of truth and excellence in Jesus Christ, is the highest indignity that we can show to truth and excellence. This sin is common, and therefore it is commonly disregarded. Men do not easily see the turpitude of evils with which they are themselves chargeable. Yet they are quick to discern the faults of those who go beyond them in iniquity. And therefore the man who feels no compunction (remorse) at his own lack of faith in the Son of God, will abhor the one who pronounces the Redeemer a wicked impostor.
He will wait for no explanation and will listen to no excuse. The mere fact that a man, acquainted with the Scriptures, is capable of such a judgment respecting the Son of God, is proof of depravity which nothing can deny. Yet how little difference there is between the state of mind which would allow such a judgment, and the state of those who have no faith in the declarations of Christ; who disregard his promises and warnings; who don't feel they are true, and therefore treat them as fables. The lack of faith which men think so lightly of, will therefore be found the most unreasonable, and perhaps the most aggravated of all their sins. It implies an insensibility to the highest kind of evidence, and it involves the rejection of the greatest gift which God has ever offered to man: pardon, holiness, and eternal life.
Section III. External evidence of the
divine origin of the Scriptures.
The Testimony of the Church.
As God has left the heathen to the unauthenticated revelation of himself in his works, and holds them responsible for their unbelief, so he might have left us to the simple revelation of himself in his word. He has been pleased, however, to confirm that word by external proofs of the most convincing character, so that we are entirely without excuse.
The testimony of the church is of itself an unanswerable argument for the truth of Christianity. The validity of this testimony does not depend on the assumed infallibility of any class of men. It is merely the testimony of an innumerable body of witnesses, under circumstances which preclude the idea of delusion nor deception.
For the sake of illustration, take any particular branch of Christ's church, as for example the Lutheran. It now exists in Europe and America. It everywhere possesses the same version of the Scriptures, and the same confession of faith. Its testimony is that it owes its existence as an organized body, to Luther; to whom it ascribes the translation of the Bible, and under whose auspices it professes to have received the Augsburg Confession. It is clearly impossible that these documents could, during the present century, have been palmed off on these scattered millions of men. They all bear testimony that they received them, as they now are, from the hands of their fathers. As to this point, neither delusion nor deception is conceivable. In the eighteenth century we find this church scarcely less numerous than it is at present. It bore the same testimony then, that it does now. With one voice it declared that their fathers possessed before them the standards of their faith. This testimony is repeated again in the seventeenth, and again in the sixteenth century, till we come to the age of Luther. This testimony, conclusive in itself, is confirmed by all kinds of collateral evidence. Everything in the style, doctrines, and historical references of the standards of the Lutheran church, agrees with the age to which they are referred.
The influence of a society holding those doctrines is traceable through the whole of the intervening period. The wars, the treaties, the literary and religious institutions of the period, all to a greater or less degree, received their character from that Society. Therefore, much as men may differ as to Luther's character, as to the wisdom of his conduct or the truth of his doctrines, no sane man has ever questioned the fact that he lived, that he translated the Scriptures, that he organized a new church, and gave his followers the Augsburg confession.
The same series of remarks might be made in reference to the church of England. That extended and powerful body has her Thirty-Nine
Articles, her liturgy, and her homilies, which she testifies that she received from the Reformers. This testimony cannot be doubted. At no period of her history could that church either deceive or have been deceived, as to that point. Her testimony is moreover confirmed by all collateral circumstances. The liturgy, articles, and homilies are in every respect consistent with their reputed origin; and the whole history of England during that period, is interwoven with the history of that church. The consequence is, no man doubts that the English reformers lived, or that they framed the standards of doctrine and worship universally ascribed to them.
When this argument is applied to the whole Christian church, it is no less conclusive. This church now exists in every quarter of the globe, and embraces many millions of disciples. Everywhere it has the same records of its faith; it is everywhere an organized society with religious officers and ordinances. It everywhere testifies that these records and institutions were received from Christ and his apostles.
That this vast society did not begin to exist during the present century, is as evident as that the world was not just made. It is no less plain that it did not begin to exist in the eighteenth, the seventeenth, the sixteenth, nor in any other century subsequent to the first in our era. In each succeeding century, we find millions of men, thousands of churches and ministers, uniting their testimony to the fact that they received their sacred writings and institutions from their predecessors, until we come to the age of Christ himself. If the origin of the church ran back beyond the limits of authentic history, so as to leave a gap between its reputed founder and its ascertained existence, this argument would fail; an essential link would be lacking, and the whole extended chain would fall to the ground. But as this is not the case, its testimony touching the historical facts of its origin, is as irresistible as that of the church of England respecting the origin of its articles and liturgy. The Christian church is traced up to the time of Christ by a mass of evidence which cannot be resisted; so that to deny that Christ lived, and that the church received the sacred writings from his followers, is not merely to reject the testimony of thousands of competent witnesses, but to deny facts which are essential to account for the subsequent history and the existing state of the world. A man might as well profess to believe in the foliage of a tree, but not in its branches and stem.
This testimony of the church as to the facts on which Christianity is founded, is confirmed by all kinds of collateral evidence. The language in which the New Testament is written is precisely that which belonged to the time and place of its origin. It is the language of Jews speaking Greek, and in its peculiarities, it belonged to no other age or people. All the historical allusions are consistent with the known state of the world at that time. The history of the world since the advent of Christ pre-supposes the facts recorded in the New
Testament. It is beyond a doubt that the religion taught by a few poor men in Judea, has changed the state of a large part of the world.
Paganism has disappeared, a new religion been introduced; laws, customs, institutions and manners have become prevalent, and they all rest upon the facts to which the church bears her testimony.
Beyond all this, the internal character of the scriptures is worthy of the origin ascribed to them; a character which gives the only adequate solution of the revolution which they have effected. When God said, Let there be light, there was light. And when Jesus Christ said, I am the light of the world, the light shone. We cannot doubt that it is light; neither can we doubt when it arose, for all before was darkness.
This testimony of the church, thus confirmed by all internal and external proofs, establishes the fact that Christ lived and died, that he founded the Christian church, and that the New Testament was received from his immediate followers. But these facts involve the truth of the gospel as a revelation from God, unless we suppose that Christ and his apostles were deceivers. The evidence against this latter assumption is as strong as the evidence of the existence of the sun. The blind, if they please, may deny that the sun exists, and none but the morally blind can resist the evidence which the New
Testament affords of the moral excellence and intellectual sobriety of the sacred writers. If they were trustworthy men, men who we are to believe spoke the truth, then they actually possessed and exercised the miraculous powers to which they laid claim. Christ and his apostles appealed to these powers as an unanswerable proof of their divine mission;1 and we cannot reject their testimony without denying their integrity.
Section IV. The argument from Prophecy.
The same course of argument which proves that the version of the scriptures and the Augsburg Confession in the possession of the Lutheran church; that the articles, liturgy and homilies in the possession of the church of England; that the New Testament in the possession of the whole Christian world, were derived from the sources to which they are severally referred, proves with equal force that the writings of the Old Testament in the possession of the Jews, are the productions of the ancient prophets. Jews and Christians now have them. They had them a century ago; they had them in the time of Christ. They were then universally acknowledged by the Israelites in Judea and elsewhere. They can be historically traced to centuries before the advent of Christ. Three hundred years before that event, they were translated into the Greek language and widely disseminated. They contain the history, laws, and literature of the people of Judea, whose existence and peculiarities are as well ascertained as those of any people in the world. These writings are essential to account for the known character of that people; for it was in virtue of these sacred books, that they were what they were. Critics have indeed disputed about the particular dates of some of these productions, but no one has had the hardihood to deny that they existed centuries before the birth of Christ. This being admitted, we have a basis for another argument for the truth of Christianity, which cannot be resisted.
In these ancient writings, preserved in the hands of the open enemies of Christ, we find the advent of a deliverer clearly predicted.
Immediately after the apostasy (the fall), it was foretold that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. Gen 3.15 This prediction is the germ of all the subsequent prophecies, which but reveal its manifold meaning. Who the promised seed was to be, and how the power of evil was to be destroyed by him, later predictions gradually revealed. It was first made known that the Redeemer should belong to the race of Shem. Gen 9.26 Then that he should be of the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise was made: In you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; Gen 18.18 then that he should be of the tribe of Judah of whom it was foretold that, The scepter shall not depart from Judah, or a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the gathering of the people. Gen. 49.10
Subsequently it was revealed that he was to be of the lineage of David; There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Isa 11.1-2
It was foretold that his advent would be preceded by that of a special messenger. Behold I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in; behold, he shall come says the Lord of Hosts. Mal 3.1 The time, the manner, and the place of his birth were all predicted. As to the time, Daniel said, Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to build and restore Jerusalem unto
Messiah the prince, shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks. Dan 9.25 As to the miraculous manner of his birth, Isaiah said, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel. Isa 7.14 As to the place, Micah said, But you, Bethlehem
Ephrathah though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth unto me the one that is to be ruler in Israel. Mic 5.2
This deliverer was to be a poor man. Behold, O daughter of Zion, your king comes to you, poor, riding upon an ass and a colt, the foal of an ass. Zec 9.9 He was to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, despised and rejected by men, Isa 53.3 and yet Immanuel, God with us, Isa 7.14 Jehovah our righteousness, Jer 23.6 Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, Isa 9.6 whose goings forth were of old, from the days of eternity. Mic 5.2
The Redeemer thus predicted was to appear in the character of a prophet or divine teacher. The Lord your God, said Moses, will raise up for you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren, like me; to him you shall hearken. Deu 18.15 Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect in whom my soul delights, I have put my Spirit on him, he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. Isa 42.1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. Isa 61.1 In that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and darkness; the meek also will increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Isa 29.18-19
He was also to be a priest. The Lord has sworn and will not repent, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Psa 110.4 He shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne. Zec 6.13
The regal character of this Redeemer is set forth in almost every page of the prophetic writings. I have anointed (said God in reference to the Messiah) my king on my holy hill of Zion. Psa 2.6 Your throne O
God is forever and ever; the scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of righteousness. You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. Psa 45.6-7 Unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish it with judgment and justice from henceforth, even forever. Isa 9.6-7
The characteristics of this kingdom of the Messiah were also clearly predicted. They were to be spiritual, in distinction from the external and ceremonial character of the former dispensation. Behold the days shall come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, etc. I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jer 31.31-32 Hence the effusion of the Holy
Spirit is so constantly mentioned as attending the advent of the promised Redeemer. In that day I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, etc. Joe 2.28
Again, this kingdom was not to be confined to the Jews, but was to include all the world. As early as the book of Genesis, it was declared that the obedience of all nations would be yielded to Shiloh, and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in Abraham and his seed. God promised the Messiah the heathen for his inheritance, the utmost parts of the earth for his possession. Psa 2.8 It shall come to pass in the last days, said Isaiah, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it. Isa 2.2 It is a light thing, said God, that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Isa 49.6 In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people, and the Gentiles shall seek it. Isa 11.10 I saw in the night visions, said Daniel, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before Him; and to him was given dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom is that which shall not be destroyed. Dan 7.13-14 Its progress, however, was to be gradual. The stone cut out of the mountains, without hands, was to break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold, i.e. all other kingdoms, and become a great mountain and fill the whole earth. Dan 2.45
Though the prophets describe in such strong language the excellence, glory, and triumph of this Redeemer, they no less distinctly predicted his rejection, sufferings, and death. Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; he is despised and rejected by men, we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we did not esteem him. Isa 53.1-3
To him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, and princes also shall worship. Isa 49.7 The people whom he came to redeem, it was foretold, would not only reject him, but betray and sell him for thirty pieces of silver. If you think it good, give my wages, and if not, forbear. So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. The Lord said to me, Throw it to the potter, the goodly price at which I was prized by them. Zec 11.12-13 He was to be grievously persecuted and put to death.
He was, said the prophet, taken from prison and from judgment (cut off by an oppressive judgment) and who will declare his generation; for he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich at his death. Isa 53.8-9 Even the manner and circumstances of his death were minutely foretold. The assembly of the wicked enclose me; they pierce my hands and my feet. They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my vesture. Psa
22.16, 18 He was not, however, to continue under the power of death.
You will not leave my soul in Sheol; nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Psa 16.10
The consequences of the rejection of the Messiah to the Jewish people were also predicted with great distinctness. The children of Israel, it is said, will abide many days without a king, without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without teraphim. Afterwards the children of Israel will return and seek the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. Hos 3.4-5 Though the number of the children of Israel are like the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. Rom 9.27 Of the rebellious portion of the nation it was said, I will scatter them among all people, from one end of the earth to the other, and among those nations shall you find no ease, neither shall the soul of your foot have rest; Deu 28.64-65 ... And you shall become an astonishment and proverb, and a by-word among all nations, whither the Lord shall lead you. Deu 28.37 Though thus scattered and afflicted, they were not to be utterly destroyed, for God promised saying, When they are in the land of their enemies I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. Lev 26.44 It was moreover predicted that after a long dispersion they would be brought to acknowledge their crucified king. I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one is in bitterness for his first-born. Zec 12.10 This same prophet foretold that after the people had rejected and betrayed the Good Shepherd, they would be given up to the oppression of their enemies; two-thirds would be destroyed; but the residue, after long suffering, would be restored. Zec
13.7, 9
This representation of the prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures, respecting Christ and his kingdom, is in the highest degree inadequate. It would be impossible to give a full exhibition of the subject, without unfolding the whole Old Testament economy. It is not merely in detached predictions, that the former dispensation was prophetic. In its main design, it was prefigurative and preparatory.
Indeed, it had its immediate purpose, in preserving the Israelites as a distinct people, in sustaining the true religion, and in exhibiting the divine perfections in His government of the church. But all this was subordinate to its grand purpose of preparing that people and the world, for the advent of Christ, and to be a shadowy representation of the glories of the new dispensation. It was for the double purpose of affording an object of faith and hope to those then living, and that the new economy might be better understood, more firmly believed, and more extensively embraced. Detached passages from such a scheme of history and prophecy are like the scattered ruins of an ancient temple. To form a just judgment, the plan must be viewed as a whole as well as in its details. It could then be seen that the history of the Jews was the history of the lineage of Christ. The whole sacrificial ritual was a prefiguration of the Lamb of God, who was to bear the sin of the world; the tabernacle and the temple, with their complicated services, were types of things spiritual and heavenly; the prophets, who were the teachers and correctors of the people, were sent not merely or principally to foretell temporal deliverances, but mainly to keep the eyes of the people directed upward and onward to the Great Deliverer, and to the final redemption. Detached passages can give no adequate conception of this stupendous scheme of preparation and prophecy, running through thousands of years, and its thousand lines all tending to one common center — the cross of Christ.
The argument from prophecy in support of the truth of Christianity, therefore, can be appreciated only by those who will candidly study the whole system. Still, enough has been presented to show that it is impossible to account for the correspondence between the prophecies of the Old Testament and the events recorded in the New, upon any other assumption than that of divine inspiration. We have seen that it was predicted, centuries before the advent of Christ, that a great deliverer would arise, to be born of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, at the village of Bethlehem; that he would be a poor and humble man, and yet worthy of the highest reverence paid to God; that he would be a teacher, priest, and king; that he would be rejected by his own people, persecuted, and put to death; that he would rise again from the dead; that the Spirit of God would be poured out on his followers, giving them holiness, wisdom, and courage; that true religion, no longer confined to the Jews, would be extended to the Gentiles, and in despite of all opposition, would continue, triumph, and ultimately cover the earth; that the Jews who rejected the Messiah, would be cast off and scattered, and yet preserved; like a river in the ocean, it would be divided but not dissipated, a standing miracle, a fact without a parallel or analogy.
Here then is the whole history of Christ and his kingdom, written centuries before his advent. A history full of apparent inconsistencies; a history not written in one age or by one man, but in different ages and by different men, each adding some new fact or characteristic, yet all combining to form one consistent, though apparently contradictory whole.
Admitting, then, what no one denies, the antiquity of the Jewish
Scriptures, there is no escape from the conclusion that they were written by divine inspiration, and that Jesus Christ to whom they so plainly refer, is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. To suppose that Christ, knowing these ancient prophecies, set himself, without divine commission, to act in accordance with them, is to suppose impossibilities. It is to suppose that Jesus Christ was a bad man, which no one who reads the New Testament can believe, any more than he can believe that the sun is the blackness of darkness. It is to suppose him to have had control over the actions of others, which no impostor could exert. Many of the most important predictions in reference to Christ were fulfilled by the acts of his enemies. Did Christ instigate the treachery of Judas, or prompt the priests to pay the traitor thirty pieces of silver? Did he plot with Pilate for his own condemnation? Or so arrange that he would die by a Roman, instead of a Jewish mode of capital infliction? Did he induce the soldiers to divide his garments and cast lots for his vesture, or stipulate with them that none of his bones should be broken? By what possible contrivance could the two great predicted events of the final destruction of the Jewish polity, and the consequent dispersion of the Jews, on the one hand, and the rapid propagation of the new religion among the Gentiles, on the other, have been brought to pass? These events were predicted; their occurrence was beyond the scope of contrivance or imposture. There is no rational answer to this argument from prophecy. The testimony of the Scriptures to the messiahship of Jesus Christ, is the testimony of God. Search the Scriptures, said our Savior himself, for in them you think you have eternal life, and it is they that testify of me. Joh 5.39
God, then, has been pleased to hedge up the way to infidelity. Men must do violence to all their usual modes of argument; they must believe moral impossibilities and irreconcilable contradictions, and above all they must harden their hearts to the excellence of the Savior, before they can become infidels.
This exposition of the grounds of faith is made in order to show that unbelief is a sin; and to justify the awful declaration of Christ, He that does not believe, shall be damned. Mar 16.16 Men flatter themselves that they are not responsible for their faith.
Belief being involuntary, it cannot, it is said, be a matter of praise or blame. This false opinion arises from confounding things that are very different in their nature. Faith differs according to its object and the nature of the evidence on which it is founded. A man believes that two and two are four, or that Napoleon died in St. Helena, and this is neither morally better, nor worse for such a faith. Disbelief, in such cases, would indicate insanity, not moral aberration. But no man can believe that virtue is vice, or vice virtue, without being to the last degree depraved. No man can disbelieve in God, especially under the light of revelation, without thereby showing that he is destitute of all right moral and religious sentiments. And no man can disbelieve the record which God has given of his Son, without being blind to the glory of God and the moral excellence of the Savior. He rejects the appropriate testimony of God, conveyed in a manner which proves it to be His testimony.
It is vain, therefore, for any man to hope that he can be innocently destitute of faith in God or of faith in Jesus Christ. If the external world retains such an impression of the hand of God, as to leave those without excuse who refuse to regard it as His work — then surely those who refuse to acknowledge the excellence of His word and the glory of his Son, will not be held guiltless. The evidence which has convinced millions, is before their eyes, and it should convince them. Instead of apologizing, therefore, for their lack of faith, and complaining of the weakness of the evidence — to which nothing but neglect or blindness can render them insensible — let them confess their guilt in not believing; let them humble themselves before God, and pray that He would open their eyes to see the excellence of His word. They should dismiss their cavils, and be assured that if the Bible doesn't win their faith by its milder glories, it will one day reveal itself, by its terrors to their awakened consciences, to indeed be the word of God.