All revealed religion is based upon facts. Testimony has respect to facts only; and that testimony may be credible, it must be confirmed. These points are of so much importance as to deserve some illustration, and much consideration. By facts we always mean something said or done. The works of God and the words of God, or the things done or spoken by God, are those facts which are laid down and exhibited in the Bible as the foundation of all faith, hope, love, piety, and humanity. All true and useful knowledge is an acquaintance with facts; and all true science is acquired from the observation and comparison of facts. But he that made the heart of man and gave him an intelligent spirit knows that facts alone can move the affections and command the passions of man. Hence the scheme of mercy which be has discovered to the world is all contained in, and developed by, the works of mercy which he has wrought.

Facts have a meaning which the understanding apprehends, and the heart feels. According to the meaning or nature of the fact /97/is its effect upon us. If a friend have risked his life or sacrificed his reputation or fortune to relieve us, we can not but confide in him and love him. If any enemy have attempted our life, invaded our property, or attacked our reputation, we can not, naturally, but hate him. Nothing but the command of a benefactor, or the will of some dear friend who has laid us under obligation to himself, can prevent us from hating our enemies. If a beloved relative have sustained some great misfortune, we must feel sorry; or if he have been rescued from some impending calamity, we must feel glad. Our joy in the latter case, and our sorrow in the former, arise from the meaning or nature of the fact. The feelings corresponding with the nature of the fact are excited or called into existence the moment the fact is known or believed. It is known when we have witnessed it ourselves, and it is believed when reported to us by credible persons who have witnessed it. This is the chief difference between faith and knowledge.

As existences or beings must precede knowledge, so facts must precede either knowledge or belief. An event must happen before it can be known by man - it must be known by some before it can be reported to others - it must be reported before it can be believed and the testimony must be confirmed or made credible before it can be relied on.

Something must be done before it can be known, reported, or believed. Hence, in the order of nature, there is first the fact; then the testimony; and then the belief. A was drowned before B reported it - B reported it before C believed it - and C believed it before he was grieved at it. This is the unchangeable and universal order of things as respects belief. In this example, when we reason from effect to cause, it is grief, belief, testimony, fact; and from cause to effect, it is fact, testimony, belief, grief. We ascend from grief to belief - from belief to testimony - from testimony to fact. We descend from fact to testimony - from testimony to belief - and from belief to grief. To this there is no exception, more than against the universality of the law of gravity. If, then, there was nothing said or done, there could be no testimony, and so no faith. Religious affections spring from faith, and therefore it is of importance that this subject should be disintricated from the mysticism of the schools.

Laws call for obedience, and testimony for belief. Where there is no law there an be no obedience, and when there is no testimony there can be no faith. As obedience can not transcend law, so faith can not transcend testimony. John's testimony went to so many facts. On his testimony we can believe only as far as he has /98/testified; and so of all the other witnesses. The certainty of faith depends upon the certainty or credibility of the witnesses. But not so its effects. The effects depend upon the facts believed - the certainty upon the evidence. I may be equally certain that John was beheaded - that Jesus was crucified. Nay, I may be as certain of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem as I am of his death on Calvary. The testimony may be equally credible, and the faith equally strong; but the effects produced are not the same. The facts believed have not the same meaning, are not of the same nature, and do not produce the same feelings or effects. I may be as certain of the assassination of Caesar in the Senate House as I am of the crucifixion of Jesus on Calvary; but, as the facts believed are as diverse in their nature, meaning, and bearings upon me, as the East and the West, so the effects or fruits of my faith are as different as Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ.

The more ordinary the fact, the more ordinary the testimony necessary to establish it. That A B, aged 90, and confined for some time with sickness, died last night, requires only the most ordinary testimony to render it credible. But that C D lived to 140, enjoying unabated vigor of mind and body, requires stronger testimony. But still, all facts happening in accordance with the ordinary and natural laws of things require but good human testimony to make them worthy of credence. It is only extraordinary and supernatural facts which require supernatural testimony, or testimony supernaturally confirmed. This is the point to which we have been looking in this essay. And, now that we have arrived at it, I would ask, How has the testimony of the apostles and evangelists been confirmed?

To confirm a testimony is neither more nor less than to make it credible to those to whom it is tendered; or, to express the same idea in other words, it is to give men power to believe. Now, it will not require the same amount of evidence to persuade an astronomer that the earth's shadow struck the moon last eclipse, as it would to convince an Indian; nor would it require the same amount of evidence to convince a chemist that combustion was effected by pouring water on a certain composition of mineral substances, as it would an unlettered swain. To make any testimony credible to any order of beings, regard must therefore be had to the capacity, attainments, and habits of those beings. To confirm the testimony of the apostles concerning the Messiah's death, resurrection, ascension into heaven, and coronation as the Lord and king of the universe, imports no more nor no less than that it should be rendered everyway credible to such things as we are, /99/or that we should be made able to believe. A testimony confirmed, and yet incredible to those to whom it is tendered, is a contradiction in terms. But why emphasize on the word confirmed? Because the holy apostles have emphasized upon it. It is therefore necessary that we should pay a due regard to the confirmation of the testimony. The testimony is one thing, and the confirmation is another. It is necessary, in all important occasions in human affairs, that the testimony which is received between man and man should be confirmed by some sanction. Hence an oath for confirmation of testimony is an end of all strife. The highest confirmation which men require in all questions of fact is a solemn oath or affirmation that the things affirmed are true.

But supernatural facts require supernatural confirmations. Hence, when the confirmation of the gospel is spoken of in the apostolic writings, it is resolved into the doings or works of the Holy Spirit. "Demonstrations of the Holy Spirit" are the confirmatory proofs of the gospel. When Paul delivered the testimony of God, or the testimony concerning Jesus, to the Corinthians, he says, "It was confirmed among them." And if we examine into the confirmation of the testimony as Paul explained it, we shall find that he makes the spiritual gifts, or those extraordinary and miraculous powers which the apostles themselves displayed, and which so many of their converts also possessed, an assurance or confirmation of what he promulgated.

We shall only attend to the light which one of his epistles to the Corinthians throws upon this subject. After thanking his God for the favor bestowed upon the disciples of Corinth when he first visited them, he proceeds to specify the special favors bestowed upon the disciples in that renowned city. "You were enriched [says he, I. ver. 5] with every gift by him, even with all speech and all knowledge when the testimony of Christ was confirmed among you: so that you come behind in no gift." "There are diversities of gifts [chapter xii], for to one disciple is given the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge; to another faith [to be healed]; to another, the gift of healing; to another, the ability of working in others the power of working miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of foreign tongues; and to another, the interpretation of foreign tongues." Now, the Corinthians were put in possession of these (for they came behind in no gift) "when the testimony of Christ was confirmed among them." "For," says Paul, "I came not to you with the excellency of speech, or the persuasive eloquence of the schools, but with the /100/demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your belief of my testimony, or your faith, might not rest or be founded upon human wisdom or eloquence; but upon the power of God evinced in the demonstrations of the Spirit which confirmed my testimony among you." For had it not been for these demonstrations of the Spirit and power, your faith could not have rested upon an immovable basis.

To those desirous to understand this subject, an examination of this first letter to the Corinthians can not fail to be most instructive; for it most clearly and unequivocally teaches us that the visible, audible, sensible demonstration of the Spirit and of power was that supernatural attestation of the testimony of Christ which made it credible, so that no man could have acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth to be the Almighty Lord, but by this demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Thus was the testimony confirmed - thus was Jesus demonstrated to be the only begotten Son of God - and thus, and thus only, are men enabled to believe in him. [NOTE: Millennial Harbinger, vol. I., pp. 8-12.]