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and heathenism, in about equal proportions. Probably there is not one person in this assemblage who would for a moment believe in the supernatural origin of any religion at all, if he rejected Christianity as such. The only point I wish to show clearly is, that if we affirm the Gospel is untrue, we cut up by the roots all supernatural religion, and affirm that we are without a voice from God.

2. We come, in the next place, to systems of philosophy. They are contradictory, and without the possibility of positive proof. A man thinks ont a system of philosophy, and it is clear to him. He adopts it. The evidence of its truth to him depends upon the faith which he reposes in the premises which he employs, the confidence he has in the correctness of his reasoning, and in the conclusions which he draws. But another man, studying his system of philosophy, departs from him in several essential particulars, and is as well persuaded that he is wrong in these particulars as the former is that he is right. Hence it has come to pass that very rarely in the history of the world. has the disciple of any philosopher agreed with him all the way through, or even in substance. Of course this is a proposition that can be disputed, but I only suggest one or two points to show that it is true.

According to the best ancient history we have, Socrates was the teacher of Plato; but Plato differed from Socrates in a great variety of modes. And what was the relation of Aristotle to Plato? But, not to go back to those ancient periods-what is the condition of affairs to-day in the world of philosophy? I have a friend who has been reading nothing but philosophy for twenty years. He has not read a book upon any other subject in all that time; and, so far as I know, and so far as he knows, there has not been a book on philosophy published that he has not purehased and read. Now he testifies to me, that he has not in all his library, embracing the publications of the last thirty years, two works on philosophy

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which substantially agree. There are works that agree in many points, but they differ in others, and differ fundamentally. It is perfectly clear that no two systems of philosophy agree substantially. But, upon the assumption that they do, how can they be authenticated beyond the power of the human mind to test the matter in the present state? Can a system of philosophy span the river that separates us from the future state? Is it possible for a system of philosophy, without instruction from God, to interpret properly the plans of God, involving the whole course of human life and the final adjustments of eternity? And there will be nothing supernatural in it. Now, let us look at it for a moment upon the basis of Nature. Walking in Fulton Street one day, I met a gentleman of considerable learning, who has no sympathy with any branch of the Christian Church. I asked him to prove to me the being of a God from Nature. a little effort, he gave it up-as every man must who has no other proof than the deductions he undertakes to draw from what he sees around him. He cannot prove it if anybody doubts it. Then I asked him, upon the assumption that there is a God, to prove that He is good. Well, he fell into a beautiful passage about the starry heavens and about the beautiful flowers that spring up, and turned on me and said, that any man who could doubt the goodness of God, when he was sursounded by beauty and wisdom on every side, was an unwise man. I was obliged to ask him to explain the pestilence, the famine, the earthquake, the law of death, the law of hereditary insanity and idiocy, and all the evils that affect mankind. I asked him if he would explain how it was that in the order of nature, or of God, the great majority of the human race, from the creation of man down to this age, have suffered under the terrible curses of

ignorance, poverty, and disease. He could not explain it; and when I asked him if the dark things of nature, without an explanation, did not as really

prove God not to be good as the bright things of which he spoke proved Him to be good, he could not deny it. John Stuart Mill logically argued that matter, and he said that Nature is a contradic

tory witness. Look at her on one side and she seems to say, "The Being who made us is good." Look at her on the other side and she seems to say, "He is not good." The man who is well and strong, and who has accomplished all he desires, if he be of a religious turn, is grateful to a good God; but how is it with the man who has nothing but what he can see to support his faith? Doubts and difficulties arise. Job's wife understood the case when she turned upon him in the midst of his terrible afflictions and said, "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die!" That was logic. Job had an inward faith that did not rest upon the external natural phenomena, or he would never have been able to say to her in reply, "Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this, Job held fast to his integrity.

Now look that point over and over. If the Gospel be untrue, there is no voice from God to man.

3. Again, if the Gospel be untrue, the most elevating precepts we have are without a divine sanction. Take, for example, the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you." Some undertake to teach us that it can be found outside of the Bible, and I don't feel called upon to undertake a denial of it; but, if it can be found outside of the Bible, it is found upon the assumption that the Bible is not true; it is found without a divine sanction. "And Jesus answered him: 'The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." No man, according to the

Scriptures, can love his neighbor as him. self unless he first loves God and recog nizes the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. So that, if you could bring me an ancient Chinese book, or an ancient Indian manuscript, and prove it older than the New Testament; or if you could bring to me an Egyptian inscription, and prove it older than the New Testament, and it had the Golden Rule in it, it would still not have the divine sanction, and such relation to God as would give man power to carry it out and reduce it to practice.

Now take the specific applications of the Golden Rule. The Sermon on the Mount undoubtedly convinced John Adams, when nothing else would, that Christ was a mysterious Being, with something more than human discrimi nation; but further than that he did not go. But if the Gospel be not true, the Sermon on the Mount is a purely human production-nothing more nor less than such productions as have been given to the world by orators, philosophers, and poets. Therefore, all those sublime statements, which are contrary to what we see, rest only on the authority of a man. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Why? "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven," and there is no kingdom of heaven if the Gospel be not true. Cut that off, then, and say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit"-a poverty not of outward circumstances, but of spirit, as the passage requires, to prove that men are blessed; for the word "blessed" means, unspeakably happy. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." If that is only a human statement you may take off the last part in many cases, which will destroy the first. It has no right to remain there. "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake, for great is your reward in heaven." Cut off the last part, and you find a Jewish peasant making promises that he never could fulfill. As for the beatitude, "Blessed

are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," if the Gospel be not true there never was an utterance in an insane asylum wilder or further from truth than that.

In the next place, if the Gospel be not true, the noblest examples are fictitious. Of the Book of Job it was said, by a critic who had no especial interest in it as a book of religion, that it was impossible to read it without tears; and yet the Book of Job must take its place by the side of Shelley's "Queen Mab," or any other poem that you can suggest, if the Gospel be not a supernatural religion-a mere creation of human imagination or fancy. The indescribably beautiful character of Jesus Christ, with His actions so mysteriously in harmony with all that He thought and felt and said, that every miracle, according to the record, is an illustration of infinite beneficence all this is but a rhapsody, and the only difference between the ideal Christ and an ordinary writer of fiction is in the amount and kind of appeal, and not in substance of truth. Take the character of Paul, one of the most remarkable in history: a transition inexplicable; an endurance that cannot be explained upon any ordinary assumption; a man charged with insanity by his enemies, who were not as zealous as he, and with hypocrisy by those whom he had left; who calmly stood before Agrippa and Felix and answered both charges so as to compel assent to his sanity and integrity. His character is entirely inexplicable if the Gospel be not true. Nor shall I shrink from speaking of Peter, whose very inconsistency, as recorded, taken in connection with his bravery, and his penitence, and his subsequent career, illustrates human nature in a wonderful manner, yet showing a triumph over its infirmities. Even Peter must be set down as a myth if the Gospel be not

true.

4. I proceed to the subject of pardon. If the Gospel be not true, it is folly to think of pardon for sin. In nature there is no proof, of any kind, of forgiveness. There is partial and limited

reparation. Louis Canaro, the famous Italian and nobleman, who lived to be nearly one hundred years old, and wrote a book when ninety-six, which declared he would live to be a hundred (though he died at ninety-eight), was dissipated to a degree that has never been surpassed, and when he was forty years of age he was so reduced that his physicians gathered about him and told him he must adopt a diet as abstemious as that of an anchorite or he could not live. Canaro did so, and for the rest of his life ate less and drank less than an ordinary child. Nature in that case allowed him to repair a shattered constitution, but there was nothing analogous to pardon in it. It was simply an economy of what was left. But pardon, where there is a sense of guilt, is a totally different thing. Two men may become intoxicated-one strong, the other weak. One may be attacked by delirium tremens and may commit suicide; the other may be about his business the next morning. Whence the difference? The debauch was the

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same, but operating under law, under
law that never touches morals, the man
strong enough escaped, the man too
weak to bear it succumbed. Let this
serve to illustrate the distinction be-
tween repairing, in the way of cause
and effect, and being forgiven.
is not a solitary hint of forgiveness in
all nature, and no writer or philosopher,
so far as I ever heard, has undertaken
to show that there is. Bishop Butler,
in his Analogy, used the illustration of
repair to show that God might pardon
even as He allowed men to repair; but
he confessed it was a very imperfect
and unsatisfactory analogy. But a man
will say, "If the Gospel is not true, a
man cannot incur guilt, and therefore
all he has to do is to dismiss the idea
that he is guilty. If his conscience
says he is, he can say to it, 'You are a
presumptuous usurper. There is no
law, and I cannot be guilty.'" How do
you know what will be held to be guilty
under an administration that has re-
vealed no law? We are assuming that
there is a God, and power, and justice.

Now, if He has never spoken, under any circumstances, so as to give us a true test of absolute justice, how do we know that we are not at this moment incurring great guilt? And, moreover, if we affirm it is impossible for us to incur great guilt, we cannot silence the voice of conscience without killing it. Joseph Barker, one of the most eminent men that ever advocated infidelity in Europe or America, testified, after he was sixty years of age, that he had made this sad discovery, that when he had refused to acknowledge the obligations of conscience towards God, he found the obligations of conscience towards men torn up by the roots. So that there would seem to be no hope, and the man who has a sense of guilt, if the Gospel be not true, has no power, under any circumstances, to secure the obliteration of that sense of guilt, however painful, from his conscience.

5. I now pass to speak of a regenerative influence. When a man for twenty-five years has tried to keep good resolutions, and has broken them, and has to acknowledge at the end of that time that he has made little progress in purifying his heart, though he may retain considerable self-control in regard to external actions, he will do one of two things, according to his temperament he will sadly relinquish the effort to obtain moral purity, or he will continue on without hope or any inward peace. The Gospel of Christ declares that there is a regenerative influence that operates upon the human soul, that the true light lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Now, it requires no argument to show, if the Gospel be untrue, there is no such spiritual influence as it describes ; consequently, to doubt the Gospel is to doubt whether there be anything which can possibly purify the heart and make it what all right-minded human beings aspire to be-pure and good.

6. I now wish to speak on the subject of comfort in trouble. It has been said by a French writer that philosophy conquers past and future evils; that is, a man can, by his philosophy, with

out any help from any other source, reconcile himself to past things, whatever they were in their time, and he can live in comparative freedom from fear with regard to future things; but the same writer proceeds to say that philosophy is conquered by present evils. Dr. Johnson illustrates this when he represents Rasselas as going to hear a philosopher speak, and he was delighted with his philosophy. He taught him how to subdue his passions and to conquer trials without any difficulty. The next day, however, when Rasselas, charmed with his teacher, again sought the philosopher, he was at first refused admission. After a while he was admitted to the philosopher's presence, and found him tearing his hair and walking up and down in great agony. "Why this grief?" asked Rasselas. "Oh!" said the philosopher, "my only daughter, the light of my home and the comfort of my old age, is dead!" "But, certainly," said Rasselas, "the philosophy which you so eloquently descanted on yesterday comforts you now?" "Oh, no," cried the philosopher, wringing his hands; "what can philosophy say to me now, except to show me that my condition is inevitable and incurable?" Rasselas went to Imlac and told him what he had heard, and he replied: "They preach like angels, but they live like men." Voltaire, and many others-I do not need to name them all-have shown that their philosophy had no power whatever against a present and a sore evil. The Gospel does offer comfort to every class of afflicted persons, and Tom Moore only told the truth when he said, "Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." As I am arguing and not quoting poetry, I may paraphrase that, and say, earth has no sorrow that the Gospel does not offer to heal. But, if the Gospel be untrue, all these offers of consolation, from beginning to end, are false and baseless as a dream.

7. We come now to take up the subject of strength in temptation. A man need not ask himself whether there be

an evil spirit, called " Devil," or not. That is a matter that cannot be settled outside of God's Book, and perhaps cannot be settled to the satisfaction of every mind by the study of God's Book. That is a question that we need not consider, because there never lived a man who had not the power to engender temptations enough to ruin him. His appetites and passions that war against the soul, his ambition, his strange evil propensities-we see them in the little children, they are strengthened in the youth, they are found in terrific volume in the strong man, though prudence often leads him to conceal what imprudence would expose, and what youth would exhibit from a want of self-control. How is a man to subdue these passions and propensities? Probably four-fifths of the persons who reject the Gospel have sophisticated themselves into the belief that what is natural cannot be wrong.. But there are men who reject the Gospel that never have done that, and they keep on through life struggling and failing, and struggling and failing again. Now the Gospel offers to the man contending against these temptations seven or eight distinct kinds of helps. First, it gives him the commands of Almighty God, and there is nothing to strengthen a man against temptation like that. You may take all the promises and put them together, and they are not as strong a reinforcement against temptation as a command of God, provided a man feels that there is a God, and that God commands him. But the Gospel is filled with such commands. Then the Gospel gives us promises for every situation of trial and difficulty. Further, it gives us holy examples of men of like passions with ourselves, and when we would be discouraged and say, "This was a class of men far above us, and it is folly for us to attempt to imitate, much less to emulate, them," the Gospel tells us of the sins and villainies of David and Jacob; it speaks to us of the fall of Peter; and finally, just at the time our faith would fail, it bids us consider the case of

Elias, who was a man of like passion
with us.
The Gospel grants unto a man
the privilege of taking these commands
and promises, and of strengthening his
faith by them at the very Throne of
Grace. But, if the Gospel be untrue,
every promise and command in the
Bible may be thrown aside as a matter
without any foundation in fact.

8. I will now speak a moment or two on the subject of prayer, and only a moment, because this is a subject which is to be handled from the supernatural point of view or given up at once. I believe that no man can even raise a presumption that prayer is answered, if he denies the truth of the Gospel; because, as a matter of course, presumptions are supposed to be drawn from miraculous deliverances. A. is in trouble and prays to get out, and because he does get out he thinks God answered him. A sailor in a storm calls upon God, and there is a great calm, and he concludes from that circumstance that God answered his prayer. I admit the conclusion may be valid, provided you admit there is a God who will hear and answer. But suppose that is denied? Now I answer the man who says he was in trouble and prayed to God, in the following manner: I tell him, first, of the man that prayed and got no help, and I tell him of every man in the world in my experience who has been sick and unhappy, and whom prayer would not cure. In the next place, I go further and tell him that God's own people have gone down under trouble, so far as the external state and act were concerned; and then, finally, I bring to him all the false religions and superstitions there are in the world, and show him that they have their cases of prayer and following deliverance from trouble, just as the Christian system has its cases; and I say I have overthrown his presumptions ten to one-one hundred to one. The story goes that a traveler saw a scenic representation of the gifts that had been given by those who had prayed to the gods and had been delivered; and he asked if some one would point out to him the

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