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HIS Quarterly is established to give clergymen and ministers, and persons of culture thought of Continental and American Protestant Evangelical Literature, as it appears in the quarterlies and other magazines published in Germany and the United States. A selection of such articles, carefully edited, will be given in each number, and no expense or pains will be spared to make this Quarterly worthy the attention of all who are interested in Biblical and Theological Subjects and in general Religious Literature of the highest class.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

As each department of the Quarterly is filled, we beg to give notice that unsolicited contributions cannot be attended to; neither can we undertake to return such, though stamps have been sent with them. We hope this will be sufficient.

JUST OUT.

THE PREACHERS' MONTHLY.

VOLUME VI.

PRICE 5s. 6d.

THE PREACHERS' MONTHLY: Containing Studies for the Pulpit. New Series, Vol. VI. (JOHN LOBB: Christian Age Office).

For help, direct or indirect, whether for the Pulpit or the Lecture Room, there is no publication to be compared with this. It contains a selection of choice Sermons from some of the greatest Preacherof past and present times. But the strength of the work lies in the Topical Outlines for the Month. These Outlines embrace the Days of the Christian Year, and other times and seasons, and are marked by great freshness and ability; often condensing into a short paragraph thought which would occupy pages in the ordinary way.

What a boon to hard-worked Preachers must this Serial be!

THIS VOLUME OF

THE PREACHERS' MONTHLY contains Sermons on the P'ROPER

LESSONS for Six Months.

The PREACHERS MONTHLY may be ordered through all Booksellers; or it may be obtained direct, by post, price Sixpence, from the Publisher,

JOHN LOBB, "Christian Age" Offices, St. Bride Street, E.C.

SECOND EDITION.

"A more thrilling, tragic, and romantic narrative has seldom been given to the world."
The above critique appears in the Sunday Magazine for August, 1882.

LIFE AND
AND TIMES

FROM

OF

(PRICE 6s.)

TO 18727) FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ILLUSTRATED. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. EDITED BY JOHN LOBB, F.R.G.S.

Nothing since the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has equalled this book in thrilling incident.'

"Taking it altogether, it is the best and most interesting book on Slavery and the Civil War which we have ever read. As a narrative of truth the book is worth more than all the fiction which the controversy has ever produced."-The Sword and Trowel, August, 1882.

Post 8vo, 5 pages, Toned Paper; Cloth, Gilt Lettered; Post Free Six Shillings.

"CHRISTIAN AGE" OFFICES, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C.

Lobb's

Theological Quarterly.

I.-THE TESTIMONY TO THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

BY THE REV. PROFESSOR HENRY A. YARDLEY, M.A.

I

VARIOUS theories have been entertained with regard to the evidential value of miracles, and not a few have contended that they have no value as evidence at all, for the reason that they are incredible except on the antecedent assumption of a supernatural power in the wonder-worker. Into these speculative questions it is not my purpose now to enter. may be allowed to point out that for those who accept the divine authority of the Scriptures the question would seem to be foreclosed inasmuch as they represent the Saviour as appealing to His miracles of beneficence in proof of His divine mission. Moreover it may be safely said that if anyone is convinced that Jesus Christ rose from the dead he will believe that the Christian religion is from God. Nothing need be added to justify this conclusion, for it is so spontaneous and universal that its legitimacy hardly admits of question. Spontaneous and universal judgments carry with them their own credentials, and the efforts of philosophers to prove that they are irrational seldom avail to discredit them. A truer philosophy accepts them as having a clearer guarantee of their truth than any other propositions whatever. We may assume, therefore, that whatever theory is entertained with regard to the value of miracles as evidence, if we can prove that Jesus Christ rose from the dead we have well nigh proved the truth of Christianity.

VOL. I.

M

But the converse of the proposition is also true. If the historical fact of Christ's Resurrection is disproved the whole of Christianity as a religious system falls with it. In drawing out what is meant by this statement we cannot do better than observe the points made in 1 Cor. xv. by the Apostle Paul, whose writings will be universally accepted as the earliest and most accredited statement of the Christian belief.

κενή

He says: "If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain, your faith is also vain." Here are two main propositions involving several particulars which are next subjoined. First, the preaching of the Apostles was vain. The word employed is KevÒv, empty. Christian preaching is the proclamation of a Gospel, but the Resurrection of Christ is such an important part of that message that if it is taken out, what remains amounts to nothing. But not only is the preaching vain, the faith excited by it is also vain. Here the Apostle uses two words, Kevý and paraía. The first signifies empty, the second fruitless or in vain. In the supposed case the faith exercised by believers is without any substance, it is a void or empty faith; and, moreover, it can have no result or fruit, it is in vain. What is meant by these statements will be best understood by examining the specific particulars which are added. The first of these is that we are yet in our sins. Christianity is the proclamation of a deliverance from sin. This deliverance was accomplished by the sacrificial death of Christ. But that death, in order to effect anything, must be accepted as a complete propitiation, and the Resurrection is the sign of this acceptance. The next consequence mentioned by the Apostle is equally momentous and deplorable. "Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." The Apostle was no doubt acquainted with the various heathen philosophical arguments for the immortality of the soul, and these would remain in full force even though it should be proved that Jesus Christ never rose from the dead. I am not aware that there is any reason for supposing that he undervalued those arguments, or considered them inadequate to establish the conclusion toward which they pointed. His words rather indicate that he considered them insignificant when compared with the demonstration afforded by Christ's Resurrection. He considers that when this visible evidence is removed we are left, not absolutely, but relatively, without reason to believe in a life beyond the grave.

And what the Apostle stated is no less true under the altered circumstances of the present day. Whatever may be thought of the argument of Butler and others, and certainly

we cannot venture to think lightly of the reasoning in the Analogy, yet no one would for a moment pretend that it establishes anything with half the certainty that would belong to our future state if we could be assured that Christ rose from the dead. Whereas if the contrary were established we would be left not absolutely but comparatively without assurance that they who have fallen asleep have not perished.

The next point mentioned by St. Paul seems to regard the emotional more than the logical results of a denial of the Resurrection. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable." With whatever form of suffering men are afflicted, whether pain of body or grief of mind, there is no consolation which can for one moment be compared with that which can be derived from a lively sense of the Resurrection. The spectacle of one man who has visibly overcome death and entered into an endless life is a demonstration of the certainty of those heavenly things the hope of which is the only thing which can afford much comfort in the midst of bitter earthly suffering. Without this we are thrown back upon uncertain conjectures and merely probable conclusions. Even the thought of God's wisdom as ruling all things well and the thought of His love as desiring nothing but our welfare will be found destitute of comfort unless linked to an undoubting faith in a future state of existence.

But some one may say: Does the Christian then merely serve God for hire and in hope of a reward? Does the practice of virtue bring with it no recompense? Does the love of God involve no happiness in itself? Does the contemplation of God's goodness bring no peace and elevation to the soul? The answer to these questions is that the belief in a future existence is inextricably interwoven with these ideas, so that although Christians do not serve God in hope of a reward, yet the ideas themselves would perish if the element of a future life were removed from them. A life-long sufferer may believe in God's goodness and praise Him amid the fires as long as he believes that his present state of torment will be succeeded by another in which suffering will be unknown. But what conception can he form of the goodness of God if he believes that his whole conscious existence will be full of pain? We can understand then what St. Paul meant when he said that if Christ be not risen we are of all men most miserable. There may be alleviations of life-long sufferings from which Christians are debarred by the law of God. Many heathen philosophers declared that suicide itself was justifiable as an escape from intolerable and hopeless torments. From all

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