coercive of intellectual assent, cannot be demanded, as it canno in the nature of the case be supplied, in an argument of this kind. The evidence must be moral in its nature, and such as will require, for the fair impression of its probative force, not only intelligence, and a certain amount of mental discipline, but moral candor: a willingness to be convinced: even a cordial though a judicial disposition to accept the conclusion, if such acceptance shall appear warranted by the arguments presented.

All moral truth requires as a condition of its acceptance a moral state in a measure at least sympathetic with itself. Therefore, only, does it test character, as well as mould it. Therefore is it, as no other is, a judge between men. You can compel the assent of every one, who has intelligence enough to follow the necessary processes of thought, to any one of Euclid's propositions. You can by experiment compel the recognition of the presence and the activity of the crystallizing force in the turbid mixture of the chemist. But you cannot so show the beauty of charity to the habitual and passionate miser, or the beauty of patriotism to the embittered and preëngaged traitor, as to compel either to see the charm of the summoning virtue. To argue the moral preeminence for man of dangerous and high philanthropical enterprise over selfish indulgence, to one who lives only to follow inclination or to gratify lust-it is leading the deaf to hear oratorios, or showing to the blind the charm of expansive summer landscapes.

Of course, these are special exceptional instances; taken purposely as such, that the law which they suggest may be emphasized before us. But the law holds, always: that where moral truth is the subject-matter presented to the mind, the mind must not withstand it, with predetermined hostility, if it would feel its fair impression. It must at least be willing to hear, to seriously reflect, to consider candidly what arguments may be brought; and it must not be committed against a conclusion, it must be in fact quite ready to receive that, if the arguments for it turn out to be sufficient. In this way we discuss, intelligently and fruitfully, the character of men; in this way, the proprietv of customs or legislations; in this way, even, the qualities and the career of historical persons, or of public institutions. In this

way only can we with fairness discuss the question whether Christianity comes to us, in any transcendent and superlative sense, from the Mind unseen, which has built the suns, and from which our conscious life has sprung. The proposition is a vast one. It is addressed to the spirit, not to the sense; to the conscience and heart, not alone to the critical understanding. It pertains to the sphere of spiritual truth. The argument for it can only, therefore, be moral in its nature. It must appeal to a temper in men wholly welcoming and receptive, or it might as well be addressed to fishes, or to those unacquainted with the accents of the tongue in which it is expressed. There is profound truth in the saying of a Hindu, quoted by Sir William Jones: "Whoever obstinately adheres to a set of opinions may at last bring himself to believe that the freshest sandal-wood is a flame of fire.” *

If there were any argument for Christianity of another sort, coercive not persuasive, demonstrative and scientific not moral and probable, it would certainly have been discovered long since, in the centuries which this energetic religion has instructed, commanded, and filled with debate. But in proportion as such an argument were urged and distributed it would, in effect, rob the religion of its supreme office as a witness for itself; it would exclude opportunity for spiritual faith, as involving in it any personal voluntary element; it would cause what it proved to be the message of God to cease to be, according to its nature, 'a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.'

Of the arguments which, within these inevitable limits, are adapted to convince men that Christianity is, in a supreme sense, of a Divine origin, and of world-wide authority-so far to convince them as to lead them to study it thoroughly for themselves, and to make a personal experiment of it, according to its law-of these there are several, associated naturally under the title of "External Evidences." The study of theologians, the attention of masters of speculative thought, in fact the reflective faculty of the world, have been profoundly occupied with them; and the range of the research invited and thus incited by them is,

* Works of Sir W. Jones, London ed., 1807, Vol. III., p. 328.

almost literally, without a horizon. I am to follow one path, only, in the broad expanse thus opened before us; and that path, per haps, not the one most attractive, or promising to lead to mest important and satisfying results.

The early disciples found a sufficient argument for themselves in the Miracles which were wrought, or which appeared to them to be wrought, in connection with this religion. They recog nized in these the signs and proofs that he who was speaking, whether directly or through his messengers, was speaking with a warrant from God Himself. The fact that such an impression was made, in early times, on many minds, and that it was full of inspiring power, cannot be questioned: and it has plainly great significance. Gibbon sets this belief in miracles prominently, you remember, among the causes by which he accounts for the spread of Christianity, at a time which did not favor it, against many resistances. The influence of it was vividly illustrated, in multitudes of instances, in dungeon, amphitheatre, at the stake, on the cross. And the argument for Christianity, as alone Divine, which is derived from the astonishing supernatural manifestations declared to have attended its early proclamation, is still pressed, with obvious candor, as well as with enthusiasm and a signal ability, by many of its apologists.

I need not perhaps say that I feel, for myself, the energetic and the continuing force of the argument so presented; and that I have no word of objection, only words of sympathetic approval, for those by whom it is urged to-day with as eager an eloquence as flowed from either lip or pen of the most eminent Christian Fathers. But I do not undertake to present this myself, in this series of Lectures. For the time, at least, I will not contest an inch of the ground on which so strenuous a warfare has been waged. I will not even controvert the position, if men choose to take it, that the miracle, after so many centuries of apparently aninterrupted regularity in the operations of cosmical force, is not easy of proof except in connection with the doctrine suported and signalized by it, and with the conceded supreme personality of him by whose will it is alleged to have been wrought; that the religion, in other words, sustains the miracle, as truly as aves the miracle the religion; and that, considered in inde

pendence of what it authenticates, the most stupendous physical effect will prove power, primarily, rather than truth-will be a demonstration of incalculable energy, not necessarily an evidence of supreme spiritual loveliness and lordship.

It must certainly be conceded that Jesus himself, according to the authoritative records, did not make the miracles early as cribed to him the means of persuading men at large to accept and obey him, so much as the means of confirming or rewarding a previous faith. He appealed to these indeed, before his enemies, and made their responsibility for antagonism to him only clearer and more perfect because of these works. But he wrought them, for the most part, either in private, or in the least demonstrative manner: as if they had simply broken from him, in the abounding spontaneity of his love, when appropriate occasions attracted the flashes of the inner effulgence, rather than as if they had been his preärranged instruments for converting the world, Jewish and Pagan.

I undoubtingly believe, for myself, the reality of the miracles thus attributed to him. The lucid and lofty simplicity of the story in which they are told is of itself to me their demonstration. They seem to furnish the only explanation, through their effect on the minds of the disciples, of the early triumphs of the despised Gospel on the very spot where its Lord had been crucified, and of the victorious energy of apostles in proclaiming that Gospel, in spite of resistance, and in defiance of flood or flame. I feel the profound truth of the remark of Pascal, that as nature is an image of grace, so the visible miracles are but the images of those invisible which God wills to accomplish."* The whole New Testament would become to me inharmonious in its proportions, timid in its challenge to the faith of the world, emptied of the ultimate majesty and lustre of Omnipotent Love, if there ever should be expelled from its tender and dauntless pages these sovereign demonstrations of the Divine Will, immanent in the person and illustrious in the action of him who as Christ claims unique authority in the world. But I will not now dispute the position if any one accounts such

* "Pensées"; Paris ed., 1878; Sec. Par: Art. VIII. 2.

miracles the inner light shining for the worshipper in the Holy of Holies, rather than the advanced and interpreting torches with which he is lighted on his way to the sanctuary. One may reverently accept them for himself, and see the Divine glory in them, without using them as instruments for the persuasion of others: as the jeweled sceptre in the hand of the king may not be the weapon most apt for use in subduing an armed and fierce opposition, or turning the refluent tides of battle.

An argument was also urged at the beginning, and has often been repeated, for the Divine origin of Christianity, based upon the fact, widely affirmed, that Prophecies written centuries before were fulfilled in events which subsequently occurred, in the coming and the life, and especially in the death, of Jesus of Nazareth; and that this necessarily involves the conclusion that Omniscience was engaged in the previous utterance, and presented a certifying assurance of the fact in the later fulfilment. The inference is inevitable to those admitting the premise. Only imperfectly, and with infinite difficulty, can man trace backward a completed course of historical sequences, and ascertain the small germ out of which was developed, in the progress of centuries, the final result; the tiny rills, by whose unnoticed silent confluence was formed at last the irresistible current. To reverse this process, and forecast the end from the beginning, is surely the special prerogative of God. And if He has thus seen and declared it, before it came, and when to observant human eyes there seemed no promise of its coming, there is an end of debate on the question of His immediate connection with any religion so authenticated by Him. Justin Martyr is therefore but one among many who by the study of Hebrew prophecies, as illumined and answered by the subsequent occurrence of stupendous events, have been led to that assurance concerning Christianity which to him was more satisfying than all which he had learned from Platonist or Stoic: who have by such study been enabled to enter those 'gates of light' which his illustrious Athenian master had but seen in far fore-gleam.

But there are many-they are those to whom the pertinent arguments on this great theme especially need to be pre sented-who do not admit that such predictions were really