1. The belief, concerning the position of mankind in this world and the next, held by the various Christians, who cling to the Old and New Testaments as the one inspired and infallible revelation of the mind and purpose of an Almighty, may be briefly summed up thus:—That the whole human race, because of the disobedience of Adam, is fallen from its original righteousness, and is under condemnation for transgression of the law or will of God; whether as Jews, to whom the law was given in certain forms of words or as Gentiles, who have the law, the knowledge of right and wrong, written on their consciences: that the eternal justice of God requires the eternal punishment of sin: that thus no escape being possible from the consequences of guilt, the result of Adam's disobedience and their own depravity, the whole human race must have perished, had it not been that God in love, and in order that he might place himself in a position to pardon sin in a way that would be consistent with eternal justice, sent his Son—the sole-begotten—into the world, who became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth: that Jesus fulfilled the will of God in his life: that his death by crucifixion has been accounted by God a full atonement for the sins of all who believe on him and his fulfilment of the law as if it had been their fulfilment: that by his atonement and righteousness they are thus restored to the divine favour: that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day: that he ascended into heaven: that he is now there waiting until all who are ordained unto eternal life shall, in course of time, be born, when he will return to earth in the glory and power of heaven: that then those who have believed in him will be raised from the dead, or, if not dead, will receive an incorruptible body and a purified mind: that the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, shall then be inaugurated: that risen mankind, who have believed on Jesus, will thenceforth enjoy eternal bliss in direct communion with God: that those of mankind who have not believed in Jesus will also be raised from the dead, but, their sins being unatoned for, they will be punished with everlasting banishment from the presence of God: that the doom in each case will be irrevocable, everlasting.

2. The conception of the Almighty, in relation to fallen man, formed in the minds of many believers, is that of a king dealing with rebel subjects who are equally guilty, and whose lives are equally forfeit. He shows mercy to whom he will—those who are thus favoured having no right to this grace; and whom he will he leaves to deserved death—those thus left having no right to complain of the pardon of the others, as their own doom would have been the same whether the others were spared or not.

Other believers, again, rather conceive the Almighty to be in the position of a gracious benefactor, offering pardon through the merits of Jesus to any one who chooses to accept of it, the pardon not to take effect unless the sinner accepts it by acquiescing in the divine plan of salvation. And among the numerous sects into which believers are divided through opposing interpretations of various passages of the Bible, other conceptions of the Almighty and modifications of the foregoing statement of belief will be found. But all, or almost all, agree in dividing mankind into the believing and the unbelieving, the elect and the non-elect, the sheep and the goats, the saved and the lost.

Many Christians maintain that the atonement was universal; but it is doubtful if any maintain that the salvation will be universal, as belief is held to be a necessary condition or a sign of salvation.

Beyond such ideas as these there are two momentous considerations:—(1.) Whether an Almighty Maker of the universe could be such an one as, were he to carry out a scheme of salvation for a condemned race of his creatures, would do so in a way to have but a partial effect, or to be dependent on the belief or unbelief of those for whom it was devised. (2.) Whether vicarious sacrifice can in any way satisfy justice, divine or human. For what is vicarious sacrifice?—the substitution of the innocent for the guilty, whether an innocent lamb or an innocent child, or the innocent Son of the Eternal made flesh. However exalted the victim the principle is the same,—that of satisfying justice by committing so gross an injustice as enjoining or permitting the innocent to take the place of the guilty. Would any earthly tribunal be accounted righteous which allowed a self-sacrificing mother to substitute herself for a son, a son for a father? And does not the Christian doctrine represent its deity as the author of a proceeding so utterly unjust?

3. Christian believers, however, consider themselves as, or as having been, sinners under divine condemnation, but maintain that God can, consistently with justice, on account of the merits and death of Jesus, freely pardon their sin; and, in the hope that saving faith has been given them, they rest content in this belief, seek to live in this world in subjection to Christ's commandments, and await, after death, an entrance into bliss unspeakable, and, on Christ's Second coming, a joyful resurrection. Such, at least, is the profession; the practice does not always correspond. Christians are not unknown to history, nor possibly to the present age, whose conduct is widely at variance with their profession. But this is true of others besides believers in Christianity. They who rest content in the belief and hope just mentioned, are seldom disturbed by misgivings as to the soundness of the foundations of the Christian faith. They have no more doubt that the miraculous birth, the miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus were actual witnessed events, than they have of the assassination of Julius Caesar, or of the landing of William the Conqueror in England. And this belief seems to them to account for much. That stumbling-block to many in the way of owning that a wise and beneficent deity could be the author of such a world as this, of "a whole creation groaning and travailing in pain," disappears, in their minds, in view of the curse of God against sin, under which the earth and all it contains is, as they believe, labouring, and of the love of God in providing a way by which he could be just and yet pardon sin. It gives them, moreover, a definite, settling belief, and a hope for the future, that there is something better and different in store than life in this world. Regarding the earth and all upon it as under a curse, they profess to set their hearts on their home in heaven, on the glorious future revealed. Alas, then, if the grounds on which the prospect of this glorious future rests are worthless; if the hope is delusive; if its evil effect is, and has continually been, to divert men from applying themselves strenuously to make the best of this earth on which they live, and from heartily co-operating with their fellows to do the same; to build up brazen barriers of spiritual pride and self-complacency that sunder man from man; to foster vain-glory, strife, acrimony, and intolerance through pretence, as between opposing sects and schools, of a superior, or a more accurate, or a better defined knowledge of the mind of God.

4. The foundations of the Christian faith are the supernatural testimonies, as recorded in the New Testament, given from on high to the supernatural attributes claimed for Jesus. Many there are who profess, or by their mode of teaching imply, disbelief in these supernatural testimonies or attributes, or ignore them altogether, yet who for the sake of their position, clerical or otherwise, or to be in unison with prevailing fashion, extol Christianity as a system of high moral government and elevating tendency. All such, however, will appear to the honest and truth-loving mind but deserving of unmeasured scorn. Excepting the Jesus of the New Testament, is there any other Jesus? If the supernatural attributes there claimed for him are a pretence, he was either self-deluded or he was an impostor, or the compilers of the four gospels have borne false witness, or are recorders of inflated hearsay, or the inventors of fiction, all the while asserting that they were eye-witnesses, or narrators of the testimony of eye-witnesses. And what is to be said of a system founded either on self-delusion or imposition? Are not noble and pure doctrines put to the basest use when they are made supports of pretence and falsehood, and should they not be rescued from such contamination? Besides, Jesus scarcely claims to be the originator of new laws. His claim is far more. He is held to be the same person who gave the commandments to Moses on Sinai; and his spiritual application and extension of these laws are to be found also in the books of the Psalms and the Prophets, alleged to have been written under his own inspiration. Whether or not they are to be found elsewhere, in so-called heathen writings, is a consideration beyond the scope of this inquiry. The exhortation "to take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth," might probably be found taught and practised under other than Christian sanction,—might perhaps be discovered not to have been the guiding principle of all Christian professors. As a system, then, of moral government, or of high spiritual life, the Christianity of the New Testament professes no more than to confirm and verify, explain, fulfil, and develop the Jewish Scriptures. But its supernatural claims on behalf of Christ himself, by which it pretends to lay bare the truth as to the position of mankind in this world and the next, and to give them the hope of a new life beyond the grave, rest on the supernatural occurrences recorded. If these are true, Jesus is all he claimed to be. He is now alive, he has the destinies of the whole human race in his hands, and is to be worshipped as God. If they are not true, he was either a mere man, deluding or self-deluded, or the history of his life is a myth, however originated or developed. Truth and sincerity demand that there be no compromise between these two positions. The time has surely gone by when sound morality and brotherly kindness require the support of supernatural pretence; when religion, in the words of an ancient writer, is to be praised as an imposture devised by wise men for restraining the evil passions of the multitude. Let every true man repudiate the libel on his race implied by the most unworthy, most pernicious and despairing idea, which has for so long influenced human thought, that for the support of high morality and love of kind it is necessary to disregard or to trifle with the highest of all morality—Truth.

5. Ordinary scientific research is of little avail here. Science of itself is unable either to affirm or to deny if any power beyond and supreme over Nature exists. Whether Nature works spontaneously, and there is nothing besides matter and its inherent organising powers; or whether her various operations are carried on in fixed modes, and by determinate forces, created and sustained by an Omnipotent and Omniscient Being, the observation of cause and effect, and the induction of general laws from ascertained facts is the same. But in the latter case, the Almighty One, if he willed, might suspend or break through, or alter the regular course of Nature's working; and the question here is, whether there is any valid evidence to show that the manifestations, as recorded in the New Testament, of a nature-controlling power actually happened. If such an one, almighty, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-just, all-loving, all-merciful (such as Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7) exists, a special revelation from him to men, different from his working in the visible universe, is not a thing impossible: moreover, assuming the Christian doctrine to be true, that by sending his son Jesus into the world he meant to save only a portion of the human race, the revelation might take place in a mode suited to the knowledge and capacities of those for whom it was intended; and merely because the mode may appear absurd and unworthy of a deity (though this consideration may not be lost sight of), or because it did not take place in the way which the learned and philosophers—hitherto a small minority of mankind—might have selected, it is not to be disbelieved if the evidence is good. And it may fairly be argued that there would be no simpler way by which an Almighty could reveal his own existence, or attest the divine mission of his chosen messenger, than by instances of nature-controlling power. Again and again, then, this one consideration presses, "Is there any good evidence to show that these occurrences did really happen, that this man Jesus, claiming to be the Son of God, received certain credentials from a Power beyond and supreme over Nature?"

6. The supernatural attributes of Jesus, claimed by himself, or by his disciples for him, and held to constitute saving faith, are—

a. That he was alive from all eternity, the sole-begotten Son of God, before he appeared in this world.

b. That his birth was the result of the "overshadowing" of his virgin-mother by the "power of the Highest."

c. That while he sojourned on earth he was a union of God and man, a mortal human body with the mind and power of the Eternal.

d. That his career on earth and its results were the fulfilment of the Jewish law and prophets.

e. That he rose from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion, ascended from earth to heaven, and is now there, ever-living God and man united, with all power in heaven and in earth.

f. That he is to return in the power of the Almighty to raise the dead, and to inaugurate with his chosen an everlasting kingdom, and to banish his enemies for ever from his presence.

The supernatural events recorded in the gospels as testimonies to these supernatural attributes are—

(1.) Those connected with his birth, viz.:—The appearance of the angel Gabriel to Zacharias to announce the birth of the forerunner John, and to Mary to announce her conception of Jesus; the three appearances of the angel of the Lord to Joseph in dreams; the visit of the wise men of the East; and the appearance of the angels and of the heavenly host to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem. (2.) The heavenly testimonies, viz.:—The voice at the baptism. The transfiguration and the voice thereat. The voice from heaven (John xii. 28-31). To which may be added—

The testimony of the devils.

The temptation by Satan, and the subsequent ministration of angels. The earthquake and rending of the veil of the temple at the crucifixion. (3.) The miracles performed, which, if true, proved that Jesus and the first apostles had power over diseases and the course of nature.

(4.) The fulfilment of prophecy.

(5.) The resurrection from the dead, the appearances after that event, the ascension to heaven, the gifts of the apostles, and the subsequent manifestations to Paul on his way to Damascus.

7. For the purposes of this inquiry there are two simple, and what appear to be conclusive, tests ready to hand; one, a rule of evidence held sacred by Jews and Christians alike, and the other arising out of the nature of the claims made for Jesus.

(a.) Moses, or, as Christians affirm, the deity speaking by Moses, has laid down this rule of evidence in cases of guilt: "One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established." This rule is commended in the New Testament in the case of offences (Matt, xviii. 16). What then can be more fair to Christianity than to examine its claims by a rule of evidence held righteous by itself? For, to put it on the very lowest grounds, the evidence necessary to establish events otherwise incredible must surely be at least equally conclusive with that necessary to convict a criminal. These are not ordinary historical statements, to be credited or not as reasonable probability, fair conjecture, or prejudice may determine, without any penal consequences-whatever, either in this world or the world to come. If a man disbelieves that King Arthur, or Romulus, or even Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar ever existed, does it affect his welfare now or hereafter? But the gospels set forth extraordinary occurrences, disbelief of which by any one is said to render him liable to be left to perish in his sins, to endure the torments of hell evermore; and will it for a moment be asserted that a deity would expect belief involving so dire a consequence, on evidence he is said to consider insufficient for the punishment of common guilt? If, then, judged by this Mosaic rule of evidence, disbelief of the alleged supernatural testimonies to the claims of Jesus should be the righteous, and belief the unrighteous result, on whose side would a God of truth be? Would he be on the side of those who are swayed by emotion and not evidence—who imagine that their feelings are in unison with facts they have taken no pains to verify—who profess to believe because it is fashionable, or because they have been so taught from youth—who credit statements which they assert affect their relation to the Almighty and their eternal interests, on grounds on which they would not credit statements affecting their most trifling temporal interest? Would a God of truth be on their side? Surely not.

(b.) The New Testament record and doctrine are said to be a development and fulfilment of the Old. The deity of the one is the deity of the other, under a different dispensation. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." If, then, the New Testament is shown conclusively to be a development and fulfilment of the Old, this claim will be sustained. If, on the other hand, there are twisted and untenable interpretations of Old Testament texts, to make them fit in with New Testament facts; or if there are practices or doctrines or aught else upheld in the New Testament, as of God, which are hateful or foreign to the deity of the Old, such would argue deception (whether intentional or not) in the writers of the New Testament, and show that, if the deity of the Old Testament is the true God, the deity of the New is not. Christianity thus maintaining that the God of the Jewish Scriptures is the Eternal, would fall by its own supports.

8. Christian authorities, for the most part, hold that the books of the Old Testament were composed by the different writers from Moses to Malachi, during the 1100 years from B.C. 1490 to B.C. 390, and the books of the New Testament, during the first century, a.d., by the companions of Jesus, or by those who received their information from his companions. Much learning and critical research have been expended on the one hand in maintaining this position, and on the other hand in impugning it, by stigmatising the whole of some books, and portions of others, as interpolations or compositions of later times. Into so nice a question as this, it is not proposed to enter here. A conscience-satisfying belief for earnest men can in no wise rest on the doubtful and disputed conclusions and arguments of verbal critics. The object of this inquiry, then, is to consider the evidence of the alleged supernatural credentials to the claims of Jesus, so far as possible in the most favourable light in which they can be presented, and therefore it will be assumed that the books of the Old and New Testaments were written at the time generally understood, and by the persons whose names they bear; and as by most believers in Christianity these books are held to be the one infallible authority, the endeavour will be not to travel beyond them. The alleged fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy by New Testament events will be fully considered under its own head; and on the divine inspiration claimed for the writers of the New Testament narratives, one word will suffice. To relate facts seen, or facts told to the narrator by others, requires no inspiration. If any one holds that the gospels record, either in whole or in part, facts which the writers did not see, or were not told of, but which were specially revealed to their spirit by a God of truth, as having occurred, he claims more for them than they do for themselves. See Luke i. 1-4; xxiv. 48; John i. 14; xx. 30, 31; xxi. 24, 25; Acts i. 1, 3; 1 Cor. xv. 1-9; 2 Peter i. 16-18; 1 John i. 1-3. The burden of these passages is summed up in the last one—"That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." The truth or otherwise of the supernatural events recorded professes thus to rest on the testimony of human eyes and human ears, however divinely guided and enlightened.

9. Assuming, then, that the books of the New Testament were written by those whose names they bear, what is known of the narrators? Their character for honesty and trustworthiness among their neighbours and contemporaries there is no voucher for. Yet, while no one who knew them has left aught on record to their credit, there is nothing to the contrary. True, they themselves confess that neither the miraculous pretensions of Jesus himself, nor their own testimony with reference to the supernatural events of his life, met with any credit from by far the greater part of those living at the time, who had the means of satisfying themselves of their truth or falsehood—means which no one at the present day possesses. The people of Capernaum, consigned by Jesus to hell for unbelief, or his own brothers and sisters, may, for all that any one now can tell, have been as competent and truthful, in every respect, as the publican Matthew, or the fishermen Peter and John. The Roman governors, the Jewish high-priests, Gamaliel and the other rabbis, why are they to be accounted less trustworthy, less able to discern truth from pretence, than Paul and Luke? The following particulars, with reference to its writers, are to be gleaned from the New Testament:—

(1.) Matthew, whose name the first Gospel bears, was a tax-gatherer, sitting at the receipt of custom (Matt. ix. 9), in the thirty-first year of Jesus' life, when he became a follower of Jesus. Whether they knew each other previously is not mentioned. He was alive after the crucifixion, but no separate mention is made of him subsequent to Acts i. 13.

(2.) Mark, the writer of the second Gospel, is not mentioned before Acts xii. 12 (ordinary chronology, a.d. 43 to 47), and then it is as the son of one Mary, to whose house Peter went after his miraculous liberation from prison. He accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first mission to the Gentiles, but soon left them. A quarrel afterwards occurred between the two apostles on his account. Paul was hurt at the way in which he had turned back at the outset, and objected to take him on their second mission. Barnabas insisted that he should go. But if he is the same Mark mentioned in Colossians iv. 10, 2 Tim. iv. 11, and Philemon 24, a reconciliation with Paul had taken place, and he was alive and in Rome in a.d. 66. Again, Peter in his first epistle thus refers to him, "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus my son." It cannot be gathered from the New Testament that Mark (even if he had been the young man with the linen garment about his naked body [Mark xiv. 51, 52], as some fondly conjecture) knew anything of Jesus personally; but his own and his mother's connection with Peter is shown to have been an intimate one. From the passage in Philemon, also, it appears that he was at Rome, along with Luke, in attendance on Paul.

(3.) Of Luke, the writer of the third Gospel and of the Acts, the first mention is in Acts xvi. 10 (ordinary chronology, A.D. 53), where the "we" first appears in the narrative. Thereafter he was the almost constant companion of Paul in his journeys. He is also mentioned (2 Tim. iv. 11) as being alive in a.d. 66, in attendance on Paul in Rome. Although he claims (Luke i. 1-4) "a perfect understanding of all things from the very first," he places himself among those who received their information from the "eye-witnesses and ministers of the word;" so that he himself knew nothing of Jesus or of the events of his life. He opens his Gospel thus: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us." In his time, then, there were many different narratives of the life of Jesus. It is not clear whether Luke considered these erroneous, and requiring correction by the "perfect understanding" possessed by himself, or whether he was merely following the example of others in setting forth in order the events as he himself understood them.

(4.) John, whose name the fourth Gospel bears, and who is held to be the author also of three epistles and the Revelation, became a follower of Jesus in the thirty-first year of Jesus' life (Matt, iv. 18, 22; Mark i. 16-20; Luke v. 1-11). He does not claim, nor is there any mention, that they were acquainted before, unless he was one of the two mentioned in John i. 37. He is said to have lived till a.d. 96. Jesus at the crucifixion (John xix. 25-27) left his mother Mary in charge of John, who had thus the very best opportunity of informing himself of all the circumstances within her knowledge.

(5.) Peter, if the first three Gospels are to be followed, became a follower of Jesus at the Sea of Galilee, at the same time as the apostle John, that is, after the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Matt. iv. 18-22; Mark i. 16-20; Luke v. 1-11). But in the fourth Gospel (John i. 40-42) both Jesus and Peter are mentioned together as following the preaching of John the Baptist. Peter is said to have died about a.d. 66.

(6.) Paul's first connection with Christianity was after his persecuting journey to Damascus (Acts ix.; ordinary chronology, a.d. 35), and it is believed that he suffered death at Rome, a.d. 68. With the exception of the miraculous appearance of Jesus while Paul was on the way to execute his persecuting mission at Damascus, and it may be the trance referred to in 2 Cor. xii. 1-4, it is not claimed for him that he possessed any knowledge of the events in the life of Jesus beyond what he learned from others.

Of the six writers in the New Testament, then, who record facts in connection with the life of Jesus, three—Matthew, John, and Peter—claim to have been his companions, and three—Mark, Luke, and Paul—with the exception just mentioned in the case of the last, received their information from others.

10. The foregoing considerations will serve to show that this inquiry into the evidence on which rest the supernatural credentials said to have been given to the claims of Jesus to the worship of mankind, will be proceeded with on the most favourable view possible for these claims—

(1.) By adopting what is held by Christians to be a divine and righteous rule of evidence,—"That at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established."

(2.) By examining the claim of the New Testament to be a development and fulfilment of the Old.

(3.) By assuming that the books of the Old and New Testaments were written by those whose names they bear, and at the times generally believed by Christians.

(4.) By examining these books one with another, and travelling beyond them only so far as the strict requirements of the subject necessitate.