Oxford and Gloucester — from the holy Stephen down to the 
martyrs of the Reformation — our Cranmers and Latimers and 
Ridleys — and onward to this hour, confessors have never 
been wanting, nor have triumphs failed. Not enthusiasts, not 
fanatics, not dolts, but sober thinkers, solid intellects, pure 
spirits — our Bacons and our Newtons, our Lockes and our 
Miltons — sainted women and untainted children — prince and 
peasant, learned and unlearned, gentle and simple — multitudes 
innumerable have lived and died as they — nay, rather, died, 
and now live as they — their departure an euthanasia, their in- 
heritance a crown. Surely Christianity is worse than a mere 
delusion, and its founder low down in the catalogue of impos- 
tors, if this inwrought conviction and dependence be a cheat. 
Yes, Christianity stands or falls as a whole. Either a master- 
piece of craft, folly, and lies, or an imperishable monument of 
honesty and soberness and truth. True, Paganism and 
Mohammedanism, and even Atheism, can boast their victims ; 
and these truly have braved death. But the believer does not 
brave death, he hails life — no conjectural transmigration, no 
carnal paradise, no blank annihilation — ltfe ; an undying, 
unchanging spiritual being, begun below, and perfected and 
perpetuated above. 
I have now completed the task contemplated in this paper 
— how faultily and imperfectly I am fully and painfully con- 
scious. As I hinted at the outset, far from pretending to be 
exhaustive, it is simply suggestive ; rather indicating the 
course which seems to be open to the theologian than really 
occupying it. I have, of set purpose, endeavoured to avoid 
polemics, and to treat Theology, per se, pure and simple. I 
have observed neither partial nor dispensational limits ; 
neither patristic, mediaeval, nor modern divisions. I have 
passed by the conjectures and assumptions of the “ higher 
criticism,” the figment of a “ verifying faculty,” and the 
inflated pretensions of the vaunted (( theology of the 
nineteenth century.” I have followed no particular eccle- 
siastical leading, no partisan bias. I have taken Theology as 
I find it — theology proper — grounded on its conjoint bases, 
creation and revelation, the work and the word of God. I 
now simply ask, Is Theology, from a scientific standpoint, so 
fallacious or so effete, that it ought to be thrust at once and 
for ever beyond the pale of the sciences as a system long since 
exploded — a caput mortuum ? or is it not only a science, but 
the facile princeps of all sciences, satisfying every condition 
of a true philosophy, and admitting, in its several bearings, 
of every modification of proof ? I speak as to wise men, 
judge ye. 
