Gift Tappan Presb. Assoc. 6-21-33 PREFACE. THIS volume embraces a discussion of the evidences of both natural and revealed religion. Prominence is given to topics having special interest at present from their connection with modern theories and difficulties. With respect to the first division of the work, the grounds of the belief in God, it hardly need be said that theists are not all agreed as to the method to be pursued, and as to what arguments are of most weight, in the defence of this fundamental truth. I can only say of these introductory chapters, that they are the product of long study and reflection. The argument of design, and the bearing of evolutionary doctrine on its validity, are fully considered. It is made clear, I believe, that no theory of evolution which is not pushed to the extreme of materialism and fatalism dogmas which lack all scientific warrantweakens the proof from final causes. In dealing with antitheistic theories, the agnostic philosophy, partly from the show of logic and of system which it presents, partly from the guise of humility which it wears, not to speak of the countenance given it by some naturalists of note, seemed to call for particular attention. One radical question in the conflict with atheism is whether man himself is really a personal being, whether he has a moral history distinct from a merely natural history. If he has not, then it is idle to talk about theism, but equally idle to talk about the data of ethics. Ethics must share the fate of religion. How can there be serious belief in responsible action, when man is not free, and is not even a substantial entity? If this question were disposed of, further difficulties, to be sure, would be left :n the path of agnostic ethics. How can self-seeking breed benevolence, or self-sacrifice and the sense of duty spring out of the “struggle for existence"? Another radical question is that of the reality of knowledge. Are things truly knowable? Or is what we call knowledge a mere phantasmagoria, produced we know not by what? This is the creed which some one has aptly formulated in the Shakspearian lines: "We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." In the second division of the work the course pursued is different from that usually taken by writers on the Evidences of Revelation. A natural effect of launching an ordinary inquirer at once upon a critical investigation of the authorship of the Gospels is to bewilder his mind among patristic authorities that are strange to him. I have preferred to follow, though with an opposite result, the general method adopted of late by noted writers of the sceptical schools. I have undertaken to show that when we take the Gospels as they stand, prior to researches into the origin of them, the miraculous element in the record is found to carry in it a self-verifying character. On the basis of what must be, and actually is, conceded, the conclusion cannot be avoided that the miracles occurred. This vantage-ground once fairly |