M. F. Sadler

“ May God, who seeth all things, and Who is the Ruler of all Spirits and the Lord of all Flesh—Who chose our Lord Jesus, and us through Him to be a peculiar people—grant to every soul that calleth upon His glorious and holy Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long suffering, self-control, purity and sobriety, to the well pleasing of His Name through our High Priest and Protector Jesus Christ. ”

“ For the truth of this miraculous Resurrection there is at least a thousand times more evidence than there is for any historical fact which is recorded to have occurred 1,800 years ago. Of course, if the supernatural in Christianity is impossible, and so incredible, all the witnesses to it must be discredited; and their number, their age, and their unanimity upon the principal points are such that the mere attempt must tax the powers of human labour and ingenuity to the uttermost. ”

“ But by a sentence at the bottom of this page we are enlightened as to the real reason for so strange a view of the place of vital powers in the universe. In the eyes of those who persist in, as far as possible, ignoring all laws except physical laws, even to the extent of endeavouring to prove that moral forces themselves are but mere developed forms of physical ones, all manifestations of powers other than those of electricity, gravitation, magnetism, and so forth are anomalous, and we have the very word "anomaly" applied to them. ”

“ If it be rejoined that this superior force must act according to law, we answer, certainly, but according to what law? Not, of course, according to the law of the force which it counteracts, but according to the law under which itself acts.
The question of miracles, then, is a matter of evidence; but we all know what a power human beings have of accepting or rejecting evidence according as they look for it or are prejudiced against it. ”

“ TERTULLIAN. Matthew, i.
"There is, first of all, Matthew, that most faithful chronicler of the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no other reason in the world than to show us clearly the fleshy original of Christ, he thus begins, 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David the son of Abraham.'" (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xxii.)
"It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord's descent from Abraham to Mary, says, 'Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus." (On the Flesh of Christ, ch. xx.) ”

“ John and in the Synoptics, he remarks:—
"It is impossible that Jesus can have had two such diametrically opposed systems of teaching; one purely moral, the other wholly dogmatic; one expressed in wonderfully terse, clear, brief sayings and parables, the other in long, involved, and diffuse discourses; one clothed in the great language of humanity, the other concealed in obscure, philosophic terminology; and that these should have been kept so distinct as they are in the Synoptics, on the one hand, and the Fourth Gospel on the other. ”

“ Here is a still deeper force or power, the force of conscience—the moral power which is clearly the highest power within us, for it governs the very will, and sits in judgment upon the whole man, and acquits or condemns him according to its rule of right and wrong. ”

“ If there had been but one animated being in existence, such an epithet might not have been out of place; but when one considers that the world teems with such beings, and that by their every movement they modify or counteract, in their own case at least, the mightiest of all nature's forces, and that no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface owes its conformation to their action, we are astonished at finding all this characterized as the solitary instance of an efficient cause. ”

“ The Scriptures say nothing to satisfy our curiosity about these beings, as Apocryphal books do. They simply describe the one as sent on errands of mercy, and the other as delighting in tempting men and inflicting pain. The mystery of the fall of some of these angels, and their consequent opposition to God, is no difficulty in itself. It is simply the oldest form of that which is to those who believe in the reality of the holiness and goodness of God the great problem of the universe—the origin and continuance of evil. ”

“ If we look to words only (which the author of "Supernatural Religion" too often does) , then, of course, we allow that the epithet "priest" is quite foreign not only to the Fourth Gospel, but to every other book of the New Testament, except the Epistle to the Hebrews; but if we look to the things implied in the idea of Priesthood, such as Mediation and Intercession, in fact Intervention between God and Man, then we find that the whole New Testament is pervaded with the idea, and it culminates in the Fourth Gospel. ”

“ The design of the Gospel is to restore men to the image of God by revealing to them God Himself. But, before this can be done, they must be taught what goodness is, their very moral sense must be renewed. Hence the moral discourses of the Synoptics. Till this foundation is laid, first in the world, and then in the soul, the Gospel has nothing to lay hold of and to work upon; so it was laid first in the Sermon on the Mount, which, far beyond all other teaching, stops every mouth and brings in all the world guilty before God ”

“ All the laws of the universe must be assumed to be, even if they are not believed to be, the work of a personal intellect absolutely infinite, whose operations cannot be confined to this world, for it gives laws to all bodies, no matter how distant. ”

“ John, the miracle of the opening of the eyes of the man born blind seems to have excited unbounded astonishment:—
"Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind." "Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" (John ix. 32, x. 21.)
But more than this. If there be any truth whatsoever in the Gospel narrative, the disciples themselves, instead of exhibiting anything approaching to the credulity with which the author of "Supernatural Religion" taxes the contemporaries of Christ, exhibited rather a spirit of unbelief. ”

“ The facts of our Lord's chief miracles and Resurrection were such, that the nearer men lived to the time the more impossible it would have been for them to have suspended their judgment.
So that, instead of having the witness of men who, by their prudent suspension of judgment, betrayed their lurking unbelief, we have the testimony of men who, by their surrender of themselves, soul and body, evinced their undoubting faith in a matter in which there could be really no middle opinion. ”

“ We believe Him to be our Redeemer; but before He redeemed, He laid down the necessity of Redemption by making known to men the true nature of sin and righteousness, and the most just and inevitable Judgment of God. He revealed to us that there is One above us Who is to the whole race, and to every individual of the race, what our consciences are to ourselves—a Judge pronouncing a perfect judgment, because He perfectly knows the character of each man, perfectly observes and remembers his conduct, and, moreover, will mete out to each one a just and perfect retribution. ”

“ Natural laws reveal to us no such judgment. Nature teaches us that if we transgress certain natural laws we shall be punished. But it teaches no certain judgement either in this life or in any future life which will overtake the transgression of moral laws. A man may defraud, oppress, and seduce, and yet live a prosperous life, and die a quiet, painless death.
How, then, are we to know that Jesus of Nazareth had authority to reveal that God will set all this right in a future state, and that He Himself will be the direct Agent in bringing the rectification about? ”

“ Now the question arises, is there any power or force clearly above the highest controlling power within us, i.e. above our conscience? We say that there is. There are some who on this point can reverently take up the words of our Great Master, "We speak that we do know." We believe, as firmly as we believe in our own existence, that this our conscience—the highest power within us—has been itself acted upon by a Higher Power still, a moral and spiritual Power, which has enlightened it, purified it, strengthened it, in fact renewed it. ”

“ It is intolerable to those who have a sense of justice, for instance, to think that, whilst led by their sense of what is good and right, men execute imperfect justice, there is, after all, no Supreme Moral Governor Who will render to each individual in another life that just retribution which is assuredly not accorded to all in this life. ”

“ John, if he had been an unbeliever? If Justin, with most other persons, considers that being "in the flesh" is the characteristic difference between men and spirits such as the angels, and expresses himself accordingly by saying that the Word "became man," what sense is there in saying that he "is opposed to the spirit of the Fourth Gospel," in which we have the Word not only as the "Son of Man," but possessing all the sinless weaknesses of human nature, so that He is weary, and weeps, and groans, and is troubled in spirit? ”

“ Such, then, was the view of Justin respecting Christ and the Religion He established. Christ, the highest of supernatural beings, His Advent foretold by men with supernatural gifts to make known the future, coming to us in the highest of supernatural ways, and establishing a supernatural kingdom for bringing about such supernatural ends as the reconciliation of all men to God by His Sacrifice, the Resurrection of the body, and the subjugation of the wills of all men to the Will of God. ”

“ Now, if the miracles recorded by Augustine, or any of them, were true and real, the only inference is that the action of miraculous power continued in the Church to a far later date than some modern writers allow. If, on the contrary, they are false, then they take their place among hosts of other counterfeits of what is good and true. They no more go to prove the non-existence of the real miracles which they caricature, than any other counterfeit proves the non-existence of the thing of which it is the counterfeit. ”

“ The author cannot possibly mean that our ignorance is the anomaly, for throughout his whole work he assumes that ignorance is the rule in all matters, moral, physical, historical. The Fathers of the second century knew nothing of the Evangelists. St. John knows nothing of the writings of his brother Evangelists. They are all assumed to be ignorant of what they have not actually recorded. We know nothing of vital force, or physical force, or of a revelation. In fact, God Himself is the Unknowable. ”

“ If, from a certain moment, gravitation were to become the only force in the solar system, the earth would fall upon the surface of the sun, and be annihilated; but the earth continues in existence because of the action of another force—the projectile force—which so far counteracts the force of the sun's attraction, that the earth revolves around the sun instead of falling upon its surface. In this case the law of gravitation is not violated, or even suspended, but the force of gravitation is counteracted or modified by another force. ”

“ The reader may ask, "How is it possible, against such a mode of argument, to prove the genuineness or authenticity of any book, sacred or profane?" And, of course, it is not. Such a way of conducting a controversy seems absurd, but on the author's premises it is a necessity. He asserts the dogma that the Governor of the world cannot interfere by way of miracle. He has to meet the fact that the foremost religion of the world appeals to miracles, especially the miracle of the Resurrection of the Founder. ”

“ In the first place laws never act, i.e. of themselves. They have to be administered. Forces or powers act under the restraint of laws. I think I am right in saying that all physical laws, as distinguished from forces, are limitations of force. No man can conceive of a law acting by itself. There is no such thing, for instance, as a "Reign of Law." A power acts or, if you please, reigns, according to a law, but laws of themselves can do nothing. ”

“ God begat before all creatures, a Beginning, a certain rational Power from Himself, Who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos. ”

“ Here, then, we have a member of a sect more aggressive than any before known in the promulgation of its opinions, taking the lead in the teaching and defence of these opinions in a city to which the Jews of all nationalities resorted periodically to keep the great feasts. If the holding of any position would sharpen a man's natural intellect and give him a power over words, and a mental grasp of ideas to which in youth he had been a stranger, that position would be the leading one he held in the Church of such a city as Jerusalem. ”

“ I can firmly believe in the reality of some, whilst the greater part are doubtful, and many are wicked impostures. These last, of course, give occasion to the enemy to disparage the whole system of which they are assumed to be a part, but they tell against Christianity only in the same sense in which all tolerated falsehood or evil in the Church obscures its witness to those eternal truths of which it is "the pillar and the ground." ”

“ The law of gravitation is the limitation imposed upon that mysterious force which appears to reside in all matter, that it should attract all other matter. This power of attraction is called gravitation ”

“ If any one who professed to believe stopped short of joining this society, his testimony to miracles would have been valueless, for the miracles were wrought to convince him of the truth of a matter in which, if he believed, he was bound to profess his belief, and, if he did not, he laid himself open to the charge of not really believing the testimony. ”

“ All these the Great Creator and Lord of all has appointed to exist in peace and harmony; while He does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to His compassion through Jesus Christ our Lord. ”