PREFACE.

THE

HE work by the Duke of Somerset on "Christian Theology and Modern Scepticism," was greatly blessed to me in stimulating my thoughts. Trusting a blessing might be given to the effort, I am, therefore, induced to write the few simple pages of this work.

The opposition of the world in regard to natural and revealed religion, may be divided into two classes; those who, referring to the Bible, believe in miracles and those who, doubting, rest on the fixed laws of nature. The one class proves truth by faith in God's promises, the other by God's established laws of nature, thus confirming His revealed words in all that is absolute truth; so that, in the days that are to come, both truths shall be united in one, as part of a whole, and in this way an end be put to the controversy.

IT

INTRODUCTION.

T will be apparent at a glance that there is nothing of the culture of a trained mind in this treatise; and how it came to be written can be explained in a few words.

By the perusal of a review of a book by Professor Bain on "Mind and Body," where the nature of the Intellect was defined as Discrimination, Similarity, and Retentiveness, I saw in this group a basis for Christianity to work upon, and at once determined, in the strength of God, to define practical Christianity as seen in the form of Christian belief. In reply to one question put by the Duke of Somerset in a book published by him some years before, "Christian Theology and Modern Scepticism," page 148, namely, "Is faith in God the faith that Jesus taught? or, is Christian faith more complex in its manifold requirements?" I have tried to show that Christian faith is more complex in its manifold requirements.

That question I consider answered in the first few chapters on "Christianity reduced to Proof"; I continued, however, to write, as I felt desirous of adding something more to the treatise.

I intended to publish the work forthwith, but my

purpose was defeated; in consequence of which I cast the work aside, determining in a sense to make myself acquainted with modern science, and seek to establish the truth of revelation from that point.

The essay, "Will Christianity admit of Scientific Test"; and the other treatise, "The Christianity of the Future; or, the Union of two Systems of Truth," spring from the determination I had made. With this explanation of the object I had in writing, the book will go forth to the public, and I leave its readers to judge of its merits.

I have been obliged to treat the subject of "Christianity reduced to proof" in a way peculiar to revealed religion, because, if Christianity proper will not bear the test of criticism from all quarters, we have no right or authority to say it is a divine revelation, in which God revealed His will to man; but did not leave the subject sufficiently clear to enable man, when following God's direction, to prove for himself the absolute truth of revealed religion. (John vii. 17.)

As capable of producing the power implied in Christian influence, and of moulding the mind of man, which avowedly was Christ's object in coming into the world, He comes, with the authority of God, to deal with humanity as body and mind, to implant in man a new element by which man becomes convinced of a divine power; moulding his will and bringing it into

subjection to the will of God, or, to put it in other words, convincing mankind of the fact represented in eternal life, that the mind, individually, is to live eternally as a separate and distinct creation, and that, through the element implied in a revealed religion, man becomes convinced of a power represented in consciousness as a spiritual presence; being the fruit of revealed truth," which, as it increases, becomes the strongest power in man, by creating new desires, as the effect of that spiritual experience implied in faith working by love. I have attempted to deal with mind as the recipient of the new influence that comes to us through belief, and so acts on the mind as that this influence becomes apparent to man in a spiritual experience, the unit of which is embodied in love to God and man. Thus man progresses into a perfect state, and the germ contained in the belief, realised as the perfect unit which is personified in the ideal Christ, is received into the mind as the medium of union with God, and thus becomes the ultimate cause of the change on the mind, as mind presenting our selfconsciousness embodied in nerve-current* finds rest in the Almighty.

As a reply to "Christian Theology and Modern

* This phase of vibration, we may say, distinguishing the human soul. For what is the immaterial in the abstract, but a something we call matter, vibrating at certain pcriods, of which the colours supply the best example. he human organism takes on vibration and defines it in sensation as heat, light, sound, or colour.