THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY SUSTAINED

BY THE MIRACLES WHICH REVELATION RECORDS AND THE PROPHECIES WHICH HAVE BEEN FULFIlled.

A Sermon, delivered in Nashville Tennessee, July 7th, and in Columbus, Mississippi, July 27th, 1844, by REV. W. CAREY CRANE.

Thy word is truth.-JOHN Xvi: 17.

Incredulity respecting religion is the sin of our race. What is fair and reasonable evidence in anything else, is unworthy of notice when connected with the interests of the immortal soul. No system of religion, true or false, ever found the world, at its introduction, in so credulous a state, that it would or could confide in its pretensions. Man seems to distrust at the very first blush, every thing which sheds light upon the distant future. The various discoveries of the world in scientific pursuits, have never met with half the scepticism with which religion has had to contend. Tell man a new world has been discovered, and he does not ask for evidence that the documents are genuine, which give account of the discovery, nor whether there has not been forgery, nor whether there is not an improbability that any discovery could be made. Man believes it. Tell man that the sun is the centre of a great system, instead of revolving itself around this small planet, which to the natural eye is the most obvious, and man believes it,-actually believes what seems to be contradicted by his senses. Tell man that the world in which he lives is a globe and is continually wheeling on its axis, and at the same time revolving around the sun, and though it appears paradoxical to human reason, unsophisticated, he believes it. Publish a long account from the Cape of Good Hope, affirming that Sir John Herschell has with his forty feet telescope descried land in the moon, and has actually seen living beings of all forms and almost no form; that in that important satellite of this more important sphere, verdure is more luxuriant, and fruits more abundant than on this, he is disposed to believe it, though the most marvellous story of the age. But inform man that Christ, a Divine Being, descended from heaven, was on earth about two thousand years ago, that he wrought miracles and predicted future events, many of which have alrea

dy come to pass, man is incredulous. At one moment we are led in sorrow to exclaim, how credulous is man, and in the next, how incredulous. He seems to have come into the world so much depraved as almost to be considered a natural sceptic. The first manifestation of evil in the garden of Eden, was the commencement of scepticism. Our primal mother parleyed with the serpent concerning the nature of the forbidden fruit and fell from her high estate. In view of the natural tendency of mankind to atheism, and especially to dissipate the effects of incredulity from the minds of avowed christians, we shall treat the text as a basis on which to found an argument for the religion of Jesus Christ.

I. FROM MIRACLES RECORDED IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

II. FROM THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.

Upon these the necessity of faith will be based, as well as upon the almost exact fulfilment of the truth contained in the text.

I. The evidence of miracles. Fully to set forth all that can be properly said respecting this species of evidence, would require volumes, rather than a few sight and necessarily imperfect sketches of proof. One good and impregnable argument is however sufficient to sustain any cause. One unanswerable truth must be better than a thousand answerable ones. A miracle, in the jewish or christian sense of the term, is a display of supernatural power, in attestation of the truth of a message from God. In order to have credit among men, a message or messenger, before it can become acceptable, must be sealed. Miracles are called the seals of a message. The form, "witness my hand and seal," is as necessary and essential in religion as in the mere concerns of temporary life. Moses was a divinely commissioned and sealed messenger of God; he exhibited his scal by the miracles which he performed. Christ was a divinely commissioned legate from the skies, and he as well as Moses, sealed his message by miracles and prophecy. Moses and Jesus were, therefore, properly accredited messengers from God; the former was the minister of the law, the latter was the minister of grace: "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Miracles, (and among miracles we include prophecy, as there are two sorts of supernatural powers-physical and mental,) are the only direct evidence which can be given of divine inspiration. It

is true that the history of every religion abounds with relations of prodigies and wonders, wrought by assumed supernatural powers. And many are the classic stories of the intercourse of men with gods. Read Homer's poetical description of the scenes witnessed upon the plains of Troy; gods are seen contending with one another, and with the Greeks or Trojans. In the minds of the ancient heathen these were miraculous displays; "but the assumed miracles of pagan historians and pocts were not even pretended to have been wrought publicly to enforce the truth of a new religion contrary to the reigning idolatry." The most of them can clearly be shewn to have been only natural events. Many are evidently tricks ingeniously contrived for sinister purposes, either to flatter power or promote the existing forms of superstitious worship. But compare the immoral character of the divinities, who are said to have wrought such prodigies, with the pure character of those who acted by the influences of our holy religion, and the tremendous disparity is manifest, indeed it were almost unworthy of Moses and Christ, Samuel and Peter, to call for a comparison.

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Considered abstractly, miracles are not incredible, for they are capable of plain proof from analogy indirectly, and from testimony directly. The analogical proof is based upon nature and reason, the direct proof upon revelation and physical nature. The christian miracles were objects of real and proper experience to those who saw them. Admitting this, the question sometimes occurs, were miracles necessary and did the end proposed to be accomplished warrant an immediate and extraordinary interference of the Almighty? The only reply which we can make to such questions is, that if their occurrence be established beyond doubt, all reasoning and speculation concerning their probability, possibility or necessity, is quite frivolous and false. These are questions which can perplex the human understanding without benefitting it. Shall we be shaken in our understanding, or give up our belief because we cannot discover their origin? Shall we assent to the infidel insinuation of Hume, that our ignorance is God? That there is blind credulity and superstition, when there is want of physical proof, and reason is at fault in its researches?

Blessed be God! that we do not know every thing; that it "is the glory of God to conceal a thing;" that where our feeble intellects are unable to come to proper results, there is

"enthroned on high, in sempiternal light divine,” an allglorious Being, who will ultimately resolve all our difficulties. There must be some limit to the human understanding. Why may not that limit be the throne of God? Vain man! attempt not to leap over that boundary! Taking the argument from effect to cause, to be a perfectly legitimate mode of reasoning in establishing the fact of God's existence, we can see no just reason why that which to mortal vision is supernatural, should not be attributed to him. Where the reason, unaided by divine power, must stop in its grasping, there the supernatural begins and God exists.

Holding that God is infinitely wise, holy and powerful, human reason demands if it was not a supernatural motive which induced him to send his Son to die for a guilty and condemned world. Was not the mission of the Saviour a miracle? Why not make a general proclamation of pardon to penitents? Why not send a legion of angels to accomplish the great purpose? True believers admit that God's plan is miraculous, and of course supernatural. Speculations do not disturb those who confide in the sacred scriptures. From them we learn that the sacrifice of an infinitely holy being was necessary to make atonement for crimes of an infinite nature, as well as to harmonize the attributes of a God who is infinitely and eternally holy, happy and divine. Any divine revelation must be considered a miracle, and though a miracle, the necessity of the revelation through the Old and New Testament may be easily proven by an appeal to reason. Contemplate the state of the world when Christ actually appeared. The first chapter of the epistle to the Romans, is a synoptical portraiture of a large portion of the human race. Examine, if you please, the degraded condition of the Jewish nation at that time. Was not reform loudly called for? Consider the nature and tendency of the christian religion; how admirably was it adapted to the exigencies of the world! Even profane history will admit that a miraculous interposition of Providence was needed. The gracious and important ends that were to be accomplished, will convince inankind, not only that God wrought gloriously and miraculously, and that there was no idle and useless display of divine power, that while the means effected and confirmed the end, the end fully justified and illustrated the means. But we are gravely told by infidels, that a miracle is contrary to experience. Hume, especially, remarks, that "he could not believe any testimony which is

contrary to universal experience," because, says he, it is infinitely more probable that the witnesses are mistaken, than that the laws of nature have been violated. It is also asserted that the course of nature is fixed and inviolable, and it is inconsistent with the immutability of God to perform miracles. Thus, the evidence of the senses is made the standard by which, from a residence of half a century on one speck of the illimitable universe, a very mote in creation, we are to deduce the inviolability of God's laws, through infinite space and eternal duration. To employ the indignant language of one of the distinguished men of the age, "a mole, a gnat, an insect may then, from the image of this great world painted on the retina of its eye, philosophically depose that the universe is self-existent and eternal." If the being of a God is admitted, the possibility of a miracle must also be admitted. If the omnipotence of God be conceded, the possibility, nay even the probability of a change in his laws must be conceded. Can it be possible to conceive that God would ordain such general laws for his own operation, as will effectually exclude a change of those laws, where a great and important end could be answered thereby. The very creation of the world was a change in the course of existence, yet what sane man denies that the world was created; hence, according to infidel logic, the laws of nature were violated, which is contrary to universal experience. If the definition of a miracle which has already been given, be correct, then the creation of this terrestrial planet was a miracle. To prove to common sense that blind chance brought out of the womb of eternity this footstool of God, will puzzle all the infidels and pagans, philosophers and wise men, from this time until the judgment day.

But let us for a moment, examine the reasoning, that miracles are apposed to experience and the common course of nature. Is experience the only teacher from whom we obtain knowledge? If so, our lot is indeed most lamentable. The past is all a fable; historians are ingenious novelists; travelers are arrant liars; to those of us who have not crossed the great deep, (indeed the very existence of the "deep" is problematical;) Europe, Asia and Africa are regions, the fairy creations of a poetical fancy. Alexander and Cæsar, Washington and Napoleon were not. The future cannot be, because not experienced. The future! it is a horrid, hideous vacuity. Has memory no share in obtaining knowledge? Why then send your children to