{"1": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4343", "width": "3061", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.\\nCliap. Copyright N o. _\\nShelf \u00e2\u0080\u0094^V:\u00e2\u0080\u0094^ C.\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.", "height": "4204", "width": "2836", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4204", "width": "2836", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4335", "width": "2765", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "REASON AND FAITH", "height": "4368", "width": "2893", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "a 9. h-^i^", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "REASON\\nAND\\nFAITH\\nBY\\nREV. A. S/FISKE, D. D.\\nNON IN SOLO\\nPANE VIVIT HOMO\\nWASHINGTON, D. C.\\nTHE NEALE COMPANY\\n431 iiTH St. N. W.\\n1900\\n1", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0011.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "UbPRpy \u00c2\u00abf Congpoas\\nTwo Copies Received\\nOCT 22 1900\\nC\u00c2\u00abpynght entry\\nSECOND eopv.\\nOfiiv*f\u00c2\u00ab( to\\nORDti^ O A ISION,\\n-fs^\\nCopyright, 1900\\nBY\\nThe Neale Company", "height": "4286", "width": "2835", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0012.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "PREFATORY.\\nThis little volume is written with no theolog-\\nical or philosophic motive. It is largely but a\\nretrospect of the painful steps by which one soul\\nrose up out of angered and bitter depths to a\\nrational faith and peaceful standing. Many in\\nour time are dazed at the dark problems of this\\nworld, angered at its all-encompassing evil and\\ndoubting that it can be goodness which is throned\\nover such domains. For those in such hard and\\nhonest case the Author has profoundest sympathy.\\nIt is in the hope that this book may suggest steps\\ntowards a reasonable light to some in such dark-\\nness, that he ventures to offer it to the public.\\nHe will be amply rewarded if it may be as\\nFootprints on the sands of time,\\nFootprints that perhaps another,\\nSailing o er life s stormy main,\\nA forlorn and shipwrecked brother.\\nSeeing, may take heart again.\\nA. S. F.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0013.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4286", "width": "2835", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0014.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "CONTENTS\\nPAGE\\nI. Thk Atheistic Argument from the Exist-\\nence OF Evil 9\\nII. The Tkeistic SoIvUTion of the Probi^em\\nOF Eviiy IN the W0R1.D 22\\nIII. The Rationai. Ground of Christian v\\nFaith 36\\nIV. The M1RAC1.E Reasonable 55\\nV. The Justification of the Unjust 69\\nVI. The Wonder of the Word 85\\nVII. Why I Believe in God 102\\nVIII. A Conclusion of Sound Reason 115\\nIX. The Unity of Christ s People 127\\nX. The Way of Certitude 141\\nXI. Rkason and Faith 153\\nJ", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0015.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4286", "width": "2835", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0016.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "REASON AND FAITH\\nCHAPTER I\\nTHE ATHEISTIC ARGUMENT FROM THE EXIST-\\nENCE OF EVII.\\nThe whole Creation groaneth and travaileth in pain\\ntogether ujitilnow, St. Paul.\\nSin in the individual soul, cherished, persisted\\nin, practiced wantonly, is doubtless the keenest\\nincentive to the denial of the existence of God.\\nA holy, just, and almighty personal God, ruling\\nand judging the world, is an intolerable thought\\nto a consciously guilty violator of holy law and\\nwe can get rid of notions that breed horrors for\\nus. But it is not my purpose to deal thus sum-\\nmarily with this vast and sorrowful business.\\nWhatever the real motive to atheism, its argu-\\nment, its justification to reason, has ever been the\\nevil of the universe. Nor is it strange that its\\ncogency should be, to many, irresistible. The\\nfirst attack, and that of most sweeping power,\\nruns against the orthodox and historic proposition", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0017.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "lo Reason and Faith\\nof a unity of being and administration, through\\nthe universe and all stages of moral existence,\\nwhich carries evil in character and estate over\\ninto the after- worlds. The argument runs, let\\nus put it as strongly as may be, It is impos-\\nsible to believe, it is monstrous to affirm, that a\\ngood, wise and all-powerful God should create\\nfreely innumerable souls, endow them with fairly\\nlimitless capacity for happiness or misery, bestow\\nupon them the awful gift of immortality, and\\nthen doom them to an eternity of woe, utter and\\nremediless.\\nIf it be answered, He does not doom them\\nso He simply gives them the choice of courses\\nand lets them have their own way, the answer\\nis short and sharp But, though they have a\\ncertain freedom, it avails them little, for they come\\ninto the world by no choice of their own, with\\nsuch physical appetites and propensities that they\\ndo, without exception, run into evil. Nay, the\\nphysical impulses and the selfish side are so much\\nearlier in development than the intellectual or\\nthe moral that the selfish and the animal get fine\\nstart, controlling power, before reason and con-\\nscience come into the field at all and ever after\\nthey abide, a constant, besetting and inexpug-\\nnable energy in all men. Then the material and\\nearthly besetment is such as to be a perpetual\\nand overmastering pressure towards evil. The\\ncollocation of individuals into families, groups,\\nand races of kindred frailness and evil makes ex-\\ntrication from it so difficult as to be practically", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0018.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith ii\\nimpossible for even the stoutest souls. Orthodoxy\\nadmits that sort of impossibility. Moreover, sci-\\nentific and philosophic observation make it certain\\nthat heritage from ill generations gone starts us\\nwith such bias of constitutional structure as to\\ngive no man born of woman a fair chance. So\\nclear is this that all scientific, philosophic or theo-\\nlogical creeds have made this evil heritage the\\nvery basal point of their systems. The element\\nof personal freedom is so encumbered by these\\nsinister conditions as to be of very little account.\\nAs matter of fact, all races of men and all indi-\\nvidual souls are, consciously and demonstrably,\\ninvolved in evil and this evil is fatal, insomuch\\nthat all generations are merely born to die. All\\nthis, they say, is inconsistent with the idea of a\\nfree, good, all-wise and all-powerful God. Such\\na God would not, ought not, to have created such\\na race a race of immortal sinners, to sin and\\nsuffer on forever. Yet here such a race is. There\\ncan be, therefore, no such God. So runs the argu-\\nment.\\nOr, leaving the wider question of the eternities.\\nA good God of this world Look Johnstown\\nthere, a happy and prosperous community, over-\\nwhelmed by its flood. Those peaceful and indus-\\ntrious towns at the foot of one of Japan s glorious\\nmountains. In a moment the mountain topples\\nover upon them, destroying the villages and\\nthousands of lives. Behold Chicago on fire. See\\nthe Yellow River China s sorrow her muddy\\nwaters full of tens of thousands of floating, ghastly", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0019.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "12 Reason and Faith\\nbodies of dead men, women, and children See\\nmillions perishing of hunger in India and thou-\\nsands in Cuba. Remember Europe depopulated\\nby the Black Death. Hear the death shrieks\\nringing almost yet from all the fair valleys and\\nrugged mountains of Armenia. Witness the\\nfurious devastations of war, the countless dead,\\nthe agonies of the mutilated, the anguish of the\\nmillions in the homes out of which all the glory\\nand joy are gone. Watch the mother beside her\\ndarling who writhes and dies a slow death of\\nagony in her arms, the innocent prey of torment\\nfor which she or all the world can do nothing\\nYet this God could, by an easy act of will, have\\nprevented it all Nay, say this. A man takes\\nanother s life. He is a murderer, guilty of the\\nsupreme of ghastly crimes, is worthy of detesta-\\ntion and of death, is not fit to live. Yet, see the\\ngenerations die in pain, wasted by diseases offen-\\nsive and intolerable What of your God who\\nkills, by an ordinance that knows no exception,\\nevery man He has made He might have made\\nthem to live forever, or could just translate His\\nchildren, in the midst of smiles and praises, to\\ntheir happier climes, surrounding their depart-\\nures out of this to the worthier worlds with every\\ntoken of love, joy, and blessedness. But how He\\ndoes it! Your good God, indeed Answer,\\nif you will All this is the play of law.\\nWhat of that Does that better the case for\\nthe lawmaker What He does by law. He does\\nHimself. The builder of a bad law is worse than", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0020.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 13\\nthe doer of a bad deed. Your God is the respon-\\nsible author of all law, natural and moral, if there\\nbe such a God.\\nSay: There is much of beneficence, happi-\\nness, true weal in the universe, perhaps more\\nthan of evil. But that is impossible to prove,\\nthey answer. Taking into account the absolute\\nsway of death and the awful numbers who go out\\nof this world after wretched lives, enmeshed in\\nevil still, with fearful probabilities of evil futures,\\nit can not be shown that the good overbalances\\nthe evil.\\nBut why any evil at all Belittle it as you\\nmay, why this appalling sum of human suffering\\nand ill, w^hich can not be disputed or made less\\nthan frightful Why, if God be great and wise\\nand good\\nSo the tide of unbelieving challenge rolls on\\nand whelms the faith of multitudes in our day.\\nNot only do the IngersoUs exultingly cry, I\\ncould have done better, but throngs of humbler\\nand more reverent spirits cry out in agony of\\nmortal question. Multitudes doubt any God\\nwho do not deny Him. They shrink back and\\nsay, I don t know. They doubt, shrink and\\nsay nothing They live on, doing as best they\\ncan, to meet what may be, with such hope as is\\npossible in this deathful, rascal earth. What\\nanswer is to be made to this awful atheistic argu-\\nment, which does hold with a wide and ruinous\\ngrasp on the souls of many men of all classes in\\nour time It is an imperious question which must", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0021.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "14 Reason and Faith\\nfind answer, fair and frank and full, or ever the\\ntide be turned.\\nThe first answer attempted is that of Material-\\nistic Evolution the answer of allowance assent\\nto atheism. There is no God. There is, indeed,\\nno soul. Intellect, will, feeling, love, loyalty, pa-\\ntriotism, heroism, worship, are all merely the play\\nof the material atoms in the physical organism.\\nWhen the organism goes to the dust heap all is\\ngone. There is no good or evil, sin or holiness.\\nThere is no freedom of will. Everything is the\\nplay of automata, freak of fate. Matter, without\\nGod or soul, is merely playing out its nature.\\nTo be sure, there is sad puzzle as to how matter\\ngot its Nature, or got to be at all, whence its\\ninherent I^aw had origin. But that is of no\\nconsequence, since philosophy itself is but the\\ninexplicable fracas of the material atoms of the\\nbrain, and rational cause there is none, and reason\\nitself is but a phantasmal jargon of material stuiF\\nin transient and chance activity. All this, indeed,\\nso conflicts with the verdict of consciousness,\\nso contradicts the facts of conscience and the\\nphenomena of all society and life, so reduces to\\nblank absurdity all the modes of possible social\\nlaw, all the dicta of duty, reward and penalty,\\norder and government, as to make it a miracle\\nthat any sane soul should hold it. Nay, to hold\\nit, souls have to deny their own existence, leaving\\nthemselves without the faculties for either rational\\ndenial or afl rmation of anything making all the\\npompous seeming of reason a sheer diddle of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0022.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 15\\nautomata. To one s wonder, those who hold\\nthe doctrine are always talking and acting, most\\nabsurdly out of all logical consistency, about free-\\ndom and dignity and guilt and obligation, and\\nright and wrong, and blaming and ridiculing\\npeople whose atoms don t play the fool just like\\ntheir own. Let us laugh They have even held\\nthat the old notions of God and duty ought to be\\ntaught the average man for his restraint, as if\\nautomata could be taught as if there were any\\nought at all\\nA second answer has been made by affirmation\\nthat into this roil and moil of evil God has intro-\\nduced a power to reverse and overcome it. That\\nHe has by His Son made it possible, even easy,\\nfor every man to be rid of the disorders of his na-\\nture by consent to its sublime re-creation to be\\nrid of the curse of evil done, by repentance of it\\nand its free, full pardon to be lifted into such\\nright, loving, holy behavior and character as\\nshall fit him for, and assure him of, an immortalit}^\\nof blessedness. That, so far, is well, were that\\nthe universal destiny. But this scheme of the\\nGospel was so long in coming and is, yet, so far\\nfrom having come to all men so many refuse its\\ngrace when they do know it, and go on all the\\nworse for it it has, so, no advantage for so vast\\nnumbers of the human race so many have abso-\\nlutely no chance at it so many candid spirits are\\nperplexed by it can not see their way to it\\nit has visibly worked for relatively so few the\\ngreat salvation Let now the largest answer be", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0023.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "1 6 Reason and Faith\\nmade that is consistent with broadest orthodoxy,\\nnamely, that the vast multitudes who die in in-\\nfancy receive its benefits. Nay, let it be said that\\nthe general work of the Holy Spirit reaches all\\nraces, even outside the specific knowledge of the\\nHistoric Christ, so preparing a multitude, how-\\never great, to a grace by which they virtually\\nreceive Him, or do accept Him when, perhaps in\\nthe very hour of dying. He is revealed to them\\nand so enter into glory renewed souls say all\\nthat, and that so the great majority of the hu-\\nman race may have been saved. Say more, that\\nin the long future of a rapidly evangelizing world,\\nof a fully evangelized world, these majorities of\\nthe redeemed will sweep up to the huge out-\\nnumbering of all that ever have or ever shall miss\\nthe eternal salvation say all this, as orthodoxy\\ndoes dare to say it, still that awful remainder\\nthe whole of earthly suffering, the whole of the\\nafter-penalties of the unsaved Go outside of this\\northodox answer. Say, with the Universalist\\nAll men are to be saved at the long! last. Sin\\nis to be punished here and hereafter but all\\npunishment is remedial, and all will come home,\\nat last, to God in peace and glory. Still the\\nremainder! Earthly suffering in vast volume\\nand suffering beyond the grave, how long and\\nserious you know not Still the heart rises up in\\nthe face of Johnstown, beside the famine-stricken\\nmillions of India or the flooding woe of China s\\ndevouring river, or Armenian horrors, or Cuba s\\nstarving tens of thousands or beside the wan", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0024.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 17\\nface of the child in helpless agony, to demand,\\nHow is this, if God be almighty, if God be\\ngood Man ought to have been made, if made\\nat all, holy and happy here, and so forever to\\ndemonstrate the wisdom, power, and goodness of\\nhis Creator, nay, to prove His existence at all, or\\nto make it possible to believe in Him. Unbe-\\nlieving reason goes further and says, In the day\\nin which He made man, He, being infinite in\\nknowledge and in power, must have foreseen all\\nthe issues of His creative work. There was no\\ncompulsion upon Him to create. Freely, of His\\nown will, He created all, knowing all that should\\ncome of it, to every creature, as well as to the\\nwhole creation. In that executive act of creation,\\ntherefore, He did, in fact, determine all that was\\nto be. In that Divine decree, which is not aflfirmed\\nby revelation or in theology merely, but which is\\naxiomatic in any philosophic thought of an all-\\nknowing, creative God an absolute postulate of\\ntheistic thought, all must have been determined.\\nNo use to say that you believe in an all-knowing\\nand all-powerful God who, creating all things,\\ndid not know the issue of all things. That\\nwere to bar out from His infinitude the outcome\\nof His own act, to cut ofi* from His all-knowledge\\nthe whole future of His own creation. You can\\nnot save his goodness by denial of His Deity.\\nWhat a God you have, then, shorn, finite, bewil-\\ndered, overwhelmed It is mental imbecility to\\nsay that a God who knew all futures, all issues\\nof His creative act, then freely created, yet did", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0025.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "1 8 Reason and Faith\\nnot determine the things that were to be. It is\\ncontradiction in terms, impossible to reason. The\\ndecrees of God are necessary to the conception of\\nan inj nite creative intelligence. He knew what\\nwas to be It was to be then Who settled\\nthat it is to be Who but He who freely\\ncreated the thing that is to be The decree\\nof a foreknown creation was the decree of all that\\nwas to come of it, all that ever has come of it or\\never will.\\nCould we see, now, that all this creation were\\nrunning well, working the weal of the orders of\\nbeing which compose it, for the present and for\\nthe eternities, then we could have no trouble in\\nthe way of faith in God. Could we even see,\\nthrough the veils and mists of present evil, suf-\\nfering, sorrow, sin and death, surety of a to-mor-\\nrow of eternal weal for all, we could veil our faces\\nbefore the mystery of the present and wait the\\nunrolling of the scrolls of futurity, singing the\\nsongs of an assured faith and a grateful love.\\nTHAT we can not find in the revelation from\\nwhich we learn all that we know of the future,\\nmost of what we know of God, and all that we\\nknow to alleviate the conscious and the observed\\nmiseries of this human life and death. That\\nrevelation has doleful voices of foreboding.\\nThunders of judgment reverberate through its\\ncorridors. The woes of the present waken echoes\\nfrom within the barred gates of the grave. The\\nchances that lie over there are the very motive of\\nthe revelation. The analogies of the present life", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0026.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 19\\nmake fearsome suggestion of hurt for those who\\nventure, sinful and unrepentant, out of this into\\nthe worlds to come. If so much of sin and the\\nwoe of it, covering, blighting, cursing life be per-\\nmitted here, who is to say that, under the admin-\\nistration of the same God, there is to be none of\\nit in other and after worlds Who is to say that,\\nunder the fuller development of the evil that is\\nregnant in many souls to the last of the earthly\\nlife, there is not to come in the long hereafter the\\nfuller measure of ill which the fuller measure of\\ndeveloped desert must bring None has looked\\nfor ground of such affirmation in the Divine Word\\nmore eagerly than have I. None would rejoice\\nmore than I should such new light break forth of\\nit. It does not. That it did not come when I\\nwaited for it long, flung me once, not into denial\\nthat there was any God, but into an awful hatred\\nof Him. I could not deny Him but only His holi-\\nness and goodness. For, to deny His being, and\\nsee the universe shorn of all meaning, purpose or\\nreason, bow down to the mere grind of luck or\\nlaw that had no maker to see the races going to\\nthe dust heaps of the ages without significance\\nto hear mankind wailing its woes and raving its\\nwraths and mooning its inane laughters out upon\\nthe mere grind of a soulless fate or an idiotic\\nchance, which grinds us all to death and obliv-\\nion, O that were too ignoble, too horrible!\\nThat were worse than any hell To believe my-\\nself and man nothing to learn that honor, virtue,\\nheroism, worship all that makes for dignity and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0027.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "20 Reason a7td Faith\\nworth in man are phantasms, of no more qual-\\nity than the craving of hunger or of lust, or than\\nthe automatic convolutions of the worm beneath\\nyour foot, this is to deny every conscious fact of\\nyour own constitution and of the society of man,\\nis to degrade and deny yourself\\nBut here the evil is. Here are we in it, for in-\\ndubitable and awful fact To deny the existence\\nor the goodness of God abates no jot of the\\nhorror, but adds the element of an absolute hope-\\nlessness, a blank despair. If there be a God\\nwho can overrule, we find a ray of hope. If a\\nGod wise, mighty, and good, there may be com-\\nplete relief for reason and sanity. There must be\\nsuch a God or the universe is without reason,\\nan unmitigated terror, and the ending of it by\\nuniversal suicide and oblivion the only rational\\nhope. Our disbelievers cut us off from that by\\ntelling us that matter is eternal, was never created\\nand can never cease its cursed play. From this\\ngrind of aimless and hideous curse, I flee to God\\nas the only escape from madness\\nHere the evil is. We are all involved in it.\\nAnd here God is. There must, then, be some\\ntheory of the universe and the permission of evil\\nin it couvsistent with these facts, sinful and suffer-\\ning man and a holy, almighty, all-wise and all-\\nloving God. If this permitted evil shall prove,\\nafter all, but the mode and necessary process for\\nthe development of the loftiest of possible created\\nmoral Being and definitely designed to effect it, as\\nI suppose and will try to show, we can unite in", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0028.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 21\\nexultant Hallelujahs to His great and blessed\\nName. The evil and suffering of the worid shall\\nredound to the glory and joy both of God and\\nman.\\nAfter all, I can only close as I began. The\\ncommon, practical source of atheism is no specu-\\nlative diflSculty, but consciousness of guilt and\\nfree refusal to turn from it. That consciousness\\nraises the certainty that, with a holy God reign-\\ning and judging, it will go hard with guilt every-\\nwhere and forever. So men can and do fight\\ndown and out their own intuitive and rational\\ncertainty that there is such a God. In so far,\\natheism is sin. To live in God s world, the life\\nHe gives and sustains, as if there were no God, is\\neasily the supreme of all evils that are in the earth\\nand the source of all the curses of time and of\\neternity, occasion of all the wailings that have\\nbeen, are, or shall be.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0029.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "22 Reason and Faith\\nCHAPTKR II\\nTHE THKISTIC SOI.UTION OF THE PROBLEM OF\\nEVIIv IN THE WORI.D\\nWho are these which are arrayed in white robes and whence\\ncame they? These are they which came out of great tribula-\\ntion^ and have washed their robes and made them, white in the\\nblood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of\\nGod, and serve him day and night in His temple and He that\\nsitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hun-\\nger no more, neither thirst a^iy more: neither shall the sun\\nlight on them nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the\\nmidst of the throne shall feed t-hem, and shall lead them unto\\nliving fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears\\nfrom their eyes. St. John.\\nMany kindly and thoughtful souls, touched by\\nthe miseries of this present life, and haunted by\\nthe dread consequences of evil in the eternity that\\nis coming, wretchednesses which do visibly har-\\nrow with tribulations multitudes here, and which\\ndo, presumably, hang over the future of so many\\nof our fellows, are ever standing, perplexed and\\nbaffled, before the agonized question, Why is\\nevil permitted in the universe? Failing of sat-\\nisfactory answer, from the doors of that awful\\nproblem multitudes have been thrown into anger\\nagainst the very order of the world, into denial of\\nthe inspired Word, into refusal to believe even in\\nthe existence of any God at all. With Huxley,\\nthey say, Since thousands of times a minute, if\\nour ears were sharp enough, we should hear sighs", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0030.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 23\\nand groans of pain like those Dante heard at the\\ngates of hell, the world can not be governed by\\nwhat we call benevolence. At any rate, they\\nare tossed into angry rejection of the doctrine of\\nany persistence of evil and misery beyond the\\ngrave, or, like Tyndall, into a confused agnosti-\\ncism in the whole sphere of religious and, some-\\ntimes, of moral truth. The strain which this fact\\nof evil puts on the hearts of all men and upon the\\nfaith of many is almost or altogether too heavy\\nto be borne.\\nBut here the evil is past contradicting. Here\\nit has been from earliest history and reaching out\\ninto the future of this world, ravenous as ever,\\nand here it is as a foreboding of the eternities, in\\nspite of us. It must be consistent with some\\nscheme of the universe. What scheme, then A\\nchance universe Too much of plan, order, ad-\\njustment of means to ends for that, and too much,\\nI may say, of hopeless horror for any soul to let\\nit rest in that. Fate That answers no question,\\nfor a fate requires an arbiter of fates, a God A\\nmalignant Power, then, over and under all Too\\nmuch of beneficence, of wisdom, power, and skill\\ndirected to world s weal for that. The normal\\norder of Nature is for weal. On the whole, the\\nvast majority of men are glad that they live, have\\nlived, and are to live yet. After all, men do,\\nalmost universally, feel that Goodness is on the\\nthrone. Hardly a blasphemer in his wrath is\\nable to say, This Power of the universe is ma-\\nlignant, and the God is the Devil", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0031.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "24 Reason a?id Faiih\\nWell, then, is it a God who, having made the\\nworld and set it running, then retired from busi-\\nness, out of all its processes, and left it alone to\\nwork out its own destinies Hardly that. He\\ncould not do that. He could have had no right\\nto do that. He must, creating, have known all\\nthe issues of its evil could have had no right to set\\nit out and let it run its course of evil, unobstructed\\nand uncared for. On such terms, it is not irrev-\\nerent to say, He had no right to create at all. A\\nGod were that like the creator of the Frankenstein,\\nwith a horrible and uncontrollable thing for a\\nuniverse on His hapless hands to mock His pow-\\nerlessness or His heartless unconcern. Either the\\nCreator can interfere and will not, or He would\\ninterfere and can not. In either case He were\\nsomething else, and other, than our God.\\nWhat theory of the creation is left, then\\nOnly this, that a wise, good and almighty God,\\ncreating, set afoot the best, worthiest, loftiest\\nscheme of things that could be and presides over\\nit for its highest welfare. I can see no other\\nalternative. Still, this evil is here and often in-\\ntolerable and overwhelming,\\nI^et us go reverently back past the ages, beyond\\nthe stars, into the Eternity when none but God is.\\nHe alone fills immensity. But his soul stirs in\\ncreative purpose. Somewhat shall be beside him-\\nself. Somewhat, then, worthy of Himself, the\\nhighest and best then of creative possibilities.\\nThis work of a Creating God, what will it be\\nNo wonder of worlds beautiful as earth and stars", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0032.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "Reasoji and Faith 25\\nwill be lacking or sufl cient. They will come into\\nbeing and harmonious order. They will be filled\\nand clothed with every exquisite class of vegetable\\nlife, springing from every fitness of earth and soil\\nand water and air and light and heat for their\\ngrowth and splendor. But all is insentient still,\\nso not the highest. All good in its realm, but not\\nthe best that can be. Sensation, motion, intelli-\\ngence wait. So then the multiform and beautiful\\norders of animal life, exquisite in structure, keenly\\nalive in sensibility, amazing in power and variety\\nof function. A wonderful world of life teeming\\nin water and air and over all lands. Every mote\\nor mammoth contributes a definite sum of pleasure\\nto the volume of the enjoyment of the universe\\nand, so, a definite element of motive to the creative\\nplan of a God who loves happiness and creates it\\nand for it. But, after all, is this an object ample\\nenough to become THE motive in this immense\\nvisible creation Certainly not, if aught higher\\nbe possible. And higher there surely is. He\\nHimself is intelligence, free and holy. He is\\ngoodness, love, character. He is a free moral in-\\ntelligence, acting, that is, always under the clear\\ndiscrimination between right and wrong and al-\\nways with the right. Now the crown and motive\\nof this new and grand creation shall be a thing\\ncreated, indeed, and so finite, but created in His\\nown image a royal creature, with power to dis-\\ncriminate between right and wrong, like Himself,\\nunder all the obligations of righteousness, and\\nwith a free will to act in view of this eternal dis-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0033.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "26 Reason and Faith\\ntinction so in His Image. A creature this shall be\\nwith capacity of vast intelligence, with indefinite\\npossibilities of culture and growth, with keen sus-\\nceptibilities to pleasure and pain, all fitted for in-\\ndefinite development, with an eternity of time and\\na universe of opportunity for it. A creature, this,\\ncapable of all the grand passions of love and joy\\nand beauty and holiness of a grandeur in being\\nonly less than His own as the finite must be less\\nthan the infinite, and like himself in character.\\nA Being, a Character, grandly worthy of love,\\nfor society with Himself in interplay of holy sym-\\npathy and fellowship forever\\nAn exquisite machine is admirable, but can not\\nelicit respect or affection. We can not enter soci-\\nety or sympathy with it. A beautiful and grace-\\nful animal is admirable and you may come to love\\nit in a way, but it can never win your respect, your\\nlove in the higher human and moral ranges of it.\\nThe difficulty is that it can not achieve character,\\nhas no morality, is below the ranges of the higher\\nbeing. Character only can aspire to moral praise\\nor blame, to be respected, honored, loved. No\\ncreation, save one crowned with a race capable of\\ncharacter and of grandeur in it, would have been\\nat all worth a creator s while. That is what we\\nwant to find for object and sovereign in this crea-\\ntion, and that is what we find in man, a soul\\ncapable of character, and majesty in it, immortal\\nand equal to the fortunes of an infinite spiritual\\nuniverse. Character is the thing essential.\\nWhat, then, is essential to character? First,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0034.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 27\\nan everlasting and necessary distinction between\\nright and wrong, a distinction of contrast in the\\nvery nature of things. Second, an intelligence\\ncapable of discriminating between them. Third, a\\ndiscriminating intelligence which must ever recog-\\nnize its obligation to the right and the personal\\nguilt of wrong-doing. And, fourth, freedom,\\nunder that sense of obligation to choose at will\\nthe one or the other. These are the essentials to\\ncharacter-making. Without them, or either of\\nthem, character is impossible and morality a phan-\\ntasm. This style of being, given the law of growth,\\ntime and opportunity, will come to grandeurs\\nenough to account for and reward any lavishness\\nof expenditure on the creation of which it is the\\ncrown, and the scheme of things that shall accom-\\nmodate and develop it.\\nThis we should rationally forecast as the creative\\ndesign, and this, as matter of fact, we find.\\nEvil, then, in a moral universe Its possibility\\nis the forever-necessary condition of morality. A\\nmoral standard is a necessity, with moral con-\\ntrasts. A moral universe is inconceivable without\\nit. In order to moral character, there must for-\\never be an evil at hand which the will may choose\\nand follow if it so elect. A possible evil to be\\nwrought and a will forever free to work it, is the\\nabsolute condition of virtue. Annihilate that\\npossible evil and that free will and you sweep out\\nthe very idea of moral character. There is no\\nvirtue in, and no praise for, going one road when\\nyou must go and there is no second way to choose.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0035.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "28 Reason and Faith\\nThere is no character in doing the right when you\\nmust do something, and there is nothing wrong\\nwhich you can do. The praise and worth of\\ncharacter is that it sturdily takes the right when\\nit might have taken, and had mighty temptation\\nto take, the wrong. Liberty to, or prohibition of,\\nwrong are alike temptation to it.\\nGod, then, in order to character in His Universe,\\nmust leave every candidate for its honors or its\\nshame, free to choose either good or evil, free,\\neverywhere and forever. The great poet states\\nthe case with fairness and power.\\nGod made man just and right,\\nSufl cient to have stood, tho free to fall.\\nNot free, what proof could they have given sincere\\nOf true allegiance, constant faith, or love,\\nWhere only what they needs must do appeared,\\nNot what they would What praise could they receive\\nWhen Will and Reason of freedom both despoiled,\\nMade passive both, had served necessity,\\nNot Him He, else, must change\\nTheir nature and revoke the high decree.\\nUnchangeable, eternal, which ordained\\nTheir freedom.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Par. Lost, Book IH, 98.\\nThis line of thinking for me, long a restless\\nand angry wonderer at the gates of this mystery\\nof permitted evil, settled the question. If any\\nreal moral universe, then evil must be forever\\npossible to every moral being. If possible, and\\nthe freedom of action be real, then, in the multi-\\ntude of free souls, amidst the infinitely numerous\\ncontingencies which surround action, the actual\\ncommission of evil is nigh to an absolute certainty.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0036.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 29\\nIn the innumerable choices of free souls the tre-\\nmendous probability the moral certainty is\\nthat every one of them will, some time, fall into\\nevil.\\nBut then my soul fled, angered, backward into\\nraging protest God had no right to create a\\nmoral order at all, seeing it must involve this\\nfearful fact of actual and mortal evil Well,\\nthen, He is holy, wise, and good and did do it\\nThat, may be, ought to settle it, for faith.\\nBut it is too summary for any other state of mind.\\nIt will not answer at all for many eager and sensi-\\ntive spirits, in deep waters of doubt and trouble.\\nLet us try a further line of thinking, which has\\nbrought to one soul, at least, a final and a vast\\nrelief. If God intends the very highest order of\\nfinite being, how shall He get it? I suppose,\\nperhaps am bound to suppose, that the highest\\npossible work of mere creative power and wisdom\\nwas wrought for souls in physical conditions,\\nwhen he produced in the garden of the world a\\nmoral being stainless and equipped for eternal\\ndevelopment in intelligence, power and holiness.\\nCharacter, as we have seen, is the result of free\\nand intelligent choice between good and evil.\\nCharacter, in this sense, is no more a possibility\\nto creative power than is an after without a before,\\na two without a one, or a round square. A result\\nof experience can not be created without the ex-\\nperience, nor the result of choice without the\\nchoice, and character is a result of choice. What\\nGod did create was innocent souls, in exquisite", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0037.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "30 Reason and Faith\\nbodies, in a world fitted for their grand develop-\\nment, with all motive to it and immortality and\\nother worlds for eternal growth. But now in\\norder to character a free and established will,\\nto choose forever the thing that is right, that is,\\nand forever must be, left for the actor to develop.\\nIt can be created only by the action of the free\\nsoul. To establish such a will, such a charac-\\nter, free action is necessary. To establish it in\\nits most regnant and stalwart estate what can be\\nso sure a process as an observation, nay, as an\\nexperience, of the opposite effects of right and\\nwrong-doing and being For the secure suprem-\\nacy, through all worlds and eternities, of personal\\nrighteousness, what should be such buttress as\\nactual vision of the curse and ruin of evil What\\nsave the personal experience of its handling, the\\nsuffering of it, the mighty wrestle with it, and\\nthe final overcoming of it This should bring,\\nshall bring, must bring, the soul that has made\\nthe grand fight, and come through it into the\\nperfectly pure likeness of Christ, to a grandeur of\\nmoral estate inconceivable on any other terms\\nwhatever. It knows sin, has seen and felt the\\nhorrible curse of it, has taken up arms against it,\\nlaid hold of almighty grace to battle with it, has\\novercome, and stands now perfect and radiant in\\nthe Christ s likeness That is the highest type\\nof character the character our God is going to\\nestablish, is establishing, has been through the\\nages establishing at the top of the universe,\\nthrough experience of sin and victory over it.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0038.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "Reaso7i and Faith 31\\nThese redeemed shall judge the Angels The\\nsong of their final exultation is to be on so fine and\\nhigh a key of love and gratitude, of experienced\\ngrace and of holy joy, that none but they can ever\\nlearn it. None others have had the thrilling ex-\\nperience of which that ecstacy is born. For none\\nothers did the Christ even dare to die. Of none\\nothers is it written, God so loved For them\\nalone the Blood-washed was that manifesta-\\ntion, impossible save in sacrifice for the redemption\\nof sinners. For them the Robes of Whiteness, the\\nCrowns of Splendor surpassing, the very Likeness\\nof the Christ These, so redeemed, shall move\\namidst all the worlds forever without faltering\\nor falling. Adam, the innocent, fell. Sinless\\nangels lost their first estate when their trial came.\\nThese will never fail. They know sin and have\\nfound the august power now, serenely and joy-\\nfully to overcome it. The Jasper Walls and\\nPearly Gates and mighty towers of the Heavenly\\nCity are not the defense of Christ s redeemed be-\\ncause they shut them in from temptation and\\nwall the Devil out. Their eternal security is in\\ntheir armed and panoplied, their tried and per-\\nfected, character, as safely to be trusted now as\\nthe Christ s own, everywhere and forever.\\nIn the very structure of character, love, grati-\\ntude, sympathy and devotion are the most power-\\nful elements. In this Divine work of redemption\\nfrom sin our God reveals Himself to the universe\\nand to sinners in such grace and glory of love, in\\nsuch relations of Saviour, sacrifice, sufferer, helper,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0039.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "32 Reason and Faith\\nfriend, as can exist between Him and none but\\nsinners. They are brought nearer to His heart\\nby the Cross and agonies of their salvation and in\\nall the great history of their Sanctification than,\\nso far as we can know, other souls have ever\\ncome. By the awful depths of their experienced\\nruin and the magnificent heights of their achieved\\nredemption, by the agonies of the love that saved\\nthem, they stand forever in a gratitude far beyond\\nthat which the experience of any others, so far as\\nrevealed to us, can occasion. So we are permitted\\nto see how it is that of them alone it is said, they\\nare Sons of God, they are joint heirs with\\nChrist, are to sit down with him in his\\nThrone, are to be like Him when they see\\nHim as He is O beata culpa, quae mihi\\ntalent Salvatorem Meruisti! O happy sin\\nthat hath deserved for me such a Saviour\\nIt seems to me clear, then, that in free moral\\nbeing, coming out of sin through the strenuous\\nconflicts of Christ s Redemption, given to play of\\nthese supreme passions of love, gratitude, and\\ndevotion to Christ its personal Redeemer, exer-\\ncised by a new fervor of love to man and hearty\\nendeavor to save him into blessedness for this life\\nand the next, nourished by the sweet sympathies\\nof all souls passing through a like experience,\\nwalking in the personal fellowship of Jesus here\\nand given an Eternity for holy growth, we have\\nthe most perfect conceivable conditions of the\\nhighest possible finite grandeur the certainty of\\nthe being who shall best satisfy, delight and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0040.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "ReasoJi a7id Faith 33\\nglorify the God of Creation and Redemption. If\\nso, the problem of evil permitted in the world is\\nsolved, and the Creation was well worth while and\\nought to have been set afoot.\\nIf, now, our God is going to develop vast mul-\\ntitudes into this splendid and eternal grandeur\\nand felicity, as we do believe is to be the case with\\nthe immense majority of the human race, why,\\nthen, Glory be to His holy and blessed Name\\nI might stop here, but will not, for now you chal-\\nlenge me with the other side, the characters that\\ngo on in sin, unredeemed and irredeemable, that\\nawful other side It must still be said, they are\\nfree. They have their own way, make their\\nown choice. All of them, in Christendom at any\\nrate, might have been redeemed but would not.\\nAll of them outside of Christendom would doubt-\\nless have been saved had they but lived up to the\\nlight they had may, for aught we know, have\\nbeen redeemed in multitudes. O, the sheep which\\nChrist had not of this fold\\nAnother thing is to be said, needs saying with\\ninfinite emphasis, to all orthodoxy. No soul, not\\none, in Christendom or out of it, will ever get in\\nany eternity one hair s breadth, or one feather s\\nweight of evil, beyond that which he actually de-\\nserves, after every apologetic circumstance is\\ngiven its full, generous allowance. Not one un-\\nfair pang will come to any unsaved soul through\\nthe eternities not one which itself, or the uni-\\nverse of just and gentle spirits will think to be\\nundue. There will be no accusations of God s", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0041.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "34 Reason and Faith\\njustice or goodness even among the unsaved.\\nNot one of all souls would choose to have its free\\nwill, and, so, its moral being annihilated. Every\\nman could have been saved if he would, and no\\nman wants to be saved against his will. No man\\nanywhere fails of salvation unless he freely chooses\\nrecognized sin and persistently follows it. None is\\nlost through honest mistake or misunderstanding.\\nThat in a moral universe free evil doing should\\nnot entail sorrowful consequence, were both ab-\\nsurdity and outrage, upturning the moral system,\\ndefeating and abolishing it. Evil consequence\\nmust beset free evil character everywhere and al-\\nways, so long as that character persists forever\\nif that character be finally fixed. That would\\nseem an axiom to sane minds. Unless somebody\\ncan prove for us a redemption of character at or\\nafter death, which proof is thus far sought in vain,\\nthen the presumption must be that evil experiences\\npursue evil character hereafter, as here, through\\nthe forever of evil doing and evil being. But, as\\nI have said, this pursuit will never be for any soul\\narbitrary, vindictive, nor sharper than absolute\\ndesert, with all mitigating conditions taken into\\nfull account. The lost estate of one soul will be\\na very different thing from that of another, ac-\\ncording to the just measure of differing deserts.\\nOne thing more. That in a world where every-\\nthing is tainted with wanton sin, anything should\\nbe wholly free from the pain which is the trail of\\nthe serpent, were a thing inconceivable to sanity.\\nThat even the innocent should suffer by conse-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0042.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 35\\nquence of the sins of the guilty in this world of\\nclose-knitted society is inevitable, and only a part\\nof the wide experience of the horrible nature,\\nheritage, and contagion of evil which must be re-\\nlied on to teach the supreme abhorrence of it and\\nnerve to bravest fight against it. If, now, our\\nGod so adjusts things that for every redeemed\\nsoul and every innocent suflFerer there shall come\\nample compensation for all of earthly pain and\\nsorrow in the added glories of the eternal future,\\nthere can be lodged against him no complaint.\\nOf that added weight of glory there is full\\npromise in the Gospel of our Blessed God.\\nFinally, here the sin and sorrows are. Con-\\ncerning them but the four theories already men-\\ntioned are possible, Chance Malignant Deity\\na God fallen asleep, careless or unable or the\\nProvidence of a Benignant Heavenly Father, who,\\nthrough all mystery and darkness, is working all\\nthings together, from the dawn of creation to\\nhigh noon of the heavenly splendor, for the\\nhighest weal of His creatures. One or other of\\nthese theories you must take. As for me, the\\nlast is mine It only is consistent, as I see things,\\nwith either reason or morality, with revelation or\\nrational theism. To take either of the other no-\\ntions ought to drive a man to the mad-house.\\nIn this you shall find peaceful and adoring rest of\\nreason and of faith, a blest harmony of the\\nuniverse, yourself and God. Into that holy peace\\nmay we all enter and in it abide", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0043.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "36 Reason and Faith\\nCHAPTER III\\nTHK RATIONAI, GROUND OF CHRISTIAN FAITH\\nBe ready always, to give an answer to every man\\nthat asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.\\nSt. Peter.\\nBelieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be\\nsaved. Sr. lyUKK.\\nBkliKVK The Gospel magnifies faith. Its\\nsalvation is by faith. This Christian believing is\\noften taunted as blind, unreasoning. Denial\\nof the Christian faith likes to st34e itself ration-\\nalism. Disbelievers boast themselves free-\\nthinkers, as if we were cut off from free thinking\\nand they had a monopoly of it. That is voluble\\nanti-Christ slander, despite any action of any\\necclesiastical assemblies of this or any age\\nslander to be resented and resisted, indicted for\\npublic judgment and mulcted in damages. We\\ndeclare that we are, and ever will be, free-thinkers,\\nrationalists par-eminence. The corner-stone of\\nProtestantism is its appeal to private judgment,\\nto individual reason. Its great battles are all\\nfought out on that line, through the summers and\\nwinters of the centuries, are, have been, are to be.\\nIts literatures are a vast and mighty argumenta-\\ntion. Its name and history are protest against\\nprescription of faith or proscription of free\\nthought. The old injunction, Prove all things,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0044.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 37\\nhold fast to that which is good/ i. e., that which\\nstands the test of keen sifting, was laid on the\\nworld, not by the new disbelievers, but by the\\nGreat Apostle of the most rugged faith. It has\\nbeen Protestant law and practice from the first.\\nHold fast in faith and firm in behavior, that which\\nweathers all stress of crucial question Be able\\nand be ready to make fair answer of reason for\\nyour faith to every man that challenges, is the\\nimmemorial order of the Gospel.\\nFaith is not credulity the acceptance of a\\nthing without or contrary to reason. Processes\\nof reason reach it and substructures of reason sus-\\ntain it. Faith is built on rational induction from\\nwhat seem to the believer well-attested facts.\\nSome things for foundations we know by con-\\nsciousness, indisputably. Some we take for fun-\\ndamental on testimony, reasonably sifted. Others\\nwe reason out, logically, from established data,\\nand so put into the structure of our vital faiths.\\nBut every Christian faith has been reached and\\nheld by title of the most deliberate and thorough\\nprocesses of reasoning which its holders could\\nmaster, and has been championed by the learning\\nand argument of the ages. Nothing has been\\ntaken for granted. How could it have been We\\nhave staked our highest, uttermost, present and\\neternal, all on these issues of faith. Men, races,\\nnations, and those most forward in intelligence,\\nenterprise, science, philosophy, and soundness of\\nmental and moral fiber, in genuine nobleness of\\nmanful quality, in obedience to these faiths", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0045.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "38 Reason and Faith\\nhave laid aside their venerable past, the traditions\\nof a revered antiquity, their personal, social, moral\\nand national customs. They have done it, not\\nin masses and, so, easily, as waters in a body when\\nthe crevasse opens but one by one, each soul for\\nitself, shaking oflF its old habits, cutting loose\\nfrom its past, and from its present environments.\\nThey have done it often with fierce inward con-\\nflicts. Often through bitter outward opposition,\\nthrough scorn and contempt and outcasting from\\ncircles of kindred and friends, through hatred,\\nmalignity and deadly persecution have they come\\nto their new faith and obedience. No man can\\npicture, can conceive, the crucifixions of inward\\nagony and outward conflict which have marked\\nwith bloody sweat these conversions from the old\\nheathenisms to the new faiths, all along the story\\nof Christian progress. Millions have ventured,\\nhave suffered, loss of country, home, estate, good\\nname, life itself through horrors of martyrdom\\nfor their new believing. Now face it Have\\nthese best and noblest races, these purest and\\nwisest of men, done all this, endured all this,\\nthink you, without the deepest and most intense\\nexercise of reason concerning the facts of their\\nfaith It is credulous, vicious, infamous outrage\\non all that is humanly decent to affirm it. It is\\nto profane the graves and deride the memories of\\nthe generations of our great ancestry, to blaspheme\\nthe most heroic movements of the mind and heart\\nof the human race to do that. Vilifiers, have done\\nHold your sacriligious tongues from defaming the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0046.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "Reason ajid Faith 39\\nholy dead who have agonized the world up to its\\nhigh estate and the holy living who are yet press-\\ning it up to loftier triumphs in the heroisms of a\\nfaith born of purest reason\\nWhy, to-day it costs to turn from worldly, sen-\\nsuous or selfish living, from some scientific, lit-\\nerary, or social ambition to a simple, loyal obedi-\\nence to Jesus of Nazareth. Costs fight with self,\\nconflicts of soul and a world of oppositions and\\nfinger pointings from without. Let some man of\\nthe world go down, to-day, to his club and tell\\nthem that he is seeking the pardon of his sins and\\nturning to Christ his Saviour. Will it not cost\\nIt were hero-work Would any venture that\\nsave in obedience to the profoundest rational con-\\nviction I trow not Let some skeptic go to his\\nskeptical club with such an announcement.\\nCould he do it without the power behind him of a\\nmighty conviction of the verity of the despised\\nfaith I suspect that Charles Reed never did an-\\nother thing half so heroic, or that cost him half so\\nmuch, as the avowal of his discipleship at the feet\\nof Jesus. Ouida was more a heroine turning\\nfrom her sensational fiction to the bosom of the\\nChurch of Christ than ever she pictured in her\\nstories.\\nLet a young man here in study, his ambitions\\nand enthusiasms kindled for, say, the bar, who\\nhas struggled through poverty and hardness\\nunder that inspiration, an avowed enemy of the\\nGospel let him with the well-earned honors of\\nscholarship, and the rainbows of great expecta-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0047.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "40 Reason a7id Faith\\ntion ahead, let him now turn from it all and give\\nhimself to a lowly ministry in Jesus name. Has\\nhe done it without the most thorough conviction\\nof his reason as to the substantial verities of the\\nhumble vocation to which he responds To ask\\nis to answer such a question\\nAugustine and lyUther and Calvin and Wesley\\nand Edwards and Mark Hopkins, Bushnell and\\nPark and Storrs and John Hall the Alexanders\\nand Hodges and McCosh, Dawson and Dana and\\nHenry Daniel Webster and Gladstone and Bis-\\nmarck, all the hosts who have been and are\\nstaking their present and eternal all on the\\nFaith, are they doing it without ground of\\nreason Intellectual giants, some of them heroes\\nof moral victory, not fools any of them, honest to\\nthe very core of their grand natures and princes\\nin the realm of reason, it is stupidity to charge\\nsuch men with a faith that is blind and unreason-\\ning. Earth s greatest have deliberately, after\\nstruggle and hard battle of reasons, given them-\\nselves to faith, in the full exercise of all their\\nnoblest faculties. We know it by their testimo-\\nnies, by their lives and by the monuments of\\nChristian literature, science, art, poetry, philoso-\\nphy and theology which they have builded or are\\nyet rearing with unabated ardor and splendor of\\ngenius. Friends, it is ludicrous for the pigmies\\nto stand down there charging these giants, from\\nPaul to Edwards, these hosts of earth s intellect-\\nual princes and potentates with an unreasoning\\nfaith. Reason against reason, brain against brain,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0048.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 41\\nfaith has no terror of relative measure or weight\\nwith modern agnosticism or infidelity. Let your\\nflippant champion of modern agnosticism put him-\\nself in the brain scales against John Calvin, Bishop\\nButler, Jonathan Edwards or Daniel Webster\\nFor struggle, cost, sacrifice, in embracing and\\nmaintaining their faith and in forwarding it\\nthrough the earth, let champions of something\\nelse in this w^orld stand out for comparison in\\nstalwart and rational honesty. Let them show\\nthe work the}^ have done for institutions of learn-\\ning and philanthropy, for the intellectual develop-\\nment of the race, beside that which the devout\\nbelievers have been and still are doing in these\\nlines By their works 3^e shall know them.\\nWe, of the Christ s part, in this w^orld, believe\\nby grace of what seem to us most large and ample\\nreasons, after fullest exercise of all our rational\\nforces. The free-thinkers are, by vast odds, its\\nChristians, not its atheists or agnostics. Outcry\\nagainst dogma What, then, is dogma\\nDogma is what seems true. Faiths, dogmas,\\nmust govern every man do absolutely and must\\nforever control every free and rational act of life.\\nSome dogma is the spring of every voluntary\\nmovement. Until a man believes something he\\nremains inactive, can onh^ act, rationally, on the\\nmotive of some faith. The dogma that this or\\nthat will make money governs every man s busi-\\nness that this or that will give pleasure rules the\\npleasure seekers that this or that will lead to\\npower commands the ambitious. The philan-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0049.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "42 Reason and Faith\\nthropist or reformer holds the dogma that such\\na course will help man, and so acts. Every\\nman has his dogma his creed and lives by it.\\nThe dogma that beef gives strength puts it on the\\nbreakfast table that exercise is hygienic wisdom,\\nsets men astir that home is blessedness, builds\\nit that fire warms, sets hearths ablaze, and so on\\neverywhere.\\nMan, uncertain about a thing, in the condition\\nof agnosticism, sits still acts only when he be-\\nlieves. No agnostic speaks or acts till he becomes\\na positive believer in his agnostic dogma. Other-\\nwise he is a hypocritical impostor. Faith only is\\nthe actor, does all, literally all, that is done, and\\ninto these working faiths of all sorts goes the best\\nreason of every sane human being. Into the\\nfaith that shall get him dollars or pleasure or re-\\npute goes so much of studious reason as the case\\ncalls for, a moment to this, an hour to that more\\nserious thing, a week or month or year of deep\\nenquiry to that, as the magnitude of the interest\\nor the intricacy of the elements of the problem\\nmay require. Into the settlement of those august\\nfaiths on which eternities depend, character, des-\\ntinies through immortal careers into that work\\ndo go, as ought to go, the deepest and most thor-\\nough labors of which human reason is capable.\\nHe blasphemes man who denies that. All save\\nthe mad, the reckless, the trifling, have done, are\\ndoing, and ever will do that. You, out of Christ,\\nfailing to do that, are missing the finest exercise\\nof your intellectual faculties, living frivolously,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0050.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 43\\nin an awful presumption unworthy of any reason-\\nable immortal. It is fair to speak of such as\\nthoughtless sinners, because they flee thought\\non the themes most serious and imminent, on\\nwhich it is their highest moral obligation to think\\nand act. To let these things of religion go by de-\\nfault, unconsidered, or with a mere casual atten-\\ntion, is not frivolity alone, it is guilt towards not\\nGod only, but towards man as well. God has\\nconstructed you and your fellows for these prob-\\nlems and bidden you and them, on your and\\ntheir loyalty and eternal felicity, to consider and\\nframe life upon them. Neither you nor I have\\nany right to shove them aside for a day\\nNow, for ground work of believing in these\\nmatters, whither does reason turn\\nI. We rationally consider the fact of the prac-\\ntically universal and so intuitive apprehension\\nof some God. Our own consciousness and the\\ntestimonies of mankind settle it that there is such\\na practically universal apprehension. Reason\\nconcludes that such an aptitude, such an intuition,\\nof the soul of man can not be illusive. Lungs\\npresuppose air fins, water feet, solid ground for\\nstanding eyes, light!; ears, sound knowing fac-\\nulties, objects of knowledge affections, objects of\\naffection moral faculties, a real distinction be-\\ntween right and wrong instincts of worship, an\\nobject of worship apprehension of God, God\\nSo, by valid yrocess of scientific reason our race-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0051.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "44 Reason and Faith\\nintuitions of God argue the fact of God. At the\\nvery least, this universal intuition must remove\\nall antecedent improbabilities of His existence.\\nII. Thinking on. Effect presupposes cause\\ncontrivances, a contriver design, a designer\\nadaptation of means to ends, an adapter. A\\nworld is here full of effects, contrivances, adapta-\\ntions endless in variety, wonderful in ingenuity,\\non scales of infinite minuteness and astounding\\nvastness, of such sort as to evidence wisdom,\\npower, and goodness past any limits we can set.\\nThese facts set reason to its task. Science pushes\\nback so far as it can go and finds there a force\\nuniversal and always acting behind every phenom-\\nenon of the universe. Back of the Moneron\\nis the source of its enduement with the potenti-\\nalities of life. Reason takes these things, puts\\nthem together and says, intelligence, will, a\\npower supreme, goodness unspeakable are mani-\\nfest in all the works of this great cause. A per-\\nson, therefore He, practically infinite, since at\\nleast beyond our power to set, or to conceive. His\\nlimitations. As He works through all the realms\\nof the one system of the visible universe, through\\nall historic spaces and before all organized\\nmatter, then practically infinite and eternal is\\nHe. This faith of the one infinite, eternal, per-\\nsonal God is the only rational, working hypoth-\\nesis of the universe. So, of best reason, theism,\\nmonotheism, is the faith of all the civilized world,\\nsave a mere handful of materialists, who have not,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0052.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 45\\neven in science, a single great name* to back\\ntheir credulity, their incredible dogma of denial\\nof God, their dogma about which they are more\\ntruculent and intolerant than any Christian believ-\\ner is about any doctrine of the Christian faith\\nIII. Then Reason says, All these human in-\\ntelligences are equipped with moral sense. A\\nuniversal tendency exists to range all voluntary\\naction in one of the two categories, as right or\\nwrong. This impulse is found to serve a wide\\nand noble range of practical purposes in life, set\\neven to command all life. The Creator, then,\\nmust have planted that impulse in view of some\\nreal and eternal discrimination between things\\ngood and evil. We conclude, then, rationally,\\nthat the moral quality of righteousness must be\\nregnant in Him who framed a universe in which\\nthe moral discrimination is supreme.\\nIV. Thinking on, still freely, we find the\\nconsciousness of wrong done to bring a certain\\ntrembling for consequences through all souls, an\\napprehension of retributive results for evil. We\\nfind that everywhere, in all grades of intelligence\\nor lack of it and in all ages. Some law, then,\\ngraven by the creative Law-giver, upon the uni-\\nversal soul is discovered. This apprehension\\nlooks on to the end of life, the moment of dying,\\nwith a strange and universal anxiet}^, with the\\nThere are agnostics enough, but atheists, who are they", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0053.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "46 Reason and Faith\\ninstinct of an afterwards of an immortality and\\nawards beyond the graves. This tremulousness\\nof conscious guilt runs through all and to all sorts\\nof penance, in agony and costly gift, in sacrifice\\nwith blood, and is yet unsatisfied. All this argues\\nimmortality and retributive futures.\\nV. Reason surveys this all, wonders if a good\\nGod will leave his creatures in such fears, so great\\ntravail, so deep a darkness, to die in it without\\nletting in upon them some light, and concludes\\nthat He will, somewhere and somehow, bring to\\nman the light and power to meet his need and\\nrelieve his anxious agonies.\\nVI. Looking, thinking, freely j^et, lo we find\\nwhat claims to be express revelation from God of\\nHimself, and of man s relations to Him of his\\nduties, sins and great salvations a written Word,\\ncontaining just such a figure of God, in all natu-\\nral and moral qualities, as the creation has led\\nreason to forecast a law precisely such as from\\nthe conscience and of consciousness we ought to\\nexpect a law of absolute righteousness contain-\\ning a record of man s origin and history on the\\nearth, such as, from its known constitution and\\nhistoric conditions, it ought to be giving account\\nof the origin of the visible universe in strange\\naccord with all that is scientifically believed about\\nit to-day announcing immortality for the soul in\\naccord with the conclusion of uninspired reason\\ndealing with the problems of sin and penalty", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0054.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 47\\nand possible redemption in the very way which\\nwe ought to expect from the study of the soul\\nitself and of God, and ofiFering to man the fruition\\nof his highest hopes both for character and felicity\\nand showing him how he may escape both sin\\nand its evil consequences. Now, given a rational\\nbasis, such as we have found already, for any no-\\ntion of God, as a Person, a moral Being, good and\\nresponsible for a moral universe, I affirm that it\\nis supremely rational to expect such a revelation\\nof Himself and His will and the modes of His\\ngovernment, with its rewards and penalties. Such\\na revelation, by the highest exercise of reason,\\nought to be anticipated. Lo, here it is The\\nonly one which the civilized world feels at all to\\nanswer the rational requirements. Every pre-\\nsumption of reason is in its favor.\\nVII. Reason, then, goes to weigh its specific\\nevidences. Is it a genuine thing from God Of\\ncourse I can go into no detail of so vast a matter\\nhere, nor need I, since I am but repelling the\\ncharge that our faith is blind and unreasoning.\\nThese laborious studies of evidence have occupied\\nthe labors of multitudes of earth s greatest, and\\ntheir published w^orks crowd the libraries of the\\nwhole world. I only refer to the simplest proof.\\nOn the first page of the Book is an account of the\\ncreative ages, their order and process. The ac-\\ncount w^as held absurd, as a literal record, until\\nthe riper science of the last half century discovered\\nwith wonder and with awe that it is a more accu-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0055.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "48 Reason and Faith\\nrate and literal epitome of what really was the\\ncreative process and order than can this day be\\ngiven, in an equal number of words, by any mortal\\nin any language now used by the human race.\\nWho gave that hidden knowledge of what God\\ndid when none but God was Who gave it to the\\ndarkness of thirty centuries ago, to be ridiculed,\\nthe scoffer s joy, till rediscovered during our own\\nday We may stand there on the first paragraphs\\nof the Bible and challenge mankind to account for\\nthat, and be content to let the battle of reason be\\nfought out on that alone. But reason finds, on\\nevery page of the Book, the God who is what, from\\nNature, He ought to be, but who never was nor\\ncould have been conceived by man else than by\\nthis revelation of Him a God transcendently at\\nodds with all the gods men have invented. It\\nfinds there records of the history of man which\\ncould not have been manufactured and put on him\\nas true without having been his actual experience,\\nand which, if true, are at every point the work of\\nDivine interposition records which account for\\nman as we find him in all historic ages records\\nstrangely verified by all modern research amidst\\nthe buried monuments of long-extinct civiliza-\\ntions. It finds there figures of men who never\\ncould have been conceived unless they had lived\\nand whose lives are continually and visibly\\nhandled of God. It finds there miracle, as it\\nIt matters not to this statement that specialists claim a certain\\namount of overlapping of one stage of creative process upon another.\\nThe order, as a whole, is correct.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0056.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 49\\nought to and must, if God would verify his rev-\\nelation of Himself to reason, in those or any ages,\\nor manifest himself for righteousness in men. It\\nfinds there unmistakable and voluminous and\\nminutely detailed prophecy of remote and improb-\\nable futures, which history has most lucidly and\\nloyally fulfilled.\\nIt finds there, as fulfillment of prophecy, as\\nculmination of all ritual observance and aim of\\nforegoing history, a sublime Figure, a man,\\noutcome neither of any Jewish nor Gentile civil-\\nization or ideal, opposite to all, yet summarizing\\nall. He was as much a Jew as Saul of Tarsus, as\\nmuch a Roman as a Jew, as much a modern as\\nan ancient, as good a Chinaman as Confucius,\\nas good an Englishman as Gladstone, as fine an\\nAmerican as any man who walks the streets of\\nWashington to-day. His story is as compelling\\nin one language as another and his discourses and\\nprecepts and parables are as effective in one con-\\ntinent and one civilization as in any other. This\\nFigure is of the Universal Man, the Ideal, the\\nSpotless, the Perfect Man the only good man\\nwithout confession and repentance of sin in all\\nhistory. He brought in a new scheme of truth,\\nyet but the old interpreted; a new scheme of\\nsalvation, yet but the old consummated. He es-\\ntablished a wholly unexpected and inconceivable\\nstyle of kingdom, which is yet but the old king-\\ndom with a new spirit. He set forth a wholly\\nunique standard of character, which was yet but\\nthe fulness of the ancient type. He showed a", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0057.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "50 Reason a?id Faith\\nnew face of God which yet had been ever shin-\\ning through the veil of the old dispensation.\\nThis Man overthrew all the ideals of His own\\nor of any older time, and all the ancient inter-\\npretations of Him who was to come, yet most\\nliterally and radiantly fulfilled them all. He\\ncast down all former ideals of salvation, yet\\nbrought in the fulness of all the salvations that\\nhad been foretold. That Figure the majestic,\\nbeautiful, and sinless Christ, who must have come\\nfrom God, since no man was ever like Him. Who\\nmust have lived, since no man of His or any time,\\nmuch less the four simple, untaught fishermen\\nwho portrayed Him, could have invented Him.\\nThat Figure is, after all, the Miracle of the Book.\\nIf Jesus Christ is a man,\\nAnd only a Man, I say\\nThat of all mankind I cleave to Him,\\nAnd to Him will I cleave alway.\\nIf Jesus is a God,\\nAnd the only God, I swear\\nI will follow Him through heaven and hell,\\nThe earth, the sea and the air.\\nSo a modern poet sings.\\nWendell Phillips declares, Christ is marvelous,\\nwonderful He was himself a miracle. The\\nmiracles he wrought are nothing to the miracle\\nhe was, if at such an era and in such a condition\\nof the world he invented Christianity. I can not\\nbe so credulous as to believe that any man in-\\nvented Christianity.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0058.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 51\\nHere is the Book, written by forty men in dis-\\ntant ages, men of varied cultures or of none, in\\nmany stations, with many different immediate\\naims, in all varieties of literary style, yet one\\nBook, all its parts converging to one end, and\\nthat an end undreamed of by any of its writers,\\neach part harmoniously forwarding the great\\nwhole a book born in dark times, yet supreme\\nand commanding through ages of earth s best\\nlight, commanding more and more in these latest\\ntimes. Its records scholarship finds genuine, what-\\never the age in which they were produced. Par-\\nallel records of secular history but confirm them.\\nBuried monuments of antiquity rise from their\\nsleep of ages to buttress the Word. No attack\\nupon its genuineness or its general historic cor-\\nrectness has yet been successful, though a world\\nof sagacious and pugnacious learning and\\nignorance has been brought to bear upon it.\\nChampions of Christian faith eagerly covet thor-\\nough investigation, and every investigation makes\\ndearer and more impregnable their fortress.\\nFalse interpretations are getting blown into the\\nair; unwarranted dates and names are being\\neliminated, perhaps. But this is only the destruc-\\ntion of the human masonries and the reduction of\\nthe fortress to its original impregnable sufficiency\\nas the infallible guide of religious faith and prac-\\ntice. In that reduction all stout defenders rejoice.\\nWhen all the mere human masonries are swept\\naway there will be left all that is precious to the\\nsoul and nothing which the artilleries of modern", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0059.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "52 Reason and Faith\\ncritical warfare can in the least affect. Using\\nthen, and freely, profoundest reason on all these\\nthings, every demand is met, and we conclude,\\nThis is, indeed, a very revelation of God and\\nHis will for man.\\nVIII. But this is not all. We call men to the\\nproof of actual experiment. The Gospel and its\\nBook propose to handle precisely the things we\\nought to expect, God, Man, Sin, Righteousness,\\nImmortalities, Redemption. Whence came I\\nWhither go? How be clear of my trembling\\nconsciousness of guilt? How escape the perdi-\\ntions of my sin How come to holiness and\\nbliss These are the vital questions which must\\nhave answer before the bar of reason. Exact and\\nmost reasonable answer comes from this source,\\nand from this alone, from no other under the whole\\nheaven. Here we have a doctrine of God, of man,\\nof immortality of sin, and of redemption from it.\\nIn Christ the promise is of pardon for all the past\\non the most rational condition of a true and real\\nrepentance which breaks the guilty identity of\\nthe old-time sinner. In Him we are to find, on\\npurely rational terms, the renewal of the sur-\\nrendered soul its re-creation into righteousness\\nand true holiness. The whole nature is now\\ndominated by holiness and the love of it, by love\\nof God in the wonderful Christ, and for all fellow\\nmen, and the entire being is given up to the\\nmighty handling and guidance of the Holy Spirit.\\nThese are exactly the things which reason would", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0060.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 53\\nforecast as necessary to perfect man, justify the\\nuniverse and glorify its Creator. Proof? Well,\\nthen, it has been tried. Tried for centuries.\\nWherever tried, under whatever conditions, the\\nnations have leaped into new life, have come up\\ninto liberty and grandeur and command in the\\nworld s affairs. The races which have tested its\\nredemption are those which to-day wear the crown\\nof the world s hope and kingship of its future.\\nChristendom is Civilization Consider individ-\\nual lives. Souls by the myriad have, as matter\\nof scientific fact, laid aside their old sins, found\\nconscious pardon, rest, peace, holiness found in\\nChrist all that is promised have gone through\\nlong lives in this world s eye-sight, exulting in\\nevery sweet grace and heavenly beauty of char-\\nacter and behavior have grown marvelouslj^ like\\ntheir Lord and died at the last in triumph, visibly\\nfitted for the felicities of the Christian s Heaven.\\nMillions have taken the straight, short cut to\\ndemonstration of the Gospel s verity by trying it.\\nA proof which I affirm to be supremely satisfac-\\ntory to any sane reason and which no processes of\\nmere argumentation can undermine. To satis-\\nfaction of candid reason you can come on the\\nbasis of mere argument. To verification of the\\nabstract reasoning you can come by trying the\\nexperiment of Christ s grace for yourself. Reas-\\nons are good, commanding, irrefragable. But\\nreasons are good for nothing unless you act on\\nthem. Believe, not about the Lord Jesus Christ,\\nbut believe on Him. We offer you the firmest", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0061.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "54 Reason and Faith\\nground of reason inexpugnable and then propose\\nthe instant demonstration of personal experiment.\\nWe rest the case with this two-fold challenge.\\nTry it Consciousness shall justify reason and\\nour faith shall stand in the triumphant certainty\\nof personal experience, against which all the\\npowers of earth and hell can not prevail, before\\nwhich the gates of heaven shall swing open for\\neternal joy Be that your wisdom and your fe-\\nlicity Yours and mine", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0062.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 55\\nCHAPTER IV\\nTHK MIRACIvK RKASONABI^K\\nGo and show John again those things which ye do hear\\nand jf^.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Jesus the Christ.\\nAs WK have already seen, the existence of evil\\nin the world, with its observed results and its\\nrevealed consequences, has been the most prolific\\nsource of skepticism concerning the existence of a\\npersonal and good God. This doubt of the exist-\\nence of such a God is the root of disbelief in\\nmiracle. The delighted scorn with which the dis-\\nbelievers alight on the proposition of a miracle as\\nsuperstition, absurdity impossibility, as\\nincredible on any testimony, is a thing wonder-\\nful to observe. Believers in these fables and\\nfairy tales are ignorant, credulous and\\nwholly destitute of the critical literary or historic\\nsense, or any sense at all Any tolerable degree\\nof culture will, necessarily, obliterate all traces of\\nsuch a faith, they cry. It is difficult to over-\\nstate the unmeasured contempt, mounting into\\nwrath, which they visit on us belated and be-\\nnighted believers in the Wonder Book. Well\\nthey may cry out so, for granted a miracle, even\\none little one, then God Then is the Gospel true\\nEvery creed, of believer or disbeliever for\\neach is alike the holder and the slave of a creed", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0063.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "56 Reason and Faith\\nevery creed is a system of beliefs logically inter-\\nlocked and springing naturally and necessarily\\nfrom some root-proposition which commands it.\\nThe more logical, that is, the more capable of\\nconsistent and consecutive thought and the more\\nin the habit of it the man is, the more certain he\\nwill be to seek till he find consistency in all his\\nbelievings. Now the logical root of faith in\\nmiracle is God a person free, active, concerned\\nfor the happiness, righteousness and highest weal\\nof His creatures. The logical basis of denial of\\nmiracle is denial of any such God.\\nWhat, then, is this thing Miracle Exactly\\nenough for our present purpose, it is this God\\nhas, on occasion, so interfered with the ordinary\\nprocesses of Nature as to demonstrate His own\\nactive personal presence and will in the affairs\\nof men. The intervention proves to the observer\\nan agency superhuman. Divine. He stands in\\nawe and says, God and is so made ready to\\nhear and obey. Supernatural Not necessarily\\nso. It may be a handling of Nature in a way\\nperfectly open to a power and wisdom finer than\\nman s. We can not say that it is even a contra-\\nvention of Nature s ordinary laws, but the ob-\\nserver is sure that it is such a handling of them\\nas manifests to him the Deity. Devil s miracles\\nare not incredible, given a credible Devil. On\\nthe basis of a credible infernal kingdom, modern\\nSpiritualistic performance may have infer-human\\nand genuine manifestations amidst its mass of\\nbald imposture.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0064.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 57\\nTaking now, as true, the fundamental propo-\\nsition of all religious faith, There is a God, a\\npersonal God, freely active in the universe He\\nhas created, it is not impossible that He should\\nmanifest Himself in it by special and extraordinary\\ntouches of power at any moment and for any pur-\\npose whatever. I myself can, you can, anybody\\ncan, by the incoming of his personal agency,\\nmodify, handle, manifest himself, by interferences\\nwith the established order of things, in a thousand\\nways. We do it constantly. Indeed that is the\\nonly means we have of manifesting ourselves at\\nall to each other. Each of our bodies reflects,\\npartially absorbs or refracts from their right lines\\nthe rays of light, so as to be thus and thus visible\\nto others. Each of us at will stirs such vibra-\\ntions of the all-surrounding ether as to make him-\\nself audible. Each of us is, at every moment of\\nvoluntary action, producing phenomena in Nature\\nwhich, but for these personal agencies, could not\\nhave existed, and which demonstrate this per-\\nsonal existence. We ourselves are above mere\\nphysical nature, not super-natural, but super-\\nmaterial, and forever impressive upon the ma-\\nterial world. What absurdity, then, to imagine\\nthat the personal, free, all-wise, and almighty\\nGod who made the whole scheme of Nature is\\nincapable the only Incapable of the universe!\\nIt is not impossible that God, if there be one,\\nshould manifest Himself in His own universe by\\nphenomena in the physical world which He alone\\ncan produce. That is as an axiom of theism. If", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0065.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "58 Reasofi and Faith\\nit be not impossible to Him it is not, necessarily,\\nincredible to us. If there be no such God, then\\nmiracle is neither credible nor possible.\\nBut, granted that miracle is possible to a free and\\nactive God, who does exist, is it not yet so im-\\nprobable that we can not believe in its occurrence\\non any testimony Suppose, now, that this per-\\nsonal, free God stands in relations of affectionate\\nconcern in even of responsibility for the weal\\nof the sentient creation He has made. Suppose\\nthat He loves, not only, but loves to be loved\\nthat He has a Father s heart, and here is the\\nrace of His children, who are vastly ignorant\\nof Him and their relations to Him. He wants\\ntheir love, their gratitude, their worship. It be-\\ncomes vastly probable that He will, if He can,\\nreveal Himself to them. Suppose that they need,\\nfor their owm development in power, in intelli-\\ngence, in character, in the finest elements of love,\\ngratitude and loyalty, and so in blessedness sup-\\npose, I say, that they need for all these the clear\\nknowledge of an affectionate Heavenly Father,\\nnear by and concerned, instantly, on their behalf,\\nis it not hugely likely, then, that He will take the\\nmeasures needful to so impress upon them His\\npresence, care, and love\\nSuppose now, further, that having made them\\nin the highest type of created finite being, in His\\nown image, free and moral creatures, the}^, using\\ntheir unquestionable prerogative of liberty, have\\ngone into evil, wrought on themselves curses be-\\nyond number or measure ruinous, as, indisput-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0066.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "Reason a7id Faith 59\\nably, they have done. Suppose that, by their free\\nand wanton sins, these topmost creatures of His\\nworld have blinded themselves to spiritual vision,\\ndestroyed their spiritual sensibilities, approached\\nsuicide on the higher faculties, and gone down to\\nlive in the basements of their natures like scullions\\nin the kitchens. Suppose that they have gone\\nunconscious of the vast realms of being, reality\\nand activity beyond the material, visible and\\ntangible, as is demonstrated by the actual va-\\ngaries of materialism and atheism, which claim to\\nknow naught of either God or soul or any be3^ond\\nor above and as is demonstrated with equal force\\nby multitudes who have not gone mad in theoretic\\ninfidelity, but only live in practical forgetfulness\\nof all but flesh and sense suppose all this, and\\nthat God has not given them over to the remediless\\nresults of their suicidal work, but still loves and\\ncares and determines on restoration of the spirit-\\nual life, on the uplift of fallen man to a higher\\nand grander estate than that from which he had\\ncast himself down, What then\\nAll this of man s ruin and misery is not merely\\nrevealed fact, but fact of history, of observation\\nand oi experie7ice. This, being so, a Divine pur-\\npose to recover and restore ought to be, if God be\\nand be the God we take Him for Had man re-\\nmained in his holy or innocent estate, alive to\\nspiritual vision, sensitive to spiritual approach\\nand access, all spiritual processes for his develop-\\nment might have been of mere nature, on the\\nrange of his unmarred natural powers. There", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0067.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "6o Reason and Faith\\nmight have been no need of anything super-\\nhuman, all might have been level to the appre-\\nhension of every man. Now the whole problem\\nis altered. Man has alienated himself from God\\nor, if you choose to say that, has never risen to\\nrange of the spiritual at all is, at any rate, in\\ntotal misapprehension or forgetfulness of Him\\nhas set up sticks and stones and hideous things\\nbeasts, birds, reptiles for gods, and worships\\nthem with lust, debauch, and even murder. He so\\nhas lost what else had been his natural power to\\nrecognize God, the One, the Living and the True.\\nThere has followed the whole train of earth s\\nhorrors for the time that now is and for the\\neternity that is to be.\\nWhat, now, is left a free, personal God who\\nloves and would redeem to the splendors of moral\\nand spiritual power and the beauty of Holiness\\nsuch a race He can intervene to demonstrate\\nHimself in ways of miracle and wonder. There\\nis nothing in that impossible to Him and so in-\\ncredible to us, if there be due occasion for it. The\\noccasion is here, grand, awful and imperious as\\nthe redemption of this multitudinous race of\\nours, the crown of His visible creation, from\\nintolerable curse and shame into peers for the\\nkingdoms and courts of eternal glory. Is it not\\nlikely that He will bestir Himself, make Himself\\nknown, as the one God, the only and living God,\\nalmighty and all-wise the Father, Lover, Sav-\\niour of such a race, out of such miseries, into such\\nsplendors Surely He will if He can Surely", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0068.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 6i\\nHe can if He will So infinitely likely will He\\nbe, being the God He is, to do it, that it seems to\\nme the one thing any sane reason must expect\\nwith what amounts to practical certainty. Nor\\nare we Christians alone in this expectation. The\\nhuman race has ever refused to credit any revela-\\ntion as from the gods or any system of relations\\nwith them, or of service required which has not\\nauthentication by supposed miracle. The univer-\\nsal expectation of man everywhere is that any real\\nGod will manifest Himself by the works, the\\ntokens of Godhood. The antithesis of miracle is\\nno God, or a mere-force God, manifest only in\\nplay of changeless and inexorable law, and so\\nnever to become demonstrable to reason as any-\\nthing but blind force. A doctrine this which can\\nnever satisfy the heart or kindle the mighty pas-\\nsions of Redemption\\nHere stands the case, then. A race made in His\\nown Image, or at any rate, capable of loftiest de-\\nvelopment into it, the very aim and crown of the\\nvisible creation, beloved of God and designed for\\nHis eternal fellowship, but gone in sin out even\\nof knowledge of Him, sunken into intolerable\\nmisery and hopeless of betterment under ordinary\\nplay of natural law that hopelessness proven by\\nages of sinking from bad to worse, in all history\\nand here a God, free, personal and affectionate,\\nable to redeem and save sublimely able to get at\\nthem by extraordinary action amidst the phenom-\\nena of Nature able to get at them in no other\\nway without still more extraordinary^ and super-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0069.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "62 Reason arid Faith\\nnatural means able, so, to bring them into play\\nof the loftiest motives, powers and passions which\\ncan inspire the human will. In such case, will he\\ndo it Aye, if He be indeed such a God as we\\ntake Him for. He will. He must, for He is in-\\nfinite compassion and power.\\nIt is useless to cavil, saying, Why did He let\\nthem fall into so sad a case, then It is clear\\nthat He did do that and we have seen that that\\npermission was a necessity in a moral universe.\\nIt is worse than useless to urge that this notion of\\na creation in innocence, a fall and a redemption by\\nmiraculous intervention is a scheme of after-\\nthought, of awkward mistake and bungling rem-\\nedy, for it has been shown in a former discourse,\\nthat it is the way of the development of the sub-\\nlimest conceivable type of finite character. There\\nis about it no blunder, after-thought or awkward-\\nness, but divinest stroke of splendid art and power\\nfor erection of beings God-like, on Thrones beside\\nHis own. God did not make things and get them\\nwrong and then have to step in and set them to\\nrights. He created moral beings in a moral uni-\\nverse, free, therefore, to sin and fall a being who\\nwould forever need the inspiration and helpful\\npower of a God present to his consciousness. It\\nwas of the eternal plan that such a creature, so\\nneeding Him, should have Him in authentic and\\nrealized handling of His life and the world. The\\nplan of intervention by Divine sign is the original,\\naboriginal plan for the development of the race,\\nthrough gratitude, love, great fight for righteous-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0070.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "Reason aiid Faith 63\\nness, up into fitness for Peerage of the Heavens.\\nSin and Redemption are not afterthoughts and\\nmiracle, by which God breaks through the fixed\\norder of Nature to reach the heart of man with His\\nboundless Grace, is no bungle, but the Master-\\npiece of Redeeming Art\\nHow get men to know God? By stroke of\\nmiracle only has He demonstrated Himself. See,\\nas matter of fact, how well He is known to those\\nwho refuse to accept miracle and superhuman\\nmodes of revelation Not one of them pretends\\nto know anything about Him, not even so much\\nas to affirm whether He be at all. Agnosticism,\\ndenial of any possible knowledge about Him or\\nHis existence is the best they can do without the\\nmiracle, even in the light of this last year of the\\nnineteenth century How much better could they\\nfairly suppose the old Israel of Egypt or the Jew\\nof the Judges, the Kings, the Christ s times, to\\nhave gotten on in Divine science without Divine\\nauthentication of the Divine facts, than they them-\\nselves can now How would the Jew have gotten\\nout of Egypt or how would the world have gotten\\non without the redemptive energies developed\\nthrough these miraculous interpositions? But\\nby stroke of miracle He convinced Moses of\\nHimself and authenticated His commission to\\nface and face down the proudest empire of the\\nworld. The bush that burned, unconsumed the\\nvoice, the rod, a serpent, an Egyptian god and\\nthen a rod again, the leprous hand clean again,\\nthese made Moses Moses By stroke of miracle", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0071.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "64 Reason and Faith\\nafter miracle He convinced Israel and Egypt of\\nHis very and only God-head. By perpetual re-\\ncurrence of miracle He established His govern-\\nment over His people and taught the world Him-\\nself, His attributes and His claims. By miracle\\nHe authenticated His revelations and His mes-\\nsengers, when there seems to have been no other\\nway in which He could have done it. By crown-\\ning miracle of grace in Jesus, the Christ, his in-\\ncarnation, his life, his death, his resurrection, He\\nshowed so His Father-heart to man that we are\\nmelted, broken, repentant, lifted into raptures of\\nlove and joy and worship, are set out into lives of\\nholy service and careers of grandeur. Let them\\ntell me of a Christ, the Christ, in whose birth there\\nwas no miracle, in whose life there was neither\\nsuperhuman deed nor claim to superhuman power,\\nI answer, There has been none such There\\nis not a jot of proof of any such. The only\\nstory that purports to give us a Christ at all\\nis that on whose sacred pages blazes miracle\\nwrought and claim to superhuman origin and\\npower and authority over all the realms of life\\nand duty and sin and destiny. They demand\\na feat of supreme credulity and unreason, namely,\\nthat I shall suppose these Evangelists to give us\\na true and reliable picture of the Christ, on whom\\nI can depend, as a historic person of such and\\nsuch quality, as speaking such and such words,\\naddresses, parables they were truthful and\\nworthy of credence, so that we have got a verit-\\nable Christ, Saviour of the world, leader and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0072.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "Reaso7i and Faith 65\\ntopmost of mankind, through their testimony,\\nyet I must reject their story of His birth, its ante-\\ncedents and circumstances, must deny their every\\naccount of his openly-wrought miracles, to which\\nhe himself pointed as such must cast out their\\nevery quotation of His claims to Divine power and\\nknowledge must afl rm them to have deliberately\\ntestified, as eye-witnesses, in the very province\\nand generation of those who were eye-witnesses\\nwith them, and who, in their hostility, were but\\ntoo eager to convict them of falsehood, to innum-\\nerable lies, drawn out in elaborate detail, circu-\\nlated while He was yet alive, unrebuked of Him,\\nscattered broadcast soon after His death then,\\nfurther, to believe that these same men gave the\\nlabors of all their lives, faced all perils, took all\\ndamage and endured the expected horrors of\\nmartyr deaths in a more than madman s frenzy\\nfor their tissues of fable and falsehood. They\\nask too much for my credulity Why, they even\\nask that out of such a jargon of lie and folly I\\nshall get a Christ for world s perpetual homage\\nand secure salvation. This is the most astound-\\ning stretch of credulity yet demanded in the his-\\ntory of mankind. The denial of the superhuman\\nin the Christ, from the Incarnation to the Resur-\\nrection, and all the marvel that came between, is\\nto fling the whole story of the Evangelists into\\nthe waste-basket of classical of less than classi-\\ncal^ myths. If these men were mistaken, or\\nworse, about his miraculous birth, then was He\\nborn in sin indeed If thev told men that He", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0073.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "66 Reason afid Faith\\nturned water into wine, He should have corrected\\ntheir mistake. Did they claim that He opened\\nthe eyes of the blind at Jericho, then He did it or\\nconnived at their falsehood, and all Jericho must\\nhave been in the secret Did they falsel}^ claim\\nthat He raised up Lazarus from the three days\\ndead Why, all Jerusalem was stirred by the\\nfact, and Jesus must have known the claim. Were\\nthese things and the words of Jesus claiming to\\nbe one with the Father and the like claims to\\nDivine power scattered through all the Testament,\\nfoisted into the story afterwards? What basis\\nhave we, then, for confidence in what remains\\nDo you say that the Christ must have lived,\\nsince no such conception of character and life\\ncould have been formed except on a living model\\nAye, verily But the exact things which make\\nsuch a personage inconceivable without the living\\nmodel are the things which have to do with the\\nsuperhuman side of Him. It would not have\\nbeen impossible for the man who told the story of\\nLazarus to conceive and write out the merely\\nhuman side of Jesus. The difiiculty is in con-\\nceiving, without the model, the Divine in the\\nHuman, the Human in the Divine. The diflS-\\nculty in creating a fictitious Jesus is in exactly\\nthese points where the disbeliever claims that all\\nis fiction\\nThat these simple-minded, simple-hearted, brave\\nand loyal fisherfolk of the Gospels could have\\nconstructed of their own genius the picture of the\\nChrist, Son of Man and Son of God, is incredible.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0074.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 67\\nThat they could have taken some great man and\\nput on him these fables of wonder and miracle\\nand gotten them believed, among a hostile people\\nof his own country and generation, is more in-\\ncredible. That such men as these, who lived in\\nthe faith of the Divine One whom they had known\\nso intimately and portrayed so simply, gave their\\npain-filled lives to the propagation of a false story\\nand then died for fables of their own construction\\nis too much to ask of credulit}^ itself. That out\\nof such a conglomerate of duplicit}^ and stupidity\\nas the Gospels are on the anti-miracle theor\\nany critical or historic sense can get a real and\\nhistoric Christ and a real, authentic Christian\\ndoctrine, is too much for sanity. That out of\\nsuch a conglomerate could have come the magnifi-\\ncent resultant, the Christian world of to-day and\\nthe exultant expectation of the more glorious to-\\nmorrow, would be greater miracle than any\\nwhich stumbles faith in all the records of the\\nEvangelists It is easier for reason to accept the\\nDivine-Human Christ of the Gospels, with all his\\nWonderful Works, than to account for that\\naugust Figure and Life in any other way.\\nThe believer s position, therefore, is this A\\npersonal, free and active God, affectionately con-\\ncerned in and responsible for man, can, and will\\nbe infinitely likely to, interfere in superhuman\\nsort for the rescue of the beloved race, when it\\nhas fallen into misery and peril. There is nothing\\nincredible or even unlikely about it. It is to be\\nexpected, when the circumstances demand it.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0075.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "68 Reason a?id Faith\\nThe circumstances have demanded it. The evi-\\ndences of miracle are to be weighed and sifted\\nlike the evidences of any other event, but with a\\nvery tremendous presumption in favor of and not\\nagainst it, when due occasion has arisen for it.\\nDoubt of miracle springs from, or will resolve it-\\nself into, doubt of God, Inexorable logic lands\\nus there. Our God, if He be, and be what we\\nthink Him, will manifest Himself from the realms\\nof the spiritual nature, to lift us up and bring us\\nback to knowledge of Himself and to estabhsh in\\nholiness and felicity all who will be persuaded.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0076.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "Reaso7i and Faith 69\\nCHAPTER V\\nTHE JUSTIFICATION OF THK UNJUST\\nThat He might be just and the Justifier of him that believeth\\nin Jesus. St. Paul.\\nThis passage is the Great Apostle s statement\\nof the most difficult problem of the Gospel.\\nLaw, sin, condemnation, redemption God just,\\nyet justifying the sinner these are the elements\\nof the supreme paradox. Plato, Plato, said\\nSocrates, it may be that the gods can forgive\\ndeliberate sin, but how, I can never tell. Justi-\\nfication of the unjust The naturalist, the mate-\\nrialist, the rationalist, with one accord pronounce\\nit even unthinkable. The problem is serious, vast\\nand difficult so much so that its consideration\\nhere leaves no time for prelude.\\nThe matter of discussion will be seen to turn,\\nnecessarily, on the relation of repentance to justice\\nin the Divine administration. If we can not find\\nsound, rational ground of procedure here, we\\nshall be tossed in wide seas and in peril.\\nAt the outset, the ideas of justice and govern-\\nment need be carefully disentangled in thought.\\nJustice is not government, but only the regulative\\nelement in it. It is not even so much as the end\\nor final cause in law and government, but only the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0077.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "70 Reason afid Faith\\ncontrolling principle in their methods. The ends\\nsought in government are quite aside from mere\\njustice. Those ends are expediencies, and are as\\nmanifold as the interests of individual men multi-\\nplied by the millions and societies of men. They\\npertain to all questions of physical existence and\\nactivity, property, inheritance, trade, commerce.\\nThey touch, with a sort of sweeping omnipotence,\\nall the intellectual, moral and spiritual forces and\\ninterests of men in society. They cover ten thou-\\nsand questions of necessity, expediency, taste,\\ntradition, culture, conventional rights, which may\\nhave been originally outside any considerations\\nof justice. Justice is merely the regulative prin-\\nciple under which laws should be set up and ad-\\nministrations conducted. Justice is an abstract\\nidea. Law and government are very concrete af-\\nfairs, set afoot for myriads of practical ends, not\\nfor the sake of embodying justice, though they\\nshould be in accord with it. If you use the fig-\\nure of soul and body for illustration of the rela-\\ntion between justice and government, it must\\nbe only to use justice as the law of correspondence\\nbetween a true soul and a normal body. Justice is\\na moral attribute in God or man. Government\\nis a definite scheme of laws and administration\\nfor specific ends in the universe. Justice were yet\\nthe regulative fact in the soul of God, though\\nthere were no creation and no government. Jus-\\ntice is the same always and everywhere, while\\nrightful forms of law and government are as\\nvaried as the natures and conditions of the gov-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0078.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 71\\nerned and the objects to be reached by legisla-\\ntion, variant even to contradiction, yet the one\\nas rightful as the other. Expedients, then, exist\\nin law and government, in endless variety, to suit\\nthe circumstances, consistent with justice, illus-\\ntrating it but they are not it nor may they be\\nconfounded with it. They are not so nearly it\\nas the government is to being the governor, or the\\ngovernor to being his law, or the creator to being\\nthe creation, or the principle on which he creates.\\nAll this may seem too plain to need the saying\\nbut great confusion of thought and language has\\nexisted here which must be cleared.\\nAs the law and government of God are not jus-\\ntice, though just, so justice as men reckon it is\\nanother thing than law or government. Our ideas\\nof justice must be cleared of the notions which\\narise from the human administrations of it, a\\ndifficult thing, too, to get really done. The moral\\nquality justice is the same in us and in God.\\nHere lies His Image in us. Its relations to human\\nlaw and administrations are analogous to those\\nit holds in the Divine. But now we have to\\ninsert, for vital and awful diflFerence, the facts\\nof human fallibility and weakness, not to say\\nsin, over against the all-wisdom, all-power, and\\nall-goodness of God. Justice, in the Divine admin-\\nistration and handling of it, will be in vast con-\\ntrast with the human handling. In the latter the\\nbusiness becomes, through no fault of law or leg-\\nislator or court, but of necessit}^ a really terrible\\nbungle, and not ideal justice at all. It is at best", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0079.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "72 Reason and Faith\\nlittle else than a shift for personal and public\\nsafety in continual emergency; is often so crude\\nand rude as to be verj^ like outrage on justice.\\nIt has always to wait on men s conditions and\\nexternal showings and modify itself to his prog-\\nress. It catches a man at his worst and weakest\\nand grades him at his meanest possibility. It\\nmakes no account of his ten thousand loyalties,\\nobediences, conformities but lays hands on him\\nin his cups, in his rage, when he is beside himself\\nunder passion and temptation too mighty for his\\nmomentary frailness. It seizes him in the moment\\nof his physical disorder or mental depression or\\nsocial captivity or satanic instigation or moral\\natrophy and damns him for a murder or other\\noutrage which his whole soul abhors and of\\nwhich, at any average moment of self-possession,\\nhe could not have been guilty from which he\\nmay have sprung back, instantly, in the recoil of a\\nvery genuine repentance and remorse. His whole\\nlife-time, it may be, has held but one hour in\\nwhich he could have fallen into this thing. But\\nhuman justice caught him just there and so, away\\ndown there at the bottom of his deepest fall So\\nthrough all the pangs, horror, years of unavailing\\nremorse, that brand is there burned in. That\\nact, that one isolated act, out of the myriads\\nof contrasted acts, which do, each one, equally or\\nbetter index his quality that one act is made\\nto characterize him, blazons him so long as he is\\nremembered among men. The man is that, so\\nopposite and abhorrent to him As matter of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0080.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 73\\ngenuine character, he may never have been down\\nthere at all nor fit to be indexed so. This thing,\\nhuman justice, has made one outward perform-\\nance, which may have been wholly sporadic, in\\nthe deepest sense accidental, the indicator of the\\nman an outward act and not the inward char-\\nacter, has graded, settled the place, penalty, fate\\nof the man. This may well enough have been\\ntrue outrage on him. Yet it must be admitted\\nthat this is the best human justice can do that\\nit is even necessary that it be done that the\\ndoctrine of eminent domain must carry here\\nas in property rights that the individual interest\\nand right even, must give way to the general.\\nPublic weal requires that acts of crime be pun-\\nished. But no man can fail to see that the\\nwhole business is liable to awful bungle and is\\nonly a shadow and parody, at best, of that\\naugust thing ideal justice. That is not the\\navenging of an act, which may not at all index\\ncharacter that is not the avenging of an act at\\nall, but only the serene adjustment of condition\\nto real desert, perfect adjustment of estate to\\ncharacter. An act has no conscious moral entity\\nthat it be punishable, but only the actor, and he\\nonly on the ground of blame s worth in character,\\nand only to the precise measure of that blame-\\nworthiness.\\nAnother sore but unavoidable frailness of human\\njustice follows, which is this It has a memory\\nIt grades this day s and to-morrow s estate by the\\ndeed of yesterday, while yesterday s character", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0081.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "74 Reason and Faith\\nmay have gone down with yesterday s sun, in the\\nprofound shame of yesterday s sin. A new moral\\nattitude may have risen with the new morning s\\nlight. The very hour of the crime may, well\\nenough, have left the man in such a sense and\\nshame of it, such horror of himself on account of\\nit, as to have created a fair impossibility that he\\nshould ever be capable of the like again. His\\nmoral sense may have wakened in the moment of\\nthe sin the night hours may have wrought him\\nto an undying revolt against the thing and all its\\nclass of things. That, however, can not matter\\nto the human tribunal. There the act is squarely\\nproven. Let fall the thunder O, poor blind\\nmaster of the fates of men, no w^onder that in\\nuniversal art the statues of Justice are blind-\\nfolded Human justice has an awful memory,\\nbut not insight while not memory at all,\\nbut insight wholly, is the thing essential to the\\nideal the real thing the absolute equity.\\nIt must simply observe character; the hour s\\nattitude of inward character must be met by\\nadjustment of condition to desert in the ideal\\nadministration. That justice keeps no record.\\nRecord were to it of no use. Record is only to\\nill-supply lack of insight. 7 Aa/ justice of which\\nwe speak has vision and no need of record. It\\nis directed by immediate perception, not by\\nmemory. Its dealings will accord with record\\nonly when possibility of moral change is closed\\nup. Ideal justice is not vengeance upon an act\\nnor visitation upon a record, but a fitting of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0082.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "Reason a7id Faith 75\\npresent handling to present deserving. Desert of\\nyesterday laid on the soul to-morrow is injustice\\nunless the soul abide to-morrow in the unchanged\\ndesert of yesterday.\\nI am told that the decisions of few modern\\njudges have more weight with jurists than those\\nof the late Samuel Lee Selden, of the New York\\nCourt of Appeals. Asking him once how far\\nthe administration at the hands of the courts\\ncoincided with absolute justice, I shall never\\nforget the solemnity of his sad reply: Abso-\\nlute justice has little to do with it. Criminal\\nand even civil law, and judicial handling under\\nthem, is mainly a make-shift for public and\\nprivate utility. The estimate of character and\\nactual desert is so impossible to any tribunal as\\nnot to form any large element in it. The most\\ncareful execution of necessary laws will often\\nviolate every axiom of absolute justice. This\\nwas the substance of a to me most memorable and\\nimpressive conversation with a man of judicial\\ngenius.\\nA yet further element of the imperfection of\\nhuman justice is this In framing and executing\\nlaws a large feature is consideration of conse-\\nquences. Heavy penalties and long sentences issue\\nagainst the crimes that are rife. Stern work must\\nbe done against the criminal bias of the time.\\nRigid severities must avert the current tendency.\\nYet that set of current does not aggravate, but\\nmaterially palliates the personal guilt of the act.\\nThis human justice, that is, is cursed not only", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0083.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "76 Reason and Faith\\nwith a memory but with foresight and outlook as\\nwell whereas ideal justice has only insight, only\\nsees what is and adjusts all to that. The con-\\nsequence of a moral act is only part of it in a me-\\nchanical and not a moral sense. With that con-\\nsequence the ideal justice has nothing whatever\\nto do. It deals only with the disposition, motive,\\npurpose behind the act the character of the\\nactor.\\nNow over against all these frailnesses of the\\nhuman stands shining and eternal the serene\\nfigure of the ideal and absolute Justice, with its\\nperfect insight of character and desert, with its\\nresources equal to the adjustment of all conditions\\nto the actual deserving. It does not handle formal\\nacts at all, but substantial actors sets penalties\\nnot to deeds but to character. It uses no memory\\nof yesterday, nor foresight of to-morrow, nor out-\\nlook, making an instance a sort of safeguard or\\neven an expiatory sacrifice for the general thrift.\\nIt is not a judgment on yesterday s record to be\\nexecuted to-day on a victim whose present moral\\nstatus may meantime have been wholly revolu-\\ntionized, whose present moral desert may bear to\\nit no relation whatever. Past judgments hold\\nover onl)^ so long as past desert, that is, past\\nframe of moral character, holds. When that gets\\nfixed and changeless, then estate, under absolute\\njustice, gets so not till then.\\nThat our God, outside His special scheme of\\nmercy in Christ, will handle souls exactly as they\\ndo and not as they did deserve by insight, not", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0084.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 77\\nby memory, according to present fact and not by\\nrecord, by desert and not by outlook ought to\\nbe axioms of faith, intuitions. With outward acts\\nand consequences He can manage well enough in\\nHis universe. He can rule and over-rule amongst\\nthem to make even all men s wraths to praise Him\\nand work the ultimate weal of the whole. He\\nneeds none of the make-shifts and actual outrage\\nwhich must characterize human law and admin-\\nistration in the interest of utility. All that it\\nthis sublime equity is concerned with is the\\nabsolute adjustment of condition, estate to desert,\\nto actual character as it stands before its bar. So\\nmuch for this matter of justice.\\nRepentance. What now is repentance First\\nthing making toward it is recognition of the\\nwrong done or of the evil of character from which\\nit sprung an act of moral intelligence, clear and\\ncommanding, upon the performance or estate to\\njudge it. The very start is that, for regeneration\\nof a man fulcrum in for uplift out of the pit.\\nA second experience, drawing very near now to\\nthe thing itself, is shame and sorrow for the\\nthing to be repented of. Gloomy but magnifi-\\ncent moving of the soul is this, up out of the bad\\nairs, away from the miasmatic levels and the evil\\nkinships. It is getting out of sympathy with its\\nown evil self, into possibility of better things.\\nBreak of moral identity beginning Now comes\\nthe third, the crucial, the real thing, in re-\\npentance. A whole determination of the will\\nthe man to end, to have done with the evil.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0085.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "78 Reason and Faith\\nRecognition of sin, shame and sorrow for it, rises\\nto fixed determination to be done with it. This\\nprocess has always been under impulse of the\\nHoly Spirit, has ever led to surrender of the soul\\nto Him who alone can effect a renewal of the\\nnature itself into holiness and every such sur-\\nrender issues in the great fact regeneration, by\\nthe grace of God Now you have a soul taken\\nsquarely out of the category of the former style\\nof sinner up on a plane of character above its\\nyesterdays, only liable to the yesterdays pen-\\nalties on some low, mechanical theory of the\\nhuman, blind, and bungling parody of justice.\\nCan the Divine Justice inflict now upon this\\nrepentant soul this new man the penalties\\nwhich a persistent yesterday would have made as\\ninevitable as they were just? Let that shame,\\nsorrow, determination sweep out to cover, with\\ndisgust, all the evil of the heart and life. I^et\\nthe whole free manhood give itself in mighty pur-\\npose against all evil, in that profound repent-\\nance which at once abhors sin and sinfulness,\\nand would forever quit them, giving itself to\\nholiness and to God Have you not now a soul\\nwholly removed from the categories of the former\\nsin and set in an entirely new attitude before the\\ncourt of absolute equity? Is now any record\\nof the past a fair showing of its moral state Is\\nthe vast accumulation of the sins, defaults, de-\\nformities of that life, up to date of this repenting,\\nan index of what this soul now is and now de-\\nserves of its real present worthiness Which is,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0086.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 79\\nI take it, the only question possible to be getting\\nitself before the insight of the Divine Judgment.\\nWhy, if human courts were possessed of that\\nperfect insight of the culprit s exact moral frame,\\nas he comes under judgment if the public mind\\nwere, in like wise, absolutely cognizant, to know\\nhow this penitent and remorseful soul is now\\nhigh above the moral plane on which he stood\\nwhen the crime he did was possible to him did\\ncourt and people know that these penitent shows\\nof contrition and appearances of holiness were\\nabsolutely genuine and controlling, then the in-\\nfliction of the penalty would seem the injustice\\nwhich it is. Possibly the penalty might still have\\nto be executed. The culprit might still have to\\nadmit the necessity of his suffering it as a deter-\\nrent to others and safeguard of society but the\\ndiscrepancy between actual present character and\\nthe penalty which only befits a wholly different\\none would shock the world. A holy and loving\\nchild of God and heir of swift glory, far on\\ntoward the likeness of Christ, might be seen in\\nthe agonies of the cross, the shame of the gibbet,\\nthe tragedy of the electric chair. In the eternal\\nministration of ideal justice, the more appalling\\nspectacle of final infliction in the spiritual world\\nof penalties which would befit only a character\\nwhich no longer exists will not be set to mar the\\nadorations of the universe At the long last\\nwill be perfect accord between character and\\nenvironment. Every soul will be in its own\\nplace. Mis-fits will be forever past.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0087.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "So Reason and Faith\\nRepentance, therefore, with the regeneration\\nwhich evermore attends it, is at once quittance\\nand acquittance of sin. It is a whole soul turned\\naway eagerly from its past evil, standing in a\\nwholly new attitude of character and desert. Its\\nnew frame is absolutely alien to the act repented\\nof, gone out of its realm, ceased from all present\\nresponsibility for it, in the very highest moral sense\\nand before any court of the absolute equities.\\nAnd God is just to justify the penitent Could\\nHe be just in not acquitting him who has truly\\nrepented all sin\\nAs I have said, if court and world could know\\nthe innermost frame of the penitent convict and\\nbe sure of its permanency, all the penalties of just\\nlaw might be remitted, justice would be served by\\nit, and the public conscience would demand it,\\nnot as mere mercy, but as clear justice. The\\ndifficulty would be in the loss of the deterrent\\nforce of penalty upon others. Men might rush\\ninto crime on the assumption that they, too,\\nwould repent and so escape. It is not for a\\nmoment to be thought that in the final adjust-\\nment at the barof eternal judgment such pruden-\\ntial considerations will be suffered to deflect the\\ncourse of Divine Equity. Here it is a necessary\\nmake-shift of human ignorance and weakness\\nthat has no need nor place in the final, universal,\\nand wholly righteous awards.\\nThe Gospel is God s way of effecting in man\\nthis true repentance, this break of guilty identity,\\nby creating anew the soul in righteousness and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0088.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "Reason a7id Faith 8i\\ntrue holiness. Old things, records and all,\\nare swept away. All things become new. The\\nguilty identity has vanished The new man\\nabhors and abjures the sins of which he was once\\ncapable, which did once fairly represent him,\\nwhich can now represent him no more. Absolute\\njustice can no longer insist on a present responsi-\\nbility for them or present or future penalties for\\nthem. Sin repented is sin escaped. Holy quit-\\ntance of sin is acquittance. The old guilt gone,\\nthe penalties of it have disappeared. God is\\njust and the justifier of them that so believe.\\nThe life and death of Jesus mean the whole\\nmoral power side of the Atonement. All that\\never Dr. Bushnell said of this side of the sublime\\nwork is true, and more than ever tongue can ex-\\npress is there. But there is need of more, which\\nmighty more the Atonement provides, Bushnell\\ntossed aside much that we need cling to. For\\nwe are under terms of law and government and\\nnot merely of justice. Positive statutes are out\\nand violated. We are all under condemnation. We\\nneed somewhat visible and tangible as to what\\nGod will do about His broken law. Some formu-\\nlary, with substance under it, of forensic judicial\\nperformance which shall give the sanction of\\nformal acquittance before the law we have broken,\\nwhose pronounced penalties we have incurred.\\nGod will remit them when He justly may. Under\\nthe old altar-forms, the sinner, repentant and con-\\nfessing, promising amendment, brought another\\na blameless life of dove or lamb, belonging to him,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0089.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "82 Reason and Faith\\nhis, which had cost him something. The peni-\\ntent^s sin should be solemnly laid on that and its\\npenalty. That substituted life, sacrificed, should\\nbe taken by Him who hath right to remit and\\nto fix the terms of remission, as satisfaction of\\nall the sinner s doom. He shall go free This\\nwas the fore-shadow of the Christ. On Him our\\niniquities were laid. The Cross was the world s\\naltar. He bare our curse, took away our sins.\\nThey are gone that very hour when we in true\\nrepentance accept Him as our Sacrifice, our\\nsubstituted Life, offered for our redemption.\\nAt the same moment and by the same grace\\nthrough which alone the sacrifice avails, the\\npenitent receives that regeneration of character\\nwhich lifts him from the level of his past sin,\\nand makes the whole transaction accord with the\\neternal equities. We become Sons of God in-\\ndeed* in the very act of entering the terms of\\nlegal acquittal. Our need, so far as the statutes\\ngo, is met by the exact terms which set us into\\nthe spiritual frames of holiness and love and life\\nin Jesus. The Atonement is effective unto the\\nrepentance by which alone it becomes a savor\\nof life unto life and so God is just in lifting the\\npenalties of explicit statute law from the head\\nof the violator of it, as He is just in relieving\\nfrom the general curse of guilt the soul which is\\nescaped from the mastery of and present respon-\\nsibility for it. So only could He be the enactor\\nof ideal and absolute justice in the universe.\\nWhatever of prudential exigency may lie in", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0090.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 83\\nthis view of the final justice is fully met by the fol-\\nlowing considerations Remission of sins is seen\\nto be prudentially possible if attended by these\\nconditions (i) If it as fully assures the after-\\nholiness as the infliction of the penalty would\\ndo (2) If it as clearly demonstrates God s eternal\\nand inflexible hostility to sin (3) If it as fully\\nmaintains the sacredness of the law; and (4) If it\\ndo nothing whatever to diminish the terrors of\\nthe law upon persistent and unrepentant evil-\\ndoers. It is not necessary here to go into detail\\nto show that the justification of the repentant b}-\\nfaith does meet perfectly and over-go, by vast\\nmeasures, each of these requirements. As to the\\nfirst, the penalties of the law are not redemptive\\nof the sufferer, but retributive and destructive;\\nwhile this remission of sin to the penitent does\\nredeem him, radically, into personal holiness for-\\never more and more! As to the second and\\nthird, the fact that none but the co-equal and\\neternal Son was a life exalted enough to be a\\nsubstitute for ours before the violated law and\\nthat He, venturing into our place, must even die\\nin our stead under the shameful agonies of the\\nCross to satisfy its claims, vindicates both God s\\nunalterable hatred of sin and the law s sacred\\nand absolute demands and penalties. As to the\\nfourth particular, this remission to the penitent\\nalone does actually set forth the terrors of retribu-\\ntion, to those who will not repent, in so startling\\nand stern a sort that no such sinner can ever be-\\nlieve that the God who spared not His only and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0091.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "84 Reaso7i and Faith\\nHis beloved Son, when He stood in our stead, will\\nnow spare him if he refuse repentance and mercy,\\nif he yet defy the law and abide in wanton sin.\\nAs matter of fact, it is only by vision of the\\nChrist, dying to make mercy and salvation just\\nand, so, possible, that men have, or do, or ever\\nwill, come to see their guilt and peril in such\\nsort as to repent and turn from it.\\nHow then can we do else than say that Evan-\\ngelical repentance is quittance and acquittance\\nof sin and its penalties, in such sense that justice\\nis absolutely served by it and on such terms as\\nto meet the most exacting prudential and formal\\nrequirements of the Divine authority and govern-\\nment in this world and in all the universe On\\nsuch terms as shall assure to the so redeemed the\\nvery loftiest type of personal and holy grandeur\\nof which finite and created Being is capable\\nGlory be to His great and just and holy Name\\nAmen Let Earth and Heaven and every crea-\\nture say Amen and Amen", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0092.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 85\\nCHAPTER VI\\nTHK WONDKR OF THE WORD\\nThe Wo7 d of Gody which liveih and abideth forever St. Peter\\nThe wonder of this Book seems to me not so\\nmuch its contents the facts of its revealing\\nconsidered by themselves, or in their mutual rela-\\ntions (though it is wonderful in both these par-\\nticulars), but rather in its relations to the various\\nstages of the progress of mankind. The miracle\\nof the Book is not the source of it, supernal though\\nit be nor the coherent consistency of its various\\nparts, produced in so many ages, by so many\\ndiflFerent men, with so varied immediate mo-\\ntives, under conditions not of similarity but\\nof violent contrast the work of kings, priests,\\nprophets, peasants outcome of periods of direct\\ntheocratic rule, of judgeships and kingdom of\\nwandering escapes, prosperity and adversity\\nanarchy and enslavement exile, captivity and\\nrestoration war and peace. That there could\\nhave come out of such work, by forty men,\\nthrough millenniums of time, a book, or, if you\\nchoose, a literature, consistent with itself in all\\nits parts, and bearing with unswerving emphasis\\nto an end as single as it is sublime, is indeed a", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0093.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "86 Reasoyi and Faith\\nmarvel, which they must account for who would\\nrationally question its Divine inspiring.\\nFar more wonderful, miraculous, than all this\\nis the fact that this literature, born in the very\\nancient times, before the existence of any rational\\nscience of the world, or in it, should have fitted\\nthose times, been accepted and believed should\\nhave commanded life and builded character on\\nsane lines directed national polity, fixed social\\nand religious institutions, and become the secret\\nof the most singular of racial developments, in so\\nremote and dark a past, and yet should hold so\\ncommanding a power in these latest ages of most\\nadvanced scientific and philosophic thought and\\nof social, political and moral progress. This is\\nmiracle of miracles\\nFor example, there appeared long ago,\\nwhether you accept the extreme antiquity of the\\nbooks of the Old Testament or the views of the\\nmost radical critics of to-day either theory ante-\\ndates far enough all developments of modernism,\\nthere appeared an account of the order and\\nprocess of the Creation. That account closely\\nconforms to what is now held as the last word\\nspoken by modern science in cosmogony. Grant-\\ning that specialists find obscure traces of a fourth\\nday s creation in the third day s creative work in\\nthat great first chapter of Genesis. What of that\\nNobody disputes that the whole grand outline of\\nprocess is correct. That sublime limning of the\\ncreative work is all that was either desired or\\nproposed. Whether the process was an instan-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0094.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 87\\ntaneous one, or one complete in six creative days\\nof twenty-four hours each, or an evolution through\\n**days which were creative ages, the order is\\nthe same. It was an order scoffed at the world\\nover, exultingly denied, till in our own time it has\\nbeen re-discovered and adopted by all scientific\\nschools. Here then we have an account of the\\nCreation and its order and processes which\\nsatisfied the earliest enquirers into these vast\\nsecrets, which stirred their sense of God, moved\\nthem to worship, kindled for them moral and\\nspiritual inspirations, and helped to make them\\nthe progenitors of the highest spirituality of the\\nrace. It was a true account, not intended to\\nteach geology or chronology in detail, but simply\\nto hold the faith and mould for highest of then\\npossible character the race to which it came.\\nTheirs was a simple age. It knew no science as\\nsuch. Of geology and geologic time they had no\\nnotion whatever. A revelation made to them in\\nthe terms of the modern conceptions of evolution-\\nary or geological processes would have been in-\\ncomprehensible and absurd could not have won\\ncredence or found any element of power would\\nhave been no revelation at all. The whole work\\nof revelation in such terms would have been de-\\nfeated by the terms themselves. But here we\\nhave it, true for all ages, yet in such form as to\\nbe adjustable to the advancing knowledge of every\\nperiod, from the simplest to the most highly de-\\nveloped. Was that ever true of any other book\\nFor every advance of knowledge we find here in", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0095.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "88 Reason and Faiih\\nthe account itself the key to the new interpreta-\\ntion. See, for the word day in the story.\\nThe first verses of the second chapter give you\\nthe word as signifying the whole creative period.\\nOver and over in the same book of Genesis it is\\nused in the same sense. When it became obvious\\nto scientific knowledge of the facts that the earth\\nunderwent a long process of creation, there was\\nno need to force the language of the story. There\\nwas no twisting and torturing of the text, as\\nhas been so often and flippantly said. The old\\ntext was perfectly hospitable to the new under-\\nstanding of the facts. Nay, it had abundant rea-\\nson to rejoice in the better knowledge which\\nrefuted the profane jeers of the disbelievers of\\nmany ages, and returned the faith of the civilized\\nworld to the substantial accuracy of that knowl-\\nedge which could then have been gained only by\\nrevelation from God. The point of wonder is\\nthat an account of this vast business should have\\nbeen given in that old time which did not offend\\nits infantile intelligence, while yet it anticipated\\nthe finest discoveries of the ripest period of fullest\\nresearch.\\nSo with the great astronomic facts in which\\nthe new light exults the Mosaic firmament.\\nThe ancient world, even far down to modern times,\\naccepted it with its own interpretation as a solid\\narch supported on huge pillars or vast walls\\nplanted in the ocean which roared around the\\nverges of the earth, or as a crystalline sphere or a\\nseries of them, enclosing each other and holding", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0096.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "Reason arid Faith 89\\nup the waters above or between them revolving\\nthe sun, moon, and stars, each fixed in a firma-\\nment of its own. Suppose that the story of\\nGenesis had contained the detail of the modern\\nscience of astronomy No mortal, until these\\nlater times, could at all have comprehended or\\naccepted such a revelation. It would have seemed\\nabsurd. It might as well not have been made\\ntill within the last century. All the effects of the\\nrevelation would have been lost and these cen-\\nturies of light could not have arrived. When, at\\nlast, the old notions of the heavens were vanished,\\nlo, there stands the great Revelation with its\\nfirmament, as hospitable to the new knowledge\\nas it was hospitable and helpful in the times of\\nthe former ignorance.\\nIn the old days men were wont to attribute all\\nthat is to the immediate handiwork of God. Since\\nthere were so many things of so many sorts going\\non that one could not take care of them all, they\\nsupposed an innumerable host of gods, each look-\\ning after his own part of the business. When\\nthe one God thundered Himself back into the\\nfaith of Israel He revealed Himself in the terms\\nof that universal idea as Himself doing directly\\nall. So the revelation was comprehensible to\\nthem, took hold on them held, developed and\\nmade them believers and so made them great.\\nHad it set forth the God in the terms of our\\nmodern understanding, He would have been no\\nGod at all. The modern understanding should\\nnever have come. Nevertheless, the old revela-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0097.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "go Reason and Faith\\ntion was true, exactly as true now to us who hold\\nthat he does a multitude of things through\\nsecondary agencies; that He has set into nature\\nforce by which He accomplishes, as if He worked\\neverything out by fingers, hands, and articulate\\nwords in some human tongue. There is neither\\ndeceit, illusion, nor mistake about it. It is but\\nrevelation of needed and helpful truth, partly or\\nmore fully made, in terms of their and our under-\\nstanding and as they and we were and are able to\\nreceive and get the advantage of it.\\nEvery advance of human understanding will\\nlift the veil a little more fully from the partly con-\\ncealed truth, will make the fuller interpretation\\nand the more marvelously display the Divine\\nwisdom and the holy art with which our God has\\nadapted His one supreme written Revelation to\\nthat which He has made in Nature and in our\\nown advancing intelligence and spiritual under-\\nstanding. That this could have been done in the\\nOld Testament writings that this ancient litera-\\nture could have been so supplemented and con-\\nsummated in the newer yet very old writings of\\nthe New Testament and in the new spirit of the\\nChrist himself in such way that there should be\\nno fatal break; that all should be, and should\\nseem to be, one scheme of a progressive and now\\nconsummate Divine self-revealing, is the wonder\\nof wonders the miracle of miracles\\nThe wonder increases as it stands amidst com-\\nmentaries of the obstinate and brutal reluctance\\nof the ecclesiastics of all names and times to giv-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0098.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faiih 91\\ning up an ancient interpretation of the Word\\nhowever irrational and absurd. It is not to be\\ndenied that theologians, councils, Popes and\\nchurches have again and ever again sought to\\nchain the truth of the Divine revelation to their\\nmiserable interpretations and misinterpretations\\nof it. It is a strange and awful story Men\\nhave been excommunicated, tortured, martyred\\nbecause they came to think that the earth re-\\nvolved on its axis and around the sun, for does not\\nthe Book say that the world is established that\\nit shall not be moved The sun riseth and\\ngoeth down Multitudes have suflfered the\\nlike fates because they held the earth to be a\\nglobe that there might be inhabitants at the\\nantipodes or because they did not hold that\\ncomets, diseases, and storms were the direct work\\nof the Devil, or of God or for denial that all\\nlunatics were possessed of evil spirits whom the\\npriests could exorcise and cast out. Ponderous\\ntheologians have interpreted the poetical expres-\\nsion the windows of heaven as absolute,\\nliteral, scientific fact, and set forth whole ranks\\nof angels whose special duty was to open the lit-\\neral casements and let down upon the earth the\\nwaters stored up in the vast cisterns above the\\nwater-tight firmament Another rank of angels\\nhad for its work the labor of trundling out each\\nmorning from some store-house of God the sun\\nfor the day and the moon and stars for the night,\\nand setting them in their places in the fixed frame-\\nwork of the heavens Witchcraft was the belief", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0099.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "92 Reason and Faith\\nof the church universal for how many dreary\\nages. Protestant Germany was for two centuries\\nthe fiercest murderer of innocent women, chil-\\ndren, and men charged with the witches hellish\\narts. A hundred thousand wretched creatures\\nwere tortured and executed in Germany in the\\nhundred years from the middle of the sixteenth\\nto that of the seventeenth century John\\nWesley, near the end of his life, declared that to\\nsurrender the belief in witchcraft would be to\\ngive up the whole Bible The literal creative\\nday of twenty-four hours the certainty that He-\\nbrew was the original language which Jehovah\\nspoke with Adam in the Garden the antiquity\\nand inspiration of the Masoretic vowel points in\\nthe Hebrew these were vital matters to the\\nOrthodox Catholic faith, and the thunders of the\\nchurch were launched against all unbelievers.\\nFor a long period the taking of interest for money\\nloaned at any rate whatever was a mortal sin,\\nbanned by Papal authority, and so confined to\\nthe Jew alone, who accommodated the church-\\nmen, princes, prelates and Popes at enormous\\nusury, and, demanding repayment, got confisca-\\ntion, rack, thumb-screw, or lost not the money\\nalone but liberty and even life.\\nTo these and a hundred other quite as absurd\\nvagaries of interpretation the verities of faith\\nhave been tied up by the most solemn fulmina-\\ntions of church authority, both Protestant and\\nCatholic. The woes of the church have been\\nhurled upon all disbelievers in these interpretings.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0100.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 93\\nThe Infallible Church has made these intolerable\\nmal-interpretations of Scripture essential articles\\nof faith, and doubt of them has been punished\\nas Mortal Sin, worthy of present death and eter-\\nnal torments. By each of them it has been long\\nand fiercely affirmed that the Church, the Bible,\\nand Religion must stand or fall. Over and over\\nit has been contended that the Incarnation of our\\nlyord, the entire Gospel, must be a lie if the rev-\\nolution of the earth around the sun were a fact,\\nor if the coming of a comet were a natural event,\\nor if lunac}^ or disease were not a possession by\\ninfernal powers, to be treated by ecclesiastics and\\nnot by physicians. However it may be with the\\ninerrancy of the Book or its original autographs,\\ninterpretations through sad ages by an infallible\\nor a fallible church have made grievous work with\\nit. They have bound the intellect and the heart\\nand conscience of man to his vast hurt and long\\nhindrance. For the slow and exceedingly danger-\\nous sweeping out of so many of these forced and\\nfalse interpretations and illogical inferences we\\nhave to thank science science oftenest in the\\nhands of reverent Christian scholars, who suf-\\nfered as infidels in their brave obedience to their\\nhigh commission from God to defy for the truth s\\nsake and Christ s and man s, an authority\\ngrounded neither in reason nor a worthy under-\\nstanding of the Divine Oracles.\\nBut the point on which I am insisting is that\\nthe wonder of the Word lies here in spite of all\\nthe settled and authoritative use of it to support", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0101.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "94 Reason and Faith\\ncurrent absurdities as to actual fact, yet when any\\nfact in nature or in life has once come to be\\nsettled, by science or a corrected interpreting of\\nthe Word, it immediately appears that the simple\\nWord as it stands, without any twisting or forc-\\ning, is as hospitable to the new-found fact as to\\nthe old notion. The Book stands the only, and\\nthe everlasting, monument of a literature and\\nlaw which have met the need and been hospitable\\nto the current intellectual development of each\\nage to which it has or was destined to come. All\\nother literatures and bodies of law have gone ef-\\nfete and obsolete with the civilization for which\\nthey were devised. This has but increased in\\nglor5% wide fame and controlling power from age\\nto age. It shines with increasing lustre in these\\nboasiful latest times. It becomes the treasure of\\nthe literature of many tongues and the hope of\\nthe hearts of many peoples whom it is lifting from\\nsavagery into a gracious Christian civilization.\\nThe most keen and merciless critic and historian\\nof the hideous fallacies of ecclesiastical interpreta-\\ntion and the furies of ecclesiastical bigotry and\\ncruelty affirms of the great old Book, Of all\\nthe Sacred Writings of the world, it shows us our\\nown as the most beautiful and the most precious\\nexhibiting to us the most complete religious de-\\nvelopment to which humanity has attained, and\\nholding before us the loftiest ideals which our\\nrace has known.\\nThe Book of a religion which is to be universal\\nmust be a Book for all time and all peoples. That", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0102.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 95\\nis a criterion which no human genius could hope\\nto meet. A Book which for all times, all races,\\nall civilizations or lacks of civilization, in all lan-\\nguages and under all circumstances, is to be and\\nis loved, believed, reverenced and obeyed im-\\nplicitly as the last word of truth, duty and priv-\\nilege is an achievement unapproachable, even\\nunimaginable, to aspirations of sublimest human\\ngenius. There are some models of beauty in\\narchitecture which stand tbe criticism and win\\nthe admiration of the ages. There are some\\nstatues which embody a splendor of plastic art\\nwhich will never be surpassed, calling forth an\\nadmiration which will never be outgrown. There\\nare some canvases whose even, faded colors will\\nbe the despair and wonder of all artists to the\\nlatest time. There stand three or four poets and\\ndivine poems whose fame is like to be as lasting\\nas the earth itself or as the love of beauty in the\\nhearts of men. Yet these in their sovereignty\\nclaim no dominancy over the intelligence of men,\\nno control of their faiths, no governance of their\\nwills, no authority upon their morals, no guidance\\nof their lives. But here is a Book which assumes\\nto correct the intelligence, set the moral standards,\\nmaster the will, mold the characters, shape the\\nsocieties, and control the behaviors and even the\\naffections of men of all men everywhere and al-\\nways. A Book is this which, as a matter of un-\\ndisputed and indisputable fact, has done all these\\nthings for multitudes wherever it has been known,\\nfor millenniums. Its sway is at this moment", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0103.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "96 Reason and Faith\\nmore widely extended than ever before. Its truth\\nis leavening more thoroughly than in any preced-\\ning age all forms of truth avowed by civilized men\\nand more pervasive of all literature. Its inter-\\npretations, save where an infallible and intol-\\nerant theolog}^ has forced them, have most\\nperfectly fitted the highest possible holy efficiency\\nof its revealings to every age to which it has come.\\nAnd it has had a mightiest hand in the produc-\\ntion of all that is worthiest in humanity. Its\\npotency in the enlightened applications of its\\nfullest revelation to our own day, in perfect ac-\\ncord with all the finally ascertained facts of reason,\\nscience, and philosophy, is obviously the only\\npossible solution of the sorest and most perilous\\nproblems of our as of all time, and is besides\\nthe mighty pledge of the solution of the immense\\nquestions of life and immortality beyond the veil.\\nIt is as unique as it is sublime.\\nThat Book Its supposed friends its custo-\\ndian church have misconstrued and misrepre-\\nsented, proscribed, banned, burned, and adored it\\nThey have wrought monstrous crimes and infinite\\ncharities and salvations in its name. Under its\\nbanners they have laid waste continents and up-\\nbuilded splendid races from absolute savagery.\\nFor conservation of its supposed teachings they\\nhave withstood with fire and sword and rack the\\ncoming in of the new light which should but the\\nmore fully illumine and enforce its Divine mean-\\ning. Its enemies have ridiculed, defied and blas-\\nphemed it and its truths and its God. On the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0104.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 97\\nsites of their burnings of its most devoted adher-\\nents have risen vast structures for its universal\\ndistribution. The very room in Geneva in which\\nVoltaire exultingly prophesied that in fifty years\\nthe Bible would be forgotten became the dis-\\ntributing center for that Holy Word through\\nSwitzerland and continental Europe. Charles\\nBradlaugh s famous Hall of Science, seat of an\\natheistic propaganda in London for twenty years,\\nhas passed into the hands of the Salvation Army\\nThe great old Book has suffered enough at the\\nhands of its friends to have blotted any other book\\nthat was ever written out of the firmament of the\\nworld s literature. Its enemies have scorned and\\nconfuted and annihilated it out of the faith of\\nthe whole earth times out of number, but for all\\nthat it has thriven only the more securely in the\\nunfading love and loyalty of an ever-increasing\\nmultitude of happy and holy believers who are\\nliving joyful lives of its grace and would, if need\\nwere, lay them down serenely for the sake of its\\nsacred Name.\\nMy contention is that a book or literature, of\\ncommanding truth, put in such shape as to win\\nthe acceptance, form the character, and mold the\\ndestinies of the simplest ancient times, building\\nthem into a Divine faith of incomparable value\\nand beauty, into a reverent and worshipful frame\\nobedient to the best righteousness which they\\ncould comprehend, and ever, from age to age,\\ninto a better than anything that had preceded,\\nthen at the end of the progress of light and right", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0105.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "98 Reason and Faith\\nthus far in the advancing centuries, proving itself\\nabsolutely harmonious with the new universe of\\nscientific and philosophic truth as it is now under-\\nstood, and as effective for faith and character as it\\nhas ever been, demonstrates its Divine origin as\\ndemonstration could by no other means have\\nbeen effected, as can by no means be contro-\\nverted. The very fact that it has been so long\\nand bitterly misunderstood and set into antag-\\nonism with the ripening results of rational inves-\\ntigation, that those results were so fiercely battled\\nagainst and so reluctantly admitted by the parti-\\nsans of the old interpretations, is the best possible\\nvindication of the fact that it can be no product\\nof man s genius, but a literature of the Divine\\ninbreathing.\\nThere has come at last, thank God, through all\\nthe Protestant Churches in the most enlightened\\nquarters of the earth, a serene certitude that all\\ntruth is one, that no discovery of fact in the uni-\\nverse can be irreconcilable with any other. Faith,\\ntherefore, simple and unperturbed, waits for the\\ndemonstration of truth in any realm of it and\\nby any process; holds to the old till the new is\\nascertained is wholly ready to accept whatever\\nis duly determined by the recognized authorities\\nin the varied fields of research and rejoices in\\nevery new ray of light thrown into the secrets of\\nthe working of the God of Nature and of Reve-\\nlation. The same spirit is penetrating, more\\nslowly but as surely, the old church which has\\nclaimed infallibility. Because of that claim it", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0106.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 99\\nhas the harder task so difiScult, I believe, that\\nit will have to give up its age-long boast of\\nhaving everywhere and always believed and pro-\\nclaimed a perfect and consistent doctrine in every\\nEx- Cathedra utterance. Such surrender is\\ninevitable, and will only establish it on a firmer\\nbasis of truer faith and power.\\nThis joyful welcome to new light all around the\\necclesiastical horizon, whencesoever the shining\\nmay come, will bring all churches and religious\\nsystems and sympathies into vital unity and a\\nvital power which will conciliate the confidence\\nof candid humanity and hasten the day of the\\nGospel s triumph and the world s consummation.\\nRipening science and philosophy, systematizing\\nall known truth and seeking the yet undiscovered\\nthrough all the realms of Nature, will find the\\nharmonizing supplement to all their truth and\\nthe final reason for all, and their unifying prin-\\nciple, in the Book will find in those who love\\nit their most ardent champions and devoted in-\\nvestigators. The reason and the heart of the\\nChristian world will no more antagonize any\\ncandid investigation or fair settlement of any\\ntruth in any realm of human enquiry.\\nKven in the regions of the higher criticism\\nthe Christian consciousness only waits for some-\\nwhat to be agreed on and fairly established. It\\nunderstands that every exhibition of nervousness\\nand irritability in the face of these enquiries is a\\ndemonstration of its own uncertainty about the\\nfoundations of faith, unbecoming and impossible\\nLcfC", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0107.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "lOO Reason and Faith\\nto the real believer. It is fully justified in that\\nwaiting till the devout critics can agree. We\\nhave no business to go rushing into new notions\\ntill the notions are settled into facts. The\\nsettled facts will be accepted. The Book will be\\nfound unmarred. The old foundations of its truth\\nwill be unshaken though a thousand human in-\\nterpretations and understandings of it may be\\ndispersed to the four winds, to the glory of God.\\nEvery Word of God, written on parchment or\\ngraven in Nature, abideth forever. Every au-\\nthentic Word of God, wherever written, is for\\nthe heavenly upbuilding of man into a final estate\\nof God-likeness. In the one system of the uni-\\nverse no one fact can be at odds with any other\\nfact. No one truth can root out any other truth,\\nor mar it. The Spirit of God is under every rev-\\nelation in what we call Nature as in what we\\ncall Revelation. Only let the men of Science,\\nof Philosophy, and of Religion be cool, candid\\ntill each his own field, and wait until a truth is\\ndecided and agreed upon by its qualified experts\\nbefore they announce it. The only science which\\nis to be dreaded is that which boasts itself as\\nomni-science That science is falsely so called\\nwhich, knowing something about an Earth-\\nWorm, supposes itself, therefore, to know all\\nthat can or can not be known of God and the\\nsoul and the ongoings of the infinite. Only let\\nthe men of each field of truth stand to their own\\nwork in their own lots, find the truth in their\\nown lines and trust each other, and there will", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0108.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith loi\\nbe not only no further semblance of warfare\\nbetween science and religion as there never\\nhas been any in reality but there will be no\\nmore conflict between science and theology, or\\nbetween the men of science and of the church.\\nThese conflicts have been precipitated too often\\nnecessitated, glorious in outcome by the church\\nitself, presenting its strange interpretations, its\\nimperfect theologies, and its yet more imperfect\\nlife as the only and as the all of religion. God\\nand all good men hasten the great day of the\\nfinal truce the recognized harmony of all truth,\\ngathered from whatever fields of Divine revealing\\nfor human discovery In that great day it shall\\nbe seen,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 THE BOOK,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 epitome of all sub-\\nlimest truth, source of vital power, way of grace,\\nsecret of redemption, radiant with the glory of\\nman and God Speed its mighty revealings\\nHasten its rising as the Sun of Righteousness\\nupon the horizons of every race God give wis-\\ndom, zeal, amplest means and swiftest success\\nto every agency which seeks its universal dif-\\nfusion, its perfect understanding and its divine\\ndominancy over the heart and life, the business,\\nsociety and government of every man at home\\nand in the uttermost parts of the earth and the\\nsea Amen and Amen", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0109.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "I02 Reason and Faith\\nCHAPTER VII\\nWHY I BKlvlKVK IN GOD\\nThe fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. King David.\\nI AIRWAYS did believe in Him, even when, with\\nshame I say it, even when my heart was full of\\nimpotent rage against Him, or rather against the\\nbeing I took Him for. Probably that was because\\nI was taught so to believe. I took this faith just\\nas I believed what people told me about Europe,\\nor the stars just as children believe fairy stories\\nand Ghris Kringle. Father, mother, everybody\\nelse around took God for granted, so the child did,\\nas matter of course. It never occurred to the\\nchild to question His being, all-power, wisdom,\\ngoodness, and so on.\\nThen I suppose before reason begins to weigh\\nthese matters there is in eflfective play a sort of\\nuniversal, at any rate, a powerful and very widely\\ndiffused instinct for God which chimed in well\\nwith the surrounding atmosphere of theistic be-\\nlieving, which grounded the belief of Him, that\\nis, of some sort of a God would, perhaps, have\\ndone it without any teaching whatever. For\\nall races of men, without any fairly proven excep-\\ntion, even in the most infantile savagery, anterior", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0110.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 103\\nto any development of a real public opinion, do\\nfall into some notion of a Power above and be-\\nyond them, which notion stands for God, or gods,\\nworship, and religion. It curiously happens,\\nalso, that progress made and advance in intel-\\nligence and civilization do not tend to confuse\\nand destroy this original impulse of faith, but\\nthe rather to clarify and develop it and to es-\\ntablish some more or less fit cultus of outward\\nobservance for its more thorough grounding.\\nNay, it is even philosophically and scientifically\\nobserved that the crude religious ideas of any\\npeople and their rituals of Divine observance\\nare often the prime factors as well as heralds and\\nauspicious portents, of intellectual, social, moral,\\nand governmental advance. So one can not de-\\nclare, does not know, whether this constitutional\\nbias towards some shape of theism would not,\\nindependently of teaching and of reasoning, have\\nlanded him in an almost inexpugnable conviction\\nof a Supreme and Eternal One.\\nOne must suppose, also, that his earliest no-\\ntions about the qualities, functions, attributes of\\nthis God came from current teachings about him,\\nnot questioned yet by the unreasoning intelli-\\ngence of the child. He has taken it all in a\\nlump on trust. There it lies in his little soul,\\nundisturbed and undigested, just as it was re-\\nceived. There it may lie through childhood,\\nyouth, manhood, old age, and know no perturba-\\ntion for time or eternity. There it may live,\\nthrilling with power, abolute in control, molding", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0111.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "I04 Reason and Faith\\nand mastering every force of the active and be-\\nnignant life, unchallenged and fraught with fine\\nsalvations, working out a serene and beautiful\\nsimplicity of character, basis of a holy group of\\nlove s master passions motive and great reward\\nof all in the soul and in its performance. Blessed\\nthat simple faith which never knew a question\\nand is incapable of a doubt that believing which\\nat first depends implicitly on authority and in-\\nstinct, and then afterwards reaches up to grasp\\nthe Great Reality by a conscious experience\\nwhich is like vision, which is demonstration to\\nhim who so sees demonstration which no argu-\\nment of doubt and no difficulty in actual observa-\\ntion or experience can ever for a moment perturb.\\nBlessed indeed, but it may be not the supremely\\nblessed. It may well be that the struggles with\\ncandid doubt, the struggles that overcome, even\\nthrough agonies and perils, are cultures of char-\\nacter, and evolutions of power and ways of an\\nultimate beauty and joy beyond all that these\\nundisturbed serenities could ever have wrought\\nfor the souls of men. Bunyan s terrific battles\\nin the precincts of the City of Destruction\\nwere the secret of his mastery in the Christian\\nPilgrimage. Hardihood, militant aggressiveness\\nand stalwart massiveness of faith and character\\nare like to come of these successful wrestles with\\ncandid doubt which make it pay in the long run.\\nExperts through great and perilous experiences,\\ntried souls mighty in trained attack and defense\\nwhat in grand exploit and adventure and hardy", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0112.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 105\\nenterprise may not the untried and boundless\\nworlds beyond have in store for such equipped\\nand seasoned spirits O, this future of the other\\nworlds It must present vast necessities, im-\\nmense vicissitudes, incomparable enterprises to\\nbreak the monotonies and rouse the enthusiasms\\nand create the majesties of eternity, to make\\nHeaven sublime. What journeyings, moment-\\nous missions, soul-kindling responsibilities and\\nhardy adventures shall fall to the lot of God s\\nsturdiest saints, messengers of grace and princes\\nof eternal kingdoms amongst the huge, innumer-\\nable worlds of His boundless empire of the forever\\nand ever This life is, at best and largest, but a\\npreparatory kindergarten arrangement for the real,\\nmaturing life that is beyond, which is to open on\\nus in the vast reality of the endless to-morrow.\\nWho knows but that every struggle and over-\\ncoming in the realms of candid doubt may be the\\nmethod of a victorious prowess in the hereafter,\\nwhich could not else have been achieved Nay,\\nthat is it. That must be its inevitable result.\\nBut to come back to our way of faith in God.\\nBy and by, out of childhood s sweet believing,\\nreason will assert itself. Why will become\\nthe immense imperative. It can not be repressed\\nand must not. Mere authority will not answer.\\nTradition, or a sheer taking for granted, won t\\ndo any longer. Investigation of facts, reasons,\\nconditions, must begin, and shall never end.\\nWoe waits him who would set it bounds. It\\nbreaks through all prescription, ventures into the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0113.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "io6 Reason and Faith\\nmost sacredly guarded enclosures. Most surely\\nof all, because the most solemn field of all, most\\nfraught with destinies, will it enter the sacred\\nsecrets of the soul, its origin, destiny, liberties\\nand obligations into the holy habitations of God\\nhimself, to know his being, his laws, his character,\\nhis relations to his universe and all the souls of\\nit. These questions will not down at any bidding.\\nIf there be claim of authoritative revelation\\nalong these lines, that claim will be scanned with\\nintensest scrutiny, the bases of it investigated\\nwith most careful concern. On these questions,\\nleast of all, will awakened reason rest on inade-\\nquate authority. It ought not so to rest. It\\nmust sift the authorities.\\nNow, when this enquiring begins, sound reason\\nwill make account of the common consent with\\nwhich the belief in God has been held and taught.\\nThat good and loving and holy souls have believed\\nso long, so widely, so thoroughly and to such\\nsweet and grand results in character and perform-\\nance as their faith has surely wrought, will give\\na basis for the reasonable presumption that their\\nfaith is well grounded. Reason will not believe\\nthat sheer falsehood can work so well can not\\nrashly toss that proof of God aside.\\nThen if multitudes of people, wise and just and\\ngood, shall testify that, through their faith in\\nGod, they have come to an actual fellowship with\\nand personal experience of Him, it will be a brash\\nand uncandid spirit that shall, without sturdiest\\nreasons, brush such testimonies aside as not going", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0114.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 107\\nfar to prove the mighty existence in which they\\nhave so effectively believed.\\nThen if not these only but all men have a\\nnatural aptitude, instinct, for believing in Him\\nthat will seem to reason a strong added presump-\\ntion of his actual existence. For when men see\\nan eye they infer light a fin, they say water\\nwings and lungs prove air a foot, solid surface\\nfor its standing. Speech means a hearer thought,\\nobjects of thought love, the beloved. Reason,\\nrecognizing these universal correspondencies,\\nfinding a universal instinct and impulse toward\\nbelieving in God, will hesitate to deny that it\\ndoes, powerfully, declare the fact of God.\\nSo the argument starts with a strong theistic\\npresumption, which far more than neutralizes any\\nconceivable antecedent improbability in the mat-\\nter. Now pure reason takes note of the obvious\\nfacts of this material universe. Its vastness\\nastonishes and bewilders. Its immensity of re-\\nsistless forces amazes. Its innumerable forms of\\nmatter, its wonderful variety of organisms, the\\nintricate delicacy of the millions of organic struc-\\ntures, the exquisite workmanship displayed in\\norgans of creatures so minute that only the most\\npowerful microscope can reveal them to the eye\\nof man, all these combine to overwhelm us in\\namazement. Then the enduement of inorganic\\nmatter with its afiinities, its cohesions, its gravita-\\ntions, its crystallizations, its electric forces, its\\nadaptations for transmutation into new and wholly\\nalien forms of vegetable and animal organism", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0115.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "io8 Reason aiid Faith\\na miracle, indeed, which evolutionists like I^e\\nConte and Dawson and many more declare that\\nmere evolution can never account for are subjects\\nof new wonder. This income of life itself, in the\\nvegetable world, enfolded in a seed, laying hold\\non all the elements of earth, air, water, using\\nsunlight and shadow, heat and cold, chemical\\nafl nities and electric mysteries, cohesions and\\ngravity, and building out of the same soils and\\nclimates by some witchcraft of its own a rose,\\na lily, a weed, an oak, a luscious fruit, culling out\\nits flavors, its colors, its forms, with so subtle an\\nart that man can never even account for or so much\\nas follow its selections or its processes, will chal-\\nlenge reason.\\nAs you see the gentle surrender of this whole\\nrealm of the vegetable life to the necessity and\\nthe development of the higher order of the animal\\nworld, what words can express the perfectness of\\nthe complete adaptation, or the wonder of it. In\\nthe animal, what labarynthine construction in\\neach organ, itself made up of many intricate ma-\\nchines Then the adjustment of organ to organ,\\nthe symmetrical emplacement of each to the needs\\nof all, and their interplay in the final unity of a\\nmiracle of beauty, agility, strength, and glad\\nutility will cry out, *How comes it?^ The\\nwhole marvellous creature, put in control of a\\nnervous center, with its radiating net- work of\\nnerves, communicating the fiat of the will to every\\norgan of the wonderful whole and commanding\\nits instant obedience and utmost tensity of action.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0116.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 109\\nNow add to this marvellous thing of organism,\\nnot merely sensation, perception, intelligence,\\nconsciousness, will, but conscience, the moral\\nimperative, love, hate, worship, power of self-\\nsacrifice, joy and sorrow, hope, the free society of\\nmen at the top of the observed order of things.\\nFor after all the wonder of the universe is not\\nits units of matter or of life, or of intelligence, or\\nof conscience, but the unity of them all in the\\nabsolute oneness of the universe. The miracle\\nof the plant is not its blossom but its root, stem,\\nleaf, blossom, fruit, parentage its relation to\\nsoil, rain, air, sun, gravitation to the inorganic\\nof which it thrives on the one hand, and to the\\nsustenance, happiness, joy of all the realms of\\nlife above its own to which it contributes itself.\\nThe amazement of the thoughtful observer is not\\nat the structure of the eye, or ear, or foot of the\\nanimal, marvellous as is each, but at the infinitely\\ncurious and exact collocation of all into that\\nsupple, agile, beautiful, powerful creature, or\\ninto the man, with his intelligence, will, morality,\\nsoulhood, linked in with all the natural forces of\\nthe universe, matter, cohesion, gravitation,\\nchemical and electric forces, the sun the stars,\\nand all the ongoing of past time and coming\\neternities. Each individual entity, from least to\\ngreatest, linked indissolubly into every other\\nentity of all the earth, the sun, the stars, for ever\\nand ever that is the wonder. Convulsions ages\\nand ages ago heaved up the continents and tossed\\nto their heights the hills and mountain ranges of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0117.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "no Reason and Faith\\nto-day s life and delight for man. Ages of ice\\nground out our fertile soils, digged out our fair\\nvalleys, smoothed the sites of our great cities, and\\nploughed the mighty water-ways for our com-\\nmerce. Nothing is, or ever was, that has not\\nplayed with admirable exactness into every other\\nthing that is or has been. The universe is one\\nmighty harmony so complex and amazing as to\\nbewilder and overwhelm. Its infinitely varied\\nindividual features are contrived to play their\\nfunctions into the great whole. Each is for the\\ninfinite all and the infinite all is for each, on one\\nplan that runs through every orb and atom, every\\nlife and movement of the creation.\\nReason looks on with increasing wonder as\\nevery access of intelligence widens its horizon.\\nIt cries plan A Planner, then. Contriv-\\nings mean a Contriver. These innumerable con-\\ntrivings, all on one system, however varied their\\nfunctions, indicate a Designer. Their multitude\\nand sweep and majesty indicate a designer of im-\\nmeasurable intelligence, resources, and power.\\nBut beyond this, this plan through all the uni-\\nverse tends, so far as we can see it, to the service\\nof one order of being. The inorganic bears up\\nthe organic. The organic ministers to the higher,\\nconscious, sentient animal life. These orders of\\nthe inorganic, the vegetable, and the sentient ani-\\nmal life all serve man the one being endowed\\nwith reason, conscience, moral and spiritual life.\\nScience, philosophy and all reason unite to per-\\nceive that man is the consummate flower, the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0118.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith iii\\nreigning king in this earth. Whether you believe\\nthe new theories of evolution or hold the older\\nnotions of man s incoming, still the man is the\\naim of all nature, the unifying element of its\\nsignificance, the obvious design and ultimate,\\nsupreme outcome.\\nNow reason gets busy with man himself, makes\\nanalysis of him, finds the body wonderful, con-\\nnecting him with the whole material universe;\\nthe intellect far beyond that of any other creature\\nand capable of indefinite development a will that\\nis free nigh infinite sensibilities to pleasure or\\npain a necessity for discriminating in every act\\nbetween what is right and wrong, and a character\\nwhich grades him as worthy of praise or blame,\\nto be loved or abhorred. Up towards this being\\nthe innumerable designs in all below do visibly\\nand undeniably tend. To produce, sustain, and\\ndevelop this free moral character, capable of\\nan immense and enchanting beaut}^ and power,\\nworthy of infinite and everlasting praise and\\nlove, all the lesser and the larger contrivings\\nfit wonderfully into each other and all together\\npress towards this press towards and produce\\nthis Millions of special contrivings, amazing\\nin themselves, all work together absolutely, and\\nall sweep on to this What can reason say If\\ncontrivance mean a Contriver, what an infinite\\nContriver have we found here If all this infinite\\ncontriving means this moral character of such\\nbeauty and loveliness and everlasting strength at\\nthe top and the end of the planning, and if holy", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0119.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "112 Reason a?id Faith\\ndesign signifies anything as to the designer, what\\nshall sound reason say of this Designer If even\\nmen of pure science declare that they find, at\\nstart and movement of all things in the universe,\\nan ever-present and active Force that makes\\nfor righteousness, tell me. What of that Power\\nIt is vast beyond any human limitations, wise\\nand resourceful beyond conceiving. Its normal\\nrunning makes for weal, beauty, righteousness\\nand joy. Its consummation is a superb and holy\\nmoral character. That designing Power, then,\\nmust be moral, must be an infinite holiness and\\nlove. If a distorted reason should so misinterpret\\nthe working of this scheme of things as to esteem\\nit tending to misery in estate and evil in char-\\nacter, it would yet have to say, an infinite, but\\na devil on the universal throne. The argu-\\nment, from the evil that is permitted in the world,\\nthat the designing and governing power of it is\\nsuch an infinte malignant, has been, I hope,\\nsufficiently disposed of in a previous discourse.\\nAtheistic argument, there is none. As matter of\\nfact, there is no name of any prominence in the\\nranks of scientific, philosophic or other thought,\\nof a man who will declare himself an atheist\\nto-day. That there are declared agnostics in\\nplenty is true enough, but the wild voice of the\\natheist is heard only in ranks of a mad revolt\\nagainst all law, order, property and life, amongst\\nthe wild beasts who roar against civilization and\\nfor chaos. For the evil that is in the world, for\\nwhich the free will of man is alone responsible,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0120.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 113\\nthe matchless grace of God has provided sovereign\\nremedy, free, rich, and tender as a Father s love,\\nas the heart of Jesus, and glorious as highest\\nHeaven Friends, when we have seen that possible\\nevil is the sole possibility of character, as I hope\\nwe have, and that the most radiant of all char-\\nacter must be outcome of experience in tremend-\\nous conflict with evil, and that the plan of God\\nis actually developing, at the top of the universe\\nthat character in splendid perfectness, in innum-\\nerable multitudes, in the vast majority of all\\nsouls when we know that no soul, in any world,\\nwill ever suffer one feather s weight beyond its\\njust desert, after all palliating circumstances are\\ngiven their full force before the bar of a gentle\\njustice, I believe that sound reason can leave all\\nspecial instances of extremest ill, in absolute peace,\\nto the holy administration of a God who is kinder\\nthan man, and freely consent that there must be\\nmysteries in his conduct of universal ajBFairs, with\\nwhich we have neither the powers nor any bus-\\niness to meddle. However it may be with others,\\nI have detailed, with as much distinctness as I\\nhave been able, the process of arrival, by one soul,\\nat least, at a happy theistic rest, a repose of trust\\non which it is able to stake its eternal destinies,\\nby which it can live in joy, and be not afraid nor\\nreluctant to die. That God, as Author of all,\\nsustainer, ruler, a just and holy and most loving\\npersonal One, working all things from the Crea-\\ntion to the redemption and consummation of all,\\nfor the establishment and the glory of an uni-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0121.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "114 Reason and Faith\\nversal Kingdom wherein dwelleth righteous-\\nness and Righteousness only, seems tome the\\nonly working theory which can account for the\\nuniverse, which does account for it satisfactorily\\nto reason, leaving but a fringe of mystery, exactly\\nas should be in a scheme of the Infinite before\\na finite intelligence. Such a God seems to me\\nthe only hypothesis which can avert despair,\\nwhich can consist with any sound and happy\\nsanity It seems to me that, on the simple con-\\nsiderations which we have now taken, without\\ntaking into view the more metaphysical lines of\\nargumentation, without reckoning at the aspira-\\ntions of the soul as for a kinship with some Higher\\nSoulhood, of the spirit in man as stretching itself\\nupward as by some spiritual gravitation towards a\\nspiritual universe which attracts it by natural law,\\nand wherein it may find its grandest, its only real\\nfunction. I say that, on the simple considera-\\ntions we have now taken, it seems to me that the\\nsoundest reason will not hesitate to believe in\\nGod, that HE IS, nor to adopt the immortal\\nutterance of that Apostle who knew Him best,\\nwhen he affirms by inspiration of the Holy Ghost,\\nthat God is LOVE.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0122.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 115\\nCHAPTER VIII\\nA CONCI.USION OF SOUND REASON.\\nChoose ye this day whom ye will serve. As for me and my\\nhouse, we will serve the Lord. Joshua.\\nIf a God, and such a God, what then Wh}^\\nthen he is a very considerable figure in His uni-\\nverse A factor indeed The factor worth con-\\nsidering. Without the God there is no possible\\ndoctrine of a soul independent of matter. There\\nis nothing but matter in the various forms and\\nstages of temporary arrangement. There is no\\nlife except of the material organization, and\\ndependent on it. When the organization is dis-\\nrupted the life is gone annihilate. There is for\\nit no future. There is no soul. There is no\\nbasis for morality save a mere transient utility,\\nwhich has no voluntary quality, but is merely\\nautomatic atomatic. A utility is that at which\\nonly the very highest and most uncommon\\norganizations will ever arrive, which can only\\nprovide distant and uncertain motives, which\\ncan not curb the appetites and passions craving\\nimmediate gratification; which can not give com-\\nmand to any altruistic or remote considerations\\nwhatever. In the grave uncertainty of any to-mor-\\nrow the to-day will forever carry the day ought", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0123.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "ii6 Reaso7i and Faith\\nto do it, so far as there can be any ought at\\nall. But on this basis there is none. You say-\\nthat there ought to be consideration for the\\nother living, conscious organisms Why these\\nliving things, you and other, are but the necessary\\nplay of material atoms Necessary Then\\nautomatic There is no will, no liberty. If\\nthey chance to play in such sort as to advantage\\ntheir fellow organisms, that is well enough, but\\nif they do not, nobody is to blame. There is no\\nmore room for praise or blame at the play of these\\natoms in the brain of a man than for the play of\\nkindred atoms in the atmosphere, in the lower\\nanimal, in the roots of a noxious plant. Morality\\nis gone forever with God and the soul as inde-\\npendent of matter and its organic play. All\\neffective sanctions of action are gone when action\\nis absolutely determined by the collocation of\\nmaterial atoms in the physical structure. On\\nthis scheme there can have been no plan whatever\\nin the universe. It can be but the fortuitous\\nonrunning of mere chance. There can be no\\nsuch logical idea even as that of fate, for fate\\nmeans a somewhat which fixes it. Fate, on the\\nmaterialistic theory, means nothing but chance.\\nOn the materialistic no-God, no-soul-theory, there\\ncan be no reason, no motive, no right, no wrong,\\nno object save the momentary gratification of\\nthe momentary impulse. If anybody can see\\nanything but hell in that, why, then, he can be\\nnothing but a beast. But now, God is. He\\ncreated all, no matter whether by direct immediate", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0124.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 117\\ncreative fiat or through secondary agencies, in a\\nmoment or by processes ages long and still con-\\ntinuing. He is sustaining all, whether by direct\\nupholding or by that fixity of method which we,\\nfor convenience, call law, but which we can\\nnever define save as an observed method.\\nIf this be true, a thing follows, as light the\\nsun. We and all things are His. The fee-\\nsimple of all that is is vested in Him. There\\nis, can be, no title in the universe, to any hold-\\ning but such as is derived from Him. You, I,\\nall men, and all the things they may have, are\\nHis of absolute and eternal right not yours,\\nmine or theirs, but His. If you have produced\\nanything it is by the powers with which He\\nendued you. You wrought with the materials\\nwhich He put at your disposal in the time He has\\ngiven for His service. The title to possession of\\nall you have wrought is in Him alone. Logic,\\nthen, law, natural, common, universal and neces-\\nsary afl rm the inexpugnable title of this Creator\\nand sustainer of the worlds to us and to all that\\nthe worlds contain. As we are free moral agents\\nwith logical and moral powers, there is but one\\nattitude in which we can rationally stand towards\\nHim. That is the attitude of a complete consent\\nto his control as absolutely and forever and in all\\nthings His. The holding of yourself or of any-\\nthing that is in your hands as against His right\\nof immediate control, is an attempted robbery 01\\nGod. An unsuccessful and disastrous attempt\\nat that, but none the less criminal for its hope-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0125.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "ii8 Reason and Faith\\nlessness, and all the more absurd absurd even\\nto the ludicrous The attitude of any soul\\nbelieving in God, yet failing to recognize him as\\nhis owner by an absolute title, is one of flagrant\\ndishonesty. Such a one is an attempting embez-\\nzler of all that he is and of all that he can lay his\\nhands on. And that attempt, too, is on the\\nmost shameful terms of gross ingratitude, for all\\nhe is and has are the vast trust which that God,\\nthe owner, has reposed in him for his culture,\\ndevelopment and happiness, and for the great\\nuses of the kingdom of righteousness and peace\\nand beauty in these circles of humanity. It is\\nnot merely a common crime of embezzlement, but\\nthe aggravated one of the embezzlement of be-\\nnevolent and trust funds and forces. Take heed,\\nmy friends. This were very serious breach of\\nmanly honor. From it any honesty ought to\\nrecoil. Are you, then, holding yourself and all\\nthat the good God has intrusted you with as His\\nagent and steward, not as your own, but as His\\nvery own\\nAs our absolute owner He is, of course, our\\nMaster, with fullest authority upon us. For all\\nour being and our doing we are immediately\\nresponsible to him. Our employments, recrea-\\ntions, societies, studies, are at His option. Our\\nemplacements, conditions and all that, are matter\\nfor His control and approval. Now this is not\\nwild exhortation, but merely statement of the\\nvery coldest conclusions in sheer logical neces-\\nsity from the admitted fact of a God, whose we", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0126.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 119\\nare conclusions from which none who believe in\\nsuch a God can escape. Every proclamation of\\nduty must have logical basis of common reason.\\nHere is such reason irrefragable, which simply,\\nbut imperiously, calls every man to recognize his\\nresponsibility under it.\\nBut now we must remember that this God of\\nours is a ruler and king in His universe. He has\\nwider responsibilities than those that connect\\nwith our individual concerns, or even with the\\nconcerns of this world. Our performance affects\\nothers more widely than we are apt to think,\\nmay well reach more widely than we can possibly\\nknow. His right to govern absolutely His king-\\ndoms, the realms of His own creation no sanity\\ncan question. If He rule them not, who shall?\\nWho can? But rightful rule involves a loyal\\nobedience. If God be a King by unquestionable\\ntitle, then are we his bounden subjects, owing an\\nallegiance as perfect as His Sovereign Right. To\\nrefuse such loyal allegiance is rebellion, anarchy\\nhigh, aye, highest treason As that government\\nis just, holy, for highest weal of all the earth, as\\nit is the only government of it that is either\\nrightful in authority, adequate in resources or in\\npower, the only one that is even conceivable, the\\ncrime of refusing to take the oath of allegiance,\\nand of actual neglect of the duties of loyalty be-\\ncomes to reason the more monstrous and insane.\\nIt is, so far as that soul s power is concerned, the\\nupturning of the government, the only possible\\ngovernment of the world and of the universe. It", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0127.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "I20 Reaso7t and Faith\\nis the bringing in of chaos, so far as his act can\\ndo it. It is the supreme of sin, of moral and\\nmortal crime. Now again this is not pas-\\nsionate and wild rhetoric, but only the very\\ncoldest of unimpeachable logic. Every hamlet,\\ncity, state, nation, must have a government with\\nits laws and administrations. Without these\\nthere could be no order, security of useful labor,\\nproperty or life. So in the great world or the uni-\\nversal realms there must be governor and gov-\\nernment. For you or me to fling out of this vast\\nadministration of God in His world is indeed the\\nsupreme of guilt. No harm, except to myself, in\\nthis revolt of so insignificant an item as my soul\\nWell, I have no right, in defiance of God, to hurt\\nor destroy my own soul. It is outrage on Him\\nto hurt, shame or destroy it. It is His treasure,\\nHis glory, the one significance of all. But the\\nguilt of such rebellion is as if I had the power to\\noverturn the very throne of the King Himself.\\nThis sort of personal disloyalty has filled the\\nearth in all its ages with miseries intolerable,\\nwith shames past name or number, wrecking\\nbodies of men, pulling in pieces homes and\\nhearts, breaking down morality, bringing ages to\\nshame and destroying great nations and races of\\nmankind in all the agonies in which nations\\nhave had the way of perishing. I^et no meanest\\nand least significant of men imagine that his\\nrevolt from God is innocuous because he is himself\\ninsignificant. That is a devil s lie. His revolt\\nis the supreme of the guilt of which he is capable.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0128.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 121\\nThat is the cool pronunciation of logical reason\\nin the premises.\\nBut now this government and administration\\nof the Sovereign of the worlds is so absolutely\\njust that revolt from it is proof of a character so\\ndeformed as to shock all moral ideals. Besides\\nthe rightful authority for rule this King has\\nevery imaginable qualification for a perfect ad-\\nministration of perfect and beneficent laws. He\\nhas absolute knowledge, perfect insight of char-\\nacter, motive, performance in the soul of every\\none of His subjects. He knows absolutely how\\nto fit means to ends. He has ample resources of\\npower to back and enforce His government.\\nHis is the only rule on earth in which no subject\\nhas ever suffered or ever can suffer any instance\\nor any measure of injustice at governmental\\nhands. That He has not shut out all evil from\\nHis universe is only because he must leave men\\nfree in order to moral being. All the real evil,\\ninjustice, wrong of this or any world has been in\\nthe way of revolt against the just and holy law\\nand person of the Divine Ruler of all. No man\\nhas ever suffered or ever shall at the hand of\\nGod any feather s weight of wrong. If he suffer\\nso at the hand of man the hand that strikes the\\nblow crashes first through the aegis of the Divine\\nprotection, dashes aside in sacrilegious defiance\\nthe safeguards of the Divine law, and shall suffer\\nthe just Divine avenging. The secret, then,\\nof revolt against God and His government\\nmust be a deep unlove for the righteousness and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0129.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "122 Reason and Faith\\nholiness of it and of Him. That rule hedges him\\nin from a thousand evil and hurtful things and\\nshuts him up to the things that are sweet and\\npure and holy. So come his alienations and\\nrebellions. So have come all that has outraged\\nman and wrecked the ages. It has been wrought\\nin despite of God.\\nNow this God is in His own person the perfec-\\ntion of all that is great in wisdom, power, justice,\\ntruth, therefore to be admired of all the right-\\nhearted of the moral universe. But He is the\\neternal goodness as well. The perfection of all\\nlove and loveliness is in Him. The normal, sane,\\nholy of the whole creation wonder at, love and\\nadore Him. The sinless angels bow down before\\nHim with ascriptions of ecstatic worship. The\\nwhite-robed saints sing the lofty songs of ever-\\nlasting praise. There is nothing in Him to repel\\nany just, pure and holy soul, but everything to\\nattract and hold it in everlasting and enthusiastic\\ndelight. All perfections in Him are infinite.\\nFlaws and faults to repel there are none. Rever-\\nence, aw^e, adoration are the natural, the inevit-\\nable outcome in any normal spirit. Who has it\\nnot is in some strange attitude of intellectual\\nillusion or moral obliquity. Worship thou the\\nGod over all, blessed forever\\nBut now this God has watched over an erring\\nand sinful world with an infinite patience and for-\\nbearance, trained it in a slow and reluctant knowl-\\nedge of Himself, taught it as it was able to bear\\nthe instruction, prepared it to the fuller and final", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0130.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 123\\nrevelation, then came, out of all dimness and dis-\\ntance, showed His very face, heart, will, in Jesus\\nof Nazareth. The Man Divine The Man Beau-\\ntiful Seeing Him so, we have not merely good-\\nness, mercy and righteousness, but Love in its\\nloftiest form, and infinite in its measurelessness.\\nA love is manifest in Him of the Holy for the\\nunholy, a pity that knows no bounds, that will\\nuplift the very nature of the evil into a holiness\\nthat shall mean eternal beatitude that shall set\\nthe weakest and frailest of sinful men into the\\ngrandeur of His own likeness and the splendor\\nof fellowship with Himself in His eternal Home.\\nA love it is which will do this, not by an easy fiat,\\nbut by an infinite sacrifice, of Himself, through\\na life of humiliation, exile, weariness and pain,\\nbearing all the ills of a poverty-smitten humanity;\\nthrough a death of infamy and anguish, bearing\\nthe sins of a world and all its evil ages as if they\\nhad been His own bearing them in extremest\\nagony in the Garden and on the Cross, expi-\\nating them in His own body and soul, on the\\ncursed, blessed Tree, so bringing His Ransom to\\nevery man, from all His guilt O Love Divine\\nO Love excelling And beyond this, behold a\\nnew gift, the mighty Spirit breathed on men to\\nquicken them into spiritual recognition of their\\nneeds, into apprehension of God, into vision of\\nthe Christ, till they shall cast themselves at His\\nfeet, willing captives of this love supreme and\\nDivine In that surrender they find a Divine\\ntouch of renewing grace for the very soul and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0131.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "124 Reason and Faith\\nrise up into passions of holiness, gratitude and\\nresponsive love to Him who hath so first loved\\nthem. If there be such a God, who hath ^so\\nloved, and if I believe it, is it not monstrous in\\nme to fail of a grateful and most tender and loyal\\nand matchless love for Him Do I say, Why,\\nHe is so great that He can not care for my love\\nor my personal attitude towards Him, anyway\\nStrange reasoning that What He wants in us\\nHis children is character. What character is that\\nwhich bears no loving gratitude for infinite favors,\\nundeserved, amazing and redemptive and at awful\\ncost? Such character were less than human,\\nworse than brutal. One saying that, forgets that\\nlove loves love. The greater the love, the greater\\nits love for love. The love of God makes infinite\\nclaim for love returned. That return of love for\\nlove satisfies the heart of our God as no sacrifice\\nor service besides can do. That return of the\\nhuman love for the love Divine is not only the\\nproof of the new heart of the great Redemption,\\nbut is the way of its greatness. This power to\\nlove the holy and the beautiful, the God and\\nHis Christ, is itself holiness and beauty. When\\nthat love comes to absorb and command us, then\\ndull duty and heavy obligation cease to press,\\nand sweet liberty in the chosen holiness is life\\nand life more abundant. We have entered, so,\\nthe life and likeness of the Christ. We are making\\nfast for the Perfect Manhood which is the\\ngoal for us of the Mighty Love\\nNow the logical sequence of an intellectual be-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0132.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 125\\nlief in a God such as our God seems to us, is, in-\\ndisputably, the mandate of the Greatest Master of\\nmorals, the conclusion of reason, and the final\\nword of the theistic conscience, Thou SHALT\\nlove the Lord, thy God, with all thine heart\\nand all thy mind and all thy soul and all thy\\nstrength Thou shalt Now I say again, I\\nhave made no frantic or fanatical appeal. I have\\ncarefully abstained from the effort to stir your\\nemotions in this or any one of the addresses of\\nthis series. It has been a cool appeal to fair\\nreason and to nothing else. In this discourse I\\nhave done nothing but say that if you at all\\nbelieve in the God in whom we do all believe,\\nyou are solemnly bound by sound reason, real\\nsanity, to submit yourselves with all you have\\nand are, or hope to have and be, to Him as His\\nown and not your own to render to Him every\\nobedience and active service which He requires\\nof any obedient soul, and that you do all this\\nin the liberty and with the gladness of an over-\\ncoming love. The facts of the case, as we hold\\nthem, demand all this. No man, woman, or\\nchild can be acquitted of the most grievous sin,\\nbefore the bar of his own reason, judgment, or\\nconscience unless he be in that attitude. If he\\nplead some inability, I point him to the great\\nsource of all ability in this matter. He has but\\nto lay his disabled heart into the hands of One\\nmighty to renew and make it able. He shall get,\\nso, a New Heart. His plea of inability will avail\\nhim naught. His only plea for neglect or post-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0133.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "126 Reason and Faith\\nponement will be that of unwillingness, which is\\nbut confession of his voluntary guilt and most\\nirrational behavior. The true, reasonable course\\nis clear as the day. The time to take it is now\\nlyCt REASON, at last, have way.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0134.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 127\\nCHAPTER IX\\nTHE UNITY OF CHRIST S PEOPI.E\\nThat they may be one, even as ue are one. Jesus The Christ.\\nCritics, scoflfers, disbelievers, superficial ob-\\nser\\\\ ers, and Romanists are wont to oxy out upon\\nthe diversities of name, order, and faith amongst\\nthe Evangelical Sects. At first glance there\\nseems reason. The last census gives us about\\none hundred and twenty-five Christian denomina-\\ntions in this republic I We have thirteen st^ les\\nof Methodist, thirteen of Baptist, sixteen of\\nLutheran, twelve of Presbyterian, and so on.\\nEndless schism and division, it seems. The\\nPapacy stands proud of its seamless robe scofiers\\ncr\\\\ on us and we are put on the defensive. Out\\nof the one Book of infallible truth, lo, how man}^\\nfaiths If God did indeed give man a revela-\\ntion of Himself and the way of a sinner s salva-\\ntion, it ought to be definite and comprehensible\\nb}^ all men and in the same sense. How can\\nyou wonder that we refuse to credit your Book,\\nwhen you devout believers interpret it in so con-\\ntrar}^ ways and are in endless dispute about it\\namong yourselves So the question runs.\\nWell, then, let it be frankly said that denomina-\\ntions have split and multiplied beyond good reason", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0135.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "128 Reason and Faith\\nand, sometimes, quite beyond good temper. There\\nis now no good reason for twelve kinds of Pres-\\nbyterians in this country. There are no corre-\\nsponding divergencies of faith. The church was\\nbroken into North and South by the civil war.\\nThat is over and its issues settled. The Scotch\\nPresbyterians were broken by great historic crises\\nin their own land, largely over questions of church\\nand state. Their divergencies are chiefly tradi-\\ntional now. The Dutch Reformed abide by the\\ntraditions of their origin, or, if there be still reason\\nfor their separation from the larger body of Pres-\\nbyterianism, it lies in their large church endow-\\nments which might be imperilled by merging into\\nanother ecclesiastical organism. The Baptists\\nand Methodists are broken into their fragments\\nchiefly by traditional prejudices and variant em-\\nphases on ecclesiastical methods, without serious\\ndivergencies on essential points of doctrinal belief.\\nAll these minor subdivisions in each great denom-\\nination might well be ought to be merged. That\\nwould be vastly to the advantage of the kingdom\\nof Christ and the prosperity of the churches. One\\ngroup of Presbyterians, for example, will sing\\nnothing but the Psalms of David. Another will\\nnot use any musical instrument except the human\\nvoice in their service of praise. Another will not\\nvote or take civil ofiice, or fellowship those who\\ndo it, till the state, in its constitution, writes God\\nand His Christ the supreme Ruler of the nation,\\nand so on. The passing of the Confederacy, sole\\ncause of the breach, leaves yet the Northern and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0136.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 129\\nSouthern Presbyterians separate. May that schism\\nsoon be healed\\nThe thing, however, to be noted is that all these\\nbranches of the denominations hold substantially\\nthe same doctrinal positions are separated on\\nquestions that have nothing to do with the great\\nfeatures of the Gospel. They are all equally\\nEvangelical, It would make large saving of\\nmachinery, labor, and cost should we consolidate\\nall these petty divisions into grand and solid\\nunities under the common denominational name.\\nlyCt us find the common denominator^\\nNow we come to the larger question of the de-\\nnominations themselves. The first thing to be\\nsaid is that all the denominations called Evangel-\\nical agree absolutely as to the essential and funda-\\nmental teachings of the Word of God and as to\\nwhat are those fundamentals. Their divergencies\\nare along lines of confessed non-essentials. Each\\nadmits that the others hold all that is essential to\\nsalvation, sanctification and effective service. They\\ndiverge on questions of mode, as for immersion as\\nthe mode of Baptism which separates the Baptist\\nfrom the great mass of the Christian world. The\\nCongregationalist differs from his twin brother\\nthe Presbyterian only in his preference for what\\nhe esteems a more free and democratic autonomy\\nof the individual church. The Episcopalian holds\\nto the Historic Episcopate for his differentia-\\ntion from other protestantism. The Methodist\\nwants for government an elective Bishopric, which\\nis but a general superintendency of the churches.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0137.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "130 Reasofi and Faith\\nIt is perfectly correct to say that the divisions of\\nthe Evangelical Christian world into denomina-\\ntions are not due to differing interpretations of\\nGod s revelation of Himself or of His plan of sal-\\nvation. Nor are they commonly due to even\\ndifferences of emphasis as to the relative import-\\nance of these doctrines derived from the great\\nBook. As between the Calvinist and Arminian\\nit is such a difference of emphasis on the Divine\\nand human sovereignties, without the denial of\\neither, which separates them. The Methodist\\nprays Calvinism with all his might, while the\\nPresbyterian preaches and works free-will and\\nresponsibility with an equal energy. All Evan-\\ngelicals stand firm with one foot on each of these\\ntwo grand phases of revealed truth.\\nThe real reason for so many organizations of\\nbelievers in the Divine Word and the Divine\\nChrist must be sought elsewhere than in the\\ndivergence of consent to any of the cardinal\\ndoctrines of grace. All evangelicals alike hold to\\nGod the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three\\npersons in the one God the miraculous concep-\\ntion and birth of our Incarnate Lord His sacri-\\nficial death in atonement for our sins His\\nresurrection, ascension and enthronement in glory\\nand His second coming to restore all things in a\\nredeemed earth. They all alike believe that\\nman was created in innocency, that he fell from\\nthat estate into sin, the consequent sinfulness of\\nall the race, and the ruin which has come of\\nit in his inability to save himself, but in a full", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0138.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 131\\nand free salvation in Jesus Christ through repent-\\nance, regeneration and forgiveness by faith in\\nthe resurrection of the dead and everlasting life\\nin the world to come for all true believers. These\\nare the essentials of revelation, and to them all\\nwe assent unhesitantly under whatever denomi-\\nnational banners we may be mustered.\\nWhen now we come to inferences from the\\nWord and to historic conclusions in regard to\\nforms of church government and the like, arrivals\\nare divergent. Some judge that the New Testa-\\nment indicates a primitive church under the rule\\nof teaching and preaching Elders, the latter being\\nthe primitive Bishops. Others reckon that it\\nrather presupposes a democratic-congregational\\norder others that it provides a full-fledged Dio-\\ncesan Bishopric others that it starts at once in\\na Papacy under the domination of Peter the\\nPrimate and the Vicegerent of Christ Himself.\\nSo the Christian world divides itself on these\\nconfessedly secondary and non-essential things,\\nmainly matters of inference and questions of his-\\ntory, on which men may diverge without the\\nleast failure of faith in or supreme loyalty to the\\nWord. These divisions multiply, as I have said,\\non occasion of questions still more remote from\\nthese grand essentials in which all are one.\\nThen come matters of ritual, remoter still.\\nSome are so constituted that they love best to\\nworship in set forms of stately order regularly\\nrecurring through all the years, written into\\nbooks of form, linking together the worships of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0139.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "132 Reasofi and Faith\\nthe old ages with the present, and yet to carry\\nthe reverence, loyalties and praises of generations\\nnow unborn. They want the habitual in which\\nthey can suffer no surprises, no lapses from good\\ntaste nor much of bending to current circum-\\nstance. They want little of the bursting in of\\nmomentary enthusiasms in their service. They\\nlove to give way to the esthetic in worship and\\nso surround it with stately architecture cathe-\\ndral columns, arches, nave and transept, aisle,\\nchoir and altar. They array their worship in\\nmajestic music, their ministrants in gorgeous\\nsymbolic vestments with pomp of ceremonial. So\\ncome the Ritualistic churches, holding yet the\\nlike precious faith with all Protestantism. Others\\nlove the wholly extemporized service with full\\nliberty to vent the fervid passions and enthusiasms\\nof the hour and of their great salvation in\\namens and hallelujahs and glory to\\nGod in the midst of the most solemn acts of\\nprayer and adoration. Others of stiller sort,\\nwhile they want the extemporaneous, yet when\\nthey feel most deeply are the most profoundly\\nhushed into silence before God, can not bear to\\nhave that stillness of soul broken by any outward\\ndemonstration. They want their worship direc-\\nted and inspired by intelligent display of the\\nDivine truth, and so emphasize preaching,\\nGospel teaching, as center and spring of wor-\\nship. So all harmless and normal tastes, tradi-\\ntions, forms and grades of culture demand and\\nfind their satisfaction, their advantage, in the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0140.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 133\\nvarious modes of sincere worship somewhere in\\nthe range of the denominations, all equally loyal\\nto the essential verities of evangelical Christian\\nfaith. The Methodist goes the straighter, swifter\\nand more exultingly to heaven, shouting, sing-\\ning, and with observation, for his free ways. The\\nman of form and ritual goes the more serenely,\\nwith the greater dignity and certainty, home to\\nhis glory by way of the prayer-book and cathe-\\ndral, led by his bishop in gorgeous robe with\\ngilded crosier. Let him go thither in full confi-\\ndence of his apostolic succession We will go in\\nthe quiet and reverent stillness of our Presbyter-\\nian formlessness and extemporaneous prayer, un-\\nhampered by extended ritual, finding profit and\\ndelight in our more emphasized side of instruction,\\ninspiration and edification, which comes of the\\nlarger importance of the sermon in the service of\\nGod s house. So we love to worship in audito-\\nriums rather than in the vast cathedral spaces,\\nwhere worship, if followed at all, must be fol-\\nlowed by aid of a book, and where scenic effects\\nare apt to take the place of our appeals to a reas-\\noned faith.\\nAdvantage, then, or disadvantage of an organic\\nunity of Christendom, for which so many are in\\nthese days so earnestly contending, as if the prayer\\nof our Lord that they all may be one meant\\nthat With such unity, they say, all the agencies\\nfor the world s redemption might be consolidated\\ninto one irresistible supremely effective and world-\\nembracing system, saving an immense amount in", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0141.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "134 Reason and Faith\\nmen and money now wasted on needless and costly\\nmachineries of the one hundred and fifty different\\nchurches. Grant that that might be true.\\nThen there would be no waste of energy by inter-\\nference of various agencies in a given field. One\\nlittle village, able to support one church, would\\nnot be cursed with a half dozen weak, warring\\nrival organizations in Christ s name, to the scan-\\ndal of the Gospel which may be true.\\nThen the one church, under the one control,\\ncould concentrate all the enterprises for man s\\nuplifting into one intelligent and consistent plan\\nand bend all the energies of Christendom, along\\nstraight lines to that end, which, again, might\\nbe true.\\nThen they urge that the great object of our\\nlyOrd s Prayer, namely, that men might be-\\nlieve, would be accomplished. Seeing the Chris-\\ntian world in solid unity, unbelievers would be\\noverwhelmed with the conviction of the verity of\\nthe faith which had wrought so solid a consent\\nof the rational world and embodied it in so mas-\\nsive a unit. The Devil your enemy can stand\\nthe irregular assaults of one hundred petty skir-\\nmishing parties, but would quail before the mighty\\non-coming of solid Christendom in arms for the\\nkingdom which might perhaps be.\\nWell, then, am I an enthusiast for such organic\\nunity Far from it, at present or in any near\\nfuture. I do not believe that such a vast consol-\\nidation of all Christendom into one organization,\\nwith one creed and ritual, would so readily win or", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0142.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 135\\nso well serve and hold all the variant tastes, tra-\\nditions, cultures and constitutions of mankind, as\\ncan and do these various organizations in the\\nChrist s name. As things are there is some creed,\\nsome form of worship, some ideal of service, which\\nis suited to every class, type, and condition of\\nhumanity, which appeals to and is likely to win,\\nas no regimen of any one church whatever could\\ndo. My taste does not suit another s, nor does\\nthe other s mine. My intellectual, social, moral\\nand spiritual nature is better served by the\\norder of one church than it could be by that of\\nanother, but that does not settle the matter for\\nthe other. The many men of many minds will\\nbe best served in Christ by the many churches of\\nmany kinds. It is therefore that in Divine Provi-\\ndence these many denominations have come to be\\nand to be each one so richly owned and blest of\\nGod. They have not been a providential mistake.\\nThey have not labored under God s curse. They\\nhave been established and built up with prayers\\nand serious convictions and under Divine guid-\\nance have stood, each one for something that\\nneeded emphasis, or at any rate liberty, and have\\ndone great work for God and man.\\nThen much, very much, is to be said of the\\ndevelopment of energy, zeal and enthusiasm in\\neach of these bodies living and working alongside\\neach other. We are not perfect yet. Rivalries\\nare not an unmixed evil. Three small churches,\\nwhich can neither of them live easily, will be far\\nmore likely to do large work for a town or region", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0143.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "136 Reason a?id Faith\\nthan one big one which is rich and strong enough\\nto get on without special effort. Each of the\\nthree little ones has to work to live, and there is\\nlaziness enough in spiritual as in temporal things,\\nto tempt a getting on with as little effort as may\\nbe. Suppose that, in this city, there were but one\\ndenomination of Christians. It would be big and\\nrich and in need of nothing. It would set its\\ntype of observance, life and service. It would\\ngrow proud, careless and corrupt or at least con-\\ntent. Now, with so many distinct denominations\\non the ground, each is on its guard and good be-\\nhavior. Each must be active to hold its own and\\nwin new adherents. Each must keep itself pure,\\nalert, and Christly or it will suffer. None can\\nlapse far from the standards of the Christ in the\\nmidst of so many which are standing for the same\\nMaster. Not only is this true in the home lands\\nbut abroad. The zeal, sacrifice, heroism and suc-\\ncess of one church in one great field of the heathen\\nworld fires the hearts of all to a holy rivalry for\\nthe salvation of men which is hastening on the\\nday of the world s redemption. Look back to the\\ntimes when one vast, rich and powerful ecclesias-\\nticism reigned over the civilized world. It grew\\ncorrupt, infamous, tyranous and intolerable, till\\nto save the very fundamentals of religion its\\nsole supremacy must be overthrown. That over-\\nthrow was the salvation of the Roman Catholic\\nChurch itself, as well as of this modern time. The\\nsole church of any state or nation soon becomes\\nthe state church, which is in its very ideal an in-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0144.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "Reason a?id Faith 137\\njustice and oppression, and in practice lets into\\nthe sanctuaries of religion all the corruptions of\\nthe state on which it depends. Such a church\\ntends as resistlessly as gravitation to the crushing\\nout of free thought and the compulsion of the\\nconscience. Acts of conformity, with the Inqui-\\nsition to back them, are the logic of the one church,\\na visible, organic and portentous unity. In no\\nland to-day which one sole church dominates is\\nthat church pure or even decent, or the bodies,\\nproperties, souls or thoughts of men free. The\\none church assumes to control the present govern-\\nments, societies, homes and lives of men, and to\\nwield the awful sanctions of eternit}^ for enforce-\\nment of the outrages of time. The nearer such a\\nsole church of a nation or race should come to\\ncomplete success, that is to the unquestioning\\nallegiance of the entire people, the more awful\\nwould be its baleful power. The universal sway\\nof one ecclesiastical system, unquestioned and\\nwithout a rival, would mean the enslavement of\\nthe race and the wreck of the Gospel would be,\\nin the present default of human perfection, more\\nto be feared than any other conceivable calamity.\\nIt may do, possibly, in the Millenium but not now.\\nBut how shall men know what to believe in\\nthis diversity of the sects Believe Wh}^, believe\\nwhat they all hold in common, if you must believe\\nby direction of others and not by 3^our own investi-\\ngations. That central plexus of doctrine stands\\nout clear, rings out in all the confessions. The\\ndiversity of sects which hold that is but the fullest", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0145.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "138 Reason and Faith\\npossible evidence that that is the teaching of the\\nWord. If everybody, from every point of view,\\ndiffering in everything else, is at one with every-\\nbody else on these points, then they must be the\\nessential Christian teaching. No one church of\\nthe organic unity could bear so irrefragable a tes-\\ntimony to the essentials of Bible truth. It is es-\\ntablished, not by the mouth of one witness but of\\na hundred and fifty denominations of Christians\\nfrom as many different points of view, and diverg-\\ning in their conclusions freely except on these\\ngrand central things. What testimony so tre-\\nmendous as that could be conceived Each of\\nthese divergent sects converging and at one on\\nthese central truths, holding these contents of the\\nfaith precisely alike, is a witness of independent\\nweight as to the veritable teaching of the Holy\\nWord. Those things which have been every-\\nwhere and always believed by all must be Bible\\ndoctrine. No man can be at sea as to those essen-\\ntials if he have any desire for harbor\\nNor is there now any expenditure of zeal and\\nenergy in quarrels of the sects. We are not war-\\nring with each other. There is more of strife\\nbetween the Low, Broad, and High in the English\\nState Church, or between different elements in\\nthe Roman Catholic Church, than between all the\\nEvangelical denominations of the world to-day.\\nThe rivalries here are but the blessed emulations\\nof various regiments, divisions, and corps of the\\none grand army of our King. We are trying\\nwhich can run the fastest and farthest to reach", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0146.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 139\\nthe souls of men whicli can fight the toughest\\nbattles against the Devil which can give most,\\ndo most, suflFer most for Jesus and His Kingdom.\\nWe do not hate, mistrust, baflfle and thwart each\\nother. Each presses on in its own field and line,\\ncrying God speed Make haste to every other;\\nand each, for every other, is going faster and\\nfarther and fighting better and achieving the\\nmore grandly. The Rough Riders at San Juan\\nHill cry to the Tenth Regiment, ^Come on\\nand the Tenth Regiment shouts back, Here we\\nare with you See who will get there first\\nSo they win.\\nThe unity for which the Redeemer prayed,\\na perfect unity of spirit, of love and of great co-\\nwork, is well nigh come, is gloriously visible\\namongst all the divisions of the Protestant Evan-\\ngelical host. Only the non-evangelical, the\\nRomanist and the caviler see a hostile and con-\\nflicting host on this side. We have and will have\\nnone of it. We have field enough and work\\nenough without strife within ourselves.\\nOrganic unity Impossible For the only\\nproposition of it so far, is on terms that we all\\nturn back to the bosom of the old Mother Church\\nof Rome, or run flocking into the circumscribed\\nspaces of a church which in the United States\\ncounts but six hundred thousand members to our\\neighteen millions, into the narrow communion of\\nthe only Protestant Church which unchurches us\\nall, bars our pastors from its pulpits, denies the\\nvalidity of our ordinances and Sacraments and", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0147.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "140 Reason and Faith\\nturns us over to the uncovenanted mercies of\\nGod! It offers such unity, not on the great\\nessentials of the Gospel, but on acceptance of the\\nHistoric Episcopate, that is on the basis not of\\nrevelation but of tradition and studies in history\\nwhose conclusions are disputed by the learning\\nand piety of the greater part of the Protestant\\nworld. Organic unity can only come, if at all,\\nought only to come ever, on the basis of the cen-\\ntral and essential things of the clear revelation of\\nGod.\\nOrganic unity Impossible on any, at present,\\nvisible terms And undesirable under any present\\nconditions Vastly perilous, for this age, were it\\npossible It is not that unity for which Our Lord\\nwas praying in His wonderful intercession. The\\nunity for which He longed and for which the\\nChristian world is seeking is not one of form but\\nof spirit, and can not, assuredly, be forwarded by\\nseeking to impose as its condition an ungrounded\\ninference of men for the Oracles of God. Least\\nof all can it be hoped for on condition of universal\\nassent to a historic proposition which the vast\\nmajority of students of history utterly deny.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0148.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 141\\nCHAPTER X\\nTHK WAY OF CERTITUDE.\\nIf any man will do the Father^ s will he shall know the doctrine.\\nJesus, the Christ.\\nDoing the will, then, is the way to clear light\\nof truth. Knowledge here is not complete yet\\ndefinite, comprehensive knowledge is desirable\\nand sufficiently practicable. The Master is tell-\\ning us the way to get it. Not study, reflection,\\ninvestigation, but something else viz., practical\\napplication of the thing that is already clear.\\nYou are to yield yourself in actual obedience to\\nthe truth you already have in any line in order to\\nget more of it. So pursuing, you will get that\\nmore. Our modern philosophers are telling\\nus just now that most of our confident beliefs are\\nreached not at all by simple process of reason.\\nThey are just beginning, nineteen centuries be-\\nlated, to catch up with Jesus.\\nIf you are at work in chemistry you must use\\nthe chemical laws you know, and by experiment\\ncome to progress. In mathematics use all you\\nhave mastered in order to reach the higher walks\\namong the stars. You cannot use multiplication\\nand division until you have mastered addition", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0149.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "142 Reason and Faith\\nand subtraction. The text is little else than say-\\ning that you must avail of the first rung of the\\nladder in order to reach the higher. To get your\\ncherries from the top branches of the tree you\\nmust climb the trunk. To make progress in\\ntruth you must use what you know, must mean\\nreal business, have a practical aim, be not a mere\\ndilettante, playing with it. That of all lines of\\ntruth is general law. But as you come up to the\\nrealm of truth that is great, more vital than math-\\nematics and chemistry to the kinds of truth\\nwhich lay hold on the moral and spiritual in man\\nand the universe, whose issues are of infinite and\\nimmortal concern, there can be no safe trifling.\\nDilettantism playing with truth up here is\\nmoral depravity. Every truth up here is a moral\\nimperative. To know here and not to do is sin,\\ndisloyalty, ruin. Down there in the chemistries\\nyou may know mainly in the interest of knowing,\\nwith no purpose of practical use but up here in\\nthe domain of conscience, to know is to come\\nunder the supreme obligation, the absolute neces-\\nsity. Each truth is the maundement of God.\\nNot one is to be sought fairly or held guiltlessly\\nin the mere interest of knowing it. Not one can\\nbe harmlessly stored away unused. Now and\\nhere, then, there can be no intellectual candor in\\nquest of truth unless there be readiness to apply\\nthat already known. Of course, if one will not\\nconform to the truth he has he is reluctant to\\nadmit more, which being known, will only fling\\nhim into more glaring inconsistency and more", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0150.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 143\\nflagrant guilt. No, he who will not square\\ncharacter and conduct to the moral and spiritual\\ntruth he holds, can not be a candid seeker for\\nmore truth, he may be false to it. His whole\\npurpose will be to get rid of what he has because\\nit stings and goads him as guilty. He does not\\nwant anything further in that line.\\nI cannot resist the conviction that the secret of\\nmuch of the skepticism which men boast of\\nall which they boast concerning religious truth,\\nlies right here. This truth requires holiness of\\nheart, rectitude in life, supreme service of God,\\nand continual effort for redemption of men The\\naverage man is averse to all that, and therefore,\\nby all the energy of the evil in him will not admit\\nthe truth of divine revelation or the verity of the\\ndivine requirement. Skepticism is oftenest not\\nthe outcome of serious and candid inquiry, but of\\nthe uncandid attitude which will not obey the\\ntruth it knows and so determines to deny it and\\nadmit no more. Candor reigns only in the soul\\nwhich is obedient to truth so far as it has found\\nit, and candor is essential to attainment of truth.\\nOf course I am not speaking of the solemn\\ndoubts of men like Romanes, who lived long\\nenough to recall his former unbelief and re-enter\\nthe church of his childhood s communion, and\\nwho declares out of the depths, I am not\\nashamed to confess that with this virtual negation\\nof God the universe has lost to me its soul of love-\\nliness. When at times I think, as at times I\\nmust, of the appalling contrast between the hal-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0151.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": "144 Reason and Faith\\nlowed creed that once was mine and the lonely\\nmystery of existence as I now find it, I shall ever\\nfind it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of\\nwhich my nature is susceptible. Whose heart\\nhas not been touched with the like wail of Pro-\\nfessor Clifford, as he sailed away from England to\\nhis death, too early to get back to the old moor-\\nings of faith from which Professor Romanes\\nlaunched to his glory in the serenities of a Christ-\\nian peace.\\nThat sort of unbelieving we must respect and\\nstand in awe of. But that is not the common\\ntype. It has candor and is now swinging back,\\nthrough all the realms of science and philosophy,\\nto the old land marks of at least theistic\\nbelieving.\\nNow, further, somebody down here is com-\\nplaining that all spiritual truth is not made clear.\\nIt ought to stand out definite and indubitable,\\nthey say. I say, no. What good if it did Men\\nwould not obey it. It is a mercy of God that He\\ndoes not bolt in on the unwilling soul the whole\\nbulk of moral and spiritual truth. It would only\\naggravate the guilt and curse of the disobedient.\\nIf one will not obey the truth he knows, why\\nshould more of it be thrust on him, that he may\\nbe false to it Time enough for more when he\\nuses what he has got. Every man clearly knows\\nenough to make a moral test of him, to show\\nwhat his attitude toward righteousness is. Paul\\ndeclares that. It is, so, a vast mercy of God that\\nonly candor i. e., the purpose to conform to", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0152.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 145\\nknown truth can make thorough mastery of\\nmoral and spiritual truth.\\nWho knows and will not do many stripes;\\nwho knows not few. Who will not do the less\\nhe knows the better.\\nFurther, to do the known will of God e.,\\nrighteousness is to come into that deepest and\\nmost indisputable knowledge of experience. The\\nman has tried the truth and knows it as it has\\nworked in his own case. Nobody need talk to\\nme now, I ve tried it and know. Coleridge\\nwas asked once, How can I know that the Gos-\\npel is true That keenest and most brilliant\\nof philosophers, and not wont to be chary of words,\\nsimply answered, Try it. Put alongside the\\nbrilliant Coleridge the old woman whose Bible\\nwas marked all through T and P. Asked\\nwhat that meant she said, Why, I come to a\\npromise and I try it in prayer and faith and mark\\nit *T, tried. And when the promise is ful-\\nfilled to me I mark it P, proved. She and\\nColeridge, from the two extremes of the intel-\\nlectual realm, are at one. That is it. Put the\\nGospel to the test of experiment. That is the\\nway it was meant to be used. It is no curiously\\ndevised scheme of intellectual subtleties. It is\\nnot a mere mental gymnasium. It is of value\\nonly as a practical life scheme. It is a working\\nforce without one theory or fact of mere specu-\\nlative interest. It is a practical force not to be\\ngrasped by mere intellect, only to be understood\\nwhen felt. It is light which you can know only", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0153.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "146 Reason and Faith\\nby experience, as the blind can never know sun-\\nlight or color. It is a life which no man can\\nknow until he lives it a warmth none can know\\nsave by basking in it a love none can understand\\nbut the lover a power none can conceive until\\nit thrills him until, using it, he finds its divine\\nmightiness a joy which only the rejoicing can\\nknow a peace which passeth understanding, save\\nof those who sit in its holy enfoldment. The\\npeace which Jesus gives His own comes as the\\nworld gives not, and is of a sort the world knows\\nnot, nor can break. Now it is the way of nature,\\nand of the new nature, that one experience of\\ninspiring truth shall kindle passion and create\\npower for another and a finer. This vestibule is\\nso fair, I must press within the doors of the tem-\\nple. This holy place is so enchanting, I must\\nenter with reverent audacity the Holy of Holies\\nwhere God is. One rich experience makes us all-\\nathirst for another. So the soul is led on from\\ngrace to grace and glory to glory, up into the\\nsame image, up into the very likeness of Christ,\\nup into his eternal palaces on high.\\nYou see now, I think, the doctrine of the text.\\nMoral, religious, spiritual truth is all for the\\ndirection of life, creation of character, practical\\napplication. Who will not obey and apply what\\nhe knows of it, will only be damaged dammed\\nmore deeply by having the whole mass of that\\nunwelcome truth dumped upon him. He faces\\nout toward it in a frame of repugnance to which\\ncandor is impossible. Belief of it, and of more of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0154.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 147\\nit, would but distress, irritate, and plunge the\\nman into deeper guilt. That attitude of spiritual\\nrepugnance can wholly distort mental operation\\nand enable one to wholly discredit spiritual truth,\\nand does that to wide and appalling extent and,\\nfinally, the spiritual truths are of such sort as can\\nnot in the great body of them be really known,\\nsave by their experience. You must see, then,\\nthe tremendous force of the words of our lyord.\\nHe only who doeth the will shall know the\\ndoctrine.\\nBut now the text implies that to an extent the\\nwill and doctrine are known already, written in\\nmen s hearts so that they may be put on trial,\\nproven, and lead on to the fuller apprehension of\\nall truth that the great test of candor, earnest-\\nness, the moral attitude of the soul may be made.\\nOh, I am not making with you now a plea in\\nthe interest of any mere speculative. There is like\\nto be in every social group an element which,\\nwhile believing certain religious propositions, is\\nyet in doubt as to many others, and excuses itself\\nfrom venturing out on the truth it does hold for\\nfear of the deeper waters into which it may get\\nafter a little. It is looking out for consequences\\nafter it gets beyond the distance it can now see. It\\nis afraid to commit itself fully to the truth it holds,\\nfor dread that it may not find further truth enough\\nto live by, or may fail of loyalty to it. It is that\\nattitude of many, maybe most of us, to which I\\nspeak. It is a wide unrest, a half agnostic grop-\\ning in the dark, of our time, in the church as", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0155.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "148 Reason and Faith\\nwell as out of it. I would fain help my fellows\\nout into rest, light, sure standing. So I say the\\nsimplest, directest thing that can be said You are\\nsomewhere and know something. Begin, then,\\njust where you are conform character and be-\\nhavior at once to what you know. That is the\\nwill of God, that you obey instantly the truth\\nyou know. That, for the present, is the whole\\nwill of God for you. Obey that will and lo the\\npromise you shall know Promise absolute, un-\\nconditional. Do that and you shall know. Mental\\nlaw promises that the law of moral and spiritual\\ntruth promises that God guarantees it. If you\\nfail to obey the truth you know, you wouldn t\\nobey any other truth along that line. When you\\nuse what you have it will be time enough to give\\nyou more.\\nTo illustrate. I began once this line of imme-\\ndiate urgency with a young man, an editor, of\\nkeen, intellectual furniture and good culture, who\\nhad lost belief in a personal God, and cast away\\nthe old wives fable of a soul. He was in a decline,\\nbut comfortable and about the house. I know\\nI can t live, he said, but when I die, that s\\nthe end. I set out our Christian thought of the\\nsoul, and its grand life after the body, as well as\\nI could. He could only say listlessly, It may be,\\nbut I don t believe it. I caught at that may be\\nand pressed it. There may be an immortal\\nsoul, then Yes. There may be a God,\\nthen! H m, possibly. He may then know\\nus, care for us, help us? Oh, it is possible,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0156.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "Reason arid Faith 149\\nbut listlessly. Well, then, it is possible, if you\\nand I should ask Him and promise Him to act on\\nany truth He might show us, it is possible that\\nHe would lead us to see things exactly as they\\nare He looked up and said, Why, yes, it is\\npossible/ Then I said, You are an honest,\\ncandid man will you frankly accept and act reas-\\nonably on any truth into which you may be led\\nin that way He answered unhesitatingly, Yes,\\nindeed. I fell on my knees and prayed thus\\nO God, if there be any God, show this man his\\nsoul, if he has one give him the fact about immor-\\ntality, if there be any and about what he must\\ndo and be, if there is anything that should be\\ndone, for Christ s sake, if there be any Christ,\\nAmen. And he said Amen, with emphasis.\\nThat is exactly the prayer for me the only one\\nto which I could have said Amen. He prom-\\nised me that he would use that prayer himself,\\nand would hospitably entertain and act on any\\ntruth of which he should become convinced. He\\nwas as good as his word, prayed that prayer sin-\\ncerely, but at first without expectation, then more\\nearnestly, then incessantly. As his unbelief began\\nto melt away, point by point, new truth was reached\\nand put to use. It was beautiful, wonderful, inspir-\\ning to see how the lyord led him, until he exulted\\nand triumphed in God.\\nOne midnight, six months later, he called his\\nwife, who had been an unbeliever with him, to\\nhis bedside, and said, My darling, I am going\\nnow to Jesus, my Redeemer, and yours. With", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0157.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "150 Reason and Faith\\nthe dawn I shall be over there with Him in\\nHeaven. You and the children will be here\\nalone. God help you Will you come on after\\nme, and bring the children with you to me up\\nthere? I shall be watching for you whenever\\nyou come. She made the sacred promise and\\nthey sealed it there with a holy kiss, and she kept\\nit sacred, and with her children the widow is on\\nher way to share with him the glory in which he\\nhas been dwelling for twenty years.\\nDr. Bushnell was a tutor in Yale College, dur-\\ning a time of great religious interest, and was\\nan unbeliever. In unrest himself he was distressed\\nlest he might be hindering many young men who\\nwere prone to follow him. Yet he could not be-\\nlieve far enough to help them or even to get out\\nof their way. His great and generous heart was\\nfull of trouble. At last he said, There is a dis-\\ntinction between right and wrong. That I know.\\nI do believe in a God. Then he threw himself\\non his knees, dedicated himself there passionately\\nand forever to serve and do the right so far as he\\ncould see it, and to contend against the wrong for-\\never, and to seek new light that he might follow\\nit. Thenceforward, standing for the right, seek-\\ning of God to know it more perfectly, one doubt\\nafter another was resolved, truth after truth came\\nclear and flaming upon his soul he followed it\\nunhesitatingly, until he stood through all his\\ngreat and holy manhood a foremost figure in all\\nspiritual and intellectual realms for half a century\\nof grand and saving work. He totally dedicated", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0158.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "Reaso7i and Faith 151\\nhimself to obedience to all the truth he clearly\\nknew, grew in it to the insight of a seer, the stat-\\nure of a giant, and the glory of a saint. These\\nfacts have been published since, but he outlined\\nthat phase of his early life as we rode together in\\nthe saddle over the rolling prairies of Minnesota,\\nin the first year of my ministry.\\nMy appeal, then, to all men who are troubled\\nand hindered by speculative doubts, as who is\\nnot who reads and thinks who do not know on\\nany wide scale what they believe, is, *Give\\nyourself, like Bushnell, in an instant surrender to\\nthe spiritual truth you do know. If you only\\nbelieve there is a God, give yourself to him in\\nabsolute surrender, soul and body, forever, and\\nask him for further light to truth and duty. If\\nyou only know a contrast between sin and holi-\\nness, then dedicate yourself utterly to holiness\\nand its pursuit, its championship, and you shall\\ncome to know all. It is step by step, one step at\\na time so arrival is made. If you wait to see all\\nthe way before you begin your march, you will\\nnever start. God is pressing you toward His\\nheavenly kingdom. You don t know about elec-\\ntion or effectual calling, or the saint s persever-\\nence about the theories of inspiration or atone-\\nment haven t given much attention to theology\\nanyway can t even recite the shorter catechism,\\nmay be. What of that I am sorry about all\\nthat in a way, but what of it Yield your whole\\nsoul under pressure of the Holy Spirit to God in\\nthe mighty vow to follow instantly and to the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0159.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "152 Reason and Faith\\nend all the light you get cast yourself on Him\\nlike a child in the dark, and if there be a God He\\nwill not let you fall into the abyss. That you\\nyield yourself to Him if there be any God must be\\nthe will of God. Do this will and it is not in the\\nnature of things or of God that you should fail to\\nknow all righteousness as need of the knowledge\\ncomes. The simple, entire and affectionate sur-\\nrender of the soul to God, if there be any God,\\nmust be salvation, and the all of it. Here let us\\nstand together, amidst all the swirl of faiths and\\ndoubts, stand together secure, however much or\\nlittle of the great system of truth we may chance\\nto know. He will not suffer any soul that is\\nwholly and lovingly surrendered to Him to stum-\\nble on and perish in the dark. Why should He\\nHe will not fling away any life dedicated to Him\\nin faith. How can He As God is God He can\\nnot.\\nThis, then, is salvation here and now, every-\\nwhere and always hearty surrender to God.\\nThis do and thou shalt live. This do and\\nthou shalt know all doctrine that man needs\\nknow, and have all power that man needs have,\\nand become all that man needs be on earth or in\\nheaven. This is salvation, full salvation, the\\nall of salvation. This? Why this, right here\\nand now, for all of us Quite as well now as to-\\nmorrow, here as elsewhere. Quite as well\\nvastly better", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0160.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 153\\nCHAPTER XI\\nREASON AND FAITH.\\nCome now and let us reason together^ saith the Lord. Isaiah.\\nThe Creator has endued man with reason, not\\nfor rust but for use. It is in the range of the\\nhighest faculties, up here with the conscience and\\nthe spiritual. I^ike the conscience, it is called on\\nfor service in every free act. Its ofl ce is to col-\\nlate the facts set in upon us by the senses, by\\nconsciousness, by testimony, or from whatever\\nsource to consider their evidence, arrange them\\nin their relations, systematize them, and to estimate\\ntheir relative and their absolute importance and\\norder all life in accord with its conditions and en-\\nvironment. Between pretended and actual fact\\nit must be the arbiter. It places before the con-\\nscience the data for obligation. It passes on and\\nauthenticates to the spiritual nature the facts of\\nthe spiritual world for its basis of reality, else the\\nspiritual is the degeneracy of superstition pure\\nand simple. Just as action in the common, every-\\nday life of man without sanction of reason is in-\\nsanity, so is action in spiritual or moral realms\\nwithout its sanction insane. John lyocke says,", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0161.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "154 Reason and Faith\\n**lie that takes away reason to make way for\\nrevelation puts out the light of both. Reason\\nmust justify, or conscience must condemn, every\\nvoluntary act. Man dares not exclude reason from\\nits high function in any sphere of human interest\\non peril of his manhood on peril of running\\ncounter to the decrees of God recorded in every\\ndepartment of nature as well as in the written\\nWord.\\nWe have before, in this series of discourses, re-\\nflected on the strict reasonableness of the expecta-\\ntion that a personal, free, and intelligent God, if\\nthere be one, interested in and responsible for man,\\nwill reveal Himself; that he will surely do it if\\nman stands, in any way, in need of special knowl-\\nedge of Him, His laws, His relations to His\\ncreatures, or of his own destiny and wise prepara-\\ntion for it. We have further seen that it is\\nsupremely reasonable to believe in such a God\\nthat such a belief is, indeed, the only fairly work-\\nable hypothesis in any field of science, philosophy\\nor morals. It is, therefore, the natural conclusion\\nof sound reason that there must be, somewhere,\\nsuch a revelation of these greatest matters of\\nhuman concern. If there be such a revelation\\nextant it is unquestionably in this Book. There\\nis none other which, to the reason of mankind,\\nhas show of like august claim. This has justified\\nits claim by inexorable proofs, not only through\\ninvestigation of its evidences internal and external,\\nbut by actual experiment of its power in the up-\\nlift of individual men and in the glory of the na-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0162.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 155\\ntions which have embraced it and sought approx-\\nimately to apply its sublime law.\\nNow, by the very hypothesis of the need and\\nthe reasonable expectation of such a Divine rev-\\nelation, it is to be anticipated that, when it comes,\\nit will contain much of vital truth which the\\nreason unaided could never have reached. Such\\ncontent alone can justify revelation to reason. It\\nwere strange conceit in man to suppose that he,\\nso infinitesimal a part of this universe, could make\\nfor himself mastery of all that he needs to know\\nof it or to imagine that he can completely under-\\nstand all that is clearly revealed. Revelation is\\nof the Infinite which only the Infinite can fully\\ncomprehend. No finite intelligence may imagine\\nthat it can, or ought to, wholly comprehend all\\nthat is revealed. Any one of us would need a\\ngood deal of study to understand the mechanism\\nof an intricate loom for weaving the elaborate\\npattern of a silken ribbon. Keenest intellects have\\nsearched for ages the secrets of the visible universe,\\nand none has found the last word of revealing na-\\nture along the lines of his little closed sphere\\nof investigation. The universe is vaster than its\\nmaterial side. Its spiritual basis is incapable of\\ninvestigation by scientific instruments of pre-\\ncision or mathematical formulae. We can not\\nmaster it by the senses. We have not ranged\\nthrough and learned it by experience. Only on\\nthe narrowest verges of it are we yet hovering.\\nTo its depths and lengths and heights we have\\nnot penetrated. It hath not entered the heart of", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0163.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "156 Reason and Faith\\nman to conceive the fulness of that vast unex-\\nplored. Were it all laid out before us I suppose\\nthat its terms would be so outside our experience\\nthat it would still be incomprehensible to us.\\nOnly when we ourselves shall have entered those\\ninfinite invisibilities and become of their awful\\norder shall we begin fairly to comprehend them.\\nThat is fair conclusion of pure reason. That is\\nnot to discard reason nor to slur it, but to use it\\nwith supreme freedom and just appreciation.\\nYonder man who will believe nothing which he\\ndoes not understand A lecturer once announced\\nthat he was to speak in a certain hall on the\\nproposition that you should believe nothing\\nthat you can t understand. An old farmer met\\nhim and asked, Are you the man who is going\\nto lecture over at the hall to-night? Yes,\\nsir I am. What is it you are going to talk\\nabout? He told him. Now, that s curious,\\nisn t it? I ve been a good deal puzzled about\\none thing. That is my pasture over there. I\\nsuppose that you can tell me how it is that those\\ncolts eat the grass and it comes out hair all over\\nthem, and the sheep eat the grass and it comes\\nout wool, and the pigs eat it and it comes out\\nbristles, and the geese eat it and it comes out\\nfeathers. That bothers me, and I m mighty glad\\nto find a man that can tell me all about it.\\nCan t? Why, don t you believe it? I tell\\nyou it s just so. Can t Well, I reckon I won t\\ngo to the lecture, then, if you are stumped by\\nsuch a little thing as that", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0164.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 157\\nYet on these vast matters of God s revelations\\nof Himself and of the invisible and spiritual\\nuniverse men are saying that it is unreasonable\\nto believe anything that you can not understand\\nSuch ajQ rmation is the acme of unreason. No\\nman, thinking, would accept as a revelation from\\nGod that which contained nothing to transcend\\nthe powers of the mere unaided human under-\\nstanding. By that token you would affirm it the\\nwork of man, and as a revelation worthless and\\nneedless. Man needs revelation from God only\\nto make known to him things which he ought to\\nknow, but which are so far above him as to be\\nout of his unaided reach, so beyond him that\\nthey will be dim with mystery, relations of so\\nsuper-sensuous sort that it is impossible that he\\nshould yet altogether comprehend them. We\\nneed from revelation such propositions in regard\\nto sin and its penalties and redemption from it as\\nnone but God could make such as in motive, in\\nprocess and in their nature, to be beyond the\\nscope or authority of reason. Till we are as\\ngreat as God He will be the august mystery of\\nmysteries as He is the holy of holies and the in-\\nfinite of infinitudes. His sufficiently, yet parti-\\nally, unveiled truth will stretch away into the\\nfathomless and the insoluble mysteries for joy of\\nunravelling to all eternity. O thou speck, thou\\nflitting mote of an instant s tarrying on the outer\\nrim of a minute section of this little wheel the\\nearth who can not comprehend even that, will\\nyou, such and standing so, looking off into the", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0165.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "158 Reason and Faith\\ntremendous machineries of an illimitable, spiritual\\ninfinitude, lift up your hand in the face of God\\nrevealing, to swear that you will believe only\\nwhat you understand That were ineffable con-\\ntempt of reason That were blasphemy of com-\\nmon sense Reason itself demands of revelation\\nwhat is beyond itself.\\nAs to what is contrary to reason a very differ-\\nent thing from that which is beyond reason.\\nReason is given to guide all action and to estab-\\nlish all faith. Its highest function its supreme\\nresponsibility is to weigh the grounds of our\\nmost momentous actions and most solemn beliefs.\\nI can never persuade myself that the great Author\\nof reason, essence and source of all truth, as of\\nall things, has cut away from the ofi ces of rea-\\nson the majestic realms of the spiritual, which\\nmust command the most important activities and\\nvital problems of man here and of his destinies\\nhereafter. These are the exact themes fittest for\\nthe exercise and most effective development of\\nhis loftiest powers. They stir the profoundest\\nrational interest and make most directly for gran-\\ndeur of reason. Through the rational faculties,\\ntoo, they make most mightily for the evolution\\nof the moral and spiritual in the race. It is in-\\ncredible that these inspiring ranges of loftiest\\ntruth in regard to which all men must act should\\nlie outside the field of reason. It is not true, rea-\\nson is not ruled out by revelation. You may, you\\nmust, be required to believe much which reason\\ncould not have discovered for itself but you are", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0166.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 159\\nnot required to believe anything that is contrary\\nto reason. You are never in religion to act irra-\\ntionally, that is, without or contrary to reason.\\nThat were sheer madness and mockery of God\\nYet, you say, Yet we must accept re-\\nvealed things which quite transcend the powers\\nof unaided reason. Surely. Revelation from\\nGod, if of any use at all, will contain such truth.\\nWhat, then, is the function of reason in regard to\\nit This, to discover whether there be reason-\\nable ground for accepting the supposed revelation\\nas truly from God that is, as a genuine thing.\\nHaving made that investigation and settled it\\nthat its claim is justified, reason demands accept-\\nance of the contents of the revelation. This accept-\\nance by the reason is intellectual faith, correctly\\ncalled a rational faith. It is, so far, precisely\\nlike your belief in the reports which you receive\\non the authority of those who know, about lands,\\npeoples, and customs of parts of the world of which\\nyou have had no experience. It is precisely as\\nreasonable as your belief, on the authority of the\\nastronomer, in the coming of an eclipse which\\nyou could not at all calculate for yourself. Ra-\\ntional faith in the revealed facts of religion is\\nexactly like your intellectual acceptance of the\\nobscure facts of well-attested science on the au-\\nthority of experts. We everywhere do and must\\nplant absolute and controlling faiths on authority,\\nfaiths concerning things which we never have\\nand never could have discovered or even investi-\\ngated for ourselves. In accepting and acting con-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0167.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "i6o Reason and Faith\\nfidently on these innumerable beliefs, we are act-\\ning in accord with the most imperative dictates of\\nhighest reason. These faiths established on au-\\nthority are the vast majority of all the practical\\nbelievings of mankind and are of such sort that\\nlife on earth would be impossible but for their\\nholding. These things surely believed may have\\nappeared in a high degree opposite to all antece-\\ndent probability, as once seemed all the now dem-\\nonstrated facts of astronomy or even the sphericity\\nof the earth itself. It is reasonable to accept these\\nfacts on authority. Neither you nor I have dem-\\nonstrated them, but we do not scoff at each other\\nfor believing them. The improbable becomes\\nrational when it is proven It is no more con-\\ntrary to reason, for it is fact.\\nNow if you compare the conclusions from a\\nmere human authority with the authentication of\\na Word of God, when you have rationally settled\\nit that you have a Word of God, what does reason\\nsay? Why, surely, that human demonstrations^*\\nhave contradicted and reversed themselves in tens\\nof thousands of instances that to-day is forever\\nreversing yesterday as yesterday did the day be-\\nfore that man is fallible that his pronunciations\\nare not always reliable that he is capable of pre-\\njudgments which wholly warp his candor that\\nhe is not always honest that he is capable of\\nbeing deceived and even of deceiving others delib-\\nerately. The best of human authorities it is wise\\nto question and cross-question often, especially\\nwhen they venture into realms outside the mere", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0168.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith i6i\\nphysical, material and mathematical sciences. The\\nmost dangerous phase of science is that which\\ndeems itself omni-science But if reason has set-\\ntled it that we have an authentic Word of God in\\nRevelation, then reason says Believe, believe\\nimplicitly. The God knows. He can not be\\nmistaken and He can not lie. He alone can, to a\\ncertainty, know these out-of-sight and out-of-\\nhearing things about which we need most of all\\nto be assured. Hear Him and heed. Only be\\ncareful of right interpreting That is the voice\\nof sound reason. If there be anything there\\nwhich seems antecedently improbable, why then it\\nseemed so to the King of Siam that water should\\never be so solid that men could walk on it or to the\\nancient world that the earth should be revolving\\nat such an incredible speed on its axis, or that\\nthere could be inhabitants at the Antipodes,\\nclinging to the surface, head-downwards, for their\\nlives. Of course there will be before-hand im-\\nprobabilities in a revelation of such beings, worlds,\\ndestinies as these with which the great Revelation\\nmust deal. But in it there will be, can be, nothing\\nwhich is contrary to reason for there can be in it\\nnothing which is not true.\\nThere may be in it things which reason, in its\\npresent limitations of knowledge, can not reconcile\\nwith each other. We ought to calculate on that\\nif we rationally consider our littleness and the\\nnarrow reach of our vision. But if anything there\\nseems absolutely opposite to reason, we must be-\\nlieve that we have thus far misinterpreted the rev-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0169.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "1 62 Reason and Faith\\nelation itself, or that it has crept in there by some\\nhuman copyist s or translater s fault. Contradic-\\ntion to reason can not be in the genuine revelation\\nof Himself, by Himself to man. God is the su-\\npreme Reason and has made us in His image. He\\nis the supreme Truth and can give us only truth.\\nHighest reason bids us believe implicitly what\\nreason declares has come from God.\\nReason s work, then, is to establish the fact of\\na Divine Revelation, the verity, the nature, the\\nextent of the Divine inspiration in it the genuine-\\nness of the documents which convey it to fix the\\nDivine intent of it to settle whether this section\\nsay the book of Job be merely biographic narra-\\ntive or a sublime religious drama whether that\\nbe a story of actual life or a sweet religious idyll\\nof the ancient time, or a holy allegory of penitence\\nand eflFective obedience whether this book or\\nsong does really belong to the record of revelation\\nor not to clear the whole question of obscurity\\nand incertitude to relieve its difficulties so far as\\nmay be to point the reasonable way of solving\\nits seeming inconsistencies to fairl}^ interpret it,\\nand then to command faith in it. Reason and\\nscholarship surely have here business enough in\\nhand, and must be allowed their full liberties of\\nmost exhaustive investigation. To deny them\\ntheir legitimate functions here amongst the\\nfoundations of faith were to bar them from their\\nhighest use their chief design were to sweep\\naway the very basis of a rational believing to\\nmake faith itself a mere and an idle superstition.", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0170.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 163\\nFreest range and widest liberty for the intelligence\\nof man in the exploration of these loftiest themes\\nin the finest fields for its development and grand-\\nest realms of its spiritual exercise is reason s just\\ndemand. Happily, prohibition of such investiga-\\ntion can no longer be enforced on men. Reason\\nwill ever find here its most enchanting, inspiring,\\nand fruitful field win its most brilliant successes\\nand grow to its most stalwart grandeur while\\nfaith will come, through its investigations, to its\\nmost immovable foundations and inexpugnable\\ndefenses. None fear the ultimate results save\\nthose who distrust the real validity and genuine-\\nness of the ground- works of their believing.\\nBut reason has a further function. That any-\\nthing whatever has yet been found in this revela-\\ntion which is necessarily contrary to reason I\\nhave been unable to discover. That much has\\nbeen forced upon it and tortured out of it that is\\nwholly opposite to reason and morality and com-\\nmon sense is sadly to be affirmed. This has been\\neffected, however, by misconception of the design,\\nthe intent and the nature of the Book which con-\\ntains the record by torture and violence done it\\nby ignorance and conceit by cruelty and ambi-\\ntion. For the explosion of these hideous misin-\\nterpretations and misapplications we are indebted\\nto the brave and free use of reason often in the\\nface of monstrous intolerance and persecution\\neven unto death, for the truth s sake. Thanks\\nbe to God that he has inspired the reason of man\\nto fling off* from his revelation of himself a horri-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0171.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "164 Reason and Faith\\nble mass of monstrous misunderstandings which\\ndark and cruel ages had interposed between him-\\nself and the heart of man whom he would redeem,\\nmisconceptions which could only alienate all\\nrational intelligence from His Word and His Per-\\nson. It is to reason, enlightened of God, that we\\nowe the tenable defenses of the Book and the\\nGospel in these modern times.\\nlyaying these antique absurdities aside as the\\nmere curiosities of a dark past, certain things are\\nyet objected by many as contrary to sound reason.\\nIt is said that it is so contrary to reason that a\\ngood God should suffer the intrusion of evil into\\na moral universe. But the evil is here to a cer-\\ntainty. If there be the contradiction, then God\\nis not, or is not good. Candor, however, will ad-\\nmit that even in these discourses it has been fairly\\nshown that the free possibility of evil choices and\\nevil performance is essential to the existence of a\\nmoral universe.\\nIt is said that for a holy God to justify any\\nguilty soul were itself contrary to reason and con-\\nscience. I believe that consideration of that\\nmatter has shown with clearness that such a jus-\\ntification of the soul which has found through\\nChrist a real and genuine repentance is not only\\nconsistent with reason but demanded by the high-\\nest moral reason.\\nIt is said that the interference of God with the\\nordinary course of nature in the way of miracle\\nwere contrary to reason. I believe that it has\\nbeen seen that, granted a free personal and ben-", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0172.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 165\\neficent God and a race which needs knowledge\\nof Him and His presence and good will, reason,\\ninstead of rejecting the evidences of such inter-\\nvention, even forecasts and demands it.\\nIt is said that the notion that God would pro-\\nvide so strange and costly a redemption for so\\ninsignificant a race as ours on so petty a planet as\\nthis is an absurd proposition. The answer is that\\nGod is love, that this planet is not insignificant,\\nand that man, endowed as he is and set out on an\\neternal career for majestic development, is in no\\nsense of a contemptible significance, but the\\nrather the candidate for the highest of all possi-\\nbilities of superb finite moral and spiritual being,\\nin these majestic eventualities wholly worthy of\\nthe wonderful forces and processes of creation,\\nprovidence and redemption.\\nWith these objections fairly answered, what\\nfurther large and general presumption can lie\\nagainst a rational and restful Christian faith?\\nEverything lies in the results of a fair study of\\nthe evidences of revealed religion in its own fabric\\nand in the world s experience of its demonstrated\\neffects.\\nAll the hard and sorrowful mysteries of life are,\\nindeed, not solved in these solutions. A fringe of\\nas yet insoluble mystery reason itself declares\\nmust still hang about the secrets of the Divine\\nadministration of a universe vast and eternal like\\nthis of which we are a part. All particular in-\\nstances in a system of which we know so little\\nmust go over for their solution to a future when", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0173.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "1 66 Reason arid Faith\\nwe shall be better capable of their comprehension.\\nHaving seen that evil will surely exist in a moral\\nuniverse and that out of it and by agency of it\\nis to come the loftiest of conceivable moral and\\nspiritual being, sound reason finds no difficulty in\\nreferring such remnant of present mystery to the\\nrevealings of the endless future. Indeed it is ob-\\nviously best that something, something much,\\nshould be left for a loving faith in and submission\\nto such a God as is our God. It were ill for us\\nto be ever walking by the sight of our eyes and\\nnever in need of the vision of a simple trust.\\nThe horrible conceit, the awful ennui of a man\\nwho knows everything and all its reasons is intol-\\nerable. Life on such terms would get flat, stale\\nand unprofitable. Invention, investigation, pro-\\ngress would cease and the powers of reason itself\\nwould die. Reverent reason is content with the\\nwords of the Master, What I do thou knowest\\nnot now but shalt know hereafter, ought to be\\ncontent and is. It knows now or is set to find\\nout all that it can safely manage\\nSo, then, reason has another and a final word.\\nThese things revealed and believed constitute the\\nsubstance and sanction of all obligation. They\\nbecome the commanding facts and forces of life.\\nThey are the secret of our creation, enduement\\nand preservation. They constitute our oppor-\\ntunity, privilege, and Divine prerogative. They\\nare our sublime franchise in the universe. By\\nthis rational faith we are to come to our grandeurs,\\nprincedoms and great dominions to our eternal", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0174.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "Reason and Faith 167\\nbeatitudes, likenesses to Christ and to our home\\nin His glory and the heart of His love. Holding\\nthis rational faith it is the sum of all duty the\\nvery maundement of the Highest, which we can\\nonly defy or neglect to the absolute ruin of our\\nmoral, intellectual, and spiritual being. Such\\nneglect or defiance is chaos, anarchy, hell. It is\\nthe only thing on earth or in hell that is to be\\nfeared. It is desert of the worst. It is the thing\\nagainst which reason, putting on at last the robes\\nof judgment and ascending the throne of con-\\nscience, pronounces awful sentence. That sentence\\nof enthroned reason will be ratified on the Great\\nDay before the assembly of the moral universe, in\\nthe final judgment of Him whose word is\\nDestiny\\nReason, then, in the Protestant, Christian Faith,\\nis to find its freest field, its highest function, its\\nperpetual labor and its fullest rest is to lift man\\nto his final splendor and give to Christ His eternal\\nand universal Crown Right well did Browning\\nsing,\\nI say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ\\nAccepted by thy reason, solves for thee\\nAll questions in the earth or out of it", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0175.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3921", "width": "2661", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0176.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3921", "width": "2661", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0177.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "OCT\\n2.2 ^9Q^\\nDeacidified using the Bookkeeper process,\\nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide\\nTreatment Date: August 2005\\nPreservationTechnologies\\nA WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION\\n111 Thomson Park Drive\\nCranberry Township, PA 16066\\n(724) 779-2-! 11", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0178.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0179.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": "", "height": "4162", "width": "2844", "jp2-path": "reasonfaith00fisk_0180.jp2"}}