(3) But, as already suggested. this evidence is not. directly accessible to the unbeliever. and it is to him that the arguments of evidences are addressed. Ile may possibly feel himself unable or unwilling to dispute the testimony of Chris tians: but he cannot attain any personal en.• thinly for himself till other arguments. which do enter into the range of his own thought, are added. lknee the argument of this discipline turns next to the proofs of Christianity from its objective nature. Christianity is incorporated in the person of its founder, and the nature of Chris tianity is illustrated by Ilk character. The character of .Jesus, as depicted in the four Gos pels of the Church, is one of unrivaled excellence, of genuine and unqualified perfection. As a manly character it is surpassingly great, combin ing strength and gentleness in perfect harmony. It has universally obtained the consent of men to its ideal excellence. But its chief peculiarity re moves it from the category of the natural, for it is without the stain of sin and possessed of posi tive holiness in the supreme degree. There is no self-reproach on the part of Christ, no successful accusation against Him by His enemies. On the contrary. He professes sinlessness, and no man refutes Him. Such a character is miraculous, if genuine; and it is genuine, because the disciples could never have invented it. It is not only too lofty for them to invent, but it is of a unique kind, setting forth by example a new kind of excellence which men were not prepared for, the excellence, that is, of perfect gentleness and self sacrificing love. To produce that character Chris tianity must be divine.
Another branch of this argument is gained from the doctrines of Christianity. The doctrine of God, as a personal cause, source, and sustainer of all things, whose character is love, is the confessed acme of human thought, but histor ically it has not come from human thinking, but from the Jewish-Christian religion. That re ligion claims to have it from God Himself by revelation; and no other satisfactory source has appeared or shows any likelihood of appearing. The Christian system of ethics, so contradictory of other systems at its fundamental point, that the root of ethical conduct is love, is now con fessedly the highest which the mind of man has elaborated. And all the rest of the great doc trines of Christianity commend themselves as true. Christianity is the only system which fair ly faces the facts. It is the only system which recognizes and fully defines sin. It is equally unique in giving full recognition to human per sonality as it is in recognizing the divine person ality. These facts exhibit the truth of Chris tianity; and its truth is an evidence of its divinity.
(4) Corroborative of these arguments is an other argument derived from the successes and the extension of Christianity. Abraham was a solitary wanderer, but Israel became a ghat nation. It survived slavery and exodus, wars and captivity. Its religion gained steadily in control of the people and in purity and exaltation in its view of truth. Christianity was rejected
by the nation from which it sprang, hut it found new nations in which to become the controlling power. It fell into corruptions, but it recovered from them. It gradually extended its system of truth. It engaged in missionary enterprises from age to age, and is to-day advancing to the conver sion of all the remaining heathen nations with more system and success than it ever has dis played. It is the chief influential power in the chief nations of the earth to-day. Its practical power does not appear to have been much diminished by the special antagonism which has been called forth against it by the new thought of our day. This success in extending and main taming itself affords a strong presumption that its claims to divine origin are correct.
(5) When we come to the miracles which are recorded in the Bible, we come to an evidence in behalf of Christianity which itself needs first a establishment, since it is the most controverted element of Christianity in this age. The progress of natural science, with its emphasis upon the universal reign of law in the world. has produced the conviction, in large cir cles of just that unbelieving world to which Christian apologetics a rf' addressed, that a miracle is an impossibility. The miracles of Christianity are, therefore, now an objection to Christianity, and must first be defended them selves before they can afford any evidence in behalf of the system. The defense of miracles starts out with the fact of the personality of God. He has made the world and given it the laws which are operative within it. He is su perior to them. If Ile wills, lie can act in ways above them. llis personality gives the oppor tunity for this, and establishes the possibility of occurrences which the laws of nature, left to themselves, could never produce. The next stage of the argument is the exhibition of a suflieient reason for the (recurrence of miracles; and it finds this in the sin and ruin of man, and in the necessity of divine intervention for his salvation. The final stage is the appeal to the testimony that miracles actually did take place. This ap is rendered the easier because Christianity has already established the character and mis sion of Jesus Christ. if The was what lie pro fessed to be, and what Christianity receives Dim as being, God manifest in the flesh, then miracles are natural in a high sense, that is, it would he highly inexplicable if they did not occur. Could a being having the love for man that Jesus had pass through the suffering crowds in Caper mum's streets and not dispense gifts of healing on every side? To us, then, in this day, Chris tianity, taken as a whole, attests the biblical miracles. They did occur. And that they oc curred comes in as a subordinate confirmation of Christianity, for we should expect them, since men needed to have the divine manifestly among them for their own comfort and conviction of the truth.