CHURCH.

_Oh the little more, and how much it is,
And the little less, and what worlds away!_--Robert Browning.

And now we come to the last objections left us, of those which modern
thought has arrayed against the Christian Revelation; and these to many
minds are the most conclusive and overwhelming of all--the objections
raised against it by a critical study of history. Hitherto we have been
considering the Church only with reference to our general sense of the
fitness and the rational probability of things. We have now to consider
her with reference to special facts. Her claims and her character, as
she exists at present, may make perhaps appeal overpoweringly to us; but
she cannot be judged only by these. For these are closely bound up with
a long earthly history, which the Church herself has written in one way,
binding herself to stand or fall by the truth of it; and this all the
secular wisdom of the world seems to be re-writing in quite another.
This subject is so vast and intricate that even to approach the details
of it would require volumes, not a single chapter. But room in a chapter
may be found for one thing, of prior importance to any mass of detail;
and that is a simple statement of the principles--unknown to, or
forgotten by external critics--by which all this mass of detail is to be
interpreted.

Let us remember first, then, to take a general view of the matter, that
history as cited in witness against the Christian Revelation, divides
itself into two main branches. The one is a critical examination of
Christianity, taken by itself--the authorship, and the authenticity of
its sacred books, and the origin and growth of its doctrines. The other
is a critical examination of Christianity as compared with other
religions. And the result of both these lines of study is, to those
brought up in the old faith, to the last degree startling, and in
appearance at least altogether disastrous. Let us sum up briefly the
general results of them; and first of these the historical.

We shall begin naturally with the Bible, as giving us the earliest
historical point at which Christianity is assailable. What then has
modern criticism accomplished on the Bible? The Biblical account of the
creation it has shown to be, in its literal sense, an impossible fable.
To passages thought mystical and prophetic it has assigned the
homeliest, and often retrospective meanings. Everywhere at its touch
what seemed supernatu