PREFACE

In these essays the following questions are considered from a rational point of view, and without any appeal either to human or divine authority:

In what way and how far is the Bible inspired of God? Was every book of the Old and the New Testaments, as originally composed, free from all misconceptions and mistakes? Was Jesus Christ born of a virgin, or was he the natural son of a human father, say of Joseph of Nazareth? Did our Lord rise from the dead with the same body that was laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea? Is Christianity the only form of saving faith, or is it merely the most perfectly developed form of it? What was the significance of the name "Christ" as applied to Jesus of Nazareth by his contemporaries and by the Apostles? Was-and is our Savior a man with human limitations? Can he be reasonably regarded also as a divine person with a pre-existent eternal nature? How is the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and of three persons in one God to be understood? What is the essential message of

the cross of Christ? Does the scriptural teaching respecting Christ's death as an atonement admit of philosophical explanation? How are conflictive Biblical statements of fact or of doctrine to be reconciled? On what historical grounds may the Christian era be styled "the fullness of the time?" What were the religious faith and experience of the Apostle Paul? Is there a personal Devil, and are there personal dæmons or evil spirits? Has the Mosaic cosmogony any value as a scientific hypothesis? In what form, and in what way, was man first brought into being? And how long, and under what conditions of mind and body, have men existed upon the earth?

The aim of the essays has not been to present a system of doctrines, or even to consider all matters on which Christians differ. The design has been to discuss certain questions which are being specially debated at the present time, and to endeavor to answer these in a rational way. Of course, the writer does not expect that his argumentations will be convincing to all readers, but he asks consideration for them only so far as they may be found to possess inherent reasonableness. He would be glad to have any of them refuted which may rest on false or insufficient grounds.

Moreover, it is his hope that these discussions may result in good, not so much because of the positions which they advocate, as because of the example they give of an independent way of thinking. All students of Christian truth should use creeds and formulas as suggestive helps, but should base their opinions on the facts and reasons which are to be found in the Scriptures, and in experience. Only through such a course can an increasing unity of faith be hoped for among those who believe in God, as the Almighty Father, and in Jesus Christ, his Son, as the Redeemer of Men.

NEW YORK, November 29, 1916.