sages for which they had His authority, or the guidance of
His Spirit in communicating them to their fellows. Men had to decide
for themselves whether they believed those claims. The Apostles were
supported, indeed, in many cases by miracles, but not always; and
though those miracles afforded momentous evidence, they were not
recognisable in themselves, when standing alone, as decisive of the
whole question. No apparent miracle, it was felt, could of itself
authenticate a message from God which did not bear internal evidence
also of having proceeded from Him. The appeal in the early Church was
directed, as in the time of our Lord Himself, to the hearts and
consciences of men. He Himself could but appeal to those hearts and
consciences, and men accepted and rejected Him, not by reference to any
external authority, but in proportion to their capacity for recognising
His Divine character.

"_Thus from the first to the last, the authority of the Scriptures has
been equivalent to the authority with which they themselves convinced
men that they had come from God_."

I have been anxious to show you that the position of the Bible rests
not on any miracle, or any external authority of the Church or Council,
but on its appeal to the minds and consciences of men. You may doubt a
miracle, you may doubt your individual instincts, you may doubt the
competency of any one body of men; you cannot doubt so easily the
conviction of a hundred generations. They found in it a power to make
them good and they were convinced that it had come from God.[1]

Now consider that this Bible has held its authoritative position in the
face of the most violent attacks all through the centuries; that
infidels have dreamed that they had overthrown it and exploded it times
without number, with the result only that its power has steadily
increased, so that to-day it would be almost as easy to root the sun
out of the heavens as to root this Bible out of human life.

Take this single fact as an illustration. A hundred years ago Voltaire
refuted it quite satisfactorily, as it seemed to himself. "In a
century," he said, "the Bible and Christianity will be things of the
past." Well, how has his prophecy been fulfilled? Before his day the
whole world from the beginning of it had not produced six millions of
Bibles. In a single century since, and that too, the enlightened,
critical nineteenth century, _two hundred millions_ of Bibles and
portions o