1008 Dynamic Theory. 



that of the rest of the body, need not disturb them. But the habit of con- 

 sidering the doctrine of the immortality and continued activity of the 

 soul, as a dogma of revelation, and then finding it called in question by 

 natural facts, has had a tendency to produce a wavering of faith; and 

 so Christians have undertaken, by searching amongst the sciences, to 

 find facts to brace them up. The}*- want to substitute knowledge for 

 faith, which is precisely the thing they cannot, as Christians, do. The 

 promises, and Christian doctrines, they treat as if they were old 

 scientific discoveries that must be collated with all the new scientific 

 discoveries, and they seem to be in constant dread that they will fail to 

 correspond with, and be confirmed by them. The only hope for Chris- 

 tianity as a system of theology, is in its miraculous origin, and in the 

 miraculous and supernatural character of its terms, articles and tenets. 

 If they are not miraculous or supernatural, they are human. If 

 they can be bolstered up, or weakened by scientific discovery, they are 

 human, and weakly human at that. 



The apostles' creed embodies in brief the articles of the Christian 

 faith; here it is: 



"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And in Jesus 

 Christ, his only Son, our Lord ; Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Vir- 

 gin Mary ; Suffered tinder Pontius Pilate ; Was crucified, dead, and buried ; He descended 

 into hell ; The third day he rose from the dead ; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on 

 the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the 

 quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Holy Catholic Church, The Com- 

 munion of Saints, The Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, And the 

 Life Everlasting. Amen." 



At one time it was possible to find human testimony for or against 

 the clauses in this creed, relating to the birth, crucifixion, and resurrec- 

 tion of Christ. But no other part of this creed did ever condescend to 

 place itself upon the plane of human knowledge. If it did, by what 

 warrant could it claim a superhuman origin? It would not be entitled to 

 such claim if its allegations could be verified, or its revelations dis- 

 covered by the wit of man. Especially are the clauses that concern 

 this argument, viz. , " The Kesurrection of the Body, and the Life 

 Everlasting, " outside of the limits of scientific inquny. Everybody 

 knows, and always has known, that in the course of nature dead bodies 

 do not rise again, and thereafter continue to live. It is simply the as- 

 sertion of a supernatural miracle, and its acceptance is an act of faith, 

 and never can be anything else. Science has nothing to do with the 

 supernatural. Her province is the discovery of law, and miracles are 

 all contrary to law. To the extent that any part of Christianity can be 

 scientifically verified, it ceases to be religion, and becomes science. 



At the close of the middle ages Christianity became corrupted with hea- 

 then philosophy, and became a heathen Christianity. The science of the 

 19th century bids fair to demolish this philosophy, and now the tendency 

 seems to be toward the adoption of a scientific Christianity. But it is 



