honesty of opposing convictions, but by the evidence which can be furnished for the truth of those convictious.

But I am not willing to admit that the followers of other religions maintain their beliefs with a confidence like that of the Christian. I do not deny that there are many professed Christians who stand on the level of the heathen with respect to their beliefs, or even below the better class of heathen. There are many who bear the Christian name upon whom Christian conviction sits very lightly. The reason is that such persons are without the peculiar experience of Christianity. They have a form of godliness but not the power thereof. "We do make a great difference," says Richard Baxter, replying to the objection before us, "among Christians themselves, between those that believe and love Christ merely upon such prejudice, custom, or interest; and those that believe in him and love him sincerely, and upon right grounds."

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We do not deny that the heathen have some good and true grounds for their beliefs. The ethnic religions, even in their most corrupt forms, contain much truth, and there is no reason to doubt that the followers of these religions who use the light they have, come into a real contact with God, which gives them a true experimental evidence of the truth of religion. It is on account of this truth and reality that men hold to the socalled false religions with so much tenacity, in spite of the error which they contain. I am quite willing to admit that the sincerity and tenacity of belief which we find among such heathen puts to shame the indifference of our lukewarm Christians. But I do not for a moment admit that the assurance of the true Christian is on a level with that of even the best heathen.

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The difference in the things believed and in the grounds upon which the belief rests makes the two cases wholly different. "Men of other religions," says Baxter once more, “have no such object for faith and love, and no faith or love for such an object." The intelligent faith of the Christian believer in God and Christ, based upon first-hand knowledge of the facts, is altogether different from the faith of the heathen, which, granting it a substratum of reality, is mixed with error and corrupted by superstition. The Christian is not an unthinking devotee; he is an intelligent man who knows what he believes and the reasons why he believes it, and who therefore is strong in his certainty of the facts upon which his religion is based.

All

Looking back now over the course of the present lecture, I think we may say with truth that the Christian has no reason to fear the objections which philosophical unbelief can bring against the reality of his Christian faith. He is not afraid to meet the challenge to subject his experience to the tests of reason. that he asks is a fair investigation, conducted on prin ciples correspondent with the nature of the subject. To him Christianity is the highest truth. His only fear is that he himself in his ignorance or unskilfulness may not state the proof at its full worth. He knows that the truth is on his side. So he is willing to enter patiently into the discussion with the philosophical sceptic and to answer his objections one by one. But most of all it is his joy to show to his fellowChristians, who like him are firm in the faith, but desire to see clearly the evidence on which it rests, the strength of the foundations, divine and invincible, of their Christian life.

LECTURE VIII.

THEOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS.

THE objections considered in the last lecture are urged by men who call in question not only the Christian experience but also the common religious experience. I wish now to examine the objections of those who admit that there is truth and reality in religion, but who, for one reason or another, are unwilling to accept the account of the Christian experience and its evidence that has here been given. In calling the former class of objections philosophical, and that which we are about to consider theological, I do not mean to imply that we shall now leave philosophical questions altogether behind us. I have meant by the use of the terms merely to indicate the exclusively philosophical position of the one class of objectors, and the predominantly theological stand-point of the other.

The theological objections themselves fall into two classes, according as they are advanced by the opponents or the friends of the orthodox system of Christian truth.

I. The unorthodox objection takes the general form that while a real truth underlies the Christian experience, the distinctively Christian elements in it have no objective reality. The Christian facts which, according to our belief, constitute the very essence of Chris

tianity, viewed as a system of present, operative powers, have only a formal, and not a real, value. The evidence upon which we lay so much stress falls thus to the ground.

1. It is objected that the Christian doctrine of a supernatural regeneration and sanctification is without foundation. Men are indeed sinful, but they are capable, in the exercise of their own moral powers, of forsaking sin and obeying the law of conscience. This work involves no divine factors, except in so far as the subject of it is influenced by moral and religious truth, which has its origin in God and is guided by the divine providence. If this be the true view, Christianity carries with it no proof of such divine Realities as we claim to know.'

This is the objection of the rationalist—or I might say, to use a theological designation, of the Pelagian. It is connected with that deistical tendency which denies the distinction between the natural and Christian revelations, reduces Christian experience to natural religion, and makes natural religion itself a matter of merely intellectual belief, of notions rather than realities. Its few doctrines are excogitated by the independent and unaided power of the reason. God, immortality, obedience to the moral law, and future rewards and punishments form the meagre creed of this bare and cold theology. All the other elements of Christianity are held to be unreal and valueless, while Christianity itself is a mere "republication of the religion of nature," of worth only so far as it serves to further emphasize the few great truths revealed through the world and man's constitution.

The rationalism I have described is that of the last

century; but although as a system it has become to a great extent obsolete, it still exists as a tendency, widespread and active. Christianity meets the objection with an utter denial of its fundamental assertion, based upon indubitable facts of experience. It does not deny that there is a sense in which this assertion is justifiable, as it is certainly honest. From the stand-point of the natural man, who is outside of the distinctively Christian experience, the rationalistic doctrine seems true; man is capable in his own strength of attaining the perfection which is consonant with his nature.' But he who has had the Christian experience knows that this belief of the natural man is unfounded. There is only one way of escape from sin, and that is by the new birth and the forgiveness of sins. The believer has tried this way. He has experienced redemption. And no fact is more deeply impressed upon him than this, that here human power was helpless and divine power necessary. Moreover, regeneration and sanctification are facts in full view of his consciousness, and through them he is brought into contact with the divine Causes, the Spirit, the Christ, and the Father. The objection of the rationalist is simply that fundamental objection which has met us before in various forms, arising from the impossibility that the man who stands outside of the Christian experience should understand it or do it justice. The advocates of this view are doubtless good men. from the reality to the vain show which a proud and self-sufficient reason manufactures out of its own substance. To them the prophet's words apply: They forsake the fountain of living water and hew them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water (Jer.

But they turn