In a similar manner, if we eliminate every thing supernatural out of the New Testament, with a view of arriving at a residuum of truth, we are brought into immediate contact with the most unique fact in the history of man, the creation of the Church of Jesus Christ, the greatest institution which has ever affected the destinies of our race, and which has for eighteen centuries exerted a most commanding influence on human happiness and civilization. This is professedly based on a miraculous fact, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. If, therefore, we remove the supernatural elements out of Christianity, this institution, mighty for good in its influence on the progress of our race, has been based on an unreality and a delusion. Here again we encounter something which has very much the appearance of the supernatural. On these accounts, therefore, I cordially accept the position which is laid down by the author of “Supernatural Religion” as a correct statement of the case, that Christianity involves the presence of the Supernatural, or it is nothing. We must either defend the chief supernatural elements of the New Testament or abandon it as worthless. But there is an expression which occurs in this quotation, and which is frequently made use of in subsequent parts of the work, which requires consideration, “Ecclesiastical Christianity.” What is intended by it? The meaning is nowhere defined, and unless we come to a clear understanding with respect to it, we shall be in danger of complicating the entire question. The expression is ambiguous. If by it is meant any other form of thought, than that which is contained in the pages of the New Testament; if, in fact, by it is intended a systematic arrangement of doctrinal truth, which has been elaborated at a subsequent period, I emphatically assert that those who are called upon to defend the divine character of the Christian Revelation have nothing to do with it. The only thing which those who maintain that the New Testament contains a divine revelation can be called on to defend, is the express statements of the book itself, and not a system of thought which subsequent writers may have attempted to deduce from it.