OR, WHAT TO BELIEVE, AND WHY. A POPULAR STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINES AND EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. BY JAMES H. POTTS, M. A., D. D. "We also believe, and therefore speak."-2 COR. iv, 13. "That ye may know how ye ought to answer every man."-Col. iv, 6. CINCINNATI: CRANSTON AND STOWE. NEW YORK: HUNT AND EATON. O one is so much alone in the universe as a dènier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved or sustained by the Spirit of the universe, but growing in its grave; and he mourns, until he himself crumbles away from the dead body. RICHTER. WHAT is Faith? what especially is religious Faith? It is an old, old question; and yet like the oldest questions it is ever new. For the word Faith, like the words God and Truth and Life, does not stand for one fixed, defined, dead idea. It sums up all the experience which men have gained of a vital power. WESTCOTT. FAITH is the subtle chain That binds us to the Infinite; the voice Until we crowd it thence. ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH, BELIEVE, and show the reason of a man; Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb. Through reason's wounds alone thy Faith can die; And dips in venom his twice-mortal sting. Copyright, Cranston & Stowe, 1888. YOUNG. PREFACE RONOUNCED theological ideas among the common peo PRON ple is a special need of the present time. Leading laymen need to give attention to the evidences of Christian truth, and think out for themselves the fundamentals of the faith they profess. Without some such auxiliaries to the clergy to steady the popular belief, we may, by and by, find our Christian population "quaking in secret at phantoms of doubt, which they dare not speak of, and yet can not get rid of. Infidels are centering their attack upon the ministry. They are trying to create popular prejudice against all religious tenets on the score that preachers are interested in them in a secular way. Laymen must be prepared to come to the rescue when the hour of peril arrives. They must be prepared to say, We know for ourselves that these things which you assail, because you can not discern their import, are true, and we are ready to assign the reason for the faith that is in us." Besides the advantage of intelligent faith as a defense from unbelief, we need it as a principle of action. The believers are the doers. The men who do something are the men who believe something can be done. Doubt always drags; Faith leads forward. In war, faith is always in the forefront of battle, charging upon the foe; Doubt is in the rear, inciting to retreat. Faith fights for what it believes; Doubt believes nothing, and can muster no courage for the fight. In civil life, faith is the principle of success. Nothing believe, nothing venture; nothing venture, nothing win. The successful business men of today are great believers in the business possibilities of their age. They lay large plans for trade and traffic, and execute those plans with dauntless courage, heroic confidence, and tireless perseverance. So with our advancing civilization and great philanthropic movements. The men who lift the whole race up into clearer light and larger liberty and nobler thought and brighter civilization, and who seek, with all their power, to accomplish the more perfect amelioration of the woes and sorrows of mankind, are the men who believe in man and in all the glorious possibilities of manhood. And the men to lead forward the hosts of God, and carry the flag of redemption, with "the swing of victory," to the ends of the earth, are the men who believe with "all the ardor of a quenchless conviction," that divinity is behind the movement, and that, in spite of the opposition of earth and hell, the conquering Son of God will claim all the kingdoms of this world for his dominion. "If the people of God," says Rev. Dr. Horatius Bonar, "are to do their true work on earth, they must often remind themselves of the Master's precept, 'Have faith in God.' For their mission and office are connected with that which faith only can know. We are to be witnesses for the truth in a world of error; examples of faith in an age of unbelief; upholders of the integrity of the one true Book amid the storms of a crude and reckless criticism. We are to be men of progress; but it is to be apostolic progress-increase in the knowledge of Him whom to know is life eternal. We would be advanced thinkers, too; but our thinking would be in deepening sympathy with the mind of God, and fuller understanding of his never-obsolete Word. We would be progressive theologians, only not at the expense of truth and soundness. Just as progressive scientists do not think it needful either to forget or abjure Newton's Principia, so we see no necessity for a surrender of ancient landmarks, or a desertion of long-accepted creeds." Nothing is more desirable in the Christian life of the indi |