consistency with other truths, their derivation from admitted
principles, their reasonableness, their adaptation to men's nature,
the refining and elevating effects of their adoption, and so on. If
we think of Christianity, on the other hand, as being first a set of
historical facts which carry the doctrines, then the way to prove
Christianity is not to show how reasonable it is, not to show how it
has been anticipated and expected and desired, not to show how it
corresponds with men's needs and men's longings, not to show what
large and blessed results follow from its acceptance. All these are
legitimate ways of establishing principles; but the way to establish
a fact is only one--that is, to find somebody that can say, 'I know
it, for I saw it.'

And my belief is that the course of modern 'apologetics,' as they are
called--methods of defending Christianity--has followed too slavishly
the devious course of modern antagonism, and has departed from its
real stronghold when it has consented to argue the question on these
(as I take them to be) lower and less sufficing grounds. I am
thankful to adopt all that wise Christian apologists may have said in
regard to the reasonableness of Christianity; its correspondence with
men's wants, the blessings that follow from it, and so forth; but the
Gospel is first and foremost a history, and you cannot prove that a
thing has happened by showing how very desirable it is that it should
happen, how reasonable it is to expect that it should happen, what
good results would follow from believing that it has happened--all
that is irrelevant. Think of it as first a history, and then you are
shut up to the old-fashioned line of evidence, irrefragable as I take
it to be, to which all these others may afterwards be appended as
confirmatory. It is true, because sufficient eye-witnesses assert it.
It did happen, because it is commended to us by the ordinary canons