INTRODUCTION.

THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY.

'WHAT is truth?' Was Pilate jesting, or sadly in earnest, when he asked this question? We cannot tell. But it is certainly the question of our own day; a question which thousands are putting to themselves with an earnestness of purpose well proportioned to the issues involved in the

answer.

For it was not any definition of abstract truth which called forth the question of Pilate, but the announcement of one great cardinal truth of dimensions so vast and far-reaching as to surpass in importance every other object of all possible human knowledge. And what was this truth? was THE TRUTH; the corner-stone upon which the whole fabric of our Christian faith rests; the anchor by which the vessel of our hope is moored to the Eternal Shore; the motto inscribed on the blood-stained banner under which as soldiers of the Cross we fight the fight of faith; the truth that He Who was once the prisoner of Pilate is a King whose Kingdom is not of this world, the King of all human hearts, the King of Heaven, the Eternal Son of God.

Our Lord, although everyone could see that He was a man, exactly like all other men except in the superhuman holiness of His life, announced most plainly and emphatically that He is God. He called Himself the Son of Man, but

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He also called Himself the Son of God. It is certain that He really meant that He is God, because He calls Himself the Revealer of the invisible God; so much so, that it was impossible to see the Father except by looking upon Him; teaching us thereby the absolute unity of God so far as He can be brought in any manner under the observation of the human senses. 'No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?' 2

An announcement so astounding, even when made by One of spotless holiness and truthfulness of life, cannot be accepted by any reasonable being without evidence the most certain and unimpeachable; and, therefore, the great God who has given us reason as our guide has supplied us with this evidence.

To the men of His own day Jesus Christ manifested His Divinity by working miracles Himself, and also by enabling the founders of His Church to prove their mission from Him by similar wonders wrought in His name and through faith in His name. "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.' 3

It is arguing in a circle, however, to appeal in these days to the miracles of our Lord and His disciples as manifesting

the superhuman origin of Christianity, until we have first proved the authenticity and truthfulness of those Holy Scriptures which record them.

How are we to answer the unbeliever when he says: 'I have no reason to think that the miracles to which you appeal ever happened. There are many wonderful stories in the sacred books of other ancient nations, but even you consider them unworthy of credit; why should I regard the miracles of your Scriptures in any other light? The conception of the Founder of your religion without human father; His miracles of healing; His raising to life of them who were dead; and, still more, His own resurrection from the grave on the third day after His crucifixion: these are events so entirely contrary to all experience, that they are much more likely to be misconceptions of human fancy, or the exaggerated traditions of admiring disciples, than substantial facts which really took place as they are described. In fact, this record of miracles, to which you appeal, is so far from proving to my mind the superhuman origin of your Scriptures or of your religion, that it has the very contrary effect, and tends, so far as it goes, to damage the character, and lessen the credibility, of the writings which contain it.'

This is no exaggerated statement of the position taken up by the unbeliever in our day. How are we to answer him ?

Our Lord has taught us: our appeal must be to plainly fulfilled, and plainly fulfilling prophecy. We must prove the superhuman origin of our Holy Scriptures by showing that they contain real predictions about the future condition of the Church in the world, which have been conspicuously fulfilled, and are also in course of fulfilment before our very eyes in these days; predictions which were uttered by man, but the full scope of which man could not possibly have understood previous to their fulfilment, and which, therefore, must be traced to the mind of the Omniscient.

The prediction of the remote future is one of the most real, one of the most astounding of miracles. In comparison with this, every other miracle, even the raising of a dead man to life, seems an easy matter. This is only the restoration of that which once was. But the real prediction of the remote future-the tracing even in the most dim outline of the remote future-what mind shall attempt it? what tongue shall utter it? what pen shall write it?

Of all the attributes of Deity, the most inconceivable to us is the exact foreknowledge of the remote future in all its details. We have no faculty which can help us to grasp the idea, except, perhaps, that of memory. Memory retains on the tablet of the imagination a picture of the past. And it is a picture and nothing more. The actions remembered have no longer any existence, except so far as they live in the mental picture of memory and in their results. The scenes, indeed, in which they were transacted may remain. But even over them a change soon passes, which practically annihilates their identity. The days of man are but as grass; for he flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.' And, then, even if the scenes on which we have acted or have witnessed the actions of others remain substantially what they were, to us, when we have removed to a distance, they practically lose their existence, except when by an effort of memory and imagination we bring the picture of them again before the eyes of our minds.

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Thus it is conceivable, and it is even a necessary attribute of One Who is Eternal and Omniscient, that He should have continually before Him in all its minutest details the great panorama of the past and the present. And from what we observe of memory in ourselves, we may learn to distinguish clearly between knowledge and causation. We remember what we did ourselves; we remember what we saw others

1 Ps. ciii. 15, 16.

doing; but the knowledge which memory gives us of those past actions has nothing whatever to do with the causes and motives which led to their being done. It is the same with the memory of the Omniscient. He must know all the past actions of men, but it does not follow from this that He caused men to do them, or at all interfered with their freedom of choice and action.

And this opens up another abyss of mystery connected with Omniscience as regards the future, the existence of which we are bound to admit, but cannot expect to understand. It is comparatively easy to see how God may have the fullest knowledge of all the past actions of free moral beings without having in any way caused them by interfering with their freedom. But that He should have the great drama of as yet unacted history before Him, even while He leaves the actors free, implies the existence in Him of a faculty to our finite minds altogether inconceivable. Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for us; we cannot attain unto it.' 1 That God has this faculty is again and again plainly stated in Holy Scripture. I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.' Of Abraham it is said that he believed God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.'3

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It is in fact a great truth which has passed into a proverb, that 'Man proposes, but God disposes.' That men are free to choose and act, but that God foreknows what they will choose and how they will act, and so overrules the issues of their free actions as to bring good out of evil, that His counsel may stand, and that He may do all His pleasure. And so this is the miracle of miracles, the crowning

1 Psalm cxxxix. 5.

2 Isai. xlvi. 9, 10.

3 Rom. iv. 17.