One would naturally imagine, as reason and common sense certainly suggest, that one’s first duty would be to convince oneself that God did communicate these truths; and if so, then to accept them without further dally or comment.  There is nothing to be done, once God reveals, but to receive His revelation.

Outside the Church, this procedure is not always followed, because of the rationalistic tendencies of latter-day Protestantism.  It is a glaring fact that many do not accept all that God says because He says, but because it meets the requirements of their condition, feelings or fancy.  They lay down the principle that a truth, to be a truth, must be understood by the human intelligence.  This is paramount to asserting that God cannot know more than men—­blasphemy on the face of it.  Thus the divine rock-bed of faith is torn away, and a human basis substituted.  Faith itself is destroyed in the process.

It is, therefore, important, before examining whence comes our faith, to remember why we believe, and not to forget it.  This much gained, and for all time, we can go farther; without it, all advance is impossible.

CHAPTER XIX.  WHENCE OUR BELIEF:  REASON.

My faith is the most reasonable thing in the world, and it must needs be such.  The Almighty gave me intelligence to direct my life.  When He speaks He reveals Himself to me as to an intelligent being:  and He expects that I receive His word intelligently.  Were I to abdicate my reason in the acceptance of His truths, I would do my Maker as great an injury as myself.  All the rest of creation offers Him an homage of pure life, of instinct or feeling; man alone can, and must, offer a higher, nobler and more acceptable homage—­that of reason.

My faith is reasonable, and this is the account my reason gives of my faith:  I can accept as true, without in the least comprehending, and far from dishonoring my reason, with a positive and becoming dignity,—­ I can accept!—­but I must accept—­whatever is confided to me by an infallible authority, an authority that can neither deceive nor be deceived.  There is nothing supernatural about this statement.

That which is perfect cannot be subject to error, for error is evil and perfection excludes evil.  If God exists He is perfect.  Allow one imperfection to enter into your notion of God, and you destroy that notion.  When, therefore, God speaks He is an infallible authority.  This is the philosophy of common sense.

Now I know that God has spoken.  The existence of that historical personage known as Jesus of Nazareth is more firmly established than that of Alexander or Caesar.  Four books relate a part of His sayings and doings; and I have infinitely less reason to question their authenticity than I have to doubt the authenticity of Virgil or Shakespeare.  No book ever written has been subjected to such a searching, probing test of malevolent criticism, at all times but especially of late years in Germany and France.  Great men, scholars, geniuses have devoted their lives to the impossible task of explaining the Gospels away, with the evident result that the position of the latter remains a thousandfold stronger.  Unless I reject all human testimony, and reason forbids, I must accept them as genuine, at least in substance.