in the hallucination of His followers. If all these things can be firmly established, it follows that Christianity must be a divine revelation; and we can afford to wait for the solution of the minor difficulties with which it is attended. To lay down clearly the distinction between points which are essential, and those which are non-essential to the defence of Christianity, is at the present day of the highest importance; because a wide-spread opinion prevails, that many of the questions that are eagerly discussed in theological controversies are essential to its truth.

Thus ordinary Christians have been led to believe that such questions as-Whether St. Matthew was the author of the Gospel that bears his name; whether the writings of Isaiah consist of two portions, one of which was composed at an earlier, and the other at a later date; whether the Pentateuch in its present form was written by Moses; whether the commonly-received Chronology of the Old Testament is, or is not accurate; whether the book of Daniel was composed by the prophet of that name, who lived during the Captivity; whether it is possible to weave the narratives of the Evangelists into an harmonious whole; whether the references made by the earlier Fathers to events in the Evangelical history are citations from our Gospels, and not from others which must have closely resembled them that all these, and a multitude of similar questions, are so bound up with the acceptance of Christianity as a divine revelation that they must stand or fall together. Men hear that a vast number of accepted beliefs on these and similar subjects have been called in question by persons of profound learning, and their faith in Christianity is shaken. What is the cause of this? The true answer is that popular theology has widely diffused the belief that a number of points which are really non-essential to Christianity as a divine revelation are vital to its defence. Unbelievers have not unnaturally accepted this position, and in consequence have loudly proclaimed that the belief in Christianity as a divine revelation is no longer tenable. The assumption that

the defence of this wide extent of matter is essential to the Christian position, is unquestionably one of the causes which has led to that wide-spread shaking of belief which prevails at the present day. The whole question, however, as to the nature and validity of our popular theories of inspiration is a subject of which I must defer the consideration till my concluding Lecture.

My position therefore is, that the ground on which the whole of our defences must be concentrated, is the historic reality of the life of Our Lord, as it has been handed down by the traditions of His primitive followers; and that this life has exerted a unique and superhuman power throughout the last eighteen centuries of history. Before, however, I can address myself to the direct proof of this, it will be necessary to consider the relative value of the evidences themselves, the order in which they should be stated, and the modifications in the mode of treatment which are rendered necessary by the requirements of modern thought.

1. The proof of Christianity has been hitherto based on what is called its miraculous attestation. Miracles have been placed in the forefront of the Christian argument, and other evidences have occupied in it a very subordinate position. This is the line of reasoning which modern apologists have all but unanimously adopted.

An opinion however is becoming widely diffused among thoughtful men, that this mode of putting the argument is unsound. I am fully aware of the weight of the authorities who have taken the opposite view to the one which I feel it to be my duty to propound in these Lectures. Of these Paley may be cited as a crucial example. Subsequent writers have followed closely in his steps; and have contented themselves with adducing proof of the possibility of miracles, or with strengthening his central position. Some of them, however, it must be admitted, have handled the moral argument far more effectually than has been

done by him; for the principles of his moral philosophy necessarily rendered his treatment of the moral aspects of Christianity inadequate.

I am not aware that any modern writer has suggested the necessity of a complete change of front in our evidential position, although many have attached a far higher value to the moral aspects of Christianity, as evidences of its truth. As however it seems to me that the whole exigencies of modern thought render such a change of front absolutely necessary, I will briefly give reasons why I consider that the moral evidences of Christianity ought to occupy the first place, and its miraculous attestation the second, in the Christian argument.

As the three following Lectures will chiefly be devoted to the consideration of what I shall designate the moral miracles of Christianity, it will be necessary that I should briefly explain the meaning which I attach to this expression. Our evidential treatises restrict the term "miracle" to an occurrence in the physical universe, the origin of which cannot be accounted for by the action of its ordinary forces. From such an event is inferred the presence of a power or force of a different order, capable of energizing in them, directing, controlling, and bending them in such a manner as to effect a particular purpose, and to bring about a result different from that which would have taken place from their ordinary action. Such an event we designate "a miracle;" and from it we infer the presence of a superhuman power. But why the expression should be limited to occurrences of this kind as constituting the sole divine attestation of Christianity it is difficult to say. Surely there is an order in the moral and spiritual world no less than in the material. Moral and spiritual forces act no less in conformity with moral and spiritual laws than the forces which energize in the physical universe act in conformity with physical laws. If deviations from the accustomed order of the one, or the occurrence of events which cannot be accounted for by the action of any of its known forces, prove the presence of a divine power,

so must similar phenomena in the moral and spiritual worlds be manifestations of the energy of a superhuman power. Such manifestations I shall designate "moral miracles," by which I mean, events occurring in the moral and spiritual world, for the origin of which none of its known forces are sufficient to account. If I can prove that such manifestations have taken place in connection with Christianity, it will be evidence that a superhuman power has manifested itself in it. This being so, the all-important question will be, Are we able to verify in connection with it the presence of such a superhuman power in the history of the past, or in the facts of the present? If we can, I contend that it will afford a stronger proof of its divine character than that which can be supplied by miracles wrought in the physical universe, which require a long and complicated chain of historical reasoning to establish their truth.

Much confusion has been introduced into our reasonings about miracles by the practice, which has been common to both the opponents and the defenders of Christianity, of using a number of ambiguous terms, so that it has become difficult to express oneself with precision on the subject.* A brief allusion to them is all that will be necessary in this place. Even the word "Supernatural" itself is one which it is almost dangerous for a theist to employ. When we use it to denote God's mode of action in connection with a

*It is worthy of notice that a large proportion of the arguments employed by the author of "Supernatural Religion" against miracles are founded on the ambiguous senses in which the various terms employed in the Christian argument are used. To this their entire plausibility is due. The inconclusiveness of his reasoning is obvious enough to close logical thinkers; but unfortunately the great majority of the readers of such works are not such, and the large number of editions through which this work has passed proves that on them its influence has been sufficiently telling. This alone shows the importance of not allowing our strength to be wasted on a number of side issues, but of confining our defence of Christianity to its great central position.

revelation, as distinguished from other modes of the divine activity, we run no little danger of making the covert assumption that God is not everywhere energizing in the ordinary forces of the Universe by which we are surrounded; a view which is not only opposed to all sound principles of Theism, but one to which the writers of the Bible are entire strangers. If one thing is more certain than another, it is that the whole series of these writers view the forces of nature as manifestations of the energies of God. In fact the modern distinction between the Natural and the Supernatural is to them unknown.*

This confusion has originated in the various senses which have been assigned to the words "Nature," "Natural," and their derivatives, and from the ambiguous use of the word "law," not only to denote the invariable sequences of events, but also the mode of the action of the forces which energize in the Universe. The all-important question on which the entire controversy turns is, What do we mean by "Nature," and what class of phenomena do we include under it? Thus if we confine the words "Nature" and "Natural" to matter, its necessary forces and laws, we denote by them a definite class of phenomena; but if we include under them man, his freedom, his intellect, and his moral and spiritual being, we mix up with the former phenomena of a wholly different class and order. But these terms have been used by both sides in this controversy, as though they had a clear and definite meaning; and thus various classes of

*This may be affirmed absolutely of the writers of the Old Testament. Thus in the Book of Psalms the energy of God is represented as being quite as much manifested in the daily course of nature as in the miracles of the Exodus. This is not quite so apparent in the New Testament, in which the references to the forces of nature are comparatively rare. But whenever our Lord refers to nature in His teaching, He uniformly recognizes in it the presence of His Father. According to the Bible both the energies which are constantly exhibiting themselves in the Universe, and the phenomena which we designate miracles, are alike manifestations of the divine activity, the one differing from the other merely in their mode of action.