.^^^^'ofpSJ^ 
 
 ' ■ 5 3 
 
 
 >H15 
 
Lb. 
 
 I0p 
 
 OF 
 
 OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 
 
 PROVED TO BE 
 
 CANONICAL, 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR VERBAL INSPIRATION 
 
 MAINTAINED AND ESTABLISHED; 
 
 WITH 
 
 AX ACCOUNT OF THE INTRODUCTION AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF THE 
 
 APOCRYPHA. 
 
 . BY 
 
 ROBERT HALDANE, Esq, 
 
 FOURTH EDITION, ENLARGED. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 PRINTED FOR WILLIAM WHYTE & CO. 
 
 BOOKSELLERS TO HER MAJESTY; 
 
 LONGMAN & CO., J. DUNCAN, T. HAMILTON & CO. 
 
 SEELEY & SONS, AND J. NISBET, LONDON ; 
 
 AND W. CARSON, DUBLIN. 
 
 1832. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Canon and Inspiration of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures are subjects of the highest importance to 
 every Christian. The Divine Books contain 
 the only information with respect to the sal- 
 vation of sinners ; and the duties, privileges, 
 and hopes of the heirs of heaven. All that can 
 be known of the mind of God, and of the fu- 
 ture state of man, must be learned from them. 
 The theories of men with respect to the things 
 of God, and all reasonings respecting revealed 
 subjects, grounded on any other foundation 
 but the Divine declarations, are not only fal- 
 lacious as far as concerns their immediate 
 objects, but prevent an accurate acquaintance 
 with the ways of God, by opening innumer- 
 able devious paths, which deceitfully promise 
 to lead to heavenly knowledge. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Bible not only contains things that are 
 divinely accredited as true, but it contains all 
 the truth on divine subjects that is accessible 
 to man. Hence every thing that respects the 
 particular books composing the Canon, and 
 the inspiration of these books, is of the live- 
 liest interest to every Christian. Whatever 
 tends to invalidate the authority of any parti- 
 cular book of the Canon, or to add other books 
 to the number, ought to be met with the most 
 decided opposition, as threatening to rob us of 
 the most precious revealed truth, or to impose 
 on us the traditions of men as the command- 
 ments of God. To reject a book whose authen- 
 ticity rests on the authority of the Canon, is 
 not only to give up the portion of divine truth 
 which such book contains, but to take away the 
 evidence of every other book standing on the 
 same authority. If one book of the Canon 
 is given up, how shall any other be retained 
 on the authority of that Canon ? Is it a light 
 matter to admit a principle that unsettles the 
 evidence of every book of the Bible ? Is it an 
 innocent thing to charge as superfluous, unim- 
 portant, unholy, or unworthy of God, any 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 thing that there is authority to hold as his 
 Word? What, then, shall be said of those 
 Christians, who have not only discovered an 
 unbecoming facility in surrendering parts of 
 the book of God, but have laboured with the 
 most strenuous exertions to unsettle the Ca- 
 non, and have availed themselves of every 
 resource, with which a perverse ingenuity could 
 supply them, to degrade some of the books that 
 are as fully authenticated as any in that sacred 
 collection ? 
 
 In like manner, to recognise a book, not 
 authenticated by the Canon, is to invalidate 
 the authority of the Canon, and to lay a foun- 
 dation for the admission of unaccredited books 
 to an indefinite extent. It is obvious, that 
 those who do so cannot be assured of the 
 truths which they receive, nor that they have 
 all revealed truths in the Bible. Such a mode 
 of proceeding degrades the Word of God, un- 
 settles the faith of the Christian, and greatly 
 mars his edification and comfort. 
 
 The inspiration of the Scriptures is of equal 
 importance with the authority of the Canon. 
 If God is not the author of them, in the fullest 
 
A^ 
 
 8 PREFACE. 
 
 and most complete sense of that term, we can- 
 not receive tliem as the Word of God. The 
 Scriptures so plainly assert their inspiration, 
 that it is matter of astonishment that any who 
 profess to believe them should have denied it. 
 Yet many have contrived to hold the word, and 
 to deny the thing itself. In this way, they 
 perhaps hide even from themselves the bold- 
 ness of their unhallowed speculations. That 
 inspiration extends to words as well as to mat- 
 ter, is so obvious, that it never could have been 
 questioned, if those who deny it had not mis- 
 led themselves by their vain reasonings on the 
 subject, or taken the contrary for granted with- 
 out enquiry, on the authority of others. A 
 writing inspired by God self-evidently implies 
 in the very expression, that the words are the 
 words of God ; and the common impression of 
 mankind coincides with this most entirely. 
 That the inspiration is in the matter, not in the 
 words ; that one part of Scripture is written 
 with one kind or degree of inspiration, and 
 another part with another kind or degree, is 
 contrary to the phraseology, and totally with- 
 out foundation in any part, of the Scriptures 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 themselves, and never could have suggested 
 itself as a natural meaning^ of the word. This 
 unholy invention is the figment of an ill-em- 
 ployed ingenuity, either to invalidate some 
 Scripture truths, or to repel some objections, 
 which appeared otherwise unanswerable. It 
 is an expedient to serve a purpose, and as 
 little to be approved, when it is used to defend 
 the declarations of God, as when it is used to 
 overturn them. Yet deoTading^ views both of 
 the Canon and inspiration of the Scriptures 
 too generally prevail ; and the writers of most 
 influence on the public mind, instead of cor- 
 recting these errors, lend all their influence 
 to their establishment. 
 
 The plenary or verbal inspiration of the Holy 
 Scriptures is not only established by the most 
 express passages in the way of direct authority, 
 but it is a matter of no light consideration that 
 there are no opposing passages on the other 
 side. Hardly an error ever was maintained, 
 but what could press some passage of the Word 
 of God into its service, by the use of torture. 
 Indeed, very many important truths of the 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 Divine Word are not without their difficulties, 
 from passages that aiford a handle to human 
 ignorance and human depravity. While these 
 are always capable of a solution in perfect ac- 
 cordance with the truths to which, at first sight, 
 they may appear to be opposed, they prove a 
 test of our submission to the Divine wisdom. 
 They manifest the childlike disposition of the 
 people of God ; but they are as gins and snares 
 to the wisdom of this world, and the wise are 
 taken by them in their own craftiness. As the 
 contiguity of the Canaanites manifested the un- 
 belief of the people of Israel ; so these passages, 
 in the Divine wisdom, bring out into open avowal 
 the enmity of men to the truth of God. But 
 the inspiration of the Scriptures in the words, 
 as well as in the matter, is not opposed by any 
 difficulty of this kind ; and the authors of the 
 low and derogatory view of the Word of God, 
 which ascribes to it diiferent degrees of inspira- 
 tion, cannot plead a single passage that will 
 aflford them even the shadow of support. Their 
 doctrine is but a theory — a theory in opposition 
 to the most express assertions of Scripture, and 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 not countenanced by the allegation of a single 
 text. 
 
 Whence comes the Bible ? is a question in 
 every way worthy of the deepest attention of 
 the Christian. The grounds on which is rested 
 the happiness of this world, and of the world 
 to come, can never be too deeply examined. 
 The title-deeds to so immense an inheritance 
 are worthy of the constant researches of the 
 life of man. 
 
 To establish with the utmost precision what 
 are the books belonging to the Canon of Scrip- 
 ture, to fix the brand of reprobation on all false 
 pretenders to the honour of inspiration, and to 
 vindicate the writings of the Old Testament 
 and the New, as the words of the Spirit of God, 
 can at no period be a useless labour. But pre- 
 sent circumstances add greatly to this impor- 
 tance, and recent events have discovered not 
 only ignorance on these subjects, where know- 
 ledge might have been expected, but opposi- 
 tion even from the friends of the Gospel. It is 
 much to be regretted, that unscriptural opinions 
 concerning these subjects have long been enter- 
 
12 PREFACE. 
 
 tained, and have of late been advocated by per- 
 sons, who might have been expected to be the 
 most zealous in opposing their progress. The 
 Christian public are in the greater danger from 
 the infection of this heresy, that it is propaga- 
 ted by persons whom they have long been 
 accustomed to regard as among the brightest 
 ornaments of true religion. Had these dan- 
 gerous opinions made their appearance in the 
 works of Socinians, Christians would have stood 
 on their guard against them. But when the 
 Canon is unsettled, and verbal inspiration is 
 denied by men who profess to hold the distin- 
 guishing doctrines of the Gospel, many will be 
 misled. If, then, we are commanded to contend 
 earnestly for the faith once delivered to the 
 saints, it is surely our duty to contend for the 
 Canon and Inspiration of the Bible, by which 
 only that faith can be ascertained. Our reve- 
 rence for the Bible depends on our full convic- 
 tion of the plenary inspiration of the Apostles 
 and Prophets, and our being satisfied that our 
 Bible exclusively contains their writings. On 
 these subjects the mind of every Christian 
 
PREFACE. 13 
 
 should be fully informed and firmly established. 
 Just views respecting them exalt our concep- 
 tions of the perfection of the Holy Scriptures, 
 and tend to make us better acquainted with 
 their contents. The opposite views have a 
 contrary tendency in a very high degree. 
 
 While the natural opposition of fallen man 
 to God leads some to open and avowed infide- 
 lity, it operates on a still greater number in 
 the way of indifference to religion. It leads 
 them to be satisfied with very lax and general 
 views on a subject to which they are indisposed, 
 but which they dare not altogether neglect. 
 Under the influence of this indifference many 
 entertain no fixed views in regard to the Bible. 
 They admit that the Scriptures contain a reve- 
 lation from God, and that many parts of them 
 are, therefore, entitled to our utmost reve- 
 rence ; but they do not perceive that all parts 
 of the Bible, whether history, prophecy, praise, 
 or precepts, are so many integral and connect- 
 ed parts of one great whole, intimately con- 
 nected with the Cross of Christ, which forms 
 the centre of revelation, without reference to 
 
14 PREFACE. 
 
 which no part can be understood. They may 
 read the history of Israel, they may believe the 
 facts recorded, and yet remain completely 
 unacquainted with the instruction conveyed. 
 They may admire the Proverbs of Solomon as 
 the dictates of the wisest of men ; they may 
 derive benefit from them in the regulation of 
 their conduct in the world; while their souls 
 cleave to the dust, and they are treasuring up 
 for themselves wrath against the day of wrath. 
 They may read the predictions of the desola- 
 tion of Tyre and Babylon ; they may acknow- 
 ledge the proof which these afford of the Divine 
 foreknowledge, while they remain utterly ig- 
 norant of the nature of that kingdom to the 
 establishment of which all such events were 
 subservient, and with which every part of re- 
 velation is closely and inseparably connected. 
 But when God opens the understanding to 
 understand the Scriptures ; when men are made 
 to know that all the prophets, both in the his- 
 tory of the past and the predictions of the 
 future, bear witness to Christ, and that every 
 circumstance recorded in the Word of God, is 
 
PREFACE. 15 
 
 a part of tlie testimony of Jesus, tlien they 
 are led to exclaim, " O the depth of the riches 
 both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ;" 
 to pray with the Psalmist, " Open thou mine 
 eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of 
 thy law ;" and with the Apostle, they follow 
 on to apprehend Christ Jesus, the Lord, in 
 the diligent study of every part of the Word 
 of God. 
 
 This naturally produces just views on the 
 subject of inspiration. Unless the mind be 
 misled by false teaching, or perverted by some 
 unscriptural theory, it puts an end to idle and 
 impious speculations about supernatural influ- 
 ence being unnecessary, when the sacred pen- 
 men are speaking of " common or civil affairs ;" 
 and about their mentioninof " common occur- 
 rences or things in an incidental manner as any 
 other plain and faithful men might do.'* We 
 behold the Word of God composed of many 
 parts, but forming one grand connected system, 
 like a building, so admirably constructed, that 
 every stone increases its beauty and stability, 
 and not one of which could be removed with- 
 
16 PREFACE. 
 
 out injury. We beliold the wisdom of God in 
 employing so many persons to labour in distant 
 ages, and in different departments, producing 
 in their various compositions a revelation of his 
 will, complete in all its parts, and distinguished 
 by the most perfect unity, without the shadow of 
 discrepancy, redundancy, or deficiency. From 
 not perceiving this, some attach different de- 
 grees of authority to different parts of Scrip- 
 ture. In the same way, many prefer the dis- 
 courses of Jesus to the other portions of the 
 New Testament, although, when about to leave 
 the world, he informed his Apostles that there 
 were many things which at present they could 
 not bear, but which he would afterwards 
 communicate to them by the teaching of his 
 Spirit. According to his promise, he endued 
 them with power from on high, and consequent- 
 ly in their writings we have the completion 
 of divine revelation, the exhibition of the 
 great salvation which at the first began to 
 be spoken by the I^ord, and which he more 
 fully explained by speaking in his Apostles, 
 2 Cor. xiii. 3. 
 
PREFACE. 17 
 
 It is tlie object of the following pages to 
 exhibit the abundant evidence by which the 
 authenticity of the books of the Old and New 
 Testaments is confirmed, and to prove that the 
 inspiration to which the Scriptures lay claim, 
 is in the fullest sense plenary in every part of 
 them, extending both to the ideas, and to the 
 words in which these ideas are expressed. Hence 
 the Scripture is described as the Word of God, 
 and the words of which it is composed are repre- 
 sented as proceeding out of his mouth. This 
 language is conclusive on the subject, and 
 by directing the sacred writers to employ it, 
 God has ascribed to himself whatever is writ- 
 ten in the Bible, and requires all to listen 
 to HIS WORD with the utmost reverence. Isa. 
 i. 2, 20. 
 
 An account is given in the following pages 
 of the Apocryphal writings, with the reasons 
 that forbid their being received along with the 
 Word of God. Their usurpation of the place 
 they have long occupied in the estimation of 
 many, is traced to its origin ; and their pre- 
 sumptuous claims to inspiration, or to any au- 
 thority, are exploded. This is the more neces- 
 
18 PREFACE. 
 
 sary, as many are but little acquainted with 
 the manner in which these forgeries have ob- 
 tained the situation they hold in the Bibles of 
 Roman Catholics and even of Protestants, or 
 with the impiety of their contents. It is proved 
 that the Apocrypha is not a part of God's word, 
 and that, instead of being a book of useful though 
 uninspired instruction, it is a book of imposture 
 and destructive delusion. 
 
 A work has just appeared from the pen of 
 Mr Carson, in which the false theories of in- 
 spiration exhibited in some late publications, 
 are triumphantly refuted.* The reader who 
 desires to examine this important subject will 
 find it advantageous to read that work in con- 
 nexion with this publication. They both re- 
 fer to it in different points of view. The one 
 is in proof, the other in reply. The one aims 
 
 * " The Theories of Inspiration of the Rev. Daniel Wilson, 
 Rev. Dr Pye Smith, and the Rev. Dr Dick, proved to be erro- 
 neous ; with Remarks on the Christian Observer, and Eclectic 
 Review. By Alexander Carson, A. INI. minister of the gospel. 
 Sold by W. White and Co., Edinburgh ; T. Hamilton and Co., 
 London : and W. Carson, Dublin :" &c. &c. Price Ss. 6d. 
 
PREFACE. 19 
 
 at exhibiting the evidence, and the other an- 
 swers objections ; and in order to have at once 
 a view of the evidence drawn from Scripture 
 of the doctrine of inspiration, and a solution 
 of the most plausible cavils against it, both 
 should be perused. A question of such im- 
 portance demands full consideration, and if 
 ingenuity has exerted its utmost efforts to 
 shroud this subject in darkness, detail ought 
 not to be thought tedious in restoring light and 
 order. These publications will, it is hoped, 
 enlarge the views and fortify the convictions of 
 Christians respecting the Divine origin and ab- 
 solute perfection of the Holy Scriptures, and 
 will prove that those who recognise distinctions 
 in the inspiration of the Word of God, or who 
 make concessions that virtually subvert it, are 
 chargeable with no slight evil. After candidly 
 weighing what is advanced, they will have rea- 
 son to conclude that in the Bible they possess 
 the whole Word of God, and nothing but his 
 Word. In the appendix it will be grateful to 
 them to observe, that the views of the inspira- 
 tion of the Bible maintained in these publica- 
 tions are not new. They will see, by a num- 
 
20 PREFACE. 
 
 ber of quotations, that, though too much ne- 
 glected, and even opposed by many, the doctrine 
 of the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures has been, from the earliest times, the faith 
 of some of the greatest ornaments of the church 
 of God. 
 
THE 
 
 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HOLY SCRIPTURES.* 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 The Bible, whicli contains tlie account of the ori- 
 gin, progress, and nature of the Christian rehgion, is 
 the production, not of one period, but of many ages. 
 The writers of it succeeded each other, during the 
 space of about 1500 years. The Scriptures of the 
 Old Testament far exceed, in antiquity, all other 
 historical records. Moses, who Avrote the five first 
 books, lived more than 1000 years before Herodotus, 
 the father of Grecian history ; and rather earher than 
 the time of Herodotus, Ezra and Nehemiah com- 
 pleted the historical part of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. 
 
 '^e longe\aty of the first generations of men ren- 
 dered a written revelation, between the fall of man 
 
 * A genuine book is one written by tlie person whose name it 
 bears, as the author of it. An authentic book is one that relates 
 matters of fact, as they really happened. 
 B 
 
22 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 and the promulg-ation of the law at Sinai, less neces- 
 sary, as the knovvledg-e of the Divine will was, during- 
 that period, transmitted from one ag-e to another, by- 
 very few individuals. From Adam to Moses, al- 
 though a space of about 2300 years, it passed through 
 only four intermediate persons. In all that time, God 
 made himself known by visible interpositions and 
 signs, as in the cases of Cain and Babel, and held 
 direct communication with prophets, who were re- 
 vered as such by the people among whom they lived, 
 which tended to preserve his truth from being cor- 
 rupted. Thus it was sufficiently early in the days of 
 Moses, permanently to record that authentic revela- 
 tion, which was then delivered. But, at that period, 
 when the age of man was reduced nearly to its pre- 
 sent limits, God separated a people from the nations, 
 and g-ave them such an establishment, that full secu- 
 rity was afforded for preserving entire his written 
 word. 
 
 Mos^eS; who, at the giving of the law, acted the 
 part of a mediator between God and the people of 
 Israel, was called u^ to Mount Sinai, where he re- 
 ceived those laws and institutions that were then 
 enjoined. These, together with the history of the 
 creation, and of whatever, from the beginning, was 
 necessary for the instruction of the people of God, 
 were committed bv liim to writing^ in five books, 
 and deposited in the tabernacle by the side of the 
 ark. 
 "^hese five books, called the Book of the Law, and 
 also known by tlie name of the Pentateuch, (or five 
 volumes,) constitute the first part of the sacred 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 23 
 
 records, and include the history of about 2550 yeai's. 
 The law was read every Sabbath-day in the syna- 
 gogues, and again with solemnity evei'y seventh 
 year. The king was rec[uired to cppy. it;, and the 
 people w^ere commanded to teach it to their child- 
 Teri, and to bear it as " signs upon their hands> anii. 
 frontlets between their eyes." The remaining books * 
 of the Old Testament, composed by different writers, 
 carry the history of Israel beyond the Babylonish 
 captivity, and contain the messages of a succession 
 of prophets till 420 years before the coming of 
 Christ, when, at the distance of about 1030 years 
 from Moses, Malachi, the last of the prophets, wrote. 
 
 The books that compose the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures, were held by the Jews, in every age, to be the 
 genuine w^orks of those persons to whom they are 
 ascribed ; and they have also been universally and 
 exclusively, without any addition or exception, con- 
 sidered by them as written under the immechate 
 influence of the Spirit of God. They preserved.; 
 them with the greatest veneration ; and, at the same( 
 time, carefully guarded against receiving any apo- ' 
 cryphal or uninspired books. While the Jews were^^ 
 divided into various sects, which stood in the most' 
 direct opposition to each other, there never was any* 
 difference among them respecting the authority o^ 
 the sacred writings. 
 
 The five books of Moses were also preserved by 
 the Samaritans, who received them nearly 700 years 
 
 y 
 
 > 
 
 X 
 
 * The exact time wheu the book of Job was written is not 
 known. 
 
24 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 before the coming- of Christ. Whatever disagree- 
 ment, in other respects, subsisted between them and 
 the Jews, and however violent their enmity against 
 '^'^'*''*^ach other, they perfectly united in admitting the 
 authenticity and inspiration of the law of Moses, 
 which they both adopted as their religious rule. In 
 addition to all this, about 280 years before the Chris- 
 tian era, the whole of the Old Testament was trans- 
 lated into Greek ; a language which, from the time 
 of Alexander's conquests, was commonly understood 
 by the nations of the world. Thus Jews, Samari- 
 tans, and all the civilized world, had access to these 
 sacred hooks, which prevented the possibility of 
 their being either corrupted or altered without its 
 being generally known. 
 
 We are assured by Josephus, the Jewish historian, 
 who was born about five years after the death of 
 Christ, and who lived in the time of the Apostles, 
 that the Jew^s acknowledged no books as Divine, but 
 twenty-two. " We have not," he says, " an innu- 
 merable multitude of books among us, disagreeing 
 from, and contradicting one another, (as the Greeks 
 have,) but only twenty-two books, which contain 
 the records of all the past times ; which are justly 
 believed to be Divine. And of them five belong to 
 Moses, which contain his laws, and the traditions of 
 the origin of mankind till his death. This interval 
 of time was little short of 3000 years. But as to the 
 time from the death of Moses till the reign of Arta- 
 xerxes King of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, 
 the prophets, who were after ]Moses, \vTote down 
 what was done in their times in thirteen books. The 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 25 
 
 remaining- four books contain hymns to God, and 
 precepts for the conduct of human hfe. It is true, 
 our history hath heen written since Artaxerxes very 
 particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like 
 authority with the former by our forefathers, because 
 there hath not been an exact succession of prophets 
 since that time : And how firmly we have given cre- 
 dit to these books of our own nation, is evident by 
 what we do ; for during so many ages as have already 
 passed, no one hath been so bold as either to add any 
 thing- to them, to take any thing from them, or to 
 make any change in them ; but it is become natural 
 to all Jews, immediately, and from their very birth, 
 to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, 
 and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly 
 to die for them." — Josephus, ed. 1784, vol. ii. 361. 
 The books here referred to are precisely the same, 
 that from the beginning have been received by 
 Christians, and that are still acknowledged by the 
 modern Jews, concerning whose undivided attach- 
 ment to them, all that is here asserted by Josephus 
 is verified to the present day. 
 
 The authenticity of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures, against which there is no contradictory tes- 
 timony, is confirmed by many collateral evidences of 
 customs, traditions, and natural appearances, that 
 have been collected from every part of the world. 
 It is likewise supported by all the notices to be 
 found respecting them in the most ancient heathen 
 historians. Josephus appeals to the public records 
 of different nations, and to a great number of books 
 extant in his time, but now lost, as indisputable 
 
26 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 evidence, in the opinion of the Heathen world, for 
 the truth of the most remarka])le events related in 
 his History, the account of the early periods of 
 which he professes to have taken principally from 
 the Pentateuch. Porphyry, one of the most acute 
 and learned of the early enemies of Christianity, 
 admitted the genuineness of the Pentateuch, and 
 acknowledged that Moses was prior to the Phopni- 
 cian Sanchoniathon, who lived before the Trojan 
 war. He even contended for the truth of Sancho- 
 niathon's account of the Jews, from its coincidence 
 with the Mosaic history. Nor was the genuineness 
 of the Pentateuch denied, by any of the numerous 
 writers against the Gospel, in the four first cen- 
 turies, although the Christian fathers constantly 
 appealed to the history and prophecies of the Old 
 Testament in support of the Divine origin of the 
 doctrines which they taught. The power of histo- 
 rical truth compelled the Emperor Julian, whose 
 favour to the Jews appears to have proceeded only 
 fi'om his hostility to the Christians, to acknowledge, 
 that persons instructed by the Spirit of God once 
 lived among the Israelites ; and to confess that the 
 books which bore the name of INIoses were genuine ; 
 and that the fiicts Vvhich they contained were Mor- 
 thy of credit. 
 
 Of the genuineness and authenticity of their 
 Scriptures, the Jews had the strongest evidence, 
 which pi'oduced a corresponding impression. The 
 five books of Moses are addressed to the Israelites as 
 his contemporaries, and had they not been both 
 gen^uine and authentic, they never could have been 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 27 
 
 imposed on his countrymen, whose religion and 
 government were founded upon them. The trans- 
 actions of their own times were narrated by the 
 several writers of the other hooks, and the truth of 
 their respective histories was witnessed by all their 
 countrymen who lived at the same period. The 
 plainest directions were given for ascertaining the 
 truth of the mission of all who declared themselves 
 prophets, those who were sent being furnished with 
 ample credentials, while every one who pretended to 
 deliver the messages of God, without these creden- 
 tials, was to be put to death. Dent, xviii. 20.^ And 
 although false prophets did arise, anXTor a time 
 obtained a degree of influence, their wickedness was 
 exposed by the failure of their predictions, or by the 
 judgments inflicted on them, as in the case of Hana- 
 niah. From the miracles, too, which the people of 
 Israel constantly witnessed, as well as the fulfilment 
 of the prophecies all along taking place, they had 
 complete proof that the true prophets wrote by the 
 authority of God himself. During the whole period 
 from Moses to Malachi, a succession of them was 
 raised up, under whose direction the Word of God 
 was infallibly distinguished from all counterfeits ; and 
 by their means, in connexion with the visible inter- 
 ference of the God of Israel in punishing those who 
 made the people trust in a lie, the " Scriptures were 
 preserved pure and unadulterated. 
 
 These books are handed down to us by that na- 
 tion, whose history they record wdth an impartiality 
 for which we shall seek in vain in the annals of any 
 other historians. There are here no national prtju- 
 
28 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 dices, and no attempts at embellishment. The his- 
 tory of the people of Israel is recorded by the uncom- 
 promising- hand of truth. Their ingratitude, and 
 their obstinacy, are alike exposed ; their sinful in- 
 credulity on many occasions is pubHshed ; their vir- 
 tues are not magnified, and their courage is not ex- 
 tolled. This history contains an account, not in 
 confused traditions, but in minute detail of time, 
 place, and circumstances, of great public facts trans- 
 acted in the presence of the whole people, in which 
 they were actors, and of which permanent memorials 
 were instituted at the time when they occuiTed.* 
 
 * Mr Leslie, who writes on Deism, in proving the authenticity 
 of the books of INIoses, lays down the following rules as a test of 
 truth, which all meet in these books. Wherever they do meet, 
 what they refer to, he affirms, cannot be false. On the contrary, 
 they cannot possibly meet in any imposture whatever. 
 
 " 1. That the matter of fact be such, that men's outward 
 senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it. 
 
 " 2. That it be done publicly in the face of the world. 
 
 " 3. That not only public monuments be kept in memory of 
 it, but some outward actions be performed. 
 
 " 4 That such monuments, and such actions, or observances, 
 be instituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of 
 fact was done. 
 
 " The two first rules make it impossible for any such matter 
 of fact to be imposed on men at the tune when said to be done, 
 because every man's eyes and senses would contradict it. The 
 two last rules render it impossible that the matter of fact should 
 be invented and imposed some time after." 
 
 After proving, in a variety of ways, that all his four rules meet 
 in the books of Moses, he observes : — " You may challenge the 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 29 
 
 These facts involved their submission to a religion 
 entirely different from that of all the surrounding 
 nations, which laid them under great and painfid re- 
 straints, and to laws and institutions, which, while 
 they secluded them from the rest of mankind, ex- 
 posed them to their utmost detestation and contempt. 
 Had such facts never taken place, they could not at 
 any period have been forced upon the belief of a 
 whole nation, so as to be ever afterwards acknow- 
 ledged by them, ivithout one dissenting voice. It is 
 a striking singularity in their laws, that they were 
 promulgated not from time to time, but in one writ- 
 ten code, and were permanently binding both on the 
 rulers and the people, never to be in any respect 
 either altered or enlarged. 
 
 Nor are the Jews alone referred to as witnesses of 
 some of the most important of those transactions, the 
 scene of which is not laid in an obscure corner, but 
 in the midst of the most civilized nations of the world. 
 The entrance of their ancestors into Egypt ; their 
 continuance for centuries, and increase there ; the 
 manner in which they were oppressed ; the causes 
 of their being suffered to depart, and the awfiil catas- 
 
 whole world to sliow any action that is fabulous, M'liicli has all 
 the four rules or marks before mentioned. It is impossible. — 
 I do not say that every thing which wants these four marks is 
 false, but that notliiug can he false which has them all." 
 
 It is said that Dr JNIiddleton endeavoured for twenty years to 
 find out some pretended fact to which ]\lr Leslie's four rules could 
 be applied, but without success. 
 
30 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 trophe which accompanied that departure, — are facts 
 in which the people of Eg-ypt were equally implicated 
 with themselves. Their subsequent continuance du- 
 ring- forty years in an uncultivated desert ; their inva- 
 sion of Palestine ; the long--continued contest, and 
 their final occupation of that land, — were public and 
 permanent facts, brought home to the inhabitants of 
 that country, who lived in the centre of the civilized 
 world. The train of the history too, which, as well 
 as the style and tendency of all the separate books, is 
 entirely consistent with itself, proceeds in so uniform 
 a manner, and one thing- so naturally rises out of 
 another, that unless on the supposition of what g-oes 
 before, that which follows cannot be accounted for. 
 This remark holds g-ood with respect to the state of 
 the Jews even to this day ; and all that is recorded 
 is necessary to explain their present unexampled 
 situation. Impressed with an unalterable conviction 
 of their Divine origin, they have, at the expense of 
 every thing dear to men, tenaciously adhered, as far 
 as circumstances permit, to the outward form of the 
 religion, the laws, and the institutions engrossed in 
 their sacred records. And although t liej^;- 1 h em §fi}y es 
 are condemned by these books, and know that they 
 are employed to support a system which they mor- 
 tally hate, they have, under all circumstances, down 
 to the present hour, continued to be faithful deposit- 
 aries of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 
 " The honour and privilege," says Bishop Cosin, 
 in his History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture, 
 " which the posterity of Jacob sometime had, above 
 all the world besides, was to be that peculiar people 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 31 
 
 of God, to whom he was pleased to make his laws 
 and his ScrijDtures known ; nor was there then any- 
 other church but theirs, or any other oracles of God, 
 than what were committed to them. For they had 
 all that were then extant, and all written in their 
 own language. 
 
 " These they divided into three several classes, 
 whereof the first comprehended the five books of 
 MOSES; the second all the prophets ; and the 
 third those writings which they call the Chethuhim, 
 or books that were written by the holy men of God, 
 who were not so properly to be ranked among the 
 Prophets : From whom both the^i'e Books of Moses 
 and these Chetliuhim were distinguished, because 
 howsoever they were all written by the same pro- 
 phetical spirit and instinct which the Books of the 
 Prophets were, yet Moses having been their special 
 lawgiver, and the icriters of these other SooA"* having 
 had no public mission or office oi Prophets, (for some 
 of them were Kings, and others Mere great and 
 potent persons in their times,) they gave either of 
 them a peculiar class by themselves. 
 
 "In this division, as they reckoned /^u-e Books in 
 the first class, so in the second they counted Bight, 
 and in the third Nine; Two-and-Ticenty in all ; in 
 number equal to the letters of their Alphabet, and as 
 fully comprehending all that was then needful to be 
 known and beheved, as the number of their letters 
 did all that was requisite to be said or written. And 
 hereof after this manner they made their enumera- 
 tion : 
 
32 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 The Books of jMoses -< 
 
 Four books of the 
 former Prophets 
 
 Four books of the 
 latter Prophets 
 
 And the rest of the 
 Holy Writers 
 
 > 4. 
 
 Genesis, 
 
 Exoflus, 
 
 Leviticus, 
 
 Numbers, 
 
 Deuteronomy, 
 " Joshua, 
 
 Judges and Ruth, 
 
 Samuel, 1 and 2, 
 ^ Kings, 1 and 2, 
 ' Isaiah, 
 
 Jeremiah, and his 
 Lamentations, 
 
 Ezekiel, f 
 
 The Book of the 12 | 
 lesser Prophets, J 
 
 King David's Psalter, 
 
 King Solomon's Proverbs, 
 
 His book of the Preacher, 
 
 His Song of Songs, 
 
 The book of Job, 
 
 The book of Daniel, 
 
 The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 
 The book of Esther, 
 
 The book of Chronicles, 1 and 2, 
 
 I. 
 
 >VUL 
 
 MX. 
 
 XXIL 
 
 " Which last Booh of the Chronicles, containing 
 the sum of all their former histories, and reaching 
 from the creation of the world to their return from 
 Bahylon, is a perfect epitome of all the old Testa- 
 ment, and therefore not unfitly so placed by them, 
 as that it concluded and closed up their whole bible. 
 
 " Other divisions of these books were afterwards 
 made, and the order of them was somewhat altered, 
 (as in divers respects they may well be,) but the 
 books were still the same ; and as the number of 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 33 
 
 them was never augmented, during- the time of the 
 Old Testament, so there were no additiomd pieces 
 brought in, or set to any of them at all. 
 
 " It is generally received, that after the return of 
 the Jews from their captivity in Bahijlon, all the 
 BOOKS of the Scripture, having been revised by 
 Ezra, (then their priest and their leader,) who 
 digested them likewise into those several classes 
 before rehearsed, were by him, and the Prophets of 
 God that lived with him, consigned and dehvered 
 over to all posterity. But this is sure, that after his 
 age, and the time of the prophet Malachi, (who was 
 one among those that prophesied in that time,) there 
 were no more pvopliets heard of among the Jews till 
 the time of St John the Baptist, and therefore no 
 more prophetical and divine Scriptures between 
 them. 
 
 " The BOOKS then of the old testament, such 
 and so many as they were after the captivity of 
 Babylon, in the time of Esdras, (Ezra,) the same 
 and so many being accurately preserved by the Jews, 
 and continuing among them unto the time of our 
 blessed Saviour (as they do hkewise still unto this 
 very day) without any addition, imminution, or alte- 
 ration, descended to the Christians" 
 
 Nothing then can be better authenticated than the 
 canon* of the Old Testament, as we now possess it. 
 
 * Tte word canon signifies a rule or a law. Hence the books 
 of the Holy Scriptures, taken together, are called the Canon, as 
 designed by God to be the rule of our faith and practice. 
 
34 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 We have the fullest evidence that it was fixed 280 
 years before the Christian era, when, as has been 
 noticed, the Greek translation, called the Septua- 
 gint, was executed at Alexandria, the books of 
 which were the same as in our Bible. And as no 
 authentic records of a more ancient date are extant, 
 it is impossible to ascend higher in search of testi- 
 mony. As held by the Jews in the days of Jesus 
 Christ, their canon was the same as when that trans- 
 lation was made, and it has since then been retained 
 by them without any variation, though by separa- 
 ting books formerly united, they increase their num- 
 ber. The integrity and Divine original of these 
 Scriptures are thus authenticated by a whole nation 
 — the most ancient that exists — who have preserved 
 them, and borne their testimony to them, from the 
 time of Moses down to the present day. That na- 
 tion was selected by God himself to be his witnesses, 
 Isaiah, xliii. 10, to whom he committed " the lively 
 oracles," and amidst all their wickedness he pre- 
 vented them from betraying their trust, the Jews 
 never having given admission into their canon to any 
 other books but to those which by his prophets and 
 servants were delivered to them. 
 [ In addition to the unanimous testimony of the 
 1 Jewish nation to the genuineness and authenticity 
 of the Old Testament Scriptures, of which they had 
 been constituted the depositaries, we have the deci- 
 sive attestation of the Son of God. Jesus Christ, 
 who appeared on earth 1500 years after JNIoses, the^' 
 first of the prophets, and 400 years after Malachi^^ 
 the last of them, bore his testimony to the sacred 
 5 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 35 
 
 canon as held by the Jews in his time, and recorded / 
 it by his holy Apostles. Among all the evils with , 
 which he charged the Jews, he never once intimated i 
 that they had in any degree corrupted the canon, j 
 either by addition, or diminution, or alteration. 
 Since with so much zeal he purged the temple, and 
 so often and sharply reprehended the Jews, for per- 
 verting the true sense of the Scriptures, much more, 
 we may be assm-ed, would he have condemned them, 
 if they had tampered witli, or vitiated, these sacred 
 writings ; but of this he never accused them. By 
 often referring to the " Scriptures," which he de- 
 clared " cannot be broken," the Lord Jesus Christ 
 has given his full attestation to the whole of them 
 as the unadulterated Word of God. " Search the 
 Scriptures^ for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
 and they are they ivhich testify of me" Here he 
 warrants, in the most exphcit manner, the canon of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures. He told the Jews that they 
 made the Word of God of none ejfect through their 
 traditions. By calling them the Word of God, 
 he indicated that these Scriptures proceeded from 
 God himself. In his conversation with the disciples 
 going to Emaus, when, " beginning at Moses and 
 all the Prophets., he e.rpounded to them in all the 
 Scriptures the things concerning himself," he gave 
 the most express testimony to every one of the 
 books of the Old Testament canon. Just before his 
 ascension, he said to his Apostles, " These are the 
 words which I spake unto you while I was yet ivith 
 you, that all things must be fulfilled which lu ere 
 ivritten in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, 
 
36 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 and in the Psalms, concerning me'' By thus 
 adopting- the common division of the Law, and the 
 Prophets, and the Psalms, which comprehended all 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, (to which division Josephus, 
 as we have seen, refers,) he ratified and sanctioned 
 by his authority the canon of the Old Testament, as 
 it was received by the Jews ; and by declaring- that 
 these books contained prophecies that must be ful- 
 filled, he established their Divine inspiration, since 
 God alone can enable men to foretell future events. 
 The same testimony is repeated by the Apostles, 
 who constantly appeal to the Jewish Scriptures as 
 " the lively oracles' of God. Referring to the 
 whole of the Old Testament, Paul declares, that 
 " All Scrijyture is given by insjnration of God" 
 The term " Scripture," or " the Scriptures," (the 
 writing's,) was then, as it is still, appropriated to the 
 written Word of God, as both the Old Testament 
 and the New are now, by way of eminence and 
 distinction, called the Bible, or the Book. The 
 same Apostle recognises the entire canon of the 
 Jews, when he says, " unto them were committed the 
 oracles of God." The fidehty of the Jews to their 
 trust is here asserted by Paul ; and those to whom 
 he writes are required to acknowledge the Scriptures 
 of the Old Testament as of Divine authority. AMiile 
 the Apostles affirmed that they spoke " not the 
 words tvhich onans wisdom teacheth, but tvhich the 
 Holy Ghost teacheth," they uniformly referred to 
 the Old Testament Scriptures, as of equal authority 
 with those of the New Testament, both of which, as 
 commissioned by their Divine ^Master, they have 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 37 
 
 delivered over to the Christian Church as " the 
 Word of God." Indeed, so manifestly is it the ob- 
 ject of the Apostles to establish the Divine authority 
 of the Old Testament, that though they were as 
 fully inspired and accredited as the ancient prophets, 
 or former servants of God, and could establish the 
 truth of any thing- they taught by the miracles which 
 they performed, yet they reasoned out of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures, proving- and alleging- from 
 them the truth of what they declared. Instead of 
 professing- to give authority to what was written in 
 them, they uniformly appealed to those writings as 
 authority equal to their own. Paul declares, that 
 the Gospel of God, to which he was separated as an 
 Apostle, was that " u-liich he had promised afore hy 
 his prophets in the Holy Scriptures," — Rom, 1, 2.* 
 
 * IMucli important matter is contained in this verse. The 
 Apostle here tacitly repels the accusation of the Jews, that the 
 Gospel was a novel doctrine. He shows that the Old Testament 
 is the promise of the New, and that the New is the fulfilment of 
 the Old — by its prophecies which foretold a new covenant — by 
 all that it promised concerning the iNIessiah — by all its legal in- 
 stitutions which contained in themselves the promises which they 
 prefigured — by the whole economy of the law which prepared 
 men for the reception of the Gospel — by all the revelations of 
 grace and mercy which contained the Gospel in substance, and, 
 consequently, promised its more full developement. He also re- 
 pels the accusation, that the Apostles were enemies to jMoses and 
 the Prophets ; showing, on the other hand, that there was a 
 complete agreement betwixt them. He establishes the authority 
 of the prophets and the inspiration of the Scriptures, by decla- 
 C 
 
38 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 Here, where Paul asserts his ApostoHc commission, 
 he g-ivesthe whole weight of his ApostoHc authority 
 to the ancient Scriptures, which he denominates 
 " Holy writings," in which God, he affirms, had 
 recorded his promises by his prophets. When the 
 same Apostle declares, that " tvhatsoever things icere 
 written afore time were written for our learn i Jig ; 
 that ive, through j^citience and comfort of the Scrip- 
 tures, might have hope" he gives his attestation to 
 the whole of the sacred writings, and proves that 
 they exist entire ; for he could not have said this if 
 any of them had been lost,* or had any additions been 
 made to them. 
 
 ring that it Avas God himself who spoke in them.. He shows 
 whence we are to take the true Word of God and of his prophets, 
 not from verbal tradition, which must be uncertain and fluctua- 
 ting, but from the written "Word, which is certain and permanent. 
 He teaches that we ought constantly to have recourse to the 
 Scriptures, for that all in religion which is not found in them, 
 is really novel, although it may have been received for many 
 ages ; but that what is found there is really ancient, although 
 men may have for a long time lost sight of it. Such are the 
 great truths contained in this compendious verse. 
 
 • It is true, that the sacred writers refer to other books that do 
 not now exist, as of Iddo the seer, but they do not refer to them 
 as canonical books, but as civil records of the kingdom, such as 
 the reference to the civil records of Persia in the book of Esther. 
 Were it even to be admitted that some epistles written by the 
 Apostles have not come down to us, the fact would not imply that 
 the Scriptures have lost an epistle, or a single word. There might 
 have been hundreds of such inspired letters fiora the Apostles, 
 without implying that ever they made a part of that collection 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 39 
 
 From the important connexion that subsists be- 
 tween the Old Testament and the New, the early- 
 Christian writers carefully examined the Jewish 
 Scriptures, and have given distinct catalogues of 
 these books, jjrecisely the same as we now receive, 
 and as they are still retained by the Jews. Melito, 
 Bishop of Sardis, travelled in the second century in- 
 to Palestine, on purpose to investigate the subject. 
 His catalogue, which is preserved hy Eusebius, con- 
 tains the canonical books of the Old Testament, and 
 no more. He names the several books, comprehend- 
 ing under the Book of Ezra, those of Nehemiah and 
 Esther, to which they were commonly annexed, these 
 three being- by many accounted but one book. In the 
 Jewish list, the Book of Nehemiah, only, was joined 
 to Esther, as the Book of Lamentations was also 
 annexed to Jeremiah ; but the Book of Esther was 
 never wanting in the canon of the Jews. The learned 
 Orig-en, in the third century, g-ives a catalogue of the 
 Jewish Scriptures, and says, " that the canonical 
 books of Scripture contained in the Old Testament, 
 
 that was designed by God to be a perfect and sufficient standard to 
 all ages. Tbis is said not from a conviction that there ever existed 
 any inspired letters of the Apostles except those which we pos- 
 sess, * but they may have existed in any number without affecting 
 the integrity of the Canon, which some have weakly supposed 
 would follow from the fact, if admitted. 
 
 * •' Some," says Theodoret, " imag-ine Paul to have wrote an epis- 
 tle to the Laodiceans, and accordingly produce a certain forged epistle 
 (so entitled) ; but the Holy Apostle dues not say rhv too; Axo^ixtias 
 the epistle to the Laodiceans, but rhv ix, Acco^ixiia;, the epistle froiu 
 the Laodiceans." 
 
40 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 are twenty and two in number, which the Hebrews 
 have left unto us, according- to the number of letters 
 which they have in their alphabet." Athanasius 
 also, in the fourth century, specifies the twenty-two 
 books, and, naming- them one after another, in the 
 same order in which they now stand, says, that 
 " they are received by the whole church." Hilary of 
 Poictiers, and many writers in the same century, 
 affirm that these books alone were received as canon- 
 ical. This fact is confirmed by the Council of Lao- 
 dicea, which met in the year 363, and gave a hst of 
 the twenty-two books, the same as have been recei- 
 ved both by Jews and Christians. 
 
 Nothing- can be more satisfactoiy and conclusive 
 than all the parts of the foregoing evidence of the 
 authenticity and integrity of the Canon of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures. The Jews, to whom they 
 were first committed, never varied respecting- them ; 
 while they have been fully recognised by the Lord 
 and his Apostles, and consequently, their authenti- 
 city is estabUshed by express revelation. And that 
 we now possess them as thus deUvered and authen- 
 ticated, we have the concurrent testimony of the 
 whole succession of the most distinguished early 
 Christian wTiters, as well as of the Jews to this 
 day, who, in every age, and in all coimtries, the 
 most remote from one another, have constantly been 
 in use of reading them in their synagogues. 
 
 The Scriptures of the Old Testament that have 
 been thus so faithfully preserved, and so fiilly attested, 
 contain the most satisfactory and convincing internal 
 evidences of their truth. The character of God which 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 41 
 
 they exhibit, nowhere delineated in the writings of 
 any of the wisest of this world, unenlightened by 
 revelation, is such as carries with it its own confirma- 
 tion. The character they g-ive of man is verified in 
 the history of every nation, and of each individual. 
 The majesty, purity, and suitableness to the condi- 
 tion of man, of the doctrine they contain — the sound- 
 ness and unrivalled excellence of the moral precepts 
 they inculcate, and the glory of the succeeding- dis- 
 pensation which, towards their close, they point out 
 with increasing- clearness ; and all this confirmed and 
 verified in the minutest particulars by the New Tes- 
 tament Scriptures — form a body of internal evidence 
 to which nothing- but the deep corruption of the hu- 
 man heart, and the enmity of the carnal mind against 
 God, could render any one insensible. 
 
 In course of time, and in the prog-ress of that cor- 
 ruption in the churches which soon beg-an to work, 
 the sacred canon was defiled by the addition and even 
 intermixture of other books, which, through the un- 
 faithfulness of Christians, were admitted first as of 
 secondary, and at length by many as of equal autho- 
 rity and consideration with those of which it was 
 composed. 
 
 These books were called Apocryphal, and are sup- 
 posed to have been so denominated from the Greek 
 word ccTTox-^vTrru , to hide — tocojiceal, which is expres- 
 sive of the uncertainty and concealed nature of their 
 origin. Who their authors were is not known. They 
 were written subsequently to the cessation of the 
 prophetic spirit in the time of Malachi, who closed 
 his testimony by reminding- the people of Israel of 
 
42 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 the authority of the law of Moses, and intimating 
 that after himself, no projjhet was to arise until the 
 harlnnger of the Messiah should appear. They were 
 not written in the Hehrew lang-uage, in which all the 
 books of the Old Testament were originally compo- 
 sed, with the exception of a few passages in Jere- 
 miah, Daniel, Ezra, and Esther, which were written 
 in Chaldee. Both Philo and Josephus, who flourish- 
 ed in the first century of the Christian era, are alto- 
 gether silent concerning these spurious books, which 
 were not contained in the Septuagint version, as set 
 forth by the translators under Ptolemy ;* and they 
 form no part of those sacred writings committed by 
 God to the Jews, universally acknowledged and pre- 
 served by them entire. Above all, they have not 
 received, like these holy writings, the attestation of 
 Jesus Christ, and his Apostles, placing upon them the 
 broad seal of heaven, by whom they have never once 
 
 ♦ " Of the Greek Sephtaciint Bthle, (as it was first set forth 
 in the time of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, ) St Aiigustin acknow- 
 ledged no more Boohs, than what were then translated out of the 
 Hehrew copies sent from Jerusalem, where neither Tobit nor 
 Judith, nor any of that class, were to be found ; for (whatever 
 Genehrard »a.\t\v of his own head to the contrary,) those addi- 
 tional writings were brought in afterwards, and used only by the 
 Hellenist Jews abroad at Babylon and Alexandria, from whom 
 they were, in time following, commended to be read by the Chris- 
 tians, but never made equal with the other sacred Scriptures, as 
 they are now set forth in the Roman Sej)tua(/int by the authority 
 of Sixtus Quintus, which is an addition of that Bible, many ways 
 depraved." — Cosin, p. 98. 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 43 
 
 been quoted. A real and essential difference was con- 
 stantly maintained by the early Christians between 
 them and the canonical books ; and it was not till the 
 fomth centmy, when the churches had become ex- 
 ceedingly corrupt l)oth in faith and practice, that they 
 came to be permitted to appear with the canon. 
 
 The Apocryphal books, though not admitted by 
 the first Christian writers, or churches, to have any 
 authority in matters of faith, yet claim for themselves 
 that authority, and even arrogate an equality with 
 the sacred Scriptures, to which they were at length 
 advanced by the church of Rome. They present 
 themselves to the world as a part of the Word of 
 God, sometimes communicated immediately by him- 
 self, sometimes conveyed through the medium of 
 ang-els, who are represented as stancUng- before him. 
 The claim to inspiration is not more explicitly as- 
 serted by the writers of the Scriptures, than by some 
 of the authors of the Apocryphal books. No higher 
 demand for attention to their messages can be made 
 by holy prophets and apostles, than when they affirm, 
 " Thus saith the Lord." Yet this is the lang-uage in 
 which men are addressed by these authors. They 
 " have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing 
 vanitif, and divining lies unto them, sA\'iNCi, Thus 
 SAITH THE Lord God, ivhen the Lord hath not 
 spoken." Ezek. xxii. 28. 
 
 In the second book of Esdras, the writer having- 
 commenced by declaring- his lineage, affirms, " The 
 word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Go thy 
 way and show my people, &c." " Speak thou there- 
 fore unto them, saying-. Thus saith the Lord." — 
 
44 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 " Thus saith the Almightij Lord.'' This expression 
 occurs four times in the first chapter. The second 
 chapter opens with " Thus saith the Lord," which 
 in the course of that chapter is repeated nine times, 
 and an ang^el is represented as speaking- to the wri- 
 ter. " Theyi the angel said unto me, go thy way, 
 and tell my people what manner of things, and how 
 g-reat wonders of the Lord thy God thou hast seen." 
 The rest of the hook proceeds in the same strain, the 
 author ^u'etending to recite Divine communications, 
 made to himself as had been made to Moses. 
 
 In the Book of Baruch, ii. 21, it is written, " Thus 
 saith the Lord.'' 
 
 In the book of Tobit a long- interview vrith an angel 
 is related, who affirais that he is one of the holy angels 
 who g-o in and out before the gloiy of the Holy One. 
 " Now, therefore," says this ang-el, " g-ive God thanks, 
 for I g-o up to him that sent me, but write all thing-s 
 which are done in a book." Tobit, xii. 15, 20. 
 God himself is often introduced by the Apocryphal 
 Tvriters, as communicating- his will to them, and 
 long speeches are ascribed to the Almighty.* Thus, 
 the writers of the Apocrypha come as the bearers of 
 messages from God, and as such they deliver them 
 to mankind. They profess to communicate a por- 
 tion of spiritual light, not borrowed from the Holy 
 Scriptures, but immediately derived from the source 
 
 * Tte absurd, unintelligible speeches, replete with trifling 
 nonsense, ascribed to God in different places, prove the Apocry- 
 pha to be not only a human, but a most impious composition. 
 
 1 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 45 
 
 of lig-lit. In every sense of the word, these books 
 present themselves as a part of Divine Revelation, 
 and if they were what they pretend to be, would be 
 entitled to equal attention and reverence with the 
 Holy Scriptures. Here, then, there is no medium, 
 and the conclusion is inevitable : — The Apocrypha 
 is either an addition made to the Old Testament 
 Scriptures hy God himself^ or it is the work of ly- 
 ing prophets. This important question ought, there- 
 fore, to be considered by every Christian, and hap- 
 pily its solution is attended with no difficulty. 
 
 The Hebrew Scriptures come to us, as we have 
 seen, with the fullest and most unequivocal attesta- 
 tions, that they are the oracles of God. On the other 
 hand, if we examine the claim of the Apocryphal 
 books, what do we observe ? External evidence of 
 their constituting a portion of Divine Revelation 
 they have none. The question, then, on this ground 
 alone, even were there no other to which we could 
 appeal, is for ever decided against them. But in 
 order to produce the fullest conviction in the minds 
 of all who know the truth as it is in Jesus, and to 
 exclude every doubt, let us call another witness. We 
 shall appeal, then, to the internal evidence of these 
 writings. They contain within themselves their own 
 condemnation. They are inconsistent, absurd, and 
 contrary to the Word of God. 
 
 Viewing the Apocryphal writings as added to the 
 Holy Scriptures, what character do they present ? 
 Do they offer any thing new, any thing that it might 
 be of importance to know beyond what is contained 
 in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments ? 
 
46 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 Do they teach us the way of God more perfectly ? 
 This will not be pretended by any one. Do their 
 histories, which they present to us as true, comport 
 with the dignity of Holy Writ ? Do they possess 
 internal marks of being- authentic ? Do they bear 
 the character of a revelation from God, given for our 
 instruction ? So far is this from being the case, that 
 many of their narrations are incredible and self-con- 
 tradictory, and others irreconcilably at variance with 
 the canonical Scriptures. They are deliled with a 
 variety of errors, vanities, low conceits, and other 
 faults incident to human nature and human infir- 
 mity. While their style, far different from the grave 
 and chaste simplicity, or the divine and spiritual 
 majesty, of the pure genuine Word of God, is deform- 
 ed with levity, and affectation of worldly wisdom and 
 eloquence. 
 
 The Apocryphal books are not only replete mth 
 absurdities, superstitions, and falsehoods, in their 
 narrations, but also with false doctrines directly op- 
 posed to the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, such 
 as those of purgatory and prayers for the dead. But 
 waving for the present every other charge against 
 them on this head, let us turn our attention to a sin- 
 gle point of the last importance, which involves an 
 answer to that most momentous of all questions, 
 How shall man he just before God? The Scriptures 
 assure us, that if any man denies the doctrine of 
 justification by faith without works, he becomes a 
 debtor to do the whole law. What judgment then 
 are we bound to form of a book which, openly con- 
 tradicting this fundamental doctrine, and exhibiting 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 47 
 
 another way of acceptance with God, makes void the 
 whole plan of redemption ? On this one point, then, 
 of the explicit contravention by the Apocryphal 
 books of the g-rand Scripture doctrine of justifica- 
 tion, let them be tried ; — that doctrine which is pe- 
 culiar to the Christian religion, and unknown to 
 every false one, and which so remarkably illustrates 
 and honours the finished work of the Redeemer — that 
 doctrine of which God in his word has affirmed of 
 the man who perverts it, that Christ shall profit him 
 nothing. 
 
 It is written in the Apocrypha, " Wlioso ho- 
 nonretli Jiis father maJceth an atonement for his 
 sins ;" and again, '' Water ivill quench a Jiaming 
 fire^ and alms maketh an ato7iement for sins," 
 Eccl. iii. 3 — 30. Sentiments more directly opposed 
 to the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, more disho- 
 nourable to God, more contrary to his hoIiness,more 
 derogatory to his justice, or more fraught with mor- 
 tal poison, and more destructive to the souls of men, 
 cannot be conceived. 
 
 The Apostle Paul solemnly declared to the churches 
 of Galatia, that if an angel from heaven should 
 preach any other gospel than that which he had 
 preached unto them, he should be accursed. That 
 very occurrence which the Apostle thus supposes, 
 has, according to the Apocrypha, been realized. An 
 angel from heaven, it affirms, has descended and de- 
 clared that he came from God. " / am Raphael, 
 one of the seven holy angels, ivhich present the 
 prayers of the saints, and which go in and out be- 
 fore the glory of the Holy One ; not of any favour 
 
48 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 of mine, hut hy the ivill of our God I came." Tobit, 
 xii. 15, 18. And that very doctrine does this angel 
 flatly contradict which the Apostle so earnestly in- 
 culcated, accompanied with the solemn asseveration, 
 that the curse of God should rest on any crea- 
 ture who dared to pervert it. " It is better" says 
 this angel, " to give alms than to lay up gold: for 
 alms doth deliver from deaths and shall jnirge away 
 all sin" Tobit, xii. 8, 9. If the man or ang-el who 
 shall preach another gospel than that which the 
 Bible contains, is pronounced by the Holy Ghost to 
 be accursed, then must this awful denunciation apply 
 to a book, which, pretending to record the message 
 of an angel from heaven, teaches another gospel. On 
 the Apocrypha, therefore, does this anathema rest. 
 
 The writers, then, of the Apocrj^phal books, 
 " who tread down the pastures, and foul the residue 
 of the waters with their feet," (Ezek. xxxiv. 18,) 
 are, by confronting their doctrine with that of the 
 holy Apostles, proved to be false prophets, against 
 whom the wrath of God and many woes are denoun- 
 ced in Scripture. In opposition to their folly and 
 wickedness, the Lord says, " The prophet that hath a 
 dream, let him tell a dream ; and he that hath my 
 word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the 
 chaff to the wheat ? saith the Lord. Is not my word 
 like as a fire ? saith the Lord ; and like a hammer 
 that breaketh the rock in pieces ?" Jer. xxii. 28. — 
 " The prophet, which shall presume to speak a word 
 in my name, which I have not commanded him to 
 speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, 
 even that prophet shall die," Deut. xviii. 20. These, 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 49 
 
 and many other passages, are pointedly applicable to 
 the Apocrypha. The writers of it may be justly 
 termed prophets of deceit, and of their own heart, 
 that prophesy lies in the name of the Lord, " say- 
 ings 1 have dreamed, I have dreamed." Jer. xxiii. 
 25. They have indeed imitated the style of the 
 Scriptures, like the impostors concerning- whom it is 
 written, " Therefore, behold I am against the pro- 
 phets, saith the Lord, that steal my words eveiy one 
 from his neighbour. Behold I am against the pro- 
 phets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, 
 He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy 
 false di'eams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and 
 cause my people to err by their Hes, and by their 
 lightness ; yet I sent them not, nor commanded 
 them : therefore they shall not profit this people at 
 all, saith the Lord." Jer. xxiii. 30, " Thus saith 
 the Lord God ; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that 
 follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing ! — 
 Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spo- 
 ken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord 
 saith it ; albeit I have not spoken ? Therefore, thus 
 saith the Lord God ; Because ye have spoken vanity, 
 and seen lies, therefore, behold I am against you, 
 saith the Lord God. And mine hand shall be upon 
 the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies." 
 Ezek. xiii. 3, 7, 9. The Bible then, and the Apo- 
 crypha, stand in direct opposition in their doctrine, 
 and the latter is denounced by the former, and 
 lies under its heaviest anathemas. The Apocry- 
 phal books, when delivered to the people as part of 
 the Divine oracles, are calculated by their absui'dities 
 
50 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 to make men Deists or Atheists rather than Chris- 
 tians, and by their false doctrines to cause their read- 
 ers to wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction. 
 As their introduction into the sacred canon has been 
 the g-rand and crowning device of Satan for deceiving 
 and corrupting the Christian world, and supporting 
 the claims of the mother of harlots and abominations 
 of the earth, it will be proper to trace it from its ori- 
 gin. 
 
 Although all the Apocryphal books had been 
 called, by the first Christian writers, spurious and 
 supposititious, as not being inspired, but, on the con- 
 trary, containing doctrines which subvert the very- 
 foundations of the Gospel, and of a sinner's accept- 
 ance before God ; yet some of them were at length 
 selected as being supposed to be purer than the rest, 
 and better entitled to be used in pubhc readings and 
 services, and on this account they received the name 
 of Ecclesiastical or Church books. Of these there 
 was even formed a register or inferior canon, to ex- 
 clude such as were reckoned more erroneous or 
 faulty ; and this, in process of time, occasioned the 
 name of canonical to be given in common to the 
 writings which were truly Divine, and to those 
 which were reckoned the best of the Apocryphal 
 books. The books of the first canon were esteemed 
 to be divinely inspired, and to be the certain rule of 
 faith. The Apocryphal books were reckoned to be 
 instructive and useful, but were excluded from all 
 authority in matters of faith, and in determination of 
 controversies ; and when they came to be permitted 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 51 
 
 to be read in the churches, the reader stood up in an 
 inferior place.* It happened, however, in the course 
 of years, that all these Canonical and Apocryphal 
 books were conjoined and bound uj) together in one 
 volume, for the g-reater facility of ecclesiastical use ; 
 and for the purpose of uniting- the historical parts 
 with the historical, the proverbial with the prover- 
 bial, the doctrinal with the doctrinal, they were in- 
 teynningled with one another, as at present in the 
 Roman Cathohc Bibles. But this practice obtained 
 no sanction from the primitive churches, or the best 
 and earliest of the Christian fathers, who, on the 
 contrary, strongly objected against it ; and denied 
 that these books were possessed of any authority. 
 At the beg-inning- they were not acknowledged at all, 
 nor admitted into any of the earlier catalogues of the 
 Scriptures, and their introduction to that place which 
 they afterwards unlawfully usuq)ed, was slow and 
 partial. 
 
 Justin, who suffered martyrdom for the Christian 
 faith, in the year 163, never, in any of his writings, 
 cites a sing-le passage of the Apocryphal books, nor 
 makes the least mention of them in his conference 
 
 * Augustine, who lived in the fifth century, relates, that when 
 the Book of "Wisdom, and other writings of the same class, were 
 publicly read in the church, they Avere given to the readers or 
 inferior ecclesiastical officers, who read them in a place lower than 
 that in which tTiose universally acknowledged to be the canonical, 
 were read by the bishops and presbyters in a more eminent and 
 conspicuous manner. 
 
52 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 with Trypho : while he speaks of it as a special work 
 of Divine Providence, that the Jews had been faith- 
 ful preservers of the Scriptures. None of these 
 books appear in the catalogue of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in the second 
 century ; nor in that of Origen, in the third cen- 
 tury. 
 
 In the fourth century, Eusebius, who was Bishop 
 of Caesarea in the year 320, affirms, that from the 
 time of Jesus Christ, there were no sacred books of 
 Holy Scripture, besides those which had been re- 
 ceived into the canon of the Jewish and Christian 
 churches. He had read the Apocryphal books, and 
 makes frequent quotations from them as the writing's 
 of particular authors, but never acknowledges any of 
 them as a part of the canonical Scriptures. He de- 
 clares that the authors of those books which bear the 
 names of the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom 
 of the Son of Sirach, are writers contradicted, or not 
 allowed, in the canon. W^hen Poi^hyry adduced 
 some objections against him from the new pieces 
 annexed to the book of Daniel, he said that he was 
 not bound to defend them, because they had no au- 
 thority of Holy Scripture. 
 
 In the year 325, the first general council was held 
 at Nice, at which were present 318 bishops, besides 
 multitudes of other Christians, from all the provinces 
 and churches of the Roman Empire. That in the 
 Scriptures they made use of, " there were none of 
 the controverted books, ajipears," says Bishop Cosin, 
 p. 42, " by the evidence and attestation which both 
 5 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 63 
 
 the Emperor Eusebius, and Athanasius, (the chiefest 
 actors in this council,) have hereunto given us." 
 
 AthanasiuSj who flourished in the year 340, enu- 
 merates the hooks of the Old and New Testament 
 precisely as we now have them, and asserts that these 
 alone are to be accounted the canonical and authentic 
 sacred writings, admitted by the Lord and his Apos- 
 tles, and recognised by all the fathers and teachers 
 of the church since the Apostolic age. At the same 
 time he reproves those who had intermixed a num- 
 ber of the Apocryphal books with the catalogue of 
 the acknowledged books of the Old Testament. 
 
 " These things," says Cyril, who was Bishop of 
 Jerusalem in the year 350, " we are taught by the 
 divinely-inspired Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments. For there is one God of both Testa- 
 I ments, who in the Old Testament foretold the Christ, 
 I who was manifested in the New. — Read the Divine 
 i Scriptures, the two-and-twenty books of the Old 
 ' Testament, which were translated by the seventy- 
 , two interpreters — Read these two-and-twenty books, 
 j and have nothing to do with Apocryphal writings. 
 [ These and these only, do you carefully meditate upon, 
 which we securely or openly read in the church. 
 The Apostles and ancient bishops, governors of the 
 church, who have delivered them to us, were wiser 
 and holier men than thou. As a son of the church, 
 therefore, transgress not these bounds ; meditate upon 
 the books of the Old Testament, which, as has been 
 [ already said, are two-and-twenty ; and if you are de- 
 sirous to learn, fix them in your memory, as I enu- 
 
 D 
 
54 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 merate them, one by one." The list of these books 
 Cyril subjoins ; it is precisely the same as the Jewish 
 canon which we receive.* 
 
 The council of Laodicea, which met in the year 
 363, prohibited the pubHc reading- of any books as 
 sacred or inspired, except the canonical. In their 
 59th canon, it is declared, " that private psalms ought 
 not to be read (or said) in the church, nor any books 
 not canonical, but only the canonical books of the 
 Old and New Testament." 
 
 " The Hebrews," says Jerom, who was ordained 
 presbyter of Antioch about the year 378, " have two- 
 and-twenty letters, and they have as many books of 
 divine doctrine for the instruction of mankind." He 
 next gives a hst of these books, and then adds, " This 
 prologue I write as a preface to all the books to be 
 translated by me from the Hebrew into Latin, that 
 we may know that all the books that are not of this 
 
 * " — although both he (CyTil) at Jerusalem, and Athanasius 
 at Alexandria, together with other churches, had not the use of 
 the Hebrew Bible among them, but kept themselves only to the 
 Greek translation of the LXX., whereunto were afterwards 
 commonly added those ecclesiastical books which the Hellenist 
 Jews first introduced, and received into their churches, that so 
 aU the most eminent books of religion written in the Greek tongue 
 before Christ's time might be put together and contained in one 
 volume ; yet nevertheless they were always careful to preserve 
 the honour of the Hebrew canon, which consisted of XXII. 
 hooks only, divinely inspired ; and accurately to distinguish them 
 from the rest, which had but ecclesiastical awMorzVy."-— Cosin, 
 p. 54. 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 55 
 
 number, are to be reckoned Apocryphal. Therefore 
 Wisdom, which is commonly called Solomon's, and 
 the book of Jesus the son of Sirach, and Judith, and 
 Tobit, and the Shejjherd, are not in the canon." In 
 his Latin translation, called the Vulgate, Jerom 
 intermingled the Apocryphal and inspired writing's, 
 but, to prevent mistake, he prefixed to each book a 
 short notice, in which the reader was distinctly 
 informed of its character, and apprized that the Apo- 
 cryphal writings were not in the canon of Scripture. 
 He says that to meet the prejudices of the ignorant, 
 he retained these " fables," which, thoug-h not in the 
 Hebrew, were widely dispersed ; but he adds, that, 
 according to his custom, he had marked these Apo- 
 cryphal intruders with a spit or dagger, placed hori- 
 zontally for the purpose of stabbing- them.* In his 
 letter to Lseta, written about the year 398, givang- 
 her instructions concerning- her daughter Paula, he 
 advises that she should read the Scriptures, and in 
 this order : first the Psalms, next the Proverbs, the 
 Acts, and the Epistles of the Apostles. Afterwards 
 
 * After tlie third verse of the teutli chapter of Esther, where 
 the Apocryphal addition to that book commences, Jerom has in- 
 serted the following notice ; it is the ancient Vulgate to which 
 he refers, which was the most common version of his time r — 
 *' Quae habentur in Hebreeo, plena fide expressi. Heec autem, 
 quae sequuntur, scripta reperi in editione vulgata, quae Grcecorum 
 lingua et Uteris continentur : et interim post finem libri hoc ca- 
 pitulum ferebatur : quod juxta consuetudinem nostrani obelo, id 
 est veru, prcenotavimus." 
 
56 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 she may read the Prophets, the Pentateuch, the 
 Kings and Chronicles, but no Apocryphal hooks ; or, 
 if she does, she should first, by way of caution, be 
 informed of their true character. Jerom speaks of 
 the fables of Bel and the Dragon, and says that the 
 Apocryphal books do not belong- to those whose 
 names they bear, and that they contain several for- 
 geries. In all his works, he explicitly maintains the 
 distinction between canonical and Apocryphal books. 
 " The latter," he says, " the church does not receive 
 among canonical Scriptures ; they may be read for 
 edification of the people, but are not to be esteemed 
 of authority for proving any doctrine of religion." 
 His canon of the Old Testament was precisely that 
 of the Jews ; and though he and other ancient Chris- 
 tian writers sometimes quote the Apocryphal books, 
 by way of illustration, as they also do Heathen -vm- 
 tings, yet they had a supreme regard for the Jewish 
 canon, consisting of those books which were received 
 by the Jewish people as sacred and divine. 
 
 Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia, in the island of 
 Cyprus, who wrote in the year 392, has thrice enu- 
 merated the books of the Old Testament as held by 
 the Jews. Of the Apocryphal books he makes no 
 mention, except of the Wisdom of Solomon, and the 
 Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, of which, after 
 refeiTing to the canonical books, he says, " They 
 likewise are useful, but not brought into the same 
 number with the foregoing, and, therefore, are not 
 placed in the ark of the covenant." 
 
 Rufinus, presbyter of Aquileia, who wrote about 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 57 
 
 the year 397, after giving- distinct catalogues of the 
 sacred Scriptures, both of the Old Testament and 
 the New, adds as follows : " However, it ought to 
 be observed, that there are also other books that are 
 not canonical, but have been called by our forefa- 
 thers ecclesiastical, as the Wisdom of Solomon, and 
 another which is called the Wisdom of the Son of 
 Sirach ; and among the Latins, is called by the gene- 
 ral name of Ecclesiasticus ; by which title is denoted, 
 not the author of the books, but the quality of the 
 writing. In the same rank is the book of Tobit, 
 and Judith, and the books of the Maccabees. In the 
 New Testament is the book of the Shepherd, or of 
 Hermas, which is called the Two Ways, or the 
 Judgment of Peter. All which they would have to 
 be read in the churches, but not to be alleged by way 
 of authority for proving articles of faith. Other 
 Scriptures they call Apocryphal, which they would 
 not have to be read in the churches." Thus it ap- 
 pears, that all the early Christian writers, while 
 they were unanimous in acknowledging the Jewish 
 Scriptures, rejected, with one accord, the Apocry- 
 phal books as uncanonical, or destitute of all claim 
 to inspiration. 
 
 The first catalogue of the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment, in which Apocryphal books were added to the 
 Jewish canon, although some refer it to a later date, 
 is that of the third, sometimes called the sixth coun- 
 cil of Carthage, which assembled in the year 397, 
 when the books of the Maccabees were reckoned in 
 the number of canonical books. But the word ca- 
 
58 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 nonical appears to have been used by them loosely, 
 as comprehending not only the Jewish Scriptures, 
 which were admitted as the rule of faith, but those 
 Apocryphal books also, wdiich they esteemed to be 
 useful. It is said, too, that Innocent, Bishop of 
 Rome, in the year 402, confirmed this catalogue ; 
 but this is doubtful. Other fathers and councils, in 
 the succeeding centuries, speak occasionally of these 
 books as canonical, meaning, however, as appears, in 
 the secondary sense, and generally with express 
 declarations of their inferiority to the Jewish canon, 
 when that question was agitated. But at length 
 the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century, in 
 order to check the progress of the Reformation, pro- 
 nounced the Apocryphal books (except the prayer of 
 Manasseh, and the third and fourth books of Esdras) 
 to be strictly canonical. From that peiiod they have 
 usurped the name of inspired Scriptures, and have 
 been intermingled with the canonical books in the 
 Bibles of Roman Catholics. Thus, in direct oppo- 
 sition to the command of God, an adchtion was made 
 to the sacred canon, in the very worst form, of many 
 entire books, and these not corresponding with the 
 inspired writings, but in numerous instances, and 
 most important particulars, directly contradicting 
 them.* 
 
 * The following list of books, which is annexed to the decree 
 of the Council of Trent, will show how- completely the Apocry- 
 phal books are intermingled in Roman Catholic Bibles, The 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 59 
 
 We have thus observed the manner in which the 
 Apocryphal books came to be connected with the 
 canonical Scriptures. They were not admitted into 
 the canon without much opposition. The most dis- 
 tinguished Christian writers often protested against 
 them, and although those who patronised them main- 
 tained that they never meant to dignify these wri- 
 tings with any authority as rules of faith, yet a pre- 
 sentiment, or foresight, of the abuse that might be 
 made of them, induced many in the churches, and 
 even whole churches, to resist their introduction. 
 The Christian assembhes of the East were their 
 
 books of tlie New- 
 
 Testament are the same as in the Protestant 
 
 canon. 
 
 
 
 5 of Moses, i.e. 
 
 Rest of Esther 
 
 12 Prophets the less, 
 
 Genesis 
 
 Job 
 
 i.e. 
 
 Exodus 
 
 David's Psalms, 150 
 
 Hosea 
 
 Leviticus 
 
 Proverbs 
 
 Joel 
 
 Numbers 
 
 Ecclesiastes 
 
 Amos 
 
 Deuteronomy 
 
 Song of Songs 
 
 Obadiah 
 
 Joshua 
 
 Wisdom 
 
 Jonah 
 
 Judges 
 
 Ecclesiasticus 
 
 Micah 
 
 Ruth 
 
 Isaiah 
 
 Nahum 
 
 Kings, 4 
 
 Jeremiah 
 
 Habakkuk 
 
 Chronicles, 2 
 
 Baruch 
 
 Zephaniah 
 
 Ezra, 1 and 2 
 
 Ezekiel 
 
 Haggai 
 
 Nehemiah 
 
 Daniel 
 
 Zechariah 
 
 Tobias 
 
 Song of Three Children Malachi 
 
 Judith 
 
 Susanna 
 
 Maccabees, 2, 1. 8s IL 
 
 Esther 
 
 Bel and the Dragon 
 
 
 Four books, it will be observed, are incorporated in the body 
 of the inspired texts of Esther and Daniel. 
 
CO GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 principal opponents, and more strictly observed the 
 directions of the Apostle John, who had passed a 
 great part of his hfe among- them. This appears 
 evidently from the conduct and decisions of the 
 Council of Laodicea above quoted, which was held in 
 the fourth century, and which prohibited the reading- 
 of any but the canonical books in the churches. 
 
 The introduction of the Apocryphal books pro- 
 bably originated in their being- wTitten, as is suppo- 
 sed, by Jews, who constantly refer to the authenti- 
 cated history of their nation, and to the law delivered 
 to their fathers. Althoug-h totally devoid of both 
 external and internal evidence of their being- from 
 God, yet they came, as we have seen, to be consider- 
 ed as related to the Scriptures, not, indeed, as pos- 
 sessing Divine authority, but as profitable for instruc- 
 tion ; and in this light they continued to be viewed 
 till the Reformation, which was produced by an open 
 appeal to the Word of God. In vain did the Man of 
 Sin, at that era, protest against tampering with the 
 long established authority of the church — in vain did 
 he endeavour to prevent the translation and circula- 
 tion of the Scriptures ; the palpable abuses in the 
 Popish system convinced multitudes that it could not 
 be of God, and the desire of examining the Scrip- 
 tures became irresistible. Amidst all this enquiry, 
 however, the ignorance of Europe was so great, that 
 the Council of Trent, above referred to, ventured to 
 decree that the Apocryphal ])ooks were equal in point 
 of authority, and were henceforth to be viewed as an 
 integral part of the Word of God, and to pronounce 
 its anathema on all who should reject them. 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 61 
 
 It was then that the design of Satan, in bringing 
 about the unhallowed connexion between the Holy 
 Scriptures and the Apocryphal writings, was brought 
 to light. He had patiently waited his opportunity, 
 and, satisfied with having- the books of lying- prophets 
 placed in juxtaposition with the Word of God, had 
 not prosecuted the advantage which he had obtained ; 
 but he well knew, that, in the course of events, this 
 undefined association of truth and error — of sacred 
 and profane — would increase to more ungodliness ; 
 and when the throne of Antichrist seemed tottering 
 to its foundation, he successfully propped it up by 
 the adulteration of the Word of God, for which the 
 unfaithfulness of Christians for a thousand years 
 had paved the way. While the reformers strenu- 
 ously denied the authority of the Apocrypha, and 
 loudly protested against the blasphemous decree by 
 which it was sanctioned as Divine, they yielded to 
 the suggestions of a sinful expediency, and allowed 
 it to retain that affinity to the Scriptures which it 
 had long possessed, by being- translated, bound up, 
 and circulated along- with them. And who can tell 
 how far this has tended to produce that denial of 
 the full inspiration of the Scriptures, which is so 
 lamentably common among Protestants ? Be this 
 as it may, the book of God is to the present hour 
 very generally profaned by this unhallowed con- 
 nexion, more or less defined or acknowledged. But 
 God now appears to have arisen to plead the cause of 
 his own Word. The question in regard to the Apo- 
 crypha has, in the course of his adorable providence, 
 begun to be agitated, and it will issue in the purifica- 
 
62 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 tion of the fountain from which those waters flow, 
 that are destined to diffuse life and felicity over the 
 world. Ezek. xlvii. 8, 9. The means by which the 
 attention of Christians has been directed to this all- 
 inij)ortant subject are veiy remarkable, and we are 
 forcibly reminded, that, in the good providence of 
 God, the most important effects frequently proceed 
 from causes which at first appear to have a directly 
 opposite tendency, and that the friends of truth have 
 often reason to rejoice in the issue of events which 
 at first occasioned the greatest alarm. We are thus 
 taught to adore Him who makes the -vvrath of man 
 to praise him, and causes human folly and wicked- 
 ness to redound to the praise of his own glory. 
 
 On the subject of adcUng the Apocryphal writings 
 to the Holy Scriptures, Bishop HaU expresses him- 
 self in the following terms : " The Scripture com- 
 plains justly of three main vtrongs offered to it. The 
 first, of addition to the canon. Who can endure a 
 piece of new cloth to be patched unto an old gar- 
 ment ? or, what can follow hence, but that the rent 
 should be worse ? Who can abide, that, against the 
 faithful information of the Hebrews ; against the 
 clear testimonies of Melito, Cyril, Athanasius, Origen, 
 Hilary, Jerom, Rufinus, Nazianzen ; against their 
 own doctors, both of the middle and latest age ; six 
 whole books should, by their fatherhoods of Trent, 
 be, under pain of a cm-se, imperiously obtruded upon 
 God and his church ? Whereof yet, some purpose 
 to their readers no better than magical jugglings ; 
 others, bloody self-murders ; others, lying fables ; 
 and others, Heathenish rites ; not without a pubhc 
 
OLD TESTAMENT. 63 
 
 applause in the relation .... We knoiu full well how 
 great impiefi/ it is, to fasten icpon the God of Heaven 
 the weak conceptions of a human wit: neither can 
 we be any whit moved with the idle crack of the 
 Tridentine curse, while we hear God thundering in 
 our ears, ' If any man add unto th6se words, God 
 shall add unto him the plagues written in this book ;' 
 (Apocal. xxii. 18.) Neither know I, whether it be 
 more wickedly/ audacious to fasten on God those 
 things ivhich he never tvrote ; or to weaken the 
 authority, and deny the sufficiency, of what he hath 
 written." 
 
 While there are those who have dared to add cer- 
 tain Apocryphal books to the Jewish canon, which 
 foiTH no part of it, but are the production of lying- pro- 
 phets, and therefore subjected to the curse pronounced 
 upon such by God, there are others who have con- 
 tended that certain books included in that canon do 
 not constitute a part of Divine revelation. This has 
 been particularly the case respecting- the book of 
 Esther and the Song of Solomon, which, it has been 
 alleged, are no,t quoted in the New Testament. But 
 though this may be true as to particular passages, 
 yet the books themselves are quoted each time that 
 either the Lord Jesus Christ or his Apostles refer to 
 what " is written," or to " the Scriptures," of which 
 they form a part. Exceptions have been made to 
 these books from their contents, and on this ground 
 their claim to be canonical has been doubted. Such 
 a sentiment is the effect of inconsiderate rashness 
 and presumption. The arrogant wisdom of man 
 may now pretend to quarrel with the Book of Esther 
 
64 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 for not containing- the name of God, and to find im- 
 purity in the Song- of Solomon, or imperfection in 
 other books of Holy Writ. But the authority of 
 Jesus Christ has g-iven a sanction to every book in 
 the Jewish canon, and blasphemy is written on the 
 forehead of that theory that alleges imperfection, 
 error, or sin, in any book in that sacred collection. 
 It is not necessary to urge, that the g-enuineness and 
 authenticity of the two books referred to were not 
 only not doubted, but that they were received by the 
 Jews with peculiar veneration, which is a well-known 
 fact. The incontrovertible proof respecting- their 
 authenticity and inspiration is, that they form a par t 
 of those Scriptures ivhich were committed to the 
 Jeivish Church, and sanctioned hy the Lord and his 
 Apostles. On these incontrovertible grounds, all the 
 books of the Old Testament Scriptures are most 
 surely believed by the great body of Christians to be 
 the oracles of God ; and could it be shown that any 
 one of them is not worthy of being- received as a part 
 of the sacred canon, this would invalidate the claim 
 of all the rest. That man, therefore, who rejects a 
 single one of these books as not being canonical, in 
 other words, equally the dictates of inspiration as the 
 rest, proves that he does not rely on the true and 
 secure foundation which God has laid for entire con- 
 fidence in that portion of the faithful record of his 
 Word. He does it in defiance of all the foregoing 
 evidence ; and to deny the whole volume of inspira- 
 tion would not require the adoption of any other 
 principle than that on which he is proceeding. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 65 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 From the time when the Old Testament was 
 completed by Malachi, the last of the prophets, tiU 
 the piibUcation of the New, about 460 years elapsed. 
 During- the Hfe of Jesus Christ, and for some time 
 after his ascension, nothing on the subject of his 
 mission was committed to writing-. The period of 
 his remaining- on earth, may be reg-arded as an in- 
 termediate state between the Old and the New Dis- 
 pensation. His personal ministry was confined to 
 the land of Judea ; and, by means of his miracles 
 and discourses, tog-ether with those of his disci- 
 ples, the attention of men, in that country, was 
 sufficiently directed to his doctrine. They were also 
 in possession of the Old Testament Scriptures, which, 
 at that season, it was of the greatest importance they 
 should consult, in order to compare the ancient pre- 
 dictions with what was then taking place. Imme- 
 diately after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his 
 discij)les, in the most public manner, and in the 
 place where he had been crucified, proclaimed that 
 event, and the whole of the doctrine which he had 
 commanded them to preach. In this service they 
 continued personally to labour for a considerable time, 
 first among their countrymen the Jews, and after- 
 wards among the other nations. During the period 
 
66 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 between the resurrection and the publication of the 
 New Testament, the churches possessed miraculous 
 gifts, and the prophets were enabled to explain the 
 predictions of the Old Testament, and to point out 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 After their doctrine had every where attracted at- 
 tention, and, in spite of the most violent opposition, 
 had forced its way through the civilized world ; and 
 when churches, or societies of Christians, were col- 
 lected, not only in Judea, but in the most celebrated 
 cities of Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, the Scrip- 
 tures of the New Testament were written by the 
 Apostles and other inspired men, and intrusted to 
 the keeping of these churches. 
 
 The whole of the New Testament was not written 
 at once, but in different parts, and on various occa- 
 sions. Six of the Apostles, and two inspired dis- 
 ciples who accompanied them in their journeys, were 
 employed in this work. The histories which it con- 
 tains of the life of Christ, known by the name of the 
 Gospels, were composed by four of his contempora- 
 ries, two of whom had been constant attendants on 
 his public ministry. The first of these was pubhshed 
 within a few years* after his death, in that very 
 country where he had lived, and among the people 
 who had seen him and observed his conduct. The 
 history called the " Acts of the Apostles," which 
 
 * " Some have thought that it was Avritten no more than 
 eight years after our Lord's ascension ; others have reckoned it 
 no fewer than fifteen." — CampheWs Preface to Matthew's Gospel. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 67 
 
 contains an account of their proceedings, and of the 
 progress of the Gospel, from Jerusalem, among the 
 Gentile nations, was published about the year 64, 
 being 30 years after our Lord's crucifixion, by one 
 who, although not an Apostle, declares that he had 
 " perfect understanding of all things from the very 
 first," and who had written one of the Gospels. This 
 book, commencing with a detail of proceedings, from 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ, carries down the 
 evangelical history till the arrival of Paul as a pri- 
 soner at Rome. The Epistles, addressed to churches 
 in particular places, to believers scattered up and 
 down in different countries, or to individuals, in all 
 twenty-one in number, were separately written by 
 five of the Apostles, from seventeen to twenty, thirty, 
 and thirty- five years after the death of Christ. 
 Four of these writers had accompanied the Lord Je- 
 sus during his life, and had been " eyewitnesses of 
 his majesty." The fifth was the Apostle Paul, who, 
 as he expresses it, was " one born out of due time," 
 but who had likewise seen Jesus Christ, and had been 
 empowered by him to work miracles, which were 
 " the signs of an apostle." One of these five also 
 wrote the book of Revelation, about the year ninety- 
 six, addressed to the seven churches in Asia, con- 
 taining epistles to these churches from Jesus Christ 
 himself, with various instructions for the immediate 
 use of all Christians, together with a prophetical view 
 of the kingdom of God till the end of time. These 
 several pieces, which compose the Scriptures of the 
 New Testament, were received by the churches with 
 the highest veneration ; and, as the instructions they 
 
68 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 contain, though partially addressed, were equally in- 
 tended for all, they were immediately copied, and 
 handed about from one church to another, till each 
 was in possession of the whole. The volume of the 
 New Testament was thus completed before the death 
 of the last of the Apostles, most of whom had sealed 
 their testimony with their blood. 
 
 From the manner in which these Scriptures were 
 at first circulated, some of their parts were necessa- 
 rily longer of reaching certain places than others. 
 These, of course, could not be so soon received into 
 the canon as the rest. Owing to this circumstance, 
 and to that of a few of the books being addressed to 
 individual believers, or to their not having the name 
 of their writers affixed, or the designation of Apos- 
 tle added, a doubt for a time existed among some 
 respecting the genuineness of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the 2d Epistle of 
 Peter, the 2d and 3d Epistles of John, the Epistle 
 of Jude, and the Book of Revelation. These, how- 
 ever, though not universally, were generally acknow- 
 ledged ; while all the other books of the New Tes- 
 tament were without dispute received from the 
 beginning. This discrimination proves the scrupu- 
 lous care of the first chm-ches on this highly import- 
 ant subject. 
 
 At length these books, which had not been ad- 
 mitted at first, were, like the rest, universally re- 
 ceived, not by the votes of a council, as is sometimes 
 asserted, but after deliberate and free enquiry by 
 many separate churches, under the superintending 
 providence of God, in difi'erent parts of the world. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 69 
 
 It is at the same time a certain fact, that no other 
 books besides those which at present compose the 
 vohmie of the New Testament, were admitted by 
 the churches. Several Apocryphal writings were 
 published under the name of Jesus Christ and his 
 Apostles, which are mentioned by the writers of the 
 four first centuries, most of which have perished, 
 though some are still extant. Few or none of them 
 were composed before the second century, and seve- 
 ral of them were forged so late as the third century. 
 But they were not acknowledged as authentic by 
 the first Christians, and v;ere rejected, by those who 
 have noticed them, as spurious and heretical.* His- 
 tories, too, as might have been expected, were writ- 
 ten of the life of Christ, and one forg-ery was at- 
 'tempted, of a letter said to be written by Jesus 
 Christ himself to Abgarus, King- of Edessa ; but of 
 the first, none were received as of any authority, 
 and the last was universally rejected. " Besides our 
 Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles," says Paley, 
 
 * " Tliese forged writings," says Lardner, *' do not oppose, but 
 confirm, tlie account given us in tlie canonical Scriptures. They 
 all take for granted the dignity of our Lord's person, and his power 
 of working miracles ; they acknowledge the certainty of there 
 having been such persons as INIatthew and the other Evangelists, 
 and Peter and the other Apostles. They authenticate the gene- 
 ral and leading facts contained in the New Testament. They 
 presuppose that the Apostles received from Christ a commission 
 to propagate his religion, and a supernatural power to enforce its 
 authority. And thus they indirectly estabhsh the truth and divine 
 original of the Gospeh" 
 
 E 
 
70 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 " no Christian history, claiming- to be written by an 
 apostle, or ajjostolical man, is quoted within 300 
 years after the birth of Christ, by any writer now 
 extant or known ; or, if quoted, is quoted with marks 
 of censure and rejection." 
 
 This agreement of Christians respecting the Scrip- 
 tures, when we consider their many differences in 
 other respects, is the more remarkable, since it took 
 place without any public authority being interposed. 
 " We have no knowledge," says the above author, 
 " of any interference of authority in the question 
 before the council of Laodicea, in the year 363. 
 Probably the decree of this council rather declared 
 than reg-ulated the pubhc judgment, or, more proper- 
 ly speaking, the judgment of some neighbouring- 
 churches — the council itself consisting- of no more 
 than thirty or forty bishops of Lydia and the adjoin- 
 ing- countries. Nor does its authority seem to have 
 extended farther.' But the fact, that no public au- 
 thority was interposed, does not require to be sup- 
 ported by the above reasoning. The churches at 
 the beg-inning-, being separated from each other in 
 distant countries, necessarily judged for themselves 
 in this matter, and the decree of the council was 
 foimded on the coincidence of their judgment. 
 
 In delivering this part of his written revelation, 
 God proceeded as he had formerly done in the pub- 
 lication of the Old Testament Scriptures. For a 
 considerable time, his will was declared to mankind 
 through the medium of oral tradition. At length 
 he saw meet, in his wisdom, to give it a more per- 
 manent form. But this cUd not take place, till a 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 71 
 
 people, separated from all others, was provided for 
 its reception. In the same manner, when Jesus 
 Christ set up his kingdom in the world, of which the 
 nation of Israel was a type, he first made known his 
 will by means of verbal communication, through his 
 servants whom he commissioned and sent out for 
 that purpose ; and when, through their means, he 
 had prepared his subjects and collected them into 
 churches, to be the depositaries of his Word, he 
 caused it to be delivered to them in writing-. His 
 king-dom was not to consist of any particular nation, 
 hke that of Israel, but of all those individuals, in 
 every pai't of the world, who should believe in his 
 name. It was to be ruled, not by means of human 
 authority, or compulsion of any kind, but solely by 
 his authority. These sacred writing-s were thus in- 
 trusted to a people prepared for their reception — 
 a nation among- the nations, but sing-ularly distinct 
 from all the rest, who g-uarded and preserved them 
 with the same inviolable attachment as the Old Tes- 
 tament Scriptures had experienced from the Jews. 
 
 Respecting- the lateness of the time when the 
 Scriptures of the New Testament were written, no 
 objection can be offered, since they were published 
 before that generation passed which had witnessed 
 the transactions they record. The dates of these 
 writing-s fall within the period of the hves of many 
 who were in full manhood when the Lord Jesus 
 Christ was upon earth ; and the facts detailed in 
 the histories, and referred to in the Epistles, being 
 of the most pubhc nature, were still open to full in- 
 vestigation. It must also be recollected, that the 
 
72 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 Apostles and disciijles, during the whole interme- 
 diate period, were publicly proclaiming- to the world 
 the same things that w^re afterwards recorded in 
 their writings. 
 
 Had these Scriptures been published before asso- 
 ciations of Christians were in existence, to whose 
 care could they have been intrusted ? What secu- 
 rity w^ould there have been for their preservation, or 
 that they would not have been corrupted ? In the 
 w^ay that w-as adopted, they were committed to faith- 
 ful men, who, viewing them as the charter of their 
 own salvation, and the doctrine which they contain- 
 ed as the appointed means of rescuing their fellow- 
 creatures from misery and guilt, watched over their 
 preservation with the most zealous and assiduous 
 care. 
 
 But unless the whole manner of communicating 
 the revelation of God, in these Scriptures, had been 
 altered, it is not possible, that, excepting the accounts 
 of the life of Jesus Christ, they could have been 
 earlier committed to writing. The history of the 
 Acts of the Apostles, being carried down to about 
 the year 63 of the Christian era, could not, it is evi- 
 dent, have been published sooner. The Epistles are 
 not addressed to men of the world, or to the whole 
 inhabitants of particular countries, but exclusively 
 to believers. The truth conveyed in them is not 
 dehvered in an abstract form, but in the way of im- 
 mediate application to existing cases and circum- 
 stances. This practical method of communicating 
 the doctrine, and of recording the laws, of the king- 
 dom of Christ, which commends itself to every re- 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 73 
 
 fleeting- mind, could not, it is manifest, have been 
 adopted till societies of Christians were in existence, 
 and till they had existed for some considerable time. 
 In this way, too, we have an undeniable proof of the 
 success of the Apostles in the rapid progress of the 
 Gospel. We are made acquainted, as we could not 
 otherwise have been, with their zeal, resolution, 
 self-denial, disinterestedness, patience, and meek- 
 ness, and have the most convincing evidence of the 
 extraordinary gifts they possessed. We are also 
 put in possession of indubitable evidence of the mi- 
 raculous gifts conferred on the first Christians, as 
 well as of their sincerity, com'age, and patience. 
 
 Thus were the Scriptures, as we now possess 
 them, delivered to the first churches. By the con- 
 current testimony of all antiquity, both of friends 
 and foes, they were received by Christians of diffe- 
 rent sects, and were constantly appealed to on all 
 hands, in the controversies that arose among them. 
 Commentaries upon them were written at a very 
 early period, and translations made into different 
 languages. Formal catalogues of them were pub- 
 lished, and they were attacked l)y the adversaries of 
 Christianity, who not only did not question, but 
 expressly admitted, the facts they contained, and 
 that they were the genuine productions of the per- 
 sons whose names they bore. 
 
 In this manner the Scriptures were also secured 
 from the danger of being in any respect altered or 
 vitiated. " The books of Scripture," says Augus- 
 tine, " could not have been corrupted. If such an 
 -attempt had been made by any one, his design would 
 
74 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 havo ])een prevented and defeated. His alterations 
 would have been immediately detected by many and 
 more ancient copies. The difficulty of succeeding in 
 such an attempt is apparent hence, that the Scrip- 
 tures were early translated into divers languages, and 
 copies of them were numerous. The alterations 
 which any one attempted to make would have been 
 soon perceived ; just even as now, in fact, lesser 
 faults in some copies are amended by comparing an- 
 cient copies or those of the original. ... If any 
 one," continues Augustine, " should charge you with 
 having interpolated some texts alleged by you as 
 favourable to your cause, what would you say ? 
 Would you not immediately answer that it is impos- 
 sible for you to do such a thing in books read by all 
 Christians ? And that if any such attempt had been 
 made by you, it would have been presently discerned 
 and defeated by comparing the ancient copies ? 
 Well, then, for the same reason that the Scriptures 
 cannot be corrupted by you, neither could they be 
 corrupted by any other people." 
 
 Accordingly, the uniformity of the manuscripts of 
 the Holy Scriptures that are extant, which are in- 
 comparably more numerous than those of any an- 
 cient author, and which are dispersed through so 
 many countries, and in so great a variety of lan- 
 guages, is truly astonishing. It demonstrates both 
 the veneration in which the Scriptures have always 
 been held, and the singular care that has been taken 
 in transcribing them. The number of various read- 
 ings, that by the most minute and laborious investi- 
 gation and collations of manuscripts have been dis- 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 75 
 
 covered in them, said to amount to one Inmdred and 
 fifty thousand, though at first sight they may seem 
 calculated to diminish confidence in the sacred text, 
 yet m no deg-ree whatever do they affect its credit 
 and integ-rity. They consist almost wholly in pal- 
 pable errors in transcription, g-rammatical and verbal 
 diff"erences, such as the insertion or omission of a 
 letter or article, the substitution of a word for its 
 equivalent, the transposition of a word or two in 
 a sentence. Taken altogether, they neither chang-e 
 nor aff'ect a single doctrine or duty announced or 
 enjoined in the Word of God.* When, therefore, 
 we consider the great antiquity of the sacred books, 
 the almost infinite number of copies, of versions, of 
 editions, which have been made of them in all lan- 
 g-uages — in lang-uages which have not any analog-y 
 one with another, amon<^ nations differing- so much 
 in their customs and their religious opinions ; — when 
 we reflect on these things, it is truly astonishing-, and 
 can only be ascribed to the watchful providence of 
 God over his own Word, that amongst the various 
 readings, nothing truly essential can be discerned, 
 which relates to either precept or doctrine, or which 
 breaks that connexion, that unity, wdiich subsists in 
 all the various parts of Divine revelation, and which 
 demonstrates the whole to be the work of one and 
 the same Spirit. 
 
 I 
 
 * Dr Kennicott examined and collated 600 Hebrew manu- 
 scripts, and so trifling were the vai-iations he discovered, that it 
 has been objected, though very unjustly, that he had effected no- 
 thing by all his labours. 
 
76 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 In proof that the Scriptures were published and 
 delivered to the churches in the ag-e to which their 
 dates refer, we have the attestation of a connected 
 chain of Christian writers, from that period to the 
 present day. No fewer than six of these authors, 
 part of whose works are still extant, were contem- 
 poraries of the Apostles. 
 
 Barnabas was the companion of the Apostle 
 Paul. He is the author of an Epistle, which was 
 well known among- the early Christians. It is still 
 extant, and refers to the Apostolic writings. 
 
 Clement was the third bishop of the church at 
 Rome, and is mentioned by Paul in his Epistle to the 
 Philippians. He has left a long- Epistle, which is 
 extant, thoug-li not entire, written in name of the 
 church at Rome to the church at Corinth, in which 
 the latter is admonished to adhere to the commands 
 of Christ. Irenasus says that it was wiitten by Cle- 
 ment, " who had seen the blessed Apostles, and 
 conversed with them ; who had the preaching- of the 
 Apostles still sounding; in his ears, and their tradi- 
 tions before his eyes. Nor he alone, for there were 
 then still many ahve, who had been taught by the 
 Apostles. In the time, therefore, of this Clement, 
 when there was no small dissension among the 
 brethren at Corinth, the church at Rome sent a 
 most excellent letter to the Corinthians, persuading 
 them to peace among themselves." About 80 or 90 
 years after this letter was written, Dionysius, the 
 Bishop at Corinth, declares, that " it had been wont 
 to be read in that church from ancient times." It 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 77 
 
 contains several quotations from the New Testament 
 Scriptures, and allusions to tliem. 
 
 Hermas also, contemporary with the Apostles, 
 has left a book that still remains, called, " The Shep- 
 herd of Hermas," in which he quotes and enforces the 
 doctrine of Scripture. 
 
 Ignatius was bishop of the church at Antioch, 
 about 37 years after Christ's ascension. He suffered 
 martyrdom at Rome under the Emperor Trajan. 
 Ig^natius has left several Epistles that are still ex- 
 tant, which give testimony to Jesus Christ and his 
 doctrine. He declares, that he " fled to the Gospels 
 as the flesh of Jesus, and to the Apostles as the 
 elders of the church." 
 
 PoLYCARP had been taught by the Apostles, and 
 had conversed with many who had seen Christ. He 
 was appointed by the Apostles, Bishop of the church 
 at Smyrna. One epistle of his still remains, which 
 evinces the respect that he and other Christians bore 
 for the Scriptures. Irenseus, who, in his youth, had 
 been a disciple of Polycarp, says, concerning- him, in 
 a letter to Florinus, — " I saw you when I was very 
 young-, in the Lower Asia with Polycarp. For I 
 better remember the aff'airs of that time, than those 
 which have lately happened ; the things which we 
 learn in our childhood growing- up with the soul, 
 and uniting- themselves to it. Insomuch that I can 
 tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and 
 taught, and his going- out and coming in, and the 
 manner of his life, and the form of his person, and 
 the discourses he made to the people ; and how he 
 related his conversation with John, and others who 
 
78 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 had seen the Lord, and how he related their sayings, 
 and what he had heard from them concerning- the 
 Lord ; both concerning his miracles and his doctrine, 
 as he had received them from the eyewitnesses of 
 the Word of Life ; all which Polycarp related agree- 
 able to the Scrijjtures. These things I then, through 
 the mercy of God toward me, diligently heard and 
 attended to, recording them not on paper, but upon 
 my heart. And through the grace of God I conti- 
 nually renew the remembrance of them." Polycarp 
 was condemned to the flames at Smyrna, the pro- 
 consul being present, and all the people in the am- 
 phitheatre demanding his death. Thus, like Igna- 
 tius, he confirmed his testimony to the Scriptures 
 with his blood. 
 
 Papias was a hearer of the Apostle John, and a 
 companion of Polycarp. He was the author of five 
 books, which are now lost, but which, according to 
 quotations from them that remain, bore testimony to 
 the Scriptures. He expressly ascribes their respec- 
 tive Gospels to Matthew and ^Nlark. 
 
 The above six writers had all lived and conversed 
 with some of the Apostles. Those parts which re- 
 main of the writings of the first five, who are called 
 the Apostolical Fathers, are valuable on account of 
 their antiquity ; and all of them contain some impor- 
 tant testimony to the Scriptures. 
 
 About twenty years after these writers follows 
 Justin Martyr. He was born about the year 
 89, and suffered martyrdom about the year 163. 
 Originally he had l>een a Heathen philosopher ; and, 
 in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, he relates the 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 79 
 
 circumstances of liis conversion to Christianity. 
 From his works might he extracted almost a com- 
 plete life of Christ ; and he uniformly represents the 
 Scriptures as containing- the authentic account of his 
 doctrine. The Gospels, he says, were read and ex- 
 pounded every Sunday in the solemn assemblies of 
 the Christians. He particularly mentions the Acts 
 of the Apostles, along- with the hooks of the Old 
 Testament, which were also regularly read as in the 
 Jewish synagogues ; and he appeals to the Scriptures 
 as writings open to all the world, and read by Jews 
 and Gentiles. He presented two apologies for the 
 Christian religion ; the first to the Emperor Anto- 
 ninus Pius, in the year 140 ; the second to Marcus 
 Antoninus, the philosopher, in the year 162. Both 
 these apologies are still extant ; the first entire, of 
 the second the beginning- is wanting-. 
 
 DiONYsius, Tatian, and Hegesippus, wrote 
 about thirty years after Justin Martyr, and give 
 their testimony to the Scriptures. Hegesippus re- 
 lates, that, travelling- from Palestine to Rome, he 
 visited in his journey many bishops ; and that " in 
 every succession, and in every city, the same doc- 
 trine is taught Mhich the law and the prophets and 
 the Lord teacheth." 
 
 About the year 177, the churches of Lyons and 
 Vienne in France sent a relation of the persecutions 
 they suffered to the churches in Asia and Phrygia. 
 PoTHiNus, bishop of the church at Lyons, was then 
 90 years old ; and in his early life was contemporary 
 with the Apostle John. This letter, which is pre- 
 
80 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 served entire, makes exact references to the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 I REN-^ us succeeded Pothinus as bishop at Lyons. 
 In his youth, as has already been noticed, he had been 
 a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the 
 Apostle John. Thus he was only one step removed 
 from the Apostles. Irenseus g-ives a most ample tes- 
 timony, both to the genuineness and the authenticity 
 of the Scriptures. " We have not received," says he, 
 " the knovvledg-e of the way of our salvation by any 
 others than those by whom the Gospel has been 
 brought to us ; which Gospel they first preached, and 
 afterwards, ])y the will of God, committed to writing-, 
 that it might be for time to come the foundation and 
 pillar of our faith. — For after that our Lord rose 
 from the dead, and they (the Apostles) were endued 
 from above with the power of the Holy Ghost com- 
 ing down upon them, they received a perfect know- ' 
 ledge of all things. They then went forth to all the 
 ends of the earth, declaring- to men the blessing- of 
 heavenly peace, having, all of them, and every one 
 alike, the Gospel of God. Matthew, then among the 
 Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own language, while 
 Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel at Rome, 
 and founding a church there. And after their exit, 
 (death or departure,) Mark also, the disciple and in- 
 terpreter of Peter, dehvered to us in writing the 
 things that had been preached })y Peter ; and Luke, 
 the companion of Paul, put down in a book the Gos- 
 pel preached liy him (Paul.) Afterwards John, the 
 disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon liis breast, 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 81 
 
 he likewise published a Gospel while he dwelt at 
 Ephesiis in Asia. And all these have dehvered to 
 us, that there is one God, the maker of the heaven 
 and the earth, declared by the law and the prophets, 
 and one Christ, the Son of God. And he who does 
 not assent to them, despiseth indeed those who knew 
 the mind of the Lord : but he despiseth also Christ 
 himself the Lord, and he despiseth likewise the Fa- 
 ther, and is self-condemned, resisting and opposing- 
 his own salvation, as all heretics do." — " The tradi- 
 tion of the Apostles hath spread itself over the whole 
 universe ; and all they who search after the sources 
 of truth, will find this tradition to be held sacred in 
 ever}^ church. We might enumerate all those who 
 have been appointed bishops to those churches by 
 the Apostles, and all their successors up to our days. 
 It is by this uninterrupted succession that we have 
 received the trachtion which actually exists in the 
 church, and also the doctrine of tnith as it is preach- 
 ed by the Apostles." 
 
 After giving' some reasons why he supposed the 
 number of the Gospels was precisely four, Irenseus 
 says, "Whence it is manifest that the Word, the 
 Former of all things, who sits upon the chenibim, 
 and upholds all things, having appeared to men, has 
 given to us a Gospel of a fom-fold character, but 
 joined in one spirit. — The Gospel according to John 
 discloses his primary and glorious generation fi-om 
 the Father : ' In the beginning was the Word.' — 
 But the Gospel according to Luke, bemg of a priestly 
 character, begins with Zacharias the priest offering 
 incense to God. — Matthew relates his generation, 
 
82 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 which is according" to men : ' The book of the gene- 
 ration of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of 
 Abraham.' — Mark begins from the prophetic spirit 
 which came down from above to men, saying, ' The 
 beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is 
 written in Esaias the prophet.' " 
 
 The above passage distinctly ascertains, that the 
 four Gospels, as we have them, and no more, were 
 equally received and acknowledged by the first 
 churches. 
 
 Irenseus farther says, " The Gospel according to 
 Matthew was written to the Jews, for they earnest- 
 ly desired a Messiah of the seed of David, and Mat- 
 thew, having also the same desire to a yet gi^eater 
 degree, strove by all means to give them full satis- 
 faction that Christ was of the seed of David, where- 
 fore he began with his genealogy." — " Wherefore 
 also Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, 
 makes this the beginning of his evangelic writing, 
 ' The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God.' And in the end of the Gospel, Mark 
 says, ' So then, the Lord Jesus, after he had S2)oken 
 to them, was received up into Heaven, and sat on 
 the right hand of God.' " — " But if any one rejects 
 Luke, as if he did not know the truth, he will be 
 convicted of throwing away the Gospel, of which he 
 professeth to be a disciple. For there are many, and 
 those very necessary, parts of the Gospel, which we 
 know by his means." He then refers to several par- 
 ticulars, which are known only from Luke. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles is a book much quoted 
 by Irenaeus, as written by Luke, the companion of 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 83 
 
 the Apostles. There are few thing-s recorded in that 
 book which have not been mentioned by him. " And 
 that Luke," says he, " was inseparable from Paul, 
 and his fellow-worker in the Gospel, he himself 
 shows, not boasting- of it indeed, but obhged to it for 
 the sake of truth." 
 
 Iren£eus quotes largely from the Epistles of Paul, 
 and remarks, that this Apostle " frequently uses hy- 
 perbata," (or transpositions of words from their natu- 
 ral order,) " because of the rapidity of his words, and 
 because of the mig-hty force of * the Spirit in him.' " 
 The book of Revelation Irenaeus often quotes, and 
 says, " It was seen no long- time ago, but almost in 
 our own ag-e, at the end of the reign of Doriiitian." 
 He mentions the code of the Old Testament and of 
 the New, and calls the one, as well as the other, the 
 Oracles of God. 
 
 Speaking of the Scriptures in g-eneral, he says, 
 " well knowing- that the Scriptures are perfect, as 
 being dictated by the Word of God and his Spirit." — 
 " A heavy punishment awaits those who add to or take 
 from the Scriptures." — " But we, following- the one 
 and the only true God as our teacher, and having- his 
 words as a rule of truth, do always speak the same 
 things concerning the same things." 
 
 Athenagoras, Miltiades, Theophilus, and 
 PANTiENus, who lived at the same time with Ire- 
 naeus, all bear testimony to the Scriptures. Some of 
 their works remain, and others are lost. 
 
 Clement, of Alexandria, followed Irenaeus at the 
 distance of sixteen years. He was a man of great 
 learning, and presided in the Catechetical School at 
 
84^ GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 Alexandria. Clement travelled into different coun- 
 tries in search of information. " The law and the 
 prophets, together with the Gospels," he says, " con- 
 duct to one and the same knowledge in the name of 
 Christ."—" One God and Almighty Lord is taught 
 by the law and the prophets, and the blessed Gos- 
 pels." He has given a distinct account of the order 
 in which the four Gospels were written. The Gos- 
 pels which contain the genealogies, were, he says, 
 written first, Mark's next, and John's the last. He 
 repeatedly quotes the four Gospels by the names of 
 their authors, and expressly ascribes the Acts of the 
 Apostles to Luke. His quotations from the Scrip- 
 tures of the New Testament are numerous, and he 
 calls them " the Scriptures of the Lord," and the 
 " true evangelical canon." 
 
 Next to Clement, and in the same age, comes Ter- 
 TULLIAN, M^ho was bom at Carthage about the year 
 160. He was a man of extensive learning, and the 
 most considerable of all the Latin writers on Chris- 
 tianity. He wrote a very valuable apology for the 
 Christians, about the year 198, addressed to the go- 
 vernors of provinces, which is still extant. He gives 
 the most ample attestation to the Scriptures, quoting 
 them so frequently, that, as Lardner observes, there 
 are more and longer quotations of the small volume 
 of the New^ Testament in this one Christian author, 
 than there are of all the works of Cicero in writers 
 of aU characters for several ages. After enumerating 
 many churches which had been gathered by Paul and 
 the other Apostles, he declares, that not those 
 churches only which were called Apostohcal, but all 
 5 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 85 
 
 who have fellowship with them in the same faith, 
 received the fom' Gospels, and that these had been 
 in the possession of the churches from the beginning-. 
 He also affirms, that the original manuscripts of the 
 Apostles, at least some of them,hadbeen preserved till 
 the age in which he lived, and were then to be seen. 
 " In the first place," says TertuUian, " we lay this 
 down for a certain truth, that the Evangelic Scrip- 
 tures have for their authors the Apostles, to whom 
 the work of publishing the Gospel was committed 
 by the Lord himself ; and also Apostolical men. — 
 Among- the Apostles, John and Matthew teach us the 
 faith ; among- Apostohcal men, Luke and Mark refresh 
 it, g'oing- upon the same principles as concerning- the 
 one God the Creator, and his Christ born of a virgin, 
 the accomplishment of the law and the prophets. — If 
 it be certain that that is most genuine which is most 
 ancient, that most ancient which is from the beginning, 
 and that from the beginning which is from the Apos- 
 tles ; in like manner, it will be also certain that that 
 has been delivered from the Apostles which is held 
 sacred in the churches of the Apostles. Let us then 
 see what milk the Corinthians received from Paul, 
 to what rule the Galatians were reduced, what the 
 Philippians read, what the Thessalonians, the Ephe- 
 sians, and also the Romans recite, who are near to 
 us ; with whom both Peter and Paul left the Gospel 
 sealed with their blood. We have also churches 
 which are the disciples of John ; for, though Marcion 
 rejects his Revelation, the succession of Bishops, 
 traced up to the beginning, will show it to have 
 John for its author. We know also the original of 
 
 F 
 
86 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 other cburclies, (that is, that they are Apostolical.) 
 I say, then, that with them, but not with them only 
 that are Apostolical, but with all who have fellow- 
 ship -with them in the same faith, is that Gospel of 
 Luke received, which we so zealously maintain. 
 That is the genuine entire Gospel of Luke, not that 
 which had been curtailed and altered by Marcion. 
 The same authority of the Apostolical churches 
 will support the other Gospels, which we have from 
 them, and according- to them, (that is, according to 
 their copies,) I mean John's and Matthew's, although 
 that likewise which Mark published may be said to 
 be Peter's, whose interpreter Mark was, for Luke's 
 digest also is often ascribed to Paul." Tertullian 
 says that Matthew's Gospel began in this manner, — 
 " The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the 
 son of David, the son of Abraham." The Acts of 
 the Apostles are often quoted by him under that 
 title : he calls them Luke's Commentarj^, or His- 
 tory. 
 
 " I will," says Tertulhan, " by no means say Gods 
 nor Lords, but I will follow the Apostle ; so that, if 
 the Father and the Son are to be mentioned together, 
 I will say God the Father, and Jesus Christ the Lord; 
 but when I mention Christ only, I can call him God, 
 as the Apostle does." " Of whom Christ came, 
 ivho is," says he, " ove7' all, God hicssedfor ever" 
 
 To Tertullian succeeds a multitude of Christian 
 writers. Of the works of these authors, only frag- 
 ments and quotations remain, in which several testi- 
 monies to the Gospels are found. In one of them is 
 an abstract of the whole Gospel histoiy. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 87 
 
 After those writei's, and at the distance of twenty- 
 five years from TertuUian, comes the celebrated 
 Origen of Alexandria, of whom it is said, that " he 
 did not so much recommend Christianity by what 
 he preached, or by what he wrote, as by the general 
 tenor of his life." He was born about 150 years after 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the quantity 
 of his writing's he exceeded the most laborious of the 
 Greek and Latin writers. He gives full and decisive 
 testimony to the Scriptures. He says, " that the four 
 Gospels alone are received without dispute by the 
 whole church of God under heaven ;" and he subjoins a 
 history of their respective authors. " The first," says 
 Orig-en, " is written by Matthew, once a publican, 
 afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ. The second 
 is that according- to Mark, who wrote it as Peter 
 dictated to him, who therefore calls him his son in 
 his Catholic Epistle. The third is that according to 
 Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, published 
 for the sake of the Gentile converts. Lastly, that 
 according to John." He speaks of the Acts of the 
 Apostles as an uncontested book, and gives the same 
 account concerning- Mark's Gospel as having- been 
 written under the direction of the Apostle Peter, 
 which is given by Clement. It is reckoned a monu- 
 ment of the humility of Peter, that several very re- 
 markable circumstances in his favour, that are related 
 by the other Evangchsts, are not mentioned, or even 
 hinted at, by Mark. 
 
 Origen uniformly quotes the Epistle to the He- 
 brews as the writing of the Apostle Paul, and the 
 Book of Revelation as the writing of the Apostle 
 
88 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 John. His quotations of Scripture are so numerous, 
 that Dr Mill says, " if we had all his works remain- 
 iner, we should have hefore us almost the whole text 
 of the Bible. He expresses, in the most unquaUfied 
 terms, his opinion of the authority of the hooks of 
 the New Testament as inspired writings, and says, 
 that " the sacred hooks are not writings of men, but 
 have been written and delivered to us from the inspi- 
 ration of the Holy Spirit, by the will of the Father 
 of all, throug-h Jesus Christ." He urges, with ear- 
 nestness, the reading of the Old and New Testament 
 Scriptures, as a sacred obligation in the churches of 
 Christ. " Food," says he, " is eaten, physic is taken ; 
 though the good effect is not presently perceived, a 
 ])enefit is expected in time, and may be obtained. 
 So it is with the Holy Scriptures ; though, at the 
 very time of reading of them, there be no sensible 
 advantage, yet, in the end, they will be thought pro- 
 fitable for strengthening virtuous dispositions, and 
 weakening the habits of vice. — The true food of the 
 rational nature is the Word of God. — Let us come 
 daily to the wells of the Scriptures, the waters of the 
 Holy Spirit, and there draw and carry thence a full 
 vessel. The greatest torment of demons is to see 
 men reading the Word of God, and laboiuing to 
 understand the Divine law." 
 
 In his Apology for the Christian Religion, in an- 
 swer to Celsus the Epicurean philosopher, Origen, 
 when giving a quotation from Scripture, says that it 
 is written, " not in any private book, or such as are 
 read by a few persons only, but in books read by 
 every body." In that Apology, he has preserved, 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 89 
 
 from the writings of Celsus, most distinct and com- 
 plete attestations to the Gospel history. 
 
 Gregory, Bishop of Neocesaria, and Dionysius 
 of Alexandria, scholars of Origen, and the well- 
 known Cypriax, Bishop at Carthage, come about 
 twenty years after Origen. Their writings abound 
 with copious citations from the Scriptures, to which 
 they give their full and particular attestation. Cy- 
 prian says, " The church is watered, hke Paradise, 
 by four rivers, that is, four Gospels." 
 
 Within forty years after Cyprian, Victorinus, 
 Bishop at Pettaw, in Germany, and a multitude of 
 Christian writers, all testify their profound respect 
 for the Scriptures. 
 
 About the year 306, Arnobius and Lactantius 
 wrote in support of the Christian religion. Lactan- 
 tius argues m its defence, from the consistency, sim- 
 pHcity, disinterestedness, and suiferings of the writers 
 of the Gospels. Arnobius vindicates the credit of 
 the writers of the Gospels, observing, that they were 
 eyewitnesses of the facts which they relate, and that 
 their ignorance of the arts of composition was rather 
 a confirmation of their testimony, than an objection 
 to it. 
 
 EusEBius, Bishop at Csesarea, born about the year 
 270, wrote about fifteen years after the above authors. 
 He composed a History of Christianity, from its 
 origin to his own time ; and has handed down many 
 valuable extracts of ancient authors, whose works 
 have perished. In giving his testimony to the Scrip- 
 tures, he shows himself to be much conversant in 
 the works of Christian authors, and he appears to 
 
90 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 have collected every tiling- that had heen said, before 
 his own time, respecting- the volume of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 Atiianasius became bishop at Alexandria about 
 the year 326. He expressly affirms that eveiy one 
 of the books of the New Testament that we now 
 receive, are inspired Scriptures, which he specifies in 
 their order, and ascribes them to the writers whose 
 names they bear. He speaks of them as being constant- 
 ly and publicly read in the Christian churches. Atha- 
 nasius had full access to every source of information, 
 and applied himself to ascertain the canon of the 
 Old Testament as well as of the New. It appears, 
 that he sent to the Emperor Constance a copy of the 
 whole Bible, which he described as the whole inspired 
 Scriptures. Speaking- of the Scriptures, he says, 
 " These are fountains of salvation. In them alone 
 the doctrine of religion is taught. Let no man add 
 to them, or take any thing- from them." 
 
 It is unnecessary to carry down this chain of his- 
 torical evidence any farther. The Council of Nice 
 was called by Constantine in the year 325 ; and as 
 Christianity had then become the established relig-icn 
 of the Roman empire, its bistory is afterwards inse- 
 parably interwoven with every thing connected with 
 the state of the world. 
 
 From the above numerous and early writers, we 
 have most unquestionable attestations to the integrity 
 and authority of the Holy Scriptures. First, we have 
 six writers who were contemporary with the Apostles, 
 and then eleven more who lived in distant parts of 
 the world, regularly succeeding each other dui'ing 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 91 
 
 the first luindred years after the Apostles. From 
 that 23eriod, the chain of evidence continues unbroken 
 and uninterrupted. " When Christian advocates," 
 says Paley, " merely tell us that we have the same 
 reason for believing the Gospels to be written by the 
 Evangelists whose names they bear, as we have for 
 believing the Commentaries to be Caesar's, the JEneid. 
 Virgil's, or the Orations Cicero's, they content them- 
 selves with an imperfect representation. They state 
 nothing more than what is true, but they do not 
 state the truth correctly. In the number, variety, 
 and early date of our testimonies, we far exceed aU 
 other ancient books. For one which the most cele- 
 brated work of the most celebrated Greek or Roman 
 writer can allege, we produce many." 
 
 The force of the above testimony is greatly 
 strengthened by the consideration, that it is the con- 
 cmTing evidence of separate, independent, and well- 
 informed writers, who lived in countries remote from 
 one another. Clement lived at Rome ; Ignatius, at 
 Antioch ; Poly carp, at Smyrna ; Justin Martyr, in 
 Syria ; Irenaeus, in France ; Tertullian, at Car- 
 thage ; Origen, in Egypt ; Eusebius, at Ccesarea ; 
 Victorinus, in Germany. The dangers which they 
 encountered, and the hardships and persecutions 
 which they suffered, some of them even unto death, 
 on account of their adherence to the Christian faith, 
 give irresistible weight to their testimony. 
 
 " No wTitings," says Augustine, " ever had a 
 better testimony aiforded them than those of the 
 Apostles and Evangelists. Nor does it weaken the 
 credit and authority of books, received by the church 
 
92 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 of Christ from the beginning-, that some other wri- 
 tings have been, without ground, and falsely, ascribed 
 to the Aj^ostles. For the like has happened, for 
 instance, to Hippocrates ; but yet his genuine works 
 are distinguished from others which have been pub- 
 lished under his name. We know the writings of 
 the Apostles as we know the works of Plato, Aris- 
 totle, Cicero, Varro, and others, to be theirs, and as 
 we know the writings of divine ecclesiastical authors ; 
 for as much as they have the testimony of contem- 
 poraries, and of those who have lived in succeeding 
 times. I might, moreover, by way of illustration, 
 produce for examples those now in hand. Suppose 
 some one in time to come should deny those to be 
 the works of Faustus, or those to be mine ; how 
 should he be satisfied but by the testimony of those 
 of this time who knew both, and have transmitted 
 their accounts to others ? And shall not, then, the 
 testimony of the churches, and Christian brethren, 
 be valid here ; especially when they are so numer- 
 ous, and so harmonious, and the tradition is with so 
 much ease and certainty traced down from the Apostles 
 to our time — I say, shall any be so fooHsh and un- 
 reasonable as to deny or dispute the credibility of 
 such a testimony to the Scriptures, which would be 
 allowed in behalf of any writings whatever, whether 
 heathen or ecclesiastical ?" 
 
 In another place Augustine observes, " If you 
 here ask us, how we know these to be the writings 
 of the Apostles ; in brief we answer, in the same 
 way that you know the Epistles, or any other wri- 
 tings of Mani, to be his : for if any one should be 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 93 
 
 pleased to dispute with you, and offer to deny the 
 Epistles ascribed to Mani to be his, what would you 
 do ? Would you not laugh at the assurance of the 
 man who denied the genuineness of writings gene- 
 rally allowed? As, therefore, it is certain those 
 books are Mani's, and he would be ridiculous who 
 should now dispute it ; so certain is it that the Ma- 
 nichees deserve to be laughed at, or rather ought to 
 be pitied, who dispute the trutli and genuineness of 
 those writings of the Apostles, which have been 
 handed down as theirs from their time to this, 
 through an uninterrupted succession of well-known 
 witnesses." 
 
 Should it occur to any that to prove the genuine- 
 ness and authenticity of the Scriptures by the testi- 
 mony of the Fathers, is to sanction the traditions of 
 the Church of Rome, they ought to consider that 
 there is a radical distinction between these two cases. 
 Testimony is a first principle, universally acknow- 
 ledged as authoritative in its own province, as far as 
 it is unexceptionable. The whole business of the 
 world proceeds on this principle, and without it hu- 
 man affairs would run into utter confusion. That 
 historical testimony is a legitimate source of evi- 
 dence, the general sentiments of mankind admit, in 
 the universal appeal to history for the knowledge of 
 past events. Historical testimony may be false, but 
 this is not peculiar to this class of first principles. 
 We are liable to be deceived on all subjects to which 
 our faculties are directed ; but there are means by 
 which historical evidence may be ascertained. Its 
 proof may vary from the lowest degree of probabihty 
 
94 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 to the highest degree of certainty. Of many things 
 recorded even in profane history, we can have no 
 more doubt than we can have of truths that contain 
 their own evidence. Now, the stress laid on the 
 testimony of the ancient writers that have been 
 quoted, is warranted by the most cautious laws of 
 historical evidence ; and it cannot be rejected, with- 
 out entirely rejecting- history as a legitimate ground 
 of knowledge. That such writers did give such tes- 
 timony, is as indisputable as any historical fact can 
 be. And the proof of this hes open to every man 
 who has time, opportunity, and ability to examine 
 the subject. If so, there is no reason to reject as 
 insufficient, in proof of the authenticity of the Bible, 
 the same kind of evidence that is allowed to prove 
 any other fact. But the traditions of the Church of 
 Rome are not of this nature. They are not histori- 
 cal at all. They have not been ^vTitten ; they are 
 nowhere to be found. It is not pretended by their 
 friends that they possess historical evidence. They 
 are recommended altogether on another foundation, — 
 the authority of the church. It is said the church 
 has had them treasured up in secret ; but we can 
 have no higher assurance of their authenticity than 
 what we are willing to rest on the authority of the 
 church. The (Ufference, then, between the two cases, 
 is manifest and essential. And clearer historical 
 proof cannot be exhibited on any subject, than has 
 been adduced for the genuineness and authenticity 
 of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 It has been supposed that if a list of the names 
 and numbers of the books of Scriptui'e had been 
 
NEW test7\:ment. 95 
 
 recorded in any part of the canon, it would have 
 added to our certainty respecting- the Divine origi- 
 nal of the whole. But if there were such a list, it 
 would still remain to be decided whether the books 
 we possess were the very books named, in words and 
 substance, as well as in name. Indeed if the list 
 were written, and the number of lines and words 
 recorded, the case would still be the same. It would 
 not in the smallest degree add to our certainty re- 
 specting- their Divine original ; for how could we be 
 assured of that inspired list, but from the certainty 
 of the book being- from God that contained the list ? 
 Such a Ust could neither ascertain its own accuracy, 
 nor the authenticity of the book which contained it. 
 The authenticity of that list must have been ascer- 
 tained precisely in the same manner as that of each 
 and all of the books is now ascertained. 
 
 If, therefore, the name and number of the inspired 
 books were contained in any epistle, it would still 
 leave the authority of the books named, on the same 
 foundation of the authority of the epistle in which 
 they were named ; and that authority must have been 
 ascertained exactly in the same way by which we now 
 ascertain the authority of each and all of the inspired 
 books. The ultimate foundation, then, of the evi- 
 dence would be the same^ as to that particular part 
 which contained the list ; and, with respect to the 
 books mentioned in the list, we could not be assured 
 against their mutilation and corruption. It is quite 
 absurd, then, to suppose that a list of the names and 
 numbers of the inspired books would have given us 
 better evidence of their authority. The authority 
 
96 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 of that part which contained such a hst, must be 
 ascertained in the ordinary way ; and, as the stream 
 cannot rise higher than the fountain, the authority 
 of all the books, as resting- on the testimony of one, 
 would be no strong-er than that of the one which 
 supported them. In whatever way that one could 
 prove its 'Divine authority, in the same way we now 
 prove the authority of all. 
 
 Tlie circumstance, then, that there is not a list of 
 the books of inspiration contained in the page of in- 
 spiration itself, does not lessen the certainty as to 
 the canon, nor increase the difficulty of ascertaining- 
 the truth of it. That if a list of the books of Scrip- 
 ture were g-iven in the Scriptures, it would not fix 
 the question of the canon on a surer foundation, is 
 obvious too, from the consideration that a forgery 
 might contain such a list, as well as an authentic 
 document, and that the truth of such a hst takes it 
 for granted that the book which contains it is canon- 
 ical. Is the second epistle of Peter put above the 
 first, as to the certainty of its being canonical, by 
 the assertion, " This second epistle, beloved, I now 
 write unto you?" Does such an expression estabhsh 
 its being- canonical ? Is it not evident, on the con- 
 trary, that the epistle's being- canonical must be esta- 
 bhshed before the assertion, " This second epistle I 
 now write unto you," is believed to be inspired ? So 
 far from such a hst proving that the books which 
 contain it are canonical, it is their being canonical 
 that verifies the list. If the claim of a book of Scrip- 
 ture to be canonical is not ascertained, the list which 
 it contains is not revelation. With respect to the 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 97 
 
 books of the Old Testament, however, such a hst is 
 in effect given, and the inspiration of them warrant- 
 ed in the assertion, " All Scripture is given by in- 
 spiration." Now, the steps by which we arrive at 
 certainty here, are few and simple. If the book of 
 the New Testament which contains this assertion is 
 canonical, it warrants all the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment which at the time of its publication were re- 
 ceived as Scripture. We have only to enquire what 
 books w^ere then contained in the Jewish canon, to 
 be assured in this matter. This is a point of testi- 
 mony on which no difficulty exists. It must be 
 observed, however, that the confidence placed in the 
 list, or notification, rests entirely upon the authen- 
 ticity of the book that contains it being previously 
 ascertained. But if a list of the whole of the in- 
 spired books is the only thing that could ascertain 
 with sufficient evidence such as are from God, then 
 no man can have a thorough faith in the Scriptures, 
 for such a list has not been given. And had it been 
 given, it could not have secured against forgery, as 
 has been already noticed, for nothing is easier than 
 for a forger to give such a hst. Had the Scriptures 
 been a forgery, they would probably have recom- 
 mended themselves by a very correct list. 
 
 It has been asserted that " the question of the 
 canon is a point of erudition, not of Divine revela- 
 tion." This is to undermine both the certainty and 
 the importance of the sacred canon. The assertion, 
 that the question of the canon is not a point of re- 
 velation, is false. It is not true either of the Old 
 Testament, or of the New. The integrity of the 
 
98 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 canon of the Old Testament, is a matter of revela- 
 tion, as mucli as any thing- contained in the Bible. 
 This is attested, as has been shown, by the whole 
 nation of the Jews, to whom it was committed, and 
 their fidelity to the truth has been avouched by the 
 Lord and his Apostles. Is not this revelation ? The 
 integrity of the canon of the New Testament is 
 equally a point of revelation. As God had said to 
 the Jews, " Ye are my witnesses," and as they " re- 
 ceived the lively oracles to give unto us," Acts, vii. 
 ■38 ; so the Lord Jesus said to the Apostles, " Ye 
 shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and 
 all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
 part of the earth." The first churches received the 
 New Testament Scriptures from these witnesses of 
 the Lord, and thus had inspired authority for those 
 books. It was not left to erudition or reasoning- to 
 collect, that they were a revelation from God. This 
 the first Christians knew from the testimony of 
 those who wrote them. They could not be more 
 assured that the thing-s taug-ht were from God, than 
 they were that the writings which contained them 
 were from God. The integrity of the sacred canon 
 is, then, a matter of revelation, conveyed to us by 
 testimony, like every thing- contained in the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 "While it has been denied that the question of the 
 canon is a point of revelation, it has been asserted 
 that it is a point of erudition. But erudition has no- 
 thing- further to do with the question, than as it may 
 be employed in conveying- to us the testimony. 
 Erudition did not produce the revelation of the canon. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 99 
 
 If the canon had not been a point of revelation, eru- 
 dition could never have made it so ; for erudition can 
 create nothing- ; it can only investigate and confirm 
 truth, and testify to that which exists, or detect 
 error. We receive the canon of Scripture by reve- 
 lation, in the same way that the Jews received the 
 law which was g-iven from Mount Sinai. Only one 
 generation of the Jews witnessed the giving of the 
 law; but to all the future g-enerations of that people, 
 it was equally a matter of revelation. The know- 
 ledge of this was conveyed to them by testimony. In 
 the same way, Christians, in their successive gene- 
 rations, receive the canon of Scripture as a matter of 
 revelation. The testimony through which this is 
 received, must indeed be translated from a foreign 
 language ; but so must the account brought to us of 
 any occurrence the most trivial that takes place in a 
 foreign country. If in this sense the question of 
 the canon be called a point of erudition, the gospel 
 itself must be called a point of erudition ; for it, too, 
 must be translated from the original language in 
 which it was announced, as also must every tiling 
 which the Scriptures contain. When a preacher 
 inculcates the belief of the gospel, or of a doctrine of 
 Scriptm'e, or obedience to any duty, would he be 
 warranted in telhng his audience that these are 
 questions of erudition, not of Divine revelation ? 
 Enulition may be allowed its full value, without 
 suspending on it the authority of the Word of God. 
 The assertion that the question of the canon is a 
 point of eruchtion, not of Divine revelation, is sub- 
 versive of the whole of revelation. We have no way 
 
100 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 of knowing- that the miracles related in the Scrip- 
 tures were wrought, and that the doctrines inculca- 
 ted were taught, but by testimony and the internal 
 evidence of the books themselves. We have the 
 evidence of miracles, as that evidence comes to us by 
 the testimony which vouches the authenticity of the 
 inspired books. As far as the genuineness and au- 
 thenticity of any book are brought into suspicion, so 
 far is every thing contained in it brought into sus- 
 picion. For it should always be remembered, that 
 there is no greater absurdity than to question the 
 claim of a book to a place in the canon, and at the 
 same time to acknowledge its contents to be a reve- 
 lation from God. There can be no evidence that 
 the doctrines of Scripture are revealed truths, unless 
 we are certain that the books of Scripture are reve- 
 lation. If the books which compose the canon are 
 not matter of revelation, then w^e have no revelation. 
 If the truth of the canon be not established to us as 
 matter of revelation, then the books of which it is 
 composed are not so estabUshed ; and if the books be 
 not so, then not one sentence of them, nor one doc- 
 trine or precept which they contain, comes estabhsh- 
 ed to us as a revelation from God. If then the ques- 
 tion of the canon be a point of erudition, not of 
 Divine revelation, so is every doctrine which the 
 Scriptures contain ; for the doctrine cannot be assu- 
 red revelation, if the book that contains it be not 
 assured revelation. There can be no higher evi- 
 dence of the doctrine being revelation, than of the 
 book that contains it ; and thus were not the canon 
 a matter of Divine revelation, the whole Bible would 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. . 101 
 
 be stripped of Divine authority. Any thing-, there- 
 fore, that goes to unsettle the canon, goes to unsettle 
 every doctrine contained in the canon. 
 
 Without a particular revelation to every indivi- 
 dual, it does not appear that the authority of the 
 canon could be ascertained to us in any other way 
 than it is at present. The whole of the Scriptures 
 was given at lirst by revelation, and afterwards this 
 revelation was confirmed by ordinary means. The 
 testimony concerning it has been handed down in 
 the churches from one generation to another. On 
 this, and on their own internal characteristics of be- 
 ing Divine, we receive the Scriptures with the most 
 unsuspecting confidence, and on the same ground the 
 Jews received the Scriptures of the Old Testament. 
 In these ways, it is fixed by Divine authority, and 
 not left in any uncertainty ; for, if its truth can be 
 ascertained by ordinary means, it is fixed by the 
 authority of God, as much as if an angel from Heaven 
 were every day to proclaim it over the earth. Wlien 
 Paul says, that his handwriting of the salutation 
 was the token in every epistle, he at once shows 
 us the importance of the canon, and warrants us 
 in receiving it as a Divine revelation attested by 
 orchnary means. Those to whom he wrote had no 
 other way of knowing the handwriting of the Apos- 
 tle than that by which they knew any other hand- 
 writing. Even at that time the churches knew the 
 genuineness of the epistles sent to them by ordinary 
 means ; and Paul's authority warrants this as suffi- 
 cient. We have, then, the authority of revelation 
 for resting the canon on the ordinary sources of hu- 
 
 G 
 
102 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 man evidence, and they are such as to preclude the 
 possibility of deception. The claim of the Epistles 
 sent to the first churches, and of the doctrine they 
 contain as Divine, rested even to those churches on 
 the same kind of evidence on •which we now receive 
 them. It is very important to settle what kind of 
 evidence is sufficient for our receiving the Scriptures. 
 Many have rated this too high ; and as the Scrip- 
 tures contain a revelation, they wished to have them 
 attested to eveiy age by revelation, which is, in fact, 
 requiring the continuance of miraculous interference, 
 which it might easily be shown would be pernicious. 
 With respect to the validity of the internal evi- 
 dence on which the canon is received, an important 
 argument may be founded on John, iv. 39. From 
 the account of the woman of Samaria there related, 
 we learn the kind of evidence on wliich the Lord 
 Jesus was acknowledged while on earth. The founda- 
 tion of this woman's faith was the Lord's having told 
 her all things that ever she did. This was sufficient 
 for her to recognise him as a prophet, or as one sent 
 of God ; and, consequently, when he declared to her 
 that he was the Messiah, she had sufficient ground to 
 believe so, for God would not enable any one to tell 
 her such things in order to deceive. For if there 
 was e\ddence from what he said that he was sent by 
 God, there was evidence from his assertion that 
 he was the Messiah. From verse 41 of the same 
 chapter, we learn, that " many more believed be- 
 cause of his own word ;" and that they did so, and 
 that the woman beheved, are exhibited to us, not 
 only as facts, but as vahd grounds of belief. Jesus 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 103 
 
 had not worked any miracle, and the reason why 
 they beheved on him, is expressly stated to he be- 
 cause of his own word. If, then, the word of Jesus, 
 unaccompanied by miracle, was a sufficient ground of 
 faith when he spoke, it is equally valid in writing-. 
 From hearing him, the people of Samaria could assert, 
 with confidence, that they themselves knew that he 
 was indeed the Christ. And from reachng the Scrip- 
 tures, the same satisfactory evidence is obtained. In 
 reading the Scriptm'es, we are often so struck with 
 their evidence, that, independently of any other 
 proof, we firmly believe that they come from God. 
 We are often most forcibly convinced by evidence 
 which we could hardly state intelligibly to others. 
 The Apostles still commend themselves to eveiy 
 man's conscience, and we feel the force of the ques- 
 tion, " What is the chaff to the wheat, — is not my 
 word hke a fire ?" Must, then, the ilhterate man 
 receive the Scriptures as a question of erutUtion ? 
 Must the canonical authority of an epistle that re- 
 commends itself as the hglit of heaven, depend on 
 questions of erudition ? 
 
 Christians receive the Holy Scriptures on the 
 authority of God, as declared by his inspired messen- 
 gers, so that they are received on the ground of re- 
 velation. The illiterate are equally bound to receive 
 them in this way, and interested in so doing, as the 
 learned. As all are to be judged by them, it was 
 necessary that all should have full assurance that 
 they are from God ; and it is matter of express reve- 
 lation, that nothing but hatred of the light, and the 
 love of darkness, prevents any man who reads them 
 
104 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 from receiving- tlie truth. Both the Old Testament 
 and the New come to us stamped with the authority 
 of Him who is " the brightness of the Father's glory, 
 and the express image of his person," and of those 
 to whom God bore " witness both with signs and 
 wonders, and diverse miracles, and gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost," and also with their own internal evidence of 
 being Divine. And if any portion of them be set 
 aside as uninspired, or if any addition be made to 
 them, it is done in spite of that authority and of that 
 evidence. 
 
 If we displace from the canon any one of those 
 books that have been sanctioned by the recognition 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles, we over- 
 turn the authority on which the rest are held, and 
 invite the evil propensities of our nature to quarrel 
 with any thing in the Bible to which we find a dis- 
 relish. Those who hold that the question of the 
 canon is open to discussion, and who set aside any 
 part of it on the ground of either external or inter- 
 nal evidence, cannot be said to have a Bible. Their 
 Bible will be longer or shorter, according to their 
 researches ; and a fixed standard they never can 
 have. 
 
 If it be asked, shoidd we be precluded from en- 
 quiring into the grounds on which the canon is re- 
 ceived, it is repUed, certainly not. But w^e shoidd 
 remember that the permanent ground on which it 
 stands is testimony ; and such must be the ground 
 of every historical fact. Internal evidence may con- 
 firm the authenticity of a book sanctioned by the 
 canon, Init to suspend belief till we receive such con- 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 105 
 
 firmation, argues an ignorance of the principles of 
 evidence. A book might he inspired, when no such 
 internal confirmation, from the nature of the subject, 
 might 1)6 found. And when a book is substantially 
 approved, by testimony, as ])elong-ing- to the canon, 
 no evidence can, by a Christian, be legitimately sup- 
 posed possible, in opposition to its inspiration. This 
 would be to suppose valid objections to first princi- 
 ples. Sufficient testimony deserves the same rank 
 as a first principle, w ith axioms themselves. Axioms 
 are not more necessary than testimony, to all the 
 business of human life. Internal evidence may be 
 sufficient to prove that a book is not Divine ; but it 
 is absurd to suppose that such a book can have valid 
 testimony, and therefore it can never be supposed l^y 
 a Christian, that any of those books that are received 
 as part of the sacred canon, on the authority of suf- 
 ficient testimony, can contain any internal marks of 
 imposture. This would be to suppose the possibi- 
 lity of the clashing of two first principles. The thing 
 that can be proved by a legitimate first principle, can 
 never be disproved by another legitimate first prin- 
 ciple. This would be to suppose that God is not 
 the author of the human constitution. If, then, in 
 a book recognised ])y the canon, as the Song of So- 
 lomon, we find matter which to our wisdom does not 
 appear to be worthy of inspiration, we may be as- 
 sured that we mistake. For if that book is authen- 
 ticated by testimony as a part of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures, which the Lord Jesus Christ sanctioned, it is 
 authenticated by a first principle, to which God has 
 bound us, by the constitution of our nature, to sub- 
 
106 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 mit. If, in this instance, or in any particular in- 
 stance, we reject it, our own conduct in other things 
 will be our condemnation. There is no first prin- 
 ciple in the constitution of man that can lead him 
 to reject any thing- in the Song of Solomon, coming, 
 as it does, under the sanction of a first principle. 
 Those persons who reject any books of the canon on 
 such grounds, would show themselves much more 
 rational, as well as more humble Christians, if, re- 
 cognising the paramount authority of a first prin- 
 ciple universally acknowledged, they would receive 
 the Song of Solomon and the Book of Esther, or 
 any other of the books that they now reject, as parts 
 of the Word of God, and humbly endeavour to gain 
 from them the instruction and edification which, as 
 Divine books, they must be calculated to give. This 
 questioning of the canon, then, proceeds on infidel 
 and irrational principles, which, if carried to their le- 
 gitimate length, must end in complete unbelief. 
 
 " According to your way of proceeding," observes 
 Augustine, in reference to those who supposed that 
 the Scriptures had been interpolated or corrupted, 
 and the observation is equally apphcable to all who 
 add to, or reject, certain parts of the sacred canon— 
 " According to your way of proceeding, the autho- 
 rity of Scripture is quite destroyed, and every one's 
 fancy is to determine M-hat in the Scriptures is to be 
 received, and what not. He does not admit it, be- 
 cause it is found in writings of so great credit and 
 authority; but it is rightly written, because it is 
 agreeable to his judgment. Into what confusion 
 
NEW TESTAMENT. 107 
 
 and uncertainty must men be brought by such a prin- 
 ciple !" 
 
 It is a wonderful circumstance in the providence 
 of God, that while the two parts of Scripture were 
 dehvered to two classes, with the fullest attestation 
 of their Divine orig-inal, both the one and the other 
 have been faithful in preserving- the precious trust 
 respectively committed to them, while they have 
 both been re])elhous in regard to that part of which 
 they were not originally appointed the depositaries. 
 The Jews always held the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment in the highest veneration, and continued to 
 preserve them, without addition or chminution, until 
 the coming of Him concerning whom they testify, 
 and they have kept them entire to this day ; yet they 
 have altogether rejected the New Testament Scrip- 
 tm'es. And while Christians have all agreed in pre- 
 serving the Scriptures of the New Testament entire 
 and uncorrupted, they have wickedly adulterated 
 those of the Old by a spurious addition, or have re- 
 trenched certain portions of them. Of the Divine 
 original of the Sacred Scriptures, as we now possess 
 them, we have evidence the most abundant and di- 
 versified. It is the distinguishing characteristic of 
 the Gospel, that it is preached to the poor, and God 
 has so ordered it, that the authenticity of that Word 
 by which all are to be judged, should not be pre- 
 sented to them as a matter of doubtful disputation. 
 
 Were there no other evidence of the truth of 
 Divine revelation than the existence of the Holy 
 Scriptures, that alone would be conclusive. The Bible 
 is not a book compiled by a single author, nor by 
 many authors, acting in confederacy in the same age, 
 
108 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 in M-liicli case it would not be so wonderful to find a 
 just and close connexion in its several parts. It is 
 the work of between thirty and forty writers in very 
 diiferent conditions of life, from the throne and scejitre 
 down to the lowest degree, and in very distant ages, 
 during- which the world must have put on an entirely 
 new appearance, and men must have had ihfferent 
 interests to pursue. This would have led a spirit of 
 imposture to vary its schemes, and to adapt them 
 to diiferent stations in the world, and to different 
 fashions and changes in every age. David wrote 
 about 400 years after Moses, and Isaiah about 250 
 after David, and John about 800 years after Isaiah. 
 Yet these authors, with all the other Prophets and 
 Apostles, wrote in perfect harmony, confirming the 
 authority of their predecessors, labouring to enforce 
 their instructions, and denouncing the severest judg- 
 ments on all who continued disobedient. Such en- 
 tire agreement in pro])oun(hng religious truths and 
 principles, different from any before or since pro- 
 mulgated, except by those who have learned from 
 them, establishes the Divine mission of the M-riters 
 of the Bible beyond chspute, proving that they all 
 derived their wisdom from God, and spake as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost. In all the works 
 of God there is an analogy characteristic of his 
 Divine hand ; and the variety and harmony that 
 shine so conspicuously in the heavens and the earth, 
 are not farther removed from the suspicion of im- 
 posture than the unity that, in the midst of bound- 
 less variety, reigns in that book which reveals the 
 plan of redemption. To forge the Bible is as im- 
 possible as to forge a world. 
 
[ 109 ] 
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY 
 SCRIPTURES. 
 
 The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments 
 are not only genuine and authentic, hut also inspired 
 writings. The claim of inspiration which they ad- 
 vance, is a claim of infallibility and of perfection. It 
 is also a claim of absolute authority, which demands 
 unlimited submission. It is a claim which, if set up 
 for any other Ijook, might, with the utmost ease, be 
 sho\vn to be unfounded. 
 
 The inspiration of the Scriptures is attested, both 
 by the nature and value of their contents, and by the 
 evidence of their truth. On these g-rounds, they 
 stand without a rival in the world, and challenge 
 from every man the highest possible regard. 
 
 Our knowledge of the inspiration of the Bible, 
 like every other doctrine it contains, must be col- 
 lected from itself. If the writers of this book appear 
 with such credentials as entitle them to be received 
 as commissioned of God, then it is from themselves 
 only that we can learn those truths which they are 
 authorized to make known. Among these, it is of 
 primary importance to know what is the extent of 
 that dependence which we are to place on their words. 
 
110 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Is implicit credit to be g-iven to every thing they de- 
 clare? and, if the writers are numerous, is this equally 
 due to them all ? 
 
 The question of inspiration has been viewed as one 
 of the utmost difficulty ; and, accordingly, various 
 theories have been invented to explain it. To those 
 who consider the subject merely in the light of the 
 Bible itself, (the only source of legitimate informa- 
 tion on any matter of revelation,) it may appear sur- 
 prising that this doctrine should be supposed to pre- 
 sent any difficulties at all. Nothing can be more 
 clearly, more expressly, or more precisely taught in 
 the Word of God. And while other important doc- 
 trines may be met with passages of seeming opposi- 
 tion, there is not in the language of the Scriptures 
 one expression that even appears to contradict their 
 plenary or verbal inspiration. Whence, then, it may 
 be asked, has arisen the idea of difficulty so general 
 among the learned, but utterly unknown to the great 
 body of Christians. It has wholly arisen from a pro- 
 fane desire to penetrate into the manner of the Divine 
 operation on the mind of man in the communication 
 of revealed truth. Instead of coming to the Scrip- 
 tures in a childlike manner, and humbly submitting 
 to what they teach on this subject, many have occu- 
 pied themselves in forming a scale for determining 
 how far Di\dne assistance was afforded to the sacred 
 penman in the different parts of their writings ; and, 
 according to almost all those who have discussed this 
 subject, some parts of Scripture require only a very 
 small degree of Divine assistance. But as the Scrip- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. Ill 
 
 tiires assert the inspiration equally of all tlieir parts, 
 these writers are obliged to denominate even this 
 slight assistance as a kind of inspiration. Some, 
 accordingly, make three degrees or kinds of inspira- 
 tion, while others add a fourth. To the Superin- 
 tendence, Elevation, and Suggestion, of Doddridge, 
 has been added Direction,^ And some, substantially 
 agi'eeing in the doctrine of different degrees, quarrel 
 with the terms by which these distinctions are de- 
 signated, and for Suggestion have substituted Reve- 
 lation, as more appropriately expressing the highest 
 degree in the scale of inspiration. 
 
 To these speculations, though very generally adopt- 
 ed, the writers of the Scriptures give not the slight- 
 est countenance or support. Such being the fact, 
 and as the question of inspiration can only be deter- 
 mined by the Scriptures themselves, all the distinc- 
 tions that have been introduced are nothing bet- 
 ter than vain and unsubstantial theories, unfounded 
 and unsupported by any evidence. The Scrip- 
 tures contain no intimation of their being written 
 under an inspiration of any kind but one. " All 
 Scripture," says Paul, " is given hy insjnration of 
 God." This declaration refers to the whole of the 
 Old Testament, which Timothy had known from his 
 
 * For these distinctions there is no foundation whatever. Su- 
 perintendence, Elevation, and Direction, are not degrees of the 
 inspiration of Scripture. , Had these been all enjoyed by the 
 writers of the Bible, it would not have made it an inspired book, 
 nor have entitled it to be called the Word of God. 
 
11'2 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 childhood. But as the greater part of the New 
 Testament was at that time pubHshed, and as the 
 whole of it is uniformly classed by its wTiters with 
 the Old Testament, this expression of Paul equally 
 apphes to the New Testament. The Apostle Peter 
 classes «// the Epistles of Paul, which he ascribes to 
 the wisdom given to him, with "the other Scrip- 
 tures," thereby declaring them to be of the same 
 authority, and showing that all the A\Titings, both of 
 the Old and New Testament, were designated the 
 " Scriptures." 
 
 Inspiration belongs to the original writings. No 
 one contends for any degree of inspiration in the 
 transcribers in different ages. Accuracy in the copies 
 they have made is, under the providence of God, by 
 which he always perfectly attains his purposes, se- 
 cured by the fidehty of those to whom the Scrip- 
 tures have been committed — by the opposition of 
 parties watching each other, as of Jews and Chris- 
 tians, and of various sects — and by the great multi- 
 phcation of copies and translations into different lan- 
 guages, which took place so early. 
 
 The inspiration spoken of in the book of Job, 
 xxxii. 8, where it is said, " There is a spirit in men, 
 and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them 
 understanding," appears to refer to the communica- 
 tion of those intellectual powers with which man is 
 endowed by his Creator. Every Christian has, be- 
 sides this, an unction from the Holy Ghost, who 
 dwelleth in him, through whom he was born again, 
 and by whose influence his spiritual life is maintain- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 113 
 
 ed. There have also been various miraculous gifts 
 of the Holy Spirit bestowed on the servants of God, 
 and among- these is that inspiration, by means of 
 which God has revealed himself in the Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments. 
 
 The word inspire signifies to breathe into, and 
 literally corresponds to the original in 2 Tim. iii. 16. 
 All Scripture is inspired hy Gody or breathed into the 
 writers hy God. It is, therefore, of the ivriting that 
 the inspiration is asserted. The Greek compound 
 word, corresponding to our phrase inspired by God, 
 was ajipUed among the heathens to such dreams as 
 were supposed to be breathed into men by any of the 
 gods. This inspiration, which, without any exception, 
 variation, or gradation, is claimed by the writers of the 
 Scripture, and which entitles the whole of it to be de- 
 nominated " the Word of God," is of the highest kind 
 by which they were " led into all truth." It consists 
 in that communication made to their minds by the 
 Spirit of God, of the ideas and words which they 
 have recorded in that sacred book. Paul expressly 
 calls the Old Testament Scriptures " the Oracles 
 of God," which were committed to the Jews. — Rom. 
 iii. 2. He afterwards gives the same denomina- 
 tion of " oracles" to all the revealed truth of God. — 
 Heb. V. 12. The same expression was used by the 
 Greeks to denote the responses given out in distinct 
 words, which their priests made, in name of their 
 deities, to those who consulted them. In the same 
 sense, Stephen, speaking under the immediate influ- 
 ence of the Holy Ghost, designates the writings of 
 
114 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Moses as " lively oracles." In this expression their 
 verhal inspiration is distinctly asserted. 
 
 In the passage above quoted, " All Scripture is 
 given hy inspiration of God" the same thing- is dis- 
 tinctly affirmed. Paul does not say the meaning of 
 all Scripture, or the ideas contained in it, but all 
 Scripture — all icriting^ or all that is written (taking 
 writing in the appropriated sense in which he uses 
 it) is given by inspiration of God. We have here 
 a most unequivocal testimony to the inspiration of' 
 the words of Scripture, for neither a meaning, nor 
 an idea, can be expressed in wTiting, except by words. 
 If any writing is insjiired, the words of necessity must 
 be inspired, because the words are the writing ; for 
 what is a writing, but words written ? The thoughts 
 and sentiments are the meaning of the words. To say 
 that a writing is inspired, while the ivords are unin- 
 spired, is a contradiction in terms. The affirmation 
 of Paul, then, respects the words as containing the 
 meaning, and not the meaning as containing the words. 
 To the same purpose, the Apostle Peter affirms, that 
 " the proplieci) came not of old time [at any time] hy 
 the will of man, hut holy men of God spake as they 
 were moved hy the Holy Ghosts If they spake as 
 they were moved, they did not choose the language 
 they uttered, but the words which they spoke were 
 given to them by the Holy Ghost. In the same 
 manner the disciples, on the day of Pentecost, " were 
 all filled with the Holy Ghost, and hegan to speak 
 with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them uttev' 
 ancer Here idterance, or the words they spoke, 
 is expressly ascribed to the Holy Spirit. Nothing 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 115 
 
 can more distinctly convey the meaning- of inspi- 
 ration than these words, " ivho hy the mouth of thy 
 servant David hast said." — Acts, iv. 25. And 
 this inspiration, which withont variation or excep- 
 tion is claimed for the Scriptures, by the sacred wri- 
 ters, entitles the whole of them to be called " the 
 Word of God" to which high desig-nation they 
 could not be entitled on any other ground. 
 
 The words of Scripture, as used by the writers, 
 were indeed their own words. But this does not 
 imply that the Bible is partly the word of God, 
 and partly the word of man. It is not the effect of 
 any such co-operation, as supposes that one part 
 was produced by God, and the other part by man, 
 to make out a whole. The passages above quoted 
 preclude our entertaining- any such notion. Be- 
 cause the words were written by the Proj)hets and 
 Apostles, this does not prevent them from being- 
 the words of God. The following- remarks of Pre- 
 sident Edwards, when he is combating the deeply 
 erroneous sentiment of the Arminians, respecting a 
 co-operation between God and man in the work of 
 grace, will explain this matter. " In efficacious 
 grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God 
 do some, and we do the rest. But God does aU, and 
 we do all. God produces all, and we act all. For 
 that is what he produces, viz. our own acts. God 
 is the only projjer author and foundation : we only 
 are the proper actors. We are, in different respects, 
 wholly passive and wholly active. In the Scriptures 
 the same things are represented as from God and 
 from us. God is said to convert, and men are said 
 
116 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 to convert and turn. God makes a new heart, and 
 we are commanded to make us a new heart. God 
 circumcises the heart, and we are commanded to cir- 
 cumcise our own hearts ; not merely because we 
 must use the means in order to the effect, hut the 
 effect itself is our act and our duty. These things 
 are agreeable to that text, ' God worketh in you 
 both to will and to do.' " — Edwards's Remarks, &c. 
 231. 
 
 " We grant," says Dr Owen, " that they" (the 
 sacred writers) " used their own abilities of mind 
 and understanding in the choice of w^ords and ex- 
 pressions. So the po^eacher sought to find out ac- 
 ceptable words, Eccles. xii. 10. But the Holy Spirit, 
 who is more intimate into the minds and skill of men 
 than they are themselves, did so guide and operate 
 in them, as that the words they fixed upon were as 
 directly and certainly from him, as if they had been 
 spoken to them by an audible voice." — Owen on the 
 Spirit, Book ii. chap. i. sect. 20. 
 
 We are not, however, required to suppose, that 
 while inspired, the ordinary exercise of the faculties 
 of the penmen of the Scriptures was counteracted or 
 suspended, or that their minds did not entirely go 
 along with what was communicated to them. " They 
 were all filled with the Holy Ghost," Acts xi. 4. 
 They " had the mind of Christ," I Cor. xi. 1 5 ; and 
 were themselves cast into the mould of that doctrine 
 which they dehvered to others. We are certain, 
 then, as appears from the whole of their writings, 
 that as far as they comprehended the tiiiths which 
 they were employed to record, they both fuUy ac- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 117 
 
 qiiiesced in them, and powerfully felt their force. It 
 forms no olyection to their inspiration, that the 
 words of Scriptm'e are occasionally chang-ed in paral- 
 lel passages or quotations, by Him who dictated them. 
 I The Holy Spirit is not confined to any one mode of 
 expression, and in such places his mind is conveyed 
 in words, which, though varied by him, are yet per- 
 fectly adapted to communicate his will. 
 
 Nor does the difference of style which we find 
 among- these WTiters at all conclude against their ha- 
 ving- the words they were to \rate imparted to them. 
 On the same ground that the term " Scripture" in- 
 cludes the thoughts and words, so also does it neces- 
 sarily comprehend the style in which it is written ; 
 which is in fact nothing- more than the choice and 
 arrang-ement of the words ; for what is style, abstract- 
 ed from the words that express it ? The style that 
 God was pleased to employ was used, and the instni- 
 ments were such as that style was natm'al to, flow- 
 ing-, like the words, with their full consent, and ac- 
 cording- to the particular tone of their minds. The 
 style of the Scriptures is the characteristic style of 
 the different writers ; but God is the author of it. 
 The style is as truly God's as the matter ; for if he 
 has employed the style of different writers, he has 
 like^\'ise employed their expressions, thoughts, rea- 
 sonings, and arguments. God (Ud not leave them to 
 the operation of their own mind, but has employed 
 the operations of their mind in his word. The Holy 
 Spirit could dictate to them his own words in such a 
 way that they would also be their own words, utter- 
 ed with the understanding-. He could express the 
 
118 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 same thought by the mouth of a thousand persons, 
 each in his own style. Is it then because we cannot 
 comprehend the mode of such an operation, that 
 arrogant and weak mortals dare to deny the obvious 
 import of Scripture declarations ? 
 
 The objection to verbal inspiration, taken from 
 the variety of style among- the sacred wi'iters, or from 
 the circumstance that the same fact is often variously 
 related by them, though at first sight it may seem 
 plausible, is, in reality, both unfounded and absurd. 
 It is taking it for granted that two or more accounts 
 of the same thing, differing in phraseology, though 
 substantially agreeing, cannot all be the words of in- 
 spiration ; which has not the smallest foundation in 
 truth. If variety of expression in relating the same 
 things in the Gospel, would not affect the truth of 
 the narrative, on the supposition that the writers 
 were uninspired men, why is it presumed that it would 
 affect it on the supposition of their being inspired ? 
 and why should it be thought improper for the Holy 
 Ghost to make use of that variety ? Or, because 
 one peculiar cast of style distinguished every man's 
 writings, is it thought impossible that the Spirit of 
 God can employ a variety of styles ; or is it supposed 
 that He must be confined to one single mode of ex- 
 pression ? The simple statement of such an idea 
 contains its refutation. It is evident, too, that variety 
 of style militates no more against verbal inspiration, 
 than against the supposed inspiration oi superintend- 
 ence ; for if the Holy Spirit sanctioned x^Yietj, it 
 was equally consistent to dictate variety. And it 
 might be shown that such variety is of essential im- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 119 
 
 portance in tlie Gospel narratives in bringing- out very 
 interesting- views, that could not be so well exhibited 
 in a single narrative. 
 
 Of the fact, however, that the variety of style 
 which is found among- the writers of the Scriptures 
 does not in the smallest degree mihtate against that 
 ver])al inspiration by which they affirm that they 
 wTote, we have conclusive proof. For while it is 
 evident to all, that there is a certain characteristic 
 distinction of style, that pervades the whole of the 
 Scriptures, and sufficiently attests that they are the 
 work of the same author, it is equally certain that 
 each one of the writers is distinguished from the rest 
 by a style pecuhar to himself. Now the difference of 
 style is as g-reat among- the prophets, when prechcting 
 future events which they did not understand, where, 
 as is admitted bi/ all, the ivords tlieij employed must 
 necessarili/ have been communicated to them, as it is 
 found to be among- them when relating- events with 
 which they were previously acquainted. Here, then, 
 we have positive proof on this subject, which it is 
 impossible to set aside. The objection, too, that is 
 founded on variety of style, to the communication of 
 words, would equally militate against the communi- 
 cation of ideas. There is as great diversity of 
 MODES OF THOUGHT, and of viewing their subjects^ 
 as o/'expression and style, among the writers of 
 Scripture. And can it for a moment be supposed, 
 that either as to the one or the other, the Spirit of 
 God is limited ? " He that planted the ear, shall he 
 not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?" 
 " Who hath made man's mouth, or who maketh the 
 
1*20 THE INSPIRATIOX OF 
 
 dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing-, or the blind, did 
 not I the Lord?" He who conferred upon men 
 all the varied powers and faculties which they pos- 
 sess, is he not able to communicate to their minds 
 whatever to him seems good, in eveiy possible va- 
 riety of expression, and in every conceivable shape ? 
 It has been objected, that if the verbal inspiration 
 of the whole of the Scriptures could be proved, it 
 would follow, that the words of all the speakers who 
 are introduced in them, such as those of Job's friends, 
 although their opinions were erroneous, nay even 
 the words of the devil himself, were inspired. This 
 objection is so absurd, that, unless it had been some- 
 times gravely urged, it would be too trifling- to be 
 noticed. Is it not sufficiently plain, that while God 
 dictated to the sacred penman the words of those re- 
 ferred to, he dictated them to be inserted, not as his 
 words, but as their words ? Even the saying-s of 
 wicked men and of devils in the Scriptures are re- 
 corded by inspiration as tnily as the saying-s of Christ 
 himself, and, as recorded by the Holy Ghost, sugg-est 
 inspired instruction. Every thing contained in the 
 Bible, whether the words of the penman, that con- 
 tain the mind of God, or the words of others, that 
 are inserted for the purjDose of giving such informa- 
 tion as he is pleased to impart, is equally, according 
 to the express declarations of Scripture, (hctated by 
 God. It should, however, be observed, that it is not 
 at all implied in the assertion of plenary verbal in- 
 spiration, that every example recorded in Scripture, 
 without any judgment expressed with regard to the 
 conduct of good, or even inspired men, should be for 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 1*21 
 
 imitation. When the Word of God records human 
 conduct, wdthout pronouncing- on its morahty, whe- 
 ther it is sin or duty must be ascertained by an ap- 
 peal to the g-eneral principles of Scripture. 
 
 It is no vaHd objection to verbal inspiration, that 
 the sacred writers were often acquainted beforehand 
 with those facts which they recorded, and that they 
 were directed to refer to this knowledge to establish 
 their credibihty. This no more proves that their 
 relating- these facts orig-inated with themselves, than 
 the previous knowledge of a messenger of the con- 
 tents of the message he bears, proves that it origi- 
 nated with himself, or detracts from its truth or 
 authority. Nor does it form any objection that the 
 penmen of Scripture often appeal, in support of 
 what they advance, to its own evidence, or that they 
 reason from principles granted by those w-hom they 
 addressed. This w^as practised by the Lord himself, 
 as to w^iose w^ords no Christian wiU affirm that they 
 are not the words of God. 
 
 There is a simpHcity, harmony, and consistency, 
 in that plan which represents the Scriptm'es as, in 
 one point of view, the production of man, and in 
 another whoUy the book of God. This is precisely 
 consistent with the lang-uage of the Apostle Paul, 
 when he sometimes designates the Gosjjel, " my 
 Gospel," and sometimes, " the Gospel of God," it 
 being, in fact, both the one and the other. Though 
 the deepest wisdom of man could never have anti- 
 cipated such a scheme of inspiration, yet when it is 
 submitted to the mind, it manifests itself to be Di- 
 
122 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 vine. And nothing- but this view will harmonize 
 all the assertions of the Scriptures. 
 
 The subject of the inspiration of the Bible has been 
 too much disregarded among Christians ; many have 
 not attended to it at all, while others have ventured 
 to indulge in vain speculations respecting it. But like 
 every other doctrine, the nature of Divine inspiration 
 ought to be carefully enquired into, and the truth 
 respecting- it received with the most unreserved sub- 
 mission. It will be proper, then, to consider it solely 
 in the light which the Word of God affords ; and for 
 this piu'pose, after attenchng- to the objections that 
 have been derived from erroneous views of the mean- 
 ing" of certain passages of Scripture, to exhil)it the 
 ample proofs contained in the sacred record, which 
 unequivocally substantiate its own plenary inspiration 
 in every part, without a sing-le exception. 
 
 The inspiration of certain parts of the Scriptures 
 is frequently denied, on the supposition that the 
 Apostles themselves " sometimes candidly admit, 
 that they are not speaking- by inspiration." This 
 objection proceeds on a mistaken view of the mean- 
 ing- of the passages on which it is founded. 
 
 In the 7th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians, the Apostle Paul is supposed, in some places, 
 to lUsclaim inspiration, and, in one place, not to be 
 certain whether or not he is inspired. This, at first 
 sig-ht, will appear to be evidently contrary to the 
 uniform style of this Apostle's writings, and alto- 
 gether improbable, when, as a commissioned and 
 accredited ambassador of Jesus Christ, he is answer- 
 ing certain questions put to him by a Christian 
 
THE HOLY SCllIPTURES. 123 
 
 chiircli, to whom he had just before in the most 
 exphcit manner asserted, that he spoke " not in the 
 words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the 
 Holy Ghost teacheth ;" and that he was addressing 
 them " in the name of the Lord Jesus." 1 Cor. ii. 
 13, and v. 4. Attention to this might have prevented 
 the adoption of the unfounded and mistaken meaning 
 that has been affixed to the passages referred to, 
 which tends to unsettle the minds of Christians 
 respecting- the inspiration of the Scriptures. No 
 such indecision, however, attaches to the passages 
 in question. 
 
 In answer to the question a])out marriage, Paul 
 says, 1 Cor. vii. 6, " / speak this hy permission^ and 
 not of commandment.'' Does this mean that the 
 Spirit permitted him, but did not command him, to 
 give the answer he had done ? Even upon this sup- 
 position, the Apostle's declaration must be according 
 to the mind of the Spirit : for Paul could not, on such 
 an occasion, have been permitted to say what was 
 contrary to it. But this would have been a veiy 
 extraordinary and unusual mode of communicating 
 that mind, and evidently is not what is here intend- 
 ed. The obvious meaning is, that what the Apostle 
 here said was in the way of permission, not of com- 
 mandment. " I speak this," says he, " as a permis- 
 sion, and not as a commandment ;" and without this, 
 the Apostle might have been understood as enjoin- 
 ing marriage as an indispensable duty. In the second 
 Epistle to the same church, chap. viii. 8, the Apostle 
 expresses himself to the same purpose, in a passage 
 which no one misunderstands. Again, at the 10th 
 
124< THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 verse, — " Unto the married I command, yet not I, 
 hut the Lord" This commandment had been deli- 
 vered by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The Apostle, 
 therefore, had no new commandment to deliver to 
 them, or no commandment from himself only, but 
 one which the Lord had given. " To the rest, speak 
 /, not the Lordy There was no former command- 
 ment g-iven by the Lord, to which he might here 
 refer them ; on this point, therefore, he now delivers 
 to them the will of God. So far, indeed, was this 
 commandment from having- been given before, that it 
 was the repeal of an old one, by which, under the 
 Jewish dispensation, the people were commanded to 
 put away their wives, if heathens. Can it, then, be 
 supposed, that the Apostle is speakmg from himself, 
 and not under the dictation of the Holy Ghost, when 
 he is declaring- the abrogation of a part of the law of 
 God? 
 
 " Now, concerning virgins, I have no command- 
 ment of the Lord ; yet I give my judgment as one 
 that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to he faithfuV 
 Here again no commandment had formerly been 
 given, to which Paul could refer those to whom he 
 wrote. But now, he gave his judg-ment as one that 
 had obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful in the 
 discharge of that ministry which he had received, to 
 deliver the whole counsel of God to man. " / think 
 also that I have the Spirit of God." In this, as in 
 many other passages, the word translated, "I think,"* 
 
 * " On 1 Cor. vii. 40, Wolfius remarks, that the v. oxa 
 imports not an uncertain opinion, but conviction and knowledge, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 125 
 
 does not mean doubting-, but the most positive cer- 
 tainty. If Paul meant it to be understood, that he 
 was not certain whether he was inspired or not, it 
 would contradict all that he has positively affirmed in 
 the same Epistle, on the subject of his inspiration, 
 both before the expression in question, and after- 
 wards, when he says, chap. xiv. 37, " If any man 
 think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him 
 acknowledge that the things which I wiHte unto you 
 are the commandments of the Lord." And it would 
 stand directly opposed to what he affirms, 1 Thess. 
 iv. 8, " He, therefore, that despiseth, despiseth not 
 man, but God, who hath also given unto us his 
 Holy Spirit." But so far is this from being- the case, 
 that in order more deeply to impress the minds of 
 those to whom he wrote, with the importance of 
 what he had said, Paul concludes by assuring- them 
 that he was certain that he wrote by the Spirit of 
 God. 
 
 The only other passag-e in which this Apostle is 
 supposed to chsclaim inspiration, occurs in 2 Cor. xi, 
 17 : — " That tchich I speak, I speak it not after the 
 Lord, hut as it were foolishly, in this confidence of 
 boasting." In this passage Paul does not refer to the 
 authority, but to the example of the Lord. " I speak 
 not according- to the example or manner of the Lord, 
 
 as Jotn V. 39. So in Xenophon, Cyroped., at the end of the 
 proem, KcrhcrScci AOKOYMEN, expresses assurance, not doubt." 
 — Parkhurst. And see Acts xxvi. 9 ; 1 Cor. iv. 9 ; " Doth 
 he thank that servant because he did the things that -were com- 
 manded him? I trow not,'" Luke xvii. 9. 
 
126 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 but after the manner of fools :" a manner which, as 
 he tells the Corinthians in the next chapter, they had 
 compelled him to adopt. Such is the true sense of 
 the above passages ; but even if the mistaken mean- 
 ing so often attributed to them were the just one, 
 they would not at all miUtate against the plenaiy 
 inspiration of the Scriptures, because in that case 
 Paul was inspired to write precisely as he has done, 
 since they form a part of Scripture, all of which is 
 given hy inspiration of God." If he has told us that 
 he was not inspired on these points, he was inspired 
 to make the denial. 
 
 Another passage in the Second Epistle of Peter, 
 i. 19, is frequently quoted, so as to invalidate the 
 Apostolic testimony. Peter had just ])efore affirmed, 
 that on the mount of transfiguration, he and the other 
 Apostles had been eyewitnesses of the majesty of 
 Jesus Christ, and had heard the voice from heaven, 
 which attested that he was the beloved Son of God. 
 Yet, after this, he is supposed to refer Christians to 
 the word of prophecy, as " more sure" than this testi- 
 mony. Instead of this, which affixes a meaning to the 
 passage degrading to the testimony of the Apostles, 
 (than which there is nothing in heaven, or on earth, 
 more absolutely certain,) he refers to the prophecies, 
 now made " confirmed" by what they had witnessed.* 
 
 * " He," the Apostle, " does not oppose," says Wetstein, " the 
 prophetic word to fables, or to the transfiguration seen by him- 
 self. . . . But the prophetic word is more Jirm now, as it has 
 been confirmed by the event, than it was before the event. So 
 the Greek interpreters understood the passage." — Parxhurst. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. ]2T 
 
 Two passages are quoted from Paul's First Epistle 
 to Timothy, v. 23, " Drink no longer water, hut 
 use a little ivine for thy stomaclis sake, and thine 
 often infirmities." And 2 Tim. iv. 13, " The cloak 
 that I left at Troas tvith Carjnis, when thou comest, 
 bring tvith thee, and the hooks, hut especially the 
 parchments." These passages, it is supposed, are of 
 so unimportant a nature, that they cannot be the 
 dictates of insj^iration. Such a conclusion," even if 
 we could not discover their use, would be altogether 
 unwarrantable. On the same principle we might 
 reject many other parts of Scripture, the import of 
 w^hich we do not understand ; but, in doing so, we 
 should act both as absurdly and irreverently as the 
 daring infidel, who might assert that a worm or a 
 mushroom was not the workmanship of God, because 
 it appeared to him insignificant ; or that the whole 
 world was not created by God, because it contained 
 deserts and barren wastes, the use of which he could 
 not comprehend. 
 
 " The difi"erent truths of revelation," says Mr 
 Carew, " have a different degree of importance ; but 
 it requires as much inspiration to tell what hour 
 it is by inspiration, as to reveal the Gospel itself. If 
 all Scripture is given by inspiration, the reference to 
 Paul's cloak requires as much inspiration, as those 
 passages that declare the way of salvation. The 
 question is not, whether many things in Scripture 
 might have been known without inspiration, as there 
 are unquestionably others that could not at all have 
 been otherwise known : But the question is, whether 
 
128 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the most trivial thing- said to be inspired, can be 
 inspired in any other sense than things of the utmost 
 moment. As long as it stands recorded, " All Scrip- 
 tm'e is given by inspiration of God," so long the 
 honour of revelation is as much concerned in the 
 inspiration of an incidental allusion, as in that of the 
 most fundamental tnith." * 
 
 * " The question is, not at all whether the Apostle Paul 
 needed inspiration to enable him to give such directions, but 
 whether it was without inspiration that these doctrines form a 
 part of a book, all of which comes to us as the Word of God, and 
 inspired by him. There are many parts of Scripture that might 
 have been written without inspiration ; but the question is, were 
 the sacred writers left without inspiration to select what they 
 would put into this book, and what they would keep out of it ? 
 If so, then the book is their's, not God's. Besides, if it be thought 
 absurd to suppose that there is any inspiration in the direction 
 which the Apostle gives about his cloak and his books, it may 
 very naturally be thought that as little inspiration was necessary 
 to tell us how often he had received forty stripes save one ; that 
 he had fought with wild beasts at Ephesus ; that he had under- 
 gone an endless variety of perils ; that he had been let down over 
 the wall of Damascus in a basket, and put in the stocks at Phi- 
 lippi. Of all these, and many other similar instances, it may be 
 said, that these are cases in which, as it would be absurd to sup- 
 pose any inspiration, so it was unnecessary to disavow it. We 
 shall thus get quit of the whole account of the sufferings of the 
 Apostles. The Apostle says, that ' All Scripture is given by 
 inspiration of God, and is profitable,' &c. If there be many 
 passages, or any passage, in which it would be absurd to suppose 
 any inspiration, or which is not profitable, then he is guilty of 
 stating what is not true." 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 129 
 
 In reference to the above passages, Dr Doddridge 
 makes the following remarks : " There are other ob- 
 jections of a quite different class, with which I have 
 no concern ; because they affect only such a degree 
 of inspiration as I think it not prudent, and I am 
 sure it is not necessary, to assert. I leave them, 
 therefore, to be answered hj those, if any such there 
 be, who imagine that Paid would need an immediate 
 Revelation from Heaven, and a miraculous dictate of 
 the Holif Ghost, to remind Timothy of the cloak and 
 writings ivhich he left at Troas, or to advise him to 
 miiigle a little ivine u-ifh his water"* Modern 
 writers on inspiration have likewise sing-led out these 
 two passages, together with the shipwreck of Paul 
 on the island of Melita, as uninspired, because they 
 conceive that " these were not thiug-s of a rehg-ious 
 nature." 
 
 Respecting the account of the Apostle's shipwreck, 
 there are few things to be found in the historical part 
 of the Bible that are more truly valuable, whether 
 we consider the encourag-ing- view it affords of the 
 providential dealings of the Lord in every circimi- 
 stance of the life of his people, or attend to the un- 
 paralleled illustration it furnishes of the manner by 
 which the purposes of God are, in the use of means, 
 carried into effect. Nothing could be more worthy 
 of inspiration than the recorcUng of this portion of 
 Scripture ; and so far from not being of a rehgious 
 
 * Dissertation on the Inspiration of the New Testament, in 
 Appendix to the Harmony of the Evangelists, p. 38. 
 
130 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 nature, the account it contains is fi'aught with the 
 most important rehgious instruction. Tiie objec- 
 tion founded on the two passages in the Epistles to 
 Timothy, being commonly resorted to as one of the 
 strongholds of those wdio oppose the verbal inspiration 
 of the whole of Scripture, requires to be examined 
 at some length. Instead of being so trifling- as to 
 render them unworthy to be a part of Divine Re- 
 velation, they present considerations of very high 
 interest. 
 
 In the first of these passag-es, it is said, " Drink 
 no longer ivater, hut use a little icine for thy sto- 
 mach's sake, and thine often infirmities" A due 
 consideration of the nature of the office of Paul, who 
 gave this injunction to Timothy, and of the Epistle 
 in which it is contained, as a part of the oracles of 
 God, as well as of the ser\dce in which Timothy 
 was engaged, ought to have deterred any one fi'om 
 rashly concluding- that this verse forms no part of 
 the words of inspiration. The connexion, too, in 
 which it is found, embodied in one of the most so- 
 lemn addresses to be met with m the Scriptures, 
 assures us that it must contain something of import- 
 ance. " / charge thee before God, and the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe 
 these things, loithout preferring one before another, 
 doing nothing by jyartialiti). Lay hands suddenly 
 on no man, neither be jxirtaker of other mens sins : 
 keep thyself pure. Drink no longer water, but use 
 a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often 
 infirmities. Some mens sins are ojjen beforehand. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 131 
 
 going before to judgment ; ami some men therj fol- 
 low after. Likeivise ahn the good icorks of some 
 are man f est beforehand ; and tlie^j that are other- 
 wise cannot be hid." Can it be imagined that, — in 
 the midst of an address, in which, if the lang-uag-e of 
 inspii'ation is to be found in the Bible, the Apostle 
 is speaking- by it, — before the charge is completed, 
 which contains a permanent law in the kingdom of 
 Christ, the course of that inspiration is suddenly in- 
 teriiipted, and broken in upon, by a remark merely 
 human, " not of a religious nature," — by an advice, 
 which, originating with the Apostle, might not be 
 judicious ? On the contrary, being- fully assured 
 that the verse in question is, like the other parts of 
 the charge that precede and follow it, dictated by the 
 Divine Spirit, we are prepared to reg-ard it as con- 
 taining- what is worthy of its author, and deserving- 
 of our attention. Proceeding, then, to examine it, 
 under the settled conviction that it is given by in- 
 spiration of God, and that it is profitable for instruc- 
 tion in righteousness, I observe, l.That while enjoin- 
 ing upon Timothy many arduous and laborious du- 
 ties, the Apostle was inspired to admonish him to 
 attend to his health, in order to fit him for their right 
 discharge ; and hence Timothy was taught, and we 
 learn, that it is the duty of every man to have a re- 
 gard for his health, even amidst the most important 
 labours, in order that he may be more fitted for the 
 service of God, and that his life may be prolonged in 
 that service. 
 
 2. We learn the abstemiousness of Timothy, not- 
 
132 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 withstanding- his bochly weakness, and abundant la- 
 bours. 
 
 3. That his abstemiousness was eren carried the 
 length of an unnecessary austerity, and that althoug-h 
 he had a g-ood end in view, this over-abstemiousness 
 was wrong-, and was therefore corrected by the Apos- 
 tle. Hence, we leam how apt we are to err, even 
 when our intentions are good, and how necessary it 
 is to receive direction from the Lord. 
 
 4. If Timothy was in an error respecting- the law- 
 fulness of using wine, that error is here coiTected ; 
 but whether this was the case or not, it was a mat- 
 ter of importance to instruct believers on this point, 
 on which, as it appears fi'om Rom. xiv. 21, a diver- 
 sity of opinion existed in the churches. The lawful- 
 ness of the use of M'ine w^as denied by the Essenes, 
 a sect among the Jews, as was afterwards the case 
 with different Christian sects. This en'or may have 
 been imbibed by them, or confirmed by the law of 
 the Nazarites, or from a partial attention to the man- 
 ner in which the Rechabites, who abstained from 
 wine, were held up as an example of obedience to the 
 people of Israel. In this view of the j)assage, it con- 
 tains a most salutary and necessary corrective of what 
 might otherwise have become extensively prejudicial 
 in the kingdom of Christ ; and it proves a useful 
 comment, in the way of warning, on what the Apos- 
 tle had said a little before, concerning a defection 
 that was to take place in the latter times, in which 
 false teachers were to command men to abstain from 
 meats which God had created, to be received with 
 thanksgiving, chap. iii. 3. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. VrlSS 
 
 5. Use " a little wine." Here we are instmcted 
 in the duty of temperance. We are taug-ht to use 
 the bounties of Providence with moderation, and in 
 subordination to our sustenance and bodily health. 
 
 6. If the error of those who Uve too abstemiously, 
 so as to injure their health, be here corrected ; how 
 much more does this passage condemn those who 
 exceed in a contrary extreme, and who impau' their 
 constitution by intemperance ! 
 
 7. From this passag-e, as from some others, e. g. 
 Phil. ii. 27, we learn that the Apostles had it not in 
 their power on eveiy occasion, even when they might 
 be desirous of it, to work miraculous cures, and that 
 the gift of heahng-, at that time vouchsafed, did not 
 preclude the use of means for the preservation of 
 health. 
 
 8. This passag"e sanctions the mechcal profession. 
 This is very important, as some Christians have been 
 inclined to think, that to have recom'se to a physi- 
 cian is to supersede the interposition of God. Now, 
 the prescription of Paul to Timothy was a medical 
 prescription, fomided on the fitness of the medicinal 
 qualities of wine. Christians ought, indeed, to look 
 to God for their cure, so ought they for the nourish- 
 ment of their bodies, for man does not live by bread 
 alone ; but both food and medicine are to be taken as 
 the means appointed by God, as we here learn. 
 
 The other passage referred to, occui's in Paul's 
 Second Epistle to Timothy, ch. iv. 13. " The cloak 
 that I left at Troas with Carpus, 2vhen thou comest, 
 bring with thee, and the hooks, hut especially the 
 parchments'' This passage, like the former, is in- 
 
134 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 troduced in the midst of veiy solemn considerations, 
 in connexion with an annunciation of the Apostle 
 Paul's trial for his life, and in the immediate pros- 
 pect of his martyrdom. In his desire to have his 
 cloak brought to him from a distance, a proof is re- 
 corded at the close of his ministry, of Paul's disin- 
 terestedness in his labours among- the churches. We 
 are here reminded of his resolution, and are taught 
 how faithfully he adliered to it, to make the Gospel 
 of God without charge ; and in the peculiar circum- 
 stances in which he was placed, not to abuse his 
 power of receiving support in preaching the Gospel, 
 or to allow his glorying on the ground of his disin- 
 terestedness to be made void, 1 Cor. ix. 13-18. On 
 the approach of winter, in a cold prison, and at the 
 termination of his course, the Apostle Paul appears 
 here to be a follower indeed of him who had not 
 where to lay his head. He is presented to our view 
 as actually enduring those hardships, which else- 
 where he describes in a manner so affecting — " in 
 prisons, — in cold, — in nakedness." He had aban- 
 doned, as he elsewhere informs us, all the fair pros- 
 pects that once opened to him of worldly advantages, 
 for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, and 
 had suffered the loss of all things : and in this 
 Epistle we see aU that he has said on the subject, 
 embodied and verified. He is about to suffer death 
 for the testimony of Jesus ; and now he requests one 
 of the few friends that still adhered to him (all the 
 others, as he tells us, having forsaken him) to do 
 his diligence to come before winter, and to bring to 
 him his cloak. Here, in his solemn farewell address, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 135 
 
 of which the verse before us forms a part, — the last 
 of his writing's, and which contains a passage of un- 
 rivalled grandeur, — the Apostle of the Gentiles is 
 exhibited in a situation deeply calculated to affect us. 
 We behold him standing- upon the confines of the 
 two worlds, — in this world about to be beheaded, as 
 guilty, by the Emperor of Rome, — in the other world 
 to be crowned, as rig-hteous, by the King of kings, — 
 here deserted by men, there to be welconied by 
 angels, — here in want of a cloak to cover him, there 
 to be clothed upon with his house from heaven. 
 
 Dr Doddi'idge, in his commentary on the passage 
 before us, has the following note. " Bring icith thee 
 that cloak. If (ptXor^v here signifies cloak, or mantle, 
 it is, as Grotius justly observes, a proof of Paul's 
 poverty, that he had occasion to send so far for such 
 a garment, which probably was not quite a new one." 
 Since, as we here learn, this observation of Grotius 
 appeared fu.s't to Dr Doddridge, it might have 2)re- 
 vented him from rashly treating the subject ^dth the 
 levity which appears in his remark, formerly quoted, 
 and from thinking it not " piiident" to assert, that 
 the text was dictated by the Holy Spirit. The ob- 
 servation of Grotius, to which he refers, is as follows : 
 " See the poverty of so great an Apostle, who con- 
 sidered so small a matter, left at such a distance, to 
 be a loss to him !" On the same place, Erasmus 
 remarks : " Behold the Apostle's household fiu'niture, 
 a cloak to defend him from rain, and a few books !" 
 Here, then, we are reminded incidentally (a manner 
 of instruction common in the Word of God) of Paul's 
 poverty. In the low, distressed circumstances of the 
 
136 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 Apostles, we see the Lord's warnings, as to the re- 
 ception they were to meet with from the world, and 
 the hardships and privations they were to experience, 
 fully verified. The evidence of the truth of the Gos- 
 pel, which arises from the suifering- condition of those 
 who w^re first employed to propagate it, is calculated 
 to produce on our minds the strongest conviction of 
 its Divine origin. In the wisdom of God it appears 
 to have been appointed for this end ; and it is all 
 along kept in view, in the accounts transmitted in 
 the Scriptures concerning them. " I think that God 
 hath set forth us the Apostles last, as it were ap- 
 pointed unto death ; for we are made a spectacle 
 unto the world, and to angels, and to men. Even 
 unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, 
 and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain 
 dwelling-place." 1 Cor- iv. 9-11. 
 
 Paul also desires Timothy to bring wdth him the 
 " books, but especially the parchments." Wliatever 
 these parchments were, the use that Paul intended 
 to make of them would be w^ell known to Timothy, 
 and in it he might have a further example of the 
 Apostle's zeal, and unwearied exertion in the service 
 of God. By this passage we may be taught, that 
 even those who were so highly favoured with the 
 most distinguished gifts, were not raised above the 
 necessity of using means for their own improvement, 
 and for the stirring up of those gifts that were in 
 them ; and if this was the case respecting them, how 
 forcibly is the duty here inculcated upon us, to give 
 diligence to retain the knowledge of Divine things 
 which we may already possess, and to seek to add to 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 137 
 
 our present attainments, whatever we may suppose 
 them to be ! We are certain that they were not use- 
 less books, which the Apostle required to be brought 
 to him at such a time, and from so great a distance. 
 They must have been intended to be profitable to 
 himself, or in some way to be turned to the advance- 
 ment of that cause, to promote which was his only 
 desire, and for which he was now about to suffer. In 
 any, or all of these views, the contents of this verse 
 may convey instruction, and afford an example to us ; 
 and at any rate we can no more conceive that the 
 course of inspiration is here interrupted, without the 
 smallest intimation to this effect, (of which an ex- 
 ample in the whole Bible cannot be produced,) than 
 we can believe it was the case concerning the verse 
 which we formerly considered. 
 
 In the former of the above passages, we observe 
 Paul evincing his kindness and sympathy, and attend- 
 ing to the wants of a fellow labourer ; in the latter, 
 to his own wants. Is there any thing in either of 
 them beneath the dignity of Divine Revelation ? In 
 prescribing, by his Apostle, the use of wine, which 
 he would bless for the re-establishment of the health 
 of Timothy, the Lord acted in the same manner as 
 when he directed his Prophet to order the applica- 
 tion of " a lump of figs," for the cure of King Heze- 
 kiah. Was it beneath the dignity of Him who turned 
 water into wine at a marriage feast, to order the use 
 of M'ine for the preservation of Timothy's health, in- 
 stead of the use of water ? Was this unworthy of 
 that Lord who had condescended so far to the indul- 
 gence of the feehngs of his people, as to cause it to 
 
138 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 be engrossed in his law, that the man who had planted 
 a vineyard, and had not eaten of it, should not go 
 out to war, lest he should die in the battle ? Deut. 
 XX. 6. 
 
 So far from there being any thing in these pass- 
 ages beneath the dignity of a revelation from God, 
 or unworthy of his character, they are entirely con- 
 sistent with the one, and strikingly illustrative of the 
 other. And it is only when we consider them, not 
 as the word of man, but as " the Word of God" 
 that we discover their beauty and their use. It is Gocl 
 himself who there speaks. He who is the high and 
 lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, condescends to 
 the weakness and to the wants of his servants. 
 Nothing that interests them escapes his notice. The 
 hairs of their head are all numbered, and the smallest 
 circumstance of their lot is ordered by the pro\adence 
 of God. What a striking illustration do these two pass- 
 ages afford, of those affecting considerations which 
 Jesus presented to his disciples, Luke, xii. 22-30, in 
 order to withdraw their minds from the cares and 
 anxieties to which they are so prone to yield during 
 their earthly pilgrimage I Viewing these verses in 
 this light, as the words of God himself can any thing 
 be more adapted to foster the spirit of adoption, or to 
 lead us to cry, Abba, Father ? And are they to be 
 expunged from the Sacred Record, as incompatible 
 vnXh. the idea we ought to form of inspiration, and 
 unworthy of proceeding from God ? But it is at 
 such passages as these that the blind infidel scoffs, 
 while the injudicious or ill-instnicted Christian con- 
 siders them as useless, and converts them into an 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 139 
 
 argument against the plenary inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 On the same principle that the admonition to 
 Timothy, to drink no longer water, but to use a Ht- 
 tle wine for the benefit of his health, is rejected as 
 unworthy of verbal inspiration, ought not the truth 
 of the miracle wrought at the marriage at Cana in 
 Galilee, of turning water into wine, to be denied, and 
 the occasion deemed unworthy of miraculous inter- 
 position ; and especially of its being exhibited as the 
 first of the miracles of Jesus ? Shall we be told that 
 it also was a " thing not of a religious nature," that 
 it was not worthy to be recorded by the pen of inspi- 
 ration, that it is not ^'prudent'' to speak of such a 
 passage as inspired ; or to admit wdth those, " if any 
 such there he, ivho imagine'' that Jesus first mani- 
 fested forth his glory, by tui'ning a little water into 
 wine ? 
 
 The le^aty, not to say the j)rofaneness, of this 
 manner of treating the Holy Scriptm'es, ought to be 
 held in abhorrence. Their paramount authority, and 
 their unity as the Word of God, are thus set aside. 
 The Bible is converted into another book ; and a new 
 revelation, were such licentious principles of inter- 
 pretation admitted, would become indispensable to 
 teach the humble Christian, who takes it for " a 
 lamp unto his feet, and a Hght unto his path," — 
 what portion of it he is to consider as from God, and 
 what portion as from man, — what parts of it are of 
 " a religious nature," from which he may derive 
 edification, and in which he may converse with God, 
 —and what parts relate only to " common or civil 
 
140 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 affairs," with which he has no concern, and respect- 
 ing- which it would not be prudent to speak of them 
 as inspired. If, in this manner, inspiration is first 
 denied to the words, and next to such thing-s as are 
 supposed not to be " of a rehg-ious nature," the pro- 
 gress to the non-inspiration of whole books of Scrip- 
 tm'e, is perfectly easy and natural ; and, if whole 
 books are rejected, then both the authenticity and 
 the inspiration of the whole of the Scriptures are sub- 
 verted. For, if the canon has admitted one uninspi- 
 red book, there is no security that it has not admit- 
 ted more ; and if that canon has been recog-nised by 
 Jesus Christ with one uninspired book, every book 
 in the collection may be uninspired, notwithstancUng- 
 that recognition. If the Apostle Paul has asserted 
 the inspiration of the whole volume, while one book 
 is uninspired, no book in the volume can be received 
 on his authority. The discovery, in like manner, of 
 one single passage in the Scriptures not dictated by 
 the Holy Ghost, would make void the declaration, 
 that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," 
 and would render inspiration necessary to tell us what 
 part of it is inspired, and what is not. Accorchng to 
 those wTiters who deny the doctrine of plenary in- 
 spiration, we have not the pure Word of God ; for 
 much that we have under that designation, is solely 
 the word of man. 
 
 Let those who treat the Scriptures in this manner 
 pause, and review the principles on which they are 
 proceeding ; and let them cease to perplex " plain 
 Christians" with their rash and unhallowed specula- 
 tions. The great body of behevers receive, with 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 141 
 
 implicit credence, the whole contents of the Bible, 
 as the oracles of God ; — they venture neither to add 
 to it nor to take from it. Convinced that it is the 
 book of God, they treat even those parts of it which 
 they do not imderstand with humble reverence ; and 
 in them is fulfilled what is written, Matth. xi. 25, 
 while the fancied wisdom and knowledge of many 
 learned critics has perverted them. Isaiah, xlvii. 10. 
 Those who, in the spirit of little children, read in the 
 Epistles of Paul to Timothy, that " all Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God," will not easily be in- 
 duced to beHeve, that in the very same Epistles the 
 Apostle has contradicted his own declaration, and has 
 afforded at least two examples of the fallacy and un- 
 soundness of what he had, ahnost in the same breath, 
 so solemnly affirmed. And it is upon the general 
 ground of these jjassages being found in Scripture, 
 independently of the meaning which may he affixed 
 to them, that we denounce the profane manner in 
 which they have been treated, and hold them to be 
 a portion of the Word of God. It was in this light 
 that Origen, who was l^orn towards the end of the 
 second century, viewed those parts of Scripture as 
 inspired, of which he was not able to discover the 
 use. The following are his words, when quoting 
 Mark, x. 50 : " Shall we say that the EvangeHst 
 wrote without thought, when he related the man's 
 casting away his garment, and leaping and coming to 
 Jesus ? and shall we dare to say that these things 
 were inserted in the Gospels in vain ? For my part, 
 I beheve that not one jot or tittle of the Divine in- 
 stiniction is in vain. — We are never to say that there 
 
142 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 is any things impertinent or superfluous in the Scrip- 
 tures of the Holy Spirit, thoug-h to some they may 
 seem obscure. But we are to turn the eyes of our 
 mind to Him who commanded these thing-s to be 
 written, and seek of Him the interpretation of them. 
 — The sacred Scriptures come from the fuLiess of the 
 Spirit ; so that there is nothing- in the Prophets or 
 the Law, or the Gospel, or the Apostles, which de- 
 scends not from the fulness of the Divine Majesty." 
 " Well knowing," says Irena^us, " that the Scriptures 
 are perfect, as dictated (or spoken) by the Word of 
 God and his Spirit — a heavy punishment awaits those 
 who add to, or take from, the Scriptures." 
 
 The inspiration of Luke, in writing- the account of 
 Paul's shipwreck, and that of Paul in writing- for his 
 cloak, stand upon the same foundation as their inspi- 
 ration in recording- the plan of salvation. But even 
 if it were true, as many ig-norantly suppose, that 
 Paul, in his seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, guards against the idea of his inspira- 
 tion in the cases there referred to, then every thing* 
 that he has written, is to be taken as inspired, when he 
 gives no such intimation ; and consequently his mes- 
 sag-e about the cloak and parchments, and his medical 
 advice to Timothy, would have their claim to inspi- 
 ration fully authenticated, even in the view of those 
 persons who pervert the meaning of that chapter. 
 
 Some who are satisfied as to the inspiration of all 
 the other parts of the New Testament Scriptures, 
 are doubtful concerning the inspiration of the three 
 books written by Mark and Luke, who were not 
 Apostles. From early accounts concerning- these 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 143 
 
 disciples, it is reckoned by many that they M'ere among 
 the seventy whom Jesus sent out in Judea. We 
 know for certain, that they respectively accompanied 
 Peter and Paul in their journeys, and they are men- 
 tioned by these two Apostles with much reg-ard. 
 The Apostles not only received the miraculous gifts 
 of the Holy Spirit, but by laying- on their hands 
 imparted these gifts to other discijdes. When Peter 
 went down to Samaria, he laid his hands on the 
 disciples there, who then received the Holy Ghost. 
 When Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome, he 
 informed them that he longed to see them, that he 
 might impart to them some spiritual gift. Paul had 
 communicated a g-ift to Timothy whom he employed, 
 as he also did Titus, in directing- the churches in his 
 absence. " / put thee ifi remembixtnce, that thou 
 stir up the gift of God luhich is in thee, hy the put- 
 ting on of my hands.'' By means of these gifts, those 
 who possessed them were enabled to speak in lan- 
 g-uag-es they had never learned, and some of them to 
 speak, by " revelation," the mind of God. There can 
 be no reason, then, to doubt, that to Mark and Luke, 
 considering- the circumstances in which they stood 
 wdth the Apostles, the best miraculous gifts were also 
 communicated. They were not Apostles, but they 
 were prophets who received immediate revelations 
 from the Spirit. Eph. iv. 5. 
 
 But the conclusive argument as to the inspiration 
 and fitness of these two disciples to contribute the 
 books they have furnished to the sacred volume, does 
 not rest on any supposition, however good the grounds 
 of it may be, but on the fact, that the first churches, 
 
144 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 under the immediate guidance and superintendence 
 of the Apostles, received tliese books on an equal 
 footing- with the other Scriptures. The nation of 
 Israel was appointed by God himself to he the depo- 
 sitaries of the Old Testament Scriptures, which are 
 stamped with the authority of Jesus Christ. In like 
 manner, to that nation which constitutes the king- 
 dom of heaven, the New Testament Scriptures were 
 committed. To it they were addressed and delivered 
 by the Apostles, whom Clirist had commissioned to 
 record his words, which these Scriptures contain. 
 The inspiration, therefore, of this second portion of 
 the Holy Scriptures, stands on the same footing- with 
 that of the first portion, and is equally stamped with 
 his authority. We appeal to the canon of the Jews 
 w4th respect to the Old Testament, and we have the 
 same strong- g-round of confidence, when we receive 
 from the first churches the Scriptures of the New 
 Testament. As, therefore, the Gospels of Mark and 
 Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles, were received 
 by them without dispute, were read by them in their 
 assembhes every Lord's day, and taken for the rule 
 of their duty, as of equal authority with the other 
 Scriptures, which we have already seen by quotations 
 from the early Christian writers ; so we conclude 
 with certainty, that these books stand on the same 
 footing- in point of authority, in other words, of inspira- 
 tion, with all the rest, and form a part of the words of 
 Christ, by which we shall be judged at the last day. 
 Many suppose that the historical parts of Scripture 
 were Avritten l)y men acquainted with the facts that 
 are recorded, under a Divine superintende7ice, by 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 143 
 
 which they were prevented from falling- into any 
 error. This opinion is founded on very low and er- 
 roneous ideas of these portions of the Word of God, 
 and of their use. It supposes that these histories are 
 little more than the nan'ative of the facts they con- 
 tain, in which we are not greatly concerned. But 
 every fact they record is fraught with important in- 
 stniction. This idea was so strongly impressed in 
 the Jews, that they maintained that God hiul more 
 care of the letters and syllables of the Law, than of 
 the stars in heaven ; and that upon each title of it, 
 whole moimtains of doctrine hung. Hence every 
 individual letter of the Law was numbered ])y them, 
 and notice was taken how often it occmTed. The 
 facts of the Scriptui'e history teach the character of 
 God, and the character of man. They are the his- 
 tory of God's providence and ways, and all of them 
 refer to the work of the Messiah. 
 
 The historical parts of Scripture are both intro- 
 ductor}^ to, and illustrative of, the plan of redemp- 
 tion. The general importance, in a religious point 
 of view, of the great outhne of the narrations of the 
 Fall, — of the Flood, — of the calling of Abraham, and 
 of the election of the people of Israel, — of their deli- 
 verance from Egypt, and their being put in posses- 
 sion of the promised land, must be universally ac- 
 knowledged. But the whole of the minute detail, by 
 which that outline is filled up, is likewise in the high- 
 est degree instructive, and ought to be perused with 
 the most devout attention. The Bible history de- 
 scribes, in action and exhibition, the perfections of 
 Jehovah, as fully as the proclamation iu which he 
 
146 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 declares himself to be long-suffering-, and of great 
 mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by 
 no means clearing the guilty. It dehneates the de- 
 ceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the human 
 heart, as forcibly and distinctly as the annunciations 
 of the prophets, when they " cry aloud and spare not." 
 In the narratives of Scripture, the dependent state, 
 the perverseness, and the folly of man, and the secret 
 motives by which he is actuated, as well as the power, 
 the wisdom, the justice, and the goodness of God in 
 his providential government, and above all in redemp- 
 tion, are vividly depicted. There is not a battle 
 fought by the Israelites, nor a change in the admini- 
 stration of their government, the account of which 
 is not designed for our instruction. There is not an 
 incident recorded as taking place in a private family, 
 that has not a significant meaning. 
 
 In the Scriptures there are many things which, con- 
 sidered only in themselves, appear to be of no value, 
 or, at least, of very little importance ; but in reahty 
 the Bible contains nothing superfluous — nothing 
 which does not contribute to its perfection, and to the 
 evidence of its divine origin. Besides the list of names 
 in genealogies, we observe many other things in the 
 Word of God, the knowledge of which seems to be 
 of no use ; yet their importance might be proved by 
 numerous examples. We find in the Old Testament 
 several regulations and narrations, which in appear- 
 ance contribute neither to the strengthening of faith, 
 nor to instruction or consolation. In the book of 
 Moses, matters of the greatest importance are often 
 only touched upon in a few words, while, on the con- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 147 
 
 trary, many things that seem inconsiderable, are 
 dwelt upon at great length. The redemption by the 
 Messiah, which God promised to man immediately 
 after his fall — the calling of the Gentiles predicted to 
 Abraham — the priesthood of Melchisedek, the most 
 illustrious figure of Christ, and many other points of 
 important doctrine, are only noted in a very summary 
 manner. On the other hand, the nativity of Ishmael, 
 the marriage of Isaac, and similar histories, are amply 
 detailed, even in the most minute particulars, but all 
 of them are full of instniction. The single account 
 of Hagar and Ishmael, as interpreted by the Apostle 
 Paul, even to the most inconsiderable circumstance, 
 shows us how we ought to judge of other histories of 
 the Old Testament, although we do not perceive their 
 object. If Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond- 
 maid, the other by a free women, and if the former 
 was cast out of the family ; these are the two cove- 
 nants, the one superseding the other. In that im- 
 portant part of Holy Writ, the eleventh chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul unfolds 
 " the deep things of God, which God had revealed to 
 him by his Spirit." How much instruction does he 
 there deduce from the historical fact, that Isaac had 
 two sons, born of the same mother, and at the same 
 time, concerning whom it was said, " The elder shall 
 serve the younger ;" which contains a practical exhi- 
 bition of the great and fundamental doctrines of the 
 Prescience, the Providence, and the Sove- 
 reignty of God, of his Predestination, Elec- 
 tion, and Reprobation. 
 
 Various particulars, apparently of little consequencei 
 
]4'8 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 which the Scriptures relate at great length, prove in 
 what way effects the most wonderful have proceeded 
 from causes in themselves inconsiderahle ; for in- 
 stance, the birthright of Jacob. God is pleased to 
 teach great things, by things that are small. The pro- 
 hibitions to take the dam with its young ones in the 
 nest, and not to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the 
 corn, extend farther than at first appears. The act of 
 Jesus Christ in stretching out his hand to touch the 
 leper, does not seem of any account, except to those 
 who know the law which declares that it occasioned 
 uncleanness. The same law forbade the High Priest, 
 who represented Jesus Christ, to enter any house in 
 which there was a dead body. Notwithstanchng this, 
 the Lord even touched a bier. In all these particu- 
 lars, there is a fulness of important doctrine. 
 
 Each passage in Scripture has its particular end in 
 ■view, as the signification of the burning bush, and of 
 the animals described in Ezekiel's vision. The Re- 
 velation of John does not present Jesus Christ to all 
 the churches under the same figure. To one it pre- 
 sents the stars and the golden candlesticks. To an- 
 other, it exhibits the two-edged sword. To another, 
 the eyes like a flame of fire, and feet like fine brass. 
 His titles are according to the diversity of the sub- 
 jects. Many know, in general, that the ordinances 
 of the ceremonial law prefigured Christ, but are igno- 
 rant how, and in what character, each of them repre- 
 sent him. There are none of them which have not 
 an end and particular reason. There are many who, 
 not being acquainted with what the Scripture has in 
 view, are astonished at the recital of different enor- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 149 
 
 mities which it particularizes so carefully. The in- 
 cest of Jiidah with the wife of his son, might seem 
 as if it should rather have been buried with him, 
 than inserted in the Sacred History, with so many 
 shameful circumstances. Yet if the arrogrance of 
 the Jews is considered, who glory in their extrac- 
 tion, and who even found their election as a nation 
 and covenant upon the virtues of their ancestors, 
 we shall see that their eiTors could not be better 
 refuted, nor their pride more effectually lium])led, 
 than by holding- up to their view the deeply culpable 
 conduct of their progenitor. The sins of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, being recorded, was calcu- 
 lated to warn Israel not to seek salvation by the 
 works of the law. The omission of the genealogy of 
 Melchisedek, of his birth, and of his death, denoting 
 the eternity of Jesus Christ, proves how much even 
 the silence of the Scripture is instnictive. Every 
 distinct fact recorded in Scripture histoiy may truly 
 be considered an article of faith ; for in the plan of 
 Salvation, matters of fact are become doctrines, and 
 doctrines are in the nature of matters of fact. That 
 Jesus Christ was born of a \drgin, suffered, and rose 
 again, are all at the same time matters of fact and 
 doctrines. Every fact points to that great event 
 upon which the salvation of man depends — the coming 
 of the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh, to 
 redeem a pecuhar people to himself — or in some way 
 illustrates his salvation. 
 
 In the tenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Co- 
 rinthians, the essential importance of the historical 
 
 K 
 
150 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 parts of the Old Testament Scriptures is placed be- 
 yond all doubt. After referring- to the recorded his- 
 tory of Israel, concerning- their passage through the 
 Red Sea, and the manner in which they were con- 
 ducted in the wilderness, the Apostle adds, " Now 
 all these things happened to them for examjjles, and 
 they are written for our admonition^ upon whom the 
 ends of the ivorld are come.'' Here the purpose and 
 value of the historical parts of Scri2)ture are demon- 
 strated. They are intended for the admonition of the 
 people of God. " Whatsoever things were written 
 aforetime, were written for our learning, that we 
 through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might 
 have hoper Rom. xv. 4. In this passage it is ex- 
 pressly affirmed, that every part of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures was written for the use and edifica- 
 tion of believers. Where, then, is there a place for 
 the impious sentiment which some have ventm'ed to 
 promulgate — so derogatory to every idea that we 
 ought to entertain of the oracles of God — so diame- 
 trically opposed to all they inculcate respecting their 
 own Divine origin and inspiration, that they contain 
 certain things that are " not of a religious nature," 
 and that " no inspiration was necessary concerning 
 them ?" In opposition to such daring- and profane 
 theories, Paul, the commissioned and accredited am- 
 bassador of Jesus Christ, affirms that " ALL Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
 for doctrine, for reproof for correction, for i?ist ruc- 
 tion in righteousness, that the mem of God may be 
 perfecty thoroughly furnished unto all good works" 
 
• THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 151 
 
 The above comprehensive declarations include the 
 historical as well as the prophetical and doctrinal 
 parts of the Sacred Oracles, in short, the whole of 
 them. 
 
 The object, therefore, of the historical records in 
 the Scriptures, is essentially different from that of 
 all other histories. They are not given to preserve 
 the memory of certain occurrences, in order to pro- 
 mote the knowledge of what may be useful in regard 
 to the affairs of this world, and to extend the sphere 
 of human intelligence and experience ; but exclu- 
 sively to teach the knowledge of God and salvation. 
 Scripture history is conducted in such a manner, that, 
 like the doctrinal parts of the Bible, it is foolishness 
 to the men of the world. It not only chsappoints 
 them in the nature of the facts which it relates, but 
 also in the manner in which they are exhibited. 
 Owing to the truth and impartiahty of its narrations, 
 the character of the people of Israel appears to them 
 greatly worse than that of the grossest idolaters, and 
 the accounts given in Scripture of men whose con- 
 duct on the whole stands approved by God, seems to 
 them to sink below that standard of moral rectitude, 
 to which they imagine that they themselves, and 
 many who make no pretensions to religion, have 
 attained. It not only records truth, without the 
 smallest mixture of error, but also invarial)ly keeps 
 in view the agency of God in every occurrence, — in 
 events the most minute, as well as the most consi- 
 derable ; and thus it furnishes a perpetual comment 
 on the subhme description of the Apostle, when, 
 penetrated with admiration of the riches, both of the 
 
152 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 vv-isdom and knowledge of God, he exclaims, " Of 
 Him, and throug-h Him, and to Him, are all things ; 
 to whom be glory for ever. Amen." 
 
 When the typical import of so many of the sacred 
 narrations, concerning persons, places, institutions, 
 and events, with their necessary bearings, in subser- 
 viency to the ushering in of the Messiah, are duly 
 attended to, all may be convinced, that for selecting 
 and relating these histories, in which nothing was to 
 be deficient, and nothing redundant, and for placing 
 before us these mystic pictures for our instruction, 
 the most plenaiy insjnration, the most accurate divdne 
 dictation, was indispensable. The prophets, and even 
 the angels, had but a partial understanchng of the 
 things that were afterwards to take place. Moses, it 
 is e-^-ident, was not aware, that, as being a type of 
 Christ, it was necessary that his death should inter- 
 vene, before the people of Israel should be led into 
 the promised land. We have no reason to beheve 
 that he understood the import of aU he wTote ; — for 
 instance, that when he recorded the history of Sarah 
 and Hagar, he knew the design for which it was 
 recorded, and the use that was aftenvards to be made 
 of it. We cannot doubt that the prayer of David, 
 " Open tliou mine eyes^ that I may see icondrous 
 things out of thy laic" was equally suitable for Moses, 
 who wrote that law. It was the Lord who made the 
 statutes, and judgments, and laws, between him and 
 the children of Israel, hy the hand of Moses. — Lev. 
 xxvi. 46. 
 
 Had the wisest and best informed of the Scripture 
 historians not been inspired of God, but simply super- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 153 
 
 intended, so as to prevent them from fallilig into 
 error, the histories recorded by them would have been 
 very unhke those which they have actually transmit- 
 ted. Many of their narrations that exist would never 
 have appeared, and others of them would have been 
 very differently modified. We might have discovered^ 
 in them the self-approving- wisdom of man, but not 
 the seeming- " foohshness of God." Would the 
 united sag-acity of all the wise men in the world have 
 led them to relate the history of the creation of the 
 universe in one chapter of a book, as Moses has done, 
 and of the erection of the tabernacle in thirteen ? * 
 Would the fond prejudices of the Jewish nation, or 
 the g-eneral desire fostered by so many of the learned, 
 to support what is called the dignity of human natm'e, 
 
 * If we compare the first cliapter of Genesis with the last 
 sixteen of Exodus, excepting the thirty-second and the two fol- 
 lowing, we shall find a great difference between Closes' describing 
 the construction of the universe and that of the tabernacle. In 
 the one, he is very general and succinct ; in the other, he is very 
 copious, and marks the smallest peculiarities. The description of 
 the great edifice of the world seemed truly to require more words 
 than that of a small tent. But, on the contrary, the Spirit of 
 God having presented a short representation of the whole mass of 
 the world, details at great length the structure of the tabernacle. 
 The world was solely constructed for the Church, in order that in 
 it God should be served, and by it his glory manifested, Eph. iii. 
 10. The tabernacle was, in one view, a figure of the Church. 
 God, thus purposing to show that his church, in which he was 
 to be served, was more precious to him, and more important, than 
 all the rest of the world, has spoken of the tabernacle more amply 
 and more particularly than of all the elements and all the universe 
 together. 
 
154 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 in both which Moses no doubt participated, have per- 
 mitted him to record so base an action as the selling 
 of their brother Joseph as a slave by the Jewish pa- 
 triarchs, — the incest of Judah, whose tribe was to be 
 always pre-eminent,^and the treachery and reveng-e 
 of Levi, from whom was to descend the whole priest- 
 hood of Israel ? 
 
 That there was a hig-her hand which directed the 
 pens of Moses, and of the other writers of sacred 
 history, may be sufficiently manifest to all who have 
 seen in what that history has issued. There is, be- 
 sides, a combination and a harmony in the historical 
 parts, both of the Old and New Testaments, which 
 we have sufficient ground to beheve in a great mea- 
 sure escaped the notice of the writers, as has also 
 been the case with thousands of those who have read 
 them — a variety and a unity which irresistibly prove 
 that One only — He who knows the end from the 
 beginning — is the author of the whole, who employed 
 various individuals to produce a unifomi work, of 
 which none of them either comprehended all that he 
 contributed to it, or knew for what reason he was 
 directed to record one thing,* and to omit another. 
 
 * A remarkable instance of this occurs in tte repetition of the 
 tenth commandment in the book of Deuteronomy. The Roman- 
 ists are in the habit of striking out the second commandment, 
 which condemns their idolatry ; and, to preserve the appearance 
 of integrity for the decalogue, they divide the tenth command- 
 ment into two. The transposition of the two first clauses of this 
 commandment in the book of Deuteronomy, for which at first 
 sight no reason can be assigned, completely stultifies and exposes 
 their artifice. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 155 
 
 Considering- the purpose which the historical parts 
 of the Scriptures were intended to serve, in exhi- 
 biting- the character and power of God, and his un- 
 interrupted agency in the government of the world, 
 and in pointing- to Him who is the end of the laAV, 
 we have sufficient reason to be convinced, that nei- 
 ther Moses, nor the other sacred historians, nor all 
 the angels in heaven, though acquainted with all the 
 facts, and under the direction, and with the aid, both 
 of superintendence and elevation, were competent to 
 write the historical parts of the Word of God. They 
 possessed neither foresig-ht nor wisdom sufficient for 
 the work. In both respects, every creature is Hmited. 
 Into these things, the angels, so far from being qua- 
 lified to select and indite them, " desire to look," 
 and, from the contemplation of them, derive more 
 knowledg-e of God than they before possessed, and 
 have their joy even in heaven increased. In those 
 histories, the thoughts and secret motives of men 
 are often unfolded and referred to. Was any one 
 but the Searcher of Hearts competent to this? 
 Could ang-els have revealed them, unless distinctly 
 made known to them ? If it be rephed, that in such 
 places the sacred writers enjoyed the inspiration of 
 sug-g-estion, that is, of verbal (hctation, we ask, where 
 is the distinction to be found ? It is a distinction 
 imknown to the Scriptures. And so far from a 
 plenary inspiration not being- necessary in its histo- 
 rical parts, there is not any portion of the sacred 
 volume in which it is more indispensable. But even 
 admitting that ver])al inspiration was not in our \'iew 
 essential in those parts of the book of God, is this a 
 
156 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 reason why we should not receive the testimony of 
 the sacred writers, who nowhere give the most dis- 
 tant hint that they are wTitten under a different kind 
 or deg-ree of inspiration from the rest of it ; l)ut who, 
 in the most unquahfied manner, assert that fiUl in- 
 spiration helong-s to the whole of the Scriptures ? 
 
 The words that are used in the prophetical parts 
 of Scripture, must necessarily have been communi- 
 cated to the prophets. They did not always com- 
 prehend the meaning- of their own predictions, into 
 which they " searched diligently." And in this case, 
 it was impossible that, unless the words had been 
 dictated to them, they coidd have wTitten intellig-i- 
 bly. Althoug-h they had indited the Scriptures, it 
 was necessary to show them " that which is noted in 
 Scripture of truth," Dan. x. 21. The writings of 
 the prophets constitute a great portion of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures, and God claims it as his sole 
 prerogative, to know the things that are to come. 
 We are therefore certain that they enjoyed verbal 
 inspiration ; and, as we have not any where a hint of 
 different kinds of inspiration by which the Scriptures 
 are wTitten, does it not discover the most presump- 
 tuous arrogance to assert that there are different 
 kinds ? 
 
 The nature of the mission of the prophets required 
 the fidl inspiration -which they affirm that they pos- 
 sessed. God never intrusted to any man such a work 
 as they had to perform, nor any part of such a work. 
 It was God himself, " who, at sundry times, and in 
 divers manners, sjmke in time past unto the fathers, 
 by the prophets." That work, through wliich was to 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 157 
 
 be made known " to principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places, the manifold wisdom of God, accord- 
 ing- to the eternal pm'pose which he purposed in 
 Christ Jesus," was not a work to be intrusted to any 
 creature. The prophet Micah, iii. 8, says, " But 
 truly I am full of power hy the Spirit of the Lord, 
 and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto 
 Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.'' It 
 was not the prophets then who spoke, but the Spirit 
 of God who spoke by them. 
 
 Of the complete direction necessary for such a 
 service as was committed to him, both of lawgiver 
 and prophet, Moses was aware, when the Lord com- 
 manded him to go to Pharaoh, and to lead forth the 
 children of Israel from Egypt. In that work he in- 
 treated that he might not be employed. This proved 
 the proper sense he entertained of his own imiitness 
 for it. But it was highly sinful, and evinced great 
 weakness of faith, thus to hesitate, after the Lord 
 had informed him that he would be " with him." 
 Moses was accordingly reproved for this, but the 
 ground of his plea was admitted ; and full inspiration, 
 not only as to the subject of his mission, but as to 
 the very words he was to employ, was promised. In 
 answer to his objection, the Lord said unto him, 
 Exod. iv. 11, 12, " Who hath made man's mouth ? 
 or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing-, or 
 the blind ? have not I the Lord ? Now therefore go, 
 and / ivill he with thy mouth, and teach thee what 
 thou wilt say.'' Moses still urged his objection, 
 and the same reply was in substance repeated, both 
 in regard to himself and to Aaron. The full inspira- 
 
158 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 tion, then, which was at first promised to Moses 
 in g-eneral terms, was, for his encouragement, made 
 known in this particular manner, and the promise 
 was distinctly fulfilled. Accordingly, when, as the 
 lawgiver of Israel, he afterwards addressed the people, 
 he was warranted to preface what he enjoined upon 
 them with, " Thus saith the Lord," or, " These 
 are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that 
 ye should do them." In observing all the com- 
 mandments that Moses commanded them, and in 
 remembering the way by which the Lord had led 
 them, Israel was to learn, that " man doth not live 
 by bread alone, but by every tvord that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of the Lord" Signs were shown 
 to Moses, and God came unto him in a thick cloud, 
 in order, as he said, " that the j^eople may hear thee 
 when I speak ivith thee, and believe thee for ever." 
 Exod. xix. 9. 
 
 If the words of Moses had not been the words of 
 God, — bad he not been conscious of the fill verbal 
 inspiration by which he wrote, would the following 
 language have been suitable to him, or would he have 
 ventured to use it ? Deuteronomy, iv. 2 : ^^ Ye 
 shall not add unto the word which I command you, 
 neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may 
 keep these commandments of the Lord your God 
 which I command you." Deut. vi. 6 : " And these 
 words, ivhich I command thee this day, shall he in 
 thine heart ; and thou shalt teach them diligejitly 
 unto thy children." Deut. xi. 18 : " Therefore 
 shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in 
 your soul, and hind them for a sig7i upon your head 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 159 
 
 that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And 
 ye shall teach them to your children, speaking oj 
 them ivhen thou sittest in thine house, and tvhen thou 
 walkest by the way, ichen thou liest down, and tchen 
 thou risest ^tp. And thou shall write them upton the 
 door-p)osts of thine house, and upon thy gates." 
 From these passages, we learn that Moses was con- 
 scious that all the words which he spoke to the 
 people were the words of God. He knew that it was 
 with him as with Balaam, to Avhom the Lord said, 
 Numbers, xxii. 35, 38, " Only the word that I shall 
 speak unto thee, that thou shall speak ;" and in the 
 language of Balaam, Moses could answer, " The word 
 that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speaks 
 As " the word of the Lord," was communicated 
 to Moses, so it also came to Gad, to Nathan, and to 
 the other prophets, who were men of God, and in 
 whose mouths was the word of God. " Now by this 
 I know that thou art a man of God, and that the 
 word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth," 1 Kings, 
 xvii. 24. The manner in which the prophets deU- 
 vered their messages, proves that they considered the 
 words which they wrote, not as their own words, but 
 dictated to them by God himself. Elija said to Ahab, 
 " Behold I will bring evil upon thee, and will take 
 away thy j^osterity." On this Mr Scott, in his Com- 
 mentary, observes, " Elija was the voice, the Lord was 
 the speaker, whose words these evidently are." This 
 is a just account of all the messages of the prophets. 
 They introduce them with, " Thus saith the Lord," 
 and declare them to be " the word of the Lord ;" and 
 is it possible that the prophets could have more ex- 
 
160 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 plicitly affirmed, that the words which they uttered 
 were communicated to them, and that they were only 
 the instruments of this communication to those whom 
 they addressed ? In the place where we read, " Now 
 these be the last words of David, the sweet psalmist 
 of Israel," David says, " The Spirit of the Lord spake 
 by me, and his word was in my tongue,'' 2 Samuel, 
 xxiii. 2. In like manner it is said, " And he did that 
 which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, a7id 
 hwnbled not himself before Jeremiah the projthet 
 speaking from the mouth of the Lord" " To fulfil the 
 word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah,'' " That 
 the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah 
 might he accomplished," 2 Chron. xxxvi. 12, 21, 22. 
 " Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testi- 
 fiedst against them by thy Spirit in the prophets^^ 
 Nehemiah, ix. 30. Isaiah commences his prophecies 
 hy summoning the heavens and the earth to hear, 
 " for the Lord hath spoken," Isa. i. 2. In the same 
 manner, Jeremiah writes, " The icords of Jeremiah', 
 to whom the ivord of the Lord came." " Then the 
 Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth ; and 
 the Lord said unto me, Behold I have put my ivords 
 in thy mouth" "■ I tvillmake my words in thy mouth 
 fire," Jeremiah, i. 1, 2, 9 ; v, 14. " Thus speaketh 
 the Lord God of Israel, saying. Write thee all the 
 words that I have spoken iinto thee in a book" Jere- 
 miah, XXX. 2. Again, in the prophecies of EzekieL 
 " Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, 
 and speak my words unto them." " 3Ioreover, he 
 said unto me. Son of man, all my words that I shall 
 speak unto thee-, receive in thine heart, and hear loith 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 161 
 
 thine ears, and go get thee to them of the captivity, 
 unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them 
 and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God^ Ezekiel, 
 iii. 4, 10, 11. Hoseasays, " The word of the Lord that 
 came unto Hosea ;" " The beginning of the word of 
 the Lord by Hosea^ i. 1, 2. It is in similar lang-uage 
 that the other proj^hets generally introduce their 
 predictions, which are every where interspersed with 
 " thus saith the Lord." 
 
 All, then, that was spoken by the prophets in these 
 several recorded passages, was spoken in the name of 
 the Lord. AMien false prophets appeared, it was 
 necessary for them to profess to speak in the name of 
 the Lord, and to steal his ivords from their neighbour. 
 " / have heard what the prophets say, that ptrophesy 
 lies in my name, saying^ I have dreamed, I have 
 dreamed. The prophet that hath a dream, let him 
 tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him 
 speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the 
 wheat 9 saith the Lord. Is not my word like as afire 9 
 saith the Lord ; and like a hammer that breaketh the 
 rock ifi pieces 9 Therefore, behold, I am against the 
 prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my ivords every 
 one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the 
 prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and 
 say, He saith,'' Jeremiah, xxiii. 25-31. They were 
 the words of God, therefore, which the false prophets 
 stole from the true prophets of Jehovah. 
 
 The uniform language of Jesus Christ, and his 
 Apostles, respecting- the whole of the Old Testament 
 Script m-es, proves that, without exception, they are 
 *' the Word of God.'' On what principle but that of 
 
162 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the verbal inspiration of Scripture, can we explain 
 our Lord's words, John, x. 35, " The Scripture 
 cannot be broken T Here the argument is founded 
 on one w^ord, " gods," which without verbal inspira- 
 tion might not have been used ; and if used impro- 
 perly, might have led to idolatry. In proof of the 
 folly of their charge of blasphemy, he refers the Jews 
 to where it is written in their law, " I said ye are 
 gods." The reply to this argument was obvious : — 
 The Psalmist, they might answer, uses the word in 
 a sense that is not proper. But Jesus precluded this 
 observation, by affirming, that " the Scripture can- 
 not be broken," that is, not a word of it can be alter- 
 ed, because it is the Word of Him with whom there 
 is no variableness. Could this be said if the choice 
 of words had been left to men ? Here, then, we find 
 our Lord laying down a principle, which for ever sets 
 the question at rest. The Apostles, in like manner, 
 reason from the use of a particular word. Of this 
 we have examples, 1 Corinthians, xv. 27, 28, and 
 Hebrews, ii. 8, where the interpretation of the pass- 
 ages referred to depends on the word " alU Again, 
 Galatians, iii. 16, a most important conclusion is 
 drawn from the use of the word, " seed^' in the sin- 
 gular, and not in the plural number. A similar in- 
 stance occurs, Hebrews, xii. 27, in the expression 
 " once more" quoted from the prophet Haggai. 
 
 When the Pharisees came to Jesus, and desired an 
 answer respecting divorce, he replied, " Have ye not 
 read, that he which made them at the beginning, made 
 them a male and female ; and said, for this cause," 
 6cc. Thus, what is said in the histoiy by Moses, at 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 163 
 
 the formation of Eve, is appealed to as spoken by- 
 God, and as having- the authority of a law. But no- 
 thing that Moses could say, unless dictated by God, 
 could have the force of a law, to be quoted by our 
 Lord. What, therefore, w^as then uttered by man, 
 was the Word of God himself. 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ constantly refers to the 
 whole of the Old Testament, as being-, in the most 
 minute particulars, of infallible authority. He speaks 
 of the necessity of every word of the Law and the 
 Prophets being fulfilled. " Till heaven and earth 
 pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from 
 the Law, till all be fulfilled." — " It is easier for 
 heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the Law to 
 fail." — But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfill- 
 ed? — That all things which are written may \)q ful- 
 filled. — That the word might be fulfilled that is 
 written in their Law. — That the Scripture might be 
 fulfilled. — " The Scriptures," he says, " must be ful- 
 filled." In numerous passages the Lord refers to what 
 is " written" in the Scriptures, as of equal authority 
 ■with his own declarations ; and, therefore, the words 
 which they contain must be the " words of God." 
 
 The Apostles use similar language in their many 
 references to the Old Testament Scriptures, which 
 they quote as of decisive authority, and speak of them 
 in the same way as they do of their own writings. 
 " Tliat ye may he mindful of the words which icere 
 spoken before by the holy projjhets, and of the com- 
 mandment of us the Apostles of the Lord and Sa- 
 viour" 2 Peter, iii. 2. Paul says to Timothy, 
 " From a child thou hast known the Holy Scrip- 
 
 I 
 
164 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 tures, which are able to make thee ivise unto salva~ 
 tio7i, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus," 2 Tim. 
 iii. 15. In this way he proves the importance of the 
 Old Testament Scriptures, and the connexion be- 
 tween the Mosaic and Christian dispensations. The 
 Apostles call the Scriptures " the oracles of God," 
 Rom. iii. 2. What God says is ascribed by them to 
 the Scriptures : " The Scripture saith unto Pha- 
 raoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee 
 up, that I might show my power in thee." — " For 
 what saith the Scripture ? Abraham believed God, 
 and it ivas counted unto him for righteousness" 
 " What saith the Scripture ? Cast out the bond- 
 woman and her soiu' So much is the Word of 
 God identified with himself, that the Scripture is 
 represented as possessing and exercising the peculiar 
 prerogatives of God : " The Scripture, foreseeing 
 that God ivouJd justify the Heathen ;" — " Tlie 
 Scripture hath concluded all under sin" 
 
 From the following passages, among others that 
 might be adduced, we learn the true nature of that 
 inspiration which is ascribed to the Old Testament 
 by the writers of the New : Matth. i. 22, " Now all 
 this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was 
 spoken of the Lord by the Prophet." Matth. ii. 15, 
 " And was there until the death of Herod : that it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by 
 the Prophet, saying. Out of Egypt have I called my 
 son." Matth. xxii. 43. " He saith unto them. How 
 then doth David, in spirit, call him Lord ?" Mark, 
 xii. 36, " For David himself said by the Holy Ghost' 
 Luke, i. 70, " As he spake by the mouth of his 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 165 
 
 Holy Prophets, which have been since the world 
 began." Acts, i. 1 6, " Which the Holy Ghost spoke 
 by the mouth of David." Acts, xiii. 35, " ffe (God) 
 saith also in another Psalm, Thou shalt not suffer 
 thine Holy One to see corruption." These words 
 are here quoted as the words of God, although 
 addressed to himself. In the parallel passage, Acts, 
 ii. 31, the same words are ascribed to David, by 
 whose " mouth" therefore God spoke. Acts, xxviii. 
 25, " And when they agreed not among themselves, 
 they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word : 
 Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet, 
 unto our fathers." Rom. i. 2, " Which He had pro- 
 mised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures." 
 Rom. ix. 23, " As He saith also in Osee, I will call 
 them my people, which were not my people ; and her 
 Beloved, which was not beloved." 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17, 
 " Wliat ! know ye not, that he which is joined to an 
 harlot is one body ? for two, saith He, shall be one 
 flesh." IJere the words of Moses are referred to 
 by the Apostle, as they had been by the Lord Jesus 
 Christ himself, as the words of God. Eph. iv. 8, 
 <* Wherefore He saith, when he ascended up on high." 
 Heb. i. 7, 8, " And of the angels He saith ;" — " But 
 unto the Son He saith.'' In these passages what was 
 said by the Psalmist, is quoted as said by God. Heb. 
 iii. 7, " Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith. To-day 
 if ye will hear his voice." Heb. x. !.'■, " Whereof 
 the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for aftei* that 
 He had *««V/." 1 Peter, i. 11, " Searching what, or 
 what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was 
 in them did signify, when He testified beforehand 
 
 L 
 
166 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
 follow." And how was it possible that the Prophets 
 could find language in which to express intelhgibly 
 the mysteries of God, which they so imperfectly com- 
 prehended, unless the Spirit of Christ which was in 
 them had dictated every word they wrote ? 2 Peter, 
 i. 20, 21, " Knowing this first, that no prophecy of 
 the Scripture is of any private interpretation, for the 
 prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but 
 holy men of God spake as they were moiled by the 
 Holy Ghost." * In this passage the Apostle Peter, 
 ha\'ing, in the preceding verse, cHrected the attention 
 of those to whom he wTote, to the " sure word of 
 prophecy," has given an equally comprehensive and 
 explicit attestation to the verbal inspiration of aU the 
 prophetic testimony, which comprises so large a por- 
 tion of the Old Testament, as the Apostle Paul has 
 given, 2 Tim. iii. 16, to that of the whole of the Scrip- 
 tures, Acts, iv. 25, " Who hy the mouth of thy ser- 
 vant David hast said, Why did the Heathen rage ?" 
 Heb. i. 1, " God, who at sundry times, and in diverse 
 manners, sj^ake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by 
 his Son." The words, then, spoken by the Prophets, 
 were as much the ivords of God, as the words which 
 were spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And 
 on various occasions Jesus declares, that the words 
 which he spoke were the words of Him that sent him. 
 
 * For tie meaning of the expression " private interpretation, 
 Appendix, No. I. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 167 
 
 John viii. 26, 28, " / speak to the world those things 
 which I have heard of him ;" — " As my Father hath 
 taught me, I speak these things." John, xii. 49, 50, 
 " / have not spoken of myself, but the Father ivhich 
 sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should 
 say, and what I should speak ;" — " Whatsoever I 
 speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, 
 so I speak" John, xiv. 10, " The words that I 
 speak unto you, I speak not of myself" John, xvii. 
 8, " / have given unto them the words which thou 
 gavest 7ne" John xvii. 14, " / have given them thy 
 word." And this was in strict conformity with what 
 God had declared by Moses, concerning- the divine 
 mission of his Son. Dent, xviii. 18, "I will raise 
 them lip a Prophet from among their brethren like 
 unto thee, and will put my luords in his mouth ; and 
 he shall speak unto them all that I shall command 
 him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will 
 not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in 
 my name, I will require it of him." — " He hath made 
 my mouth," saith the Redeemer, " like a sharp 
 sword," Isaiah, xhx. 2. " And out of his mouth 
 went a shai'p two-edged sword," Rev. i. 16. And 
 again, God saith to the Messiah, " I have put my 
 wo7^ds in thy mouth," Isaiah, U. 16. " And my 
 words, which I have put in thy mouth, shall not de- 
 part out of thy mouth," Isaiah, hx. 21. The words, 
 then, of which the whole of the Scriptures are com- 
 posed, are the words dictated by God, and written 
 by men. Sometimes they are quoted as the words 
 of God, and sometimes as the words of the writers, 
 which proves that in fact they are both. Those who 
 
168 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 deny that, in some instances, the words used by the 
 penmen of Scripture are the words of God, ex- 
 pressly contradict the assertion of the Apostle, that 
 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and also 
 disregard the direct testimony of all those passages 
 that have been quoted above, as well as of a multi- 
 tude of others to the same effect, that are contained 
 in the Scriptures. 
 
 The perfect inspiration which belongs to the 
 Apostles may be learned from the nature of that Ser- 
 vice to which they were appointed, and from the 
 Promises which were given to them for the dis- 
 charge of it, and also from their owuDeclarations, 
 the truth of which is attested, not only by the na- 
 ture of their doctrine, but by the miracles which 
 they wrought. 
 
 The commission of the Lord to his Apostles, when 
 he sent them forth in the Service to which he ap- 
 pointed them, was given in these words : Matth. 
 xxviii. 19, 20, " Go ye, therefore, and teach all na- 
 tions, haptizing them in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them 
 to observe all things tchatsoerer I have commanded 
 you: and, lo, I am uith you alicay, even unto the end 
 of the world. Amen." Here we see, that the commis- 
 sion of the Apostles included the promulgation of 
 the whole of the doctrine, and of every regulation 
 of the kingdom of God ; that it extended to all the 
 world ; and that a promise was annexed to it, that 
 the Lord himself v.ould l)e present with them to the 
 end of time, maintaining and giving efficacy to their 
 testimony, which is recorded in the Scriptures. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 169 
 
 This commission is exactly conformable to all that 
 Jesus Christ had at different times said to the Apos- 
 tles. To Peter, at one time, he declared, Matth. 
 xvi. 19, " And I will give unto thee the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt hind 
 on earth shall he hound in heaven : and whatsoever 
 thou shalt loose on earth shall he loosed in heaven" 
 Afterwards he repeated this to all the Apostles, 
 Matth. xviii. 18. Verilij I say unto you, tvhatso- 
 ever ye shall hind on earth shall he hound in heaven, 
 and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall he 
 loosed in heaven" To the same purpose, when he 
 had breathed on them and said, " Receive ye the Holy 
 Ghost" John, XX, 22, he added, " Whose soever sins 
 ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose 
 soever sins ye retain, they are retained." In these 
 respects, the Apostles were constituted the authori- 
 tative ambassadors of the Lord, and were appointed 
 to an office in which they can have no successors. 
 The laws that, under his authority, they were to 
 establish, and the doctrine they were to promul- 
 gate, by which eternal life is conveyed to men, and 
 which are therefore characterised as the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven, were to be of perpetual and uni- 
 versal obligation. John, xii. 48, " He that rejecteth 
 me, and receiveth not my tvords," says Jesus, " hath 
 one thatjudgeth him. The word that I have spoken," 
 (which he had spoken, or was to speak by his Apos- 
 tles,) ^'^ the same shall judge him in the last day." 
 In another place to the same purpose, when speak- 
 ing of the Apostles having followed him, he says to 
 them, Matth. xix. 28, " In the regeneration, when 
 
170 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, 
 ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the 
 tivelve tribes of Israel.'' 
 
 The word that the Apostles were to declare, was 
 to open and to shut, and to bind and to loose, in 
 heaven and in earth. It was his own Word, the 
 Word of God, to be uttered by them, by which he 
 would at last judge the world. '' For" says he, 
 " he that receiveth you, receiveth me ; and he that 
 receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me," Matth. x. 
 40 ; which, is to the same effect as when he says to 
 the seventy disciples whom he sent out, " He that 
 heareth you, heareth me : and he that despiseth you, 
 despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth 
 him that sent me," Luke, x. 16. From the awful 
 importance, then, of the service committed to the 
 Apostles, we may judge what kind of inspiration 
 was necessary for those whose words were to be the 
 words of the Judge of all. '• We are unto God," 
 say they, " a sweet savour of Christ, in them that 
 are saved and in them that perish. To the one ive 
 are the savour of death u7ito death : and to the other 
 the savour of life unto life: and who is sufficient for 
 these things 9" 2 Cor. ii. 15. The commission of the 
 Apostles embraces every circumstance by which the 
 Divine glory is manifested to every order of inteUi- 
 gent beings — the whole of that revelation of mercy 
 by which the manifold wisdom of God is to be made 
 known to principalities and powers in heavenly places, 
 as well as a complete discovery of the will of God as 
 it regards mankind. Can it be supposed, then, that 
 the heralds of this salvation did not receive a plenar)' 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 171 
 
 inspiration to qualify them for such a service ? That 
 a prophet should be left to the choice of his own 
 words, and be a prophet from God, or that an Apos- 
 tle should be commissioned to promulgate the laws 
 of the kingdom of Christ, which are everlastingly to 
 bind in heaven and in earth, and yet be permitted to 
 choose for himself the words and lang-uage in which 
 these laws should be delivered, is altogether incre- 
 dible and absurd.* If the words or languag^e are of 
 man's choosing-, the Bible becomes partly the book 
 of man and partly the book of God. 
 
 The nature of this inspiration, we are also taug"ht 
 by the Promises that were given to the Apostles 
 respecting- it. When Jesus Christ first sent out his 
 Apostles to proclaim to the house of Israel that his 
 kingdom was at hand, he warned them of the recep- 
 tion they were to meet with, and that they should 
 be brought before governors and kings for his sake. 
 At the same time they were forbidden to use the 
 means which vv ould have been necessary, if in any 
 
 * " The Apostles, who were divinely commissioned by Christ 
 himself, either were inspired by him with his Spirit, which ' led 
 them into all truth,' or they were 7iot ; if we say they were not, 
 we make him a liar, for giving them this commission and this pro- 
 mise, as well as them for preaching that they did ; and if they were 
 thus divinely authorized, it must follow inevitably that what they 
 said was by Mm, and has exactly the same authority as if he had 
 uttered with his own Ups. Even an earthly king expects that a 
 messenger sent by him with satisfactory credentials and fuU 
 powers, should receive the same credit for what he says as would 
 be given to himself in person, and would regard it as an unpar- 
 donable affront, if this message so sent were rejected. " 
 
172 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 measure they had been left to their own judgment. 
 He commanded them to rely entirely upon him, and 
 promised them the inspiration of his Spirit which, 
 in such situations, would be necessary for them : 
 Matth. X. 19, " But when they dehver you up, take 
 no thoug-ht how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall 
 be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak : 
 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
 Father which speaketh in you." Mark, xiii. 11, 
 " But when they shall lead you and deliver you up, 
 take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, 
 neither do ye premeditate, but whatsoever shall be 
 given you in that hour, that speak ye ; for it is not 
 ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.'' In the parallel 
 passage, Luke, xii. 12, " For the Holy Ghost shall 
 teach you in the same hour tvhat ye ought to say" 
 And again, Luke, xxi. 13, " I will give you a mouth, 
 and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be 
 able to gainsay nor resist." Language cannot more 
 plainly indicate, that the icords they were to utter, 
 were to be given by inspiration to the Apostles. It 
 was the Holy Spirit who was to speak by them, just 
 as " God hath spoken hy the mouth of all his 
 holy prophets since the world began" Acts, iii. 21 ; 
 Luke, i. 70. 
 
 If verbal inspiration was necessary for the Apostles 
 in particular passing circumstances, when they were 
 brought before judges and magistrates ; and if, in such 
 occasional situations, as on the day of Pentecost, they 
 actually possessed it, how much more necessary must 
 it have been when they were employed in recording 
 the permanent laws of the kingdom of Christ ! It 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 173 
 
 must, therefore, be incliuletl in the declarations made 
 by our Lord, in what he says in his last discourse, 
 respecting- the Comforter whom he was to send. And 
 that these declarations did refer to the same inspi- 
 ration, we are not left to conjecture ; for we hear 
 the Apostle Paul, when afterwards he addresses a 
 Christian church, asserting- that Christ spake in him, 
 2 Cor. xiii. 3. When about to leave his disciples, 
 Jesus said to them. John, xiv. 26, " Sut the Com- 
 forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
 will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, 
 and bring all things to your remembrance, whatso- 
 ever I have said unto you^ The Apostles WTre not 
 to trust to their memories, to repeat what Jesus had 
 said to them ; but all that he had said was to be dic- 
 tated to them by the Holy Ghost. And again, John, 
 xiv. 13, " When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he 
 will guide you into all truth ; for he shall not speak 
 of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall 
 he speak, and he will show you things to come." 
 After his resurrection, Jesus Christ said to them, 
 John, XX. 21, '-''Peace be unto you ; as my Father 
 has sent me, even so send I you.'' His last words to 
 them on earth were these. Acts, i. 8, '^ But ye shall 
 receive pjower after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 
 you, and ye shall he witnesses unto me, both in Jeru- 
 salem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto 
 the uttermost parts of the earth" Such were the 
 Promises given to the Apostles of what they were 
 to receive, to fit them for that great work in which 
 they were about to engage. We shall now hear 
 
174 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 their own Declarations in respect to their fulfil- 
 ment. 
 
 On the day of Pentecost, Acts, ii. 4, " They were 
 all Jill ed ivith the Holy Ghost, and began to speak 
 with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utter- 
 ance" On that occasion, when speaking- in unknown 
 tong-ues, as was the case with others of the brethren 
 in the churches, 1 Cor. xiv. 13, 28, they must have 
 been inspired with every word they spoke, as is as- 
 serted in the declaration, that " the Sjjirit g-ave them 
 utterance'^' When, afterwards, having been brought 
 before the Jewish rulers, they had returned to their 
 own company and prayed, Acts, iv. 31, " The place 
 was shaken where they were assembled tog-ether, and 
 they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they 
 spake the word of God %\'ith boldness." Paul begins 
 his Epistles, by desig-nating himself an Apostle of 
 Jesus Christ. Thus he declares his apostohc char- 
 acter and commission from the Lord, by whom he 
 was qualified for his work. We see with what au- 
 thority he afterwards expresses himself: " Now unto 
 him that is of power to stahlish you according to my 
 gospel, a)id the preaching oj" Jesus Christ, according 
 to the revelation of the rtiystery which was kept secret 
 since the world began ; but now is made manifest, 
 and by the Scriptures of the pj'ophets, according to 
 the commandment of the everlasting God, made 
 known to all nations for the obedience of faith." — 
 " Though we," says the same Apostle, Galatians, i. 
 8, " or an angel from heaven, preach any other gos- 
 pel unto you than that which we have preached unto 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 175 
 
 you, let him he accursed^ — " As ive said hefore, so 
 say I now again. If any man preach any other gos- 
 pel unto you than that ye have received, let him he 
 accursed^ — " 3ut I certify you, brethren, that the 
 gospel ivhich ivas preached of me is not after man. 
 For I neither received it of man, neither was I 
 taught it hut by the revelation of Jesus Ch7'ist" — 
 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10, " JBut a.s it is ivritten, eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
 for them that love him. But God hath revealed 
 them unto us by his Spirit" — " Which things also 
 we speak, not in the words ivhich mans wisdom 
 teacheth, but ivhich the Holy Ghost teacheth," 1 Cor. 
 ii. 13. Here, in making- a general declaration of what 
 he taught, both the matter and the words are declared 
 to be from God.* Again he says, 1 Cor. ii. 13, "i^or 
 
 * On this verse INIacknight has the following note : — 
 " Words taught by the Holy Spirit. — From this we learn that 
 as often as the Apostles declared the doctrines of the gospel, 
 the Spirit presented these doctrines to their minds clothed in 
 their own language ; which indeed is the only way in which the 
 doctrines of the gospel could be presented to their minds. For 
 men are so accustomed to connect ideas with words, that they 
 always think in words. Wherefore, though the language in which 
 the Apostles delivered the doctrines of the gospel, were really sug- 
 gested to them by the Spirit, it was properly their own stj'le of 
 language. This language in which the doctrines of the gospel was 
 revealed to the Apostles, and in which they delivered these doc- 
 trines to the world, is what St Paul calls the form of sound ivords, 
 which Timothy had heard from him, and was to hold fast, 2 Tim. 
 i. 13. Every one, therefore, ought to beware of altering or ^\Test- 
 
176 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may 
 instruct him 9 hut we have the mind of Christ,'' 
 1 Cor. ii. 7, " We speak the wisdom of God.'' Eph. 
 iii. iv, " WJierehy, when ye read, ye may understand 
 my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, ivhich in 
 other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, 
 as it is now revealed unto his holy Apostles and Pro- 
 phets by the Spirit." 2 Cor. ii. 10, " To whom ye 
 forgive any thing, I forgive also ; for if I forgave 
 any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes for- 
 gave I it in the person of Christ." 2 Cor. xiii. 2, 3, 
 " If 1 come again 1 will not spare, since you seek a 
 proof of Christ speaking in me." In 1 Cor. vii. 17, 
 
 ing the inspired language of Scripture, in tlieir expositions of the 
 articles of the Christian faith. Taylor, in the sixth chapter of 
 his key, at the end, explains the verse under consideration thus : 
 — Which things we speak, not in philosophical terms of human 
 invention, hut which the Spirit teacheth in the tvritings of the Old 
 Testaynent : and contends, that the Apostle's meaning is, that he 
 expressed the Christian privileges in the very same words and 
 phrases, by which the Spirit expressed the privileges of the Jew- 
 ish church in the writings of the Old Testament. But if the 
 Spirit suggested these words and phrases to the Jewish prophets, 
 why might he not suggest to the Apostles the words and plirases 
 in which they communicated the gospel revelation to the world ? 
 Especially as there are many discoveries in the gospel which could 
 not be expressed clearly, if at all, in the words ])y which the pro- 
 phets expressed the privilege of the Jewish church. Besides, it 
 is evident, that when the Apostles introduce into their writings 
 the words and phrases of the Jewish prophets, they explain them 
 in other words and phrases, which, no doubt, were suggested to 
 them by the Spiiit." 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 177 
 
 where some have rashly and ignorantly asserted that 
 the Apostle concludes with expressing- a doubt whe- 
 ther he was inspired or not, he says, " so ordain I 
 in all churches." Such language, which is precisely 
 similar to that of Moses, Deut. vi. 6, would have 
 been most presumptuous, unless he could have added, 
 as he does a little afterwards, 1 Cor. xiv. 36, " What ! 
 came the word of God out from you ? or came it unto 
 you only ? If any man think himself to be a pro- 
 phet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things 
 that I write unto you a7:e the commandments of the 
 Lord.'' At the opening of the same epistle Paul had 
 said, " 3Iy speech and my 'preaching was not with 
 enticing words of mans ivisdom, but in demonstra- 
 tion of the Spirit and of power." — " We speak the 
 wisdom of God." Could any man have used such 
 language unless he had been conscious that he was 
 speaking the words of God ? 1 Thess. ii. 13, " For 
 this cause also thank we God, without ceasing, be- 
 cause, when ye received the word of God which ye 
 heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, 
 but (as it is in truth) the ivord of God." 1 Thess. 
 iv. 8, " He, therefore, that despiseth, despiseth not 
 man ])ut God, who hath also given unto us his Holy 
 Spirit." 1 Pet. i, 12, " Unto whom it teas revealed, 
 that not unto themselves, hut unto tcs they did minister 
 the things, ivhich are now vepjortedunto you hy them 
 that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy 
 Ghost sent doivn from heaven; zvhich things the an- 
 gels desire to look into." 1 Peter i. 23, " Being 
 born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorrup- 
 tible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth 
 
178 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 for ever"- 1 Pet. i. 25, " The word of the Lord 
 endureth for ever. And this is the word which by 
 the g-ospel is preached unto you." In referring- to the 
 instruction which they gave to the churches, the 
 Apostles characterise it as their " commandment" 
 and refer to it as equivalent to the authority of the 
 Holy Ghost, as in fact it was the same. Acts, xv. 
 24, 28, " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to 
 tis." Such is the inspiration by which all the pen- 
 men of the Scriptures wrote, and God has pronoun- 
 ced the most solemn prohibitions against any attempt 
 to add to, or to take from, or to alter, his Word. 
 These warning-s are interspersed through every part 
 of the sacred volume ; and each of them is equally 
 appUcable to the whole of it. 
 
 In this manner, that portion of the Scriptures called 
 the Law is guarded : — " Ye shall not add unto the 
 word which I command you, neither shall ye dimi- 
 nish aught from it," Deut. iv. 2 ; xii. 32. 
 
 In the next cUvision, sometimes called the Hagio- 
 grapha, it is written, " Every word of God is jnire : 
 He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. 
 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and 
 thou he found a liar," Prov. xxx. 16. The last part 
 of this threatening is infinitely more terrible than the 
 first ; for transgressors may be reproved, and yet find 
 mercy, but " all liars shall have their part in the lake 
 which burnetii with fire and brimstone, which is the 
 second death," Rev. xxi. 8. 
 
 In the prophetical writings, a similar warning is 
 again repeated. They are closed with an intimation, 
 that no more prophets were to be sent, tiU the fore- 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 179 
 
 runner of Jehovah (who was to come suddenly to his 
 temple) should appear. Israel is then commanded to 
 reg'ard that revelation which had been made to Moses, 
 concerning- Jesus, which the prophets had been com- 
 missioned to illustrate, but not to alter ; " Reinemher 
 ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded 
 unto him in Hot eh, for all Israel, ivith the statutes 
 and judgments,'' Mai. iv. 4. 
 
 As, at the conclusion of the Old Testament, where 
 the attention of the people of Israel is called to the 
 tirst appearance of the Son of God, the Saviour, they 
 are instructed that the prophetic testimony to him is 
 finished ; so, at the conclusion of the New Testament, 
 where the attention of all men is directed to his second 
 coming, as the final Judg-e, the canon of Scripture is 
 closed, and a solemn and most awful warning- is g-iven, 
 neither to add to it, nor to take from it : " / testify 
 unto every man that heareth the ivords of the prophecy 
 of this booh, If any man shall add unto these things, 
 God shall add unto him the plagues that are written 
 in this hook ; and if any man shall take away from 
 the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take 
 aivay his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the 
 Holy City, and from the things which are written in 
 this book,'' Rev. xxii. 18, 19. This passag-e, so simi- 
 lar to the others above cited, is, for the same reasons 
 for which it is applicable to the book of Revelation, 
 applicable to the whole inspired volume. 
 
 In the references that have been made above to 
 many passag-es of Scripture, to which more of a simi- 
 lar import might have been added, the complete ver- 
 bal inspiration by which both Prophets and Apostles 
 
180 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 spoke and wrote, has, by their own declarations, 
 been unanswerably established. Whatever they re- 
 corded, they recorded by the Spirit of God. Whe- 
 ther they spoke in their own tong-ue, or in tongues 
 which they had not learned ; or whether they utter- 
 ed prophecies which they understood, or concerning 
 which they acknowledged, " / heard., hut I under" 
 stood not" Dan. xii. 8 ; still they spoke or wrote as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And if we have 
 seen that even the Divine Redeemer himself, ivho is 
 over all, God blessed for ever, when acting in his 
 mediatorial character, as the Father's servant, spoke, 
 as he declares, not of himself, but the words of Him 
 that sent him ; and that God the Holy Ghost, in his 
 office of Comforter, was not to speak of himself, but 
 to speak whatsoever he should hear ; is it to be pre- 
 sumed that Prophets and Apostles should ever have 
 been left to choose the words which they have re- 
 corded in the Scriptures ? 
 
 The words, then, which the Prophets and Apostles 
 recorded, were the words of God, — Christ spake in 
 them — they were the u'ords ivhich the Holy Ghost 
 taught. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit, 
 Eph. vi. 17. " It is quick, and powerful, and 
 sharper than any two-edged sword,'' Heb. iv. 12. 
 This ivord was put into the mouths of the Prophets 
 and Apostles ; and therefore their v>ords and com- 
 mandments have all the authority of the words and 
 commandments of God. " I stir up your pure minds 
 hy way of remembrance, that ye may he mindful 
 of the ivords which were spoken hefore by the holy 
 Prophets, and of the commandment of us, the Apostles 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 181 
 
 ; of the Lord and Saviour" 2 Pet. iii. 1, 2. The 
 I term inspiration loses its meaning- when an attempt 
 j is made to divide it between God and man. In what 
 an endless perplexity would any man be involved, 
 who was called upon to give to each deg-ree of inspira- 
 tion, under wliich it has been supposed the Bible is 
 written, that portion which belongs to it ! Let any 
 one undertake the task, and he will soon find that he 
 is building- upon the sand. Yet such an attempt 
 should have been made by those daring- innovators, 
 , be they ancient or modern, who have represented the 
 i sacred volume as a motley performance, — part of it 
 I written under an inspiration of direction, — ^part of 
 it under an inspiration of elevation, — part of it 
 under an inspiration of superintendence, — (all 
 improperly called inspiration), — and part of it under 
 NO inspiration at all ! 
 
 But why have such distinctions been introduced ? 
 Dothey diminish the difficulty of comprehending- how 
 the inspiration of the Holy Ghost is communicated 
 to those who are the subjects of it ? Is it easier to 
 conceive that a meaning- without words should be 
 imparted to the mind of man, than that it should be 
 conveyed to him in words ? Instead of being dimi- 
 nished, the difficulty is increased tenfold. But, in 
 either case, we have nothing to do with difficulties ; 
 it is a subject which we cannot comprehend ; and in 
 whatever way the effect is produced, it is our duty 
 to believe what the Holy Scriptures assert, and not 
 to resort to those vain speculations on the subject by 
 which men darken council by words without know- 
 ledge. Every Christian should remember that the 
 
 M 
 
182 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 view which he takes of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures is of the greatest practical importance. With 
 what a different feehng must that man read the 
 Bible, who believes that it is a book which partly 
 treats of " common and civil affairs," and partly 
 of " thing's relig-ious," which is partly the pro- 
 duction of God, and partly of men, who were some- 
 times directed in one way, sometimes in another, 
 and sometimes not directed at all, and that it con- 
 tains certain things unworthy of being considered 
 as a part of Divine revelation, — from the feehng 
 of the Christian, who reads that sacred book under 
 the solemn conviction that its contents are ivJioUy 
 religious, and that every word of it is dictated by 
 God! In reading these words. Proverbs, iii. 11, 
 " My son, desjjise not the chastening of the Lord, 
 neither he weary of his correction," how differently 
 must he be affected who reads them as addressed to 
 him merely by Solomon, from the man w^ho views 
 them as addressed to him by his heavenly Father, 
 according to Hebrews, xii. 5 ! Paul, in that Epistle, 
 in making various quotations from the Old Testa- 
 ment, refers to them expressly as the words of the 
 Holy Ghost. As far as distinctions in inspiration 
 are admitted, their tendency is to diminish our reve- 
 rence for the Bible, and to exclude as much as pos- 
 sible the agency of the Spirit of God in its compo- 
 sition. In the same way, men eagerly oppose the 
 doctrine of a particular providence, as one on which 
 it is not ^^ prudent" to insist, as not " necessary ,' and 
 as " attended icith difficulties" while they labour to 
 exclude the agency of God from the government of 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 183 
 
 the world, and from the direction of the course of 
 events, by ascribing the whole to the operation of 
 what are called " the laws of nature." 
 
 Dr Doddridg-e, in his Essay on Inspiration, p. 38, 
 after desiring- the reader to observe, that in very few 
 instances he has allowed an error in our present copies 
 (of the Scriptures), and that, in these few instances, 
 he has imputed it to translators — adds, " because, as 
 Mr Seed very properly expresses it in his excellent 
 sermon on this subject, (which, since I wrote the 
 former part of this dissertation, fell into my hands,) 
 a partial inspiration is, to all intents and purposes, 
 no inspiration at all: For, as he justly argues against 
 the supposition of amj mixture of error in these 
 sabred writings, mankind would be as much embar- 
 rassed to know what was inspired, and what was not, 
 as they could be to collect a religion for themselves ; 
 the consequence of which would be, that we are left 
 just where ice were, and that GOD put himself to a 
 great expense of miracles to eifect nothing- at all : a 
 consequence highly derogatoiy and injurious to his 
 honour." It is not a little remarkable, that such senti- 
 ments should be so decisively announced by one who, 
 in the same work, has ascribed various degrees of in- 
 spiration to different parts of the Scriptures ! Let 
 this glaring- inconsistency be considered by those who 
 have followed Dr Doddridge in his unscriptural views 
 on the subject. 
 
 It is allowed by Dr Doddridge, that under what is 
 called the inspiration of suggestion, " the use of our 
 faculties is superseded, and God does as it were speak 
 directly to the mind ; making such discoveries to it, 
 as it could not otherwise have obtained, and dictating 
 
184 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 the very words in which these discoveries are to be • 
 communicated to others ; so that a person, in what , 
 he wTites from hence, is no other than first the Audi- 
 tor, and then, (if I may be allowed the expression,) 
 the Secretary of GOD ; as John was of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, when he wrote from his sacred lips tlw 
 seven Epistles to the Asiatic Churches, And it is no 
 doubt to an inspiration of this kind that the Book of 
 the Revelation owes its original." (Doddridge on 
 Inspiration, page 41.) Why, then, has Dr Dod- 
 dridge supposed that any other part of the Bible was 
 written under an inspiration of a diiferent kind? 
 W^iere did he learn this ? Was it less necessar}^ that 
 the Epistles which were written to the other churches, 
 as " the commandments of the Lord," 1 Cor. xiv. 37, 
 should be fully inspired, than for those addressed to 
 the seven churches of Asia ? or was it requisite that, 
 to the Book of Revelation, a higher degree of inspi- 
 ration should belong, than to the other books of the 
 Holy Scriptures ? And where, we are entitled to ask, 
 do the Scriptures sanction such distinctions ? But if 
 in no part they give to them the smallest countenance, 
 or to any thing similar, what right has any man to in- 
 troduce distinctions, and to teach what the Scriptm^es 
 not only have not taught, but the contrary of which 
 they have uniformly and explicitly taught ? To 
 invent distinctions that represent some parts of the 
 Scriptures as half inspired, and others not inspired at 
 all, and as relating to things merely civil, is most dis- 
 honourable and degrading to the Book of God, and 
 deprives Christians of all that edification which such 
 passages are calculated to afford. Such distinctions, 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 185 
 
 let them be made by whom they may, are the off- 
 spring- of presumption and folly. 
 
 On the whole, we see the nature of that inspira- 
 tion by which the Prophets and Apostles wrote. The 
 manner of communicating- the revelations might dif- 
 fer. Numbers, xii. 6, 7, 8. They might be imparted 
 in a vision, or in a dream, or by speaking- mouth to 
 mouth ; but their certainty and authority were the 
 same. For the prophecy came not in old time hj the 
 will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost. Neither was it the Apos- 
 tles who spoke of themselves, but the Spirit of their 
 Father who spoke in them, or by them. Let no man, 
 then, venture to introduce distinctions in that inspi- 
 ration by which the Word of God is written, imheard 
 of in that Word, and therefore totally unwarranted 
 and unauthorized. It is not for men to say, <' How 
 can these things be ?" No man comprehends him- 
 self either in soul or body, nor can we tell how the 
 one acts upon the other : And shall vain man, who 
 " would be wdse, thoug-h man be born like the wild 
 ass's colt," stumble at, and reject, the declarations of 
 God concerning that inspiration which belongs to his 
 Word, and by which he makes known his pleasure ? 
 " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
 the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, 
 and whither it goeth." The Lord is able to commu- 
 nicate his will in whatever way he pleases, although 
 we cannot trace the manner of his operation. In the 
 words spoken by the ass of Balaam, we have an ex- 
 ample of this communication, through an unconsci- 
 
186 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 ous and involuntary instrument.* In Balaam him- 
 self we have an example throug-h one who was con- 
 scious, but involuntary, in the declaration he made 
 respecting Israel. In Caiaphas, through one who 
 was voluntary in what he said, but unconscious of its 
 import. And in the writers of the Scriptures, we 
 have an example of agents both voluntary and con- 
 scious, but equally actuated by the Spirit of God. 
 
 The dictating of that Law which is perfect, every 
 jot and tittle of which was to be fulfilled, — of those 
 histories which were written for the " admonition" 
 of all future generations, — of the institutions of 
 that kingdom which is to endure for ever, — and of 
 that Word by which all shall be judged, was, and 
 necessarily must have been, the work of perfect, 
 that is, of infinite wisdom ; Psalm xix. 7, " Tlie law 
 of the Lord is ]ierfectr — But if certain parts of it 
 are the words of men, who wrote merely under a su- 
 perintendence which preserved them from recording 
 what is false or erroneous, these parts must, like 
 their authors, be imperfect. The same would hold 
 true respecting- all that is supposed to be written 
 under an inspiration of elevation, which, whatever it 
 may mean, could not be carried beyond that enlarge- 
 ment of which the mind of man is capable. The 
 Bible can only be perfect, if it be the Word of God 
 
 * Under -nliich of the kinds of inspiration that have been so 
 ingeniously forged, did the ass of Balaam speak ? Was it under 
 that of Elevation ? Or shall the truth of the fact he rejected al- 
 together, because it is " attended with difficulties !" 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 187 
 
 himself from one end to the other. But, if the words 
 of the writers of it be solely their own w^ords, or be 
 they the words of Angels, Principahties, or Powers, 
 they are imperfect, — and the Bible is an imperfect 
 book. 
 
 The perfection of the Scriptures is necessary for 
 the purpose they were intended to ser^e. " The 
 heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament 
 showeth his handiwork," Psalm xix. 1. " By the 
 things that are made" God's eternal power and God- 
 head are clearly seen, so as to render men " without 
 excuse," Rom. i. 20 ; and there they leave him under 
 condemnation. But " Jlie law of the Lord is per- 
 fect, converting the soul : the testimony of the Lord 
 is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of 
 the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : the com- 
 mandment of the Lord is jyure, enlightening the 
 eyes'' — It is not, then, by the works of creation, — 
 it is not by his dealings towards either holy or fallen 
 angels, that the glory of God is fully displayed. 
 This honour is reserved for the history of the incar- 
 nation of his Son. It is here, and only here, that 
 mercy and truth meet together, that righteousness 
 and peace embrace each other ; — tnith has spining 
 out of the earth, and righteousness has looked down 
 from heaven. Here justice and judgment are seen to 
 be the habitation of Jehovah's throne, — and mercy 
 and truth to go before his face. 
 
 " Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the 
 skies pour doivn righteousness ; let the earth open, 
 and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteous- 
 ness spring up together; I the Lord have created ity' 
 
188 THE INSPIHATION OF 
 
 Isaiah, xlv. 8. Here is something- far more glorious 
 than all that was ever before seen in the universe of 
 God ! — a rig-hteousness exalted to absolute perfec- 
 tion, and rendered infinitely g-lorious by the union 
 of the divine with the human nature. God charged 
 his Ang-els with folly, and the heavens are not 
 clean in his sig-ht, but with him who wrought this 
 rig-hteousness, he is " well pleased." 
 
 The righteousness of Adam in innocence, or the 
 righteousness of angels in glory, was the rig-hteous- 
 ness of creatm'es, and therefore a limited rig-hteous- 
 ness. It consisted in the love and service of God, 
 which they rendered mth all their heart and strength ; 
 but further it could not go. Their righteousness was 
 available in the time only while it continued to be 
 performed, and it might cease and be lost. But that 
 righteousness which the skies have poured down, is a 
 righteousness that is infinite, and that shall never be 
 abolished, Isaiah, li. 6, 8. It is a righteousness that 
 was performed in a limited period of time, by Him 
 who is called " Jehovah our righteousness ;" 
 but the glory of it was contemplated from eternity, 
 while its efficacy extends back to the fall of man, 
 and forward through all the ages of eternity. It is 
 the " everlasting righteousness" which, as the pro- 
 phet Daniel predicted, was brought in by the Mes- 
 siah. It is ^Hhe righteousness of our God and Sa- 
 viour Jesus Christ,'' 2 Peter, i. 1, of which Noah 
 was a preacher, 2 Pet. ii. 5, and of which he was an 
 heu', Heb. xi. 7, the ministration of which was com- 
 mitted to the Apostles, 2 Cor. iii. 9. It shall be 
 through eternity the delight of the Father, the ad- 
 miration of angels, and the song of the redeemed. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 189 
 
 It is in the Bible that this righteousness is 
 made known. In the Bible the Gospel is recorded, 
 which is the power of God unto salvation, because 
 therein is the righteousness of God revealed, 
 Rom. i. 17. The Bible contains the record of the 
 eternal purpose of God, which he purposed in Christ 
 Jesus, — of the unsearchable riches of Christ, — of the 
 eternal election of Him to be the Mediator between 
 God and man, and of the eternal election of his peo- 
 ple in Him, — of his incarnation, humihation, exalta- 
 tion, and glory. And " in as much as he who hath 
 builded the house hath more honour than the house," 
 insomuch is there a higher display of the glory of 
 God, in the history contained in the Bible, of Him 
 who was " God manifest in the flesh," than is aiford- 
 ed in the creation, and the discovery of all the other 
 works of God in the imiverse, animate and inanimate, 
 of which Jesus Christ is the Creator and the Head. 
 Hence is that preference justified which is given to 
 the Bible above them all, " Thou hast magnified thy 
 WORD above all thy name.'' The earth and the hea- 
 vens shall perish, — " As a vesture shalt thou fold 
 them up, and they shall be changed, — But the tvord 
 of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the 
 word which hy the Gospel is preached unto you." 
 
 Such, then, is the perfection of the Bible, for the 
 writing of which, the most complete inspiration was 
 absolutely indispensable, in order that it should be 
 entirely the word and the work of God, — in thought, 
 — in meaning, — in style, — in expression, — in every 
 part, — in the strictest sense, the word or voice of 
 God to man. Each part is necessary in its place to 
 
190 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 complete the whole, — and if any one part were want- 
 ing, however inconsi(leral)le it may appear, that ab- 
 solute perfection, that complete adaptation to the 
 end proposed, which belong- to the Book of God, 
 would be destroyed. 
 
 Christians ought to beware of giving- up in the 
 smallest degree the inspiration of the Bible. That 
 precious deposit is now delivered to their keeping, 
 as the first portion of it was committed to the Jews, 
 The Jews were constituted the " witnesses" of Je- 
 hovah, Isaiah, xliii. 10, 12 ; until the time arrived, 
 when, in his sovereign pleasure, he appointed other 
 " witnesses," Acts, i. 8. The nation of Israel was 
 his peculiar treasure, — an holy nation. Exodus, xix. 
 5, 6 ; till, by their final rejection of his Son, they 
 forfeited that title, and he gave his vineyard to other 
 husbandmen, Matth. xxi. 41. They possessed the 
 peculiar "name" which he had conferred on them, till 
 the prophecy concerning it was fulfilled, when it was 
 left " for a curse," Isaiah, Ixv. 13 ; and when a new 
 name was bestowed on those who were henceforward 
 to be acknowledged as the people of God, Acts, xi. 
 26; 1 Peter, iv. 16. Having now become the deposit- 
 aries of the whole volume of inspiration, let Chris- 
 tians regard it with the same unshaken fidelity, with 
 which, before being completed, " the words which 
 the Lord of Hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the 
 former prophets" Zechariah, vii. 7, 12, were pre- 
 served by the Jeivs. Let them not weaken l)y vain 
 reasonings, the impression produced upon their minds 
 by the testimony of the Bible itself concerning its 
 full inspiration in every part, nor substitute for it, a 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 191 
 
 book which, in their imagination, is only partially 
 inspired, — which contains sometimes the words of 
 God, and sometimes the words of men who spake 
 not as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, but 
 who were only preserved from error, or who wrote 
 " as any other plain and faithful men might do.'' 
 By such sentiments, the offspring- of philosophy and 
 vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the ru- 
 diments of the world, and not after Christ, has the 
 Bible been degraded, and its high title to the desig- 
 nation of " the oracles of God" made void. In op- 
 position to these heretical opinions, be they ancient 
 or modern, let every disciple of Him whose command 
 it is to " search the Scriptures," regard it as 2i. faith- 
 ful saying, and not liable to doubtful interpretations, 
 that " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, 
 and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof for correc- 
 tion, for instruction in righteousness ; that the man 
 of God may he perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all 
 good works" 
 
 The testimony to the truth of the Scriptures, 
 which arises from their inspiration, is of the strong- 
 est kind. By presenting themselves as inspired, they 
 bring the truth of their contents to the most decisive 
 test. They occupy ground which nothing but truth 
 and perfection can enable them to maintain. Could 
 there be found in them any thing absui^d, or false, or 
 
192 THE INSPIRATION OF 
 
 erroneous ; could the smallest flaw in the character or 
 doctrine of the Author of Salvation ; any degree of 
 weakness, of want of wisdom ; or any contradiction be 
 detected, they must immediately be compelled to re- 
 linquish this ground. The claim of inspiration is an 
 assertion of the infinite importance, and incomparable 
 excellency of the matter which they contain, as what 
 man, without them, never could have discovered ; and 
 also that it is deHvered in a style suitable to the dig- 
 nity of what they present. They contain many chains 
 of prophecies, as well as multitudes of detached pre- 
 dictions, now fulfilling, or that have been fulfilled in 
 difi'erent ages ; and they defy the jjerspicacity of man 
 to falsify a single one of them. They assert a num- 
 ber of facts respecting various particulars of the crea- 
 tion, the age, and the history of the world ; of a gene- 
 ral deluge ; of the descent of all mankind from a single 
 pair ; of the primeval condition of man, as civihzed, 
 and not savage ; of the origin of a variety of uni- 
 versal customs, otherwise unaccountable, as of sa- 
 crifice, and of the division of time by weeks. Yet, 
 after all the severest scrutinies of the most enhght- 
 ened, as well as most inveterate opposers in ancient 
 and modern times, not one fact which they assert 
 has been disproved. On the contrary, these facts 
 are constantly acquiring fresh evidence, from various 
 sources. The consistency, too, of the doctrine of 
 the several writers of Scripture is particularly ob- 
 servable, and forms a striking contrast to the dis- 
 cordant opinions, inconsistencies, and self-contradic- 
 tions of the Greek and Roman, as well as of modem 
 writers, on almost every subject of which they treat. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 193 
 
 Since, then, the Scriptures advance a claim that 
 nothing- but their truth could sustain, and which 
 could be so easily disproved, if false ; since they are 
 the only writings ever published that could bear 
 such a test, there is the most demonstrative evidence 
 that they are the Word of God. The industry and 
 researches of philosophers have detected error in 
 the noblest productions of ancient wisdom, but all 
 the Hght of science, throughout all the ages of the 
 world, has not been able to discover one sing-le error 
 in the Bible. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. p. 166. 
 
 Meaning of the expression — " private inter ^ 
 pretationr 
 
 Knmcing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of 
 any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time 
 by the will of man,- but holy men of God spake as they v:ere moved 
 by the Holy Ghost, 2 Peter i. 20, 21. Several commentators 
 have affixed a meaning to the concluding words in the 20th verse 
 which is altogether erroneous. Parkhurst, in his Dictionary, calls 
 it a " difficult passage," and the Roman Catholics have made great 
 use of it to prove that the Scriptures cannot be understood unless 
 explained by what they call the church. The Apostle has, how- 
 ever, himself clearly explained, in the 21st verse, what he intends 
 by the expression " private intei-pretation. " The word translated 
 interpretation, literally signifies the loosing of a knot, or unbind- 
 ing, that is, unfolding. It is rendered " declaration," in Martin's, 
 and other French translations. The verb from which it is derived, 
 which is precisely of the same import, is translated " expounded,'' 
 Mark iv. .34, and " determined," Acts xix. 39, meaning, as above, 
 unfolded, declared. " Dr INIiU," says Benson, " hath, in a few 
 words, given the sense of this place : ' In writing, the prophet did 
 not interpret, or explain, his own mind ; but the mind and will 
 of the Holy Spirit, with which he was inspired.'" " Prophecy 
 comes not," says Whitby, " from the Prophet's own suggestion, 
 but from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. That this is the 
 
196 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 true sense of these words appears from the Apostle's own interpre- 
 tation;" &c. Henry observes, "No Scripture prophecy is of pri- 
 vate interpretation, or a man's own proper opinion, an explication 
 of his own mind, but the revelation of the mind of God. This 
 was the difference between the prophets of the Lord and the false 
 prophets who have been in the world. The prophets of the Lord 
 did not speak or do any thing of their own mind, as INIoses, the chief 
 of them, says expressly. Numb. xvi. 28. I have not done any of 
 the works (nor delivered any of the statutes and ordinances) of my 
 own mind. But false prophets speak a vision of their own heart, 
 not out of the moidh of the Lord, Jer. xxxiii. 16." Calvin's expo- 
 sition of these words is as follows: — " S. Pierre entend quel'Ecri- 
 ture n'a point este mise en avant par volonte ou mouvement humain. 
 Car nous ne serons jamais bien disposez pour la lire, si nous n'y ap- 
 portons reverence, obeissance, et docilite. Ou la vraye reverence 
 procede de la, quand nous nous proposons que c'est Dieu qui park 
 a nous, & non point des hommes mortels. Sainct Pierre done 
 veut principalement qu'on adjouste foy aux propheties, comme a 
 oracles de Dieu indubitables : d'autant qu'elles ne sont procedees 
 du propre mouvement des hommes. Et a cela tend ce qu'il ad- 
 jouste incontinent apres, ascavoir que les saincts hommes de Dieu 
 ont parle, etans poussez du S. Esprit ; et non point prononce 
 d'eux mesmes & a leur fantasie quelque inventions de leur cer- 
 veau. Brief, il veut dire que le commencement de droite intelli- 
 gence est, quand nous attribuons aux saincts Prophetes, I'authorite 
 qui est du a Dieu mesmes." 
 
 In the commentary of Marets, first professor in theology in the 
 university of Groningen, we have the following note on the same 
 words, which in liis Bible are translated, as in the text of Calvin, 
 " particuliere declaration," which, he observes, signifies " detache- 
 ment, ou explication : I'Apotre s'en sert ici, ou pour exprimer 
 I'exposition et la proposition meme que les Prophetes ont fait de 
 leur propheties, par laquelle ils n'ont pas mis en avant ni expose 
 et propose aux hommes, ce qu'ils trouvoient bon d'eux memes, 
 mais le conseil de Dieu, non pas ce qui procedoit de leur cru par 
 
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 197 
 
 un moiivement particulier, (car oupouroit ainsi traduire ces mots) 
 maisderinspirationderEspritdeDieu." On this passage Claude, 
 in his letter to Monsieur C. de Paris, le 27 de Juin 1679, ol)serves, 
 p. 306 : " L'Ecriture est la Parole de Dieu, une revelation sur- 
 naturelle. Toiite V Ecriture, Ait Saint Paul, 2 Timothe, iii. 16, 
 est divinement inspiree. A quoi se raporte ce que dit Saint Pierre, 
 2, chap. i. V. 20, 21, Qmc nulle Prophetie de VEcriture iiest de 
 particuliere declaration, c'est a dire, que les Prophetes n'ont pas 
 explique les Oracles de I'ancien Testament, de leur propre mouve- 
 ment, car la prophetie ria pas ete autrefois apportee par la 
 volonte de I'/iomme, mais les saints hommes de Dieu ont parle, 
 poussez par le Saint Esprit. " 
 
 No. II. 
 
 The following are Extracts on the Verbal Inspi- 
 ration of the Scriptures^ from the Works of Emi- 
 nent Christian Writers : 
 
 iREX^iiUS, who conversed with Polycarp, the disciple of Jolin, 
 and who himself lived but a few years after that Apostle, says, 
 " Well knowing that the Scriptures are perfect, as dictated (or 
 spoken) by the word of God, and his Spirit, — a heavy punish- 
 ment awaits those who add to, or take from, the Scriptures. But 
 we follow the one and only true God, as our teacher.; and having 
 his words as a rule of truth, do always speak the same things 
 concerning the same things." 
 
 To the same purpose, Origen, born in the second century, 
 speaks of it as a common opinion, " That the sacred books are 
 not writings of men, but have been written and delivered to us 
 from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by the will of the Father 
 of all things, through Jesus Christ." And again, " The sacred 
 Scriptures come from the fulness of the Spirit ; so that there is 
 nothing in the Prophets, or the Law, or the Gospel, and the 
 N 
 
198 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 Epistles, which descends not from the Divine Majesty," — "one and 
 the same Spirit proceeding from the one God, teaching the like 
 things in the Scriptures written before the coming of Christ, and 
 in the Gospels and Apostles." " For my part, I believe that not 
 one jot or tittle of the divine instructions is in vain." " Let us 
 come daily to the wells of the Scriptures, the waters of the Holy 
 Spirit, and there draw and carry home a full vessel." Lardner, 
 vol. II. 172, 488, 495. 
 
 " It is asked — If in writing, they (the sacred writers) were so 
 acted upon and inspired by the Holy Spirit, both as to the things 
 themselves, and as to the words, that they were free from all 
 error, and that their writings are truly authentic and divine ? 
 The adversaries deny this. We affirm it." 
 
 " Scripture proves itself divine from its style ; Divine Majesty 
 shining not less from the simplicity than the gravity of its dic- 
 tion." 
 
 " Nor can it easily be believed that God, who has dictated and 
 inspired all arid the very words, to men divinely inspired, has not 
 taken care also about the preservation of them all."* 
 
 " But God has instituted the Scripture, partly by revelation, 
 which has been accomphshed, 1 . By writing, as was shown in the 
 giving of the Law. 2. By commanding, that it might be writ- 
 ten, Deut. xxxi. 19. Rev. i. 19, 3. 3. By inspiring, 2 Tim. iii. 16, 
 that is, by suggesting the things that were to he written, and in- 
 fallibly directing the writing ; so fully, that in all things, whether 
 
 * Institutio Theologise Francisco Turretino, Vol. I. p. 70 — " Quaeri- 
 tur — An in scribendo ita acti et iuspirati fuerint a Spiritu Sancto, 
 (scriptores sacri,) et quoad res ipsas, et quoad verba, ut ab ouini errore 
 immunes fuerint, et scripta ipsoriun vere siut authentica et divina ? 
 Adversarii iiegant ; nos affirmamus." 
 
 " Scriptura seipsam divinam probat — ex parte styli ; Divina Majes- 
 tas, non minus ex simplicitate quam gravitate dictiouis elucens." 
 Page 71. 
 
 " Nee facile credi potest, Deum, qui omnia et singula verba viris 
 bioTviv^ot; diotavit et inspiravit, de omnibus etiam conservandis non 
 curasse." Page 80. 
 
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 199 
 
 relating to matters of doctrine or of fact, lie not only inspired the 
 things themselves, but has even dictated the very words, partly 
 by canonization" &c» * 
 
 " The Scripture is principally called the Word of God, on 
 account of the infallible inspiration which belongs to it — to the 
 words equally as to the things, in which, therefore, nothing irre- 
 levant occurs, although God has wisely accommodated himself to 
 the style of each of the amanuenses in writing, as to the sound of 
 the voice in speaking, "f 
 
 Calvin, in his Commentary on 2d Tim. ill. 16, says, " To 
 show the authority (of Scripture) he (Paul) says, that it is di- 
 vinely inspired. For if it be so, without contradiction men ought 
 to receive it with reverence. And this is the principle which 
 distinguishes our religion from all others, namely, that we know 
 that God hath spoken to us, and are fully assured that the Pro- 
 phets have not spoken from themselves, but as organs and instru- 
 ments of the Holy Spirit, and that they have solely announced 
 what they had received from on high. Whoever then would 
 profit by the Holy Scriptures, let him first decide this within 
 himself, that the Law and the Prophets are not a doctrine which 
 has been given according to the desire or will of men, but dicta- 
 ted by the Holy Spirit. If any object, how can we know this ; 
 the answer isj that God declares and manifests that he is the au- 
 
 * Theologia, &c. Petro Van Mastricht, Vol. I. p. 21. sect. 19.—" Con- 
 didit autem Deus scriptuvam : partim revelatio7ie, quae peracta est, 1. 
 Scribendo, ut in decalogo conspicuuni. 2. Maudando, ut scriberetur, 
 Deut. xxxi. 19. Apoc. i. 19. 3. Inxpirando, 2. Tim. iii. 16. 7i. e. sugge- 
 rendo scribenda, etinfallibiliter 6XT\^enAo scriptionetn. Usque adeo, ut 
 in omnibus, sive injure versentur, sive in facto ; non solum res ipsas 
 inspiraverit, sed etiam singula verba dictarit : partim canonizatione" 
 &c. 
 
 f J.OHANNis Marckii Theologiae Medulla, &c " Scriptura verbum 
 
 Dei praecipue dicitur ob inspirationem itifallibilem, 2 Tim. iii. 16. 2 Pet. 
 i. 20, 21, quae pertinet — ad verba denique aeque quam ad res, in quibus 
 proinde nihil inepti occnrrit; etiamsi singulorum Amanuensium stylo 
 prudenter Deus se accommodaverit in scribendo, aeque quam vocis 
 sono in loquendo." Page 12 and 13, sect. 5. 
 
200 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 tlior of it as much to the disciples as to the teachers, by the re- 
 velation of that same Spirit. For Moses and the Prophets have 
 not given forth at random what we have as written by them ; but 
 inasmuch as they spoke, being impelled (poussez) by God, they 
 have witnessed boldly, and without any fear, that which was true, 
 that it was the mouth of God who had spoken. . . . Observe from 
 the first member, (of this verse,) that the same reverence that we 
 have for God is due also to the Scripture, because it has pro- 
 ceeded from him alone, and has nothing of man mixed with it.* 
 " The Holy Spirit made use of the pens of the Evangelists, and 
 of the Apostles, for the writings of the New Testament, as he had 
 formerly made use of those of Closes and the Prophets for the Old. 
 He furnished them with the occasions for writing. He gave them 
 the desire, the power to do it. The matter, the form, the order, 
 the economy, the expressions, are of his immediate inspiration, 
 and of his direction. "-}• 
 
 * " Pour monstrer I'authorite, il dit quW/e est inspiree Birinemeni. 
 Car si ainsi est, sans aiu-un ccntredit les hommes la doyuet recevoir 
 eu revereiu-t*. Et c'est leprincipe, qui disrerne notre religion detoutes 
 autres, ascavoir que nous scavons que Dieua parlea nous, et sommes 
 certainement asseuie que les Proplietps ii'ont pas parle de leur propre 
 sens. Mais comuie orpanes et iustruinens dn S. Esprit, qu'ils ont seule- 
 inent aunonce ce qu'ils avoyent receu d'enhaut. Quicouque doncvou- 
 dra pioufiter ens sainctes Escritures, qu'il arreste premierement 
 ceci en soy mesrae, que la Loy et les PropI.etesne sont point vue doc- 
 trine qui ait este donnee a I'appetit ou la voloiite d.-s hommes, mais 
 dictee par le Sanrt E-prit. Si on ohjecte, d'oCl c'est qu'ou pourra scavoir 
 cela ; je respon que Dieu declare et manifeste qu'il est autheur di'celle 
 tantaux disciples qu'au doeteurs, par larevelation de ee mesme Esprit. 
 Car Moyse et les Proplietes u'ont point a la volee mis en lumiere ce 
 que noils avons par esi-rit de leur main, mais d'.iutant qu'ils parloy- 
 ent estans poussez de Dieu, ils ont tesmoipne' liardimeiit et sans aucune 
 crainte ce qui estoit veritable, que e'e^toit la bouche de Dieu qui avoit 
 parie ... - Voyla le premier uiemSre, qiu- telle reverence que nous 
 portons a Dieu, est deue aussi a I'Escriture, pource qu'elle est proce- 
 dee de luy seul, et n'lia rien de I'homme inesleav ec soy." 
 
 t Clal'dil Posthumous Works, Vol. IV. p. 22^ " Le Saint Esprit 
 
 s'estservide la plume des Evangelisteset des Apotres pour les ecritures 
 du Nouveau Testament, comme il s'etoit autre fois serA'i de celles de 
 
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 201 
 
 " If you understand, that tlie Prophets and the Apostles have 
 not been instruments purely passive ; instruments impelled by in- 
 spiration, in all respects : and that, on the contrary, they have 
 been instruments acting by a power which belonged to them, like 
 other second causes, I maintain that it is false. They were no 
 more than simply organs whom the Holy Spirit made use of to 
 write, having done nothing in what respects their part, but form- 
 ed the letters and the characters of the Scriptures, under the con- 
 duct of the same Spirit, for as to all the other things, the Holy 
 Spirit hath himself dictated to them."* 
 
 Hooker, in his first sermon on Jude, says, " God, which 
 lightened thus the eyes of their understanding, giving them know- 
 ledge by unusual and extraordinary means, did also miraculously 
 himself frame and fashion their words and writings, insomuch 
 that a greater diflference there seemeth not to be between the 
 manner of their knowledge, than there is between the manner 
 
 of their speech and ours But ' God hath made my mouth 
 
 like a sword,' saith Isay. And ' we have received,'' saith the Apostle, 
 ' not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we 
 might know the things which are given to us of God, which things 
 also we speak, not in words, which man's wisdom teacheth, but 
 which the Holy Ghost doth teach.' This is that which the Pro- 
 phets mean by those books written full, witliin and without ; 
 
 Moyse et des Prophetes pour I'Ancien. II leur a fourni les occasions 
 d'ecrire, il leur en a donne le desir et les forces. La raatiere, la forme, 
 I'ordre, I'cBconoraie, les expressions sent de son inspiration immediate 
 et de sa direction." 
 
 * " Si vous entendez, que les Prophetes et les Apotres n'ont pas ete 
 des instrumeus pureiuent passifs ; des instriimens poussez par des in- 
 spirations, dans toiites les manieres : and qu'au contraire, ils ont ete 
 des iustrumens agissans par une vertu que leur futpropre, comme sont 
 les autres causes secondes, je soutiens que cela est faux : ils n'ont ete, 
 simplement que les organes dont le Saint Esprit s'est servi pour ecrire 
 n'ayant pour ce qui les regarde, que forme les lettres et les carac- 
 teres de I'Ecriture sous la conduite du uicme Esprit, car pour toutes 
 les autres choses, le Saint Esprit les a dictees immediatement lui 
 meme."— Claude's Letters, p. 653. 
 
202 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 whicli books were so often delivered them to eat, not because 
 God fed them with ink and paper, but to teach us, that so oft as 
 he employed them in this heavenly work, they neither spake nor 
 wrote any word of their own, but uttered syllable by syllable as 
 the Spirit put it into their mouths, no otherwise than the harp 
 or the lute doth give a sound according to the discretion of his 
 hands that holdeth and striketh it with skill. The diflference is 
 only this : An instrument, whether it be a pipe or harp, maketh 
 a distinction in the times and sounds, which distinction is well 
 perceived of the hearer, the instrument itself understanding not 
 what is piped or harped. The Prophets and holy men of God not 
 so. ' I opened my mouth,' saith. Ezec/iiel, ' and God reached me a 
 scrouL Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with 
 this I give thee. I eat, and it was sweet in my mouth as honey,' 
 saith the Prophet. Yea sweeter, I am persuaded, than either 
 honey or the honey comb. For herein they were not like harps or 
 lutes, but they felt, they felt the power and strength of their own 
 words. Wlien they spake of our peace, every corner of their 
 hearts was filled with joy. T\Tien they prophesied of mournings, 
 lamentations, and woes to fall upon us, they wept in the bitterness 
 and indignation of spirit, the arm of the Lord being mightj' and 
 strong upon them." 
 
 In the dedication of Hooker's Sermon of Mr Henry Jackson 
 to Mr George Summaster, Principal of Broad- Gates Hall, in Ox- 
 ford, the former says, " Sir — Your kind acceptance of a former 
 testification of that respect I owe you, hath made me venture to 
 show the world these Godly Sermons under your name. In 
 which, as every point is worth observation, so some especially 
 are to be noted. The first, that, as the spirit of Prophecy is 
 from God himself, who doth inwardly heat and enlighten the 
 hearts and minds of his holy penmen, (which if some would dih- 
 gently consider, they would not puzzle themselves with the con- 
 tentions of Scott, and Thomas, whether God only, or his minis- 
 tering spirits, do infuse into mens minds prophetical revelations, 
 per species intelligibiles,) so God framed their words also. Alienee 
 the holy father St Augustine religiously observeth, That all those 
 
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 203 
 
 that understand the sacred writers, will also perceive, that they 
 ought not to use other words than they did, in expressing those 
 heavenly mysteries which their hearts conceived, as the Blessed 
 Virgin did our Saviour, hy the Holy Ghost. " — Hooker's Works, 
 1662, pp. 283, 4. 
 
 Boyle, in his " Considerations touching the Style of the 
 Holy Scriptures," every where asserts that God is the author of 
 the Scriptures, and the writers no more than his secretaries, as 
 page 17. He calls the Holy Ghost " the writer of the Scrip- 
 tures, and the method of the Scriptures the Holy Ghost's 
 way of writing," p. 66. " The inspired writers had their pens 
 guided by an omniscient hand, and were but the several secre- 
 taries of the same enditer," p. 76. " We are not to believe 
 that so divine an enditer, by secretaries," &c., p. 79. " The 
 prophetic spirit that endited them," (the Scriptures,) p. 81. 
 Boyle calls God the author of the Scriptures, p. 122; and next 
 page he calls the Bible " a book published by an omniscient 
 enditer." The Scriptures are " God's dictates," p. 125. 
 " Amongst the thirteen articles of the Jewish creed, one acknow- 
 ledges the very expressions of the Law, (or Pentateuch,) to have 
 been inspired by God," pp. 128, 129. " He vouchsafes to 
 speak to us in almost as glorious a manner as he did to Moses" 
 p. 133. And speaking against profaneness, as it relates to the 
 Scriptures, he says, " and perhaps passing to the impudence of 
 perverting inspired expressions," p. 178. 
 
 Dr Owen, in his Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 Exercitation 1, expresses himself as follows. " And thus, not 
 this or that part, but 2 Timothy, iii. 16, all Scripture was given 
 by inspiration. And herein all the parts or books of it are abso- 
 lutely equal. And in the going out of the whole, 2 Pet. i. 21, 
 holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So 
 that whatever different means God at any time might make use 
 of, in the communication of his mind and will imto any of the 
 prophets or penmen of the Scripture, it was this divine inspira- 
 tion, and being acted by the Holy Ghost both as to things and 
 words, that rendered them infallible revealers of him unto the 
 
204 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 church. And thus the fouadatloa of the canonical authority of 
 the books of the Scripture, is absolutely the same in and unto 
 them all, without the least variety either from any difference in 
 kind or degree." 
 
 Dr OwEK, in his book " Of the Divine Originall, with the 
 a athority, self-evidencing poiver, and light of the Holy Scriptures," 
 p. 6, 10, says, " The various ways of special Revelation, by 
 Dreams, Visions, A.udible Voices, Inspirations, with that pe- 
 cuhar one of the Law-giver, under the Old Testament, called 
 face to face, Exod. xxxiii. 11, Deut. xxxiv. 10, and Numbers, 
 xi. 8, with that which is compared with it, and exalted above 
 it, (Heb. i. 1, 2, 3,) in the New, by the Son, from the bosom of 
 the Father, John, i. 1 7, 1 8, are not of my present consideration, 
 all of them belonging to the manner of the thing inquired after, 
 not the thing itself. 
 
 " By the assertion then laid down of God speaking in the pro- 
 phets of old, from the beginning to the end of that long tract of 
 time, consisting of 1 000 years, wherein he gave out the writings of 
 the Old Testament ; two things are ascertained unto us, which 
 are the foundation of our present discourse. 
 
 " 1. That the Z,aws they made known, the Doctrines they 
 delivered, the Instructions they gave, the Stories they recorded, 
 the Promises of Christ, the Prophecies of Gospel times they gave 
 out, and revealed, were not their OAvn, not conceived in their 
 Minds, not formed by their Reasonings, not retained in their 
 Memories fi-om what they had heard, not by any means before- 
 hand comprehended by them, (1 Pet. i. 10, 11,) but were all of 
 them immediately from God ; there being only a passive concur- 
 rence of their rational faculties in their reception, without any 
 such active obedience, as by any Law they might be obliged unto. 
 Hence, 2dly, God was so with them, and by the Holy Ghost so 
 spake in them, as to their receiving of the tcord from him, and 
 their delivering of it unto others by speaking or writing, as that 
 they were not themselves enabled by any habitual light, know- 
 ledge or conviction of Truth, to declare his 3Iind and Will, but 
 only acted as they were immediately moved by him. Their 
 
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 205 
 
 Tongue in what they said, or their hand in what they wrote, was 
 no more at their own disposal, than the Pen is in the hand of an 
 expert Writer. 
 
 " Hence, as far as their own Personal concernments, as Saints 
 and Believers, did lie in them, they are said to make a diligent 
 inquiry into, and investigation of, the things wliich the Spirit of 
 Christ that spake in themselves did signify, 1 Pet. i. 10, 11. 
 Without this, though their Visions were express, so that in them 
 their eyes were said to he open. Numb. xxiv. 3, 4 ; yet they un- 
 derstood them not. Therefore, also, they studied the Writings 
 and Prophecies of one another, Dan. ix. 2. Thus they attained 
 a saving useful habitual knowledge of the Truths delivered by 
 themselves and others, by the Illiiminatio7i of the Holy Ghost 
 through the Study of the Word, even as we, Psalm cxix. 1 04. 
 But as to the receiving of the Word from God, as God spake in 
 them, they obtained nothing by Study or IMeditation, by inquiry or 
 reading, Amos, vii- 15. Wliether we consider the matter or man- 
 ner of what they received and delivered, or their receiving and 
 delivering of it, they were but as an instrument of Music, giving 
 a sound according to the hand, intention, and skill of him that 
 strikes it. 
 
 " This is variously expressed. Generally it is said the word 
 was to this, or that prophet, which we have rendered, the word 
 came unto them. JSzek. i. 3. It came expressly. It had a sub- 
 sistence given unto it, or an effectual in-being, by the Spirit's en- 
 tering into him, verse 14. Now this coming of the word unto 
 them, had oftentimes such a greatness and expression of the ma- 
 jesty of God upon it, as it filled them with dread and reverence of 
 him, Hob. ill. 16, and also greatly affected even their outward 
 man, Dan. viii. 27. But this dread and terror (which Satan 
 strove to imitate, in his filthy Tripodes,) was pecuhar to the Old 
 Testament, and belonged to the pcedagogie thereof ; Heb. xii. 
 18,. 19, 20, 21. The Spirit, in the declaration of the New Tes- 
 tament, gave out his mind and wUl in a way of more liberty and 
 glory, 2 Cor. 3. The expressiiess and immediacy of revelation 
 was the same ; but the manner of it related more to that glorious 
 O 
 
206 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 liberty in fellowship and communion with the Father, whereunto 
 believers had then an access provided them by Jesus Christ. Heh. 
 ix. 8. ch. X. 19, 20. ch. xii. 23, 24. So our Saviour tells his 
 Apostles, Matt. x. 20, You are not the speakers of what you de- 
 liver, as other men are, the figment and imagination of whose 
 hearts are the fountain of all that they speak ; and he adds this 
 reason, The Spirit of the Father (is) he that speaketh in you. 
 Thus the word that came unto them, was a book which they took 
 in, and gave out without any alteration of one tittle or syllable. 
 £:zek. ii. 8, 9, 10, 11. ch. iii. 3. Revel, x. 9, 10, 11. 
 
 " Moreover, when the word was thus come to the prophets, 
 and God had spoken in them, it was not in their power to conceal 
 it, the hand of the Lord being strong upon them. They were not 
 now only on a general account to utter the truth they were made 
 acquainted withall, and to speak the things they had heard and 
 seen, which was their common preaching work according to the 
 analoffie of what they had received, Acts, iv. 20 ; but also the 
 very individual words that they had received were to be declared. 
 WTien the word was come to them, it was as a Jire within them, 
 that must be delivered, or it would consume tliem, JPsal. xxxix. 
 3; Jer. XX. 9; Amos, iii. 8. chap. vii. 15, 16. So Jonah 
 found his attempt to hide the word that he had received, to be 
 altogether vain." 
 
 EsTius, in his commentary on the words, " All Scripture is 
 given 6y inspiration of God," says, " It is rightly and most truly 
 concluded from this place, that all the sacred and canonical Scrip- 
 ture is written by the dictate of the Holy Spirit, in such a man- 
 ner certainly, that not only the sentiments, but also the particular 
 words, and the order of the words, (verba singula et verborum 
 ordo,) and all the arrangement, is from God speaking as by him- 
 self, for this is the meaning of the expression — that Scripture is 
 divinely inspired." The theologians in the University of Douay, 
 in which Estius taught theology, had made a decree of the above 
 tenor, directly condemning Simon's opinion on the subject, and 
 the Father Jesuits of Louvain. Here, then, is the decree of a whole 
 University in support of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. 
 
EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 207 
 
 Those Douay divines declared that they had examined the propo- 
 sitions of the Jesuits of Louvain, by order of the Archbishop of 
 Cambray and of JNIalines, and of the Bishop of Ghent. 
 
 " The words of the Lord are pure words ; as silver tried 
 in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Psalra, xii. 6. In 
 reference to this passage, Bishop Jewell observes — " There is no 
 sentence, no clause, no word, no syllable, no letter, but it is 
 written for thy instruction; there is not one jot, but it is sealed 
 and signed with the blood of the Lamb. Our imaginations are 
 idle, our thoughts are vain ; there is no. idleness, no vanity in 
 the Word of God." 
 
 The above extracts are not given in the way of 
 authority; on such a subject no authority except that 
 of the Scriptures is admissible. They are introduced 
 in opposition to the assertions of those who speak as 
 if the verbal inspiration of the Bible was a novel 
 doctrine. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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