n6 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



the gospel history a common Christianity can still endure. 

 &quot; If the gospel of John is not the historical testimony of 

 an eye-witness, but a myth, there is no historical Christ ; 

 and without an historical Christ all the common faith of 

 Christians is a phantom all Christian confession, mockery 

 or delusion, and Christian worship a juggle.&quot; In these 

 words, I repeat, Bunsen thoroughly sets himself on our 

 side. He appears as a friend, not as a foe. And yet 

 Bunsen refused to believe in the possibility of miracles 

 he refused to believe that God s personal dealings with 

 men could interfere with the fixed laws of nature. Nor 

 does Bunsen stand alone in this. The opposition to 

 miracles, so strong in Schleiermacher, to whom Christianity 

 owes so much, still prevails among many whom we dare 

 not call enemies of our faith. I believe indeed that this 

 tendency is growing less strong in Germany. I believe, 

 and I hope in this essay to do something to show, that a 

 belief in miracles is the necessary development of the 

 conception of the supernatural above laid down. But I 

 do urge that with such examples before us we must give 

 serious and earnest thought, lest in drawing the line 

 between the friends and foes of our faith we shut our 

 selves out from fellow-feeling with men who are them 

 selves fighting on behalf of God. 



There is none of us, I suppose, who has not felt puzzled 

 on this point. We are constantly forced to recognise 

 true Christian feeling in men who seem, from the stand 

 point of our Scottish orthodoxy, to reject most precious 

 and fundamental truth. We rather feel than know that 

 amidst differences that seem vital we and they are yet 

 really at one. But it is most dangerous to leave the 

 decision in these cases to subjective feeling. We are 

 imperatively called on to find an objective I do not say 

 a doctrinal criterion between Christian and pseudo- 

 Christian thought. 



That our current apologetic possesses such a criterion 

 I cannot but deny. It is a fact that is pressing itself 



