Page:The Evidences of Christianity.djvu/21

14 INTRODUCTION. faith, is not built on it exclusively, and does not reject appeals to reason, as if unfit to endure such a test. On the contrary, it challenges investigation, and requires its advocates to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in them. On the testimony of parents, children believe facts which their own senses have not observed, and truths which their own reason has not discovered ; and this exercise of faith does not in the least contravene reason, or interfere with the proper use of it. In like manner, faith in the testimony of God our Heavenly Father neither supersedes nor discourages the exercise of reason. The question whether the Bible comes to us with evidences of Divine origin and authority, falls properly under the investigation of reason; and men do not sin against God, when they examine this question as rational beings. To reject God's word when he speaks to us, or to close the eyes against the proofs that it is God who speaks, is offensive to the Supreme Majesty. Hence reverence for God requires a careful study of the Christian evidences.

Apart from all regard to the authority of God, we act inconsistently with our nature as rational beings, if we forbear to inquire into the origin and character of the Bible. The book exists in the world, and the high respect which it has received, and the great influence which has emanated from it in forming the characters of men, and controlling their actions, render it a proper object of rational curiosity. If we worthily employ our intellectual powers in observing the phenomena of nature, and searching into their causes, it no less becomes us, as intelligent beings, to inquire whence