ejecting the history itself. It is the fashion with
a certain class of writers, after denying our Lord's divine nature and
explaining away his supernatural works, to be profuse in their eulogies
of his character. If they can first rid themselves of the obligation to
believe on him and obey him as their divine Lord, they are willing to
bestow upon him, as a man like themselves, the highest commendations.
But the attempt is hopeless. What will they do with the fact of his
resurrection from the dead--the most certain as well as the greatest
miracle in his history, and which includes in itself all the rest? Had
Jesus not risen from the dead, as he so often affirmed that he should,
then he would have been what the Jewish rulers called him--a deceiver,
and no Saviour; but since the miracle of his resurrection must be
admitted by all who do not reject the whole gospel history as a fable,
why deny the lesser miracles connected with his history? The assumption
that miracles are impossible can only go with the denial of God's
personality; and this, by whatever name it is called, is atheism. If
there is a personal God, who is before nature, above nature, and the
author of nature in its inmost essence, he can manifest himself within
the sphere of nature in a supernatural way, whenever he chooses to do
so. If God who made us cares for us, and is indeed our Father in heaven,
it is reasonable to suppose that he may reveal himself to us in
supernatural forms, when the end is our deliverance from the bondage of
sin, and our preparation for an eternity of holiness and happiness. To
deny this, would be to make nature the highest end of God--to put the
world of God's intelligent creatures under nature, instead of making
nature their servant and minister.

10. The objections that have been urged against the gospel history are
of two kinds. The first class relates to its doctrines, as, for example,
that of demoniacal possessions, that of eternal punishment, etc. To
enlarge on this subject would be out of place here. It is sufficient to
say that the only reasonable rule is to argue from the certainty of the
record to the truth of the doctrines in question. He who first assumes
that a certain doctrine cannot be true, and then, on the ground of this
assumption, sets aside a history sustained by overwhelming evidence,
exalts his own finite understanding to be the supreme rule of faith; and
to him an authoritative revelation becomes an impossibili