The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-07-25
SERMON ON FAITH.
DIR. John. President of DsPauw, breaches n
the CsntraI-Avenue Church.

DIR. John. President Of DsPauw, Preaohes
the CsntraI-Ayenne Church.
DR.. J. p. d. John, president of DePauw
University. preached at Central-ayenue NJ.
E. Church yesterday evening on The War
rant of Faith" He took as his text the
seventeenth verse of the fifteenth chapter
of First Corinthians:
II Christ be not raised. your faith IL vain. Ye
yet in your sins.
He said that from the time of Christ
down to the present day the chief warrant
of faith has been the fact of miracle. But
modern SCIENCE has been pressing upon us
this difficult question:: What is the war
rant of belief In miracles At the time OF
Christ and for centuries before and after.
it was easier TO believe miracle than
TO believe great spiritual truth. We have
reached an advanced age when it is easier
to believe great spiritual truth than to
believe physical miracle. Down through
the centuries the warrant of faith was tho
fact of miracle. To-day the warrant of be-
lief In miracle is the fact of faith. The
central miracle of the gospel was the resur-
rectiOn OF Christ. If that unique and stu
pendous miracle could be true the minor
ones could easily stand.
If the bare facts of the death. burial and
resurrection OF Christ wero recorded by
apparently candid witnesses of Mohammed
or COnfucius. or of SwedenOorg. | should
not believe them. 1t would be more of a
miracle to me that they should rise from
alleged resurrection should be mis-
taken. This is why could
not believe of them what / do of
Christ Certain miracles are alleged to
man Catholic Church. l do not believe
that any such miracles occurred. 1t would
seem TO me less miraculous that the nara
tors should have been mistaken than that
she alleged miracles should have occurred.
Certain persons known as Christian
scientists aver that they have witnessed
the miraculous restoration to health of
those who were incurably diseased. 1t is
easier TO believe that the witnesses are
misguided than that their miraculous
stories are true.
As to the resurrection Of Christ suppose
the world had been looking for this man.
suppose the exact place of his birth
had been fixed. the approximate
the family from which he would spring:
all the leading facts of his life fore
shadowed; that 1t had been claimed he
would rise again from the dead: that he
had foretOld his own death with remark
able minuteness in the details. and had
definitely stated that he would rise from
the dead; suppose, during ali these 1890
years Of the future into which we have
looked. We hnQ MIN helping mon ana lift
ing mp the race with power unknown
and nnimagined; suppose all these things
and much more OF the Same teuOr: now if
in addition to the current report that a
man had died last Friday and that he had
risen from the dead this morning, all
these nnfecedenr. DON, trent and subsc-
Quent facts were in substance established.
then |, for one. should believe the report
/ must admit miracle greater than the
resurrection itself IT 1 deny the resurrec-
ton In the race of these facts.
Mind is no less subject TO law than mat
ter, and Its law is no less inexorahle If
w hen the laws OF matter seem to turn uDon
themselves, as in tire resurrection OF dead
body. we call 10 a miracle: no less do
call it q miracle when the laws of mind
turn back upon themselves and Judgment
refuses to judge and reason refuses TO rea-
son; when certainty becomes doubt, and
donbt becomes certainty.
Tho physical miracle was necessary in
the time of Christ. IL is not nee essnry now.
The warrant of faith TO-DAY Ia not the fact
of physical miracle. Tho warrant of faith
to-day Is the historic Christ himself. not so
much the Christ that r0se from the dead
and assembled on high To the astonishrn-nt
of n curious and gaping multitude. bnt
rather the Christ who came hack from
heaven after his triumphal ascension TO
1--we In human hesrts. aud to reign In hu-