Many of the attacks which have been made on Revelation are directed against its outworks merely; this is one directed against the very key of the Christian position. If it can be carried by our opponents, the whole line of our defences becomes untenable. Let us not deceive ourselves. If the Gospels are not _in their main outlines_ historically true, Christianity is no more divine than Shakespeare. It may be the highest development of man; but it can have no pretence to be esteemed a revelation from God. The objections of this school have done more to undermine the belief of the educated classes in Christianity as a divine revelation than any one single cause. They have largely created the so-called rationalism of the Continent. They are widely diffused in America. In our own country, a numerous class of writers who obtain ready access to our periodical literature are not only imbued with similar views, but write with the quiet assumption that the historical foundation of Christianity cannot be defended. As my subject is a wide one, I must address myself to it without any preliminary observations. The question before us is simply this, Are the Gospels credible histories, in the sense that other writings of the same description are? or are the larger portion of their contents fictitious? It should be observed that although these schools support their views by an immense critical apparatus, the real σκάνδαλον [Greek: skandalon] of the Gospels is the supernatural element which they contain. Apart from this, their historical character would never have been questioned. The theory that miracles are impossible underlies the entire mass of these objections. But the question of the miraculous has been already handled by another lecturer. I shall therefore only observe on it that it forms no portion of a strictly historical inquiry. It appertains to the abstract regions of thought. History has to deal with evidence, not with abstract dogmas or philosophical questions. To begin an historical inquiry with the assumption that miracles are impossible, and that any event which involves the supernatural must be a fiction, is quietly to assume the point at issue.