The Fundamentals (1910), Vol.1

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The Fundamentals. the reading of the heart of man, the forgiveness of sins, the exercise of all authority in heaven and earth. Indeed, all that God has and is He asserts Himself to have and be; omnipo­ tence, omniscience, perfection belong as to the one so to the other. Not only does He perform all divine acts; His self* consciousness coalesces with the divine consciousness. If His followers lagged in recognizing His deity, this was not be­ cause He was not God or did not sufficiently manifest His deity. I t was because they were foolish and slow of heart to believe what lay patently before their eyes. \ . THE GREAT PROOF. The Scriptures give us evidence enough, then, that Christ is God. But the Scriptures are far from giving us all the evidence we have. There is, for example, the revolution which Christ has wrought in the world, jflf, indeed, it were asked what the most convincing proof of the deity of Christ is, per­ haps the best answer would be, just Christianity. The new life He has brought into the world; the new creation which He has produced by His life and work in the world; here are at least His most palpable credentials. \ Take it objectively. Read such a book as Harnack’s “The Expansion of Christianity,” or such an one as Von Dobschiitz’s “Christian Life in the Primitive Church”—neither of which allows the deity of Christ—and then ask, Could these things have been wrought by power less than divine? And then re­ member that these things were not only wrought in that heathen world two thousand years ago, but have been wrought over again every generation since; for Christianity has re­ conquered the world to itself each generation. Think of how the Christian proclamation spread, eating its way over the world like fire in the grass of a prairie. Think how, as it spread, it transformed lives. The thing, whether in its objec­ tive or in its subjective aspect, were incredible, had it not actually occurred. “Should a voyager,” says Charles Darwin,

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