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 THE 
 
 BIBLE NOT OF MAN: "l 
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE DIVINE ORIGIN 
 
 SACRED SCRIPTURES, 
 
 DRAWN FROM THE SCRIPTURES THEMSELVES. 
 
 BY GARDINER SPRING, D,D,, 
 
 1'A.STOR OF THE BRICK CHURCH IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 I certify you, that the Gospel which -was preached of me is not 
 after man. PAUL 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 1BO NASSAU-STREET, NEW-YORK.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by 
 O. R. KINGSBURY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of the State of 
 New-York. 
 

 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION. 
 
 THE FITNESS OF THE TIME SELECTED BY DIVINE 
 PROVIDENCE FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF THE 
 CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The extreme corruption of religion and manners throughout 
 
 the pagan world 10 
 
 The religious and moral condition of the Jewish nation . . 15 
 
 It was an age of great intellectual vigor and refinement . . 18 
 
 The world was at peace 24 
 
 The time was that predicted in the Jewish Scriptures . . 28 
 It was such that it is difficult to account for the success of 
 
 the Gospel without the intervention of Almighty power . 35 
 
 Allegations of Gibbon refuted 38 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE BIBLE ABOVE THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN 
 
 INTELLECT. 
 
 The views which the Scriptures give of the Deity ... 46 
 
 The views presented of the Divine purposes 49 
 
 The Scripture account of the work of creation 51 
 
 The Scripture account of the works of Providence ... 53 
 
 The view the Scriptures present of the redemption of man . 56 
 
 Everything the Bible reveals, forms a part of one great whole 61 
 
 The inexhaustible fulness of the Sacred Writings .... 64 
 The intellectual character of the writers of the Bible, and of 
 
 the age in which it was written 67 
 
 2051927
 
 * ?v 
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE A SUPERHUMAN SPIRIT. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 This peculiar spirit appears in its precepts and truths . . 73 
 It is most emphatically expressed, in all its tenderness, when 
 
 and where it is most needed 75 
 
 The spirit of those institutions which the Bible establishes . 78 
 Its spirit of kindness flows out to all classes of the human 
 
 family ... ^ *-.,,. 80 
 
 The great end and motive of the Divine conduct which it 
 
 reveals 84 
 
 The spirit of the Bible as expressed in its own wondrous 
 
 method^of redeeming mercy 86 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MORAL RECTITUDE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 The truth and justice of its moral distinctions 97 
 
 It furnishes the only perfect standard of moral rectitude . . 100 
 The solicitude it expresses, and the means it adopts for the 
 
 promotion of moral rectitude among men 105 
 
 The protection of moral rectitude in the dispensations of 
 
 pardoning mercy 109 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PECULIAR DOCTRINES OF THE BIBLE GIVE EVI- 
 DENCE OF ITS DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 The character of man 119 
 
 The moral transformation indispensable to salvation . . . 120 
 The method of the sinner's pardon and acceptance with God 122 
 
 The distinctive character of Christian piety 122 
 
 The purpose of God in extending his grace to a chosen 
 
 people 123 
 
 The eternal punishment of the incorrigible enemies of God 124
 
 CONTENTS. 5 
 
 PACE. 
 
 The duty of believing the Gospel . 124 
 
 No false religion has such frank and unreserved honesty . 12G 
 No false religion would have given those great and peculiar 
 
 doctrines such prominence 129 
 
 No false religion would have disclosed truths so obnoxious 
 
 to the human heart 133 
 
 These truths would have been fatal to the success of Chris- 
 tianity, if it had not been from God . 137 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE A PROOF OF ITS DIVINE 
 ORIGIN. 
 
 It is founded in knowledge 152 
 
 It is the religion of the heart , 154 
 
 Its unearthly tendency 161 
 
 It is a progressive and growing religion 163 
 
 The religion of the saints of the Old and New Testament is 
 represented as an imperfect religion 166 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE UNITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 The agreement in the facts narrated 172 
 
 Unity in the representations of religious truth 178 
 
 The harmony of doctrine, experience, and practice .... 182 
 The harmony of the Old and New Testaments 185 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ADAPTATION OF THE SCRIPTURES TO THE CHARAC- 
 TER AND WANTS OF MAN. 
 
 Their adaptation to man as an individual 198 
 
 Their adaptation to man in his social relations 211
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 This adaptation is as extensive as it is minute 216 
 
 This revelation is adapted to all periods of time .... 220 
 Illustration from the South Sea Islanders .... . 227 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SCRIPTURES ATTESTED 
 BY CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 The great truths of the Bible fitted to exert an influence on 
 
 the heart 233 
 
 It is a book of promises 237 
 
 Its instructions on the subject of prayer 239 
 
 It gives peace and consolation in death 242 
 
 The testimony of the Christian's experience not refuted by 
 
 the negative testimony of the infidel 247 
 
 The Christian's experience founded on solid reasons . . . 248 
 The nature of the evidence from experience and conscious- 
 ness 251 
 
 The testimony from the Christian's experience fortified by 
 unnumbered witnesses . . 256 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BIBLE ACCORDANT WITH HUMAN REASON. 
 
 To reason justly, men must have the opportunity and the 
 
 means of reasoning 266 
 
 May not the Author of the book of nature and of providence 
 
 give a more full revelation of his will ? 269 
 
 Is there anything unreasonable in the revelation itself? . . 270 
 It may contain truths which human reason would not have 
 
 discovered 271 
 
 And truths above and beyond the power of human reason to 
 
 comprehend 273 
 
 The great truths and principles of the Bible constitute a 
 
 reasonable system 276
 
 CONTENTS. 7 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 The nature and importance of the argument from the Bible 
 
 itself 288 
 
 Relations of the argument to those who reject its Divine 
 
 authority 296 
 
 The doctrine of the church of Rome respecting the authority 
 
 of the Sacred Writings 301 
 
 The province of reason in all matters of religious faith . . 304 
 
 A common error of modern Rationalists 306 
 
 The importance of established religious principles . . . .311 
 The Scriptures deserve the most serious and patient study, 
 
 and affectionate regard * . . . 316
 
 PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION. 
 
 THE FITNESS OF THE TIME SELECTED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE 
 FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. 
 
 THE time was long between the promise given 
 to our first parents in the garden of Eden, and the 
 actual coming of the promised Saviour. The pa- 
 triarchs were looking for him, but his advent was 
 delayed. The prophets were looking for him, and 
 " inquired and searched diligently what, or what 
 manner of time" it would be when He should appear, 
 of whose " sufferings they testified beforehand, and 
 the glory that should follow." Holy men were 
 watching and waiting ; holy women too were look- 
 ing out in anxious expectation for that highly fa- 
 vored one, who should be the mother of Him who 
 was the " Seed of the woman," and the " Son of 
 the Highest." 
 
 But the time was still distant. Four thousand 
 years passed slowly away before this long cherished 
 and eager expectation was fulfilled, a^nd He who 
 " thought it no robbery to be equal with God took 
 upon him the form of a servant," and men beheld 
 his glory " as the only begotten of the Father, full 
 of grace and truth." So long indeed was the pro- 
 
 Bible not of Man. 1*
 
 10 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 mise delayed, that not a few began to despair of its 
 ever being fulfilled ; nor were there wanting those 
 who questioned the divine origin of the predictions 
 which foretold his advent. But he who " sees not 
 as man sees," unto whom " a thousand years are as 
 one day, and one day is as a thousand years," had 
 nevertheless been preparing the way as fast as his 
 unerring wisdom saw best. Events had been taking 
 place of high interest ; revolution had been succeed- 
 ing revolution in the earth with a view to his ap- 
 pearing. " When the fulness of time was come, 
 God sent forth his Son." It was in every respect 
 the fit season. It was not too soon, nor was it too 
 late, to secure the objects of his incarnation. 
 
 The period selected was, in many particulars, a 
 remarkable period ; but it was wonderfully fitted to 
 confirm the truth of divine revelation; to wake 
 the nations from their long-continued stupidity and 
 infatuation, and fix their attention upon the design 
 of his advent ; as well as to show the power of God 
 in extending his Gospel and kingdom through the 
 earth, in defiance of the powers of darkness, and the 
 stagnant unbelief of men. 
 
 \ In adverting to some of the characteristics of this 
 period, the first that strikes us is, the extreme cor- 
 ruption of religion and manners throughout the 
 pagan world. We have no means of ascertaining 
 for how long a period after the creation men retained 
 the knowledge of the true God. Very soon after 
 the flood, and certainly as early as the foundation 
 of the Babylonian empire, they became idolaters.
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. H 
 
 From that period, the greater part of mankind 
 had been wandering in paths which resembled an 
 inextricable labyrinth, the deadly vapors of which 
 extinguished the faint light that conducted their 
 footsteps. More especially from the time in which 
 God called Abraham out from Ur of the Chaldees, 
 do the Gentile nations seem to have been given 
 over to a reprobate mind. From one false notion 
 of the Deity to another more false, and from one 
 system of foolish and demoralizing observances to 
 another, they rushed into idolatry of the grossest 
 form, until they lost sight of most of their religious 
 traditions ; and " because they did not like to retain 
 God in their knowledge," had become " Atheists in 
 the world." Phoenicia, Egypt, and Thrace, trans- 
 mitted their absurd mythology to Greece and Rome, 
 and amid the multiplicity of their gods, the one only 
 living and true God had no place. A selected and 
 favored few there were, in whose bosoms something 
 like the miniature resemblance of this great truth 
 was locked up as an inaccessible secret ; while the 
 multitude thought the Godhead " like unto gold, 
 and silver, and stone, graven by art and man's 
 device." 
 
 Heathen sages had written upon the nature of 
 virtue and the obligations to practise it, while their 
 own vices showed that they had little knowledge 
 of morals, and were very ineffectual teachers of it 
 to others. " Across the night of paganism, philoso- 
 phy flitted on, like the lantern-fly of the tropics, a 
 light to itself, but alas t no more than an ornament
 
 
 12 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of the surrounding darkness." Thinking minds had 
 proposed to themselves questions of importance to 
 the life that now is, and still more important to that 
 which is to come, without being able to give to any 
 one of them a satisfactory answer. Everywhere 
 they saw mysteries ; and withal, so dense a cloud 
 hanging over the vast future, that the farther they 
 pursued their inquiries the deeper were they plunged 
 in painful uncertainty. Their thoughts of another 
 life were all confused and obscure. Much was 
 written of " manes, and ghosts, and shades of de- 
 parted men;" their poets sang of streams that emp- 
 tied into the infernal regions, of " Elysian Fields," 
 of the seats of the blessed, and of nectar quaffed by 
 the gods ; but they were fables got up for the vulgar, 
 and in which the very inventors of them had no 
 confidence. With all her fascinating beauty and 
 tenderness, poetry herself believed not what she 
 wrote ; and though in accordance with the spirit of 
 the age she publicly rehearsed the absurdities of her 
 mythology, in her hours of loneliness and reflection 
 she scarcely ventured to echo the strains of her own 
 lyre. The popular and civil theology, established 
 by the laws, " worshipped everything as god except 
 God himself," and gave its sanction to rites in which 
 there was such a mingling of absurdity, lascivious- 
 ness, and cruelty, that they may not be recited. 
 Conscience was not so obdurate and silent, as to be 
 prevented from uttering her admonitions ; nor yet so 
 benighted, as not to have some strong, though in- 
 distinct apprehensions of a terrible recompense. Nor
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 13 
 
 was reason, in the midst of all her degradation, so 
 absolutely stupefied and brutalized, as not some- 
 times to assert her own greatness, and grasp realities 
 of terrible import. And the more they did this, the 
 more they both stood in frightful perplexity, lest the 
 labyrinth in which they were wandering should 
 border on the verge of the precipice. The state of 
 the pagan mind, however well informed on other 
 subjects, on the subject of religion and morals was 
 to the last degree degraded and melancholy. Among 
 other facts which illustrate this remark, it may be 
 noticed, that the Senate of Rome itself did not pass 
 the decree for the abolition of human sacrifices, 
 until the consulship of Publius Lucius Crassus and 
 Cneius Lentulus, which was but about ninety years 
 before the coming of Christ. Nowhere is so much 
 information upon this point contained within so 
 small a compass, as in the first chapter of Paul's 
 Epistle to the Romans. It is difficult to read the 
 description there given without putting a veil upon 
 one's face. The schools of virtue had degenerated 
 into the merest sinks of vice and immorality ; their 
 religion itself had consecrated all sorts of crime ; 
 while the best that can be said of their gods is, that 
 they were the finest representations which the inge- 
 nuity and skill of the sculptor could furnish of the 
 basest of human passions. 
 
 Such had long been the religious and moral state 
 of the heathen world ; and when the Saviour came 
 it was at its maturity. We cannot delineate the 
 scene, nor tell its darkness. It was the gloom of
 
 14 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 pervading error, and almost universal crime. It 
 could not be seen, for it enveloped men like the mist 
 of midnight, and was " darkness that might be felt." 
 It penetrated the halls of science and the schools of 
 philosophy ; it shrouded the palaces of kings, threw 
 its dark pall over the chambers of legislation, and 
 overlaid, with its broad mantle, the whole pagan 
 world. Temples, with their shrines, victims, and 
 priests, were wrapped in it ; their vestal fires became 
 flickering, grew pale, and were extinguished. Men 
 there had been, and were, who had erected stupen- 
 dous monuments in honor of the human intellect ; 
 but on the relations of man to his Maker, they rea- 
 soned and wrote like children. In the darkness that 
 overshadowed them they walked at random; they 
 had an aim, they were conscious there was some- 
 thing to seek after ; but they groped about, " if haply 
 they might feel after God, and find him." Here 
 and there, at long intervals, the human mind cast 
 forth a ray of light, but it was fleeting and gone ; 
 like the sudden lightning, it served only to render 
 the gloom which followed more intense and appal- 
 ling. Night is not darker than the dark day which 
 then overhung the earth. If the deep and dire exi- 
 gences of men could constitute a fitting season for 
 His coming who was to be the " light of the world," 
 the time had come to interpose either for extermi- 
 nating or saving it. There could not have been a 
 more seasonable period for God's unfolding his own 
 divine method dlf mercy. The nations could no lon- 
 ger be left in this fearful degradation ; the prince of 

 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 15 
 
 darkness could no longer be permitted to roam the 
 earth without restraint ; the God of love could no 
 longer withhold his Son. 
 
 Nor was the religious and moral condition of the 
 Jewish nation more enviable than that of the pagan 
 world. The Hebrew race were, from the beginning, 
 designed to be subservient to the introduction of the 
 Gospel to all mankind. Lying as they did upon the 
 borders of Asia, Europe, and Africa, they held a 
 position which signally qualified them to be made 
 use of for this purpose. But by their guilty sym- 
 pathy with the character of the pagan nations, they 
 became partakers also of their wants and woes. The 
 apostle, after having given the humbling descrip- 
 tion of other lands, to which we just now referred, 
 applies the same description to the Jews. His epis- 
 tle was more especially directed to Jews ; and his 
 language to them is, " Wherefore thou art inexcus- 
 able, O man that judgest, for wherein thou judgest 
 another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that 
 judgest doest the same things" The Jews had long 
 enjoyed the knowledge of God, as it was revealed 
 from heaven ; they had been educated amid rites 
 and sacrifices that were prefigurative of the great 
 redemption ; they had come to maturity under the 
 instructions of a lawgiver, of holy men, of poets, and 
 of seers who had miraculous intercourse with hea- 
 ven, and whose great theme was the advent of the 
 predicted Deliverer. But they were an arrogant and 
 proud people, an unbelieving, hard-hearted people, 
 and profited little from their distinguished privileges.
 
 16 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 Until " the carrying away into Babylon" they were 
 an idolatrous people nay, " mad upon their idols." 
 Wise as their system of religion was, and fitted as 
 it was to answer great and important ends, and of 
 divine origin as it was, it was not designed to be the 
 universal, nor perpetual religion. It was but the 
 commencement of those more complete discoveries 
 of religious truth, which subsequent revelations were 
 to supply; a sort of preparatory school, that was 
 introductory to a more perfect dispensation. The 
 apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, dwells upon 
 this thought in its relations to the truth we are illus- 
 trating. " Now I say that the heir, so long as he is 
 a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he 
 be lord of all ; but is under tutors and governors 
 until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, 
 when we were children, were in bondage under the 
 elements of the world : but when the fulness of time 
 was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, 
 made under the law, to redeem them that were un- 
 der the law, that we might receive the adoption of 
 sons." : *.V 
 
 The Jewish dispensation, at the time of the Sav- 
 iour's coming, was an old and worn out economy ; 
 it bore the marks of decay and dissolution j it had 
 accomplished its object without making the nation 
 holy : because it had done its work, it was " ready 
 to vanish away." It " could not make the comers 
 thereunto perfect." 
 
 But it was important that its inefficacy should 
 be proved; and the actual condition of the Hebrew
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 17 
 
 nation was now such as to convince them, and the 
 world, how little it could accomplish. When the 
 Saviour came, their moral depravity was fast ad- 
 vancing to the last extremities of human wickedness. 
 The cup of their iniquity was full. " Never," says 
 their own historian Josephus, speaking of them but 
 a few years after the birth of Christ " never was 
 there a time since the beginning of the world more 
 fruitful in wickedness." Their national history, from 
 the days of Malachi to John the Baptist, furnishes 
 the most painful and affecting proof that the con- 
 dition, even of this favored people of God, demanded 
 the interposition of some great Teacher who should 
 speak "with authority, and not as the Scribes." 
 Portions of them were sunk in great and dishearten- 
 ing stupidity ; and while the minds of other portions 
 were moved and excited, they were in a state of 
 perplexing doubt, cruel fear, and terrible agitation. 
 For four hundred years, the people who had been 
 wont to enjoy habitual intercourse with the Deity, 
 and to receive frequent and repeated instructions 
 from his lips, had not heard the voice of the God of 
 Abraham, nor had a single messenger from heaven 
 visited them. As a nation, they slept the sleep of 
 death, and seemed to be fast verging towards abso- 
 lute destruction. The nation was not absolutely 
 broken up ; their religious and civil economy were 
 not actually dissolved ; but they were " without form 
 and void." 
 
 But the Creator's purposes were not completed 
 in this dark chaos. Already was his Spirit silently
 
 18 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and gently hovering over the face of the waters. 
 Rays of truth began to be evolved, which had long 
 been latent, and here and there a few faint beams 
 emerged from the distant horizon. Minds that had 
 been waiting in anxious expectation, caught the 
 coming day as its first light kissed the hill-tops 
 of Judea, and rose brighter until it fell upon its 
 vales, to "give light to them that sat in darkness 
 and dwelt in the shadow of death." Lowly cot- 
 tages were cheered by it, and John saw it in the 
 wilderness. The shepherds of Bethlehem beheld it 
 as they watched their flocks, and heard the cheer- 
 ful voices that announced its rising : till, at length, 
 the eastern Magi discovered it in the star that led 
 them to the place where the holy child Jesus was 
 cradled. 
 
 It is a fact, in several respects of deep interest, 
 that the age in which the Saviour of men became 
 incarnate, was also an age of great intellectual vigor 
 and refinement. This was important, in the first 
 place, for the sake of showing that " the world by 
 wisdom knew not God." One of the leading infidel 
 objections to Christianity is, that it is needless, and 
 that the lights of human reason and the refinements 
 of philosophy are able to accomplish all that Chris- 
 tianity proposes. This question is to be determined 
 by facts. It is by appealing to the moral character 
 of our race under the brightest periods of this world's 
 history ; to periods when the lights of reason and na- 
 ture had made all the discoveries they could make, 
 and when the wise men of this world had taught all,
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 19 
 
 and more than they knew, that we can form a just 
 estimate of their instructions. Nor is it by any 
 doubtful or tedious process that we are driven to the 
 conclusion, that the most vigorous and best in- 
 structed minds the world has known, themselves 
 knew little of the great subjects of which Chris- 
 tianity treats, and which relate to man's eternal well- 
 being. It was an age of unequalled civilization and 
 learning when Christ came : so far as human influ- 
 ences could render them so, civilization and learning 
 were at the zenith of their glory. The palmy days 
 of Grecian literature had indeed become obscured : 
 the age of Pericles and Alcibiades passed away when 
 Greece was reduced to a Roman province. But for 
 a long time after this, Greece maintained a silent su- 
 periority over her conquerors ; her arts of peace and 
 her schools of philosophy still gave her the preemi- 
 nence. Athens was still a great commercial empo- 
 rium, and the tribunal of the Areopagus, one of the 
 most sacred and reputable courts of law in the Gen- 
 tile world, was distinguished for its legal research 
 and acumen, and for the weight and impartiality of 
 its decisions. Some of the most learned men in Rome 
 were still educated in Greece. Julius Csesar was a 
 pupil of Apollonius Milo, at Rhodes, and Cicero him- 
 self, during the civil wars of Rome, was a pupil of 
 the same scholar, as well as of Philo, a refugee from 
 Athens and then at Rome. The sons of Roman 
 princes and senators to a great extent, either procured 
 Greek instructors in Rome, or were sent to Greece 
 as the favorite habitation of genius, eloquence, and
 
 <JO THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 fancy, and as the consecrated soil where the arts at- 
 tained their highest perfection. 
 
 Rome, too, then extended her boundaries from 
 the Atlantic on the west, to the Euphrates on the 
 east ; and from the Rhine and the Danube on the 
 north, to the deserts of Arabia and Africa on the 
 south. With the exception of Britain soon after 
 subdued by Agricola, the interior of Africa, and the 
 hardy barbarians of the north of Europe, her proud 
 Eagle had become the standard of the world. It 
 was also the golden age of Rome " the Augustan 
 age," proverbial for its preeminence in literature 
 and the arts. Augustus Caesar, whose personal 
 character might indeed have given him rank with 
 Marius, or Sylla, or Nero, was placed by Divine 
 providence in circumstances which extended his 
 reputation as a warrior, a statesman and a legislator, 
 to the utmost kingdoms, came to the throne about 
 twenty years before the Saviour was born, and then 
 reigned in the splendor of his power. Whatever 
 learning and civilization could achieve for the world, 
 it had the full and unembarrassed opportunity of 
 performing ; while the result shows, that, as the in- 
 tellect of men became invigorated and accomplished, 
 their morals became degraded, and their religion as 
 degraded and vicious as the human mind can well 
 conceive it to be. And what more fitting time for 
 introducing the Gospel ; for showing that " the 
 weakness of God is stronger than men, and the fool- 
 ishness of God is wiser than men?" The Scrip- 
 tures call our attention to this remarkable fact. " It
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 21 
 
 is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, 
 and will bring to nothing the understanding of the 
 prudent. Where is the wise ? where is the scribe ? 
 where is the disputer of this world ? hath not God 
 made foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after 
 that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom 
 knew not G,od, it pleased God by the foolishness of 
 preaching to save them that believe." It is an ob- 
 servable expression of Divine wisdom, that his own 
 decree for the moral elevation of men should not be 
 carried into effect until " after that " human wis- 
 dom had made its full, and fair, and best experi- 
 ment, and demonstration was had that "the world 
 by wisdom knew not God." Nor is there to be 
 found at the present day, or at any period in the 
 history of the past, more convincing evidence of the 
 insufficiency of natural religion, than is found in the 
 intellectual refinement of that age in which " the 
 Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." 
 
 There was another important object attained by 
 the Saviour's advent at this period of intellectual 
 refinement. It was to silence the objection that 
 Christianity could not endure the scrutiny of learn- 
 ing and refinement. In introducing the new re- 
 ligion, a religion which, from the simplicity of its 
 rites, the diffusiveness of its spirit, and the extent 
 of its offered salvation, should stand abreast with 
 the wants of the race, it was greatly desirable that 
 it should be introduced at a time when its claims 
 could be thoroughly canvassed, and the evidence of 
 its divine origin could be put to the test by the
 
 22 THEr,BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 severest scrutiny of the most competent and well- 
 furnished minds. It had been an inauspicious cir- 
 cumstance, and a triumph to infidelity not easily si- 
 lenced, had Christianity, like the religion of Mahomet, 
 commenced its progress in an ignorant and uncivi- 
 lized country, and in a barbarous age. It had been 
 no difficult matter, in such an age, to have practised 
 the grossest imposition ; nor, at such a period, would 
 men have been qualified for that grave research 
 without which no religion ought to be received, nor 
 for ferreting out those tricks of imposture which 
 are attendant upon all false religions. In this re- 
 spect Christianity stands upon high ground. Her 
 infant Author first announced himself to an age 
 celebrated in story and immortalized in song. His 
 apostles travelled over classic ground. They estab- 
 lished churches in the land of Euclid, of Aristotle, 
 and Longinus ; of Demosthenes, Solon, and Lycur- 
 gus ; of Homer and Pindar ; of Terence and Varro, 
 Atticus and Cicero, Sallust and Livy, Horace, Ovid, 
 and Virgil. Lands that had given birth to such 
 men, were not likely to shut their eyes upon the 
 gradual encroachment of a religion that counter- 
 acted all their previous notions, and that poured 
 contempt upon their altars and their gods. Rather 
 would they scrutinize, with the utmost severity, 
 every item of the evidence by which a religion, 
 claiming to be from Heaven, was supported. Reck- 
 oning from the birth of Augustus Cassar a few years 
 onward, we find a constellation of bright and 
 splendid men throwing their light over the Roman
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 23 
 
 empire. Seneca, the preceptor of Nero, and per- 
 haps more distinguished for his moral virtues than 
 any other heathen philosopher ; Lucan, the poet ; 
 Quintus Curtius, the historian of Alexander the 
 Great ; Pliny the elder, the celebrated philosopher 
 and natural historian, who perished during an erup- 
 tion of Mount Vesuvius; Josephus, the celebrated 
 Jewish historian ; Martial, Epictetus, and Quintil- 
 ian, the last of whom was an orator and critic of 
 great celebrity, was patronized by the emperors, 
 established a school of rhetoric at Rome, and whose 
 work remains a text-book in the modern universities' 
 of Europe. These were the men, and such as these, 
 who exerted an influence upon the Roman intellect 
 and character at the period when Christianity began 
 its progress. 
 
 It may perhaps be still more to our purpose to 
 remark, that the age was one of great legal acumen, 
 and one in which there were not wanting men who 
 were familiar with the laws of evidence, and were 
 trained in the trade of reasoning. The celebrated 
 law of the Twelve Tables, a system of jurisprudence 
 which served as the root of Roman law, which was 
 subsequently digested under Justinian, and which is 
 deemed of no small value in modern times, had al- 
 ready been selected and arranged. It may be ques- 
 tioned, whether the mind of man was ever better 
 prepared to investigate the claims of the new re- 
 ligion, and the great facts on which that religion 
 turned, than was the Gentile mind at that age of the 
 world. And this was the period when the Saviour
 
 24 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 came. It was when the lights of varied science co- 
 operated with the deeply imbedded prejudices of men 
 against all unwarrantable and ill-founded innovations, 
 that He came who had nothing to fear from the most 
 rigid and unsparing investigation of his title to hu- 
 man confidence. 
 
 It may be remarked in the next place, and as an 
 index of bright augury, that at the time the Saviour 
 was born the world was at peace. Rome had risen 
 to her proud superiority by conquest. The seven 
 hundred years of the Commonwealth had been dis- 
 tinguished by nothing so much as her conflicts with 
 the nations of the earth, and her internal and civil 
 dissensions and massacres. But by a most kind inter- 
 position of Divine Providence, these evils were now 
 suspended, and there was a universal, armistice be- 
 tween the great conqueror and all the nations of the 
 earth. Antiochus of Syria, and the Galatians or 
 Asiatic Gauls, had submitted to Rome on her own 
 terms. The second Macedonian war had termi- 
 nated the kingdom of Macedon at the battle of Pyd- 
 na, and the Grecian independence was overthrown 
 under the walls of Corinth. Scipio Africanus had 
 terminated the third Punic war by the destruction 
 of Carthage, and the Roman army had been trium- 
 phant in Spain and Gaul. The Numidian wars had 
 been brought to a close by Caius Marius, and Jugur- 
 tha had been led in triumph to Rome. An effectual 
 check had been given to the Cimmerian and Scy- 
 thian tribes in the north, the revolt of the Italian 
 allies had been happily terminated by the generosity 

 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 25 
 
 of their conquerors, and the pirates of Sicily had been 
 finally suppressed and colonized by the prowess and 
 wisdom of Pompey. Jerusalem had been taken also 
 by the same accomplished warrior; and the em- 
 bittered contest between the popular and aristocratic 
 parties in Rome had been brought to a close, by the 
 triumphant arms of Julius Caesar over Pompey at the 
 battle of Pharsalia. The internal dissensions between 
 Octavius Caesar and Anthony on the one side, and 
 Brutus and Cassius on the other, had been terminated 
 at Philippi ; Egypt had been reduced to a Roman pro- 
 vince, by the victory of Octavius over the far-famed 
 Queen Cleopatra ; and Octavius, now Augustus Cae- 
 sar, was called to the throne. The policy of Augus- 
 tus was a peaceful policy ; his object was to effect 
 the stability, rather than the extension of the em- 
 pire. This emperor died at the advanced age of 
 seventy-five years, between the birth and the cruci- 
 fixion of Christ, and on his death-bed left his coun- 
 sel to his statesmen and warriors to make no furtheV 
 incursion upon other lands, but to cultivate the arts 
 of peace. The Cantabrian war was terminated after 
 he came to the throne, and by his orders the temple 
 of Jamis was closed. The disturbances in the Bos- 
 phorus were now appeased by Agrippa ; Drusus was 
 recalled from Germany, and the command of the 
 army in that province intrusted to Tiberius. The 
 ambition of Augustus was gratified by the consoli- 
 dation of the empire, and all his plans were to 
 augment its splendor by its industry, its litera- 
 ture, its wealth, and its arts. A short period after 
 
 Bible not of Man. 2
 
 26 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 the birth of Christ, the war in Germany broke out 
 again ; but at the time of his birth, it was a season 
 of profound peace throughout the Roman Empire. 
 The temple of Janus having been reopened during 
 these disturbances, it was now again closed, under 
 new auspices, and remained shut until Jerusalem was 
 taken and destroyed by Titus. Janus was the god 
 of war ; and as such was before all other gods, even 
 before Jupiter himself. Hence, in the great war be- 
 tween the Latins and the Romans, the formula, dic- 
 tated by the Pontifex Maximus to Publius Decius 
 when he devoted himself and the legions of the ene- 
 my to the gods of death, addresses Janus as the god 
 who was specially invited to go out with them to 
 battle. He was one of the ancient Pelasgian deities. 
 The gate of Janus was the Porta Janualis, one of the 
 gates of the original Rome, on the Palatine road, and 
 an entrance gate into the city. As the city became 
 extended, it was subsequently included within the 
 city itself. His principal temple was that of Janus 
 Quirinus. The statue of this god was set up at the 
 Porta Janualis rather than at any other place, be- 
 cause tradition recorded, that in the battle between 
 the Romans and the Sabines, in the reign of Romu- 
 lus, he had wrought signal deliverances for Rome 
 on that very spot. It was the usage of the Romans 
 to open the gates of this temple in the time of war, 
 and in the time of peace to shut them. They had 
 been closed but five years since the building of 
 Rome, and once only between the reigns of Numa 
 and Augustus, and that was at the close of the first
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 27 
 
 Punic war. Rome was shaken by no intestine di- 
 visions, and the splendor of her foreign conquests 
 seemed to promise tranquillity for a great while to 
 come. AT THIS PERIOD THE SAVIOUR WAS BORN. 
 Successive wars had agitated the empire for ages ; 
 but for twelve years, the confused noise of battle 
 had scarcely been heard.* There was time for 
 thought, for there was tranquillity. It was a fitting 
 season for Him to appear, who was the Prince of 
 Peace and the harbinger of reconciliation between 
 God and man. It was predicted of him, that "in 
 his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance 
 of peace, so long as the moon endureth." 
 
 The mild genius of Christianity has nothing to 
 do with war, save to exterminate it from the earth. 
 The spirit of Christ is not the spirit of blood. Mili- 
 tary history is not the history of the true Gospel. 
 "I came not," says its Divine Author, "to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save them." The church of God 
 may be an injured, a suffering, a subjugated commu- 
 nity, but she is not a ferocious and warlike commu- 
 nity. Of all the causes which obstruct the progress 
 of Christianity, war is the most fatal the growling 
 faces of the double-headed Janus, the most terrific. 
 There were none of these fears, and none of these 
 distractions, when He descended to dwell with men, 
 who was to subdue their selfish and ferocious pas- 
 sions, and " make wars cease unto the ends of the 
 earth." He who from his high and holy place 
 
 * Prideaux' Connexions. Blair's Chronological Tables. En- 
 cyclop. Art. Rom. Empire, and Arnold's Rome.
 
 28 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 assorts the prerogative, " I form the light and create 
 darkness ; I make peace and create evil ;" and in 
 " whose hand is the heart of the king, and he turneth 
 it whithersoever he will," had hushed the jarring in- 
 terests and the more jarring hearts of men, for the 
 purpose of setting up his kingdom, and giving an 
 impulse to his empire, who " shall judge among the 
 nations, and shall rebuke many people ; and they 
 shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their 
 spears into pruning-hooks," neither shall they " learn 
 war any more." 
 
 " Peaceful was the night, 
 Wherein the Prince of light 
 His reign of peace on earth began." 
 
 In the beautiful language of the greatest of Eng- 
 lish poets, 
 
 " No war, or battle's sound 
 Was heard the world around ; 
 The idle spear and shield were high uphung, 
 The hooked chariot stood 
 Unstained with hostile blood, 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng, 
 And kings sat still with awful eye, 
 As if they surely knew their Sovereign Lord was by." 
 
 Another fact of interest is, that the time of the 
 Saviour's coming was that predicted in the Jewish 
 Scriptures. He himself was a Jew, and his first 
 mission was to the Jewish people. " Unto you 
 first" says the Apostle Peter to the Jews, "God 
 having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 29 
 
 you, in turning every one of you from his iniqui- 
 ties." His own commission to his immediate dis- 
 ciples was, to " go first to the lost sheep of the 
 house of Israel," "beginning at Jerusalem." The 
 sum and substance of all the predictions in the Old 
 Testament, the whole scope and spirit of the entire 
 system of its prophecies, is the testimony it bears to 
 Jesus Christ. Either from the teachings of their 
 own lingering traditions, or from their acquaintance 
 with the dispersed Jews, or from their knowledge 
 of the Old Testament Scriptures, translated as they 
 had "been into the beautiful and fertile language of 
 the Greeks, and of which the curiosity of every 
 scholar would have led him to know something, or 
 from some heaven-imparted intimation, or from all 
 these combined, there was a general expectation, 
 even in the pagan mind, of some great and salutary 
 change in human affairs, through the appearance 
 arid interposition of some distinguished Personage, 
 who would become the benefactor of the race. 
 Wise heathen there were, who had expressed the 
 hope that the world would ere long find some relief 
 from the pervading doubts and darkness that had 
 so long rested upon it, in the dawning, at least, of a 
 brighter day. The beautiful Eclogue of Virgil, ad- 
 dressed to the Emperor Augustus, in which he sings 
 of the approaching Golden Age, sometimes seems to 
 the Christian scholar to be almost an inspired pre- 
 diction, in which this most beautiful of all the Latin 
 poets was carried out of himself, to speak of the 
 new and Divine Messenger who was to be born
 
 30 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 under the reign of this favored prince. Different na- 
 tions of the earth were in actual, though somewhat 
 vague and undefined expectation of some such great 
 and philanthropic Deliverer. Their state of mind 
 seems to have resembled that of the pagans of the 
 Southern Islands in our day, who were disgusted 
 and sick at heart of their own idolatry, and pre- 
 pared to throw their idols "to the moles and the 
 bats," almost on the first announcement of the true 
 religion. " Men were weary of the past ; they had 
 a sort of hope that the time was near when this 
 gloom of ages, this wintry frown would be succeeded 
 by the renovation and loveliness of the spring-time 
 of a new year a new era, verdant with the hope 
 and promise of a rich harvest. 
 
 This vague impression upon the Gentile world 
 assumed the form of more definite expectation among 
 the Jews. Their own Scriptures had not merely 
 intimated a brighter and blander period, but their 
 prophets had pictured it in a perspective, the limits 
 of which their own eyes beheld with remarkable 
 precision. It was not a dream, which fascinated 
 them ; for they held in their hands most remarkable 
 and astonishingly minute descriptions of the Person 
 of their expected Messiah, and the circumstances 
 and time of his appearing. The first promise in the 
 Garden of Eden had told them that he would be of 
 human descent, and subsequent revelations indicated 
 that he would be of Hebrew origin. The time of 
 his advent was determined by three distinct passages 
 in their own Scriptures.
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 3t 
 
 " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a 
 lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.' 1 '' 
 This prediction affirms, that the Hebrew state shall 
 not have passed away until the Messiah shall have 
 appeared. In many respects, the political and legis- 
 lative authority of the Jews had passed away before 
 the Saviour was born. Judea was a subjugated pro- 
 vince of the Roman Empire ; her inhabitants were 
 enrolled and taxed by the Emperor Augustus ; her 
 laws were made by Rome ; and a Roman governor 
 had his palace in Jerusalem, there held his court, 
 and swayed his sceptre over the vanquished Jews. 
 But emblems of authority remained among them 
 still ; they were still recognized as an embodied peo- 
 ple, until several years after the Saviour's advent, 
 and the actual destruction of the city and temple by 
 Titus. From the period of the restoration of the 
 city after the Babylonian captivity, up to its utter 
 demolition by the legions of Rome, there always 
 had been "some person, or body of persons," who 
 ruled, or professed to rule according to the law of 
 Moses."* After this, the sceptre and the lawgiver 
 had departed from Judah forever. 
 
 A prediction is also contained in the writings of 
 Haggai and Malachi, in relation to the temple, of the 
 following import : " And I will shake all nations, 
 and the Desire of all nations shall come. And I will 
 fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than 
 
 * See Stroud's Dissertation on the seventy weeks of Daniel.
 
 32 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of the former, saith the Lord of hosts. And the Lord, 
 whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, 
 even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye de- 
 light in : behold he shall come, saith the Lord of 
 hosts." The personage here spoken of is the pro- 
 mised Messiah; he was to come before the temple 
 was finally destroyed, and to fill it with his presence 
 and glory. He did come, and did thus fill the tem- 
 ple with his presence and glory ; and less than forty 
 years after his coming it was laid in ruins, and has 
 never been rebuilt. 
 
 But the most remarkable prediction in relation 
 to his advent, is contained in the prophecies of 
 Daniel. While this prophet was engaged in prayer, 
 the Angel Gabriel was sent from heaven to make to 
 him the following communication. " Seventy weeks 
 are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy 
 city, to finish transgression, to make an end of sin, 
 to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in 
 everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision 
 and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know 
 therefore and understand, that from the going forth 
 of the commandment to restore and to build Jeru- 
 salem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks 
 and threescore and two weeks : the street shall be 
 built again, and the wall even in troublous times. 
 And after threescore and two weeks, shall Messiah 
 be cut off, but not for himself : and the people of the 
 prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the 
 sanctuary ; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, 
 and unto the end of the war desolations are deter-
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 33 
 
 mined." The person whose coming is here spoken 
 of is the Messiah the prince, who was to make an 
 end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and 
 bring in everlasting righteousness. The time in 
 which he should come was towards the close of the 
 seventy weeks, commencing with Jerusalem as re- 
 stored by the decree of Artaxerxes, and extending to 
 its destruction by Titus. 
 
 The Jewish weeks were of two kinds: the one, 
 the ordinary week, consisting of seven days; the 
 other, the extraordinary, or prophetical, consisting 
 of seven years. They had Sabbatic years, by which 
 their years were divided into weeks of years, each 
 week containing seven years. If the ordinary com- 
 putation, making a week to consist of seven days, 
 be adopted in this prophecy of Daniel, it is impossi- 
 ble to see how so many great events as are included 
 in the prophecy, could take place within the small 
 compass of seventy weeks of days, or less than one 
 year and a half. It will be recollected that the 
 repairing of Jerusalem itself, and the restoration of 
 the civil and religious polity of the Jews under Ezra 
 and Nehemiah, occupied forty-nine years ; so that 
 the prophecy remains to be explained by the extra- 
 ordinary and prophetic computation which counts 
 a day for a year. These seventy weeks, therefore, 
 amount to four hundred and ninety years. 
 
 This term of four hundred and ninety years 
 begins with the complete restoration of Jerusalem 
 and the Jewish polity under Nehemiah, and ends 
 with their dissolution by the armies of Rome, when 
 
 Bible not of Man. 2*
 
 
 34 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 the city was destroyed, the people dispersed, the 
 temple burned, its religious services abolished ; and 
 people, and government, and religion, sank together 
 into a common ruin. Now we know with great pre- 
 cision the time when this latter event took place. It 
 was in " the month of September, in the year of our 
 Lord 70, according to the vulgar era." Here the 
 four hundred and ninety years terminated ; so that 
 reckoning back from this period four hundred and 
 ninety years, we come to the year before Christ, 
 420. This ought to be the year when, according to 
 this prophecy, the holy city, the temple worship, 
 and the civil and religious polity of the Jews were 
 fully restored and established, after the desolations 
 of their captivity in Babylon. And this was the 
 year of its restoration. It was in the year 420 be- 
 fore Christ, that " Nehemiah, on his second visit to 
 Jerusalem, finally succeeded in bringing the city of 
 his fathers into the state required by the words of 
 the angel. Consequently, the complete restoration 
 and final ruin of the city fully answer to the begin- 
 ning and end of the predicted term."* According to 
 the terms of Daniel's prophecy, it was not until after 
 the expiration of threescore and two weeks, or sixty- 
 two weeks of years, that is, four hundred and ninety- 
 four years from the restoration of Jerusalem, that 
 the Messiah svas to be "cut off;" and it was in the 
 
 * I have flowed in this interpretation the views of Dr. Stroud. 
 After corr>]xring with some care what has been written on this 
 subject bv Prideaux, Newton, Marshall, Faber, and Blaney, Dr. 
 Stroud "ppears to my own mind to have the preference.
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 35 
 
 third year of Daniel's sixty-fifth week that he was 
 actually crucified. It was a fitting time, therefore, 
 for the coming of Christ, which thus confirmed the 
 truth of those memorable predictions concerning his 
 advent, and thus established the faith of his people 
 in him as the Divine Author of the Christian dis- 
 pensation. 
 
 There is one more thought which we may not 
 suppress, which, in view of some of the objections 
 of some infidel writers to the Christian argument 
 derived from the rapid and extensive propagation 
 of Christianity, deserves a moment's consideration. 
 It is, that the time of the Saviour's advent was such, 
 that it is difficult to account for the success of the 
 Gospel without the intervention of Almighty power. 
 History establishes several important facts in rela- 
 tion to this subject, which demand notice. 
 
 The first is, that within the first century of tho 
 Christian era, the Gospel had made a progress that 
 is altogether unexampled and without a parallel. In 
 less than a single year after its Founder was accused 
 as a malefactor, and on the very soil where his blood 
 was shed, its converts amounted to nearly ten thou- 
 sand ; in less than two years it overran Judea , and 
 in less than a single century it pervaded Syria and 
 Lybia, Egypt and Arabia, Persia and Mesopotamia 
 Armenia and Parthia, the whole of Asia Minor, and 
 no small part of Europe. 
 
 The next fact is, that when it began its progress 
 the prejudices of both pagans and Jews were alike 
 hostile to it. All the world were either Jews, or 

 
 36 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 pagans ; all the world was opposed to Christianity. 
 It had to make its way against the* intellect and 
 learning both of Jews and pagans ; against the habits 
 of both, than which there is no more dangerous 
 experiment. The political force of both pagans and 
 Jews was also against it. With respect to the Jews, 
 the Sanhedrim was to be opposed ; and they had 
 power both over the moral and physical strength 
 of the nation. Despised as the Jews were by the 
 pagans, and though a subjugated and contemned 
 people, they made common cause with pagans 
 against Christianity. It is a principle of human 
 nature, that when any set of men are selected as 
 objects of contempt, that moment are they joined 
 together as a firm and cemented band. The strength 
 of their union depends upon the greatness of the 
 contempt, or injuries, which they suffer ; they will 
 make sacrifices against a common enemy, which 
 they would find it difficult to make for their indi- 
 vidual safety. The Jews when among the heathen 
 were obliged to suffer this contempt, and therefore 
 were bound firmly together, Yet when any of them 
 became Christians, they did so in opposition to the 
 persecution of their own countrymen, as well as the 
 surrounding pagans ; thus proving that the enmity 
 of the human heart against the Gospel is stronger 
 than this strong principle of association. But not- 
 withstanding all this, when an encounter was fairly 
 instituted between the combined hostility of pagans 
 and Jews on the one hand, and Christianity on the 
 other, the latter was the conqueror. There is some- 
 
 ''*
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 37 
 
 thing wondrous in this rapid spread of the Gospel 
 in such an age, and something which cannot be ac- 
 counted for upon ordinary principles. 
 
 On the principles by whiqh men are usually 
 governed, there must have been greater intellect on 
 the side of Christianity, than on the side of its op- 
 posers ; or there must have been greater bribes ; or 
 there must have been vast inducements addressed 
 to man's sense of enjoyment. But there was 
 nothing of all this. On the contrary, here are 
 unlettered Jews contending with the intellectual 
 refinement, and subtil philosophy of the Augustan 
 age ; preaching Jesus Christ to men who " sought 
 after wisdom," and to whom Christ was a stumbling 
 block and his cross foolishness. Here are unlettered 
 fishermen of Galilee, encountering the pride of Gre- 
 cian and Roman philosophy, and meeting the scoffs 
 of the lawyers of the Areopagus, " What will this 
 babbler say?" when Paul "preached to them Jesus 
 and the resurrection." Was it probable that the pride 
 of distinction and learning, in that proudest and most 
 brilliant age, was to be subdued by men, of whom 
 it is acknowledged that they were neither wise, nor 
 mighty, but were selected for their work because 
 "God hath chosen the foolish things of this world 
 to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the 
 weak things of this world to confound the things 
 that are mighty ; and base things of the world, and 
 things that are despised hath God chosen, yea, and 
 things that are not, to bring to nought things that 
 are, that no flesh should glory in his presence t"
 
 38 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 And what bribes, what inducements were offered 
 them ? They were to take joyfully the spoiling of 
 their goods ; to forsake all, and follow Christ ; to 
 bear his reproach, and follow him to stripes, im- 
 prisonment and death. 
 
 Nor was the reason of their success to be found 
 in the pliant and accommodating character of Chris- 
 tianity, yielding itself to the claims of Judaism and 
 paganism, and easily becoming amalgamated with 
 either, or both. So far from this, one of the pecu- 
 liar obstacles it had to contend with was, that its 
 propagators never fraternized with any of their op- 
 posers. The pagans did not object to the idols of 
 any nation, provided they would unite in worship- 
 ping theirs. The Roman Senate itself expressed a 
 willingness to place the statue of Jesus among their 
 gods ; but Christianity was not ambitious of this 
 honor; and for her misnamed intolerance, she be- 
 came the hated religion. She had and would have 
 no fraternity with the idolatry and vices of the age, 
 but " rather reproved" and stood aloof from all ; and 
 was therefore denounced as the unsocial and intol- 
 erant religion. 
 
 Nor can it be said, as has been affirmed by the 
 historian Gibbon, that their success was to be attri- 
 buted to the miraculous powers which were ascribed 
 to the primitive church. If these powers were truly 
 miraculous, then were these propagators of the Gos- 
 pel divinely commissioned, and their message was 
 divine. If they were but pretensions to miraculous 
 power, and a system of magic and deception, they
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 39 
 
 must have made Christianity weak and contemp- 
 tible. 
 
 Nor may it be said, that their success is to be at- 
 tributed to the fact that Christianity was a persecuted 
 religion ; and that because persecution increases the 
 interest and zeal of the persecuted party, and rouses 
 the sympathy of the people, therefore it might be 
 expected that it would make friends by its very per- 
 secution. Persecution often destroys the interest of 
 the persecuted party. It is contrary to the principles 
 of human nature, to suppose that any man embraces 
 any system whatever because he is to suffer for it. 
 What destroyed the reformed religion in France? 
 what prevented its progress in Portugal ? what drove 
 the religion that was once introduced into China, 
 out of it ? Persecution. What drove it out from the 
 valley of the Valteline, once in the possession of 
 the Italian Protestants ? In the memorable massacre 
 by the Jesuits, Protestantism was crushed, and dis- 
 appeared entirely from the valley. Are we not jus- 
 tified in saying, that wherever there is sufficient 
 persecution to put in requisition, and at the same 
 time sustain the confidence and moral courage of 
 men, and not to crush it, there it tends to increase 
 the persecuted ; but when persecution rises higher 
 than this, the effect is just the contrary: the per- 
 secuted cannot weather the storm. 
 
 There is not an infidel in the world who believes 
 the truth of this objection, or if he does, who believes 
 in his own principles. Infidels never tell a man 
 whom they would draw over to their views, that he
 
 40 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 may expect to suffer death for them. We conclude 
 then, that seeing they never use this method of mak- 
 ing proselytes, they either do not believe their own 
 argument, or they teach that which is false. The 
 first is contrary to human nature ; the last is con- 
 sonant with it. 
 
 Nor is it true, as the accomplished historian be- 
 fore referred to asserts, that the unexampled success 
 of Christianity in the first ages is attributable to the 
 union and discipline of the Christian republic, which 
 gradually formed an independent and increasing 
 State in the heart of the Roman Empire. This union 
 was not formed until three hundred years after the 
 death of Christ, while the most rapid propagation of 
 the Gospel took place during the first century. Alas, 
 for Gibbon ! infidel as he was, a superintending Pro- 
 vidence so restrained, directed, and controlled his 
 pen, that he has furnished the antidote to his own 
 poison ; and a careful reader may collect from his 
 own pages, what may easily detect and neutralize 
 his infidelity. Like Balaam, he " could not curse 
 whom God hath not cursed ;" nor " defy whom the 
 Lord hath not defied." It was the complaint of the 
 great enemy of Israel against their false prophet, 
 " I took thee to curse mine enemies, and behold, 
 thou hast blessed them altogether!" Nothing is 
 more obvious than that, in all those important par- 
 ticulars in which secondary causes could have con- 
 tributed to the advancement of Christianity, the age 
 in which it began its progress was hostile to its suc- 
 cess, and everywhere opposed the greatest obstacles
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 41 
 
 to its triumph ; nor could any secondary causes over- 
 come the deep-rooted aversion of both Jews and 
 pagans to its claims. 
 
 These general remarks gain the more credibility 
 and strength from our own observation of facts. 
 Compare the progress of the Gospel among our own 
 Aborigines, among the Hindoos and Chinese, with 
 the so much greater progress of it in the days of the 
 apostles. There are now almost as many advan- 
 tages in its favor, as there were then disadvantages 
 against it. Yet its progress is less. How is this to 
 be explained except by the fact, that the apostles 
 did not go alone to their work, but were attended by 
 the Spirit of their Divine Master. Christianity was 
 introduced at an age of the world, when it would 
 have been crushed and annihilated, and absolutely 
 still-born, but for its own inherent immutability and 
 the presence and guardianship of its heavenly Parent. 
 The age itself was fitted to show that there was a 
 Divine interposition in behalf of those who propa- 
 gated it, and therefore that it is itself divine. On 
 any other supposition, than that the men who pro- 
 pagated it were under the direction and patron- 
 age of Almighty God, their success cannot be 
 explained. 
 
 The time when the Saviour came was there- 
 fore remarkably fitted to determine, whether his re- 
 ligion possessed intrinsic excellence and power, and 
 whether its place on the earth could be attributed to 
 mere secondary causes, or to the power of God. It 
 was remarkably fitted to decide, whether the char-
 
 42 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 acter of its Founder was entitled to respect, vene- 
 ration, and love ; whether the witnesses to the facts 
 on which it is founded were entitled to credit and 
 confidence ; whether they were either madmen, or 
 impostors ; whether the doctrines they taught found 
 a ready advocate in the bosom of a world that lieth 
 in wickedness, or whether, if they carried the hearts 
 of men, it must have been owing to the power 
 of God ; whether the character which Christianity 
 formed, and the eifects it produced, were such as 
 constituted the adornment of man's nature, and 
 a virtuous, peaceful, and happy community; and 
 whether there was anything like trick, or manage- 
 ment in selecting the period of introducing it to the 
 world, so that on this account it should be likely to 
 meet with the fewest opposers, and the greatest fa- 
 cility of access. Was it the period when the estab- 
 lished religions of the earth favored it ; or when it 
 was patronized by the laws of the land ; or when 
 the minds of men had any professed or secret bias 
 in its favor ? Or was it a period when it had every- 
 thing to contend with that is human, and when, if 
 it found a dwelling on the earth, it was because it 
 was the offspring of the skies, and had a place pre- 
 pared for it of God ? 
 
 There was most certainly design, and a special 
 Providence, in the selection of such a period of the 
 world for the introduction of the new religion : a 
 religion proclaimed to the race, and to continue to 
 the end of time. It was not a period chosen at ran- 
 dom, or accidentally hit upon ; but one, in the ap-
 
 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 43 
 
 pointment and arrangement of which we may well 
 admire the Divine wisdom. No impostor would 
 have selected it. It was in every view the fit time 
 for the coming of the Great Deliverer. " Ascribe ye 
 greatness unto our God ; he is a rock, his work is 
 perfect." 
 
 Of the great Saviour it is declared, that "all 
 things were made by him, and for him ;" and that 
 "he is Head over all things to the Church." Men 
 have wondered why the fulfilment of the promise 
 in Eden was so long delayed ; but " God's thoughts 
 are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways." 
 We may not now fully see the wisdom of this Divine 
 arrangement, and the manifold relations it then sus- 
 tained, and sustains still to the honor of the Son of 
 God, and the indications it furnishes that he is in- 
 deed the One commissioned to perpetuate a spiritual 
 kingdom on the earth where he was born and cruci- 
 fied. But of this one thing we are assured, that 
 that kingdom will be perpetuated, till the whole 
 earth shall be filled with his glory. The great 
 temple, the laying of the corner-stone of which em- 
 ployed four thousand years, is not to be completed 
 in a day. Its grandeur and magnificence will bear 
 some proportion to those preparatory measures and 
 ages, which were but preliminary to its advance- 
 ment and completion. It is but eighteen hundred 
 years since it was set on its firm foundations ; and 
 it has as yet scarcely begun to grow. A great and 
 glorious kingdom it is, and will go on increasing in 
 extent, in purity, in power, in heavenly splendor,
 
 44 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 until " the stone cut out of the mountain without 
 hands, shall become a great mountain and fill the 
 earth." 
 
 The end is not yet. When the day dawns on 
 which it shall come, it will witness results such 
 as the strongest faith has not fully anticipated. 
 The world of matter was made for the world of 
 mind ; time for eternity ; the world for the church ; 
 all things for the kingdom of Christ. Good for the 
 man that he had never been born, who arrays him- 
 self in opposition to this kingdom ; who is found 
 without its hallowed limits. " Behold, ye despisers, 
 and wonder, and perish !" Time flies swiftly ; one 
 day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a 
 thousand years as one day. He testifies, " Surely I 
 come quickly ;" and let every heart respond, " Even 
 so, come Lord Jesus." Who will not hail his com- 
 ing ; and with the grateful emotions of the sweetest 
 of all the sons of song, exclaim, 
 
 " Come then, and added to thy many crowns, 
 Receive yet one the crown of all the earth, 
 Thou who alone art worthy ! It was thine 
 By ancient covenant, ere nature's birth ; 
 And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, 
 And overpaid its value with thy blood !"
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 45 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 THE BIBLE ABOVE THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN 
 INTELLECT. 
 
 WE maintain that the Bible is an effect superior' 
 to any human cause. The first thought by which 
 this position may be substantiated, is the intellectual 
 character of this most remarkable volume. 
 
 To say nothing now of its moral characteristics, 
 as a production of intellect it is altogether above the 
 invention of the human mind. It is not the style 
 and outward dress in which its thoughts are clothed, 
 of which we speak ; though in these, large portions 
 of it stand above all other writings. Rich and splen- 
 did as is its external attire, its heavenly origin is to 
 be sought for rather in the originality, the compre- 
 hensiveness, the richness of the thoughts it utters. 
 From beginning to end it is, in this respect, a book 
 containing "wondrous things." So that "the more 
 we consider the highest efforts of the human under- 
 standing, the more shall we perceive of its feeble- 
 ness, and the narrow limits which confine it ; and 
 the more also shall we perceive with increasing evi- 
 dence, that the Scriptures are the word of God, and 
 not of man."* 
 
 * Rise of Polytheism and Pantheism. By James Douglass.
 
 46 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 1. In illustrating this general observation, we be- 
 gin with the remark, that the views which the Scrip- 
 tures give of the Deity himself are altogether beyond 
 the reach of any uninspired mind. Although pure 
 Atheism, or the absolute denial of an intelligent First 
 Cause, finds no support either in the internal consti- 
 tution of the human mind, or the abundant indica- 
 tions of design in the exterior universe ; yet is the 
 knowledge of the only living and true God to be 
 found only in the Sacred Writings. There is no- 
 thing which the writers upon Natural Religion have 
 demonstrated more clearly, than the insufficiency, 
 the absurdity even, of those results to which the 
 lights of nature and reason have actually brought 
 men as to the character of the Deity. If the views 
 of those portions and ages of the world which have 
 been destitute of the Bible, may be fairly ascertained 
 from the writings of their philosophers, the enact- 
 ments of their laws, or their religious rites and 
 usages ; not only were their opinions of the Deity 
 loose and undefined, but misshapen and preposter- 
 ous, and to the last degree stupid. The Bible is the 
 only book ,which furnishes any definite and satisfac- 
 tory account of the great First Cause. This great 
 thought, everywhere else so obscure that both the 
 popular and philosophic theology of the pagan world 
 divested the Deity of those properties which are es- 
 sential to his nature, is the one which gives to the 
 Bible all its meaning, and imparts beauty and power 
 to all its revelations. On opening this Book, you 
 are carried back to those undiscovered ages where
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 47 
 
 the eternal Deity existed alone ; existed everywhere, 
 and in the possession of all those attributes which 
 constitute him what he is. The image of God is 
 never veiled here : the Book itself is full of God. 
 His character and claims have here a place which 
 no human composition ever assigned to them ; his 
 very existence and supremacy have a place, which is 
 in vain looked for in the conceptions of uninspired 
 men. We know not whether the views of God 
 which are here revealed, are to be the more admired 
 or revered : admired for their beauty and loveliness, 
 or revered for their greatness and majesty. Heathen 
 poets and philosophers have alternately charmed and 
 instructed the world on other themes ; on this they 
 reasoned and sung not like poets, or philosophers. 
 
 There are three thoughts which relate to the 
 Divine nature, to which the mind of man could never 
 have attained. The one is the pure spirituality of 
 the Godhead ; another is his omnipresence; the third, 
 his incomprehensible and mysterious Trinity. 
 
 There is nothing in man himself, there is no- 
 thing in the visible universe, by which he can make 
 any approximation to the idea of pure spirituality. 
 The Divine existence is in this respect altogether 
 peculiar to itself, and such as man cannot ade- 
 quately conceive. The human faculties do not en- 
 able us to form anything like an adequate conception 
 of the spirituality of the Divine nature, now that it 
 is revealed ; much less could they have originated 
 this conception. The same may be said of the omni- 
 presence of God. The Scriptures tell us that he fills
 
 48 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 all space, penetrates all substances, pervades all 
 minds, and is equally present with each of his 
 creatures, and with all of them at the same time. 
 Now what human intellect could have revealed this 
 truth a truth so perfectly incomprehensible ? What 
 human intellect, unaided by heavenly wisdom, ever 
 penned that sublime passage, " Whither shall I go 
 from thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy 
 presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art 
 there : if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art 
 there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell 
 in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there shall 
 thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 
 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the 
 night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness 
 hideth not from thee ; but the night shineth as the 
 day : the darkness and the light are both alike to 
 thee ! 
 
 And what less can be said of the Trinity of the 
 Divine existence ? It is a conception that never 
 found its counterpart in the invention of creatures. 
 The human mind actually cowers before it. Not a 
 few, even with the Bible in their hands, are scan- 
 dalized by this great truth on account of its mysteri- 
 ousness. Yet, so important is it in the system of 
 truth contained in the Scriptures, that it not only 
 envelopes all its hopes, and enwraps within it all its 
 salvation, but without it the Scriptures are an incohe- 
 rent system, and absolutely without meaning. Pagan 
 lands know no such Deity ; nor is the archetype any- 
 where to be found in the history of human thought.
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 49 
 
 2. There are, in the next place, views presented 
 in the Scriptures of the Divine purposes, which it is 
 impossible for any uninspired mind to have revealed. 
 
 There is the most perfect simplicity in the de- 
 signs of God, as they are here disclosed ; yet is there 
 a comprehensiveness, a grandeur, an elevation, which 
 are not only worthy of the Infinite mind, but which 
 none but the Infinite mind could originate. 
 
 Tradition, taking its rise in a supernatural reve- 
 lation, gave some obscure intimations of wisdom 
 in the government of the world ; but its teachings 
 degenerated to absolute absurdity. Philosophy spake 
 of a fatalism, which extends its dark and monoto- 
 nous decree over all things, and gives to blind con- 
 tingency a sort of universal dominion ; and such 
 conceptions may well be supposed to have men for 
 their authors. The Scriptures disclose those eternal 
 and unchanging counsels of the uncreated Deity, 
 which delineate beforehand all his dispensations, 
 mark out the course and progress of all his operations 
 and government, and trace his entire work from one 
 stage of it to another ; which, from the beginning, 
 comprised whatsoever comes to pass in his proposed 
 universe; and which, in their progressive fulfilment, 
 constitute the counterpart of the matchless wisdom 
 that formed them before ever the world was. This is 
 the starting point, if I may so speak, of all the opera- 
 tions of the Divine mind ; the threshold of the tem- 
 ple to which the Scriptures introduce us, and where 
 their strong and steady light begins to shine. 
 
 In their developement of these comprehensive 
 
 Bible not of Man.
 
 50 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 purposes they conduct us not only through the suc- 
 cessive ages of this lower world, but, leaving these 
 great and measured epochs of time, penetrate indefi- 
 nitely and interminably into the vast future. They 
 do not fully draw aside the curtain, and tell us what 
 these purposes are ; nor do they, save in part, dis- 
 close to us the particular reasons of very many of 
 the Divine counsels ; yet do they explicitly instruct 
 us that they all cooperate in securing ends with 
 which Infinite wisdom and goodness are satisfied. 
 
 Pagan writers knew nothing of such a range of 
 thought as this : the human mind knows nothing of 
 it. It is utterly beyond man's invention ; it is a sys- 
 tem, an outline of procedure which human thoughts 
 never would have compassed; nor would it ever 
 have been known but for a revelation from Heaven. 
 No creature could thus enter into the deep retirement 
 of God's eternity, penetrate into the mind of God, 
 and tell the world his secret counsels. Search the 
 speculations of all pagan philosophy, inquire at all 
 its oracles, and they speak not, think not of those 
 all-comprehensive counsels, with which the Sacred 
 Writings are so familiar. These counsels have a 
 vastness of extent, a coherency and symmetry, an 
 all-presiding intelligence, which defy the utmost 
 efforts of the human mind. Not only were they a 
 sealed book, the contents of which are unknown to 
 mortals, but no mortal could have known that a 
 scheme so vast had a place in the Eternal mind. 
 
 3. The same indications of a Divine intelligence 
 are also discernible in the account the Scriptures
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 51 
 
 give of the work of creation. On this topic the Bible 
 speaks with a definiteness and precision unknown 
 to pagan writers, and compared with which the sys- 
 tems of pagan cosmogony are the wildest conjecture, 
 and as impure and corrupting as they are unintelli- 
 gible. Human reason has never been able to in- 
 struct men how this world came into existence. 
 More than one system of philosophy has sprung up 
 in the world, which endeavored to show that it could 
 exist, and even how it could be made, without God. 
 Strange as it may seem, all the ancient philosophers 
 discarded the idea of creation in the sense in which 
 it is generally understood by Christians. They held 
 it to be impossible ; it was a received axiom with 
 them, that nothing can be produced out of nothing. 
 On this principle, all that they allowed to the Divine 
 agency was " the arrangement of preexisting mate- 
 rials, and the moulding of an external, material sub- 
 stance, into the form which it now exhibits in the 
 visible universe." Nor is there any certain relief from 
 this, and other such like metaphysical jargon, but in 
 the simple narrative of the creation as given in the 
 Scriptures. No uninspired pen ever recorded the 
 sentence, " In the beginning, God created the hea- 
 vens and the earth." It was a progressive work, 
 and was finished in exact accordance with the plan 
 of its Author. Its progress too was in exact coinci- 
 dence with those laws of matter which have been 
 found to exist throughout the material universe ; the 
 laws then enstamped upon it govern it still. They 
 are " ordinances of heaven ;" nor in all the progress
 
 52 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of natural science have any discoveries been made, 
 which are inconsistent with the simple and beautiful 
 narrative given by Moses. 
 
 The creation of which the Bible speaks is unique 
 and perfect ; it has no disjoined and irrelevant parts ; 
 there is a place for everything, and everything is in 
 its place ; the less is made subservient to the greater, 
 the material to the animal, the animal to the moral, 
 and all to God. In a moral view, it possesses a beauty 
 and glory which would never have suggested them- 
 selves to a created mind. It has its world of proba- 
 tion, and its worlds of retribution and recompense : 
 the former, this material visible system, which is 
 destined to come to an end ; the two latter, the abode 
 of those spiritual and immortal existences, never to 
 pass away. These three worlds constitute a moral 
 system, the numberless and various parts of which, 
 while they exhibit strong points of contrast, are yet 
 so related and combined, that each part exerts a re- 
 ciprocal agency and influence, and all form one great 
 whole. The first chapter in the Book of Genesis is 
 truly a wonderful composition. " The very first 
 verse is impressed with the stamp of its Divine Origi- 
 nal : the reception of it alone would have overturned 
 all the fundamental errors which perplexed the phi- 
 losophy of Greece, and not of Greece only, but of all 
 countries not enlightened by revelation."* 
 
 Let any one read the Chaldean account of the 
 creation, as given by Berosus; the Phoenician, by 
 
 * Douglass on the rise of Polytheism and Pantheism.
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 53 
 
 Sanchoniathon ; the Egyptian, by Diodorus Siculus ; 
 and the Grecian, by Hesiod, and he will be convinced 
 that it is not too much to say, what Dr. Scott has 
 said in his preface to his Commentary, that " in the 
 first page of this sacred Book, a child may learn in 
 one hour more than all the philosophers in the world 
 learned without it in a thousand years." 
 
 4. From the work of creation, let us advert, in 
 the next place, to the account which the Scriptures 
 furnish of the works of Providence. There are.iridi- 
 cations here of intellect that is more than human. 
 There are some remarkable features in the arrange- 
 ments of Divine Providence, as here disclosed, of 
 which the pagan world was itself ignorant, and which 
 no uninspired mind could have known. There is, for 
 example, a general providence, as expressed in the 
 established laws of nature ; so that men in the ordi- 
 nary affairs of human life may count on these well- 
 known principles of the Divine government, and 
 form their plans with hope and confidence. And 
 there is a special providence, in which the Most. 
 High, who ruleth among the children of men, may 
 and does, in perfect consistency with the laws of a 
 general providence, countervail the designs of his 
 creatures by accomplishing his own, and thus main- 
 tain and demonstrate his perfect supremacy over all 
 the affairs of men. There is " a wheel within a 
 wheel ;" a seeming complexness, yet the most per- 
 fect simplicity ; for " the Spirit of the Living One 
 is in the wheels." 
 
 There are also the two departments of Equity
 
 54 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and Sovereignty, of Moral influence and Royal pre- 
 rogative : this, giving God the throne, and securing 
 the fulfilment of all his purposes ; that, securing the 
 rights of moral government, and rendering them 
 harmonious with a Divine supremacy the most ab- 
 solute. The claims of sovereignty never interfere 
 with those of equity, while the claims of equity never 
 jostle the throne. Equity and sovereignty run in 
 different, yet in parallel lines, each standing abreast 
 of the other ; both indicating the ways of God to 
 man both the adornment, the strength of the Di- 
 vine empire. Growing out of these obvious and 
 beautiful principles, is the truth everywhere taught 
 in the Scriptures, that men are dependent, yet free ; 
 acting, yet acted upon ; fulfilling the Divine pur- 
 poses, yet responsible. In these revealed features of 
 God's government there is wonderful wisdom wis- 
 dom altogether above the wisdom of creatures ; and 
 we may well say concerning them, "Who hath 
 known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his 
 counsellor?" A late Scottish writer, in a review of 
 the character and writings of the German philoso- 
 pher Leibnitz, remarks, that " this combination of 
 freedom with Divine and dependent agency includes 
 something without the limits of the human facul- 
 ties." And the substance of this acknowledgment 
 has been made by some of the most powerful minds 
 that have written upon this vexed question. These 
 balance-wheels in the moral machinery were in- 
 vented by a Divine Architect, and are too nicely ad- 
 justed to be any other workmanship than his. Thus
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 55 
 
 to reconcile the apparent inequalities, and seeming 
 incongruities in the Divine government, is not a de- 
 vice of creatures ; it is an arrangement which be- 
 speaks a master mind the Master Mind of the 
 universe. What the wisdom of man has never been 
 able to harmonize by all the speculations of philoso- 
 phy, the Bible harmonizes. Truths which have 
 ever been paradoxical, and which have shrouded the 
 highest created intellects in darkness like the seem- 
 ing incongruous elements which compose the atmo- 
 sphere are here adjusted with a simplicity, a skill, 
 that indicate'" the unsearchable wisdom of God." 
 
 Nor is the fact to be overlooked, that in the 
 method of God's providence, as disclosed in the Scrip- 
 tures, very many of the reasons of it are held in abey- 
 ance. It is the glory of God to conceal, as well as to 
 disclose : he dwelleth in the thick darkness ; his judg- 
 ments are a great deep ; his pavilion are dark waters, 
 and thick clouds of the skies. " It were difficult to 
 say, whether his wisdom appears more in what he 
 unfolds, or in what he conceals. The unveiled 
 lustre of his throne would obscure the dim vision of 
 creatures." To creatures of yesterday, he makes 
 darkness his dwelling-place, if for no other reason 
 than that he dwells in light that is inaccessible and 
 full of glory. Such is not the manner of man. Of 
 all these features of an all-governing Providence, 
 may it not be safely affirmed that no human pencil 
 ever delineated them ? This blending of apparently 
 contradictory principles in the Divine government, 
 this " temperature of mingled light and obscurity,"
 
 56 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 all so wonderfully fitted to produce in the minds of 
 fallen creatures the most suitable impressions of the 
 Divine greatness and excellence, is the work of God 
 alone. It is just like God. It is assimilated to the 
 revelations he has made of himself elsewhere ; it is 
 one of the characteristics of his Word which ele- 
 vates it above the reach of human invention. 
 
 5. But if the Scriptural accounts of these sub- 
 ordinate truths give the Sacred Writings this high 
 preeminence, much more do they claim it from the 
 view they present of the still greater, and greatest 
 truth they reveal the redemption of man. In the 
 centre of the system which this Book reveals, stands 
 forth this great work of redeeming mercy, as the 
 " mystery which was hid from ages," as the wonder 
 and admiration of all intelligent beings. The Scrip- 
 tures represent this as the great work of God ; the 
 work to which all the works of creation and Provi- 
 vidence are subservient ; the work to which the 
 past looked forward with eager anticipation, which 
 the present surveys with wonder, which the future 
 will look back upon with overwhelming astonish- 
 ment. It was not an after-thought, growing out of 
 the disappointed expectation of the Creator in the 
 formation of man ; nor was it a thought incidental 
 to the government which he had established over a 
 world of fallen and still responsible creatures. It 
 was the great forethought of the Divine mind ; it is 
 the one great thought revealed in his Word. 
 
 There are several strong features of peculiarity 
 in this redemption, which remove it altogether be-
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 57 
 
 yond the limits of human invention. We do not 
 say that it is impossible, or even improbable, that 
 the human mind might have thought of some me- 
 thod of recovery ; but never would it have thought 
 of such a method as that revealed in the Scriptures. 
 It would have been a method of arbitrary mercy, 
 without any satisfaction to the violated law ; it 
 would have extended itself to one man as well as 
 another, and comprised the entire race. It would 
 have unfolded no such features, either of the Divine 
 justice or sovereignty, as are unfolded in the Gos- 
 pel of the Son of God. Had men devised this 
 restoring economy, it had been human like them- 
 selves. Philosophy would have theorized about it j 
 it would have been sanctioned by the wisdom of. 
 this world ; but it would never have been that high 
 and wonderful arrangement which extorts the ex- 
 clamation, " O the depth of the riches both of the 
 wisdom and the knowledge of God !" The proposal 
 of a method of recovery for fallen men, to the ex- 
 clusion of fallen angels, was itself a novelty in the 
 history of the Divine government. Human reason 
 would scarcely have passed by those immortal 
 princes of the Divine kingdom, those once pure and 
 incorporeal spirits of his heavenly court, whose only 
 employment had been to adore, love, and praise his 
 sovereign greatness and goodness. 
 
 The facts and principles embodied in this redemp- 
 tion are indeed welcome, but they are altogether 
 singular ; they are glad tidings of great joy, but 
 they were new and unexpected. They reveal high 
 
 Bible not of Man. 3*
 
 58 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and marvellous ends ends that would have been 
 overlooked by men, and especially by impostors. 
 
 And we say, almost without the fear of contra- 
 diction from infidels themselves, that the means by 
 which this redemption was accomplished, were too 
 marvellous ever to have been the subject of the re- 
 motest, the most faint conjecture, by the wisest and 
 best of our race. They were strange, they were 
 mysterious means, and comprised truths which could 
 have originated only in the counsels of Heaven. The 
 union of the Divine and human natures in the Re- 
 deemer's person, is a fact which would never have 
 been thought of by men. Even now that it is re- 
 vealed, it cannot be brought within the sphere of 
 human comprehension, and questions may be pro- 
 pounded concerning it which human reason cannot 
 answer. God becomes man ; the Creator becomes 
 a creature ; the great Lawgiver becomes a subject ; 
 the injured, insulted Majesty of heaven, himself be- 
 comes the incarnate Saviour ! 
 
 The manner too in which he became incarnate, 
 is not merely mysterious, but has no example, and 
 never can have any imitation. He united himself 
 with that unequalled individual of our race, who 
 was born of a Virgin ; he was " made of a woman," 
 yet a woman of virgin purity. There is no greater 
 miracle than his immaculate conception ; and it is a 
 sort of miracle which mocks the invention of an im- 
 postor. It was the miraculous creation of the human 
 nature of Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary. I 
 ask infidels themselves, whether such a fact as this
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 59 
 
 a fact so far beyond the uniform laws of nature, 
 that the thought would never once have floated in 
 the impure imagination of man was not a pheno- 
 menon, which it is in the last degree puerile to sup- 
 pose ever formed a part of fictitious story ? 
 
 Pagan mythology does indeed speak of incarnate 
 deities; while their fabulous _ and grossly polluted, 
 and polluting notions of deities incarnate, evince their 
 utter incompetency to have invented the miraculous 
 conception of Mary's child. Every classical scholar 
 knows that it was not thus that pagan deities became 
 incarnate. Their notions of incarnate gods were pro- 
 bably derived from those traditions of which the 
 Scriptures are the origin ; but they fashioned them 
 according to their own vile minds. 
 
 Nor is this all. The incarnate gods of the hea- 
 then were infinitely unlike the man Christ Jesus. 
 He was spotless and pure ; a Lamb without blemish, 
 from the cradle to the grave. His vile betrayer, 
 though admitted to all the familiarities of unem- 
 barrassed friendship, could not impeach his sinless 
 integrity. Even in the eye of Infinite purity was he 
 without sin. Heathen writers have described no 
 such character; history has none like it; tradition 
 has none ; fancy has none ; and deception and im- 
 posture have none. Poetry and romance, with all 
 their inventive powers, have never been able to 
 portray a character like that which the evangelists 
 so simply, and so true to nature, have given of the 
 Virgin's Son. 
 
 Nor need we stop here. If from the birth and
 
 gO THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 life of Jesus, we advert to the catastrophe of his 
 cross, our convictions are confirmed that it is no hu- 
 man tale of woe. This incarnate One, so holy and 
 harmless, came not to reign, not to be worshipped, 
 but to suffer to die : to lay the foundation of his 
 kingdom in his own sufferings and death. The 
 fabulous gods and goddesses of the pagan world, 
 have united themselves with men for the purposes 
 of loyalty and dominion ; for the tranquillity of pas- 
 toral joys, and effeminate luxury ; but never to suf- 
 fer and die. 
 
 Nor was it simply to suffer and die, that he be- 
 came thus incarnate. It was to die, the just in the 
 place of the unjust the sinless for the sinful the 
 substitution of the innocent for the guilty. To save 
 the law of God harmless, he submitted himself to 
 the penalty which man had incurred, and " bare our 
 sins in his own body on the tree." Now I ask, if in 
 all this there be not the most emphatic indications 
 of profound and unsearchable wisdom ? Is not this, 
 from beginning to end, altogether a procedure so 
 remote from the apprehensions of men, as to forbid 
 the possibility that it was of human fabrication? 
 
 We make the appeal to reason, to common sense, 
 whether it is possible for the human mind to con- 
 ceive that such a redemption is the design of man. 
 Taking all the objects and parts of it together, is 
 there any greater absurdity than to suppose it of hu- 
 man origin ? Is not this a region of thought where 
 the foot of man never trod ? Would not the bright- 
 est minds the world has seen, and the brightest ages
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 61 
 
 that have dawned upon it, have been baffled, ex- 
 hausted, annihilated, in the attempt at such a dis- 
 covery ? Would they not have lived, and toiled, and 
 suffered, and died without it, as the pagan did live, 
 and toil, and suffer, and die ? 
 
 6. Take another thought. The Bible is a whole; 
 it contains no isolated event, no isolated truth is 
 revealed in its sacred pages. From the creation of 
 the world of angelic beings and the formation of 
 man, to the entire apostacy of the one, and the 
 partial apostacy of the other ; from the early reve- 
 lation of the promise in Eden, to the winding up 
 of this great remedial economy ; everything forms a 
 part of one great whole, the interest of which is per- 
 petually increasing as the stupendous plan advances 
 to its close. In the progress of this amazing proce- 
 dure, the glories of creation and Providence are more 
 and more concentrated in the greater glories of this 
 redemption itself never once deviating from its 
 most prominent and important place in the system 
 of God's administrations. The sufferer of Calvary 
 is ever the master-spirit of the whole ; the all-per- 
 vading Deity, everywhere and always directing and 
 governing, for the purposes for which he suffered 
 and died. The cross of Christ is ever the centre, 
 from the beginning of time to its close ; from the 
 song of the morning stars at the birth of this lower 
 creation, to the voice of the archangel and the trump 
 of God, when this lower creation shall pass away. 
 So that the three worlds of which we have spoken, 
 thus created, thus governed, and one of them thus
 
 62 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 redeemed, compose, if I may so speak, the materials 
 of a vast moral drama ; the issues of which, though 
 gradually developing, are to be fully developed only 
 at that great crisis when time ends, and eternity be- 
 gins. In this vast drama, the three glorious Persons 
 in the ever-blessed Trinity angels, fallen and un- 
 fallen and men fallen and redeemed, are both the 
 actors and the witnesses. The interests involved in 
 it are the highest interests of every immortal being ; 
 its conflicts the great moral conflict of the universe ; 
 its triumphs the triumphs of truth and goodness. In 
 its progress darkness and error, sin and misery, are 
 gradually retiring and being subdued : death is anni- 
 hilated, while light, truth, holiness and happiness, 
 become more and more triumphant, up to the time 
 when " the mystery of God is perfected," and the 
 redeemed and unfallen universe commences a new 
 and eternal era of obedience and praise. 
 
 The single fact of the resurrection of the body 
 that heavy clog and incumbrance of the soul, which 
 the religion of nature and the writings of human 
 reason consign to the dust, which sense locks up in 
 the dark sepulchre, and which natural science scat- 
 ters to the winds, ingulfs in the waters, sees rarefied 
 into smoke and vapor, and in a thousand combina- 
 tions entering into and forming a part of the vege- 
 table and animal tribes is itself a thought too won- 
 derful for the human mind ever to have originated. 
 No wonder that the learned men of Greece scoffed 
 and mocked when Paul announced it in the Areopa- 
 gus df Athens. Yet the Scriptures tell us, that at
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. (,3 
 
 the sounding of the last trumpet, all the bodies of 
 countless generations, all over the earth and from 
 the depths of the sea, shall come forth. Next to 
 Deity assuming his form of humanity, this is the 
 wonder of all wonders. 
 
 What scenes will be disclosed when the cur- 
 tain is drawn upon the opening ages of the coming 
 eternity ! The sun shall be turned into darkness, 
 and the moon into blood ; the stars shall fade, and 
 the frame of this lower world be dissolved. The 
 dead shall be summoned from their graves, and a 
 risen world brought forth from the sepulchre of ages, 
 to appear at his bar who expired on the cross. 
 
 The attending universe shall stand spectators of 
 scenes, in which they themselves have been and are 
 the actors ; the Redeeming God shall be glorified in 
 his saints, and admired in all them that believe ; and 
 then the end shall come the final, the unalterable 
 eternity. The earth shall be burnt up and the hea- 
 vens dissolved. The wicked shall go away into 
 everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life 
 eternal. 
 
 O what events are these, to have taken rise in 
 the narrow conceptions of men ! What a range of 
 thought is here ! Can the Book, which reveals 
 such things as these, be the work of man ? Does 
 not the disclosure of such realities carry home to 
 our bosoms the firm and solid conviction, that it is 
 from the revealing Spirit who " searcheth all things, 
 even the deep things of God ?" Does it not defy 
 the utmost efforts of our limited faculties? And
 
 64 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 if human minds and human pens were employed 
 to make such disclosures, is it not obvious that 
 they were minds and pens " moved by the Holy 
 Ghost?" 
 
 7. Another thought which illustrates the position 
 on which we are dwelling, is the inexhaustible ful- 
 ness of the Sacred Writings. We can furnish but 
 a bare suggestion on this rich and varied topic, to be 
 traced out and amplified, as it may present itself in 
 different lights and forms to different minds. The 
 Bible is, in this respect, a most wonderful volume. 
 There is nothing like it in the wide world ; no such 
 source of intellectual wealth : itself never exhausted, 
 yet exhausting the brightest, strongest, and most po- 
 tent minds. A candid mind, that has been prepos- 
 sessed against it, needs but to read it, in order to 
 confess with shame that it has disappointed its pre- 
 judices, and that it is enriched with thoughts alto- 
 gether beyond any other volume. 
 
 There are thoughts in this sacred Book, which 
 though perfectly obvious when seen, are not seen on 
 the first or the second inspection, even though that 
 inspection be ever so full. Instances of this kind so 
 frequently occur, that they are continually sources 
 of surprise and admiration even to the most reflect- 
 ing minds. It is wonderful to observe, what new 
 trains of thought of prodigious interest are often 
 suggested by a single sentence, a single fact recorded 
 in the Bible ; a word, a date, not before observed, or 
 not understood, or viewed in some new aspect. 
 The Bible seems, in this respect, almost like en-
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 65 
 
 chanted ground ; or rather, like the embowered pre- 
 cincts of some unearthly world. As we pass over its 
 luxuriant plains, and tread its wide and accustomed 
 avenues, we unexpectedly discover a thousand less 
 frequented paths that open views views of inde- 
 scribable richness and beauty that are new and im- 
 measurable. It is difficult if not impossible to re- 
 sist the impression, that the light which shines upon 
 us is from no earthly source, but beams from the 
 Infinite Intelligence above us. The mind is never 
 weary in tracing out these opening vistas of truth, 
 except from its own infirmity ; and even when thus 
 wearied, may always recover and refresh itself at 
 unwasting fountains, scattered by the wayside, and 
 everywhere overhung by the dense shadow of the 
 Tree of Life. 
 
 We do not find it so with any other book. This 
 is one of the great peculiarities of the Bible ; it is an 
 exhaustless volume. Viewed as a whole, it is like 
 the full-orbed sun ; which though it may have spots 
 on its disk, dazzles by its splendor ; and the more we 
 gaze upon it, and the more its light emanates and is 
 diffused, the more do its resources appear unwasting. 
 Portions of this Book seem deep and unfathomable , 
 but even its deepest recesses are neither empty nor 
 dark. It is a vast profound, which lies open to the 
 day j where, though reason's lamp alone were dark- 
 ness, yet the deeper it descends, it not only encoun- 
 ters no noxious vapors, but, as in a mine of jewels, in 
 every discovered gem it receives back the reflected 
 light of heaven. There is no other book which a
 
 06 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 few careful readings of a sound and retentive mind 
 will not exhaust. Yet men there are, who have 
 made this volume the object of their study for half 
 a century ; who have examined every paragraph it 
 contains with repeated and closest scrutiny, and with 
 every fresh perusal have discovered new thoughts, 
 and new causes for wonder and joy. The more 
 deeply they have become absorbed in its pages, the 
 more deep and thorough has been their conviction 
 of its illimitable resources a conviction uniformly 
 strengthened by their growing acquaintance with 
 its instructions, and by all the effort and honesty, 
 the humility and prayer, they have been enabled to 
 bring to their researches. 
 
 There was an humble fisherman on the lakes of 
 Palestine, who wrote a short treatise, so replete with 
 heavenly truth, that Archbishop Leighton, whom 
 Dr. Doddridge calls "that wonderful man," em- 
 ployed years of intense and delighted labor in illus- 
 trating the rich and heart-affecting lessons it con- 
 tains lessons, which furnished even the splendid 
 mind of Coleridge with many of those " aphorisms " 
 which form the bases of his far-famed " Aids to Re- 
 flection." Nor do the Epistles of Peter stand alone 
 as exhibitions of intellectual vigor and richness, to 
 which minds unaided by the Holy Spirit never as- 
 pired. There is no book in any age, in any coun- 
 try, which can, in this respect, be compared with 
 the Bible. It has very little in common with other 
 books : aside from some of its genealogical records, 
 it has borrowed nothing from them ; while it is the
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 67 
 
 inexhausted, inexhaustible source from which every- 
 thing that is truly valuable, on the great subjects of 
 which it treats, is derived. 
 
 8. There is one general remark which should be 
 carried along in the mind of the reader, with all the 
 preceding considerations. It relates to the intellec- 
 tual character of the writers, and of the age in which 
 the Bible was written. It was written, for the most 
 part, by men of no extraordinary talents or learning. 
 With a few distinguished exceptions, they were plain 
 shepherds, and humble, illiterate fishermen. But 
 they wrote as never man wrote, on themes of bound- 
 less extent, illimitable grandeur, thrilling interest, 
 "and never fall below their lofty theme." They 
 use the language of men, because they are men to 
 whom they address themselves ; and because Infinite 
 wisdom and goodness are wont to stoop thus low, 
 do they condescend to all the varieties of human 
 want and degradation, and in so doing seem, to a 
 superficial reader, occasionally to descend to instruc- 
 tions that are unworthy of their elevated objects. 
 Those very portions of their writings with which 
 infidels have so often made themselves merry, were 
 most wisely suited to the exigences of the times and 
 people to whom they were addressed. And moreover, 
 the books which contain them form the first and ear- 
 liest literary productions in the world. Nor is it a cir- 
 cumstance to be overlooked, that although thus writ- 
 ten in the very infancy of letters, and standing alone 
 as they do at the close of the first fifteen centuries 
 after the 'creation, they should, by the common con-
 
 68 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 sent of literary men, hold the acknowledged preemi- 
 nence. Moses, their author, and whom we affirm to 
 have been divinely inspired, died about fourteen hun- 
 dred and forty years before Christ ; nor are there any 
 human writings known to us until long after his time. 
 Yet Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt were not without 
 science and the arts, and the latter not without hiero- 
 glyphical writing. Between the time of Moses and 
 David, there is, I believe, but a single author with- 
 out the pale of the Israelitish prophets. I refer to 
 Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician historian, who flour- 
 ished about the time that Gideon was the Judge in 
 Israel. These facts are not, we confess, convincing 
 evidence of themselves that the five books of Moses 
 are of divine origin ; while, taken in connection with 
 the subject matter of these books, their immeasur- 
 able superiority to the acknowledged writings of 
 men, and the fact that they claim to be of more 
 than mere human authority, they are of consequence 
 to the argument in favor of their inspiration. 
 
 With regard to other portions of these writings, 
 the learned reader will bear in mind a remark of a 
 different kind. The greater part of those which are 
 subsequent to the five books of Moses, were written 
 during those periods of the world when men of gi- 
 gantic intellect, and high literary fame, appeared in 
 pagan lands. They were men whor claim the ad- 
 miration of succeeding ages, and whose works have 
 come down to our own times. Homer flourished in 
 the days of Solomon ; Hesiod, not far from the time 
 of Joel, Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah ; Sappho, during
 
 ITS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 59 
 
 the time of Habakkuk and Daniel ; Solon and Anac- 
 reon, during the life of Ezekiel ; Pindar, in the 
 days of Haggai and Zechariah ; Eschylus, Socrates, 
 Zeno and Herodotus, in the age of Haggai, Zech- 
 ariah and Ezra. The splendid writers of the Peric- 
 lean age of Greece, and the Augustan age of Rome, 
 all flourished between the period of the later minor 
 prophets and the close of the first century of the 
 Christian era. 
 
 There are high embellishments of taste, and un- 
 wonted inventions of a creative imagination, in the 
 writings of some of the pagan poets ; there are in- 
 deed bewitching fascinations ; but they are not the 
 fascinations t>f thought, of truth. Compared with 
 the riches of truth, the luxury of thought, which are 
 to be found in the writings of their contemporaries 
 in the sacred volume, or even with the descriptive 
 powers that are there developed, the Greek and Ro- 
 man classics are but highly-wrought fables. 
 
 But we need not pursue these reflections. The 
 benevolent Creator has endued man with large 
 powers of thought and achievement ; yet are there 
 deeds he cannot perform, and thoughts to which his 
 aspiring mind is unequal. They are not human 
 thoughts, nor do they come under the range of hu- 
 man powers, that are revealed in the Bible. It is 
 not the light of any created intellect which thus de- 
 velopes and brings out the works and ways of God, 
 from the dawn of time down to the setting sun of 
 this earthly sphere. Books multiply, and libraries 
 accumulate through his capacity and toil ; yet is
 
 70 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 there this one Book, which transcends the highest 
 efforts of his giant intellect. His severest toil has 
 never penetrated so deep, his loftiest powers have 
 never soared so high, as these illimitable boundaries 
 of uncreated thought. The works of men bear no 
 more comparison to this great work of Infinite Intel- 
 ligence, than a particle of vapor does to the ocean, 
 or the flight of a moment to eternity. It is at such 
 a vast remove from all the conceptions of created 
 wisdom, that the credulity is not to be envied which 
 looks upon it as a book of imposture, or the inven- 
 tion of uninspired men, or in any other view than as 
 exhibiting the permanent and fixed impression of the 
 wondrous Deity. 
 
 In the order of time, we take then our first stand 
 here ; and claim for this Book, the tribute due to 
 more than human intelligence. We ask the might- 
 iest intellects of earth to spread it before them, and 
 tell us when and where it has been equalled, and if 
 it partakes not of the infinite character of Him that 
 inhabiteth eternity, and of that eternity which it re- 
 Veals ? We ask them, as they travel over the rich 
 and variegated domain of science and philosophy, if 
 they anywhere find such intellectual riches ; and if 
 there be not here heights and depths, plains, foun- 
 tains, and oceans of thought, the wonders of which 
 man cannot find terms to express, while his highest 
 conceptions of them leave these wonders unex- 
 plored ?
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 71 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE A SUPERHUMAN SPIRIT. 
 
 HUMAN authors leave the impress of their char- 
 acter upon their works. No human volume was 
 ever written, that does not itself show that it is hu- 
 man. The best spirit and the purest motives that 
 ever guided the pen of man, have been discolored 
 and tinged by the obvious frailties of humanity. 
 The works even of such men as Richard Baxter, 
 Jonathan Edwards, and Robert Hall, discover the 
 imperfections common to good men ; while, at the 
 same time, in reading the productions of such au- 
 thors, we feel that we are holding intercourse with 
 minds and hearts that were the adornments of their 
 race. We not only find ourselves ranging rich fields 
 of thought, but we breathe the atmosphere of sin- 
 cerity and kindness; we are refreshed with fruits 
 plucked for us from the Tree of Life. When, on the 
 other hand, we read the works of such men as Yol- 
 taire, Hume, and Byron, the first and predominant 
 feeling which arises in our bosoms is the admira- 
 tion of high talent prostituted to vile ends ; we are 
 revolted by their cold and remorseless selfishness 
 and pride. If they interest us, it is because they in- 
 terest our weaknesses and faults ; if they conduct us
 
 72 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 sometimes to a clear and mountain atmosphere, it 
 chills us.; if sometimes into low and marshy grounds, 
 it is to diffuse an offensive and infectious miasma ; 
 and if sometimes they invite us to repose, it is un- 
 der shadows which, like the branches of the Upas, 
 distil poison upon us, and invite us to the sleep of 
 death. The most imposing efforts of intellect are 
 but " splendid sins " where they originate in a wrong 
 spirit, and are not controlled by the love of God and 
 man. Where selfishness and pride, deceit and malig- 
 nity, are the presiding genius, nothing is more to be 
 dreaded than preeminent intellectual endowments. 
 
 It is not more true, that the Bible is too great 
 ever to have been the invention of the human intel- 
 lect, than that it is too good a book ever to have orig- 
 inated with the human heart. Infinite intelligence 
 is not more certainly the exclusive attribute of the 
 " God only wise," than unmingled, infinite goodness 
 belongs only to him "whose nature and whose name 
 are Love." His intelligence renders him great ; his 
 goodness bespeaks him amiable and lovely. They 
 are not so much the bright, far-reaching thoughts 
 of his mighty intellect, flowing as they do, clear as 
 crystal from the uncreated Fountain, that so much 
 interest us, as the brighter and purer emotions of 
 his wonderful love, flowing as they do, and spark- 
 ling as they flow, in rivers of life from that eternal, 
 immense ocean of kindness, which no line can 
 fathom, and which is bounded by no shore. 
 
 Deism rests its whole system of unbelief in the 
 Sacred Scriptures upon the fact that God is good ;
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 73 
 
 while it is from the same premises that, as believers 
 in divine revelation, we deduce the conclusion that 
 they have God for their author. If this is God's 
 Bible, it is not merely a revelation of the mind and 
 intelligence of God, it is a peculiar cast of intelli- 
 gence ; a peculiar spirit ; a spirit to which the un- 
 aided mind of man never attained ; and which, 
 though partially infused into the works of uninspired 
 men, was first infused into this parent reservoir. It 
 is the intrinsic goodness, the inherent loveliness of 
 the Bible, that gives it its preeminence. The spirit 
 of this Book is the spirit of love and kindness, of 
 benignity and good will ; it is a disposition which 
 delights in contributing to the happiness of others ; 
 which exercises itself in directing men to the true 
 sources of happiness, in gratifying their best wishes, 
 supplying their wants, alleviating their distresses, 
 shielding them from the dangers to which they are 
 exposed, and consulting their highest good upon the 
 largest scale, both for the life that now is, and that 
 which is to come. This is its uniform turn of 
 thought. Goodness is luminous on every leaf; it 
 transpires in every paragraph ; it breathes itself 
 throughout the whole ; and though to an unintelli- 
 gent reader, and to a perverted mind, it may some- 
 times be obscured, yet does this peerless spirit 
 become more obvious with every intelligent and 
 ingenuous view of its pages. 
 
 1. In illustrating these general observations we 
 remark, in the first instance, that this peculiar spirit 
 of the Bible appears in its precepts and truths. 
 
 Bible not of Mn. A
 
 74 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 There is a single affection of the heart which ex- 
 hausts all its precepts. " Love is the fulfilling of 
 the law." Within the comprehensive range of this 
 single affection is found all that is amiable and bene- 
 volent ; all that gives joy to the bosom that fosters 
 it ; all that transforms the world in which we dwell 
 from the chaos which it is, to the paradise which it 
 should be. There is nothing here that is ungener- 
 ous and mean, nothing dark and suspicious, nothing 
 selfish and solitary, nothing overbearing and con- 
 temptuous, nothing that is implacable and cruel. It 
 is the spirit of gentleness in opposition to violence, 
 blessing in opposition to cursing, pity in opposition 
 to contempt, meekness and loveliness in opposition 
 to haughtiness, patience in opposition to rashness 
 and insult, forgiveness in opposition to wrong and 
 injury, love in opposition to hatred. Here are all 
 those sweet sympathies which not only tranquillize 
 the stormy passions, but, like flowers that skirt the 
 snow-clad mountain tops, show the power of heav- 
 enly truth upon the soul, melting away its cold indif- 
 ference, and cheering the chilled traveller in his wea- 
 ried way. There is not one among all its truths that 
 does not fall in with this delightful spirit. The de- 
 sign and tendency of the most humbling of them is 
 to produce a spirit of love, and a loveliness of spirit, 
 such as no other truths produce. There is nothing 
 in them that is revolting, save to a selfish and nar- 
 row mind ; they have no wayward spirit, but all their 
 aim and tendency are to subdue the wayward spirit 
 of men. They form a sort of mould, into which,
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 75 
 
 when the heart of man is cast, the rough ore is melted 
 and transformed, and comes out with streaks and 
 layers of gold. The mighty Agent in this wondrous 
 transformation records the blessedness of his own 
 work in the memorable sentence, " The fruit of the 
 Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, meekness, temperance." Deceivers there 
 have been among those who professed to be influ- 
 enced by it ; deceived and enthusiasts there have 
 been, carried away by a warmed and overweening 
 imagination, who, like the stony-ground hearers, re- 
 ceived the word with joy only for a time ; imperfect 
 men there are, and have been, and will be, who not- 
 withstanding its benign influence show that the root 
 of bitterness is not altogether eradicated ; while there 
 are millions who, in all sobriety of thought, have 
 felt and proved its power in making them 'bright 
 patterns of its benevolent spirit. Its object is to im- 
 press upon the mind its own image, imbue it with 
 all that is affectionate and kind, and perpetuate a 
 habit and temper of mind, which are as far above 
 this world as the heavens are above the earth. 
 
 2. It deserves remark too, that this peculiar spirit 
 is most emphatically expressed in all its tenderness, 
 when and where it is most needed. There are pe- 
 riods in every man's history, when the accents of 
 love are winning accents ; when the voice of tender- 
 ness reaches the deep recesses of his woe ; and when, 
 like the harp of David upon the agitated mind of 
 Saul, it charms the evil spirit within the soul. Such 
 is the Bible in those periods of discomfort, depres-
 
 76 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 sionand darkness, which are superinduced by man's 
 condition, and which are not a little peculiar in dif- 
 ferent stages of his moral career. Extending its 
 views far beyond the horizon of human vision, and its 
 sympathies far beyond the sympathies of earth, not 
 only is it a messenger of love, but fits its relief, and 
 times its counsels, to the exigences of human woe. 
 To the unblest millions in pagan lands, its mes- 
 sage is, " Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye 
 ends of the earth ; for I am God, and there is none 
 else!" To the obdurate and stout-hearted, its mes- 
 sage is, " Hearken unto me, ye that are stout-hearted 
 and far from righteousness ; behold, I bring near my 
 righteousness, and my salvation shall not tarry." To 
 restless pride, and wearied self-righteousness, and 
 ceremonial superstition, it says, " Come unto me, all 
 ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest." To the unhappy of every name and age, 
 it proclaims, " Ho every one that thirsteth," let him 
 " take the water of life freely." It watches over the 
 germ of awakened thought and right feeling, and 
 encourages every hesitating and discouraged effort 
 towards holiness and heaven. To the returning pro- 
 digal, naked and starved, it speaks of his Father's 
 house, where there is bread enough and to spare, 
 and of the best robe to cover his shame. Over the 
 broken-hearted, who has scarcely courage to say, 
 "God be merciful to me a sinner!" its language is, 
 " Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." 
 Over the abandoned and incorrigible, it breathes 
 sighs, and drops tears of compassion ; over the peni-
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 77 
 
 tent, it utters its songs of rejoicing. It wounds to 
 heal ; it kills only to make alive ; it disturbs the vain 
 hopes of the deceived only to drive them from their 
 refuges of lies to the Refuge where are security and 
 peace. When the wanderer is benighted, it sends 
 out its light and truth, and leads him in a plain 
 path : if he is surrounded by enemies, it sounds its 
 note of alarm, and spreads around him its protecting 
 shield ; if he slumber, it wakes him ; and if he stum- 
 bles and falls, the Angel of its Covenant carries him 
 in his arms, and the Shepherd of Israel folds him in 
 his bosom. It tells the tempted of a " great High 
 Priest, touched with the feeling of their infirmities ;" 
 to the afflicted it speaks of " an exceeding and eter- 
 nal weight of glory," wrought out by " their light 
 afflictions, which are but for a moment ;" to the dy- 
 ing, it speaks of an " house not made with hands," 
 when the " earthly house of this tabernacle is dis- 
 solved ;" while, in view of an assembled universe 
 and the last judgment, it reveals the sentence to all 
 who listen to its counsels, " Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
 the foundation of the world!" 
 
 And is such a spirit the spirit of imposture ? Is 
 such a Book the work of man ? ' Has it not coun- 
 sels for the wretched which the world does not 
 know ; and when, for all this world can proffer, every- 
 thing around them were a dreary waste? Is not 
 such a spirit a novel spirit ; so novel as never to have 
 been known until it was revealed from heaven so 
 novel, so unearthly, that the original model of it
 
 YS THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 finds no place in the imaginations of men, and only 
 in the counsels of heavenly love ? 
 
 3. In perfect accordance with this spirit is the 
 spirit of those institutions which this Book estab- 
 lishes. They are all institutions of unearthly kind- 
 *ness. Where they exist in their Scriptural purity, 
 they express a purely benevolent design, and exert 
 an influence that is purely benevolent. The mes- 
 sage ushered by its ministry is "peace on earth and 
 good will to men;" "peace, like the dew of Her- 
 mon, and love, like the holy oil which consecrated 
 God's high priest." The world could not live 
 without its Sabbath ; yet benighted as it is, and 
 wearied and wasted by its moral vassalage, the light 
 and emancipation of such a day of rest would never 
 have entered into its wisest inventions. Its ordi- 
 nances are the token of Heaven's covenanted mercy, 
 and the pledge of love that is unearthly; they 
 breathe the spirit of love the fervency and strength 
 of love : the ardor of God's love to man the re- 
 flected love of man to God the reciprocal love of 
 man to man ! They arrest attention, and strike with 
 awe as symbols of love. 
 
 ; That visible community to which the Bible has 
 given rise among men, all eating the same spiritual 
 meat, and drinking the same spiritual drink ; all pro- 
 fessing one faith, one calling, one hope; is no human 
 device. The public and distinct association of all 
 those who profess to be governed by the principles 
 of the Bible, most certainly forms a peculiarity in 
 human history. There are other associations among
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 79 
 
 men, bound together by common principles and pur- 
 suing common objects: they are not unknown to 
 false religions ; but there are none that profess to be 
 governed by love to God and love to one another, 
 as the essential basis of their union and fellowship. 
 However separated by time and place, custom and 
 usage, so far as they are true to their profession, they 
 have all been made to "drink into the same spirit." 
 They have " an unction from the Holy One," the 
 fragrance of which is "as the smell of a field which 
 the Lord hath blessed," where, like flowers cherished 
 by heaven's dews and sun, they immingle and in- 
 crease their beauty ; and where 
 
 "Lebanon, with all its trees, 
 Yields not a comely sight as these." 
 
 There is no stronger, and no sweeter bond, than that 
 which binds minds and hearts that are thus governed 
 by the principles and spirit of this holy Book. The 
 contention and strife of wicked nations and wicked 
 men, have no place here. This heavenly spirit 
 would soften the savage sternness of earth, eradicate 
 its barbarism and ferocity, and transform its tragic 
 scenes of wretchedness and suffering, into scenes on 
 which the eye of Infinite love might look down with 
 gratified and complacent smiles. This is the great 
 principle of all Christian association ; it is one which 
 would render the life of man here below "as the 
 days of heaven upon earth," when the triumphs of 
 Sove shall be celebrated, 
 
 " Loud as from numbers without number, sweet 
 As from blest voices uttering joy."
 
 80 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 These institutions are all remarkable features of the 
 Bible. The very existence and design of them indi- 
 cate a spirit that is superhuman ; and, were there no 
 other, would themselves alone be proof of the divine 
 origin of Christianity. 
 
 4. Still greater emphasis will be given to the pre- 
 ceding considerations by the fact, that the spirit of 
 kindness, expressed in the Bible, flows out towards all 
 classes of the human family. There are classes that 
 are neglected and depressed by all false religions. 
 
 Woman, under the influence of every religion 
 in the world, save that revealed in the Scriptures, 
 instead of being the loved and attached companion 
 of man a helper, meet for his labors, trials, joys, 
 and immortality is his servant, and deemed fitting 
 and worthy only to minister to his wants and pas- 
 sions. Instead of being entitled to that place in 
 his affections, that honorable position in society 
 which belongs to her, she is the dishonored por- 
 tion of the race. Instead of being its ornament 
 and crown, and designed by her beauty, loveli- 
 ness, weakness, and shrinking delicacy, to influence, 
 charm, soften, purify, and elevate the stronger and 
 coarser sex, she is excluded from this honorable 
 and elevating intercourse, and made the corrupter of 
 human society. In lands not a few, she forms no 
 constituent part of the domestic circle ; she is even 
 denied her immortality ; her birth is bewailed as a 
 misfortune, and her death hailed with rejoicing ; 
 and if she is allowed to survive her minority, it is to 
 immolate herself on the funeral pile of her husband,
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 81 
 
 or become the universal scorn even of her own chil- 
 dren. I need not dwell on the fact, that this is no 
 part of the spirit of the Bible. 
 
 It is a remarkable feature of the Bible also, that 
 it has peculiar respect to little children and the ris- 
 ing generation. Both under the Old and New Tes- 
 taments, its great designs of mercy are carried into 
 effect, by its effective solicitude and tenderness to- 
 wards the young. It is out of the mouth of babes 
 and sucklings, that its Author would perfect praise. 
 Next to the garden and the cross, there is not a 
 more affecting or characteristic symbol of Chris- 
 tianity, than the scene where the Saviour took little 
 children in his arms and blessed them. How dif- 
 ferent is this from the brutal negligence, and horrid 
 rites, and practised infanticide of paganism ! " Suf- 
 fer the little children to come unto me, and forbid 
 them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!" 
 Did the voice of earth ever utter a sentence like this ? 
 and is it not a proof of Heaven's own tenderness ? 
 
 We might expatiate largely also, on the benign 
 influence of the Bible upon that class of men who by 
 crime, or war, or cupidity, 'become the slaves of their 
 fellow men. The slavery of the Bible, in its worst, 
 form, is a very different thing from the slavery of pa- 
 gan and anti-Christian lands. It can scarcely deserve 
 to be called slavery ; nor is there any doubt, that in 
 the same measure in which the principles and spirit 
 of the Bible are imbibed, the yoke of human bondage 
 will melt away, and every form of human oppression 
 cease. " There is no respect of persons with God." 
 
 Bible not of Man. #
 
 82 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 This Book is throughout the friend of the poor. 
 In this particular, there is a marked difference be- 
 tween the Bible and all other systems of religious 
 faith and duty. Plato makes the strange remark, 
 that "it is impossible to make God known to all." 
 "All pure and spiritual religion," says Neander, 
 "was considered as the peculiar possession of a 
 small number; it seemed impossible to communi- 
 cate this knowledge to the lower classes." False 
 religions impoverish the poor by their severe exac- 
 tions. One of the great causes of poverty and suf- 
 fering in the mass of the community in pagan lands, 
 is the intolerable burden of their religious systems ; 
 while it is not less true that the poverty and dis- 
 tress of the lower classes under our own observation, 
 are to be attributed, in no small degree, to the vast 
 amount of property wrung from them by a corrupted 
 and false religion. Nor is this all. The poor, the 
 sick, the aged, are they whose blood stains the altars 
 of false religions, and who are ordinarily selected as 
 the sacrifices to idol gods. How different is all this 
 from the spirit of that Book which teaches us, that 
 " the rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord 
 is the Maker of them all ;" that he is "a strength to 
 the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress;" 
 that he " vindicates the poor of the people, and saves 
 the children of the needy ;" that " to the poor the 
 Gospel is preached," and that " God hath chosen the 
 poor of this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of 
 the kingdom which he hath promised." The spirit 
 of the Bible is in this, particular of high origin ; it
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 83 
 
 was born in heaven and trained to deeds of mercy. 
 It has counsels for the throne for the prison it has 
 consolation. " I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was 
 in prison, and ye came unto me." It has admoni- 
 tions for the rich for the poor glad tidings. "It is 
 one of the prime and distinguishing features of the 
 character of the Deity, as revealed to us in S capture, 
 that the poor man, just as well as the r^h man, is 
 the object of his watchfulness : tb-* he bows his 
 ear to the cry of the meanest o-cast ; so that there 
 is not a smile upon a poor pian's cheek, and there is 
 not a tear in a poor man'-s eye, which passes any more 
 unheeded by our G^d, than if the individual were a 
 monarch on hi throne, and thousands crouched in 
 vassalage before him."* The condition of the poor 
 in lands that are Christian, compared with other 
 lands, speaks volumes for the Bible. The ten thou- 
 sand acts of private munificence, as well as more 
 public bounty in the forms of legal enactment, and 
 the various eleemosynary institutions unknown to 
 the world where the Bible is unknown, are no doubt- 
 ful proof of the benevolence of its spirit. This 
 blessed Book has no characteristic more obvious than 
 sympathy for the oppressed and suffering classes of 
 human society. It is like a bright sun, when he 
 breaks through the cloud and falls upon the lowly 
 vale ; it is God's light, cheering those who " dwell 
 in darkness and unseen." 
 
 5. Another consideration by which the unearthly 
 
 * Melvill.
 
 g4 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 spirit of the Bible is illustrated, is derived from the 
 great end and motive which it reveals as the su- 
 preme and governing- principle of the Divine con- 
 duct. This Book discloses what no human philos- 
 ophy ever thought of, and no systems of paganism 
 have ever revealed the ultimate end of the Deity 
 in the <ereation and government of this lower world. 
 It instructs us that God " made all things for him- 
 self;" that " f 01 his pleasure they exist, and were cre- 
 ated ;" that " of hlxt, and to him, and through him 
 are all things, to whoiube glory for ever." It in- 
 structs us, that by all his "Works, he illustrates and 
 manifests the inherent and unhanging perfection 
 of his own glorious nature. 
 
 And what are these perfections ? " God is light ;" 
 " God is love :" his infinite wisdom and goodness are 
 those moral properties of his nature which he de- 
 signs thus to unfold. There was no motive, no in- 
 citement from without ; the irresistible impulse was 
 all from within his own wise and benevolent mind. 
 He could not but express and gratify his own wis- 
 dom and goodness ; this was the consideration which 
 moved him to create, to govern, to redeem. This, to 
 some minds, may appear an abstract and metaphys- 
 ical truth ; but it is a great and glorious truth, a 
 most precious and lovely truth ; one which the Bible 
 only reveals, and one in which we discover the true 
 spirit of the book itself. As a dogma merely, it has 
 a cold and abstract form ; but it is inwoven and min- 
 gled with the genial warmth of love. It is not a 
 frigid abstraction, but living, breathing kindness.
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 35 
 
 It is the theory of love, and a sure pledge for the 
 actings of love. It is not a beautiful moonlight 
 scene, but the sun of summer, filling all the regions 
 of the earth, coming upon us with its balmy air, and 
 enkindling within our bosoms deep-felt gratitude. 
 What shall we say of the spirit of that Book which 
 brings the blessed truth home to the business and 
 bosoms of men, that all that God does is under 
 the invariable impulse to what is wisest and best ; 
 which speaks of love under the control of intelli- 
 gence, and intelligence controlled by love love 
 that is all emotion and tenderness, all that is fond 
 and paternal that has not one chilling, or cheer- 
 less aspect, and no counterpart in the inventions of 
 men ? The infidel sees difficulties in the govern- 
 ment of the Most High, and sees them everywhere 
 difficulties which, as a moral and sensitive being, 
 fill him with perplexity and darkness. Events have 
 taken place, are taking place now, and will here- 
 after take place, that are evil ; but the Bible teaches 
 us, that there is a benevolent design in the darkest 
 dispensations ; and that they present the deep back- 
 ground of that great moral landscape, which brings 
 out the strongest outlines of the Divine wisdom and 
 goodness. What is difficult to ais, is easy to God ; 
 what to us is doubtful, to him is ascertained ; what 
 to our view is full of perplexity, we are assured is 
 directed to what is best. The Bible is not silent 
 upon such topics as these ; it sees these evils ; it 
 weighs them, feels them, discloses them, and that it 
 may provide a remedy for them.
 
 86 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 It is a strong mark of divine teaching, to be 
 told, that everything that God does is under the 
 impulse of goodness goodness as extensive as cre- 
 ation, as constant as time, as enduring as eternity. 
 Such are the teachings, and such the spirit of the 
 sacred volume. Such is the relief it affords to mill- 
 ions of minds, otherwise shrouded in gloom. It 
 pours light upon the darkest pages of this world's 
 history, and makes the interminable future lumi- 
 nous. Nor are there any such benevolent teachings, 
 except from the God of love. 
 
 6. Let us, as the crowning thought of the whole, 
 dwell a few moments on the spirit of this Book as 
 expressed in its own wondrous method of redeeming 
 mercy. That it is above the invention of the human 
 intellect, we haipe seen ; equally is the spirit which 
 dictated it above the well-known spirit of man. The 
 more just indeed are our conceptions of the good- 
 ness which gave it birth, the deeper are our convic- 
 tions that it is immeasurably above our reach. No 
 man ever seriously addressed himself to the effort 
 of making a due estimate of the love which origi- 
 nated this mysterious arrangement, without the im- 
 pression, the strong inward feeling, that it is infinitely 
 beyond the reach of his moral, as well as his intel- 
 lectual powers. It requires love to perceive love : 
 we have not love enough in our own bosoms, to 
 perceive this amazing love of God. The true spirit 
 of the Bible is not in its rightful and unbending au- 
 thority merely, replete as this authority is with the 
 goodness and majesty of its Divine Author ; nor is
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 87 
 
 it merely in those rich and embodied truths, those 
 moral considerations, drawn from so many sources, 
 and which none but the heart of Infinite love 
 could suggest : it is in the revelation it makes of the 
 love of its Atoning, Redeeming Saviour. They are 
 " thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," which 
 make this disclosure ; but they are words of peace to 
 the guilty ; counsels of peace, thoughts of love, 
 overflowings of heavenly solicitude and compassion, 
 which sought a channel at the greatest sacrifice, and 
 one which " none of the princes of this world knew." 
 It was to subdue to the spirit of the Bible, and 
 wash their sins away, and adopt into the family of 
 heaven those whose wickedness had made them 
 outcasts, and who were fit only for the abodes of 
 infamy and shame, that the God of the universe 
 consecrated his Son his only and equal Son, on the 
 altar of Justice ; " gave him up," abandoned him 
 to sorrows that rent the heavens with an exceeding 
 great and bitter cry ; to agony with which the graves, 
 the rocks, the sun, the whole material world sympa- 
 thized. And all for man that is a worm ! 
 
 " O more exceeding love, or law more just 
 Just law indeed, but more exceeding love !" 
 
 " God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believe th in him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life !" 
 Dwell on this thought, and tell me whence it came ? 
 Does it fall on the ear as the voice of man ? Has 
 not every heart, that is not bereft of the last vestige
 
 88 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of filial affection, the irresistible consciousness that 
 it is the voice of his " Father who is in heaven ?" 
 O, if it were for nothing else than the revelation 
 the Bible makes of that " mighty movement made 
 in heaven " when men were lost, this alone were 
 enough to rescue it from the imputation of being 
 the device of a vile impostor ! There is an ampli- 
 tude of goodness here, which is literally immeasur- 
 able ; a self-denial of goodness, which never can be 
 recompensed ; a purity of goodness, which nothing 
 can impeach ; a constancy and watchfulness of 
 goodness, that are never wearied, and that never 
 slumber. Time does not weaken such love as this ; 
 distance does not change it ; unkindness, ingratitude, 
 and abuse do not exhaust it ; nor is it exhausted by 
 poverty, disease, crime, and death. It never shuts 
 up the bowels of its compassion. It has a strength 
 that surmounts the greatest obstacles ; a height, and 
 depth, and length, of which those who know most 
 of it can only say that " it passeth knowledge." Was 
 it ever known that an impostor put on such robes 
 of love ; or was any creature ever thus clad in the 
 brightest adornment of the Deity ? 
 
 Such is the spirit of the Bible ; such is its love, 
 its amazing, unsearchable love, in more respects 
 than those of which the preceding induction of par- 
 ticulars is but a - very partial expression. Love and 
 mercy, the infinite love and mercy of the Infinite 
 One, constitute its great and glowing themes from 
 beginning to end ; themes never lost sight of, never
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 89 
 
 obscured, never losing their ascendancy. Such a 
 production was never the production of man : it is 
 more than the human mind can conceive, that such 
 a book should have its origin in this low earth. It 
 is not th spirit of man, which this Book discloses ; 
 it is a spirit which belongs not to man's nature. 
 Never has the universe seen, nor will it ever see so 
 heavenly a spirit, save in these annals of heavenly 
 mercy. No other book is imbued with such a spirit, 
 because this alone is the Book of God. O, how un- 
 like all other books is the sweet spirit of the Bible ! 
 
 Let a man retire from the world with the Bible 
 in his hand, and, even though the enemy of this 
 wondrous Book, he must feel as though he were in 
 another atmosphere than the atmosphere of earth. 
 Nor can even such a man fail to contrast the heav- 
 enly fragrance of its spirit, with the nauseous fumes 
 that come up from his own agitated and effervescing 
 bosom ; and if he is its friend, he feels as if he were 
 fanned by the zephyrs of heaven, and encircled by 
 its balmy breezes. Let us suppose an intelligent 
 and well-instructed pagan, but lately emerged from 
 the darkness of paganism, and brought to an ac- 
 quaintance with the Bible, and to feel its power. 
 It were difficult for us to conceive the impressions 
 made upon such a mind, by the beauty and excel- 
 lence of the spirit which this Book expresses. Con- 
 trasted with the spirit of paganism, it would seem 
 to him like the balmy air and flushing verdure of 
 spring after the dreary chills of a long winter. His 
 dreaming anticipations of his own Elysium, would
 
 90 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 be more than realized in that wondrous system of 
 truth and love ; that tender regard for men, in all 
 the various stages of their moral history ; that uni- 
 form and benignant tendency of its high-born insti- 
 tutions ; that impartial goodness to classes of men 
 which paganism overlooks and despises ; that su- 
 preme and governing end of all the Divine con- 
 duct ; and that method of redeeming mercy, the 
 design and object of which are to extricate men 
 from darkness, by bringing them to the light of life ; 
 to deliver them from bondage, by rescuing them 
 from guilt ; to make them happy, by making them 
 good. Such a man would almost involuntarily 
 exclaim, This is truly a most wonderful book ; there 
 is nothing like it in the counsels of earthly wisdom : 
 it cannot be the work of an impostor ! 
 
 And such are our own conclusions. There are 
 associations of thought and feeling here, not only 
 from which the dark and subtil mind of an impostor 
 is widely and forever alienated, but which it is as 
 irrational to trace to any other than a divine source, 
 as it would be to attribute the Pilgrim's Progress to 
 such a man as Thomas Paine. To a mind at all 
 imbued with the spirit of the Bible, its divine ori- 
 gin is a thing of instant conviction, as if seen in 
 the light of its own evidence, rather than a thing 
 of lengthened and laborious proof. God has so 
 ordained our mental constitution, that if the mind 
 be not, to a lamentable degree, disordered and per- 
 verted by wickedness, we cannot but see that this 
 lovely production is his own work. Like the
 
 ITS SPIRIT SUPERHUMAN. 91 
 
 manna miraculously rained down in the Arabian 
 desert, we need only inspect it in order to see that 
 it is the " bread of heaven, which giveth life to the 
 world." No more than a child can mistake the 
 letter of love from the well-known hand of his 
 earthly parent, can we mistake the celestial origin 
 of these epistles of heavenly rnercy. No more than 
 a son can mistake his father's last will and testa- 
 ment, can we mistake this last Will and Testament 
 of Him " who liveth and was dead, and is alive for 
 evermore." Never could it have been written by any 
 other hand. It is Godlike throughout, and breathes 
 his lovely and blessed spirit. It has no origin, save 
 in those eternal counsels of love which devised it ; no 
 resemblance, save where its own superhuman spirit 
 is inscribed,- no fulfilment, save in that heaven to 
 which it tends. It presents a distinct exhibition of 
 God himself. It is the mighty conception of his love. 
 It stands alone in the world. It is God's Bible. 
 
 -" Hast thou ever heard 
 
 Of such a book ? The author, God himself ; 
 
 The subject, God and man, salvation, life 
 
 And death eternal life, eternal death 
 
 Dread words ! whose meaning has no end, no bounds. 
 
 Most wondrous book ! bright candle of the Lord ! 
 
 Star of eternity ! the only star 
 
 By which the bark of man could navigate 
 
 The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
 
 Securely ! only star which rose on tune, 
 
 And on its dark and troubled billows, stole, 
 
 As generation, drifting swiftly by, 
 
 Succeeded generation, thence a ray 
 
 Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of God,
 
 92 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 Th' eternal hills, pointed the sinner's eye. 
 This book, this holy book, in every line 
 Marked with the seal of high divinity, 
 On every leaf bedewed with drops of love 
 Divine, and with th' eternal heraldry 
 And signature of God Almighty stamped 
 From first to last this ray of sacred light, 
 This lamp from off the everlasting throne, 
 Mercy took down, and in the night of time 
 Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow, 
 And evermore beseeching men, with tears 
 And earnest sighs, to hear, believe, and live. 
 And many to her voice gave ear and read, 
 Believed, obeyed : and now, as the Amen, 
 True, faithful Witness swore, with snowy robes 
 And branching palms surround the fount of life, 
 And drink the streams of immortality, 
 Forever happy, and forever young." 
 
 If the intelligence of this Book should fail to 
 convince the reader, let its love persuade him. It is 
 a kind volume, fitted to disarm prejudice, and sub- 
 due hostility. There are dark jealousies and most 
 unworthy suspicions of it in the world. Men do 
 injustice to it, because guilt is always suspicious ; 
 nor do their suspicions always go at their bidding. 
 You love the man who throws around him an 
 atmosphere of kindness. The Bible itself is such 
 an atmosphere, without any mixture of impurity. 
 It lives only to bless the world. And when its 
 work of touching tenderness, diffusive, attractive 
 blessedness is accomplished, it will return to Him 
 who gave it, to impart new blessings, and shed new 
 lustre on the heaven whence it came.
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 93 
 
 CHAPTER III, 
 
 THE MORAL RECTITUDE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 IN adverting to the spirit of the Scriptures, 1 
 have not designed to call the reader's attention so 
 much to their moral rectitude, as to their unearthly 
 kindness. Benevolence is good will ; moral recti- 
 tude is conformity to what is right. The spirit of 
 the Bible consults the happiness of men ; its moral 
 rectitude, their character. Moral rectitude, though 
 productive of happiness, is a distinct thing from hap- 
 piness ; just as wickedness, though productive of 
 misery, is a distinct thing from misery. The one 
 is the effect ; the other, the cause. Moral recti- 
 tude is perceived by conscience ; happiness, by con- 
 sciousness. Moral rectitude is the proper subject of 
 command, and must always be required ; happiness 
 may not be. Moral rectitude has moral qualities ; 
 happiness may not have. The moral rectitude of 
 the Scriptures, therefore, in distinction from their 
 superhuman kindness, furnishes a fair, and as I shall 
 endeavor to show, a good ground of argument, that 
 they are neither the work of an impostor, nor of any 
 human device. 
 
 It is inseparable from all just conceptions of God, 
 that it is impossible for him to do wrong. He is the
 
 94 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 source of all moral rectitude in the universe, and 
 everywhere its supporter and patron. He is holy, 
 and his holiness is infinite. He is the Holy One, 
 and the only one who, by excellence, can challenge 
 to himself the name of Holy. Holiness is an essen- 
 tial perfection of his nature ; it is full and perfect, 
 without blemish, and without diminution or change. 
 A book of which he is 'the Author must be a holy 
 book, and must, necessarily, express his irreconcil- 
 able aversion to all that is wrong. 
 
 We cannot say this of man, nor of any book of 
 which he is the author. We know what the char- 
 acter of man is. It is a humiliating confession, that 
 we cannot give human nature credit for any great 
 degree of moral virtue. There are not only great 
 and obvious defections from moral integrity in every 
 individual of our race, without exception ; but wick- 
 edness prevails to a degree sufficient to convince 
 us, that the great principles of moral order in this 
 world are all subverted. Wickedness exists in every 
 form : wickedness in principle, and wickedness in 
 practice ; wickedness in heart and life ; wickedness 
 in every variety and measure. Degraded and degrad- 
 ing wickedness, and wickedness that is polished and 
 honored ; wickedness in the solitude of the closet, 
 and in the retirements of the domestic relations ; 
 wickedness in nations and in the world ; wickedness 
 in human laws and governments; institutions and 
 customs that are wicked ; a wicked press, and a 
 wicked literature ; and withal, religions in abun- 
 dance that are wicked, form the leading and promi-
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 95 
 
 nent features in the history of our race. There are 
 strong propensities in men to that which is evil. 
 The paths of licensed and ungoverned. wickedness 
 are pleasant to them ; while the paths of virtue, 
 truth, purity, honesty and honor, are uninviting to 
 their depraved taste, and rugged and difficult. 
 
 These views of the human character have re- 
 ceived the sanction of paganism itself, and are abun- 
 dantly verified by the writings of its poets, philoso- 
 phers, and historians. Not a few among infidels 
 themselves do not dispute them. There is no doubt 
 in this matter. There is but this one view that can 
 be given of the character of man. Were the ques- 
 tion asked, What are those persons most familiar 
 with, and what reminiscences most haunt their im- 
 aginations, who are most versed in the history of 
 our world ? The one answer must be, that they, 
 of all men, know most of human wickedness. 
 Save a few bright spots, tike the oases in the desert, 
 the pilgrimage of the historian is through regions 
 denied by crime, polluted by idolatry and blood, 
 agitated by ambition and revenge, desolated by cru- 
 elty and despotism, bearing the marks of violence 
 and wrong, and everyAvhere presenting scenes of 
 misery and horror, which furnish overwhelming 
 proof of deep-seated wickedness in the heart of man, 
 and in all the elements of his social organization. 
 
 Now the simple question we propose for consid- 
 eration is, Whether such a book as the Bible was 
 the production of the human mind ; and whether it 
 is a possible thing that a being, as degraded and
 
 96 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 morally depraved as we know man to be, unless 
 inspired by the God of spotless rectitude, could have 
 been its author ? 
 
 In determining this question, it is necessary that 
 we inspect the moral rectitude of the Book itself. 
 Men may inspect detached portions of it, and please 
 themselves with some things, which, at first view, 
 have the semblance of conniving at what is wrong. 
 But let them read it ; let them read the whole of it ; 
 let them carry along in their minds the character of 
 the persons to which the different portions of it were 
 addressed j the age of the world, and the circum- 
 stances under which the different parts of it were 
 written, and the particular objects which even those 
 portions of it have in view, which to an infidel 
 mind appear the most exceptionable ; and they may 
 be rationally convinced that, instead of originating in 
 the bosom of an impostor, it owes its origin to men 
 who wrote "as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost." Let them scrutinize it with as much 
 severity as they please ; only let their scrutiny be 
 well informed, wisely directed, and with a fair and 
 ingenuous mind, and we have no fears for the issue. 
 There are portions of it on which ignorance and folly 
 have put constructions that are forced and unnatural, 
 and which impure minds have viewed in shadows 
 reflected from their own impurity. Montesquieu 
 said of Voltaire, Lorsque Voltaire lit un livre, il le 
 fa^t, puis il ecrit centre ce qu'il a fait : " When 
 Voltaire reads a book, he makes it what he pleases, 
 and then writes against what he has made." It is
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 97 
 
 no difficult matter to besmear and blot its pages, and 
 then impute the foul stains that men of corrupt minds 
 have cast upon it, to its stainless Author. But if we 
 honestly look at it as it is, we shall find that, like 
 its Author, it is without blemish and without spot. 
 
 1. Among the characteristics of the Bible which 
 are somewhat remarkable expressions of moral recti- 
 tude, the first that we notice is, the truth and just- 
 ness of its moral distinctions. Pagan lands have 
 never known in what moral rectitude consists, nor 
 have pagan writers ever described it. Nothing can 
 be found in their works to induce the belief that any 
 true knowledge of it has ever sprung up as an indi- 
 genous plant upon the soil of unenlightened reason, 
 or natural conscience. 
 
 The peripatetic philosophy, or the philosophy of 
 Aristotle, described moral rectitude as consisting in 
 the mean between two extremes ; a definition, than 
 which nothing is more undefinable. The stoical 
 system, or the system of Zeno, describes it as living 
 according to nature : alas, for the rectitude that con- 
 sists in such a life ! The system of Epicurus, in its 
 best estate, described it as living as free as possible 
 from the evils incident to life, and in the enjoy- 
 ment of as large a measure as possible of its happi- 
 ness ; while in its subsequent corruptions, it is a 
 system of mere animal pleasure and unrestrained 
 sensuality. Human reason, untaught of God, has 
 never been able to discover, to any such extent as is 
 available for practical purposes, the difference be- 
 tween what is right and what is wrong. There is 
 
 Biblo not of Man. 5
 
 98 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 no doubt that, to some extent, the natural universe 
 recognizes this distinction, while no well-informed 
 person will deny that there are both graces and sins, 
 virtues and vices, which the language of paganism 
 has not words to express. 
 
 The history of the world does not furnish ex- 
 amples of more manly thought, nor of greater saga- 
 city and shrewdness, nor more wonderful powers of 
 discrimination, than are found in the writings of pa- 
 gan philosophers ; yet on mdral subjects their notions 
 were not only vague and obscure, but in many in- 
 stances absolutely puerile and foolish. They spoke 
 of conduct as sacred, of which the Bible speaks as 
 infamous ; they treated as religious and honorable, 
 what the Bible treats as debasing and flagitious. To 
 such an extent, and so boldly, did they " put dark- 
 ness for light, and light for darkness, good for evil, 
 and evil for good," that their very religion required 
 them to be immoral. 
 
 All their religious teachers did not indeed incul- 
 cate the same doctrines ; what one condemned as a 
 vice, another, equally profound, inculcated as a virtue. 
 Nor were their teachings consistent and uniform ; 
 the same writers, and the same legislation that some- 
 times discountenanced wickedness, at others embol- 
 dened the perpetration of it. The reason why there 
 are no accurate delineations of moral rectitude in 
 heathen writers is, they had no divine teaching, and 
 therefore no discernment of it. Right and wrong 
 with them were arbitrary distinctions, and depend- 
 ed for the most part upon custom, upon the an-
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 99 
 
 thority of human laws, and upon the opinions of 
 men. This is the ground on which Hobbes and 
 other infidel writers rest all their moral distinctions. 
 The history of pagan philosophy is interesting, be- 
 cause it is mournfully instructive as a history of the 
 errors of the human mind, and as a practical proof of 
 that excessive degradation to which the most refined 
 and cultivated intellect is reduced, when destitute of 
 Divine guidance. If we except those writings which 
 derive their instructions from the Bible, there is 
 but this one book that lays the foundation of moral 
 obligation in the nature of the Deity, and in the 
 nature and relations which men sustain towards 
 him and one another, as he has revealed them. In 
 the sparklings of pagan poetry, there are occasional 
 scintillations of moral sentiment that are just and 
 exalted ; and so there are in the more sober discus- 
 sions of such a writer as the great heathen moralist, 
 Seneca. But they are too varying and contradictory ; 
 they affirm and deny almost in the same paragraph ; 
 while the most unexceptionable, both of their poets 
 arid philosophers, are the teachers of flagrant wick- 
 edness. It is not so with the Bible. At a great re- 
 move from the ethics of the whole pagan and infidel 
 world, the rectitude it describes is no scintillation of 
 poetry, nor is it any sudden outbreaking of con- 
 science ; it is not brought out occasionally, and for 
 effect, but is inwoven with all its revelations, and 
 is the uniform characteristic of the book itself. In- 
 stead of being influenced by the opinions of men, 
 and controlled by their example, customs, and laws,
 
 100 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 its aim is to influence and control men themselves. 
 Instead of inculcating a rectitude that is based on 
 the principles of expediency, and urging the claims 
 of godliness as a profitable speculation, and sacrific- 
 ing the interests of moral rectitude to any other in- 
 terests, it uniformly pursues the opposite course ; and 
 in every instance where other interests come in col- 
 lision with the claims of moral rectitude, the latter 
 hold absolute supremacy. 
 
 This were a somewhat remarkable fact in a work 
 to be traced no higher than the artifice of an impos- 
 tor. Whence is it, that in an age of the world 
 when human learning was so ignorant, human phi- 
 losophy so unwise, and the virtue and teachings of 
 its sages so erring, a collection of impostors should 
 have this strange preeminence ? Whence is it, that 
 a system of morals, devised by such men, should 
 strike its roots so deep into the great principles of 
 God's government, and the moral constitution of 
 man? Whence is it, that all the results of human 
 philosophy are so infinitely surpassed by the moral 
 principles of a book, which has its origin in deception 
 and falsehood ? " Hath not God made foolish the 
 wisdom of this world ?" Does not this revelation, by 
 the mere truth and justness of its moral distinctions, 
 show that it is God's work, and not the work of man ? 
 
 2. It is the great peculiarity of the Bible also, 
 that it furnishes the only perfect standard of moral 
 rectitude. Human reason does not know enough 
 to furnish such a standard ; nor is it sufficiently im- 
 partial to do so, if it were able. Conscience is not
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 101 
 
 sufficiently enlightened to furnish such a standard ; 
 nor, in fallen man, is she sufficiently honest to do 
 so, were she enlightened. One Being in the uni- 
 verse there is, and only one, who is capable of decid- 
 ing what in all instances of human conduct is right 
 in itself, and of revealing the unerring rule of right 
 to the creatures he has made. 
 
 There is a law in the Scriptures, called the Mo- 
 ral Law, and comprised in ten precepts, there affirmed 
 to have been written by the ringer of God. It is a 
 law which uniformly and always commands what is 
 right, and prohibits what is wrong. Without stop- 
 ping to expound it, it is enough to say, that it is so 
 comprehensive as to be applicable to every creature 
 in the universe, and to every instance of his moral 
 conduct. Just as it is proof of the Divine wisdom, 
 to secure and control ten thousand events in the 
 natural world by one simple law of nature ; so it is 
 one of the proofs of his wisdom, to govern every 
 creature in the universe by this one, simple law of 
 rectitude. This law is a perfectly decisive standard, 
 and one that is perfectly adapted to the workings 
 of natural conscience. The conscience of every man 
 that is enlightened by it, endorses it as truly as the 
 congregation of Israel did, when, at the rehearsal 
 of every precept and penalty, " all the people said, 
 Amen." 
 
 There are several things in relation to this great 
 rule of moral conduct, that are worthy of a moment's 
 thought. 
 
 It is a consideration not to be overlooked, that it
 
 102 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 extends itself to the heart, and does not stop short 
 of the inward principles and motives of human con- 
 duct. It does not sever the outer from the inner 
 man ; but regards his principles and motives as the 
 germ of which his outward conduct is the develope- 
 ment. It reaches the fountain, and gains nothing, 
 and cares for nothing, until it carries the heart. It 
 identifies the love 6f God with keeping his com- 
 mandments, and keeping his commandments with 
 the love of God. It condemns the boasted rectitude 
 of principle which is without an outward and visible 
 morality, as well as a Pharisaic morality that is des- 
 titute of right principle. 
 
 Another fact in relation to it is, its wonderful 
 comprehensiveness. It comprises everything that 
 men think, or say, or do, as well as everything they 
 omit which they ought to perform. In its induc- 
 tions of particulars, the thought of evil, and the 
 murderous act, the two extremes of human wicked- 
 ness, are specified as including the entire range of 
 human conduct. 
 
 Another fact in relation to it is, that it is appli- 
 cable to all men alike, regards all their conduct, and 
 is to be carried everywhere. It is not for the old 
 only, but for the young ; it is not for the poor only, 
 but for the rich ; it is not for the monastery and 
 the cloister, the closet and the family merely ; nor is 
 it confined to the sanctuary and the Sabbath ; but it 
 regards all the relations of society as the spheres of 
 its influence. It consecrates the reciprocal depend- 
 encies, obligations, and intercourse between man and
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 103 
 
 man, as well as between man and his Maker ; and 
 looks upon this whole earth, with all the variety of 
 its aspects and employments, as a temple, every part 
 of which ought to be vocal with God's praise and 
 devoted to his glory. 
 
 Another fact is, that it is unbending in its claims, 
 and requires a rectitude that is sinless. Its course 
 is a straight one, and without the least deviation 
 from a right line. No departure from it is allowed, 
 under any possible pretence or any imaginable cir- 
 cumstances. It never modifies its high claims in 
 accommodation to the character and condition of 
 men, the maxims of the world, the laws and usages 
 of society, or the force of temptation. Nothing in 
 the universe relaxes the obligation, or countervails 
 the life and spirit of it ; but it is of perpetual force 
 and obligation in all worlds, and throughout eternity. 
 
 Nor does it stand unenforced with appropriate 
 and equitable penalties. It does not merely de- 
 scribe the rectitude it enjoins,- nor does it simply 
 counsel men to obedience : it binds them at their 
 peril, and on the most fearful penalties. Its lan- 
 guage is in the highest degree authoritative. It 
 is not at their option ; they have no choice in the 
 matter ; the only alternative is obedience, or death, 
 death eternal, and without reprieve. Its punitive 
 power is not passion, but principle ; it is not a vacil- 
 lating policy, but an established law of the Divine 
 kingdom. It is one upon which the great moral 
 Governor of the universe conducts his government 
 towards every part of it, and with impartial equity ;
 
 104 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 one which he will emphatically act out, when he 
 bids the incorrigible depart into everlasting fire. The 
 Scriptures magnify this unbending rectitude of the 
 Divine government ; they represent it as one of the 
 excellencies of the Divine character, that he " is 
 angry with the wicked every day ;" that he " haleth 
 all the workers of iniquity ;" and that his punitive 
 justice is as truly the befitting theme of praise on 
 the lips of the unfallen and of the redeemed, as his 
 larger and preeminent grace. 
 
 Infidels have reviled the Bible, for this perfect 
 and unbending standard of moral rectitude which it 
 reveals. Here we are fairly at issue with them : 
 what they affirm to be evidence of its imperfection, 
 we affirm to be evidence of its perfection ; what they 
 affirm could not have originated with a Being of per- 
 fect benevolence, we affirm could never have origi- 
 nated with man, whose benevolence and rectitude are 
 so imperfect. We are content to make the appeal to 
 every honest mind, whether such a standard of recti- 
 tude, enforced by such penalties, is of human origin, 
 or Divine ? 
 
 The conclusion is rational and just. Such moral 
 rectitude never originated in this unrighteous world. 
 Such precepts and sanctions of righteousness are not 
 the device of an impostor. From what we know 
 of the character of man, can we suppose him to be 
 such a lover and vindicator of moral rectitude, as to 
 have guarded it by such a code ? 
 
 Let the complaints of this wicked world against 
 this eternal rule of right, and these eternal sanctions
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 105 
 
 of it, be an answer to these inquiries. Let the 
 reproach, and reviling, and bitter and malignant sar- 
 casm of infidelity, so profusely bestowed on those 
 portions of the Bible which most insist on claims 
 like these, be our answer to them; and let them 
 teach us, that the moral rectitude of this book is as 
 far above the conceptions and device of men, as the 
 thoughts of God are above the thoughts of man, and 
 the ways of God above man's ways. 
 
 3. Another expression of the moral rectitude of 
 the Bible is found in the solicitude it expresses, and 
 the means it adopts for the promotion of moral recti- 
 tude among men. The moral distinctions, the stand- 
 ard of rectitude, and the sanctions by which its great 
 rule of right is supported and enforced, are doubtless 
 expressions of this solicitude, and themselves to be 
 numbered among these selected means. But these 
 are not the whole of them. 
 
 Men have strayed very far from rectitude, and 
 are perpetually, and on all sides, exposed to greater 
 and endless aberrations. They need to be in- 
 structed in the path by which they may retrace their 
 steps. Their apostate character, the obtuseness of 
 their consciences, and great moral blindness, call for 
 some adequate means of moral transformation ; some 
 animating stimulus to what is right ; some protec- 
 tion from the storm of passions that assault the soul ; 
 some secure guardianship against the seductions of a 
 corrupting world ; some interposition of a power that 
 is effective to the production of a more sound and 
 better mind; some supporting hand to keep them 
 
 Bible not of Man.
 
 106 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 from falling ; some sacred influences that shall fit 
 them to behold the face of God in peace, and to live 
 and reign with him forever. 
 
 If we reject the Bible, where are these varied 
 influences to be found ? Infidels ought to feel them- 
 selves under obligations to tell us where. They 
 would fain take away the rectitude which the Bible 
 imparts ; but they leave us nothing, absolutely no- 
 thing, in its place. Natural science does not reclaim 
 men from wickedness ; if it did, why were the most 
 scientific and literary nations of ancient times the 
 most wicked ? Human laws cannot reclaim them ; 
 for it is an acknowledged fact, that in the best forms 
 of civil government the world has seen, there is 
 nothing to effect this moral renovation. 
 
 I need scarcely say, that we must despair of pro- 
 ducing anything like an exemplary moral rectitude 
 in the world, if we abandon those principles and 
 means of reform, which are found alone in the Bible. 
 If we except those human writings which draw their 
 instructions from this source, there is but this one 
 book that is at all fitted to accomplish, or that seri- 
 ously aims at accomplishing this great work. It is 
 not easy for us to estimate the difficulty of accom- 
 plishing it, or even the difficulty of making a hope- 
 ful commencement. If you advert to the early 
 instructions given to men after the first apostacy had 
 its terrific sweep over the nations, you cannot but 
 observe the concern, the caution, and the great con- 
 descension which the Bible expresses, merely to 
 imbue the minds of the nation, to whom its first
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 107 
 
 revelations were given, with some just conceptions 
 of moral rectitude itself. By all that was fearful in 
 the moral, and all that was exact in the ceremonial 
 law, and by all that was peculiar in their own sepa- 
 ration from the surrounding and idolatrous nations, 
 lessons were taught them which all the volumes of 
 pagan philosophy could not inculcate. It was only 
 thus progressively that their minds could be opened 
 to moral distinctions, and their consciences awakened 
 to the consideration of what God himself approves 
 and will accept, and what he disapproves and will 
 punish. This is one great point to be secured in 
 the minds of fallen men, and a most important be- 
 ginning in the work of moral culture. 
 
 In prosecuting this hallowed design, the next 
 step is, to furnish some clear and distinct exemplifi- 
 cation of moral rectitude. 
 
 This the Scriptures do, especially in the delinea- 
 tions they make of the holy character of God. They 
 could accomplish nothing without this ; for men had 
 lost the knowledge of God. Not one thought of his 
 immutable excellence, or of the unblotted rectitude 
 of his nature, entered into their religious systems. 
 Their subordinate deities were examples of shame- 
 less vice ; while their notions of the supreme Deity 
 betray the profoundest ignorance, and the most con- 
 temptuous disrespect. It is a remarkable fact in the 
 history of men, that the conceptions they form of 
 -moral rectitude depend upon their conceptions of the 
 Divine character. They are uniformly like the gods 
 they worship. The devout worshipper of the true
 
 108 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 God resembles his Father who is in heaven. The 
 devotee of false gods resembles the gods he worships, 
 gradually acquires the character of the object with 
 which he has religious intercourse, and receives the 
 stamp and seal of it upon his own mind. And this 
 is in perfect accordance with the laws of our intellec- 
 tual and moral constitution. The Scriptures, speak- 
 ing of the idols of the heathen, teach us 'that " they 
 who make them are like them, and so is every one 
 that putteth his trust in them." The conception 
 of perfect moral rectitude is nowhere found to exist 
 in the human mind, save where there are just con- 
 ceptions of the Deity. The holiness of God binds 
 men to be holy : it is written, " Be ye holy, for I am 
 holy." 
 
 God himself is represented in the Scriptures as a 
 holy God : his purposes are holy ; his government is 
 holy ; his word is holy ; his day is holy. Him they 
 make the pattern and the patron, the shield, and the 
 exceeding great reward of holiness in men, while 
 they everywhere teach us, that in becoming holy, 
 men become his people, and God himself becomes 
 their God. All the instructions of the Bible are 
 designed as means of grace, and helps to godliness. 
 Its choicest privileges exert the most hallowed influ- 
 ence. Its ordinances, its sanctuary, its ministry, its 
 fellowship, were all instituted for the purpose of 
 training up "a peculiar people, zealous of good 
 works ;" nor are the mere litcralities and mechanism 
 of their outward observance there regarded as of any 
 avail, or otherwise than mockery. If we prize its
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 109 
 
 promises, they are revealed that " we might be par- 
 takers of the Divine nature." If we value its mercy- 
 seat, "there," says the God of all grace, "will 1 
 meet thee, and I will commune with thee, of all 
 things which J will give thee in commandment." 
 If we value fellowship with God, we are reminded 
 that if we "regard iniquity in our heart, the Lord 
 will not hear us." The entire worship which the 
 Bible requires is " in the beauties of holiness." This 
 spirit of heaven, transferred to earth, as the " dew of 
 youth from the womb of the morning," and consti- 
 tuting the highest adornment of his followers, is the 
 promised reward of its great subject and Redeemer. 
 " Fruit unto holiness" is its end and its heaven. 
 
 Again, I ask, Is there no difficulty in coming to 
 the conclusion that this Book is of human origin ? 
 Can it be the production of a mind whose great char- 
 acteristic is, that it hates righteousness ? 
 
 4. There is still another expression of moral rec- 
 titude, which strongly marks the revelations made in 
 the Scriptures. I mean, the protection they extend 
 to the claims and interests of moral rectitude in the 
 dispensations of pardoning mercy. The expiatory 
 death of Christ, as a satisfaction to Divine justice, in 
 the behalf of repentant and reformed transgressors, 
 must ever be regarded as the strongest proof of moral 
 rectitude in the instructions. of the Scriptures them- 
 selves. Can any lesson be more instructive to the 
 world, or to the universe, than that great lesson 
 taught from Calvary, where the Eternal Son of God 
 himself died on the cross to make an effective atone-
 
 HO THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 ment for the sins of men, for the purpose of vindi- 
 cating the stern claims of righteousness? Rather 
 than sacrifice, or trifle with eternal rectitude, or 
 connive at wrong, the sword of justice was commis- 
 sioned to awake against the " Fellow" of the Lord 
 of hosts, and pierce his righteous soul, who " thought 
 it not robbery to be equal with God." Let the infi- 
 del scoff no more, nor indulge his learned curiosity 
 in picking at this mountain of God's holiness. He 
 will not find in it the alloy he hopes to find : in this 
 mass of pure gold there are not even those grains of 
 sand he is seeking after. Rectitude and mercy have 
 here no conflicting interests ; because the claims of 
 rectitude are propitiated by an adequate and honora- 
 ble atonement. It is the language of mercy which 
 is here uttered, but only as it is warranted, echoed 
 by justice. The moral rectitude that is outraged by 
 the sin of man, is vindicated by the death of Christ. 
 The redemption by Christ stands forever side by 
 side with the only revealed standard and sanctions 
 of moral rectitude ; and while it pardons those whom 
 the law condemns, it does so without impugning 
 either the veracity or righteousness of the Lawgiver. 
 It does more than this. Its very love and mercy 
 are the great and only effectual means of restoring 
 apostate men to the moral rectitude from which they 
 have fallen. If the true Christian enters upon a 
 course of obedience, freed from the embarrassments 
 of a legal condemnation, and no longer struggling 
 under the thraldom of the curse ; it is that he may 
 run in the way of God's commandments with an
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. HI 
 
 enlarged heart, and be cheered by the light of his 
 countenance in doing his will. The salvation the 
 Bible speaks of is a salvation from sin, and restores 
 not less to the Divine resemblance than the Divine 
 favor. This is the most important, as it is the most 
 prominent feature of the Christian economy ; it 
 covers indeed the whole ground of a supernatural 
 revelation, and employs all the pens that have given 
 it to the world, from Moses to John. Its enemies 
 have severely scrutinized its moral influence ; and 
 not a few of them have been constrained to acknowl- 
 edge, that it reveals the only system of truth, and 
 the only motives by which men become holy. 
 
 It is no unusual thing for infidels themselves, in 
 many instances, to do homage to the moral rectitude 
 of the Bible. " We always recur," says Melvill, 
 " with great delight to the testimony of a Deist, who, 
 after publicly laboring to disprove Christianity, and 
 to bring Scripture into contempt as a forgery, was 
 found instructing his own child from the pages of 
 the New Testament. When taxed with the flagrant 
 inconsistency, his only reply was, that nowhere was 
 there to be found such morality as in the Bible ! 
 We thank the Deist for the confession. Whatever 
 our scorn of a man who could be guilty of so foul 
 a dishonesty, seeking to sweep from the earth a 
 volume to which all the while himself has recurred 
 for the principles of education, we thank him for his 
 testimony, that the morality of the Scriptures is a 
 morality not elsewhere to be found ; so that if there 
 were no Bible, there would be comparatively no
 
 112 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 source of instruction in duties and virtues, whose 
 neglect and decline would dislocate the happiness 
 of human society. The Deist was right. Deny or 
 disprove the divine origin of the Scriptures, and 
 nevertheless, you must keep the volume as a kind 
 of text-book of morality." Lord Herbert himself 
 acknowledges, " that in this respect, Christianity is 
 the best religion ;" nor, strange as the inconsistency 
 may be, does he hesitate to say, that " the great 
 design of all its doctrines, and even of the rites and 
 ceremonies there enjoined, is to establish those great 
 principles in which true religion properly consists." 
 No man ever rejected the Bible without exhibiting 
 the demoralizing influence of his unbelief. I care 
 not who the person is that makes this disastrous 
 experiment ; but let him deny the truth, obligations, 
 and hopes there revealed, and he will find, to his 
 cost, that his sinful propensities gain augmented 
 power, and that in every instance he becomes a 
 worse, instead of a better man. Without the Bible, 
 men are atheists or idolaters, and always wicked 
 men ; with it, if they are not virtuous and good 
 men, it is from the power of wickedness, which is 
 proof against the best means of reform. It is be- 
 cause the safest and surest directory, the most cheer- 
 ing encouragement, the plainest and most weighty 
 obligations and sanctions, and the best fitted and 
 most urgent motives to rectitude that areJcnown in 
 the universe, cannot control them. 
 
 Such is the moral rectitude of the Bible. Let
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 113 
 
 us, in a few words, close up the argument for its 
 divine origin from this single consideration. Our 
 argument is simply this. In the language of Lord 
 Bacon, " Truth is in order to goodness." Good- 
 ness never was, never can be the genuine fruit of 
 error. There is no absurdity more monstrous, than 
 that truth and moral rectitude are at war with one 
 another. No system of falsehood is thus distin- 
 guished for its love of rectitude, and its uniformly 
 hallowed influence. If this Bible be indeed the 
 production of uninspired man, it is not in keeping 
 with his well-known character, or his well-known 
 religious inventions. If it be the production of un- 
 inspired man, it were a phenomenon, a miracle, more 
 difficult to be accredited than the inspiration which 
 is the scoff of the unbeliever. Nothing is more dis- 
 tant from human thought, than habitual familiarity 
 with holy things and a holy God. Corrupted man 
 never devised a book so pure and holy ; proud man, 
 a book so humbling ; selfish and worldly man, a 
 book so self-denying and spiritual : man, depraved, 
 wicked man, a book so full of rebuke for his wick- 
 edness, that it stings with unsparing and immeas- 
 urable severity all his vices, has no truce with sin, 
 and actually wages against it a war of extermination. 
 Was it ever 
 
 -" heard in tale, or song, 
 
 From old, or modern bard, in hall or bower," 
 that such a revelation is the Avork of man ? There
 
 114 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 is absurdity in such an hypothesis which evinces 
 this holy Book to be its own witness. " Every 
 kingdom divided against itself, is brought to desola- 
 tion ; and every city or house divided against itself, 
 shall not stand." If the Bible be the work of an 
 impostor, it is a most unhappy effort for his own 
 cause. The arch-deceiver must have taken leave 
 of his usual sagacity, in not restraining the pen that 
 gave it to the world. If it be the devil's work, it is 
 a complete failure. " If Satan cast out Satan, he is 
 divided against himself: how shall then his kingdom 
 stand ?" Men are " wise to do evil ;" too wise to 
 have erected a standard that should be the rallying 
 point of every virtuous thought and affection, and 
 give currency to a system that shall be absolute 
 ruin to themselves. 
 
 Never could the depraved intelligence and de- 
 praved heart of man have inculcated such lessons. 
 Nothing is farther from man's invention than such a 
 theory, such a code, such a system of obligations, 
 and such delineations of excellence excellence, at 
 once so lofty and so untarnished, that, like this Book 
 of gems, it is difficult to say whether it attracts most 
 by the loveliness of its spirit, or its unvarying, trans- 
 parent rectitude. 
 
 I know of but one answer to this argument that 
 is even plausible. It may be said, that all men are 
 not equally bad ; that we have given too sombre a 
 shading to the character of the race and that there 
 have been all along through the tracts of time, noble 
 and exalted specimens of humanity ; men of truth
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. 115 
 
 and probity, benevolent men, who desired above all 
 things the moral elevation of their fellows ; and that 
 it is no impossible thing for such men to have been 
 the authors of the Sacred Writings. Our conclu- 
 sive answer to this objection is threefold. In the 
 first place, no such men have ever claimed to be the 
 authors of this remarkable volume ; and if it be the 
 work of such men, is there any possible motive for 
 them to have left it anonymous? On the other 
 hand, is there not every motive in the excellence of 
 the book itself, for them to have avowed themselves 
 its authors? In the next place, such men never 
 would have been impostors, claiming the unerring 
 guidance of inspiration. In the third place, we fall 
 back upon .the assertion, that the thing itself is 
 impossible. We know there are exceptions to the 
 unmixed sinfulness of our race, in lands where the 
 Scriptures have exerted their influence upon the 
 human character ; and that in other lands all are not 
 equally bad ; that there have been here and there 
 rare lights amid the moral darkness of the pagan 
 world ; and that men like Socrates, and Plato, and 
 Seneca, Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius, aimed to act 
 the part of reformers. Men have invented systems 
 of religion ; they have enjoyed the unembarrassed 
 opportunity of exerting their inventive powers on 
 religious themes ; they have brought to their inven- 
 tions, genius and learning, logic and eloquence. 
 And the results are before the world. The works 
 of the best heathen philosophers speak for them- 
 selves, bear the moral image of their authors, and
 
 116 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 carry with them their own evidence of a human 
 origin. All human systems of religion are wicked 
 systems, because their authors were wicked men 
 systems of immorality and abomination, cherishing 
 and calling into action the most depraved passions 
 of the human heart, and degrading their votaries to 
 the level of brutes. The best of them, like those 
 of Confucius and Mahomed, are but memorials of 
 great minds made little by falsehood, and degraded 
 by sin ; of splendid and original talents actually de- 
 formed by moral depravity proofs of imaginative 
 genius, and affecting indications that " the light that 
 was in them was darkness." When infidels tell us 
 of systems of faith and codes of morality that are of 
 human origin, they speak intelligibly; nor would 
 we depreciate these marvellous discoveries. We 
 look at them just as they are : and what are they ? 
 It is difficult for human ingenuity and human wick- 
 edness combined, to render them worse than they 
 are. Nor have they been improved, from the days 
 of ancient Assyria to the present hour. They may 
 have originated splendid temples, but their divinities 
 are mean and contemptible ; their offerings may 
 have been costly, while the most costly are the 
 most degrading and ruinous ; and their worshippers, 
 like their divinities and rites, dishonorable and 
 dishonored vile in their affections, filled with all 
 unrighteousness, and to every good work repro- 
 bate. Aside from those human compositions of 
 which the Scriptures are the basis, there is not a 
 volume in all the rich and accumulated libraries of
 
 ITS MORAL RECTITUDE. ]17 
 
 earth, which diffuses the least fragrance of a celes- 
 tial atmosphere, much less that "savors the things 
 that be of God," and like the Bible, glows with the 
 splendors of his holiness. 
 
 It need not surprise us that men like those who 
 have written against this Book of God, should not 
 have the clearest conceptions of its moral rectitude. 
 The moral rectitude of the Scriptures nauseates 
 them. Let there be but the infant breathings of 
 moral virtue in the soul, though it were the gentlest 
 movement brooding upon the face of chaos, and the 
 spirit within them will give a ready response to the 
 still holier spirit within these Sacred Oracles, instinc- 
 tively recognizing their beauty, their glory, their 
 divinity. There are no more direct antipodes than 
 sin and the Bible. He who would enjoy and profit 
 by it, as a mere production of wisdom, must culti- 
 vate a conformity to its rectitude. This great char- 
 acteristic he will find stamped upon it everywhere 
 sanctifying its history, elevating its poetry, breathing 
 itself into all its principles, and throwing a hallowed 
 and joyous influence around its varied scenery. It 
 will please no man, the state of whose mind is at 
 war with its rectitude ; nor can he profit by it. so 
 long as it displeases him.
 
 118 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 THE PECULIAR AND DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES OP 
 THE BIBLE, EVIDENCE OF ITS DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 THE Gospel which was preached by "me," says 
 the great apostle, "is not after man." His appeal 
 for proof of its divine origin, was to the Gospel he 
 preached. 
 
 The peculiar and distinguishing doctrines of 
 which this apostle was the advocate, are the doc- 
 trines of the entire Scriptures. We affirm concern- 
 ing them, that they are doctrines which never could 
 have originated with men. 
 
 The Scriptures not merely contain a code of 
 morals, but a system of truth : great and distinctive 
 doctrines. Nor may we abandon this position, be- 
 cause believers in the divine inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures are not themselves agreed in their statements 
 of these doctrines. Truth is not dependent on the 
 opinions of men ; nor is it the less important because 
 men differ in their views concerning it, or in their 
 exposition of the Sacred Scriptures. The Scriptures 
 contain truths that are their own ; truths which none 
 but God knew, and which none but God was able 
 to reveal. We find them in the Bible, and must
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. H<) 
 
 allow the Bible to utter them in its own way. If 
 the great doctrines of the Bible furnish any inherent 
 evidence of their divine origin, it is because they are 
 peculiar, and truths nowhere else revealed. Let 
 them speak for themselves. We will not, in our 
 argument, put any construction of our own upon 
 them, but merely present them in the language of 
 the Scriptures, " without note or comment." 
 
 One of these doctrines relates to the character 
 of man before it is brought under the transforming 
 power of Christianity. On this subject the repre- 
 sentations of the Bible are plain, and easy to be 
 understood. " All have sinned, and come short of 
 the glory of God." " Both Jews and Gentiles are 
 all under sin. There is none righteous, no, not one : 
 there is none that understandeth, there is none that 
 seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the 
 way, they are together become unprofitable : there 
 is none that doeth good, no, not one." 
 
 If from this universality of human sinfulness, we 
 inquire for its degree of intensity and power, we are 
 instructed by such declarations as the following : 
 " And God saw that the wickedness of man was 
 great in the earth, and that every imagination of the 
 thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 
 " The heart is deceitful above all things, and des- 
 perately wicked." " The heart of the sons of men 
 is full of evil, and madness is in their hearts." 
 "When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free 
 from righteousness." " I know that in me, that is 
 in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." " And you
 
 120 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and 
 sins." " The carnal mind is enmity against God ; 
 for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
 can be." 
 
 If we inquire for the origin of this depravity, the 
 answer of the Bible is, "Who can bring a clean 
 thing out of an unclean? ' Not one." "Behold,^ I 
 was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother 
 conceive me." " The wicked are estranged from 
 the womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, 
 speaking lies." " Thou wast called a transgressor 
 from the womb." "That which is born of the 
 flesh is flesh." "And were by nature the children 
 of wrath, even as others." 
 
 If we proceed to the question, How is this uni- 
 versal, this deep-seated, this native sinfulness to be 
 accounted for ? this problem also the Scriptures solve 
 in declarations that are uniform and unequivocal. 
 "In Adam, all die." " By the offence of one, judg- 
 ment came upon all men to condemnation." "By 
 one man's disobedience, many were made sinners." 
 
 Another great doctrine of the Bible relates to that 
 moral transformation of character which is indispen- 
 sable to salvation. 
 
 In regard to this, it teaches that this transforma- 
 tion is necessary. " Make you a new heart, and a 
 new spirit, for why will ye die? " " Except ye be 
 converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven." " Cleanse that 
 is within, that the outside may be clean also." " Ex- 
 cept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 
 
 of God. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must 
 be born again." 
 
 It teaches the nature of this change, in such dec- 
 larations as these : " The eyes of your understand- 
 ing being enlightened, that ye may know what is 
 the hope of his calling." " Ye were once darkness, 
 but now are ye light in the Lord." "A new heart 
 will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within 
 you ; and I will take the hard and stony heart out 
 of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh." 
 "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "I 
 will put my law in their inward parts, and write 
 it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they 
 shall be my people." 
 
 In regard to the means by which this transfor- 
 mation is produced, their language is, " The sower 
 soweth the word." "Faith cometh by hearing, and 
 hearing by the word of God." " It pleased God by 
 the foolishness of preaching, to save them that be- 
 lieve." " In Christ Jesus have I begotten you through 
 the Gospel." " Being born again, not of corruptible 
 seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God, which 
 liveth and abide th forever." 
 
 Of the efficient cause of this change, they say, 
 "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
 saith the Lord of hosts." "I have planted, Apollos 
 watered, but God gave the increase." " Which were 
 born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 
 the will of man, but of God." " So then it is not 
 of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but 
 of God that sheweth mercy." " You hath he quick- 
 
 BiM not of M:\
 
 122 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 ened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." "No 
 man can come to me, except the Father which hath 
 sent me draAV him." " Thy people shall be willing 
 in the day of thy power." " We are his workman- 
 ship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." 
 
 Another important doctrine of which they speak, 
 is the well-defined method of the sinner's pardon and 
 acceptance with God. 
 
 They teach what it is not, when they say, " It 
 is not by works of righteousness which we have 
 done." "Knowing that a man is not justified by 
 the works of the law." " If righteousness come by 
 the law, then Christ is dead in vain." " Therefore 
 by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified 
 in his sight." 
 
 And they teach us what it is, when they say, 
 " Being justified freely by his grace, through the 
 redemption that is in Christ Jesus." " Being now 
 justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath 
 through him." " But now the righteousness of God 
 without the law is manifested, being witnessed by 
 the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of 
 God which is by faith in Jesus Christ, unto all, and 
 upon all them that believe." 
 
 Another of the great doctrines of the Bible re- 
 lates to the nature of true religion, the distinctive 
 character of Christian piety. On this subject its 
 instructions are greatly extended, and exhibited in a 
 great variety of forms. 
 
 It admonishes us of a religion that is spurious, in 
 such declarations as these : " They have not turned
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 123 
 
 unto me with then- whole heart, but feignedly, saith 
 the Lord." " With their mouth, they shew much 
 love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness." 
 " Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but 
 because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." 
 " Many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, have 
 we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name 
 done many wonderful works ? To whom the king 
 shall say, I know you not, whence ye are ; depart 
 from me, all ye workers of iniquity." 
 
 They also define and delineate the religion that 
 is genuine. It is " the love of God shed abroad in 
 the heart by the Holy Ghost ;" and the love of God 
 that "keepeth his commandments." It is the char- 
 ity, without which all else "profiteth nothing." It 
 is " not meat and drink, but righteousness, and 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." These emo- 
 tions they uniformly represent as supreme and para- 
 mount in every bosom where they exist. " If any 
 man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross 
 and follow me." " He that will save his life, shall 
 lose it ; and he that will lose his life for my sake, 
 the same shall find it." 
 
 Another great and peculiar doctrine of the Bible 
 relates to the purpose of God in extending his grace 
 and salvation to a chosen people. Here its language 
 is cautious, well selected, and emphatic. " Many 
 are called, but few are chosen." " As many as were 
 ordained to eternal life, believed." " Chosen in Christ 
 before the foundation of the world." "Predesti- 
 nated unto the adoption of children." " The called
 
 124 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of God according to his purpose ; for whom he did 
 foreknow, them also he did predestinate to be con- 
 formed to the image of his Son." " The election 
 hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." 
 
 It is also among the cardinal truths of the Bible, 
 that all the incorrigible enemies of God shall be 
 punished with everlasting destruction, and that their 
 sufferings shall be literally without end. " Verily, 
 thou shalt by no means come out thence, until thou 
 hast paid the uttermost farthing." v " Some shall 
 awake to shame and everlasting contempt." " To 
 whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." 
 " Punished with everlasting destruction from the 
 presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power." 
 " The smoke of their torment ascendeth forever 
 and ever." " Cast into the fire that shall never be 
 quenched." " Where their worm dieth not, and the 
 fire is not quenched. " v " Nigh unto cursing, whose 
 end is to be burned." 
 
 Nor may we overlook the great truth, that the 
 Bible enforces the duty of believing the Gospel, on 
 all tnen who hear, or have the opportunity of hear- 
 ing it. " Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye 
 perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but 
 a little." " Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye 
 to the waters, and he that hath no money : come 
 ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk, 
 without money, and without price." " Seek ye the 
 Lord while he may be found ; call ye upon him 
 \vhile he is near." " Let the wicked forsake his 
 way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. |25 
 
 him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy 
 upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly 
 pardon." " While ye have the light, believe in the 
 light, that ye may be the children of light." " This 
 is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom 
 he hath sent." " Repent and believe the Gospel." 
 " God now commandeth all men everywhere to 
 repent." " If I say the truth, why do ye not believe 
 me ?" The Bible allows no excuse, and admits no 
 delay in the performance of this reasonable duty. 
 " When will ye be wise ?" " Behold, now is the 
 accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salvation." 
 " We are ambassadors for Christ : as though God 
 did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's 
 stead, be ye reconciled to God." The end and 
 object of preaching the Gospel is said to be, " for 
 obedience to the faith among all nations." 
 
 The preceding specifications are not designed to 
 present even a summary of Christian doctrine ; but 
 merely some of those truths which have a strong 
 prominence in the Bible, and the same prominence 
 in this branch of our argument. The Bible con- 
 tains these truths. It is not my object to expound 
 them : let them be expounded by different denomi- 
 nations of Christendom, fairly and with an honest 
 conscience. To say nothing of the construction 
 M'hich must, in our judgment, be put upon them, 
 our position is, that these truths, put upon them 
 what construction you will, could not have been of 
 human invention, and that they clearly indicate a
 
 '*' HE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 heavenly origin. We maintain this position by the 
 following reasons. 
 
 In the first place, no false religion possesses 
 such frank and unreserved honesty. Men are acute 
 judges of everything in the form of religious impos- 
 ture. Artifice in this matter, however ingenious, 
 is very apt to be discovered ; it cannot endure severe 
 scrutiny. There are spurious productions in the 
 world, which assume to be of Divine authority, 
 which no sober man regards in any other light than 
 mere fabrication, and which are distinguished by 
 nothing more than the absence of every criterion of 
 divine inspiration. False religions are proverbially 
 systems of practised concealment ; systems in which 
 there is a designed immingling of truth and false- 
 hood. 
 
 This remark is abundantly verified, both by the 
 paganism of Greece and Rome, and the Koran of 
 Mahomed. Neander, in his " Ecclesiastical History 
 of the first three centuries," remarks, that " the rul- 
 ing opinion of all the thinking men of antiquity was 
 that pure, religious truth, could not be proposed to 
 the multitude ; but only such a mixture of fiction, 
 poetry and truth, as would serve to represent relig- 
 ious notions in such a manner that they might 
 make an impression on men whose only guide was 
 their senses." Paganism had its mysteries, of which 
 all were ignorant except the initiated. Each of the 
 heathen gods, besides the worship paid to him in 
 public, had a secret worship, to which none were 
 admitted but those who were prepared by previous
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 127 
 
 ceremonies. This secret worship was termed " the 
 mysteries of the god," and was always paid in the 
 night. I cannot describe it better than by saying, 
 it was a system of free masonry. The initiated were 
 bound, under the severest penalties, to conceal the 
 secrets of these nocturnal orgies. Whatever their 
 religion was, it was not published to the world. 
 
 There is nothing of all this in the Bible. What- 
 ever else may be said concerning it, it is a bold and 
 honest book. So every ingenuous mind decides that 
 it should be. Of all subjects in the world, religion 
 is one of universal concernment ; if it possesses any 
 vital importance, it is equally as important to one 
 man as another : it admits of no concealment of any 
 of its principles from any class, or part of mankind. 
 Nor will it be denied that it is one of the distinctive 
 features of the religion of the Scriptures, that it has 
 no concealment. Its first messengers were commis- 
 sioned to go publicly and boldly to proclaim their 
 messages in the presence of the haughtiest monarchs 
 and the proudest courts. The long succession of 
 teachers and prophets under the Old Testament dis- 
 pensation, addressed themselves to the entire Jewish 
 nation. When the Founder of Christianity gave 
 their commission to his apostles, he required them 
 to "go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to 
 every creature." When the high priest "asked Jesus 
 of his disciples and of his doctrine" Jesus answered, 
 " I spake openly to the world ; I ever taught in the 
 synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews 
 always resort, and in secret have I said nothing."
 
 128 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 Both Christ and his apostles everywhere uttered 
 these great and distinguishing doctrines to which 
 we have just referred. These truths are, and have 
 been for centuries published to the world, without 
 the least restriction or reserve, inviting scrutiny, and 
 everywhere proclaiming, " He that hath ears to hear, 
 let him hear !" The Bible has not one concealed 
 principle : it has no secret worship, no secret gov- 
 ernment or policy, and no society of men that are 
 bound by vows of secrecy. Its laws are public ; its 
 institutions are established openly ; its solemn as- 
 semblies, and all its rites and observances, have the 
 nations for their witnesses. It has no stratagem, no 
 management, no trimming, time-serving prudence, 
 which reluctates at discovering its real sentiments. 
 It has no Platonic distinction between exoteric and 
 esoteric doctrines, or the doctrines that are taught to 
 the multitude, and the doctrines that are taught to 
 the few. It has no concern lest its claims should be 
 too freely canvassed, or its principles too extensively 
 or thoroughly understood. It discusses a great va- 
 riety of topics of vital interest to men, but it does so 
 without embarrassment. It is far from being a dull 
 and tame book, for the reason that it is an honest 
 book. It speaks the mind and will of its Author 
 with so much frankness, that when once men are 
 interested in it, their interest is sure to be deep and 
 permanent. While it makes no boast of originality, 
 and affects nothing of a self-glorying and sturdy 
 independence of thought, it exhibits truth with a 
 simplicity and fearlessness that are never controlled
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 129 
 
 by the opinions of men, and that ask no indulgence. 
 Every attentive reader must have been impressed 
 with this peculiarity of the Scriptures ; and have a 
 strong conviction, that, in this respect, they differ 
 from that caution and reserve which mark the pro- 
 ductions of an impostor. 
 
 The object of an impostor is to practise decep- 
 tion ; he could scarcely fail to wrap up his system 
 in some disguise. He would never disclose such 
 truths as those which we have specified, even if they 
 had a place in his system. It would have been a 
 very easy thing for the authors of the sacred books 
 to have suppressed these truths ; and in so doing 
 they would have silenced the cavils of a large class 
 of opposers. But they were honest and truthful to 
 the letter. Their object was truth God's truth; 
 and therefore there is nothing kept back, nothing 
 discolored, nothing softened by those delicate and 
 deceptive touches of the pencil that suppress truth, 
 or immingle truth with error. 
 
 2. Our next remark is, that no false religion 
 would. have given these great and peculiar doc- 
 trines the prominent place which they occupy in the 
 Sacred Scriptures. Were we to adopt the loose 
 notions of Christian doctrine which are adopted by 
 some who call themselves Christians, we should feel 
 that we had abandoned Christianity itself, and had 
 become the advocates of a system but little in ad- 
 vance of natural religion. But in so doing, we should 
 have an inward conviction that we had abandoned 
 one of the strongholds of a supernatural revelation. 
 
 Bible not of Man. *
 
 130 T HE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 While the truths we have specified bear strong 
 marks of peculiarity, they are everywhere prominent, 
 and enter deeply into the foundations of the Chris- 
 tian faith. They are represented in the Scriptures 
 as revealed for the purpose of being believed ; nor is 
 there any injunction more explicitly enforced, than 
 that which makes it the duty of men to believe, 
 love, and obey them. We are nowhere instructed 
 in this book that it is of no consequence what men 
 believe ; the Bible makes a true and cordial faith, in 
 God's word the turning point of their salvation. 
 " Whosoever will not hearken to my words, I will 
 require it of him." " See that ye refuse not him 
 that speaketh ; for if they escaped not who refused 
 him that spake on earth, much more shall not we 
 escape who refuse him that speaketh from heaven." 
 It is a revealed principle of the Bible, that men reject 
 its truths at their peril. To those who " do not obey 
 the truth, God will render tribulation and anguish." 
 There may be ignorance of the cardinal truths of 
 which we have spoken : there may be strong preju- 
 dices of education against them ; there may be 
 objections to the form of expression in which they 
 are presented in human formularies ; yet, the Bible 
 itself being judge, no man can be at heart a Chris- 
 tian who rejects that revelation of them which is 
 made in the Scriptures. 
 
 Such is the importance which the Bible attaches 
 to these great truths as a matter of practice, and as 
 furnishing' .a test of Christian character. Nor does 
 it assign a less important place to them as a matter
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 
 
 of theory, and as the standard of a true Christianity. 
 It styles everything else that is inconsistent with 
 these, " another gospel," and imprecates God's anath- 
 ema upon those who preach it. These truths are 
 represented as fundamental to the Gospel, as well 
 as essential to piety. They hold the same place in 
 the system of truth, which they hold in the system 
 of grace and salvation. They are not points of mere 
 abstract speculation, but constitute the sum and 
 substance, the heart and soul, of all the instructions 
 which the Bible contains. They maintain an in- 
 dissoluble connection : if any one of them is fairly 
 disproved, our confidence is lost in the whole. Take 
 away the Scriptural doctrine of human sinfulness, 
 and there is no need of the doctrine of regeneration ; 
 nor of the doctrine of redemption through the blood 
 of Christ ; nor of a preached Gospel ; nor of the doc- 
 trine of discriminating and electing grace ; nor of 
 the doctrine of everlasting punishment. Take away 
 the doctrine of everlasting punishment, and all the 
 other doctrines fall with it. Deny the Divine pur- 
 pose to save a part of mankind, and all the correla- 
 tive truths which make up and fulfil that purpose, 
 have no place in the sacred record. These great 
 truths are therefore not only found in the Bible, but 
 are essential to the existence of Christianity, and 
 lie at the foundation of the whole method of grace 
 through the Redeemer. 
 
 We affirm, that no false religion would have 
 given such doctrines this prominence. An impostor 
 would have been too wary to have done this ; he
 
 132 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 never could have been so insensate as to have in- 
 sisted on these great peculiarities, as constituting the 
 pith and marrow of his religion. 
 
 It is the object of false religions to make the 
 way to heaven a broad and easy path, and strew it 
 with flo'wers. On no subject were the writers of 
 the sacred volume more strongly tempted to prac- 
 tise a sort of "pious fraud," than by suppressing 
 these pungent and heart-searching truths, and thus 
 making the way of life easier than it is, and holding 
 forth inducements to piety, that might be deceptive 
 and ensnaring. But they never do this. False relig- 
 ions are anxious to multiply converts at the expense 
 of truth ; the Bible nowhere manifests any such soli- 
 citude. These great truths sound the note of caution 
 and alarm, and bid men count the cost of becoming 
 Christians. In no instance do the sacred writers 
 conceal the trials or embarrassments that are inci- 
 dent on a firm attachment to the truth of God. A 
 cautious and sagacious deceiver would never have 
 deduced from the truths he had uttered, the prac- 
 tical result, " Straight is the gate and narrow is 
 the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be 
 that find it ;" nor the equally solemn declaration. 
 " Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and 
 many there be which go in thereat." Nor would 
 truths that necessarily lead to such a result, ever 
 have found a place in the Bible, had it been the pro- 
 duction of a deceiver. False religions urge men to 
 the adoption of their systems of error, from unhal- 
 lowed and unworthy motives; the Bible, on the
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 
 
 other hand, urges them to truth and duty, and for 
 truth and duty's sake. It nowhere instructs men, 
 that if they receive these great truths and practise 
 the duties they enjoin, it is of no consequence 
 by what motives they are influenced. It deals 
 frankly in this matter. It reveals great and cardi- 
 nal truths ; it urges them upon the conscience by 
 the authority of God, and by their own intrinsic 
 excellence, and then leaves them to do their own 
 execution. 
 
 3. Another remark in relation to these truths is, 
 that no false religion would have disclosed truths 
 that are so unwelcome and obnoxious to the human 
 heart. The object of the Bible is not to please 
 men, but to instruct and save them. Hence it with- 
 holds no truth, be it ever so unwelcome. While it 
 evinces no desire to excite the hostility of men, or 
 to excite, or confirm their prejudices against the 
 truth ; so far is it from shrinking from a disclosure 
 of the most unwelcome truths, that these are the 
 truths on which it insists with the greatest urgency. 
 Instead of interesting men for an hour, its object is 
 to interest them for eternity. Instead of fearing 
 their displeasure, it lays its account for it, and pro- 
 claims these unwelcome truths " whether men will 
 hear, or whether they will forbear." Instead of 
 offering incense to their pride, its object is to bring 
 their hearts to the test of truths the most humbling. 
 Instead of descanting, however wisely, and learnedly, 
 and beautifully upon such truths as these, they sim- 
 ply hold them up to the inspection of men in all
 
 134 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 their transparency, and illumined by the lights of 
 heaven. 
 
 Does it require any labored argument to prove 
 that these truths are unwelcome and obnoxious to 
 the human heart. We appeal to the nature of these 
 truths themselves, to the conscious hostility of men 
 towards them, to the history of the past, and to all 
 human observation, where these truths are faithfully 
 exhibited, if it be not so ? Men do not love to be 
 told they are such sinners as the Bible represents 
 them. Our race is a proud one. No child loves to 
 be told its faults. Men who believe the Bible to be 
 true, quarrel with its faithful delineations, and its 
 unsparing rebukes of human wickedness. These 
 representations are most humiliating to the self-com- 
 placent heart of man. The great mass of men can- 
 not bear to be told that they are so vile. Not a few 
 are there who, like the hearers of Stephen, almost 
 " gnash upon " the preacher " with their teeth," who 
 boldly takes the part of the Bible, and tells them to 
 their faces how vile they are in God's sight. So of 
 every truth in detail, to which we have referred. 
 The effect which these truths produce upon the 
 minds of wicked men is a very powerful and pain- 
 ful effect, and they resist them as long as they can. 
 They are truths which do not allow the least apol- 
 ogy for sin ; they are strong and heavy truths ; they 
 are like the fire and the hammer which breaketh the 
 rock in pieces ; they are the axe " laid at the root 
 of the trees, and every tree that bringeth not forth 
 good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire."
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 135 
 
 Wicked men want a different sort of Bible from 
 this. They suppress such Scriptures ; they pro- 
 scribe them they forbid the reading of them in the 
 vernacular tongue ; they burn them by thousands ; 
 they say unto God, Depart from us ; and to his min- 
 isters, " Speak unto us smooth things ; prophecy 
 unto us deceits." They are inveterate enemies of 
 these great truths, because these truths themselves 
 make exhibitions of God such as the carnal mind 
 has no delight in. They enforce claims which such 
 a mind does not admit. They demand the sacri- 
 fices of its idols ; they subject it to trials it cannot 
 think of encountering. They would fain pull down 
 and demolish the stately edifice of its pride ; subdue 
 its will to the will of the Great Supreme ; and do 
 actually throw all its interests and itself into the 
 hands of God, as the clay is in the hands of the 
 potter. 
 
 Hence the war the bitter war, the everlasting 
 war. They often so lash and scourge the sinner, 
 that he is conscious of the conflict. His reason is 
 enlisted against them ; he summons all the powers of 
 argument to show that they are not found in the 
 Bible ; and if found there, cannot be true ; and if 
 true, free him from his obligations. But above all, 
 is his heart enlisted against them. He complains 
 that he has a hard master. He rebels and replies 
 against God ; and with the sinners of other times 
 demands, " Who hath resisted his will ?" There is 
 no one of these great truths that accommodates 
 itself to the wishes of men. They ever have been,
 
 136 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and still are obnoxious, nay, nauseating truths. With 
 all their boasted liberality, the most liberal are dis- 
 satisfied with them ; nor is it any small cause of 
 offence to them, that they are received by others. 
 They are tolerant of error, but they have no tole- 
 rance for such truths as these. They have charity 
 for all, for everything save these, and such as these. 
 These are the truths for which they stoned the 
 prophets, killed the apostles, and crucified the Lord 
 of glory. These are the truths for which so many 
 thousands have been burnt at the stake, and lan- 
 guished in dungeons, and been driven from among 
 men like beasts of prey. They are among the 
 severest tests of the moral state of the heart which 
 can be applied to it, and when applied, never fail to 
 indicate its hostility to God and righteousness. It 
 is one of the most painful and self-denying duties 
 imposed on the Christian ministry, to enforce these 
 great truths ; because there is not one of them which, 
 when exhibited in its true light, is even tolerable to 
 an earthly mind. Our argument, therefore, is no far- 
 fetched argument. A religion got up by trick and 
 imposture, never could have disclosed such truths. 
 They are "made of sterner stuff" than that which 
 the mind of an impostor would ever have thought 
 of handling. It is impossible they could have been 
 inwoven, ever so artfully, into a false religion. No 
 impostor would ever have thought of palming them 
 upon the world. He would not have ventured thus 
 to expose his system and himself to infuriate hos- 
 tility. Men do not like such leaders as these ; and
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 137 
 
 no smooth-faced and false-hearted impostor would 
 have jeoparded such a revelation to such a world as 
 this. Can it be conceived that such truths origi- 
 nated with men ? Or if men could have revealed 
 them, what inducement had they to make such a 
 revelation, in opposition to all the favor and influ- 
 ence of those whose favor and kindness an impostor 
 would desire to conciliate ? It is puerile to deny 
 that these truths are contained in the Bible ; it is 
 madness to suppose they originated with men. The 
 unwelcome character of this class of truths, there- 
 fore, will forever stand a living monument of their 
 heavenly origin. 
 
 4. The last remark in relation to these truths is, 
 that they are fatal to the success of that religion of 
 which they compose so important a part, unless it be 
 from God. A religion which contains so many 
 truths which men hate ; truths so honestly and 
 boldly revealed ; truths which stand forth so une- 
 quivocally, and that are cemented with the deep 
 foundations of Christianity ; any impostor must have 
 seen would be absolutely fatal to its extensive pro- 
 pagation in the Avorld. If the Bible had been the 
 work of men, one of the first objects at which its 
 authors would have aimed, would have been to have 
 constructed it in such a manner as not to be abhor- 
 rent to the views of its readers. It would seem to 
 be indispensable to the success of such an imposture, 
 not to pursue a course in which it must necessarily 
 encounter vigorous, opposing influences. 
 
 One of the strong objections to Christianity of
 
 138 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 that champion of infidelity, Lord Herbert, is that it 
 contains what he is pleased to call " disgusting doc- 
 trines." The use he would make of this fact is, 
 that the religion of nature is to be preferred to the 
 religion of Christ. The use we would make of it is, 
 that a religion that contains these humbling and 
 self-denying truths, never could have been pro- 
 pounded by an impostor with any hope of thus im- 
 posing on the credulity of mankind. 
 
 There is no principle more clearly revealed in 
 the Bible, than that if men become converts to its 
 doctrines, they must become so, not by the power 
 of the sword, not by the force of civil enactments, or 
 ecclesiastical influence and authority, but freely, and 
 on sober, deliberate conviction. " My son, give me 
 thine heart." " The weapons of our warfare are not 
 carnal." There was nothing in the learning, or per- 
 sonal influence, either of the prophets of the Old 
 Testament, or the apostles of the New, on which 
 they could rely for the successful propagation of 
 the doctrines they taught. They had no alliance 
 with the power of civil governments ; civil govern- 
 ments were opposed to them. They could not 
 promise wealth, station, nor honor to their followers, 
 but the rather, poverty, degradation, and suffering. 
 If they were impostors, their only hope of success 
 was in so framing their system of falsehood that men 
 would naturally and easily fall in with it, and their 
 pliant convictions be secured without any great sac- 
 rifice of their natural inclinations. This is the way 
 in which false religions have ever obtained their
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 139 
 
 partial and temporary ascendancy. The only way 
 in which they oan hope for success is, by abstain- 
 ing from all serious conflict with the prepossessions 
 of men ; by forbearing to contend with them ; by 
 freely accommodating themselves to their previous 
 habits of thought. 
 
 The Scriptures pursue directly the opposite 
 course ; they do so deliberately, and with a full 
 view of the difficulties which they must encounter. 
 Instead of anticipating the kind regards and compla- 
 cency of men, they count on their neglect, their 
 disesteem they even predict their hostility, their 
 contempt. They have a controversy with men in 
 the very doctrines they teach. " Think not," says 
 Jesus of Nazareth, " that I am come to send peace 
 on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a 
 sword." In its own nature, his religion is a religion 
 of peace ; but it has warring elements to contend 
 with. When we advert to the world to which it is 
 addressed, to the spirit to which it is opposed, to the 
 powers of darkness with which it is professedly 
 brought into collision, we see that it has conflicts. 
 It is the spirit of truth contending with every form 
 of long sanctioned error ; the spirit of good contend- 
 ing with the spirit of evil ; the spirit of Christ con- 
 tending with the spirit of the world. It is a remedial 
 process ; and in order to be effectual, the remedy is 
 severe. It is a purifying process ; there are filthy 
 and stagnant waters that must be disturbed ; their 
 very stench must go up, before an unobstructed and 
 clear channel is made for the river of life to run
 
 140 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 through. It is a neutralizing process, in which het- 
 erogeneous and repulsive elements meet and effer- 
 vesce, before the inwrought elements of evil in the 
 human heart are worked off. It is not peace, so 
 long as man is the enemy of God, and error is 
 opposed to truth. It is not peace, so long as the 
 " prince of this world" erects his standard, and mar- 
 shals his legions wherever the proclamation is made 
 for the guilty and the lost to enlist under the banner 
 of the redeeming Saviour. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that it contains truths 
 which men are at war with. In resisting and repel- 
 ling its claims, the learned have exhausted their 
 learning, and the scoffing their wit and ridicule ; the 
 great and the mighty, their influence and power ; 
 while the mass of men to whom these truths have 
 been addressed, have denounced them. It is scarcely 
 conceivable that impostors would have proposed such 
 a system of doctrines. It is impossible that they 
 could have any hope of patronage in so doing. The 
 most presumptuous impostor in the world could not 
 hope, by such teaching, to carry the hearts of men. 
 He must have known that such truths would have 
 been everywhere spoken against, provoked opposi- 
 tion and obloquy, and been subversive of his object. 
 It is absurd to suppose that an impostor would 
 invent a religion, towards which the human heart 
 exhibits such a morbid and hostile sensitiveness, that 
 instead of falling in with it, it should uniformly fall 
 out with it. Such a religion, instead of finding 
 friends and patrons, would not find a nook or corner
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 
 
 in the natural heart of man, where it would be 
 greeted with an honest welcome. 
 
 If the writers of the Scriptures were impostors, 
 not only was their enterprise desperate, but they 
 must have foreseen it would be so. They might as 
 well have undertaken to build a city on the waves 
 of the ocean, as have hoped to establish such a 
 religion in the hearts of men and in this apostate 
 world, unless it were from God. The human heart 
 never would have submitted to such truths as these, 
 had they not come from God. No more than the 
 ancient Hebrews would have submitted to have been 
 conducted by Moses, unless God had been with him ; 
 no more than they would have submitted to their 
 burdensome rites and ceremonies, their costly sacri- 
 fices and oblations, unless they had been of Divine 
 appointment ; no more than they would have con- 
 sented to their reluctant invasion of the land of 
 Canaan, and their slaughter of its inhabitants, unless 
 they had been commanded, and scourged, and forced 
 to it by the God of heaven would such truths as 
 those of which we have spoken have found a dwell- 
 ing among men, had they not carried with them the 
 evidence that they were not of human invention, 
 but the truth of God. No more than Moses, if he 
 had been an impostor, could have enforced his own 
 personal authority upon the stiff-necked and rebel- 
 lious Jews, could prophets and apostles, in revealing 
 and enforcing such truths, have hoped for the least 
 success, had they not come to men with the con- 
 vincing demonstration that they came in the name,
 
 142 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and by the authority, of the great God. Just as 
 Moses found it necessary to demonstrate his divine 
 legation by signs and wonders, and by that memo- 
 rable series of miracles, both of judgment and mercy ; 
 did the prophets and the apostles find it necessary to 
 establish their commission by similar miracles, and 
 thus give these unwelcome truths the sanction of 
 God's presence and authority. 
 
 The reason why these, and similar truths, are 
 not fatal to the successful propagation of Christianity, 
 is not that men naturally love them ; it is because 
 they are not of human origin, and are associated 
 with the mighty power of their Divine Author, 
 giving all their splendid triumphs to truth and prin- 
 ciple. If they are the life and vigor of Christianity, 
 it is because they are " the wisdom of God, and the 
 power of God." Upon the hypothesis that Chris- 
 tianity is a work of human invention, it is impossi- 
 ble to account for the fact, that it has triumphed 
 over such internal obstacles. So far from possessing 
 anything in common with the spirit and tendency 
 of human nature, it is diametrically opposed to them ; 
 they are jarring, warring elements, nor do they come 
 in contact without coming into a collision, in 
 which the one or the other is the complete victor. 
 Never was a system less conciliating to the human 
 heart, or less accommodating to the deep-rooted pre- 
 judices of men. Never could it have found a resting 
 place in the bosom of Jew or Gentile, had it not 
 been associated with the power of God. Jewish 
 Pharisees, and heathen sages, would never have be-
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 143 
 
 come converts to it, had it been a mere human 
 production. It despoiled them of everything their 
 self-confidence, their public veneration, their wealth, 
 their honors, their offices, and their employments ; 
 nor did any of them embrace it but at the expense 
 of all that the world holds dear. It is because it 
 was clothed with a divine commission, and came as 
 the power of God to salvation, that in the hands of 
 men who themselves were looked upon as the off- 
 scouring of their race, it made its way through the 
 world ; and contrary to all the forebodings of its 
 enemies, and all the laws of a merely human prob- 
 ability, it became the religion of the lofty and the 
 humble, of provinces and kingdoms, till it effected 
 the most extraordinary revolution in human affairs, 
 was reverenced by the common people, and en- 
 throned in the palaces of princes. Its triumphs were 
 triumphs over ignorance and knowledge, idolatry 
 and superstition, power and weakness in a word, 
 over all the vices and all the passions of men, in 
 those unholy combinations which gave a new direc- 
 tion to human thought, and exerted a paramount 
 influence over all the secret springs of human con- 
 duct. 
 
 When the Founder of Christianity had com- 
 pleted his great work on the earth, and was about 
 to return to the heaven from which he came, he left 
 these and other kindred truths as the great moral 
 machinery by which his kingdom was to be estab- 
 lished. He had accomplished all that was neces- 
 sary to be accomplished by his incarnation and
 
 144 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 death, and it only remained for him to give direc- 
 tions to his followers for the wise and successful 
 conduct of this great enterprise in all future time. 
 It is a beautiful view which here presents itself. It 
 was his last direction ; it was all he had to utter for 
 the guidance of future ages. And what was it that 
 he uttered ? " Go ye into all the world, and preach 
 the Gospel to every creature." The instrumentality 
 on which he relied for the progressive renovation 
 of the world, was no other than the truths of his 
 Gospel. He knew how unwelcome they were, and 
 would be to the heart of man ; but his language was, 
 Go and preach them. He knew that the " heathen 
 would rage, and the people imagine a vain thing ;" 
 he knew that these truths would be " despised and 
 rejected of men," a " stone of stumbling and rock 
 of offence :" still this was his language, Go and 
 preach them. He knew that they would be " a 
 sign that shall be spoken against, that the thoughts 
 of many hearts might be revealed ;" he knew that 
 they would be " seen and hated," " hated without 
 a cause ;" but his only direction was, Go and preach 
 them. He knew that they would encounter the 
 sophisms of unbelief, the contempt and scorn, the 
 unrelenting hostility, and the infuriate rage of a 
 world that lieth in wickedness ; but he did not 
 modify the injunction, Go and preach them. He 
 knew that different ages of the world, and different 
 communities, would express their hostility to them 
 in different forms. He knew that they would be 
 subject to a chilling neglect and indifference, and
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 145 
 
 a disheartening formality and worldliness ; and he 
 knew also that there would be seasons when hatred 
 would be added to indifference, indignity to hatred ; 
 when persecution would erect her gibbet, set up her 
 rack, and light her fires ; yet. Go and preach them, 
 was his unaltered command. But because he knew 
 these things, he did not leave them to prosecute the 
 work alone. No : the gates of hell would let out 
 their legions, to quench their rage in the blood of 
 the saints : truths that would provoke such enmity 
 could be effectual only as they were associated with 
 the power of their Divine Author : and though he 
 altered not, relaxed not the command, Go preach, 
 he superadded the promise, " Lo, I am with you, 
 even to the end of the world." Never, if he were 
 an impostor, did he act so weak a part as when he 
 uttered such words as these. They were words, 
 which to the eye of sense it was impossible to fulfil. 
 If his immediate Disciples might ever have been 
 tempted to look upon him as a vile deceiver, it 
 was then. 
 
 But he was no deceiver. Christianity is true ; 
 and he " who liveth and was dead, and is alive 
 forevermore," is with Christianity. As a system 
 of truth, she is prepared for this collision with an 
 opposing world. She looked for it then ; she looks 
 for it still. She meant to be the aggressor ; this 
 aggressive character has marked her entire progress. 
 But it was then, and it is still, with the assured 
 confidence, that though the pen and the sword 
 would be wielded against her, and her progress 
 
 Bibls not of Man
 
 146 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 would be through deep waters, she would ultimately 
 triumph. 
 
 Such is the argument, however imperfectly 
 illustrated, for the divine origin of the Scriptures, 
 from the peculiar and distinguishing doctrines they 
 reveal. We have seen what these doctrines are, not 
 in the form of any human expositions, but in the 
 language of the Bible itself. We have seen the 
 frankness, the unreserved honesty and boldness with 
 which they are revealed. We have seen the prom- 
 inent place they occupy in the sacred pages. We 
 have seen how unwelcome and obnoxious they are 
 to the human heart, and how absolutely fatal they 
 are to the success of any system of religion that 
 has not God for its author. We leave every fair 
 and ingenuous mind to decide, whether an impostor 
 would have been stupid enough to have inculcated 
 such truths ; and whether a religion, so humbling, 
 that, had it been false, it could not have survived 
 one poor hour, is not of God. Truths so opposed 
 to the prejudices of men, so much at war with 
 human selfishness and pride, could never have been 
 of human invention. It is irrational to suppose that 
 any man, or set of men, any one impostor, or suc- 
 cession of impostors, would have concocted a system 
 of truths to which the human mind is, and ever has 
 been, so hostile. These great doctrines of grace, so 
 humbling to the sinner, and giving as they do all 
 the glory to God, fully and faithfully exhibited and 
 enforced, must be regarded as among the strong 
 proofs of the inspiration of the Scriptures.
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 147 
 
 The infidelity of the present age seems sensible 
 of this, and betrays its weakness, and at the same 
 time its subtilty, by assailing not so much the truth 
 and authenticity of Christianity, as, by its altered 
 mode of warfare, assailing these great and essen- 
 tial truths. Demolish these, and Christianity is no 
 more. It is conceding too much to infidels to allow 
 them to believe the Bible, and at the same time re- 
 ject its fundamental truths. " If our Gospel be hid, 
 it is hid to them that are lost." It is conceding too 
 much for our argument to blink these truths. One 
 of the best arguments for the divine origin of the 
 Scriptures, will be found in a fearless exhibition of 
 all their peculiar doctrines. The bold outlines, the 
 energetic truths of the Bible, are essential to a clear 
 and impressive statement of the argument itself. 
 There are deep and difficult truths revealed in this 
 Book of God, which some writers of great ability 
 have taken leave to suppress ; while the little which 
 their argument gains in popularity by so doing, it 
 loses in strength. To overlook them is but present- 
 ing the argument shorn of its glory. They are the 
 key which introduces the reader to this temple of 
 truth ; shows its symmetry, strength, and beauty, 
 and indicates its Divine Builder. An impartial and 
 thinking reader, in inspecting the treatises to which 
 we refer, cannot help feeling that their authors were 
 embarrassed by their hesitation to give prominence 
 to the great and distinguishing doctrines of super- 
 natural revelation. 
 
 That men do not like these doctrines is no rea-
 
 148 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 son why they should not have a place in the argu- 
 ment, but a weighty reason why they ought not to 
 be suppressed. The argument needs the augmented 
 force of these doctrines ; it is an emasculated argu- 
 ment without them. Without them, the evidence 
 of its divine origin, that is inherent in the Bible 
 itself, is essentially defective. To my own mind it 
 seems as if the man who rejects these, must reject 
 the Bible itself; without them, it is very little in ad- 
 vance of natural religion. Let a man call in question 
 the infinite holiness and sovereignty of God ; let 
 him deny his comprehensive purposes; let him reject 
 the Divinity and Atonement of Christ, and the sove- 
 reign and special influences of the Spirit in renewing 
 and sanctifying the people of God ; let him discard 
 the essential difference between the righteous and 
 the wicked, and suspend in an obscure and dubious 
 atmosphere the doctrine of future and eternal re- 
 wards and punishments, and wherein will his Chris- 
 tianity differ from that of modern neologists ? The 
 true method of exhibiting the self-evidencing power 
 of the Scriptures, is by faithfully unfolding "the 
 whole mind of God." Then only does the supreme 
 intelligence- of its Author exhibit itself, and his in- 
 finite greatness and goodness shine forth in tracing 
 out new paths of thought, and opening channels of 
 affection, never discovered by human reason. Infi- 
 delity is perpetually changing its form. The truths 
 which some modern infidels profess to learn from the 
 Bible, Gibbon, Hume and Paine, learned from the 
 light of nature. The same objections which these
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHING DOCTRINES. 
 
 bold and old-fashioned infidels urged against the 
 Bible itself, modern neologists urge against these 
 great and essential truths. ' These ancient and mod- 
 ern opposers of God's truth are in closer alliance 
 than the latter are willing to acknowledge ; they are 
 fellow-laborers in the same calling. It is no uncom- 
 mon complaint from certain sources, that these great 
 truths make men infidels, while they only show 
 them to be so. Modern infidels have no quarrel 
 with Christianity, when expurgated of these distinc- 
 tive doctrines ; for as long as these doctrines remain, 
 they proclaim their Author to be Divine.
 
 150 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER V- 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE A PROOF OF ITS 
 DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 To a being born for immortality, it is in every 
 view an inquiry of the first importance, whether he 
 possesses true religion. If he does possess it, the 
 final termination of his earthly career will be a glori- 
 ous issue. " When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, 
 he shall receive a crown of glory which fadeth not 
 away." Every consideration in the universe may 
 well lead such a man to triumph. " The redeemed 
 of the Lord shall return, and come with singing 
 unto Zion ; everlasting joy shall be upon their head : 
 they shall obtain gladness and joy ; and sorrow and 
 sighing shall flee away." 
 
 But in deciding the question, whether he pos- 
 sesses true religion, he must first decide what true 
 religion is. On this point there is no small diversity 
 of opinion throughout this wide world. There is 
 the religion of Infidelity, as it exists in Christian 
 lands ; there is the religion of Nature and tradition, 
 in all the forms of polytheism and pagan idolatry ; 
 there is the religion of Mahomed ; there is the relig- 
 ion of the Chinese philosopher Confucius ; there is the 
 religion of Budhism, prevailing throughout the Bur-
 
 ITS RELIGION. 
 
 man empire and all the countries between Bengal 
 and China ; and there are, to a great extent, other re- 
 ligions in different nations and tribes of men. It will 
 hardly be contended that any of those just specified 
 are worthy of confidence. Every one of them, to a 
 greater or less extent, is a system of idolatry, unless 
 it be the religion of Mahomed ; and it has often been 
 shown, that in those particulars in which the religion 
 of the Koran has preeminence above paganism, it 
 has borrowed its features from the Sacred Writings. 
 
 The word religion, in its broadest and most 
 comprehensive sense, is any system of faith and 
 worship. In this sense, the word comprehends the 
 belief and worship of all ages, all nations, all climes, 
 which recognize a superior power, or powers, which 
 govern the world. Every religion has its peculiari- 
 ties : and from its peculiarities we learn whether it 
 is of human, or Divine origin. 
 
 In addition to the religions above mentioned, 
 there is THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE ; a religion 
 which is there taught, there delineated, and there 
 exemplified ; and one which is found nowhere else, 
 save where the Bible exerts its influence on the hu- 
 man character. 1 propose in the present chapter to 
 institute the inquiry, if THE RELIGION that is deline- 
 ated in the Bible, be not proof of its Divine origin? 
 
 This religion is not revealed equivocally, or 
 darkly, or partially ; but stands forth prominently to 
 the inspection of every reader. Every man who has 
 the Bible in his hands, can see it and understand 
 what it is. What then are its leading characteristics,
 
 152 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and what is the evidence they furnish that the 
 author of such a religion is the God of heaven ? 
 
 It is important to our argument to remark, that 
 in this inquiry we go not beyond the instructions 
 of the Bible itself. The question is not, what was 
 the religion of the early Christian fathers ; nor what 
 was the religion of the dark ages; nor what the 
 religion of the reformed churches ; nor what is your 
 religion, or my religion ; but what is the religion of 
 the Bible ? It is equally important also to bear in 
 mind, that we do not here institute the inquiry, 
 what is the religion which the Bible requires; for 
 this we have already done in a preceding chapter ; 
 but, what is the religion which the Bible delineates 
 and exemplifies ? The religion which the Bible re- 
 quires, and the religion which it actually produces, 
 may not be perfectly identified ; while the latter 
 may furnish convincing evidence that it is of Divine, 
 and not of human origin. 
 
 1. We remark, then, that the religion delineated 
 and exemplified in the Bible, is a religion founded 
 in knowledge. It is not the offspring of igno- 
 rance ; the basis of it is the knowledge of the truth. 
 Knowledge alone does not constitute it, though 
 without knowledge it does not exist. "Though I 
 speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
 though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, 
 and have not charityj" I am nothing." Correct opin- 
 ions of Christianity do not of themselves insure the 
 existence of Christianity. To understand the truths 
 of the Bible as a system, or science ; to be deeply
 
 ITS RELIGION. 153 
 
 read and versed in them ; to bring to them learning 
 and labor, and even a natural fondness for moral re- 
 search and disquisition, are not a sufficient pledge of 
 the existence and power of piety in any individual 
 bosom. But while the Bible is faithful in this cau- 
 tion, it at the same time explicitly instructs us, that 
 the knowledge of the truth is indispensable to true 
 godliness. A piety that is the fruit of ignorance, 
 finds no countenance in the Author of this instruc- 
 tive volume, no place in its sacred pages. When it 
 describes the character of an irreligious and ungodly 
 world, it is a community where " there is none that 
 understandeth." When it describes the condition 
 in which all true Christians once were, its language 
 is, " Ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in 
 the Lord." It represents them as " turned from 
 darkness to light ;" as " brought out of darkness into 
 God's marvellous light ;" and as receiving " the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
 face of Jesus Christ." Their progress in grace is 
 represented as standing abreast with their progress 
 in knowledge ; their upward path as a luminous and 
 bright path. They are represented as " filled with 
 the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and 
 spiritual understanding." Their minds are brought 
 into contact with the truth ; their religion is thus a 
 stable and dignified religion ; justly entitled to the 
 preeminence of being the "light of the world;" 
 penetrating its regions of gloomy darkness, and ever 
 opening new sources of wonder and praise. 
 
 What a preeminence over all other religions, 
 
 Bible not of Man * 7*
 
 154 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 coarse and low as they once were, and are still ! All 
 false religions require ignorance to sustain them ; 
 ignorance is one of their essential elements. Pagan 
 worship is not based upon the knowledge even of 
 its own religious system. Rude ignorance, and 
 gloomy superstition, form the character of the entire 
 religion of the pagan world. Their " understanding 
 is darkened ;" they " worship they know not what :" 
 the inscription on their altars is, " To the unknown 
 God." The wisest of the heathen philosophers 
 were the very persons who most deeply felt, and 
 most bitterly bewailed their ignorance on all moral 
 subjects. Cicero tells us, that there was a class of 
 religious teachers in Rome, who could never look 
 into one another's faces without laughing ; so deep 
 was their consciousness that their teachings were 
 preposterous. Reason and common sense are actually 
 scandalized by their absurdities. Men are shut out 
 from all that is worthy of the name of religion, so 
 long as they are cut off from the knowledge of the 
 truth. The religion of the Bible is the religion of 
 light. God is the source of light ; himself " the 
 Father of lights j" and it will forever remain among 
 the evidences in favor of the divine origin of the 
 Scriptures, that the religion they inculcate is learned 
 by studying the lessons of unequalled wisdom. 
 
 2. Another fact in relation to the religion of the 
 Bible is, that it is the religion of the heart. It is an 
 inward religion, and not the religion of mere out- 
 ward forms. Its work is not done when it has 
 enlightened the understanding. It consists in " re-
 
 ITS RELIGION. 155 
 
 ceiving the truth in the love of it." Its object is to 
 carry the heart ; to impart efficacy to right moral 
 principles ; to control the affections, as well as the 
 understanding ; and to infuse into the soul a mea- 
 sure of the moral excellence of its Author. It does 
 not overlook the forms of piety, but they are so few 
 and simple as to become the natural and unstudied 
 expressions of it, and are valued only as they are 
 expressions of the internal spirit. There is no char- 
 acteristic of the religion of the Bible more univer- 
 sally, or uniformly inculcated, than this. It every- 
 where insists upon right intentions as indispensable 
 to the performance of any and every duty. It looks 
 to the springs of action. " God is a Spirit, and they 
 that worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth." To every other religious service its wither- 
 ing rebuke is, " Who hath required this at your 
 hands ?" However fair the outward appearance, it 
 makes no account of the most fair and unblemished 
 exterior, unless it flows from right principles and 
 impulses. 
 
 And what are these principles and impulses ? 
 The first great article of all religion is that which 
 regulates the affections towards the object of its 
 worship. True religion is founded in the relation 
 which men sustain towards the Supreme Being. In 
 this respect, the religion of the Bible is an intel- 
 ligent and effective religion. It begins with God. 
 The most compendious expression of it consists in 
 love to God. This ruling affection of Heaven is here 
 represented as the ruling passion of good men on the
 
 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 earth. A sense of duty does much towards forming 
 the religious character required by the Bible; but 
 love to God does more. Where it exists at all, it 
 is the strongest affection the soul ever exercises. 
 There are almost endless ramifications of this radical 
 principle, branching out in emotions, which, while 
 they have a specific, partake of the same generic 
 character. 
 
 Sometimes they assume the form of holy fear 
 and reverence ; and then their language is, " Who 
 shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name, 
 for thou only art holy !" 
 
 Sometimes it is the form of confidence ; a confi- 
 dence which gathers strength from every new view 
 of the Divine character, and every fresh experience 
 and conviction of his illimitable resources of wisdom, 
 power and love. All the imagery of nature seems to 
 be put in requisition, in order to furnish appropriate 
 emblems of God's excellence, or a fitting expression 
 of their confidence in him. " The Lord God is a 
 sun and shield ; he will give grace and glory ; no 
 good thing will he withhold from them that walk 
 uprightly." Image after image is multiplied, and 
 they crowd upon one another as though the thoughts 
 and affections could not find utterance. " The Lord 
 is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer; 
 my God, my Strength, in whom I will trust ; my 
 buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high 
 tower /" 
 
 Sometimes these emotions rise to joy and trans- 
 port, and the subjects of them are heard to say, " I 

 
 ITS RELIGION. 157 
 
 will rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One 
 of Israel :" "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord ; my 
 soul shall be joyful in my God." Then again, 
 breaking out in ecstasies of joy, they sing, " Blessed 
 be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth 
 wondrous things ; and blessed be his glorious name 
 forever ; and let the whole earth be filled with his 
 glory : Amen and amen !" And then, as though 
 their own lips were mute, and their praise too inex- 
 pressive, they invoke all inanimate nature as well as 
 "everything that hath breath," to the delightful 
 employment of praising God. 
 
 If from these emotions towards God, we advert 
 to those which the Bible describes towards sin, and 
 the character of men as sinners, we discover a spirit 
 that is altogether peculiar to the piety there deline- 
 ated. There is something strongly marked in those 
 religious emotions which good men are here repre- 
 sented as exercising in view of their own personal 
 vileness. They imply the hatred of sin on account 
 of its own intrinsic turpitude ; sorrow for it as com- 
 mitted against God ; unfeigned self-abasement be- 
 cause it is a violation of his law ; and turning from 
 it unto God, through Jesus Christ. " O my God, I 
 am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, 
 my God ; for our iniquities have increased over our 
 head, and our trespass has grown up unto the heav- 
 ens." " O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, 
 but unto us confusion of face, as at this day." 
 " Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done 
 this evil in thy sight : that thou mightest be justified
 
 158 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." 
 " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; but 
 now mine eye seeth thee : wherefore I abhor myself, 
 and repent in dust and ashes." 
 
 Another peculiarity in these inward principles 
 and impulses, is the faith Avhich the Scriptures 
 exemplify. They speak largely of a principle of 
 conduct, a strong internal affection, which consists 
 in an affectionate and active confidence in the 
 veracity and promise of God. There are things 
 apprehended and rested upon by the faith of the 
 Bible, which " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor 
 hath entered into the heart of man." It is a faith 
 which realizes the existence of the only living and 
 true God in the grandeur and glory of his creation, 
 in the wisdom, goodness, and power of his provi- 
 dence, and in the method and work of his grace. It 
 recognizes him everywhere and in all things ; every- 
 where seeing and enjoying him ; everywhere walk- 
 ing with him, hearing a voice Avhich nothing else 
 hears, seeing a hand which nothing else can see, 
 and discovering that heart of Infinite love which 
 nothing else discovers. " V 
 
 There is no burden of sin from which the faith 
 of the Bible does not deliver ; no fear it does not 
 dissipate ; no spiritual enemy it does not subdue ; no 
 indifference and coldness it does not supersede by 
 the fervor of a glowing love. To the mind that 
 exercises it, it is the bond of affiance between the 
 creature and the Creator, the sinner and his Re- 
 deemer, the death of time and the life of eternity,
 
 ITS RELIGION. 159 
 
 the grave and the resurrection, this low earth and 
 the heaven where he expects to dwell. It is " the 
 substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of 
 things not seen." It is his strength in weakness, 
 his courage in difficulty, his victory over the world. 
 It lives under the light of God's countenance ; it 
 dwells near his throne of grace ; it endures as seeing 
 him who is invisible. To repeat its language, its 
 assurance, its triumphs, as they are recorded in the 
 Bible, would be to recite no small portion of the 
 entire Scriptures. 
 
 Such are the principles and impulses of the 
 religion delineated in the Scriptures. They form 
 its heart and soul ; and "God giveth it a body as it 
 hath pleased him." 
 
 Now we affirm that such a religion never was of 
 human origin. Human religions, all the world over, 
 have respect to the garb and manners of piety, rather 
 than to its spirit and soul. They know nothing of 
 the heart and inward life, but are made up of out- 
 ward rites and ceremonies. Ponderous volumes have 
 been written with the view of illustrating them ; but 
 they consist ofJiistorical annotations and curious dis- 
 courses upon the ceremonies and religious customs 
 of the various heathen nations. Motives are not at 
 all essential to the religious character, and even the 
 perfection, of their rites. There is not to be found 
 in all the records of false religions, one such senti- 
 ment as this : " Having a form of godliness, but 
 denying the power thereof: from such turn away." 
 Their prayers are vain repetitions to some imaginary
 
 160 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 deity; their most meritorious acts are bathing in 
 some hallowed river, or with a fool-hardy and vain- 
 glorious exultation, inflicting some cruel torture on 
 their own bodies. If we inquire what their affec- 
 tions are towards God, they are " without God in 
 the world." They had gods enough ; they had 
 them by thousands; but what emotions did they 
 inspire, and to what heart religion did they impel 
 the worshippers at their altars ? You seek for relig- 
 ion among them, and what do you see ? Piety, rev- 
 erence, love, hope, confidence, joy ? No : none of 
 these ; but bacchanalian revels, and every form and 
 degree of disgusting abomination. We do, indeed, 
 read of fearful terrors of conscience among them; 
 but where do we find any just views of sin, and of 
 that inward repentance which produces outward 
 reformation? We read of reason and philosophy, 
 but in vain do we look for the faith that purifies the 
 heart and works by love r Proud reason knows no- 
 thing of it. It never learned to " become a fool, that 
 it might be wise." It is not found in pagan lands. 
 Pagan philosophy is a stranger to the simplicity, the 
 ardor, the strength of its confidence The works 
 of nature do not warrant such a faith ; reason does 
 not discover the foundations of it ; conscience, be- 
 nighted, wounded, does not even conjecture that 
 there is balm for all her wounds, and light for her 
 midnight darkness. 
 
 Religions that are thus exhausted in outward 
 rites, and never reach the heart, may well be of 
 human origin. The religion of the Bible is alto-
 
 ITS RELIGION. 161 
 
 gether a different religion. Apart from the religion 
 here delineated, and the religion of which this Book 
 is the source, there is no such heart religion in the 
 world, nor has there ever been any such. Men who 
 make their own gods, and make them conformable 
 to their own practices and inclinations, can easily 
 make their own religion. But the God of the Bible 
 is not the work of men's hands, nor is the religion 
 of the Bible of this low origin. 
 
 3. Another characteristic of the religion of the 
 Bible is its unearthly tendency. This is a feature 
 which gives coloring and character to the whole relig- 
 ious landscape there portrayed. There is a purity and 
 loftiness of sentiment in the Bible, a heavenward 
 tendency and unearthliness in the best affections it 
 delineates, which cannot be overlooked by the atten- 
 tive reader of its pages, and which cannot be mis- 
 taken for an earth-born religion. This Book alone 
 makes a due estimate of the things that are seen and 
 the things that are unseen. It has eternity for its 
 object ; nor can the religious character it produces 
 be understood, save as it is directed towards invisi- 
 ble and eternal realities, and becomes progressively 
 amalgamated with them. 
 
 In all its exemplifications of piety, we find this 
 state of mind holding an observable prominence. 
 The sensual bias and tendency are here counter- 
 acted, and a spiritual and heavenly one imparted 
 and sustained. The mind is gradually liberated 
 from the degrading and disloyal thraldom of earth, 
 and willingly, cheerfully made subject to what is
 
 162 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 " incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away." 
 False estimates of this world are here rectified; 
 heaven is the mark towards which all its disciples 
 are represented as pressing forward ; the governing 
 principle of their desires and conduct is their prefer- 
 ence of the future to the present ; and the conflict 
 in which they are employed involves an habitual 
 resistance to the usurpations of earth. They are 
 " strangers and pilgrims on the earth," having here 
 "no continuing city." With Moses, they "choose 
 rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, 
 than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; for 
 they have respect to the recompense of reward." 
 With Paul they can say, "I reckon the sufferings 
 of this present time not worthy to be compared with 
 the glory which shall be revealed in us." Often did 
 they look upon the world with weariness, and even 
 sadness; often had they a "desire to depart and be 
 with Christ ;" while they might sometimes be heard 
 to say, " O that I had wings like a dove ; for then 
 would I fly away, and be at rest !" 
 
 We affirm that such a religion is not of earth. 
 Men never devised it. Their uniform character 
 shows that such a religion is unnatural to them. 
 All experience and observation show, that men have 
 always inverted the true order of things, by putting 
 that first which should be last, and that last which 
 should be first. The Bible alone aims at suppress- 
 ing and subverting this anarchy, by restoring the 
 dominion of the spiritual and superior over the infe- 
 rior and the sensual. This misrule is here arrested
 
 ITS RELIGION. 163 
 
 and broken, and in a process of decay and dissolu- 
 tion. But it is not a^atural process to man, and 
 does not fall in with any of the religions of his de- 
 vising. That single sentence, " Wherefore, come 
 ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and 
 touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a Father 
 unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, 
 saith the Lord Almighty," is itself proof of a relig- 
 ion of unearthly origin. The memoirs of men in 
 all lands where the Bible is not known, or where it 
 is rejected, or where it is not obeyed, furnish no 
 examples of such a religion. Paganism has no such 
 biography, because it has no such heaven-descended 
 principles. " Pure religion and undefiled before God 
 and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself un- 
 spotted from the world." No school of philosophy 
 ever trained up a single pupil thus, or ever thus 
 taught the world. Men are not accustomed to such 
 a religion, even in thought ; they are ignorant of it ; 
 nor is there any original portrait of it, save in that 
 Book of which the Spirit of God is the Author. 
 
 4. Another characteristic of the religion of the 
 Bible is, that it is a progressive and growing relig- 
 ion. Just as in the world of nature there is first the 
 blade, then the stalk, then the ear, then the full corn 
 in the ear ; just as in the kingdom of Providence na- 
 tions and all their improvements, from small begin- 
 nings, increase, and become enlarged and extended ; 
 just as the little infant from a helpless babe becomes 
 a vigorous youth, and then comes to matured and
 
 154 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 well-informed manhood so the religion of the Bible, 
 both in the heart of man, dfll in the world, from its 
 resemblance to a grain of mustard-seed, comes to 
 resemble an overshadowing and fruitful tree ; and 
 from a babe in knowledge and grace, reaches the 
 " measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 
 By nature, the soul is " dead in trespasses and sins." 
 On the first communication of spiritual life, its pulse 
 is feeble and languid, its perceptions are obscure, 
 and it is " a day of small things." But he " who 
 begins this work, performs it until the day of Jesus 
 Christ." The promise, the love, and the power of 
 God are pledged to carry it forward. Its growth is 
 slow, but by and by it becomes vigorous and strong. 
 The spiritual appetite becomes healthful and manly ; 
 it hungers and thirsts after righteousness ; and the 
 riew-born babe, who once desired the sincere milk 
 of the word, has now become like those who have 
 need of strong meat. 
 
 It is not a mere miniature sketch of the Divine 
 likeness, that the child of God always bears ; but 
 one whose features are destined to stand out in bold 
 relief, and more and more like a full and beautifully 
 adorned portrait. His path is like the rising light, 
 which " shineth more and more unto the perfect 
 day." He " flourishes like the palm-tree, and grows 
 like the cedar in Lebanon." He " grows in grace 
 and in knowledge," " following on to know the 
 Lord," increasing in the spirituality of his affections 
 and in the uniformity of his obedience. He pos- 
 sesses a growing congeniality with the mind and
 
 ITS RELIGION. 165 
 
 will of God ; in his ascending progress he has no 
 appointed place of rest ; nor does he stop in his 
 career, nor is he satisfied, until he awakes in the 
 perfect likeness of his God and Saviour. 
 
 This is a most beautiful characteristic of the 
 religion of the Bible, and found nowhere else save 
 in Bible religion. The world is full of religion, but 
 it is not such a religion. There is arrested atten- 
 tion, and awakened thought in Christian lands, 
 where there is no growing piety. There is deep 
 conviction, and agitating fear, where there is no 
 growing piety. There are transient hope and mo- 
 mentary joy, and the cloud-like goodness of Ephraim 
 that passeth away, where there is no growing piety. 
 There are hypocritical professions, where there is no 
 piety at heart, because there is none that is perma- 
 nent and growing. There is the semblance of relig- 
 ion in lands that are not Christian ; lands that are 
 enticed by the lying wonders of the Man of Sin ; 
 lands that are covered with the veil of Mahomedan 
 imposture ; lands that have no other influences than 
 the glimmerings of natural reason ; but it does not 
 shine out with a less varying and more increasing 
 light. It is like the path of the meteor, which no 
 laws of the moral world can trace. It is like the 
 sudden flash of the lightning, which, when it is 
 over, leaves the sky in deeper darkness. It has no 
 perception of truth ; no nice discrimination of mo- 
 tives ; no tenderness of conscience ; no steady and 
 growing exhibition of excellence. It is like the 
 piety of a few thinking and thoughtful minds in the
 
 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 pagan world ; like the dreams of Socrates, or the 
 hopes of Plato, or the morals of Seneca ; it is a sud- 
 den scintillation, or it may be coruscation, of moral 
 sentiment : we see it for the moment, but we look 
 again, and it is gone ; it is all darkness, death, and 
 sin. It is not the religion of the Bible, because it is 
 not of God. 
 
 5. It is also a remarkable feature of the religion 
 of the Bible, and one which has no unimportant 
 place in our argument, that with all these excel- 
 lencies which we have mentioned, the religion 
 which was possessed by the saints of the Old and 
 New Testament is represented in the Bible as an 
 imperfect religion. It professes to be so ; and it is 
 an interesting fact that it makes this open and un- 
 embarrassed avowal. 
 
 We might naturally suppose that a religion that 
 comes from God is a perfect religion'. This religion 
 itself is a perfect religion ; but the votaries of it are 
 not perfect. When infidels impugn the religion ex- 
 emplified in the Scriptures, because it is not sinless ; 
 when they point to the sins of good men, as their 
 character is delineated in the Scriptures, and exult- 
 ingly demand, Can such a religion be from God ? we 
 reply to these sneers, that this is just what the 
 Scriptures themselves would lead us to look for. 
 The Bible itself teaches us, that there is no such 
 thing as a sinless religion among men. It does 
 indeed require a perfect religion. There is no abate- 
 ment of the binding precept, no relaxation of the 
 injunction, " Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven
 
 ITS RELIGION. 167 
 
 is perfect." If this Book did not teach us that it is 
 the duty of men to become perfect, it would furnish 
 a good and solid reason for wickedness ; and in this 
 fact alone, would cany on the face of it conclusive 
 evidence that it is not of divine origin. 
 
 It is in its own nature fitted to produce a perfect 
 religion. It is itself a perfect system of truth and 
 duty, and did men perfectly obey it, their religion 
 would be perfect. But it nowhere delineates and 
 exemplifies a perfect religion in the character and 
 conduct of men. It does not in Abraham ; nor in 
 Lot ; nor in Moses ; nor in Aardn ; nor in David, in 
 Jeremiah, in Peter, in Paul, nor in any of the char- 
 acters to which it attributes such high and command- 
 ing moral excellencies. It teaches unequivocally, 
 that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
 and " the truth is not in us." The best men of 
 whom it speaks are described as imperfect men ; the 
 most splendid examples of heaven-born piety are 
 there represented as obscured by imperfection. The 
 saints of the Old and New Testaments had sins to 
 confess and bewail ; sins to struggle with and de- 
 clensions to mourn over ; sins that made them feel 
 their dependence, and drove them to the throne for 
 grace to help in the time of need ; and sins that 
 filled them with self-abasement and humiliation. 
 The Bible makes us acquainted with just such a 
 religion as in fact exists, and as is possessed by all 
 true Christians in every age of the world. What if 
 it had been otherwise, and the Christians they 
 describe were all of such high attainments as to be
 
 168 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 sinless and perfect ? How ill-befitting had such a 
 book been as a revelation from God to fallen man ! 
 How withering to the hopes of the best of men, to 
 be driven to the conclusion that they have no relig- 
 ion at all, because they have not a perfect and sin- 
 less religion ! How discordant with facts as existing 
 in the entire history of good men, had such a reve- 
 lation been ! How untrue ! How false, and un- 
 worthy of credit ! There is wisdom, there is truth 
 in a revelation that delineates human goodness as 
 imperfect, and portrays it just as it is wisdom and 
 truth, of which God alone is the Author. 
 
 It were easy to enlarge on the peculiar nature of 
 the religion of the Bible, and in every one of its char- 
 acteristics point out the evidence of its divine origin. 
 Its thousand topics of thought, thought which enters 
 into the religious character of which it speaks, are 
 topics such as no uninspired mind would have origi- 
 nated. Its jealous God, and yet its God of conde- 
 scending mercy its way of life and its way of 
 death its Christian's prospect and its Christian's 
 retrospect his wounded spirit caused and cured 
 his self-suspicion and his confidence his spiritual 
 participation of Christ, and his consequent exposure 
 to the hostility of the world his watchfulness and 
 his faithfulness the expansive tendency of his re- 
 ligion, and yet his peculiar fellowship with the com- 
 munity of the faithful his enemies and his con- 
 quests God dwelling in him, and he in God all 
 these, and other kindred topics, evince the religion
 
 ITS RELIGION. 169 
 
 of the Bible to be one of higher than any earthly 
 parentage. 
 
 The process too by which the religious character 
 lescribed in the Bible is formed, .is there distinctly 
 marked out. It is a resurrection from the death 
 of sin ; a moral renovation, a new creation by the 
 mighty power of God. It is not the production of 
 nature ; it is not the effect of moral suasion ; it is not 
 superinduced by human ingenuity, or human disci- 
 pline ; but originates, and is wrought out in all its 
 parts by the grace and power of God. It is a beau- 
 tiful and noble moral structure, ornate and heavenly, 
 whose builder and maker is the Holy One, who is 
 the Author of the new heavens and the new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness. For such a relig- 
 ion we fearlessly make the demand, Is it from 
 Heaven, or is it of men? Can the Book which 
 reveals it be a forgery ? Does it disclose the heart 
 and hand of an impostor ? Did men ever originate 
 such a religion as this ? Can there be a doubt of its 
 divine origin ? 
 
 It were a melancholy fact, if the reader should 
 revise this part of the argument in favor of the 
 divine origin of the Scriptures with no personal 
 searchings of heart. Does he possess this religion ; 
 a religion based on the knowledge of the truth, yet 
 more than knowledge a religion not irrespective 
 of form, yet more than form : the religion of love, 
 of reverence, of confidence, of joy in God through 
 Jesus Christ, of repentance and self-abasement, of 
 faith and obedience ? Does he possess this spiritual 
 
 Bible not of Man. 8
 
 170 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 religion, this growing religion, and though imperfect, 
 this religion which is the fruit of God's Spirit, and 
 which alone can qualify him to dwell within the 
 courts of the New Jerusalem ? 
 
 If he does, he may well say, " By the grace of 
 God, I am what I am ;" if he does not, how can he 
 be happy, how can he be at rest? Is the Bible 
 fabulous ? Are its truths fabulous ? Are its hopes 
 fabulous ? Is its religion fabulous ? Ah, no. There 
 is nothing fabulous about this Book of God. God 
 himself is no fable. It is no fable that men have 
 incurred his displeasure. The eternity to which 
 they are bound is no fable. Heaven and hell are no 
 fables.
 
 ITS UNITY. 171 
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 THE UNITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 THE argument to which the reader's attention is 
 now directed, is the agreement or concord of Scrip- 
 ture with itself, or the consent of all its parts. 
 
 It may at the outset be questioned, whether the 
 fact that a book is consistent with itself, be a proof 
 of its divine original ? The question is not out of 
 place ; it is a fair question. While it is true that 
 writers whose works are voluminous, who have 
 written largely on various subjects, or on different 
 departments of the same subject, and more especially 
 if their works have employed a long series of years, 
 and been published at long intervals, are very apt to 
 slide into some incoherencies, if not some downright 
 and palpable contradictions ; yet must it be conced- 
 ed, that there are human authors who are uniformly 
 and always consistent with themselves. The mere 
 circumstance, therefore, that the Bible is consistent 
 with itself, is a slender basis on which to found an 
 argument for its divine original, if we at the same 
 time take not into consideration the nature of this 
 consistency, and the circumstances which render it, 
 not to say improbable, but impossible, unless the 
 writers of it were directed by more than human wis-
 
 172 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 dom. Our design is to show that there exists this 
 agreement of the Scripture with itself; that there is 
 something in the nature of this agreement, which 
 makes it such a moral phenomenon, that it never 
 could have taken place in the history of uninspired 
 men; that the circumstances of it are such as to 
 justify and demand the conclusion, that it is an ex- 
 pression of His mind and will, " with whom is no 
 variableness, neither shadow of turning." 
 
 We will direct our thoughts to THE REALITY 
 AND NATURE OF THIS AGREEMENT, as it appears in 
 the facts that are narrated in the Bible ; in the 
 representations there made of religious truth ; in the 
 harmony which exists between the principles which 
 it reveals, the emotions it inculcates, and the out- 
 ward conduct which flows from them; and in the 
 unity between the Old and New Testaments. 
 
 1. As the basis of our argument we affirm, in 
 the first place, that there is a remarkable agreement 
 in the facts that are narrated in the Scriptures. The 
 arguments of infidels against the Bible as a divine 
 revelation, almost, if not always, relate to matters 
 of fact stated in the sacred volume. The reasons 
 for this probably are, that the facts therein stated 
 are so numerous, that it would require the life of the 
 most diligent student to investigate them minutely ; 
 and that apparent discrepancies in little matters, 
 which time and patient research easily reconcile, 
 embolden the infidel in a temporary triumph. 
 
 It were impossible, in a single chapter, to do 
 more than make it appear that the Scriptures are
 
 ITS UNITY. 173 
 
 consistent with themselves in the great facts which 
 lie at the basis of the religion which they reveal ; 
 which have an inseparable connection with all its 
 peculiar doctrines, an influence upon all its precepts, 
 and which give Christianity its distinguishing char- 
 acter and importance. There are such facts. They 
 are, the creation of the world the descent of the 
 human family from one common pair the universal 
 deluge the division of the earth among the sons of 
 Noah the confusion of tongues the calling of 
 Abraham and the origin of the Hebrew state the 
 destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain 
 the severance of the race of Ishmael from their 
 common progenitor the bondage and deliverance 
 of the children of Israel in Egypt the giving of the 
 moral and ceremonial law on Sinai the pilgrimage 
 through the wilderness the possession of the prom- 
 ised land the character of the Jews under the dy- 
 nasty of the judges and the reign of the kings the 
 service of the temple the revolt of the ten tribes 
 the exile and the return from Babylon the nation and 
 the family from which the Messiah descended his 
 miraculous birth, his peculiar character, his preach- 
 ing, his propitiatory sufferings and death, his burial 
 and his resurrection his commission to his apostles 
 to preach the Gospel his ascension into heaven 
 the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pente- 
 cost, and the organization of the Christian church. 
 
 If there is a perfect agreement in the sacred 
 writers in their statement of these great facts, then, 
 so far as this statement goes, there is no discrepancy
 
 174 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 in the great system of which these facts fonn the 
 basis. In things of minor moment, there may be 
 seeming discrepancy in the different narrators ; but 
 it is discrepancy which disappears on a more minute 
 examination ; and even though it does not at once 
 disappear, ought, upon all principles of fair reason- 
 ing, to be attributed to other causes than the mistake 
 of the original narrator. 
 
 Of these great facts the sacred writers furnish a 
 perfectly harmonious account. The earliest of them 
 wrote subsequently to some of these events ; some 
 of them wrote subsequently to them all ; while 
 most of those who wrote subsequently to all, or a 
 part of them, make frequent and explicit reference 
 to the whole. Whether their statements be more 
 or less full, or their references more or less inci- 
 dental, there is no positive discrepancy in any of 
 them. It would require a volume to illustrate these 
 remarks : we must rely on the reader's acquaintance 
 with the Scriptures for their illustration. Any man 
 familial- with the Sacred Writings, will see the force 
 of this argument. 
 
 The statement of David, for example, is in har- 
 mony with that of Moses ; the narrative of Peter, 
 and Stephen, and the allusions of Paul, do not con- 
 tradict the narrative of any of the narrators who 
 preceded them. David celebrates in poetry, what 
 Moses records as a historian ; while Stephen, and 
 Peter, and Paul, urge in argument the same facts 
 that are recorded by the historian's pen and sung by 
 the prophet's lyre. The historical parts of the New
 
 ITS UNITY. 175 
 
 Testament, as well as the Old, are in perfect coinci- 
 dence with the more didactic and doctrinal parts. 
 The epistles of Paul, so full of minute specifica- 
 tions, so replete with allusions to times, places, per- 
 sons, and events ; and written with all the freedom 
 of epistolary correspondence, and without any re- 
 gard to the order of events ; are found to discover a 
 minute coincidence with the more extended and 
 exact history given by Luke in the book of the 
 "Acts of the Apostles." 
 
 The statements of the four evangelists, though 
 at a great remove from studied uniformity, are, in 
 regard to the great facts on which Christianity is 
 founded, perfectly harmonious statements. The 
 apparent inconsistencies vanish on close inspection, 
 and the harmony becomes more obvious and strik- 
 ing from the very apparent discrepancies, because 
 they show the entire absence of all collusion. There 
 is a difference in their narratives, but they differ 
 without being contradictory. One gives a more full 
 statement than another ; one writes in chronological 
 order, another inweaves facts as they suit his pur- 
 pose, and without regard to date ; one writes to a 
 different people, and with a different object from 
 another, and therefore presents the facts with a dif- 
 ferent phase and complexion ; one traces the gene- 
 alogy of the Saviour through the line of Mary, and 
 another through the line of Joseph ; one specifies a 
 distant ancestor by one name, and another by an- 
 other ; and on inquiry, it is ascertained that he was 
 identified with both.
 
 176 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 In some of the genealogical tables there is an 
 apparent discrepancy, arising from the fact, that one 
 writer records the genealogy according to the He- 
 brew usage, reckoning the descendants by the males 
 only ; while another, not regarding this genealogical 
 precision, includes both the male and the female 
 descendants. The most serious discrepancies relate 
 to numbers ; in regard to which, it would be mar- 
 vellous if none, of all the transcribers, had fallen 
 into any error. The alleged contradictions, on 
 which infidelity so triumphantly relies, are almost 
 all of this character. But critical investigation, 
 and faithful research, have again and again refuted 
 them. 
 
 The original manuscripts in which the sacred 
 Books were written, have all long since crumbled 
 away, or b&en destroyed ; and for a long series of 
 years, and until the invention of the art of printing, 
 were handed down from generation to generation, 
 by the tedious process of transcribing with the pen. 
 Even the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament 
 now in existence, were made many centuries after 
 the loss of the originals. Amid the ten thousand 
 copies, from the days of Moses to the present day, 
 it is matter for grateful admiration, that we now 
 possess, in the original languages in which they 
 Avere written, the substantial Scriptures, as they 
 were dictated by Infinite wisdom. Proof readers, 
 and those who are in the habit of correcting the 
 press, cannot fail to feel the relevancy and import- 
 ance of these observations. 

 
 ITS UNITY. 177 
 
 God has provided for the preservation of the 
 unadulterated Scriptures, by having thus preserved 
 them in the original languages in which they were 
 written. Living language is continually fluctuating : 
 dead languages are unchangeable. We cannot suf- 
 ficiently adore the superintending and vigilant care 
 of Divine Providence, in that these writings have 
 been preserved in these languages, and preserved 
 pure. Some. transcribers may have given a different 
 spelling to some words from that which is given by 
 others ; some may have misplaced a stop, or inverted 
 a letter, or even misplaced a sentence ; yet is it still 
 the same unadulterated history. 
 
 Some things may remain obscure ; but the ob- 
 scure, so far as they are understood, never contradict 
 those that are plain ; while those that are plain shed 
 light upon those that are obscure. Infidels have nqt, 
 so far as my knowledge extends, ever undertaken to 
 vitiate the great facts contained in the Scripture nar- 
 rative. They are too firmly established by impartial 
 and credible witnesses, and too abundantly confirmed 
 by profane history, to be assailed. The most which 
 they have attempted to do, is to charge upon the nar- 
 rators some minor inconsistencies, which in no way 
 affect the essential harmony of their narrative ; and 
 which, if even unexplained, leave the great fabric 
 of God's truth firm and unimpaired. We have 
 nothing to fear, when they have done their worst ; 
 and when, "after the assault, we count those of its 
 towers that have stood the siege, we shall find that 
 not a tower has fallen." 
 
 Bible not of Man. Q#
 
 178 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 2. There is also, in the Scriptures, the most 
 perfect unity in all their representations of religious 
 truth. 
 
 It is allowed by infidels, that there is a stronger 
 apparent harmony between the doctrines of Scrip- 
 ture than the facts. If they do ^ not allow this, we 
 prove it upon them by repeating a remark already 
 made; which is, that their own objections relate, 
 rather to the matters of fact that are stated in the 
 Bible, than to the doctrines it reveals. But this is 
 perfectly the reverse in regard to all human systems. 
 In human systems, the diversity of opinion is much 
 greater than the diversity of facts ; the moral disa- 
 greement is much greater than the physical, or the 
 historical. 
 
 On the subject of religious truth men differ, and 
 e^jfer have differed. No two men in the world, even 
 with the Bible in their hands, could probably now 
 be found, who would write a book on religious sub- 
 jects as large as the Bible, without expressing differ- 
 ent views. Much less could thirty or forty men be 
 found who would perfectly harmonize. Suppose the 
 Bible to be blotted out of existence, and some thirty 
 or forty individuals, scattered through different ages 
 of the world, had written on religious subjects, and 
 their works were comprised in a volume. Who does 
 not see, that such a work would have been the 
 merest theological jargon ! Let the wild and inco- 
 herent speculations of heathen philosophy, and the 
 thousand varieties of pagan religion, give the answer 
 to this demand.
 
 ITS UNITY. 179 
 
 But while these differences are in fact almost 
 endless, yet it is the great and undeniable character- 
 istic of the Scriptures, that all their instructions are 
 in perfect harmony. Their great object is to impart 
 the knowledge of truth. Truth is the great and 
 only instrumentality they make use of in order to 
 transform, purify, and elevate the human character. 
 No matter how they teach- whether by history, 
 biography, song, allegory, parable, argument, or dog- 
 matic testimony and affirmation religious truth is 
 so deeply and thoroughly inwoven in all they utter, 
 that it forms the great and essential element in all 
 their instructions. Yet in all their views, from be- 
 ginning to end, there is the most perfect oneness. 
 No matter what the subject of which they treat, all 
 the writers speak the same thing. They uniformly 
 present the same views. We might specify a chap- 
 ter of doctrines, even to a minute and detailed 
 confession of faith, and we should find the same 
 unbroken harmony. 
 
 The most difficult of all subjects, the one most 
 inaccessible to the minds of men, and the one on 
 which, of all others, the pagan world held notions 
 the most obscure and contradictory, relates to the 
 Divine Being and character. " What," said the King 
 of Syracuse to Simonides " what is God ?" The 
 poet desired a day to consider the question ; on the 
 morrow, he requested two days ; arid as often as he 
 was called upon for an answer, he doubled the 
 time. And when the king demanded the reason of 
 his conduct, "It is," replied Simonides, " because
 
 180 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 the more I consider the question, the more obscure 
 it appears." Yet this is human it is enlightened 
 humanity. 
 
 The Scriptures never hesitate, never vary when 
 they speak of the infinite and eternal Deity. They 
 utter no dark enigmas ; they veil nothing which to 
 creatures can be unveiled; they discourage by no 
 unmingled severities, and flatter by no unmingled 
 mercy ; they always and everywhere speak with the 
 same explicitness they change never. So too of 
 the character of man, and the discovery they make 
 of the way of man's salvation. They everywhere 
 speak of man as fallen by his iniquity; of one 
 Saviour ; one way of going to him, one way only 
 in which this salvation becomes ours. Ten thou- 
 sand are the fancies of other religions, and all as con- 
 tradictory to one another and themselves, as they 
 are conjectural and false. The sacred writers all 
 point to the one God-man Mediator the one Root 
 and Offspring of David the same Fountain of 
 mercy the same Tree of Life. They uniformly 
 speak the same thing : let their theme be what it will, 
 the teaching of one is the teaching of all. 
 
 And not only do they all speak the same doc- 
 trine, but the various doctrines they inculcate all 
 agree with each other. They have a mutual de- 
 pendence and connection ; they give one another a 
 reciprocal support and influence ; they grow out of 
 each other, and all hang together, alike deriving their 
 ripeness, and freshness, and flavor, from the same 
 parent stock. Let a diligent student take up a copy
 
 ITS UNITY. 181 
 
 of the Scriptures with copious marginal references, 
 and undertake to collate their instructions upon any 
 one doctrine or moral duty, and he will be surprised 
 at the uniformity of their teaching. They never 
 speak for, and against, the same doctrine ; they never 
 bear witness on both sides of any question : nor is 
 there an instance in which they affirm and deny the 
 same thing. That which in reality " has any Scrip- 
 ture in its favor, has all Scripture in its favor;" nor 
 is there anything in the Bible against it. 
 
 Now we maintain that this is a remarkable fact. 
 It is not an easy matter for a false witness, especially 
 if he has a long story to tell, to agree with himself; 
 much less will a number of false witnesses, testifying 
 at great length on so many subjects, agree with one 
 another. This were, if possible, a greater miracle 
 than that of divine inspiration. Is this harmony 
 then the result of mere human wisdom, honestly 
 directed ? Is it the effect of fiction or falsehood ? 
 This is more than any sober man can be persuaded 
 to believe. It is contrary to all experience and ob- 
 servation. The human mind is too weak, thus to 
 have settled down upon such a vast amount of un- 
 changing truth ; it is itself too restless and changing ; 
 nor is the instance to be found in the history of our 
 race, in which its views of religious truth possessed 
 such comprehensiveness, consistency, and perma- 
 nence. We cannot account for this harmony of 
 truth which the sacred Books express, upon any 
 other principle, than that its authors were under 
 the guidance of heavenly wisdom. The thing is
 
 182 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 impossible : the supposed cause, that uninspired men 
 were its authors, is not adequate to the effect pro- 
 duced. 
 
 3. Turn, now, to the harmony which exists be- 
 tween the principles which the Bible reveals and the 
 inward emotions it inculcates, and the harmony be- 
 tween these inward emotions and the outward conduct 
 which flows from them. True religion consists of 
 doctrine, experience and practice ; while in all these 
 respects, it exhibits the most perfect symmetry. 
 There is no inconsistency between its practice and 
 its affections, nor between its affections and its prin- 
 ciples. They are all conformed and fitted the one 
 to the other, and form a religion in which the under- 
 standing, the heart, and the outward deportment 
 agree. Its religion is like an edifice made up of dif- 
 ferent parts, but all so perfectly congruous and joined 
 together, that it possesses unequalled strength and 
 beauty. The tendency of its truths is not to de- 
 stroy, or neutralize, but to excite and sustain that 
 internal state of mind, and those glowing, heavenly 
 affections which it requires ; and the tendency of 
 this internal state of mind, so far from being at war 
 with the external character and conduct which it 
 requires, is the only thing that effectually secures it. 
 The love of Christian truth is never found in minds 
 that are not imbued with Christian truth itself; 
 while the practice of it is never found where it is 
 not believed and loved. The truths of the Bible, 
 the love of it, and its controlling power over the 
 life these three things, constitute the Christian 

 
 ITS UNITY. 183 
 
 character. Where these three things exist, there 
 is the root, the branches, the fruit the tree in full 
 bearing. An honest belief in the great truths of 
 Christianity lies at the basis of all holy affections; 
 and holy affections, just in the measure in which 
 they exist in the soul, produce holy obedience. 
 
 A man's affections may be inconsistent with the 
 truths which he believes, because it is the cold and 
 reluctant assent which he accords to mere specula- 
 tive propositions. So may his life be inconsistent 
 with the principles which he professes to love ; but 
 it cannot be inconsistent with the principles which 
 for the time being he truly loves : it may be at war 
 with the principles that are on his lips, but it cannot 
 be at war with the principles that are in his heart. 
 The religion of the Bible, therefore, is throughout 
 consistent with itself. It is like sweet music, made 
 up of harmonious parts like the music of heaven, 
 where, though there are ten thousand voices, each 
 voice is not only perfectly melodious in itself, but 
 all the voices are blended in perfect and delightful 
 harmony, without a jarring note, or the faintest dis- 
 cord. 
 
 It is not necessary to our argument, that we 
 should prove that this religion is ever perfectly ex- 
 emplified among men. It is enough if we can show 
 that this is the religion of the Bible, and that it is 
 exemplified among men, just in the degree in which 
 men are imbued with the spirit which the Bible in- 
 culcates. It has never been perfectly exemplified 
 among men, save in a single instance j and in that
 
 184 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 instance, the thoughts of holiness, the love of holi- 
 ness, and the life of holiness, were expressive of a 
 harmony of character that indicated its divine ori- 
 gin. Believing the truth, loving the truth, and 
 walking in the truth, constitute one religion. Every 
 truth begets its peculiar grace, and every grace its 
 peculiar virtue. With all the teachings of the Bible 
 on the importance of just conceptions of the truth, 
 it does not sever them from their appropriate affec- 
 tions ; and with all its teachings on the importance 
 of godliness within, it never severs them from the 
 godliness that is without. From the views it re- 
 veals of God, it deduces the affections we owe to 
 him ; from the affections we owe to him, it deduces 
 the duties we owe. Prayer and praise, the study of 
 the Scriptures, the worship of the sanctuary, the 
 sanctification of the Lord's day, and the profession 
 of his name before men, and the consecration of 
 time, property and influence to his service, are but 
 the fruits of a true and honest loyalty to him as our 
 sovereign Lord and gracious Redeemer. From the 
 Views it reveals of man and the relations men sus- 
 tain to one another, it deduces the affections we owe 
 to our fellow men ; and from the affections we owe 
 to them, it deduces the correlative duties. Truth, 
 integrity, kindness, purity ; respect to our superiors, 
 and submission to those who rule over us ; conde- 
 scension to our inferiors, and doing good to all men 
 as we have opportunity these, and other relative 
 duties, it ingrafts on the parent stock of the same 
 faith and charity. In this respect, everything in
 
 ITS UNITY. 185 
 
 the Bible is perfectly harmonious. And is not this 
 harmony among the indices of its divine origin? 
 Do false religions ever teach thus ? Have they ever 
 thus taught? Did ever such a religion originate 
 with weak, fallible, sinful men ? 
 
 4. In the last place, let us advert to the harmony 
 which exists between the Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testaments. Four hundred years elapsed be- 
 tween the last prophet of the Old, and the first pro- 
 phet of the New dispensation. The Old Testament 
 was published to the world long before the New ; 
 and in this, as well as some other particulars, they 
 form two distinct volumes, while they profess to be 
 only two distinct series of revelations from the same 
 Divine Author. Infidels have not been wanting in 
 strenuous effort to prove that they are contradictory 
 revelations ; that the one condemns what the other 
 justifies ; that the former is abrogated by the latter, 
 and that therefore both cannot be from God. There 
 is great ignorance, or great disingenuousness in these 
 assertions, and there may be both. A little reflec- 
 tion will show, that the Jewish revelation is con- 
 firmed by the Christian, and the Christian by the 
 Jewish ; and that there is the most perfect concord 
 between them both. 
 
 It is no objection to the divine origin of the 
 Scriptures, that God did not reveal them to men all 
 at once. It is not pretended that the Old Testa- 
 ment contains a complete and perfect revelation. 
 The expansion or amplification of a principle is not 
 to be brought as an objection to the principle itself.
 
 186 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 All the books in the world are but little more than 
 illustrations ; and the most that we can say of them 
 is, that they furnish us with greater advantages for 
 applying what was at first written. The work of 
 God's revelation was a progressive work ; nor is 
 there any more objection to it, on that account, 
 than to the progressive works of creation and prov- 
 idence. God's revelation had its infancy, its youth, 
 its manhood ; and where is the objection to its 
 being born not in all the maturity of its perfected 
 manhood ? 
 
 Nor is it an objection to the harmony of which 
 we speak, that parts of the Old are abrogated by the 
 New. It would be an objection, if the abrogated 
 parts of the Old Testament had been originally 
 revealed as a permanent rule of faith and duty. But 
 they disclaim this high prerogative ; they themselves 
 profess to be only a temporary rule, a local rule, that 
 was designed to be superseded by a more perfect and 
 permanent economy. The ceremonial and civil 
 code of the Jewish nation was of such a kind that it 
 could be abrogated, without contravening any one 
 of the great principles of truth and rectitude of which 
 the Bible, as an entire revelation, is the only infalli- 
 ble standard. It was made up, not of moral laws, but 
 of positive institutions which partook not of a moral 
 nature, nor had they any other binding force except 
 that they were commanded. They carried within 
 themselves the seeds of their own dissolution seeds 
 planted by the hand of God. They were instituted 
 for a particular nation, for a limited time, and for a
 
 ITS UNITY. 187 
 
 specified purpose ; and the prediction that they should 
 cease was uttered by God's own voice. 
 
 It is one of the proofs of their divine origin, and 
 of their harmony with the other parts of Divine Rev- 
 elation, that when that time had expired, and that 
 purpose was attained, and that nation passed from 
 under the sceptre of their theocracy, all that was 
 peculiar in the Jewish dispensation was merged in 
 the common Christianity. It is one thing for Chris- 
 tianity to supersede Judaism, another for Judaism to 
 contradict Christianity ; one thing for the New Tes- 
 tament to be inconsistent with the Old, and another 
 for the Old, through a long succession of ages, to 
 prepare the way for the New. And this is precisely 
 the relation which the two Testaments sustain to 
 one another. In all its arrangements the Old is 
 ever looking towards the New economy, and these 
 arrangements are completed only by that which is 
 to come. The Old is preliminary to the New, and 
 the New the accomplishment of the Old. And is 
 not this evidence of harmony, rather than the want 
 of it? 
 
 Still further : There are several features of the 
 Old Testament which are carried into the New, and 
 which show that they constitute but different parts 
 of one system. The moral code of the Old Testa- 
 ment is the moral code of Christianity ; the truth of 
 the Old Testament is the truth of the New. The 
 infidel may be challenged to specify a single moral 
 law, or one principle of truth contained in the wri- 
 tings of Moses and the prophets, which is not recog-
 
 188 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 nized and honored by having a place in the teach- 
 ings of Christ and the apostles. 
 
 Every attentive reader of the Bible cannot but 
 have remarked, that to a very great extent, the New 
 Testament does but little more than inculcate with 
 greater explicitness, and amplify the instructions of 
 Moses and the prophets. Nor are they these great 
 moral features of the Old Testament simply, that 
 appear in all their prominence and brightness in 
 the New ; but not a few of the features even of its 
 ceremonial institutions, stand out in their true im- 
 port only in the Christian revelation. The thought 
 is too familiar to almost every mind to need dwelling 
 upon, that the most emphatic institutions of that 
 economy relate to the distinguished Personage who 
 is the grand subject of the Christian revelation, and 
 centre in his person and work. Not only were the 
 sacrifices and oblations prefigurative of the great 
 oblation offered on Calvary, and not only did they 
 derive all their importance from this their typical 
 import ; but all the prophecies of the Old Testament 
 are of the same character, and have the person and 
 work of Christ for their common object. They form 
 a system of prophecies with this one object in view. 
 The harmony and unity of their design are not only 
 peculiar, and different from all the pretended predic- 
 tions of pagan oracles, but are in this respect strongly 
 marked, and truly wonderful. " It shall bruise thy 
 head, thou shalt bruise his heel :" here this wonder- 
 ful system of predictions began. It ran on in one 
 ridge of time, and in one line of the generations of
 
 ITS UNITY. 189 
 
 Adam, till it reached the Jewish nation ; and never 
 swerved from its object, nor ran out of the line of 
 that people, until the last of the seers uttered his 
 memorable predictions, about four hundred years 
 before the coming of Christ ; and John, his more 
 proximate harbinger, exclaimed, " Behold the Lamb 
 of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" It 
 began with Christ ; and with Christ it terminated. 
 Every intermediate prophecy, for almost four thou- 
 sand years, whether made to Noah, or to Abraham ; 
 to Isaiah, or Malachi ; whether it concerned the ante- 
 diluvian world, or the nations of Canaan ; or the 
 Jews, or the Egyptians, or Nineveh, or Babylon, or 
 Persia, Greece or Rome ; concentrated in the gradual 
 and prospective developement of the Divine purpose 
 in regard to one great event and object the coming 
 of Jesus in the flesh, and the establishment of his 
 kingdom in the earth. Whatever other ends may 
 have been incidentally subserved by this series of 
 prophecies, this is the great end for which the Scrip- 
 tures of the New Testament inform us this long- 
 continued intercourse between Heaven and earth 
 was maintained. 
 
 Now we say that in all these respects, and if in 
 all these, in all others, there is wonderful harmony 
 between the Old and New Testaments. The Old 
 predicts the New, and the New appeals to the Old. 
 Here is a system of instructions, of sacrifices, of pre- 
 dictions, all of prodigious extent, commencing wilh 
 the fall of man and reaching to the death of Christ, 
 all telling the same story, fraught with the same
 
 190 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 thoughts, disclosing the same marvellous purpose a 
 system made up of thousands of parts, and pervad- 
 ing forty centuries ; yet everything about it is of a 
 piece, and astonishingly great as it is, all perfectly 
 harmonious. Whence is it ? Whence was it ? Who 
 was it that bound these two dispensations together, 
 and made them one system ? Who bound the pre- 
 diction in Eden concerning " The Seed of the 
 woman," with Malachi's prediction of " The Desire 
 of all nations ?" Who associated the blood of 
 Abel's sacrifice with the great oblation that " speak- 
 eth better things than the blood of Abel ?" Who 
 made the faith of Abraham under the Old dispensa- 
 tion, the example and pattern of later saints under 
 the New ? Who made these two dispensations thus 
 speak the same thing ? Who thus impregnated the 
 Old with the New, and made the New the expansion 
 and developement of the Old ? Is it not strange 
 blindness, that can overlook the mind and hand of 
 God in this accordancy ? Impostors might here and 
 there have lighted on a single prefiguration, an iso- 
 lated service, a lone and solitary prediction ; but never 
 on such a. long-continued, complete, and harmonious 
 system for the obvious reasons, that no impostor 
 would have thought of it, and that if he had thought 
 of it, the coincidences are beyond his power. 
 
 We look upon this wonderful system, now that 
 it is revealed to us, as one of the simplest things in 
 the world ; just as we do upon the laws of nature, to 
 which no being could give birth but the God of 
 nature. The more the one part is studied, and
 
 ITS UNITY. 191 
 
 understood, the more light does it throw upon the 
 other. If one is false, both are false ; and both are 
 true, if one is true. They lap on to one another, and 
 show the style of the wise Master Builder. There 
 is no collision between them. They are " the two 
 witnesses of heaven ;" and instead of " emitting 
 such cross lights as are fitted to bewilder the eye of 
 the observer, they are the two candlesticks which 
 man hath not planted, but which stand before the 
 God of the whole earth." Nothing is more prepos- 
 terous than to suppose that this harmony, involving 
 as it does so many things, extending as it does over so 
 many ages, embracing as it does such a vast variety 
 of] means all tending to the same end and so many 
 causes all producing the same result, is the creature 
 of human wisdom. Pre-concert in such an arrange- 
 ment was impossible. Nor is it any accidental, 
 or fabulous coincidence. The hand of God is in 
 it : there is no accounting for it, unless " holy men 
 wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Such is the reality and nature of the agreement 
 or concord of the Scriptures with themselves. In all 
 their accession of parts, and in all the progress of their 
 augmented revelations, they may have been perpet- 
 ually acquiring new excellencies ; but they never 
 depart from their uniform character. They disclose 
 new truths, but there is no change of truths once 
 disclosed ; new views, but they are not altered 
 views. They consist of more than threescore dis- 
 tinct treatises, composed by more than thirty differ- 
 ent writers, most of whom were unknown to each
 
 192 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 other, separated by their places of residence, living in 
 different periods and ages of the world, and were all 
 scattered through a period of not less than sixteen 
 hundred years. They were men greatly differing in 
 natural endowments ; in age, education, and learn- 
 ing ; in their passions and prejudices, and in the 
 stations they held in society. Some of them were 
 rich, and some of them were poor ; some of them 
 were legislators and kings, and some of them were 
 shepherds, fishermen, and taxgatherers. They wrote 
 also upon the most interesting of all subjects, the 
 great subject of religion and morals : the subject on 
 which the human mind is acutely sensitive the 
 subject, in relation to which the stormy passions of 
 men hold them in perpetual agitation, and their 
 ungoverned fancy keeps them in wide and wild 
 extremes the subject on which human tradition, 
 and human laws, and the maxims and habits of men, 
 and the state of society, and caste and classification, 
 are almost endlessly diversified ; and on which, for 
 centuries, nothing was written save what is written 
 in the Bible ; and for other centuries, though much 
 was written, little was accessible to the mass of 
 mankind, or that had the confidence of those to 
 whom it was accessible. 
 
 The inviolable uniformity, therefore, pervading 
 the Scriptures, is a fact of no doubtful authority in 
 demonstrating their divine origin. No one impostor 
 could have written thus ; and no body of impostors, 
 scattered through so many centuries, could have 
 thus agreed with one another. Had such been the
 
 ITS UNITY. 193 
 
 origin of these books, they would have varied with 
 the wisdom, or the folly, or the caprice of their au- 
 thors j they would have changed with every passing 
 age and every revolution of laws and manners, and 
 received their peculiar coloring from the class of so- 
 ciety from which their respective authors were taken. 
 So that it is utterly impossible they could have been 
 written without the superintendence of a Divine 
 power. 
 
 Such is the argument for the divine origin of the 
 Scriptures from their perfect harmony and agreement. 
 
 There is but one objection to it which we feel 
 called upon to answer. The infidel demands, " If 
 the Bible is thus harmonious, whence is it that there 
 is so much discordancy among those who profess to 
 make it the only standard of their faith and practice ? 
 If the Bible is one, if there is an honest faith in it, 
 whence this discrepancy ?" We acknowledge the 
 force of the objection, so far as it regards men ; but 
 we do not perceive its stringency as it regards the 
 Bible. We say, let God be true, though every man 
 be a liar. As to the discordances among men, we 
 cannot open our mouth. It is as true in moral, as 
 in mathematical science, " that two things which 
 are equal to another and the same thing, are them- 
 selves equal." Human systems which agree with 
 the Bible, agree with each other. The Bible is 
 right, but men are wrong ; they are sincerely wrong, 
 because they are sincere in their differences. In 
 requiring men to adopt the Bible as their standard, 
 its Author requires them not to disagree among 
 
 FiblenotofMan. 9
 
 194 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 themselves. Men alone are chargeable with the sin 
 of putting this objection into the mouth of infidelity, 
 and of bringing this reproach upon the word of God. 
 It is a mournful, but undeniable truth, that the 
 church of God has apostatized from her primeval 
 unity. Time was when " the multitude of believers 
 were of one heart and one soul." But these days 
 have passed away ; and infidelity has for ages tri- 
 umphed in a divided church. There is great sin in 
 these discordancies ; nor is it the less because they 
 may, peradventure, have become venerable for their 
 age ; nor because the guilt of them has been so long 
 in contracting, and they have become so closely 
 inwoven, and so deeply imbedded in the habits of 
 human thought. We may not depart from the great 
 and obvious principle, that what the Bible teaches, no 
 man, and no set of men, has a right to disbelieve ; nor 
 can we resist the irrefragable conclusion, that where 
 this beautifully harmonious system of truth is received, 
 men themselves will be as harmonious as the Bible. 
 But while we give utterance to thoughts like 
 these, we would not have infidels unmindful of the 
 fact, that there is much more extended, substantial 
 agreement in all true Christians than their objection 
 implies. There is such a thing as the " communion 
 of saints," and essential harmony, with unessential 
 differences. Already are there significant move- 
 ments in the church of God pointing towards greater 
 harmony of views and affection. It will be indeed 
 a new era, when such a day is fully ushered in a 
 dawning, such as has not brightened our spiritual
 
 ITS UNITY. 195 
 
 horizon since the early dawn of the Sun of right- 
 eousness, when he rose with " healing in his beams." 
 It will be a waxing, and not a waning light. " The 
 light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, 
 and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the 
 light of seven da.ys, in the day that the Lord bindeth 
 up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke 
 of their wound." His church will put on her gar- 
 ments of strength and salvation ; her adornment will 
 be the simplicity of truth and the beauty of holiness ; 
 and she will look forth fair as the moon, clear as the 
 sun, and terrible as a bannered army. It will be 
 eminently the Lord's work, and marvellous in the 
 eyes of them who behold it. It will require so much 
 free and unembarrassed interchange of thought ; so 
 much candor and fairness ; so much that is amiable 
 and conciliating ; so much humility and prayer ; such 
 a strong and practical acknowledgment of God's 
 word as the only infallible standard ; such oblivion 
 of men, and such a remembrance of the great God ; 
 that his own condescending goodness and mercy 
 will be most visibly honored in effecting it. This 
 was the prophet's hope when he said, " Thy watch- 
 men shall lift up the voice, with the voice together 
 shall they sing ; for they shall see eye to eye, when 
 the Lord shall bring again Zion." This was the 
 Saviour's prayer, in view of the Avants and woes of 
 a ruined world and a scoffing age : " I pray that 
 they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and 
 I in thee, that they may be one in us : that the world 
 may believe that thou hast sent me !"
 
 196 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VII, 
 
 ADAPTATION OF THE SCRIPTURES TO THE CHARAC- 
 TER AND WANTS OF MAN. 
 
 NOT a little has been written on the subject of 
 Natural Theology, to prove the being of God from 
 the adaptation of external nature to the" intellectual 
 and moral constitution of man. In a short digres- 
 sion from his main object, in one of the Bridgewater 
 Treatises upon this topic, the Reverend Dr. Chal- 
 mers makes the following observations. " If in the 
 system of external nature, we can recognize the 
 evidence of God being its Author in the adaptation, 
 wherewith it teems, to the moral and intellectual 
 constitution of man, there is room and opportunity 
 for this very evidence in the book of an external 
 revelation. What appears in the construction of a 
 world might be made to appear as manifestly in the 
 construction of a volume, whose objective truth may 
 present as obvious and skilful an accommodation to 
 our mental economy as do the objective things of a 
 created universe. And it is not less favorable for an 
 indication of its divine original, that whereas nature, 
 as being the original system, abounds with those 
 fitnesses which harmonize with the mental constitu- 
 tion in a state of health; Christianity, as being a
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 197 
 
 restorative system, abounds in fitnesses to the same 
 constitution in a state of disease. Certain it is that 
 the same wisdom, and goodness, and even power of 
 a moral architect, may be as strikingly evinced in 
 the reparation, as in the primeval establishment of a 
 moral nature." 
 
 It is to this class of credentials with which the 
 Bible comes to us, that I propose to devote the pres- 
 ent chapter. Man, in his primeval integrity, was a 
 world of wonders. Endowed with exalted intellec- 
 tual faculties, from the first moment of his existence 
 he was obedient to the law of his being, and his 
 Creator ; his moral excellence was unblotted, and his 
 character sinless. As a consequence of this; he was 
 happy. Above, without, within, there was nothing 
 to interrupt his fellowship with his Maker, nothing 
 to poison the fountains of his joy. To us this pic- 
 ture seems almost like fable, because in all the sub- 
 sequent history of our race, there is not another such 
 example of innocence and loveliness ; not one bright 
 and refreshing spot on which the eye can rest. In 
 his fallen state, he is a complication of wonders ; a 
 complication of intellectual and moral ailments, that 
 are at war with one another and with God. Origi- 
 nally the elements of his being all vitally united, 
 and all, with their separate functions, were in due 
 subordination and subserviency. Melancholy as the 
 fact is, sin has disturbed and confounded this har- 
 mony ; it has to such an extent deranged man's in- 
 tellectual and moral system, that he has lost sight of 
 the great end of his existence ; and remaining as he
 
 198 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 is, is unhappy, lives to no good purpose, and dies 
 in despair. 
 
 A system of philosophy, or religion, that can 
 successfully address itself to his entire being in all 
 its states of moral degradation and reform, in all 
 their varieties, in all the unnumbered individuals of 
 the race, in every age and clime, must be a nicely 
 adjusted system. Its parts must be wonderfully 
 arranged and put together so as to meet one another, 
 and so that its many movements and influences may 
 all tend to one and the most desirable result. We 
 affirm, that just such a system is revealed in the 
 Bible ; and we proceed to trace this adaptation. 
 
 1. We look at man, in the first place, as an in- 
 dividual existence. One of his noblest powers is his 
 intelligence. He is the creature of thought ; and 
 this thinking existence within him must have a 
 religion that satisfies it. If the understanding does 
 not go along with it, or if it keep his mind in 
 the bandages of infancy and impose manacles upon 
 thought, it is no religion for a creature of intelli- 
 gence. Or if it be a religion that makes heavy ex- 
 actions upon his credulity, and does not enforce its 
 claims by solid argument, it is no religion for a 
 creature of intelligence. The Bible reveals no such 
 dubious theories; but on the other hand, just the 
 truths in which the human mind, in all the stages 
 of its progress and advancement, feels the deepest 
 interest ; and which, from their simplicity, their 
 greatness and their certainty, are not only fitted to 
 relieve from intellectual depression and disquietude.
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 199 
 
 but impart intense delight to every honest inquiry 
 after truth. Here are those great objects of knowl- 
 edge, those truths, which the mind so eagerly seeks 
 after, and which men most need to know. 
 
 It is not easy for us who have the Bible in our 
 hands, to have any conception of the doubt, the 
 absolute scepticism, and the consequent solicitude 
 and distress on almost every subject of religious and 
 moral inquiry, which would prevail but for the clear 
 and authoritative decisions of this one Book. Every- 
 thing would be thrown into the region of conjecture ; 
 the human mind would be in a state of fermentation, 
 and everywhere tossed upon the ocean of its own 
 unsettled thoughts. If the inquiry were put to the 
 most intelligent and established Christian in the 
 world, What would be his faith without the Bible ? 
 he would feel constrained to reply, " I do not know 
 what it would be." It would be like dark chaos, or 
 the ocean in a storm, where neither faith nor hope 
 would have any anchorage ground to rest upon. 
 This truthful record meets the wants of man as the 
 creature of intelligence. It is the religion of light, 
 of truth and certainty. It satisfies the mind when 
 nothing else satisfies. No matter how depressed, or 
 degraded the intelligence, the Bible elevates it ; no 
 matter how elevated it is, the Bible is its guide and 
 counsellor ; no matter how faint and weary, here it 
 is led to the head and fountain of living waters. 
 
 Man, too, is a moral being : he possesses a sense 
 of moral obligation, and while he approves what is 
 right, he condemns what is wrong in moral conduct.
 
 200 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 Conscience has not a little to do with his religion, 
 although in defiance of himself she is a severe arbi- 
 ter. Men Avho 'do not obey her dictates, know that 
 they ought to obey them. She may not govern 
 them, but she claims the right of governing them ; 
 and though her supremacy may be disputed, resisted, 
 and dethroned, yet she "ever holds the legitimate 
 authority." She approves of rectitude ; but, unhap- 
 pily, she sees very little to approve ; and the conse- 
 quence is, she feels the outrage and the wrong. In 
 default of the rectitude she demands, she has nothing 
 left her but to utter her remonstrances, and inflict 
 those terrible apprehensions, those fearful forebod- 
 ings of the coming wrath, which agitate and torment 
 the soul. Sometimes she exerts this, her only re- 
 maining prerogative, with amazing power ; and so 
 lashes the offender with her scorpion sting, that he 
 feels within him the incipient gnawings of the 
 worm that never dies. A religion that is adapted 
 to man, must meet these demands of conscience. 
 They cannot be resisted, nor set aside, nor connived 
 at : it is not in man's nature thus to trifle with her 
 claims. 
 
 If we look to the history of the past, or if we 
 look over the face of the world at the present hour, 
 we see that the various religions of human devising 
 fail to suggest the method by which these demands 
 shall be obviated. Thousands and millions have 
 tried them ; but, with one single exception, there is 
 no religion that has ever been able to extract the 
 fangs of this deadly serpent. No experiment has
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 201 
 
 ever been tried more extensively, or more fully, or 
 more fairly. Costly offerings have been laid on the 
 shrine of idol gods, voluntary sufferings have been 
 inflicted without number upon the defaulter, and 
 living men have been immolated upon the altars of 
 Moloch. Yet none of these religions ever gave, nor 
 can they give the conscience peace. 
 
 Yet may this deadly wound be healed. " There 
 is balm in Gilead; there is a physician there." As 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even 
 so has the Son of Man been lifted up. Altogether 
 remote from the ordinary apprehensions of mankind, 
 and the most extraordinary of the Divine proceed- 
 ings with regard to man, the cross of Christ effectu- 
 ally meets these demands, and imparts " peace which 
 passeth all understanding." This is what the religion 
 of the Bible professes to accomplish ; and there is 
 "" a great cloud of witnesses" that bear testimony to 
 the redemption of this wondrous pledge. These are 
 matters of fact, and no reasoning in the world can 
 disprove them. This one religion there is, which in 
 theory and practice, by observation and experience, 
 proves itself a fitting and full relief for these terrible 
 apprehensions. It is a remarkable fact in the history 
 of our race, that no man ever believed in the Chris- 
 tian Atonement without .a pacified conscience. The 
 remedy is adapted to the disease. Duly appreciated, 
 that great sacrifice for sin acts as a charm upon the 
 conscience, and assuages its agonies. It brings re- 
 lief. The aching head reposes upon it. It stanches 
 the wounds of the lacerated and bleeding spirit, and 
 
 Bible uot of Man.
 
 202 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 relieves from apprehensions which make existence a 
 burden, and immortality a curse. 
 
 Men also have something more than intellect 
 and conscience, to which the Bible is adapted. 
 Their moral character is polluted and vile ; it is de- 
 filed and loathsome ; far from God and the rectitude 
 which he approves. It is unfruitful in righteous- 
 ness, and fruitful only in sin like a land bearing 
 thorns and briers, whose end is to be burned. We 
 need no revelation from Heaven to teach this affect- 
 ing and melancholy lesson : it is not so much a 
 lesson to be taught and learned, as a disgraceful and 
 woeful picture to be surveyed, and one over which 
 we might well shed a flood of tears. Yet is there 
 no relief from the havoc sin has made, and no de- 
 liverance from the power of sin, except from the 
 Bible. The fact is one which, if it had not been 
 so often repeated, might well strike us with surprise, 
 that however the mind of man may be improved by 
 culture, refined by science, restrained by discipline, 
 controlled by law, or elevated by those moralizing 
 influences which false religions and human agency 
 may supply, there is not an age, nor territory 
 throughout this wide world, where these influences 
 alone have made it better and holier. There is not 
 an instance of exemption from this sweeping remark. 
 Yet is this moral transformation the great want, the 
 crying exigency of man. Other interests and claims 
 are worthless and insignificant compared with this. 
 If he must live and die the sinning, sinful, defiled 
 and loathsome being that he is, better for him
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 203 
 
 never to have had a being. The Bible is adapted 
 to this pressing exigency. It reveals truths which 
 are powerful to conviction and conversion ; it pos- 
 sesses influences which quicken those who are dead 
 in trespasses and sins ; it sends forth a spirit which 
 breathes upon the dry bones, and flesh and sinews 
 come upon them, and life enters into them, and they 
 stand up upon their feet. What polluted man wants 
 is to be washed from his uncleanness ; and here is 
 the fountain where he may wash and be clean : 
 what he wants is to be delivered from sin ; and here 
 is the deliverer. He would have his mind no longer 
 like the dry, barren, unyielding rock where no heav- 
 enly grace flourishes ; but like the garden of God, 
 where every grace strikes its roots deep, and unfolds 
 its blossoms, and diffuses its fragrance, and bears its 
 fruit. And here is the influence that changes the 
 heart of stone, and transforms its cold and rocky 
 soil into a land of fertility and gladness. 
 
 There is no need of illustrating the fact, that 
 man too is the child of sorrow. A rational being 
 must have consolation in trials. All the world over, 
 the refuge of* men in seasons of affliction is their 
 religion : they may have other refuges, but their 
 religion is their last resort. Many have been the 
 professors of wisdom,, and many the wise men that 
 have lived where the Bible is not known, but there 
 were no comforters. Philosophy tells- us, when 
 sickness invades our pillow, when pain agonizes, 
 when friends die, when property is gone, and when, 
 instead of influence and honor, we suffer only dis-
 
 204 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 honor and contempt; that there is no help for it, 
 that these are evils all men must bear, and that it 
 becomes us to bear them like men ! False religions, 
 almost without exception, endeavor to alleviate one 
 trial only by adding another ; and for the obvious 
 reason that they have no consolation to give : they 
 are not the religion man needs. 
 
 The Bible does not indeed profess to reveal a 
 religion that exempts from adversity ; it rather lays 
 its account with afflictions : it tells men that they 
 must expect to suffer. Nor is there anything, in any 
 of its truths, that is designed to blunt the acuteriess 
 of natural feeling. Yet has it consolations for the 
 hour of trial, and such as bear the test of the hottest 
 furnace. Of the Author of our trials, it declares, 
 that he "doth not willingly afflict, nor grieve the 
 children of men ;" that " as a father pitieth his 
 children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." 
 It tells of a "Great High Priest, who is touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities ;" who " knoweth 
 our frame, and remembereth that we are dust ;" and 
 who " stayeth his rough wind, in the day of his east 
 wind." It teaches the children of sorrow to say, 
 "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help 
 in trouble," while their own response to its teachings 
 is, " Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and the God of all comfort, who com- 
 forteth us in all our tribulation !" And while it 
 teaches men these things, it tells them too, that 
 however severe and heavy their trials may be, they 
 are " but for a season," for " a little moment," and
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 205 
 
 shall " work for them a far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory." It tells them of the " trial 
 of faith," that is " much more precious than that of 
 gold tried in the fire ;" that it redounds to " praise, 
 honor, and glory ;" so that in the retrospect of their 
 severest trials, they can say, " Happy is the man 
 that God correcteth !" As with the serenity of an 
 angel's countenance, it tells them, that although 
 they have fiery trials to pass through, yet have they 
 an " inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that 
 fadeth not away." That terrible state of mind, 
 suspense under apprehended and foreboding evils, 
 finds its antidote only in the Bible. Where, in all 
 the records of earth, is there a sentence like this : 
 " Casting all your care upon the Lord, for he careth 
 for you ;" or like this : " Be careful for nothing ; 
 but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with 
 thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto 
 God. And the peace of God, which passeth all 
 understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds 
 through Christ Jesus." O, trials are freed from their 
 bitterness, darkness of its horrors, and fear of its 
 apprehensions, by the whispers of this gentle voice ! 
 The influence which a sensitive creature like man 
 requires, is that also which shall give his emotions a 
 right and happy direction. The Academic philoso- 
 phers erred with the Stoics; the one in trying to 
 eradicate the emotions and affections of men, the other 
 in making human happiness consist in unrestrained 
 indulgence. If his Creator be wise arid good, his 
 government over him is such, as to give that direc-
 
 206 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 tion to his ardent affections that shall be most 
 accordant with his intellectual, moral, and immortal 
 existence. His affections wisely directed and in- 
 dulged, constitute the loveliness, the glory of his 
 nature. More than anything else, they constitute 
 the man himself, and make him what he is. If 
 misdirected, they make him a degraded, vicious, 
 miserable being ; if they are directed wisely, they 
 ennoble, purify, and make him happy. That keenly 
 sensitive nature, which renders him capable of love 
 and hatred, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, must 
 be controlled: it must have something to love; 
 something which may be loved safely and with- 
 out remorse ; something which may be loved with- 
 out injury to its ever growing desires ; something 
 which is worthy of its love ; something which re- 
 sponds to the sincerity and fervor of its affections, 
 and which may be pursued with all the ardor 
 and intensity which are inseparable from a sensitive 
 existence. 
 
 The Bible, and the Bible only, meets these in- 
 ward longings of the heart, be they ever so intense 
 and exalted. Every human affection finds its place 
 in the religion it reveals. The love of self finds its 
 proper place there ; and so does the love of kindred, 
 and the love of country, and the love of the world, 
 and the love of God and man, yea, the love of every- 
 thing that is in any measure worthy of love. It does 
 not annihilate one of these affections; it does not 
 forbid them ; nor does it degrade them, as false re- 
 ligions do : nor does it disappoint them, as they are
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 207 
 
 always disappointed when they receive a wrong 
 direction and impulse. 
 
 Nor in giving them a right direction, does it ever 
 unsettle, unhinge, or derange them. While it gives 
 them ardor and zeal, it also gives them strength and 
 firmness ; and while its impulses are sometimes so 
 intensely vivid and strong, that, but for their pure 
 and heavenly nature, they would well nigh drive 
 the soul to those excesses of emotion which border 
 on madness ; they are the very impulses which, when 
 indulged in their purity, impart to it loveliness and 
 meekness, tenderness and humility, and not unfre- 
 quently an almost unearthly splendor, as they do 
 well nigh unearthly joys. Religious zeal may some- 
 times degenerate into blind enthusiasm; but when 
 it does so, it is no longer Christian. Other impulses 
 than those which the essential charity of the Gospel 
 inspires, render its movements wild and incoherent ; 
 while the true spirit of the Bible is the spirit of 
 love, of meekness, and of a sound mind. Men may 
 be excited in their contemplation of its truth ; they 
 may be transported and transformed ; while in their 
 most enrapturing contemplations they never lose 
 the due equilibrium of thought. The eye of reason is 
 still unclouded and clear ; their conceptions are strong 
 and brilliant ; nor is there anything they acknowl- 
 edge more absolutely than the authority of truth. 
 Paul was never more rational than when he was 
 " caught up into the third heaven," and " whether 
 in the body he could not tell, or whether out of 
 the body he could not tell." It is a remarkable fact,
 
 208 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN - 
 
 that every other class of affections of which the 
 heart is susceptible, may be indulged too far and too 
 eagerly; and when pursued beyond a given point, 
 they sound the note of alarm, and tell us that reason 
 already begins to totter on her throne ; while the 
 affections, and emotions, and sacred passions which 
 are excited and gratified by the truths of the Bible, 
 to whatever degree they are stimulated, and to what- 
 ever extent they are indulged, do but give strength 
 and consistency to character, and promote holy en- 
 joyment. The religion it reveals is just fitted for 
 man's sensitive and ardent nature. It imparts to him 
 his true dignity ; brings him into new alliances with 
 his Maker ; enstamps upon him his image ; makes 
 him his friend, adopts him as his son, and in its pro- 
 gressive power makes him like unto the angels. 
 
 It is with weakness and fear, and much trem- 
 bling, that every man contemplates the truth that he 
 must die. We carry forth, and commit to the grave, 
 the sleeping dust of those we love ; and the inquiry 
 forces itself upon us, Will the much and long-cher- 
 ished flower shoot upward again, and bloom to 
 immortality ? From the bed of languishing, we our- 
 selves look down into the dark and hollow sepul- 
 chre, and inquire, "If a man die, shall he live 
 again?" Reason, nature, conscience, analogy, do 
 indeed suggest the thought the strong probability 
 of an hereafter ; but they warrant no conviction that 
 satisfies, no certain conclusions where the mind 
 pants for certainty. With only such lights as these, 
 man is wrapped in obscurity ; his very existence is
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 209 
 
 involved in impenetrable darkness and mystery ; he 
 sees no object of his being, no end to be attained by 
 it, but to live a little while amid the alternate joys 
 and sorrows of this low world, and perpetuate his 
 dying race through the same vicissitudes of toil, and 
 care, and sorrow, through which he himself has trod- 
 den sometimes his rapid, and sometimes his more 
 tardy way, to the gloomy mansions of the grave. The 
 thought of annihilation is a dreadful thought ; yet 
 it sometimes stares him in the face, presses on him 
 on all sides, hangs about him like a leaden curtain ; 
 and as one long exposed on the verge of a precipice, 
 leaps into the abyss to escape the terrors of suspense, 
 so he often longs to seek a refuge in annihilation, 
 from the weight of depression and gloom which it 
 inspires. Here the Bible is a light shining in a dark 
 place ; it brings life and immortality to light : to 
 every virtuous mind it announces the glad tidings 
 of a glorious hereafter, and through the narrow and 
 dark inlet of the grave, points him to an unseen 
 world a world of which he himself is to form a 
 part, where he is to be allied to cherubim and ser- 
 aphim, and elevated to a celestial throne. The 
 thought of immortality is a great and stupendous 
 thought. Even viewed at a distance, and as a 
 doubtful fact, it must overwhelm with its magnitude 
 and grandeur. When contemplated as certain, the 
 mind is filled with wonder at it; and the more it 
 contemplates it, the more does the contemplation 
 add perpetual interest to the wonder. To this 
 greatest of all the wants of man, this Book is
 
 210 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 adapted, giving the coming world a reality, an im- 
 portance, a nearness, that gratify his strong and 
 restless desires for immortality which it is impossi- 
 ble to eradicate, and which are gratified only here. 
 
 Such is the adaptation of the Bible to man as 
 an individual. While contemplating this part of 
 our subject, I have more than once endeavored to 
 rouse my imagination to the effort of picturing all 
 the possible conditions of men, with the view of 
 ascertaining if this remarkable Book has not " a 
 word in season" to every individual of the human 
 race, in every condition, in every state of mind, 
 and in every associated community. Nor is it in 
 my power to think of any man, in any condition or 
 state of mind, or any society, whether high or low, 
 learned or ignorant, in prosperity or adversity, in 
 sickness or health, in freedom or in bondage, at home 
 or abroad, in the church or out of it, happy or mis- 
 erable, to whom the Scriptures So not address the 
 most fitting counsels, and for whom they have not 
 some admonition, or consolation, peculiar to the 
 Sacred Writings, and furnished by no other book. 
 Its shades of thought, in this respect, are almost end- 
 less. It were a delightful employment to mark and 
 specify this wonderful variety 6? moral pencilling, so 
 marvellously fitted to the almost endlessly diversi- 
 fied character and condition of men. Were a relig- 
 ious teacher, familiar with the Bible and deeply 
 imbued with its spirit, intimately acquainted with 
 the character and state of mind of his entire' charge, 
 he would be at no loss to select the best adapted in-
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 211 
 
 struction for every one of them, in the language and 
 words of the sacred volume itself. Even though he 
 speak at random, he would not fail to utter truths 
 applicable to the unobserved and unknown condition 
 of those who hear him ; and in drawing his bow at a 
 venture, his arrow would find its mark, even through 
 " the joints of the harness." 
 
 2. From this view of the adaptation of the Bible 
 to man as an individual, let us, in the second place, 
 advert to the consideration, that it is equally adapted 
 to his social relations. Man is a social being : he 
 cannot live for himself; nor can he live alone. The 
 principles of his social nature must be cared for. 
 There are his relations to civil government ; there 
 are his domestic relations ; there are his relations to 
 his fellow men in the ordinary transactions of human 
 life, which need to be watched over, and controlled, 
 and so influenced, as neither to pervert tha principles 
 of benevolent association, nor lose sight of its object. 
 These various relations are nowhere consulted with 
 the same benevolent spirit and practical wisdom with 
 which they are consulted in the Scriptures: so far 
 from it, that in communities where the Bible is not 
 known, every one of them presents little else than 
 frightful spectacles of crime and misery. 
 
 In a most remarkable manner does the history of 
 the world show that the Bible is the great charter of 
 human freedom. If the correlative rights and obliga- 
 tions of rulers and subjects were under the effective 
 control of the Bible, those who bear authority and 
 those who are subjected to it, would be helpers of one
 
 212 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 another's joy ; the yoke of the oppressor would melt 
 away ; kings would be foster fathers, and queens 
 foster mothers, to a tranquil and regenerated world. 
 Among the most important state papers of mod- 
 ern times, are the Preamble and the Articles of Con- 
 federation issued by Francis of Germany, Frederic 
 William of Prussia, and Alexander of Russia, signed 
 and published at Paris in the year 1815, and sol- 
 emnly recognizing, before Europe and the world, the 
 religion of Jesus Christ as the only true basis of all 
 political relations, and the only directory for the 
 nations of the earth. Whatever may have been the 
 motives of these distinguished kings and emperors 
 in issuing it, it is a noble testimony to the power of 
 Christian principles upon states and governments. 
 Considering the sources from which it came, a 
 stronger and more emphatic tribute to the principles 
 of Christianity as the only true principles of govern- 
 ment, and the only foundation of national prosperity, 
 cannot be expected, or demanded. It is an interest- 
 ing fact, that these three great monarchs, ruling over 
 more than seventy millions of people, then amid the 
 clashing and din of war, should assemble in secret 
 conclave, and pay such a tribute to the Bible. 
 
 Nowhere, save in the Scriptures, is there a de- 
 scription of the domestic virtues that commends itself 
 to a refined and delicate mind ; and nowhere else is 
 there to be found such prescriptions for the domestic 
 evils which infest and degrade all unchristian and 
 anti-christian lands. Nowhere is the domestic char- 
 acter and constitution of man so magnified, as in
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 213 
 
 lands where the influence of the Bible is submitted 
 to. Nowhere else are those mutual dependencies, 
 and those bonds of endearing attachment on which 
 the well-being of* society depends, protected by such 
 solemn sanctions. Nowhere else are the spirit and 
 deportment, from which all social enjoyment and 
 virtue and usefulness flow, so constantly inculcated 
 and so beautifully exemplified. Nowhere else are 
 {' whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
 lovely," so much thought of and enjoined. 
 
 The Old Testament Scriptures took up the social 
 state where they found it j nor was it to be perfected 
 in a moment. If some of the judicial laws of the 
 Jews, themselves but just escaped from the degra- 
 dation of paganism, were behind the purer code of 
 Christianity, it is not less certain that they were also 
 far in advance of the contemporaneous pagan nations. 
 The judicial and political economy of the Jews was 
 for them alone ; it suffered many things " for the 
 hardness of their hearts," which form no part of a 
 perfect moral code ; and it is to God's finished reve- 
 lation alone that we must look for those perfect prin- 
 ciples which enter into and form the perfection of 
 the social state. 
 
 If from these sanctions of the domestic relations 
 we go abroad into the world, and inspect the relations 
 which man sustains to his fellow men in the ordi- 
 nary affairs of human life, we find these relations 
 nowhere protected as in the Bible. Let but the in- 
 junctions of the Bible regulate the intercourse and 
 usages of society, and not a few of those subtil and
 
 214 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 perplexing questions of casuistry which now agitate 
 every part of the business community, would be cut 
 short by an arbiter, which even those who think 
 themselves honest and honorable men would deem 
 an overstrained and an over-sensitive exactness. 
 
 There is a peculiarity in the Bible in regard to 
 its influence on the social relations. Men in their 
 social capacity are not only exposed to everything 
 that is wicked, but to everything that is ultra and 
 extravagant. Even the minds of the better sort of 
 men need something which human wisdom fails 
 to give them ; else are their most honest and best 
 intended efforts disorganizing, and disastrous to the 
 social state. Human society without the Bible, is 
 like a ship on the ocean without ballast ; she can 
 scarcely live in smooth water : the first storm ingulfs 
 her in the waves. The thought is not always 
 present to our minds, that the world is under great 
 obligations to the Bible, if for nothing but its con- 
 servative principles and influence. It is Uniformly 
 healthful in its influence, and alike opposed to all 
 the indiscretions of a misdirected zeal on the one 
 hand, and a rabid radicalism on the other. Ultra 
 men and ultra measures, be the objects they aim 
 at ever so good, always find the Bible against 
 them. " Wisdom is justified of her children j" 
 and time and experience show, that those who 
 would be better than the Bible are always wrong. 
 There is wonderful wisdom in the Bible,* not 
 only in what it teaches, but in what it does not 
 teach. There are agitating and exciting questions
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 215 
 
 which it leaves just where they ought to be left : its 
 silence on many subjects speaks volumes. And this 
 is the more remarkable, when we consider the great 
 amount of its instructions. An impostor, who had 
 written so much, would have written more. The 
 Bible lets many things., alone which no impostor 
 would have had discretion enough to let alone. It 
 does not commit itself, where an impostor would 
 have been imperative. While its great principles 
 are applicable to every evil in the organization of 
 human society, and while its invariable tendency is 
 to eradicate these evils, it is careful how it creates a 
 needless ferment, and breaks up the foundations of 
 the community which it would preserve and bless. 
 So far as its decisions go, they are safe. It holds an 
 even balance between the extremes of a guilty and 
 pusillanimous indifferentism, and a blind, overheated 
 exclusiveness. Even with this immutable standard 
 in their hands, honest men may err; but it is a 
 delightful thought, and a safe retreat from their 
 unjust awards, that the decisions of the Bible are 
 paramount to the verdict of fallible men. I have 
 never been more impressed with this characteristic 
 of the Scriptures, than from the incidental remarks 
 of some modern infidels, in their public speeches, 
 called forth by some of the exciting topics of the age 
 in which we live. More than once have I known 
 them appeal to the Bible, as the acknowledged stand- 
 ard of common sense and common discretion. And 
 when they do so, it is perfectly obvious that they 
 themselves feel that they have solid rock to stand
 
 216 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 upon. There is a sort of intuitive impression on the 
 minds of all men, whether they believe the Scrip- 
 tures or not, that it is in vain for them to improve 
 upon the arrangements of its unequalled wisdom. 
 
 What is man in his social relations without the 
 Bible ? Pride boasts of him, but he is a worm. 
 Science boasts of him, but he is like the brutes that 
 perish. Pleasure, wealth, honor, friends boast of 
 him ; but they have not even a gossamer veil to 
 cover his shame. Philanthropy boasts of him ; but 
 it is a wild, eccentric, meteor-like philanthropy, and 
 not like "the clear shining of the sun after rain." 
 What the Scriptures reveal, is wondrously adapted 
 to the social character and condition of man ; there 
 is nothing wanting in them, and nothing superfluous. 
 Take away any of its instructions in this department, 
 and it would be found that there is something in the 
 social relations to which it has no counterpart ; add 
 to them, and the counterpart is wanting in the social 
 relations ; alter them, and these relations themselves 
 will need to be altered. 
 
 3. This thought, as well as those submitted in 
 the preceding paragraphs, receives additional force 
 from the consideration, that this adaptation is as 
 large and extensive, as it is minute and particular. 
 The views of the Bible are comprehensive ; its 
 aspects are wide ; the bearing of the entire range 
 of its revelations is upon beings and interests that 
 are widely spread over all the nations of the earth, 
 however related, or classified, and however multi- 
 plied and involved their dependencies. The adapta-
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 217 
 
 tion of which we speak extends to the mass, as well 
 as to the individual ; to the whole, as well as a part ; 
 to "all men, everywhere." In this respect, Chris- 
 tianity differs essentially from all other religions. 
 The stamp of locality is to be found on them all. 
 They necessarily accommodate themselves to times, 
 and places, and men ; and therefore they are muta- 
 ble. But the religion of Christ is for the world. 
 Man is the same over the whole earth ; but his habits 
 in Lapland are different from his habits in the West 
 Indies. Yet the Bible is adapted to him wherever 
 he is. Different portions of the world have strong 
 peculiarities, arising from moral, as well as natural 
 causes ; they are influenced by their philosophy, by 
 their laws, by arts and sciences, and not a little by 
 the fine arts. But Christianity bears one univer- 
 sal and uniform character and adaptation to all. 
 Though itself immutable, and though never aban- 
 doning and never relaxing any one of its principles, 
 it is equally accommodated to every class of human 
 society, every parallel of latitude, and every son and 
 daughter of Adam. 
 
 It has not, indeed, always maintained its purity : 
 in Christianizing the heathen, it has itself been par- 
 tially heathenized ; in purifying others, it has itself 
 imbibed taints of impurity. "Jewish observances, 
 Grecian, Roman, Celtic, and Gothic superstitions are 
 found in various parts of the nominally Christian 
 church, according to the stock from which her pop- 
 ulation have sprung." But these impurities are not 
 her own ; they are the additions of men ; made, 
 
 BiWe not of Man. JQ
 
 218 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 indeed, under the pretence of heightening her beauties, 
 while they add defects and blemishes to her original 
 and heavenly form. In her native lineaments she is 
 equally fitted to be the resident of every clime, under 
 every form of government, as well as amidst all those 
 previous habits of thinking and acting which would 
 at first view seem to be insuperably hostile to her 
 influence. 
 
 Judaism, with its burdensome and expensive 
 ritual, its gorgeous priesthood, and its now abolished 
 ceremonies, never was intended, because it was never 
 fitted to be, and never could be, the universal relig- 
 ion, any more than the temple at Jerusalem could 
 be the temple of the world. All that is moral in the 
 Old Testament, in distinction from its positive and 
 ceremonial institutions, as we have before remarked, 
 is as truly Christian as it is Jewish, and is transferred 
 and perpetuated in the Christian system ; while 
 whatever is exclusively Jewish, is necessarily local 
 and temporary. 
 
 It is equally obvious, that Mahometanism has no 
 intrinsic adaptation to become the universal religion. 
 It has indeed long subsisted, and is at this day the 
 established religion of no small portion of the world. 
 But though it admits the divine mission of Moses 
 and Jesus, and recognizes many of the fundamental 
 articles of the Jewish and Christian faith, it is mixed 
 up with so many childish traditions and fables, and 
 with the toleration of so many idolatrous rites, and 
 with such an indulgence of licentiousness, and de- 
 pends, moreover, so exclusively upon the power of
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 219 
 
 the sword , that nothing can be more revolting to 
 reason and conscience. 
 
 Christianity on the other hand, while it com- 
 mends itself to reason and conscience, without 
 which no religion can ever become universal, is in 
 every view fitted to become the religion of the hu- 
 man race. The elements which give it this supe- 
 riority are, its unblemished rectitude the fact that 
 it is a religion of principle the simplicity of its es- 
 sential truths, and their entire independence of all 
 systems of human philosophy the all-sufficiency 
 and freeness of its salvation, held forth and pressed 
 on the acceptance of every man the plainness, yet 
 the dignity and decency of its outward dress and 
 observances the economy of its expenditure the 
 liberality of its external organization its divine im- 
 partiality, and its indwelling and all-conquering 
 Spirit. These are fitted to carry it everywhere : to 
 the polished and to the degraded states of human 
 society, to every order of the human intellect, to 
 every form of government, and every conceivable 
 condition of man's history and being. It is the 
 same thing everywhere everywhere it carries the 
 same light, the same obligations, the same convic- 
 tions, the same holiness, the same mercy, the same 
 hopes, the same consolations. Wherever its bless- 
 ings are enjoyed, they are equally needed, equally 
 precious ; wherever it comes, they are equally near. 
 I say they are equally near. Men need not go for 
 them to the Pope of Rome ; nor traverse plains 
 and mountains to throw themselves under the car
 
 220 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of Juggernaut, or bathe in the Ganges ; nor need 
 they make pilgrimages to Mecca, to Jerusalem, or 
 Gerizim. The pilgrim on the rock finds them 
 there ; the savage in the desert finds them there ; the 
 mariner on the ocean finds them there ; and the 
 humble worshipper, in his log-cabin, finds them 
 more near and more precious than the less humble 
 worshipper in the towering and gorgeous cathedral. 
 " The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in 
 thy heart." 
 
 4. To give still greater weight to these thoughts, 
 we remark, that this revelation is equally adapted to 
 all periods of time and all ages of the world. It is 
 fitted to be the perpetual religion, and to cover the 
 whole series of ages, till this world shall pass away. 
 No matter how advanced in science, in morals, in 
 government, the world may be, it cannot have a 
 better religion than this. When the Saviour stood 
 before that magnificent edifice, the temple of Jeru- 
 salem, he said to his disciples, " Verily, there shall 
 not be left here one stone upon another that shall 
 not be thrown down. Heaven and earth shall pass 
 away, but my words shall not pass away" Won- 
 derful declaration! and not at all wonderful that 
 there were those who disbelieved it. When, with 
 merely eleven men, he sat down at the Passover, he 
 instituted a Supper, of which he said, " As oft as ye 
 eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the 
 Lord's death till he come." We have lived to sec 
 these predictions fulfilled, so far as the progress of 
 time has allowed us to be witnesses ; and now, after
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 221 
 
 the expiration of eighteen centuries, to learn that 
 the system of truth and grace of which he was the 
 Founder, is but in the freshness of its youth. The 
 circumstances under which it was introduced, were 
 in the highest degree inauspicious to its continuance 
 a single century. Its Founder was slain : save 
 two, all its first disciples came to a violent death : 
 it was persecuted by the wrath of man and the rage 
 of fiends. But it carried within it the indestruc- 
 tible elements of perpetuity. It survived all its ene- 
 mies, and it survives still, because its great princi- 
 ples are imperishable and eternal, are inwoven with 
 realities that never pass away, and have an adap- 
 tation to the wants and woes of every successive 
 generation of men. 
 
 Human laws change, human governments put 
 on different forms, systems of philosophy rise and 
 fall with every passing century, and the various theo- 
 ries of social life expire almost with the same facility 
 with which they come into existence, because they 
 have no inherent adaptation to the unanticipated 
 and perpetually varying condition of mankind. On 
 the other hand, the religion of the Bible, because it 
 anticipates the wants of man, because it meets these 
 wants wherever he is, whatever his condition, and 
 at whatever period in the progress of time he may 
 dwell on the earth ; instead of carrying with it the 
 elements of its own destruction, gathers strength as 
 it holds on its way, and in its onward progress com- 
 bines the vigor of youth with the rich and ripening 
 maturity of age. The secret of this perpetuity is
 
 222 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 its inherent and wonderful adaptation to the human 
 character in every successive period of time. It is 
 built, not upon experience, but upon anticipation. 
 This system of government and redemption needs 
 no change, because the character of its subjects is a 
 fixed and uniform character : the remedy is the same, 
 because the disease never alters. 
 
 Such is the adaptation of the Bible to the char- 
 acter and wants of men. Review these thoughts 
 one by one, review them in the aggregate, and say 
 if they furnish no evidence of the divine origin of 
 the Scriptures. Contrast this Book with the differ- 
 ent religious systems which are confessedly of human 
 origin, and can you fail to see that these latter are 
 radically defective in adaptation to the wants of men, 
 and on this account fail of their object ? Men find 
 no relief from them. After all the abstinence, pil- 
 grimages, ablutions, penance, and blood they enjoin, 
 there is not one among them all that satisfies the 
 understanding, the conscience, the heart, the immor- 
 tality, or that in any view furnishes a basis for hope. 
 The restive heart finds nothing in them to tranquil- 
 lize its unhallowed excitement ; nothing to feed upon 
 save that which augments its misery, because it is 
 the aliment of its wickedness. They open no me- 
 dium of communication between creatures and the 
 God who is invisible ; between the world that is 
 seen, and the world that is not seen ; nor do they 
 accomplish anything towards healing the breach 
 between God and man, or bringing heaven any 
 nearer to earth, or earth any nearer to heaven. There
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 223 
 
 is nothing in them by which the nature of man 
 becomes purified, or elevated, or which discloses any- 
 thing that possesses even the slightest pretension to 
 a radical cure for the great moral malady that per- 
 vades our race. Go where you will throughout the 
 pagan world, and it will be found that these are 
 wants which the religions of paganism, in all their 
 varieties, fail to supply. The chasm is wide and 
 deep, and there is nothing to fill it. Instead of con- 
 sulting the condition, and meeting the exigencies 
 of man, they actually debase that condition, and aug- 
 ment those exigencies, and perpetuate them. Instead 
 of being the friend of man, they are his enemy ; and 
 instead of lighting up his prospects, they overshadow 
 them by the clouds of dark ignorance and wretched 
 superstition. Men of thought in pagan lands, them- 
 selves saw, and said, that they were systems of delu- 
 sion and lies, and acquiesced in them only because 
 they could be imposed on the more ignorant and 
 unthinking. Can any man of sober thought speak 
 thus, or think thus of the Bible ? No, never. He 
 may try to do it, but the thing is impossible. 
 
 Whether the Book that thus minutely and ex- 
 tensively consults the character and condition of our 
 fallen race, is human or Divine, we may leave to 
 every ingenuous mind to decide. Does not this 
 wondrous adaptation itself bear testimony for it, that 
 it is from God? Is not the Bible so fitted to the 
 wants of man, that He who made one must have 
 actually fashioned both? Does it not speak for 
 itself, as the matchless expedient which his wisdom
 
 224 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and love have devised for creatures who are apos 
 tates from his family? Not until some other system 
 can be specified that thus meets the necessities of 
 our race, may we relinquish our confidence in the 
 Bible, or give up the argument for its divine origin 
 derived from this adaptation. Whether it utter the 
 voice of man or of God, of some foul impostor or the 
 God of love, cannot long be a matter of doubt. A 
 religion that so wisely and fully consults the varied 
 and richest elements of man's nature, carries the 
 evidence with it that it is from the Author of that 
 nature. It will be difficult to reason a man out of his 
 belief in divine revelation, or to laugh him out of it, 
 who has clear conceptions of its fitness to his wants. 
 It were no easy matter for an impostor to devise 
 a religion, which, while it suited with so much pre- 
 cision to the individual, should at the same time be 
 equally adapted to the entire race ; and while it 
 should consult the peculiarities of one age of time, 
 should not be less relevant to all successive ages. 
 Men have never found themselves so wise. A parent 
 who has but one child to instruct and govern, is jus- 
 tified in pursuing a very different course with that 
 one, from the course he would pursue as the head of 
 a numerous family. The monarch of a single pro- 
 vince can more easily prescribe a code of laws for 
 that single province, than arrange a system of gov- 
 ernment that is alike adapted to a thousand distinct 
 and distant provinces. A system of instruction and 
 government that is equally adapted to the whole 
 family of man, and to every isolated individual of
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 
 
 that family, must not only comprise many things, 
 but be very nicely adjusted, and maintain an invari- 
 able tendency to one and the same benevolent end. 
 Every part of it must be wisely selected, and all the 
 parts, taken together, must be wisely suited to one 
 another. It must view every individual in connec- 
 tion with the whole, and the whole in its relations 
 to every individual. The Bible is such a system ; 
 it consults all these relations relations which no 
 finite mind in the universe could have anticipated 
 or discovered, much less a collection of minds, of 
 varied character, and so separated by time and cir- 
 cumstance as to be precluded from all possibility of 
 collusion. In all its great principles, and in all the 
 filling up of these great outlines ; in all its laws and 
 organization ; in all its worship and rites ; in all its 
 sanctions, motives and influences, here is a system 
 of truth and grace every way adapted to man's con- 
 dition and character. The material world does not 
 present more, or more admirable instances of adapta- 
 tion, or those which are more expressive of the wis- 
 dom of its Author, than are here presented in the 
 immaterial and spiritual. It is not an attempt at the 
 restoration of man ; but to the full extent in which 
 it is faithfully applied, it effects 'it. It is not an 
 attempt at religion ; it is a religion, and the only re- 
 ligion adapted to man. It is not an attack upon the 
 enemy, or a mere prescription for the disease ; it is 
 a victory over him, and a sovereign cure. Just as 
 light is adapted to the eye and sound to the ear ; just 
 as the solid earth is adapted to one class of animated 
 
 10*
 
 226 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 existencies, the sea to another, and the air to a third 
 just, in one word, as there is a suitableness in all 
 the parts of nature, in themselves, in the succession 
 and order in which they act, and with a view to the 
 effect finally produced, which indicates the wisdom 
 of the Great Contriver, is the revelation made in 
 the Bible adapted to the nature and recovery of fal- 
 len man, and equally indicative of the same uncre- 
 ated wisdom. 
 
 This is one of the arguments on which the Bible 
 itself rests its own claims to a superhuman origin. 
 In full view of the deadly nature and alarming ex- 
 tent of the spiritual miseries which are the inheri- 
 tance of our race, its gracious Author proclaims him 
 self the Sovereign Healer. To men whom sin has 
 made poor, and naked, and blind, and miserable, he 
 says, " I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the 
 fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and white raiment, 
 that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of 
 thy nakedness do not appear ; and anoint thine eyes 
 with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." To men who 
 despise their own mercies, and weary themselves in 
 the pursuit of that they will never find, he says, 
 " Wherefore spend ye your money for that which is 
 not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth 
 not ? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that 
 which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fat- 
 ness." To men who are bewildered, without a clue 
 to guide them in the dreary labyrinth, he says, " I 
 am the light of the world : he that followeth after 
 me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 
 
 light of life." To men who thirst for happiness, 
 and find nothing to allay their febrile desires, or 
 cool their parched tongues, his language is. " If any 
 man thirst, let him come unto me and drink !" 
 While to the ten thousand wants that lift up their 
 voices and send their cry to the heavens, this Book 
 responds, " Whosoever shall drink of the water that 
 I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but the water 
 that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water 
 springing up into everlasting life." Time and experi- 
 ence have fully justified these high claims. The ex- 
 periment has been made with every other religion ; 
 they have all been " weighed in the balances, and 
 found wanting." It is too late to invent another and 
 a new religion ; men are shut up to the Gospel of 
 Christ, as the light of the world and the life of men. 
 
 Different views of the excellence of the Bible, 
 make different impressions upon different minds; 
 but if we mistake not, the argument from its adapta- 
 tion to the character and wants of men, holds a high 
 place with minds of every class. 
 
 That martyr to the missionary cause, the Rev. 
 John Williams, of the London Missionary Society, 
 relates a circumstance which took place among the 
 natives of the South Sea islands, which those who 
 have read the biography of this remarkable man will 
 remember. The officers of the British ship Serin ga- 
 patam, after intercourse with a number of the natives 
 who had been converted to Christianity, expressed 
 their doubts whether the views which these ignorant 
 people had uttered on the subject of religion, were
 
 228 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 their own views; and even asserted, that both the 
 missionary and these professed converts were prac- 
 tising deception upon their visitors. In order to 
 decide this question, Mr. Williams invited Captain 
 Waldgrave, the Rev. Mr. Watson, the ship's chap- 
 lain, and other gentlemen, to an interview with 
 fifteen of the natives, for the purpose of free conver- 
 sation on religious subjects. 
 
 On their being assembled, Captain Waldgrave 
 proposed the question to them, " Do you believe the 
 Bible is the word of God, and that Christianity is 
 of divine origin?" The natives were rather startled 
 at the question, having never entertained a doubt 
 upon that point. At length one replied, "Most 
 certainly we do." "And why do you believe it?" 
 After some reflection, one of them said, " We look 
 at the power with which it has been attended in effect- 
 ing the entire overthrow of idolatry among us ; and 
 which, we believe, no human means could have in- 
 duced us to abandon." 
 
 The same question being proposed to a second, 
 he replied, " / believe the Scriptures to be of divine 
 origin, on account of the system of salvation they 
 reveal. We had a religion before, transmitted to us 
 by our ancestors, whom we considered the wisest of 
 men ; but how dark and black a system that was, 
 compared with the bright scheme of salvation pre- 
 sented in the Bible! Here we learn that we are 
 sinners; that God gave his Son Jesus Christ to 
 die for us; and that through believing, the sal- 
 vation procured becomes ours. Now, what but the
 
 ITS ADAPTATION TO MAN. 229 
 
 wisdom of God could have devised such a system as 
 this ?" 
 
 The question being repeated to an old and 
 shrewd pagan priest, then a devoted Christian, " in- 
 stead of replying to it at once, he held up his hands, 
 and rapidly moved the joints of his wrists and fin- 
 gers ; he then opened and shut his mouth ; and 
 closed these singular actions by raising his leg, and 
 moving it in various directions. Having done this, 
 he said, ' See, I have hinges all over me ; if the 
 thought grows in my heart that I wish to handle 
 anything, the hinges in my hands enable me to do 
 so. If I want to utter anything, the hinges of my 
 jaws enable me to say it ; and if I desire to go any- 
 where, here are hinges to my legs, to enable me to 
 walk. Now I perceive great wisdom in the adapta- 
 tion of my body to the various wants of my mind ; 
 and when I look into the Bible, and see there the 
 proofs of wisdom which correspond exactly with these 
 which appear in my frame, I conclude that the 
 Maker of my body is the Author of that book.' J: 
 
 This is the sum and substance of the argument 
 from the idea of adaptation. Verily, " out of the mouth 
 of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise, 
 that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger /" 
 Strange that so many wise men after the flesh can- 
 not discern what was so obvious to the mind of this 
 poor heathen ! Well is it written of the Saviour, 
 that " he rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O 
 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid 
 these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed
 
 230 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed 
 good in thy sight !" This wonderful moral mechan- 
 ism, these numberless articulations in the religion 
 of the Bible, so exactly fitted to the numberless 
 cavities of the human mind, playing in them as a 
 ball in a socket, certainly deserve to be considered 
 among the specimens of ineffable wisdom, and are 
 not to be overlooked among the internal proofs that 
 this Book is not the work of creatures. 
 
 When Sir Walter Scott returned, a trembling 
 invalid, from Italy to die in his native land, the sight 
 of home so invigorated his spirits that some hope 
 was cherished that he might recover. But he 
 found that he must die. Addressing his son-in-law, 
 he said, "Bring me a book." "What book?" re- 
 plied Lockhart. "Can you ask," replied the man 
 whose works have charmed the world " can you 
 ask what book ? there is but owe/" Precious Bible ! 
 There is nothing it does not offer, nothing it does 
 not give to the man who feels his wants and seeks 
 its bounty. Truth that never grows old, riches that 
 never decay, pleasures that never cloy, a crown that 
 is never tarnished, griefs assuaged and fears tranquil- 
 lized, bright hopes, and incorruptible immortality, 
 are the gift of God to all the lovers of the Bible.
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 231 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SCRIPTURES ATTESTED 
 BY CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 THERE is one class of proofs for the divine 
 origin of the Scriptures which is of a peculiar sort. 
 Of how much use it may be in convincing an adver- 
 sary, we shall have something to say before we close 
 the present chapter : to the Christian himself it is the 
 best of all proofs. It is, by way of distinction, called 
 the inward, or spiritual evidence; that is, the evi- 
 dence applied by the Spirit of God to the heart of 
 the true believer, and which results from his own 
 personal experience of the power of Christian truth. 
 Independently of all the external and historical testi- 
 mony, and though not independent, yet separate 
 from all other internal and rational evidence, there 
 is a self-evidencing power in the Scriptures, which 
 declares, by its influence on the mind and heart of 
 the believer, that they are the word of God. 
 
 The Scriptures profess to accomplish,for all those 
 who believe and obey them, what nothing else 
 accomplishes. One way of proving to ourselves 
 that this profession may be relied on, consists in 
 making an honest and practical use of what they 
 reveal. The religion they reveal professes to be a
 
 232 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 remedy for the inveterate disease of sin ; to bring to 
 the soul pardon, peace, and progressive holiness ; and 
 the true way of putting the remedy to the test is to 
 try it. The language of the Bible to men is, " Try 
 the remedy this book proposes for yourselves ; see 
 if it be not what it represents itself to be. Prove it ; 
 follow its directions. Do what it requires you to do. 
 If in its practical effects, and in the different stages 
 and degrees of its application, it accomplishes what 
 it professes to accomplish, it will be found worthy 
 of your confidence. If, on the other hand, after a 
 fair and honest trial, it does not accomplish what it 
 professes, let it be pronounced a failure, and looked 
 upon as a trick of moral jugglery and imposture." 
 With men of fair and ingenuous minds, I see not 
 how such an appeal as this can be resisted, or even 
 trifled with. It must be confessed, that those who 
 adopt this method of ascertaining the divine origin 
 of the Scriptures, have some advantage over those 
 who never make this honest experiment ; while it is 
 with an ill grace that the latter refuse to believe 
 them. It is a very easy way of settling the ques- 
 tion ; it would seem, upon all the acknowledged 
 principles of sound reasoning, to be a decisive way ; 
 and it is open to all who have access to the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 Has, then, the Bible proved itself a failure ? and 
 are there those who have fairly and honestly brought 
 it to the test of experiment, who are convinced that 
 it is not of God ? Or has it proved itself true to the 
 letter ; and are not all those who " have obeyed from
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 233 
 
 the heart that form of doctrine" which it delivers, 
 most thoroughly assured that God is its Author, 
 because the revelations it makes fall in with their 
 own experience ? This is the question we propose 
 to discuss ; and it is simply a question of fact. We 
 have nothing to do just now with the bearing of this 
 fact upon our argument, but simply with the fact 
 itself. 
 
 There are those who do not obey the truth 
 revealed in the Bible, and who, for this reason alone, 
 have not this inward evidence that it is the word of 
 God. How should they have it? And there are 
 those who, while they are free to acknowledge their 
 defects, do in some good measure obey it. They 
 are the friends of truth and righteousness. They 
 fear God, and love his Son. They respect his insti- 
 tutions, venerate his law, and make it the great 
 object of their lives so to live as to enjoy his appro- 
 bation. They are men of prayer, because they are 
 sensible of their dependence on God, and their obli- 
 gations to him ; they are godly men, and men who 
 are habitually influenced more by unseen and eter- 
 nal realities, than by the things that are seen and 
 temporal. We affirm that this class of men are con- 
 scious of an inward and moral sympathy with the 
 disclosures made in the sacred volume, and that 
 their own personal experience falls in with these 
 disclosures. 
 
 1. The great truths of the Bible are fitted to 
 exert an influence on the internal emotions: they 
 are weighty and important enough to do so ; and
 
 234 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 they do actually produce a response in the bosom 
 of every right-hearted man. 
 
 If you hold up to him a different delineation of 
 the Divine character from that which is presented in 
 the Scriptures, his mind instinctively revolts from it. 
 His hope, his refuge, his portion, the God he loves 
 and rejoices in, is the God of the Bible. The most 
 subtil errorist cannot decoy the friends of God by 
 any artful, or distorted views of the Divine character. 
 Detract from his full-orbed excellence, or obscure its 
 amiableness and glory by any additions of man's 
 devising, and they instantly take the alarm. What 
 the Bible affirms of God, their own hearts affirm : 
 the moral sympathy is complete. Give them his 
 presence and favor, and you cannot make them mis- 
 erable : deny them these, and you cannot make them 
 happy. 
 
 They have the same inward sympathy with the 
 Scriptures in the views they exhibit concerning the 
 sinful character and lost condition of man. Severe 
 as the imputations are which the Bible records 
 against men as sinners, and though they are impu- 
 tations which no man naturally submits to, and 
 which, if untrue, prove this book to be a false accus- 
 er ; yet do good men uniformly acquiesce in them, 
 while the best of men have the strongest convictions 
 of their truth. Their own daily confessions are the 
 echo of these humbling statements ; while the longer 
 they live, the more do they discover sources of wick- 
 edness in themselves, which lead them to wonder 
 how their own character could have been described
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 235 
 
 in the Bible with so much precision. They are 
 surprised to find how intimate an acquaintance it 
 discovers with their own heart; how it turns it 
 inside out, and ferrets out its inmost recesses. 
 
 The same inward sympathy is also felt with the 
 representations which the Bible gives of the way of 
 salvation by Christ. There is no truth which pious 
 men have more honestly put to the test of experi- 
 ence than this. They have tried other remedies, 
 and found no relief either from the curse of the 
 law, or the dominion of sin. They have been 
 driven from every other refuge, and have found in 
 the Lamb of God alone the refuge they were look- 
 ing for. The Bible tells them of One whose " blood 
 cleanseth from sin," and through whom there is 
 " peace with God ;" and they have found it so, in 
 the possession of peace which is as a river, and joys 
 that are like the waves of the sea. The view which 
 a Christian has of the method of salvation by Christ, 
 is entirely different from that of the man whose 
 head only is orthodox. He loves it ; he confides in 
 it ; it is a view which he takes for himself and for 
 his own soul. It is to him just what the Bible rep- 
 resents it to be; it is "precious;" there is a .glory, 
 and majesty, and beauty in it ; a fitness and all- 
 sufficiency in it, that mark it as the salvation he 
 needs. It is his home ; he cannot live without it. 
 Take it from him, and you crush his hopes : you 
 make him miserable. Whatever may be his powers 
 of intellect, whatever his situation in life, the man 
 who receives this redemption and lives upon it, has
 
 236 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 something within him that is the counterpart of this 
 blessed Gospel. 
 
 The same sympathy is also experienced with 
 that great truth so much insisted on in the Scrip- 
 tures, the regeneration of the soul by the Spirit of 
 God. Good men have had a personal experience of 
 the necessity of this change ; and they are not un- 
 frequently as conscidus of the change itself, as they 
 were of those sinful principles and affections which 
 existed within them before the change took place. 
 They have affections and principles of conduct to 
 which they were once strangers, and which are 
 altogether unlike those which belong to a mere 
 speculative view of this truth. Men who have had 
 the Gospel preached to them for years, and who, as 
 a matter of mere rational inquiry, understood this 
 truth none the better for having heard it so often, 
 have now clear views of it, and views as different 
 from what they once had as light is from darkness. 
 
 If from the regenerating, we advert to the sanc- 
 tifying work of the Spirit of God, and the meliora- 
 ting, subduing influence of that spiritual religion of 
 which the Scriptures speak, we find them equally 
 responded to by a still, small voice within the soul. 
 Every gracious affection renewed and invigorated 
 is an expression of this sympathy ; every breath of 
 prayer is a recognition of it. The bright and bright- 
 ening constellation of graces that lights up, with its 
 rare lustre, the otherwise dark pathway from time to 
 eternity, is but the reflection of those great truths 
 of the Bible which shine as a light in a dark place.
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 237 
 
 The Christian will tell you just what the Bible tells 
 you of the nature of true piety, and the power of 
 that grace by which it is produced and sustained ; 
 and by which, in defiance of inward obstacles and 
 outward foes, it is perpetuated, and matured for 
 heaven. There is that within him that corresponds 
 to the teachings of the Bible without him. The 
 evidence of this correspondence is his own con- 
 sciousness, which is the best and the strongest evi- 
 dence. It is the testimony of the work of the Spirit 
 within the soul, uniting with his recorded testimony 
 in the Scriptures. It is the same law written on the 
 fleshly tables of the heart, that is written with pen 
 and ink on the sacred pages. It is the testimony 
 of that same conviction, conversion, and sanctifica- 
 tion ; of that same change from darkness to light, 
 and all those gracious affections, desires, hopes and 
 consolations which are spoken of in the Bible, them- 
 selves speaking the work of their Author. 
 
 2. The Bible is a book of promises, " exceeding 
 great and precious promises." Promises bloom upon 
 this Tree of Life like the blossoms of spring ; nor do 
 they deceive us when autumn comes, and the fruit 
 is gathered. They are promises which respect the 
 life that now is, and that which is to come. They 
 speak of " blessings upon the head of the just," and 
 of "all that their heavenly Father knoweth that 
 they need." They are promises of safety "under 
 the shadow of the Almighty," and of deliverance out 
 of their "many afflictions." They speak of "their 
 mourning turned into joy;" of "light arising to
 
 238 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 them in the darkness;" and of their "consolations 
 abounding by Christ," as the " sufferings of Christ 
 abound in them." They are promises to the young, 
 to the middle aged, and to the " hoary head when 
 found in the way of righteousness." They are 
 assurances that God is " the Father of the father- 
 less," and the widow's guardian and avenger " in his 
 holy habitation." To the tempted they are prom- 
 ises of succor ; of wisdom to the unwise ; of strength 
 to the weak ; and to the fearful, of courage and con- 
 fidence. They speak of pardon and justification, of 
 adoption and sanctification, of free access to God, 
 of " grace to help in the time of need," of strength 
 according to their day, and of perseverance to the 
 end. They are promises of victory over the world, 
 of the Divine presence and love, of God's indwell- 
 ing Spirit, and of delight and joy in him. There 
 are promises to faith, to repentance, to obedience, 
 and to the sacred observance of the Lord's day. 
 There are promises to the liberal and the merciful, 
 to the meek and the forgiving, and to those who 
 suffer for righteousness' sake. The Bible is in no 
 small degree made up of such gracious engagements ; 
 it is God's covenant with his people, to which he 
 has affixed his seal and annexed his oath. His 
 strong and triumphant demand in relation to these 
 engagements is, " Hath he said, and shall he not do 
 it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it 
 good?" 
 
 Promises like these throw themselves upon every 
 day's experience and observation. They are easily
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 239 
 
 brought to the test ; and when thus brought, what 
 is the testimony as to their fulfilment ? Let the 
 Christian world furnish the answer to this inquiry. 
 Let the infidel world furnish the examples of failure, 
 if it can. Steady and uniform as the perpetual 
 and regular return of seed-time and harvest, cold and 
 heat, summer and winter, day and nightj and bright 
 and sure as God's bow in the clouds, is the expe- 
 rience of God's people to the truth of his promises. 
 God himself more than once appeals to it as the 
 standing token of his covenant with them, and says 
 to them, " Ye know in all your hearts and all your 
 souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good 
 things which the Lord your God spake concerning 
 you." With facts like these before him, who can 
 doubt that God is the Author of the Bible ? Is not 
 the life of the Christian an " on-going proof that 
 Scripture is truth ?" 
 
 3. There is another peculiarity in the instruc- 
 tions of the Bible, which is also easily brought to 
 the test of experience. I allude to its instructions 
 on the subject of prayer. It abounds in inculcating 
 the duty of jprayer ; it speaks largely of the power of 
 prayer ; while page after page is devoted to recount- 
 ing the achievements of prayer. It teaches that 
 God is the " hearer of prayer ;" and that " the effec- 
 tual, fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth 
 much." We affirm that the experience of the men 
 of prayer is in remarkable coincidence with the spirit 
 and import of these instructions, and furnishes per- 
 petually accumulative evidence of the truth of the
 
 240 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 Sacred Writings. Every Christian knows that the 
 God of the Bible is the hearer of prayer. His own 
 history records many a want supplied by prayer; 
 many a vile affection held in check and subdued by 
 prayer ; many an unforgiving thought suppressed, 
 and many a tempest of passion passed away amid 
 the calm and unobserved retirement of his closet. 
 He can tell of many a languishing grace revived, 
 many a depressed hope encouraged, many a doubt- 
 ful and arduous enterprise crowned with success by 
 help received at the throne of the heavenly grace. 
 He can tell of darkness dissipated by prayer; of 
 rough places made plain, and the crooked straight, 
 by prayer ; of dangers averted, fears vanquished, and 
 enemies overcome ; perplexity removed, and duties 
 for which he was incompetent performed, through 
 prayer. In the time of trouble, prayer has been his 
 refuge; and in the hottest furnace of affliction he 
 has been enabled to say, " Blessed be God, even the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the God of all 
 comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation!" 
 How often have public calamities been averted, or 
 deferred, or mitigated by prayer ; and where has the 
 Spirit of God descended, and " souls been renewed, 
 and sins forgiven," save through the power of 
 prayer ? 
 
 Of no fact in the history of the church does the 
 experience of good men furnish more abundant tes- 
 timony, than of the efficacy of that spirit of holy 
 wrestling which finds its expression and its conquests 
 at the throne of grace. The convictions of pious
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 241 
 
 men are very strong in this respect, and marvellously 
 uniform. So strong are they, that it is no exagger- 
 ation to say, that they appreciate no blessings so 
 highly as those procured by prayer ; nor is there any 
 earthly privilege or comfort of which they would 
 not sooner be denied, than access to the mercy-seat. 
 Now it strikes us that this is a very remarkable, 
 and indeed an unaccountable fact, unless the instruc- 
 tions of the Bible on the subject of prayer are truth- 
 ful. It is far otherwise in false religions. Men who 
 offer their supplications to the Virgin Mary, or to 
 departed saints, have no such experience as this. The 
 worshippers of pagan gods pray to idols which their 
 own hands have formed, but receive no answer. 
 The moon is cold and deaf, and turns not from her 
 steady course when oblation after oblation is poured 
 out on the altar of this " queen of heaven." And 
 the sun is listless, when sacrifice upon sacrifice sends 
 upward its costly fragrance, to immingle with his 
 rising, or setting beams. Like the prophets of Baal, 
 when from morning to evening they cried to their 
 absent, or sleeping deity, all such worshippers " find 
 neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any to regard 
 them." We make our appeal to unbelievers them- 
 selves, and ask them to tell us from their own obser- 
 vation, if when, as Christian men, we "lift up our 
 heart to God who dwelleth in the heavens," we 
 have no greater evidence that he is the hearer of 
 prayer than the pagan has when he prays to the 
 " host of heaven," or the Musselman when he pays 
 his devotions at the shrine of the false prophet ? 
 
 Bible not of Man.
 
 242 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 " Where are thy gods now ? let them arise and save 
 thee, if they can save thee !" The best affections 
 of the Christian heart start into being, and thrill 
 with delight at the mercy-seat. The experience of 
 the men of prayer speaks the language of the Bible ; 
 there is no truth uttered by the divine oracles on 
 the whole subject of prayer, diversified as these 
 teachings are, but is, with wonderful precision, veri- 
 fied in their own spiritual history. 
 
 4. We pursue this induction of facts only a 
 single step farther. The Scriptures profess to 
 strengthen the people of God on the bed of lan- 
 guishing, and to give them peace and consolation in 
 death. These are strong and high professions. We 
 read in the Bible of the " rod and staff" that com- 
 fort the believer when he walks through the dark 
 valley ; of One who, when " flesh and heart fail," 
 is the "strength of his heart and his portion for- 
 ever;" and of peace, and hope, and triumph over 
 the "last enemy." Whence come these high pro- 
 fessions ? Who is it, that professes thus to cheer 
 the mind weighed down by the ravages of disease, 
 desolated of all hope from creatures, and shrinking 
 with instinctive dread from the agonies of death 
 and the corruption of the grave ? Who is it, in 
 that sad hour when all human vigor and courage 
 are broken and shivered ; when all sublunary joys 
 retire, and the tenderest ties that bind man to man 
 are about to be broken, and the agitated spirit must 
 go alone to her last account, that thus professes to 
 soothe its fears and give it hope and confidence ?
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 243 
 
 The Bible does this, and Christian experience teaches 
 the same unutterably precious lesson, and is itself 
 the edifying spectacle of grace thus pledged to take 
 away the sting of death, and from the grave its 
 victory. 
 
 If this be not the uniform lesson, yet is it the 
 lesson of Christian experience : " The wicked is driven 
 away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope 
 in his death." I cannot tell how it is with other 
 ministers of the Gospel, and with other men : for 
 myself I can say, for almost forty years I have been 
 familiar with scenes of sickness and death among 
 the rich and the poor amid the ordinary visitations 
 of disease, and amid the raging pestilence; and I 
 cannot recall to my mind a single instance in which 
 I have seen a wicked man die in peace. I have seen 
 wicked men die courageously, and as though every 
 nerve were wrought up to its highest tension in 
 order to meet the conflict ; but I have never seen one 
 go out of the world peacefully. I have seen them 
 submit to their fate, because their hour had come, 
 and they could not help it. I have seen them die 
 in stupid and brutish ignorance of their own character 
 as sinners, and of a coming hereafter, just as many a 
 pagan dies ; but it was not a peaceful death. I have 
 seen them die under the influence of powerful nar- 
 cotics, and when they did not know they were dying, 
 and when medical attendants announced that their 
 death was tranquil and without a struggle. I have 
 seen them die in that state of indifference to life 
 which is produced by the languor of disease, the
 
 244 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 sorrow of hopeless disappointment, and the agony 
 of pain. I have seen them die in the insensibility 
 of age, in unbelief of the truth, in hardness of 
 heart, and when " there were no bands in their 
 death." And who has not known of multitudes 
 who were even so willing to die, that they " chose 
 strangling, and death rather than life?" But scenes 
 like these no more resemble the triumphant, or even 
 the peaceful death of a Christian, than the death of 
 Nero resembled the death of Moses, or of Paul. 
 
 It is not by inspecting such scenes as these, 
 that this Question can be brought to a practical test. 
 Place yourself by the bedside of a dying man, 
 whose mind is clear, whose conscience is awake, 
 and who has strong perceptions of his own guilt and 
 an approaching eternity ; and it will be found that 
 such a man dies in peace, and only he, who has 
 found peace in that Saviour " whom God hath set 
 forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." 
 If it be said that Christians themselves do not always 
 die triumphantly, or even peacefully, we grant that 
 it is so. A good man may die suddenly, and have 
 no time for thought ; he may die in a state of intel- 
 lectual debility, or derangement, which incapacitates 
 him even for hope : he may die when his loins are 
 not girt about him, and his lamp is not trimmed and 
 burning, and therefore he may die under the hidings 
 of God's countenance, and pass away under the 
 cloud ; while in fact, his death never partakes of the 
 agony and remorse of the wicked, and in the ordi- 
 nary dispensations of Divine Providence, is full of
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 245 
 
 peace and joy. And it deserves consideration, that 
 his death is the more full of joy and peace in believ- 
 ing, in proportion to the clearness and strength of 
 his views of those truths and realities, which, the 
 more clearly they are seen and felt, the more certainly 
 do they carry consternation and dismay to the dying 
 sinner. No sense of the dying Christian's ill desert 
 diminishes his confidence in atoning blood and 
 abounding grace ; no strong conceptions of a holy 
 God disturb his tranquillity, but rather do they fill 
 him with rejoicing ; no receding world, no approach- 
 ing eternity agitates him, because this world is not 
 his rest, and his home is eternity. 
 
 Time would fail me to tell how Christians die ; 
 nor can anything save the pen of the recording 
 angel, who has stood by their bed of death and borne 
 them to Abraham's bosom, narrate the unnumbered 
 instances of their delightful departure from the pres- 
 ent world, which verify the truth of the Bible. " I 
 could never have believed," said a dying saint, " that 
 it was so delightful a thing to die ; or that it was 
 'possible to have such views of the heavenly world 
 as I now enjoy." The memorable Melancthon, just 
 before he died, chanted in his sleep the words, " I 
 will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in 
 the kingdom of God." He seemed restless, and on 
 being asked by one near him, " Whether there were 
 anything more that he desired ?" replied, " Aliud 
 nihil, nisi codum nothing more, unless it be heav- 
 en." The most forbidding aspect now and then 
 presented by the Christian's death, is that of rigid
 
 246 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 scrutiny into the foundation of his hopes, or pensive 
 and submissive tenderness, that he is denied those 
 bright lights which he fondly hoped to enjoy. As 
 a general fact, " the chamber where the good man 
 meets his fate " unfolds the scenes of heavenly 
 mercy; it presents the theory of Christian truth, 
 in the experience of a mind that knows how to 
 value it. And therefore it may be experience that 
 varies from a hesitating, to a vigorous faith ; from a 
 mournful remembrance of the past, to an exulting 
 anticipation of the future ; from the tranquillity of a 
 peaceful, to the bursting joys of a rapturous mind : 
 yet is it true to God, and true to his word. 
 
 Infidels themselves see and feel the weight of 
 such facts as these ; and not a few of them have 
 been constrained to adopt the language, "Let me 
 die the death of the righteous, and let my last end 
 be like his!" A writer in the Scottish Mirror 
 affirms of David Hume, that, having witnessed in 
 the family of the venerable La Roche those con- 
 solations which the Gospel alone could impart, he 
 confessed, with a sigh, "that there were moments 
 when, amidst all the pleasures of philosophical dis- 
 covery, and the pride of literary fame, i he wished 
 that he had never doubted.' 1 " 
 
 We will not say, such are the facts on which we 
 rest our statement ; for they are but a partial exem- 
 plification of the facts on which we rest the propo- 
 sition, that there is a self -evidencing power in the 
 Scriptures to every man who cordially receives them,, 
 which declares, by its influence on his own soul, that
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 247 
 
 they are the word of God. We proceed to suggest 
 several considerations, with the view of showing 
 the importance of the facts we have stated, and 
 the influence they claim in the argument in favor 
 of Divine inspiration. Here we beg the objector 
 to give all the force they deserve to the following 
 remarks. 
 
 1. In the first place, the positive conviction arising 
 from the Christian's experience of the truth of the 
 divine oracles, cannot be philosophically overthrown 
 by the mere negative conviction of the Deist who has 
 no such experience. A million of negatives cannot 
 overturn one positive. It is no proof that you do 
 not see the light of the sun, that men who are born 
 blind never saw it. It is no proof that the Chris- 
 tian's experience does not verify the truths of rev- 
 elation, that the experience of men who are not 
 Christians never verifies it. If the believer " has the 
 witness in himself," it does not falsify his testimony 
 that the unbeliever has no such witness. The testi- 
 mony of the unbeliever is not opposing testimony ; 
 it is simply no testimony at all. It would be worso 
 than childish for a jury to pronounce a man innocent 
 of the crime for which he stands arraigned, because 
 ten men declare under oath that they did not see 
 him commit it, so long as five credible witnesses 
 affirm that they did see him. Nor is this a stronger 
 case than the one under consideration. The testi- 
 mony of one creditable witness to a fact which he 
 himself has observed, would overturn the negatives 
 of half the world. Negation, in the law of evidence,
 
 248 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 is nothing ; it is simply opposing nothing to some- 
 thing. An experienced Christian, weak though he 
 may be in all other sources of proof, is immoveable 
 in this. He is more than a match for the subtil 
 sceptic. The sceptic has doubts, the Christian has 
 knowledge ; the sceptic has theory, the Christian has 
 matter of fact. 
 
 2. It is of some importance also to remark, in 
 the second place, that this inward testimony to the 
 truth of the Bible is founded on good and solid 
 reasons. 
 
 The Deist replies to the Christian, who reasons 
 as we have been reasoning, All this is a matter of 
 mere feeling ; it is simply your own impression ; it 
 cannot be argued out, but is a fancy of your own ! 
 No, it is not so : it is argument ; it is a just and 
 irrefragable conclusion from premises that are true. 
 Those premises are, that there is no effect without 
 an adequate cause ; the conclusion is, that the effect 
 produced by the Bible on the mind and heart of the 
 Christian, is one whose cause is God. They are 
 effects which nothing else can produce. Everything 
 else has been tried tried in every form, in every 
 age, and by all the combinations of human power 
 and human wisdom and has proved a failure. If 
 the Bible does not produce them, it is false to its 
 own engagements; if it does produce them, it is 
 true. This is one of the points on which it has 
 committed itself. Its language is, " Search the 
 Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
 and they are they which testify of me." " Taste
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 249 
 
 and see that the Lord is good." " If any man will 
 do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it 
 be of God." No system of falsehood would ever 
 have ventured to make such appeals as these. It is 
 the easiest thing in the world for infidels to put the 
 claims of the Bible to this test : they have but to do 
 as it requires them to do, and the issue is perfectly 
 decisive. It so happens that every man who does 
 this, all the world over, finds out, that " the anoint- 
 ing which abideth in him is truth, and no lie." 
 " Come see a man," says the woman of Samaria, 
 " that told me all things that ever I did : is not this 
 the Christ ?" The same strong conviction was pro- 
 duced on the minds of her countrymen, and from the 
 same cause. " Many believed on him because of his 
 own word; and said unto the woman, Now we be- 
 lieve, not because of thy saying, but because we 
 have heard him ourselves ; and we know that this is 
 the Christ, the Saviour of the world." This was 
 the method which the first disciples and apostles of 
 Jesus pursued in order to bring to the test his extra- 
 ordinary claims. Those whom his personal charac- 
 ter seemed to convince, and whom his instructions 
 did not convince, did not long continue to follow 
 him. Those who were convinced, even by his mir- 
 acles, and were not obedient to his doctrines, but 
 offended by them, " went back, and walked no more 
 with him ;" while those who obeyed his voice, for- 
 sook all, and followed him ; and when others went 
 away, exclaimed, "Lord, to whom shall -we go? 
 thou hast the words of eternal life ; and we believe, 
 
 Bible not of Man. #
 
 250 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the 
 living God!" 
 
 The Christian's experience of the truth of the 
 Divine promises and the power of prayer, is of the 
 same convincing kind. If the Bible is false in these 
 particulars, it is no difficult matter to detect the 
 falsehood. Prayer cannot be answered, nor these 
 promises fulfilled, except by God. He who is the 
 hearer of prayer, and who fulfils the promises, must 
 be concerned in the government of the world, as no 
 other being is concerned save Him who made it. If 
 he thus hears the prayers of his people, and accom- 
 plishes these promises, every answered prayer and 
 accomplished promise furnishes evidence of the di- 
 vine origin of the Scriptures. They ask, and receive : 
 what is this but a witness that this Book is divine ? 
 They obey a direction of the Bible, and find the 
 accompanying promise fulfilled ; and what is this 
 but proof that the direction and the promise are from 
 God ? If promises and directions like these were 
 false, they would carry with them their own con- 
 demnation ; the whole course of Divine Providence 
 would testify against them, and give them the lie. 
 No impostor would thus jeopard his veracity ; nor 
 would such pretensions ever have occurred to the 
 mind of an impostor. If the Bible is the word of 
 God, it may well thus commit itself, because its Au- 
 thor is both able and willing to redeem the pledge. 
 His honor is concerned in making it good; while 
 the experience of its fulfilment testifies, that the 
 Book which reveals it is not the work of man. The
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 251 
 
 argument from Christian experience, therefore, is 
 not a mere impression of imagination, or overween- 
 ing enthusiasm ; it is sober, convincing argument. 
 Christian men are living witnesses for God's truth ; 
 they know that the Bible is not of earthly origin ; 
 they have no more doubt of it than they have that 
 the sun shines in the heavens. It is impossible for 
 the subtleties, or the clamors of false philosophy, to 
 dimmish the strength of this inward conviction. 
 The most unlettered Christian, shut out from the 
 world, and in the remote recesses of the wilderness, 
 has evidence of the truth of the Bible, within his 
 own soul, which all the sophistry in the world cannot 
 invalidate. 
 
 3. There is a third remark, which presents this 
 internal and spiritual evidence still more clearly in 
 the light of rational conviction. It relates to the 
 nature of the evidence which gives rise to all those 
 convictions of the human mind which flow from 
 experience and consciousness. It is the perfection of 
 reasoning when the mind, by due process of argu- 
 ment, cannot help coming to the conclusion to 
 which the argument would conduct it. By the uni- 
 versal consent of mankind, there are intuitive and 
 instinctive principles of belief that are not the result 
 of any process of induction, because they are self- 
 evident ; they are too plain to be established by any 
 such process ; nor is there anything more evident 
 than they themselves are, by which such process 
 may be conducted. The most conclusive argument 
 does nothing more than unite propositions which are
 
 252 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of questionable verity with those which are unques- 
 tioned, and thus establish the unknown by logically 
 identifying it with the known. But let it not be 
 forgotten, that the nature of evidence is adapted to 
 its subject. There is a difference between reasoning 
 and consciousness ; nor is there any need of reason- 
 ing, where we have the evidence of consciousness. 
 There is a difference between demonstration and 
 inspection; for inspection supersedes the necessity 
 of demonstration. There is a difference too between 
 coming to a logical conclusion, and making a prac- 
 tical experiment. You may demonstrate the chem- 
 ical properties of an acid, or an alkali, and thus 
 come to a scientific and just conclusion of their 
 nature ; and you may taste them, and with equal 
 certainty ascertain their properties by experience. 
 There is likewise the evidence of sense, as well as 
 the evidence of reason. When you see the light of 
 the sun, you do not need any other proof that it is 
 light ; when you hear sound, you do not need any 
 other proof that it is sound. These subjects do not 
 admit of any other evidence than the evidence of 
 the senses. When you touch a pillar of marble, 
 you know that it is cold and hard, because it feels 
 so ; and this is all the evidence you ask for. The 
 nature of evidence is adapted to its subject. 
 
 This remark, and these illustrations of it, present 
 the thought I wish to convey in relation to those 
 convictions of the mind which flow from experience 
 and consciousness. The mind of man has its senses 
 as well as his body. It has a sense of beauty and
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 253 
 
 deformity, of right and wrong. Particular classes 
 of men have a quicker and more keen apprehension 
 and sense of some subjects, than other classes. A 
 poet has a keen and intuitive discernment of the 
 beauties of poetry ; a musician, of the harmony of 
 sounds ; an artist, of the beauties of painting j an 
 architect, of the beautiful proportions of an edi- 
 fice. No man judges of subjects of this sort by 
 those laws of reasoning by which his conclusions 
 are formed of the agreement of different parts of a 
 mathematical theorem, or logical syllogism ; because 
 there are other laws of his nature besides his reason- 
 ing faculties, which are necessarily consulted. 
 
 Now Christianity addresses itself, not to the intel- 
 lect and reason of men merely, but to their moral 
 nature to their heart and conscience to what may 
 properly be called their spiritual senses. The man 
 who has experienced its power, possesses this inward 
 sense of its truth and reality. When the light of 
 truth shines upon his mind, he knows it to be truth 
 because he sees it. When the voice of God, his 
 Maker, falls upon his ear, he asks for no other evi- 
 dence that it is God's voice, than that he hears it. 
 It is a well-known voice ; there is no other voice 
 like it, or to whose accents his mind so vibrates, 
 and which produces the same inward emotions. It 
 is the voice of the Good Shepherd, leading his flock 
 in green pastures, and by the still waters. " My 
 sheep," says he, " know my voice, and follow me ; a 
 stranger they will not follow, for they know not the 
 voice of strangers." Good men love God, and love
 
 254 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 his truth. They read the Scriptures with a different 
 state of mind from that with which they are read by 
 others. They possess a " spiritual discernment of 
 spiritual things " a peculiar tact in judging of their 
 excellence and beauty. They judge by the heart, 
 as well as by the understanding ; and though in 
 other respects they may be ignorant men, it is per- 
 fectly rational that they should believe them to be 
 the word of God, if for no other evidence, than that 
 the truths they reveal have their counterpart in their 
 own experience. The man who has tasted honey, 
 as certainly knows it is sweet, as the chemist who 
 has tested its properties by scientific analysis. Plain 
 and unsophisticated men believe vastly more truths 
 on the evidence of their own experience, than they 
 believe by the more tedious process of reason- 
 ing. It is by the same sure process of experiment 
 that they believe the truths of Christianity. They 
 have tried it ; they have found that it accomplishes 
 all that it professes to accomplish. The time was 
 when they saw it in a different light, because they 
 inspected it with a different state of mind. Since 
 the love of God has controlled their inquiries, they 
 have a key, by which this cabinet of truth may be 
 unlocked, and its treasures explored. " He that 
 loveth not," says the apostle, " knoweth not God, 
 for God is love." The conclusion is a most logical 
 one. How should a man have any just conceptions 
 of a Being whose nature is love, when himself 
 knows nothing about love ? No more than a purely 
 malignant man knows what kindness is, or a purely
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 55 
 
 revengeful man knows what a forgiving spirit is, or 
 a blind man knows what color is, can a man who 
 loves not, know what God is. Our perception of 
 the moral character of our fellow men arises from 
 sympathy ; it is when heart meets heart, and love 
 responds to love, that we see into one another's 
 bosom. We know what men are, because we our- 
 selves feel, or have felt like them. Not until the 
 heart of man corresponds to the heart of God, is God 
 known. Christianity therefore speaks for itself, and 
 carries its own evidence within it, wherever its 
 power is felt. 
 
 Nor is there any mysticism in this : it involves a 
 principle of every day's concernment. The Deist 
 replies, " This may be evidence that satisfies the man 
 who feels it, but it is no argument with one who 
 does not feel it ; I have read the Bible, and find no 
 such effects from it; to my mind it is a book of 
 absurdities !" Let us test this objection, and see 
 where it will end. Set, the Deist to reason with an 
 Atheist. The Atheist may ask him, " Why do you 
 believe there is a God?" The Deist replies, "I see 
 such evidences of design ; such beauty, grandeur, 
 order, and harmony throughout the creation, that to 
 my mind it is impossible that it should not have been 
 the product of a designing Cause." The argument 
 is good ; but it rests on the Deist's perception of 
 design, order, and harmony. What if the Atheist 
 replies, "Your impressions of design and harmony 
 are all superstition ; I have never seen any such 
 indications in the created universe: the evidence
 
 256 THE BIBLE i\uT OF MAN. 
 
 may do well .enough for the man who feels it, but 
 to my mind it is no evidence at all !" Here, then, 
 the Deist is in a dilemma; he must give up his 
 objection to the reasoning of the believer in Chris- 
 tianity, which is founded on his perceptions of its 
 excellence, or he must yield to the reasoning of the 
 Atheist, against his own perceptions of the order and 
 harmony in the works of creation. He must, upon 
 his own principles, either become an Atheist or a 
 Christian. We are bold, therefore, to affirm, that 
 the spiritual perception by which every good man 
 judges of the divine origin of the Scriptures, is as 
 infallible as the perceptions of the Deist of the excel- 
 lence of the religion of nature ; as infallible as the 
 perceptions of the poet, or the artist, of the excel- 
 lence of painting or poetry ; as infallible as the cor- 
 poreal senses themselves, though acting in different 
 spheres, and conversant with different objects. There 
 is no stronger evidence ; it is the evidence of con- 
 sciousness. Let men read and obey the Bible, and 
 they will know that it is from God. The more experi- 
 mentally and practically they become acquainted 
 with it, and the more they are imbued with its 
 spirit, the more competent are they to decide on 
 the question of its divine origin from their own 
 experience, and the more certainly will they decide 
 according to truth. 
 
 4. There is a fourth remark, which gives still addi- 
 tional force to this argument. This testimony from 
 experience is fortified by a great number of witnesses, 
 and of great variety of external condition and nat-
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 257 
 
 ural character. Suppose a man of matured intelli- 
 gence and unimpeachable veracity were travelling 
 alone on an unfrequented path, and saw some unu- 
 sual phenomenon in the heavens, which he could 
 not account for, and which he himself could scarcely 
 be persuaded was a reality. The more he inspects 
 it, however, the more is he convinced that it is no 
 delusion, and that his senses have not deceived him. 
 Now it would not be surprising, if, in giving a nar- 
 rative of what he had seen, even those who had the 
 strongest confidence in his veracity should entertain 
 doubts of his statement ; nor would it be unnatural 
 for them to conclude, that he had been deceived by 
 some optical illusion, or his own imagination. But if 
 twenty, or fifty other persons, with whom he had had 
 no communication, should testify that they had wit- 
 nessed the same phenomenon from other and differ- 
 ent points of observation, there would certainly be 
 more reason to conclude that his narrative is worthy 
 of being believed. But suppose that thousands in 
 different parts of the land, and millions in different 
 portions of the earth, should testify that they had 
 simultaneously seen the same phenomenon, and that 
 their descriptions of it should all agree ; suppose that 
 among these millions there are persons of both sexes, 
 of all ages, of all natural temperaments, of all classes 
 of society, and of all degrees of intellectual cultiva- 
 tion ; it most certainly would be in accordance with 
 all the laws of evidence, and a perfectly rational 
 thing, to conclude that his narrative is true. Yet 
 is this but a faint illustration of the remark, that the
 
 258 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 testimony for the divine origin of the Scriptures 
 from experience, is fortified by a great number of 
 witnesses, of great variety of external condition and 
 natural character. 
 
 All Christians have this internal and spiritual 
 evidence. All testify to the reality of the change, 
 wrought, through the instrumentality of the Bible, 
 upon their own hearts ; the effect produced by it on 
 their own minds and character is different from that 
 produced by any other book in the world ; nor is it 
 possible for any other to produce the same moral 
 transformation. It has disclosed to them the inmost 
 recesses of their own bosoms, which nothing -else 
 could do. When polluted, it has made them holy ; 
 when anxious and troubled, it has given them peace j 
 when miserable, it has made them happy. It has 
 given the most accurate and vivid representation of 
 their sorrows and their joys, their burdens and their 
 relief, their temptations and their succors, their 
 doubts and their confidence, their fears and their 
 hopes, their unfaithfulness and their relentings, 
 their conflicts and their triumphs ; which no book 
 could give unless its Author knew Avhat was in man, 
 and is able to write out their own inward history. 
 
 It adds too not a little to the force of their tes- 
 timony, that this experience is felt in all ages of the 
 world, from righteous Abel down to the present 
 hour. It is found in all climates, and under all 
 forms of government. It is the same in the cottages 
 of Greenland, and in the valleys of the Yaudois ; in 
 polished Europe, and in the savage wilderness ; on
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 259 
 
 the continents, and in the islands. Oceans may sep- 
 arate them ; natural causes, of every variety, may 
 exert their appropriate influence upon their charac- 
 ter ; but everywhere the same experience, resulting 
 from the same cause, and producing the same con- 
 viction that that cause is God, pervades them all. 
 No matter what their sex, or condition whether 
 they be children, or men of gray hairs ; whether 
 they be Cromwell and the Lady Jane Grey on their 
 thrones, or Boaz and Ruth in the harvest field; 
 whether they be Zuingle on the battle ground, or 
 Howard in his counting-room, or John Newton pray- 
 ing at the mast-head : everywhere, and in all, 
 thought corresponds to thought, and emotion to 
 emotion. The same high-born and impelling force 
 sends the same life-blood through every artery and 
 vein of the spiritual body. And to give greater force 
 stiil to their testimony, it is given with the same 
 uniformity and explicitness by all classes of minds 
 and temperaments. The gifted, as well as those of 
 ordinary endowments ; the sanguine and the phleg- 
 matic ; the cautious and reserved ; the rash and 
 communicative ; the poet and the historian ; the 
 sensitive artist, and the cool philosopher all have 
 the same spiritual sympathies, and speak the same 
 spiritual language. 
 
 There are but two ways in which this testimony 
 can be repelled : the one is, by supposing the wit- 
 nesses to be deceivers ; the other, by supposing them 
 to be deceived. That they are all deceivers, will 
 hardly be urged by the grossest infidel. They are
 
 260 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 { 
 
 those in whom infidels themselves have confidence, 
 and who, in all matters of secular trust, are confess- 
 edly good men and true. That they are deceived, 
 is scarcely possible. It might be possible with one, 
 with ten, with fifty ; but can it be possible with 
 thousands, with millions unknown to each other, 
 and between whom there is no intercourse, no con- 
 nivance, no concert ; and whose sympathies are com- 
 mon only where they are derived from the Bible as a 
 common source ? This is the magnet, which attracts 
 all hearts with which it comes in contact the 
 spiritual magnet, which, as from a common centre, 
 sends out its ten thousand electric wires, and by its 
 telegraphic power holds communication with the 
 most distant minds, simultaneously answering to the 
 testimony first announced in heaven. 
 
 Let it not therefore be wondered at, that Chris- 
 tian men place strong dependence upon this spiritual 
 and internal evidence. 
 
 " A Christian dwells, like Uriel, in the sun ; 
 Meridian evidence puts doubt to flight, 
 And ardent hope anticipates the skies." 
 
 It is no preponderance of probabilities on which 
 such a man rests his assurance of the divine origin 
 of the Bible. It is not possible to persuade him to 
 renounce it for any false religion, however plausible 
 and captivating it may be, and however artful its 
 seductions. 
 
 This is emphatically the poor man's argument
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 261 
 
 for the divine origin of the Sacred Writings. He 
 may have no other evidence within his reach, but 
 this satisfies him. Of the witness of antiquity, of logic, 
 and history, and the fulfilment of prophecy, he may 
 know nothing ; but this one thing he knows, that 
 the Bible is to his own soul the wisdom of God and 
 the power of God unto salvation. He has found it 
 what it professes to be : this is his argument. He 
 feels that it was written on purpose for him : this is 
 his argument. It speaks to him as no other book 
 speaks : this is his argument. Man could not speak 
 thus : this is his argument. " It were like telling 
 him, that a creature spread out the firmament and 
 inlaid it with worlds, to tell him that this proffered 
 salvation is the device of impostors, or the figment 
 of enthusiasts. He that believeth, hath the testi- 
 mony written in his own bosom, not by those sen- 
 sible exhibitions of Divine power by which the laws 
 of nature are arrested, but by power equally great 
 and wondrous, the omnipotent power of the Spirit 
 of God. Others may admire the shield which the 
 industry and the ingenuity of learned men have 
 thrown over Christianity ; they may speak of the 
 solid rampart cast up by the labors of ages, and 
 pronounce the faith inaccessible, because history, 
 philosophy and science, have all combined to gird 
 round it the iron and the rock of a ponderous and 
 colossal demonstration." But the fact most to be 
 gloried in is, " that the Scripture commends itself to 
 the conscience, and experience bears out the Bible 
 that the Gospel can go the round of the world, and
 
 262 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 carry with it, in all its travel, its own mighty ere 
 dentials." 
 
 If the infidel does not confide in representations 
 like these, if he does not give the argument any 
 credence, it is matter of grief to us, but we cannot 
 help it. There is no alternative for him between a 
 true faith in Christianity, and living and dying with- 
 out God, and without hope ; between cleaving to 
 God's testimonies, and absolute despair ; between 
 glorying in them, and being overwhelmed with 
 shame and everlasting contempt. 
 
 " Ah me ! the laurell'd wreath that murder wears, 
 Blood nurs'd, and watered by the widow's tears, 
 Seems not so foul, so tainted, or so dread, 
 As waves the night-shade round the sceptic's head." 
 
 "For judgment am I come into this world," says 
 the great Author of the Bible, " that they which 
 see not, might see ; and that they which see, might 
 be made blind." Men who know too much to be 
 taught of God, must be left to their own blinding 
 delusions. 
 
 From my heart do I pity the man, who shuts the 
 eyes of his understanding against the intrinsic evi- 
 dence which this Book possesses of its heavenly ori- 
 gin. Would he allow it to speak its own facts and 
 its own doctrines, without mutilation and in all their 
 richness ; would he allow it to utter its own prom- 
 .ises and its own threatenings, its own love and 
 mercy, its own heaven and its own hell ; he would 
 find that it is no more the work of man than the snn
 
 CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 263 
 
 in the heavens no more a system of deception than 
 the sun itself is a globe of ice. 
 
 We part with the infidel, but we do not willingly 
 part with him ; nor do we leave him in the spirit of 
 unkindness. There are truths of the Bible known 
 to himself, and demonstrated by his own experience. 
 We affectionately and earnestly invite him to a field 
 of thought, which his own heart has not yet ex- 
 plored. We bid him rove over it from flower to 
 flower, and from its vernal promise to its rich har- 
 vest ; pledging him, that if he does so he shall not 
 lose his reward. Let him prove the Bible by giving 
 all its truths the trial of experience. Let him taste 
 the honey, as well as the gall : they are sweet foun- 
 tains, pure fountains, clear as crystal, from the throne 
 of God and the Lamb.
 
 264 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 THE BIBLE ACCORDANT WITH HUMAN REASON. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY would fain make converts of all 
 classes of men. It would win and gain over the 
 high and the low, the rich as well as the poor, the 
 enlightened and thinking part of mankind, as well as 
 the more uninformed. Men there are who regard 
 it as making demands upon their credulity, which 
 they feel themselves called on to resist. They look 
 upon it as so repugnant to the first principles of rea- 
 soning and the ordinary laws of credibility, that, in- 
 stead of commending itself to human reason, it is an 
 outrage upon common sense. We have no hope of 
 rendering it acceptable to the hearts of such men ; 
 while we may hope to rescue it from the charge of 
 this monstrous absurdity. We are anxious to do so 
 for the interests of truth, and because truth is the 
 appointed means of salvation. 
 
 It requires but little acquaintance with the world 
 to perceive, that one of the causes which contributes 
 to confirm a certain class of men in the.ir disbelief, 
 is the impression that the claims of Christianity can- 
 not be vindicated by human reason ; and that, in 
 order to receive it, they must forego all the authority 
 of dispassionate and fair argument. The object of
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 265 
 
 the present chapter is to throw out several sugges- 
 tions, with the view ot' obviating this difficulty, and, 
 so far as we are able, setting the claims of the 
 Christian religion, in this particular, somewhat in 
 their true light. We have a strong conviction, that 
 this religion is distinguished from all false relig- 
 ions by its perfect agreement with reason. While 
 all other systems of religion are deficient, or absurd 
 and contradictory, this alone will bear examination ; 
 the more severe the examination, the better does it 
 stand the test. It is a perfectly rational thing. It 
 makes no demands upon a senseless credulity, nor 
 in approaching it are men solicited to leave their 
 own minds behind them, or throw away their reason- 
 ing faculties. 
 
 By reason, I understand that faculty of the mind 
 by which it distinguishes truth from falsehood, and 
 enables us to deduce truths that are unknown from 
 those that are known. It is a faculty which exists 
 in different power in different minds. There is a 
 Mind in the universe which perceives all truth in- 
 tuitively; there are other minds which arrive at it 
 by a slow and more laborious process. The act of 
 reasoning consists in judging of the truth of proposi- 
 tions brought before the mind, and inferring conclu- 
 sions which are so just and natural, and which so 
 necessarily result from the propositions thus pre- 
 sented, that they are intuitively perceived. In in- 
 vestigating the question, for example, whether the 
 Scriptures are of divine origin, we go back to these 
 first and universal truths which thus lie at the fpun- 
 
 Bible not of Mao. 1 O
 
 266 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 dation of all reasoning ; which are sustained by an 
 appeal to every man's consciousness, and which are 
 believed because it is impossible not to believe them. 
 If the Bible is true, the truth of it must rest on this 
 solid foundation. On no subject whatever are reason 
 and argument more fitly employed, therefore, than 
 in investigating this momentous question. If its 
 divine authority cannot be substantiated by fair rea- 
 son and argument, or if reason and argument can 
 overthrow it, it is no longer worthy of confidence. 
 
 But it may not be forgotten, that, in order to 
 reason justly oh religious subjects, men must have 
 the opportunity and the means of reasoning. The 
 truth of this remark neither requires, nor needs evi- 
 dence in proof of it. Be it political, or legal science ; 
 be it in the physical, or the more exact sciences ; in 
 order to reason successfully, or even safely, men 
 must not only possess the faculty and power of 
 reason, but the opportunity and means of reasoning. 
 These consist in a greater or less degree of knowl- 
 edge and information on the subjects about which 
 they reason. A lucid argument on the subject of 
 civil government requires some degree of acquaint- 
 ance with the science of civil government ; a con- 
 vincing argument on the law of bailments, or insur- 
 ance, requires legal attainments ; the solution of a 
 difficult problem in geometry requires no inconsider- 
 able advancement in mathematical learning. So it 
 is with regard to questions of a religious kind. As 
 men cannot reason safely on any other subject with- 
 out some degree of information on the subject about
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 267 
 
 which they reason, it is indispensable they should 
 have some degree of religious information before 
 they can reason on the subject of religion. Reason 
 is fitted to the perception of truth, and must therefore 
 have the opportunity and means of perceiving it. 
 Whatever is true, sooner or later falls in with the 
 conclusions of reason. One mind may discover it 
 later, and by a more tedious process, than another ; 
 but when perceived, it is equally believed by both. 
 Truth does not depend on our perceiving it ; nor 
 is it less true when perceived by other minds, 
 though unperceived by our own. A religious truth 
 that is worked out by the tardy process of human 
 reasoning, is not the less true because it is intuitively 
 discovered by a mind that is more exalted ; nor is it 
 less true, though we receive it on the testimony of 
 his perceptions. Nor, when it is reached by the 
 process of reasoning, is it less true because it is first 
 perceived by those who have superior knowledge 
 and superior means of reasoning ; for when we our- 
 selves come to possess the same knowledge and the 
 same means, we shall perceive it as well as they. 
 The more our sources of religious knowledge are 
 increased, and the greater the variety of religious 
 truths with which our minds are furnished, the bet- 
 ter are we fitted to reason on the subject ; and if we 
 follow the sound and true dictates of reason, the 
 more confidently may we rely on our conclusions. 
 
 There are several sources of information, and 
 means and opportunities of reasoning, on religious 
 subjects. One of these is the Book of Nature.
 
 268 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
 firmament sheAveth his handy work." "Ask now 
 the beasts, and they shall teach thee ; and the fowls 
 of heaven, and they shall tell thee. Or speak to the 
 earth, and it shall teach thee ; and the fishes of the 
 sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in 
 all these, that the hand of the Lord hath wrought 
 this ?" One of them is the Book of Providence, 
 Avhere, from facts in the history of the world, as well 
 as events which take place under our own observa- 
 tion, important lessons are learned concerning God 
 as the great Governor, and men as his responsible 
 subjects. These instructions are valuable in propor- 
 tion to their plainness and extent. They are so, 
 because they utter the voice of God; they are a 
 revelation of his will; they constitute some of the 
 forms in which he himself addresses truth to the 
 minds of his creatures. Nor is there anything that is 
 unreasonable in such a revelation as this. It is rea- 
 sonable to suppose that the creation should speak for 
 its Creator, and that the government which he is 
 exercising over his creatures, by his providence, 
 should speak to them in language of no equivocal 
 import. I have yet to learn that any class of infidels 
 have called in question the reasonableness of such a 
 revelation. 
 
 But what if, in addition to such a revelation, it 
 has pleased God to make a more full disclosure of 
 his mind and will ? Is there anything unreasonable 
 in this hypothesis ? The Bible professes to be such 
 a revelation : is there anything unreasonable in what
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 2(,9 
 
 it reveals ? Let us direct our thoughts a few mo- 
 ments to these two inquiries. 
 
 Is it unreasonable that such a revelation should 
 be made, in addition to the disclosures of nature and 
 providence ? It is the province of reason, not to 
 originate truth, but to discover it. Can it discover, 
 from these sources alone, all that is necessary for 
 men to know ? Can it discover it with that cer- 
 tainty that satisfies the philosophic, or to that extent 
 which satisfies the popular mind? Socrates and 
 Seneca did not think so the civil and popular the- 
 ology of the pagan world bears uniform testimony 
 that "the world by wisdom knew not God." To 
 the great purpose of man's existence as a moral and 
 immortal being, the works and providence of God 
 have spoken in vain. So far as they regard the 
 Divine counsels respecting our fallen race, they have 
 spoken in vain. If it were reasonable that He who 
 is the light of the universe should not leave this 
 lower world in darkness that may be felt ; if it were 
 reasonable that the Father of mercies and the God 
 of the spirits of all flesh should stretch forth his hand 
 to rescue his falling children from the bottomless 
 abyss ; it is reasonable to look for a more abundant 
 and hopeful revelation than is contained in his works 
 of creation and providence. " Let reason count the 
 stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths the 
 employment becomes her, and the success is glori- 
 ous. But when the question is, ' How shall man be 
 just with God?' reason must be silent, revelation 
 must speak."
 
 270 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 If, then, there is nothing unreasonable in the 
 hypothesis that God should give men a more full 
 revelation, is there anything unreasonable in the 
 revelation itself, which professes to have God for its 
 Author 1 In replying to this inquiry, several dis- 
 tinct thoughts deserve consideration. 
 
 All will agree, that a religion that has God for 
 its Author, cannot be unreasonable. Whether we 
 can discover it to be so, or not, it must be a reason- 
 able religion. Better were it to impeach our own 
 reason, than his. Nor is this altogether a " begging 
 the question," or "reasoning in a circle." To 
 exalt reason above its own place, is to debase it : to 
 set the human in rivalry with the Divine, is to make 
 it contemptible. The Bible claims to be a reason- 
 able religion ; to require a " reasonable service ;" to 
 reveal " the words of truth and soberness." Reason 
 in creatures is essentially the same with reason in 
 the Deity ; save that, while their conclusions are 
 arrived at, for the most part with difficulty, his are 
 intuitively made ; and while with them reason is 
 finite, and liable to err, in the Divine mind it is 
 unerring and infinite. The most reasonable Being 
 in the universe cannot be the author of an unreason- 
 able revelation. The God of heaven does not need 
 to be instructed, and dictated to by human reason : 
 human reason needs to be tutored and schooled by 
 Divine wisdom. Whether the system of truth and 
 piety revealed in the Scriptures, does or does not, 
 in our judgment, coincide with sound reason, we 
 have the highest evidence the nature of the case
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 271 
 
 admits, that it does so in fact. This, however, is 
 not the ground on which we rest the reasonableness 
 of the religion revealed in the Scriptures. The 
 question, whether this religion is or is not intrinsi- 
 cally contrary to reason, is not out of place. 
 
 I remark therefore, further, It is no objection to 
 the reasonableness of this religion, that it contains 
 truths which human reason itself could never have 
 discovered. There are those who hold that nothing 
 is reasonable, save that which human reason origi- 
 nally discovers. But is it so, that there is nothing 
 known to the minds of angels, or to the mind of 
 the Infinite Deity, that is unknown to men? If 
 human reason could have devised the system of 
 truth and grace found in the Bible, there had been 
 no need of a supernatural revelation. It is not 
 denied that truths are here revealed that could never 
 have been known but for Divine teaching. The 
 utmost powers of the human mind fail in the effort 
 to discover them ; nor, untaught of God, could they 
 ever have proved them to be true. Unaided reason 
 had not the remotest suggestion, or hint of some of 
 them, until they were disclosed by light from heaven. 
 Imagination herself did not venture a faint fore- 
 shadowing of them. Human reason had no creed, 
 no fixed opinions, in relation to problems which the 
 Bible solves to the satisfaction of the merest tyro 
 in the school of Christ. The solution of them had 
 not its antetype in the human mind : it was no- 
 where, save in the mind of the Deity, and in the 
 deep counsels of the eternity where he dwells.
 
 272 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 We say to those persons who have persuaded 
 themselves that human reason could have accom- 
 plished ah 1 that was necessary for man's salvation, 
 that the moral history of our world, nay, the history 
 of the universe shows, that when once any race of 
 creatures have fallen from their primeval integrity,- 
 it is beyond the limits of reason, whether in the 
 human or the angelic mind, to devise a method by 
 which they may be restored to the Divine favor. 
 The angelic race who fell, with all their lofty powers 
 of intellect, have not, during the progress of tedious 
 centuries of suffering, discovered any way of escape. 
 It is perfectly obvious that, on the apostacy of our 
 first parents, all expectation of recovery from the 
 efforts of their own reason was a forlorn hope. Nor 
 has it been in the power of their descendants, dur- 
 ing the progress of six thousand years, in any part 
 of the world, to ascertain from the lights of reason 
 and nature, whether God will forgive sin. Human 
 reason has had full and unobstructed opportunity to 
 make the discovery among all nations and every 
 clime, in ages of ignorance and barbarism, and in 
 ages of great intellectual cultivation and vigor ; and 
 the result shows, that the most acute philosopher, 
 and the degraded child of the forest, are alike igno- 
 rant of those truths which bring relief to the solic- 
 itude and despondency of man when contemplating 
 his character as a sinner. The various religions of 
 man's devising are everywhere the religions of pen- 
 alty, of fear : the basis of them all is a deep and 
 inwrought impression of the awful majesty of God
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 273 
 
 as the Avenger. It is perfectly accordant with the 
 dictates of reason, therefore, that a revelation that 
 meets the wants of man should itself be, not the 
 creature of reason, but of God. 
 
 As a consequence of this position, it is altogether 
 reasonable, that a religion, revealed from heaven, 
 should contain truths that are above and beyond the 
 power of human reason to comprehend. Infidels and 
 rationalists object to the Bible, and affirm that it is 
 contrary to reason, because it contains mysterious 
 truths. But why should it be thought unreason- 
 able, that a system of truth, which is confessedly 
 beyond the power of man's devising, should contain 
 truths which convict human reason of imbecility? 
 What is there irrational and illogical in the position, 
 that the wisdom of man is confounded and baffled 
 before " the deep things of God ?" We affirm, that 
 it is most reasonable to believe that a revelation from 
 God contains some such mysterious features. It is 
 for such truths among others, if not for such truths 
 mainly, that such a revelation is needed. Now that 
 it reveals them, so far from being any objection 
 to the divine origin of the revelation, they remain 
 among the evidences of its divine origin. They con- 
 stitute one of the proofs that such a revelation is 
 consistent with the highest reason. They are truths 
 that are unwelcome to the proud and selfish heart of 
 man ; truths which show that human reason, with all 
 its self-confidence, has its boundaries ; and at the same 
 time truths which reason, unless strangely recreant 
 to her own prerogative, is constrained to honor. 
 
 Bible not of Man. 12*
 
 274 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 There are truths above the discovery of human 
 reason, and which, when revealed, reason compre- 
 hends ; and there are also those which, when re- 
 vealed, are above its comprehension. There are 
 more of the former than the latter ; while the latter 
 are, if possible, of greater importance, because they 
 are so intimately connected with the most important 
 practical truths of Christianity. The doctrine of the 
 Trinity, and of the Incarnation, are mysterious and 
 incomprehensible truths. They are revealed as mys- 
 teries ; they are facts, the existence of which is af- 
 firmed by the testimony of Him who cannot lie, and 
 believed on that testimony. But there is nothing 
 contradictory in the statements we find of them in 
 the Bible ; there is nothing in these statements that 
 contradicts any other truth which the Scriptures 
 reveal ; nor has it ever been shown, nor can it be, 
 that they are inconsistent with reason. Though 
 man's reason does not comprehend them, the rea- 
 son of the Great God comprehends them ; and for 
 all that we know, in a future and more advanced 
 state of being, they may be comprehended by crea- 
 tures. In a revelation from the incomprehensible 
 God, it is not unreasonable to look for some incom- 
 prehensible truths. His nature leads us to look for 
 them ; his works lead us to look for them ; his pro- 
 vidence leads us to look for them : it was to be ex- 
 pected that the Bible would contain them. " Who 
 by searching can find out God ? who can find out 
 the Almighty to perfection ?" It were a fault, rather 
 than an excellence in the Scriptures it were in ill
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 275 
 
 keeping with the revelations God has made of him- 
 self elsewhere, did they contain no mysteries. Did 
 they not contain them, infidels themselves would 
 have laid hold of this fact as proof of imposture. It 
 is no impeachment of the Divine wisdom, or good- 
 ness, that the Bible contains them ; nor are they the 
 less reasonable, because they cannot be explained. 
 We have no right to claim of God, that all that he 
 reveals should be divested of incomprehensibleness. 
 Such a curiosity were unhallowed; nor could any 
 limit be assigned to it, if once indulged. Angels do 
 not comprehend all that God has revealed ; and why 
 should man be dissatisfied? 
 
 That no man can rationally believe facts which 
 he does not comprehend, is, of all positions, one of 
 the most unreasonable and absurd. If it is reason- 
 able to believe facts which he cannot comprehend, 
 it is reasonable to beh'ere truths which he cannot 
 comprehend ; for truth is but the veracious statement 
 of facts. The objector himself believes a multitude 
 of such truths, and regulates his conduct by them 
 every day. Some of them he perceives intuitively : 
 they are, indeed, too plain to be capable of proof 
 by any logical process. He cannot explain the very 
 union between his own body and mind ; nor the ac- 
 tion of his thoughts upon his will ; nor the influence 
 of his will upon his outward conduct ; nor the man- 
 ner in which his own mind holds intercourse with 
 other minds, any more than he can explain how 
 God was manifest in the flesh, or how his Spirit acts 
 upon the soul in fitting it for heaven. He cannot
 
 276 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 escape from the region of incomprehensibleness, go 
 where he will. A revelation that instructs him in 
 the nature of the incomprehensible God; in his 
 counsels and government ; in the method of his in- 
 comprehensible grace, and in an incomprehensible 
 eternity ; bears a relation to realities so vast and im- 
 measurable, that it is constantly bordering on mys- 
 tery. It is incomprehensible, for the very reason 
 that it is true truth that must be incomprehensible, 
 because it is lofty and sublime as its Author. These 
 are the truths, in the contemplation of which " they 
 in heaven veil their faces with their wings." You 
 cannot dishonor these wondrous truths, without dis- 
 honoring their wondrous Source. You cannot dis- 
 card them without discarding his whole revelation ; 
 without tearing away the foundations of human hope ; 
 without uprooting the truth which sustains the 
 branches and the fruit of immortality. Those very 
 truths of the Bible, therefore, which to the slight in- 
 spection of the rationalist appear the most objectiona- 
 ble to human reason, are truths which human reason 
 might well presume such a revelation would contain. 
 But we cannot establish the position we have 
 taken in the present chapter, without directing our 
 thoughts somewhat more minutely to some of the 
 great truths and principles which the Bible reveals, 
 for the purpose of seeing if they do not constitute a 
 reasonable system. If we mistake not, there are 
 grounds and reasons for these truths sufficient to 
 satisfy every sober and dispassionate mind. They 
 are at war with no previous truths revealed by the
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 277 
 
 lights of nature and reason, and inscribed on the 
 consciences of men ; but are, on the other hand, in 
 perfect harmony with them all. It is indeed a pre- 
 sumptuous service Avhich we assign to human reason, 
 to sit in judgment upon the truths which the uner- 
 ring Oracle of the universe has revealed, and whose 
 "ways are past finding out." But for the sake of 
 the argument, we will give the infidel this vantage 
 ground, and ask him to look into the Bible, and in- 
 dicate to us the truths against which human reason 
 rebels. 
 
 The leading truths, and those on which all the rest 
 depend, are few, and are very intelligibly revealed. 
 They are, the sovereign right of the Great God to 
 give law to his creatures the apostate character and 
 lost condition of man as the transgressor of that law 
 the great remedy which the Gospel provides for the 
 pardon and justification of all those who truly re- 
 ceive it the provision which it makes for their per- 
 sonal holiness and sanctification and the unalterable 
 retributions of the eternal world. Let common sense 
 inspect these doctrines ; letjreason investigate them : 
 let philosophy analyze them let her intellectual 
 resources be taxed to the uttermost ; and they can 
 find nothing in them that is not worthy of having a 
 place in their creed. They all commend themselves 
 to our honest convictions of truth and right ; we 
 have but to state them truly, and we may safely 
 make the appeal to all intelligent beings, if they are 
 not conformed to human reason. 
 
 The sovereign right of God to give law to his
 
 278 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 creatures, belongs to him from his original and un- 
 derived supremacy. Reason decides intuitively, that 
 it is the prerogative of a superior to give law to his 
 inferiors. This is the prerogative of all civil rulers, 
 whatever be the form of government under which 
 this prerogative is exercised. And if men, who have 
 no natural, but only a borrowed, delegated and con- 
 ventional supremacy, possess this right, much more 
 does the Infinite God possess it, who is by nature 
 supreme, and whose power, wisdom, goodness and 
 rectitude qualify him, and him alone, to be the uni- 
 versal Lawgiver. 
 
 The doctrine of human apostacy is rather stated 
 and illustrated in the Bible, than revealed ; for the 
 history of man demonstrates it ; human reason, how- 
 ever reluctantly, confesses it to be true ; and though 
 she strives to view it in more flattering lights than 
 those in which the Scriptures represent it, she is 
 constrained to behpld it in all its ugliness, and in 
 the dark shadows of scriptural truth. The conse- 
 quent ill desert of man is an unavoidable inference 
 from his sinfulness, deduced as certainly by reason 
 as by the Scriptures. Reason decides, that no wise 
 and good lawgiver may overlook the violations of his 
 law. There is no such thing as law without an 
 expressed, or implied penalty. The force and sanc- 
 tion of Taw consist in penalty, and without it the 
 lawgiver has no authority. Conscience, too, every- 
 where recognizes man's ill desert as the consequence 
 of his sin ; and no sooner does he sin, than there 
 arises in his bosom a sense of ill desert, and an
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 279 
 
 indestructible conviction of his obnoxiousness and 
 obligation to punishment. 
 
 Men in all ages of the world have adopted the 
 principle, that the wrath of Heaven must be appeased 
 for past offences. Their altars and their sacrifices, 
 with one voice, bear testimony to the necessity of 
 some propitiatory libations to the offended Deity. 
 What, then, is there unreasonable in the method of 
 redemption by Jesus Christ ? Reason surely does 
 not divest the Supreme Lawgiver of his pardoning 
 power. Every lawgiver has a natural right to exer- 
 cise this prerogative ; and he has also a moral right 
 to exercise it, wherever it can be done without con- 
 flicting with the best interests of the government. 
 Whether the Great Lawgiver could wisely and right- 
 fully exercise the pardoning power, through the 
 mediation of another, who should himself make sat- 
 isfaction to Divine justice, is a question for the dis- 
 cretion, the wisdom, the rectitude of the Lawgiver 
 to decide. He has decided it in favor of such 'a 
 commutation of punishment, as shall rescue the guilty 
 without -destroying the innocent substitute. That 
 there should be no act of injustice to the substitute, 
 everything on his part is perfectly voluntary. And 
 that there should be no injustice to the government, 
 the substitute himself is of such high consideration 
 in the court of heaven, that the ends of justice are 
 not trifled with, but fully answered by his substitu- 
 tion in the place of the guilty. Now, why should 
 human reason revolt at this ? Remote as it is from 
 the ordinary apprehensions of mankind, does not
 
 280 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 reason decide that very important ends are gained 
 by it, which could not have been gained by the 
 absolute and sovereign exercise of the dispensing 
 power? Are there not manifestations of love and 
 goodness which could not have been made without 
 it ? Is not such a procedure more conducive to the 
 ends of justice, more expressive of the evil of sin, 
 better adapted to strengthen veneration for the law 
 and promote the interests of good government, than 
 either the sealed and certain ruin of the entire race, 
 or the arbitrary exercise of the pardoning power 
 without any atonement for transgression ? Human 
 governments cannot exist without the great principle 
 of representation ; the parent represents his child, the 
 guardian his ward ; moneyed associations their con- 
 stituents : why should this arrangement be impugned 
 in the Divine government? Men forgive for the 
 love of another ; and so does God. Human govern- 
 ments remit penalty through the intercession of men 
 of merit, men in power, and men of high and com- 
 manding influence ; and so does God, through the 
 intercession of his Son. Men accept the responsi- 
 bility of one man for the defalcations of another ; 
 and so does God. Men receive an amendment for 
 wrong, freely offered by another than the wrong- 
 doer ; and so does God. If the Roman Fabius, when 
 condemned to death by the dictator, was pardoned 
 because the Roman people implored that he might 
 find mercy for their sakes, what is there unreasona- 
 ble in the fact, that sinners of our race should be for- 
 given for the sake of Christ ? If the rigid execution
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 281 
 
 of the penalty had been ruinous to the entire race, 
 and clemency thus exercised would give authority 
 to the Divine government, why should reason oppose 
 such a method of mercy ? Why may not the Divine 
 government accept some competent substitute, if 
 some kinsman Redeemer can be found, who is too 
 much the friend of justice to see sin go unpunished, 
 and who is, at the same time, too much the friend 
 of man to see him sink under the stroke of justice ? 
 Why, I demand, may not such a substitute be 
 accepted, when he not only freely offers himself to 
 bear the mighty burden, but is able to bear it ; and 
 from the low grave, to which it crushes him, to rise 
 with new laurels on his brow, with his rescued vic- 
 tims on his breast, penetrated by his love, reformed 
 and restored, loyal subjects of the Divine kingdom, 
 affectionate and dutiful children of the Divine fam- 
 ily? Is this an unreasonable redemption? Were 
 all the wisdom of angels and men collected in one 
 vast assembly, to scrutinize this method of mercy, 
 with all its wonders, could its reasonableness be 
 challenged, or its fitness be called in question, or its 
 moral influence impugned? 
 
 This great truth is connected in the Scriptures 
 with the provision they make for the personal holi- 
 ness and sanctification of the fallen. And what is 
 there in this that is unreasonable ? Is it not a fact, 
 that creatures depraved and degenerate as men are, 
 need a radical transformation of character in order to 
 be happy ? Reason and philosophy urge the neces- 
 sity of this change, as well as the Bible.
 
 '282 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 Is it the decision of the Bible, that no means and 
 no motives are effectual for the production of this 
 change ? Such is the rigid conclusion of reason and 
 experience, as well as the decision of the Bible. 
 
 Is it the decision of the Bible, that the Author of 
 this change is God himself? Why should he not 
 be ? Does reason decide that he renews the face of 
 the earth, and crowns the year with his goodness ; 
 that he opens his hand, and satisfies the desire of 
 every living thing ; that he is the Father of the rain, 
 and begetteth the drops of the dew ; and does it 
 question if he is the Author of a spiritual character 
 in fallen man ? Does reason decide that every good 
 gift, and every perfect gift, is from the Father of 
 lights, and that this highest and best gift has no such 
 divine origin ? 
 
 Or is it the decision of the Scriptures, that this 
 heaven-imparted holiness is the fruit of the Sav- 
 iour's death, and that it is his love which constrains 
 men to cease from their hostility to God, and to 
 return to his Father, and their Father, in his name ? 
 Is it unreasonable that this Great Sufferer should 
 have some reward some fitting recompense ? And 
 what so fitting, so reasonable, as to have gained the 
 olflects of his redemption, and when once gained, 
 that " nothing should pluck them out of his hand ?" 
 
 We will not pursue this specification of particu- 
 lar truths. They are all of a piece. Human reason 
 need not take the alarm j she may be satisfied with 
 them. The understanding, the conscience, the heart, 
 the whole soul may be satisfied with them, as every
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 283 
 
 way worthy of God, as furnishing the highest proof 
 of his wisdom and love, as reading the most instruc- 
 tive and striking lessons to the universe, as announ- 
 cing glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, arid 
 good will to men. There is no folly, no weakness, 
 no wildness, nor extravagance here. Wondrous as 
 these truths are, they are too intelligible to be irra- 
 tional ; too rational not to interest the strongest 
 intellect. There is a simplicity and grandeur in 
 them that rebut all the cavils of a cold and sceptical 
 rationalism, and carry conviction to thoughtful minds 
 that they are of God. They make common cause 
 with all that is intelligent in the universe. They 
 form as truly the religion of philosophers, as of the 
 common people. Some of the greatest minds the 
 world has known, minds as vigorous and well-fur- 
 nished, minds which science has been proud to honor, 
 have revelled in the truths of the Bible, and been its 
 triumphant defenders against all the invasion of its 
 malignant foes. So far from being a shallow system, 
 or making any claims on the credulity of men, it 
 sounds the note of alarm against all belief on slight 
 evidence, and is sure to gratify, by every fresh de- 
 mand it makes upon human intelligence. 
 
 If from the truths of Christianity, we pass to 
 consideration of the duties it enjoins, we shall find 
 that these also are founded in the highest reason. 
 With the exception of its positive institutions, they 
 are all founded in the nature of the Deity, in the 
 nature of man, and in the relations which he sustains 
 towards God and his fellow men. There is no form
 
 284 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of iniquity, be it open excess, or hidden wickedness, 
 on which it does not frown. In every conflict 
 between right and wrong, however the wrong may 
 be sanctioned by custom, influence, or law, it is 
 always found on the right side. It has the only 
 strong hold in the universe upon the morals of indi- 
 vidual men, and upon the moral sense and habits of 
 human society. It silently inweaves itself with all 
 the relations of social and public life, everywhere 
 proclaiming the laws of rectitude in the ears of the 
 prince and the peasant. It has no pious frauds ; no 
 fabulous, or magic power ; no falsehoods, by which 
 the terrors of superstition are excited, or allayed ; but 
 urges all its obligations simply by the authority and 
 love of its Author, and the allurement of its truths. 
 It regulates the outward conduct by first regulating 
 the heart, and implanting in the inner man the fear 
 of God and the love of Jesus Christ. It dimin- 
 ishes what is imaginary, and gives power and pro- 
 minence to what is real ; it throws into the back- 
 ground the vanities of time, and brings forward in 
 bold relief the realities of eternity. It controls, not 
 by impulse and passion, but by the strength of 
 principle. 
 
 *The duties it prescribes are all intelligible, com- 
 prehensively expressed, and easily remembered. Nor 
 is there one of them that is not right in itself, and 
 of the happiest tendency. It requires men to love 
 that which is lovely, and hate that which is odious ; 
 to neglect the unimportant, and pursue the impor- 
 tant. It enforces every obligation of dependence and
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 285 
 
 gratitude, of nature and of law. It gives its sanc- 
 tion to everything which reason sanctions. Reason 
 instinctively revolts at every violation of its laws, 
 as an unnatural perversion of what is right. Any 
 other system of duties would at once be felt to be 
 irrational. Notwithstanding all the power which sin 
 exerts over the human mind, in spite of itself, hu- 
 man reason recoils from any moral direction different 
 from that given to it by Christianity. 
 
 There is a great difference between the happi- 
 ness enjoyed with the approbation of conscience, and 
 that which is felt without, or against it. There is, 
 no doubt, pleasure in sinning : the hope of unlawful 
 gratification constitutes the fatal charm. But there 
 is an immense abatement of this happiness, arising 
 from remorse and fear: the consciousness of guilt 
 often grows to such intensity, as more than to coun- 
 teract all the pleasure. This is the moral arrange- 
 ment of the Bible : and can there be an arrangement 
 more reasonable, more wise ? The language of such 
 an arrangement is, that its Author, solicitous as he is 
 for the happiness of men, is mainly solicitous that 
 they should be happy through the possession of a 
 virtuous, moral character ; and that their happiness 
 itself should be the fruit and one of the expressions 
 of their excellence. 
 
 I ask, then, if Christianity be not accordant with 
 human reason? May not the man of this world 
 deem it the proudest eminence to which his reason 
 can aspire, to sit at the feet of this heavenly Teacher, 
 and bow without gainsaying to its every decision ?
 
 286 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 It is only false and corrupted reason that fears the 
 Bible, or that the Bible frowns upon. It inculcates 
 no unreasonable doctrine, insists on no unreasona- 
 ble duty, aims at no unreasonable end. It forms the 
 most rational and consistent scheme of belief, and 
 morals, and hopes. 
 
 Let it be compared with the systems of ancient 
 philosophy, and no dbubt can remain as to which is 
 accordant with reason. Let it be compared with the 
 fictions of paganism ; with the fables of its poets, and 
 the representations of its historians ; and while, in its 
 best forms, paganism will be found a disgrace to 
 human reason, this wonderful Book will be found to 
 be no dishonor to the intelligence of the " God only 
 wise." Thousands of years rolled over the pagan 
 world, and its most gigantic minds in vain attempted 
 to invent a religion which reason could approve. 
 Never was experiment more fairly, or more fully 
 made ; never was failure more complete. Reason 
 covers her face, and retires ashamed from the inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 With very little pretext may men boast of their 
 reason, who reject the Bible. The more this book 
 is read, and the better it is understood, the more 
 rational will it appear. If men of lofty intellect 
 have disbelieved it, it was not owing to their supe- 
 rior intelligence. Intelligence enlightened, unbi- 
 assed intelligence cannot see that to be irrational 
 which is not so. On a multitude of subjects, the 
 reason of these very men has been satisfied with a 
 tithe of the evidence that establishes the reasona-
 
 ACCORDANT WITH REASON. 287 
 
 bleness of the Scriptures. That there are instances 
 in which intelligent men have rejected it from the 
 want of evidence which to them is inaccessible, it is 
 ^very difficult to believe, so long as the Bible itself is 
 accessible. 
 
 With the Bible in their hands, men may be safely 
 left to the sound deductions of reason. To one of 
 two results reason will lead them. Legitimately 
 followed, it will make them Christians, or Atheists. 
 If the Bible is not from God, I see not what is 
 from him. An inadequate cause is no cause. I 
 believe there is a God, because I find in the world 
 such a book as the Bible : demonstrate to me that 
 this book is not of God, and I cannot stop short of 
 blank Atheism. God lives in vain, if he has not 
 spoken in the Bible or rather, he does not live 
 there is no God ! Away, away with this, thought 
 of blasphemy ! " The Lord liveth, and blessed be 
 my Rock !" There is reality, there is truth, there is 
 reason in this Book of God. "Call now, if there 
 be any to answer thee ; and to what other wilt thou 
 turn?"
 
 288 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 IF there be the weight in the preceding consid- 
 erations which we attach to them, the Bible is not 
 of man, but the work of God. Penned as it was 
 by men, with powers and passions like our own, 
 yet was it not in the " words which man's wisdom 
 teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." In 
 tracing, in the foregoing imperfect argument, those 
 developements of a cause which is more than human, 
 may we not affirm, " This is the finger of God !" 
 Every distinct consideration has its separate degree 
 of importance ; while, in the aggregate, they form a 
 moral argument in favor of Divine Inspiration, which 
 1 trust may be regarded as deserving a place in the 
 considerations of reflecting men. 
 
 1. There are many thoughts on which it would 
 be pleasant to dwell in this concluding chapter, the 
 first of which relates to the nature and importance 
 of the argument from the Bible itself. The thought 
 of living within the empire of the God of heaven, 
 without any clearer indications of his mind and 
 will, as to our duty and final destination, than are 
 furnished by the lights of reason and nature, ceases 
 to be painful, only when it is forgotten and lost
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 289 
 
 sight of. The more it is present to the mind, and 
 the more it is dwelt upon, the more it is full of 
 agony. It is no marvel, that some of the wiser 
 and more thoughtful heathen of antiquity expressed 
 the hope, that the time would come when light 
 would dawn from heaven, and dissipate the dark- 
 ness and uncertainty that enveloped them. 
 
 A revelation from God is indispensably necessary 
 to make known his will. The only question is, 
 Where is this revelation contained ? We affirm that 
 it was given at various times and in diverse ways ; 
 and that it was finally committed to writing, and is 
 contained in what are called the Books of the Old 
 and New Testaments. We maintain, that since the 
 completion of this volume all immediate revelations 
 from God have ceased ; and that there is no imme- 
 diate revelation of his will, except that which is here 
 expressed. 
 
 We mean by inspiration, in the first place, that 
 we have things here revealed that are directly mat- 
 ters of faith ; and that with respect to these, both the 
 matter and the words were inspired, and the writers 
 of them are very justly called the amanuenses of the 
 Holy Ghost. In the next place, we have revelations 
 of Scripture facts handed down by written tradition, 
 and collected from other authentic sources, to which 
 the writers were divinely directed , and in the pre- 
 sentation of which they were enabled, by the Divine 
 Spirit, to distinguish the false from the true. And 
 in the third place, we have a revelation of things, or 
 facts directly perceived seen and heard by the 
 
 Bibls not of Man. 

 
 290 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 \vriters themselves; and in recording which the 
 Divine Spirit assisted their memories, so that they 
 could put down what they did really see and hear. 
 In one word, the God of heaven has given such a 
 direction to the writers of this volume, that he is 
 responsible for the Book itself. 
 
 The proof that this record is the word of God. 
 is principally of two sorts ; external, and internal : 
 the first is testimony- drawn from facts, and not im- 
 mediately from the Bible ; the second is evidence 
 drawn directly from the Bible itself. This internal 
 evidence, or the evidence found exclusively within 
 the book itself, is separate from the external, and 
 forms a distinct topic of consideration. So far as it 
 regards our argument, it matters not who wrote the 
 sacred Books, or whether they were received as 
 inspired at the time when they first made their ap- 
 pearance ; our object has been to show that the 
 writers of them, whoever they may have been, 
 were inspired men. 
 
 The process is a simple one by which we ascer- 
 tain what are the works of God, and what is the 
 work of man. There are works which can be per- 
 formed only by the Infinite and Omnipotent Creator. 
 We have but to look upon them, and we know that 
 they are his : our conclusion is one which it is not 
 in the power of a sane mind to resist. The human 
 mind cannot conceive them to be the work of man. 
 We think it has been shown that this is true of the 
 Bible ; that it is a production that never could have 
 had man for its author : the supposed cause is inade-
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 291 
 
 quate to the effect. There is no other book, that 
 man might not have written this is the work of 
 God, proved to be such by the same evidence as 
 proves that the sun in the firmament was brought 
 into existence by his creative power. We look at 
 the sun, and know that man could not have created it ; 
 we inspect the Bible, and our convictions are equally 
 strong, that no unaided human pen could have 
 written those wondrous pages. The substance of 
 our argument in favor of its divine origin is just 
 this, and nothing more. A thinking man, ship- 
 wrecked on a desolate island, and who knows 
 nothing about this Book save what the Book itself 
 contains, when once he understands it, and feels its 
 power, could not resist the conviction that it is what 
 it claims to be the word of God. 
 
 If God has revealed his will to men, he must 
 have associated with that revelation itself convinc- 
 ing evidence of its divine origin. There must be 
 marks upon it that indicate its celestial birth. The 
 strength of the argument in favor of its heavenly 
 parentage, must be in the Book itself, rather than in 
 anything which is out of it in those internal indi- 
 cations which it bears of its Divine Author, rather 
 than in those external processes by which it may be 
 traced to the heaven whence it came. The human 
 mind requires stronger proof of its superhuman 
 origin, than any such historical research can furnish. 
 However strong those convictions of its divine 
 authority which are produced by an induction of 
 the historical argument, those convictions are stronger
 
 292 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 which result from an inspection of the Scriptures 
 themselves. We do not deem it enough, that the 
 sacred writers themselves profess to be inspired ; this 
 is important testimony, but, aside from what they 
 wrote, it is not decisive ; and it is only in connection 
 with what they wrote, that it is entitled to confi- 
 dence. On a question where such momentous inter- 
 ests are at stake, we may look for the best evidence 
 which the nature of the case admits. And what is 
 this, if not the Book itself ? If the Book itself 
 does not discover the hand of God, nor utter the 
 voice of God, nor reveal the heart of God, there is 
 no testimony whatever that it is not the work of 
 man. Just as holy men of old, when God revealed 
 himself to them by the ministry of angels, or by 
 audible voices, or in visions, or by Urim and Thum- 
 mim, had the unwavering assurance that he himself 
 spoke to them, and not another, may men have the 
 conviction that it is God himself, and not another, 
 who addresses them in his word. It must, in the 
 nature of the case, be a self-authenticated revelation. 
 It is with grateful admiration of the condescending 
 goodness of God, that we contemplate the fact, that 
 he has rendered the evidence of divine inspiration 
 accessible to those, who, although they cannot read 
 extensively, can and do read the Bible, and discover 
 in it indubitable evidence of its heavenly source. 
 This is emphatically the argument of the un- 
 learned the poor man's argument hidden perad- 
 venture " from the wise and prudent, and revealed 
 unto babes."
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 293 
 
 It often happens that many who are first in human 
 learning, are last in the knowledge of God. The 
 religion -of the Bible is the religion of the multi- 
 tude ; not the religion of the schools. A babe in 
 Christ discovers in it what is never discovered by 
 the pride and vanity of human learning, however 
 great its originality and profoundness of research. 
 The schools of pagan philosophy were among its 
 earliest and most virulent opposers, because it ob- 
 scured their literary fame, and shook the proud 
 fabric of their intellectual ambition. " I cannot 
 dispute for Christ," said a heroic female martyr, " but 
 I can die for him." Those who live by the Bible, 
 can die by the Bible : though amid burning fires, 
 they repose upon its promises as on a bed of roses, 
 while, amid the fragrance of its unearthly atmo- 
 sphere, their spirits return to him who gave them. 
 
 The time was, when men of learning and men 
 of faith gave greater prominence to this inherent evi- 
 dence, than to the external testimony. I know not 
 from what causes it has happened unless it be that 
 the defenders of Christianity have been driven to the 
 effort by the learning and researches of infidelity, as 
 well as stimulated by an honest consciousness of 
 their own superior learning and researches that such 
 prominence has been given by Christian writers to 
 this latter department of inquiry. The principal 
 writers in favor of a supernatural revelation, more 
 especially since the attacks made upon it by Hume 
 and Gibbon, have directed their attention mainly to 
 this external testimony. In so doing, they have not 

 
 294 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 only been successful, but triumphant ; the battery 
 of the enemy has been silenced, and the strong fast- 
 nesses in which he trusted taken by storm. So far 
 as my information extends, Lardner, Michaelis, 
 Jones, Paley, Chalmers and Stuart, to say nothing 
 of others, have furnished a mass of historical testi- 
 mony to which infidels have not ventured to give 
 anything which they themselves consider a reply : it 
 stands unassailed a conclusive refutation of the 
 cavils of infidelity derived from historical sources. 
 Yet after all that may be said in favor of the his- 
 torical argument, it is the argument from the Book 
 itself which most crowds the system of infidelity. 
 A distinguished infidel, when once asked, " How is 
 it, that the Bible is so far superior to all other books 
 that it can be read over and over, a thousand times, 
 and still retain all its freshness ;" and " why no other 
 book like it was ever written ?" replied, " Because 
 there is not room in the world for two such books !" 
 Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, the author of three dis- 
 tinguished treatises in opposition to Christianity, and 
 whom Dr. Leland, in his " View of Deistical Wri- 
 ters," declares to be " the most eminent of them that 
 had appeared in England ;" urges in his volume, De 
 Religions Laid, this strong objection against the 
 historical argument : "that in order to arrive at any 
 certainty in these matters, it would be necessary for 
 the common people either to learn all languages, to 
 read all the celebrated writers, and to consult all those 
 learned men that have not written a method which 
 is manifestly absurd and impracticable or else to
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 295 
 
 have recourse to a supreme judge of controversies, 
 appointed by common consent." Fas est ab hoste 
 doceri. There is great weight in these concessions, 
 coining as they do from infidel lips. 
 
 The argument from the Bible itself will also, 
 if I mistake not, be found to be that on which the 
 champions for the historical argument do themselves 
 place the greatest reliance. It was eminently true 
 of the Reformers, that they wrote on this subject 
 like men instructed out of the Bible. That God 
 alone is a sufficient witness of himself in his word, 
 arid that the Scriptures carry with them a self- 
 evidencing power, was the teaching of Calvin, of 
 Stapfer, of Vanmastricht, of Witsius, of Turretin, of 
 Owen, of Beveridge, of Baxter, and a multitude of 
 others who were the most x successful defenders of 
 Christianity. The doctrine of the Presbyterian 
 church, beautifully and even eloquently expressed 
 in her standards, is in the following language : " The 
 heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doc- 
 trine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the 
 parts, the scope of the whole which is to give glory 
 to God, the full discovery which it makes of the 
 only way of man's salvation, the many other incom- 
 parable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, 
 are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence 
 itself to be the word of God ; yet, notwithstanding, 
 our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible 
 truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward 
 work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and 
 with the word in our hearts." It will be recollected
 
 296 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 also, that the Scriptures themselves, in addition to 
 the argument from miracles and prophecy, largely 
 insist on this department of evidence. They make 
 their appeal to themselves : they challenge men to 
 " search them," to " prove them." The evidence is 
 not far off, because the " word is nigh." The light 
 which they display declares by its own luminous- 
 ness its Mighty Author : 
 
 -" Some great Maker, 
 
 In goodness and in power preeminent." 
 
 2. Another thought has reference to those who 
 reject the divine authority of the Sacred Writings. 
 The infidel affirms that this Book is not from God. 
 What are his reasons for this bold and unsupported 
 assertion? Is it, that the book itself is not wise 
 enough to have God for its author ? or that it is 
 not sufficiently kind and benevolent ? or that it is 
 an unholy book ? or that its doctrines are such that 
 they must, or might have been the commandments 
 of men ? or that its religion bears too strong a re- 
 semblance to those of man's devising ? or that its 
 revelations are inconsistent and contradictory? or 
 that its system of truth, and duty, and salvation, are 
 not fitted to a race fallen by their iniquity, soon to die, 
 and their immortal spirit to return to the God who 
 gave it ? or that experience shows that it has no 
 dwelling in the bosoms of the men to whom its truths, 
 its promises, and its blessed hopes are directed ? or 
 that it is an outrage upon reason and common sense ? 
 We have endeavored to make it appear, that the con-
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 297 
 
 verse of all these strange hypotheses is the only posi- 
 tion that can be substantiated by all ingenuous and 
 fair reasoning. The burden of proof, we confess, does 
 not lie in the first instance upon the infidel, to show 
 that this Book is not divinely inspired : it lies upon 
 believers in it to show that it is so. But it should 
 startle the unbeliever, that he finds it so herculean a 
 task to prove that it is not so. It should at least 
 lead him to doubt of his infidelity ; to question if he 
 be not building upon a false foundation ; to look 
 around him, and see if he has any foundation to stand 
 upon save empty air. 
 
 It is impossible for him to know that the Scrip- 
 tures are not the word of God ; and it is very possi- 
 ble for him to know that they are his word. There 
 is a strange fatality attending a certain class of men, 
 in soberly persuading themselves that this Book is 
 an imposture, or is more likely to turn out an impos- 
 ture, because they themselves reject it. It requires 
 but a single flash of thought, or rather a single flash 
 of conscience, to dissipate this delusion, and to dis- 
 cover the dense folds of darkness with which such a 
 mind enwraps itself. 
 
 Upon the sceptic's own showing, his own con- 
 clusions are doubtful. He is not sure that the vol- 
 ume he rejects is not the word of the Living God. 
 And what a fearful, what a tremendous state of mind 
 is this, to be entertained for an hour to be persisted 
 in, to carry up to the chamber where he dies, to 
 attend him to his hereafter, and there to melt away 
 and be dissolved under the strong and steady light 
 
 Bible not of Man. 13*
 
 298 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of eternity, till it is transmuted and transformed into 
 absolute, perfect despair ! 
 
 Infidels would do well to look somewhat into 
 the causes of their unbelief, and to institute a rigid 
 scrutiny into the variety of concurrent circumstances, 
 some, or all of which have contributed to that state 
 of mind, and that cast of moral feeling, which has 
 arrayed them against a Book so full of light and 
 love. Is it that their reason is scandalized by it ? or 
 is it that their pride is wounded, and that their desire 
 of intellectual distinction, and their boasted superi- 
 ority over the common opinions of mankind, are hum- 
 bled ? Is it their benevolence that the Bible offends, 
 and have they persuaded themselves, that their no- 
 tions are of any great importance to the present and 
 future well-being of their fellow men ? Is it their 
 piety that is offended ; and is it that their own sys- 
 tem draws the cords of moral obligation closer and 
 tighter than the Bible, and gives a negligent con- 
 science less repose, and more abundantly multiplies 
 the inducements to practical godliness ? Is it their 
 love of truth that is assailed by this Book of God, 
 and is it solely for the truth's sake that they oppose 
 its claims? An honest reply to these and similar 
 inquiries, might reveal causes of unbelief, of the ex- 
 istence and power of which the unbeliever himself is 
 not fully conscious. Such a reply were a truthful 
 comment on the declaration, " Light is come into 
 the world, and men have loved darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds are evil." 
 
 There is no need of reminding infidels of the
 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 299 
 
 obligations they are under to a character corres- 
 ponding to the claims of their infidelity. We take 
 leave to recommend to them to make less of their 
 speculations, and more of their character and con- 
 duct, as the safest and surest way of coming at a 
 satisfactory and tranquil conclusion of the great 
 inquiry, Whether the Bible be, or be not, of divine 
 origin. Amid the advantages and privileges of a 
 Christian land, it is impossible for them to shut out 
 the light, or disclaim the solemn and affecting obli- 
 gations in which they are involved. If there were 
 nothing but their access to the Sacred Scriptures, 
 this privilege alone is sufficient to leave them with- 
 out excuse. Let them but deny ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly 
 in this present world ; and there will be an end to 
 their infidelity. Let them seek light from the Father 
 of lights, and love from the God. of love ; let them 
 be punctual and devout in the duties of religion; 
 and their night of darkness will be superseded by a 
 bright and cheerful day. Let them exemplify the 
 moral influence of the truth, in their internal spirit 
 and external deportment ; let them do God's will ; 
 and they shall know of the doctrine of the Bible, 
 whether it be of God, or the device of an impostor. 
 It requires no sacrifice of truth for them to make 
 this experiment ; no compromise of principle^ no 
 wrong, or even unphilosophical concessions. 
 
 It is not hazarding much to assert, that the firm- 
 est and most intrepid and inflexible advocate of 
 infidelity will find little room for doubt, when he
 
 300 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 once consents thus to prove and bring to a practical 
 test the truth of God's holy word. Experience 
 shows that the opposite course is the true way to 
 make infidels, and to confirm them in their infidelity. 
 Men reason themselves from a Scriptural to a loose 
 Christianity, from early imbibed religious principles 
 to those that are irreligious, from an intellectual 
 conviction of the divine origin of the Scriptures 
 to an utter rejection and contempt of them, by the 
 strong and irrepressible desire to relax the bonds of 
 moral obligation, and to sin without remorse and 
 apprehension. They first reason themselves into 
 doubt and uncertainty, and then into absolute in- 
 fidelity, because they are hostile to the truth, and 
 dread the sense of responsibility which the truth 
 imposes. 
 
 "Virtue could see to do what virtue would 
 By her own radiant light 
 He that has light within his own clear breast, 
 May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day ; 
 But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, 
 Benighted walks under the mid-day sun : 
 Himself is his own dungeon." 
 
 Jt is a fact of great importance to be discovered and 
 appreciated, that wickedness, in every form and de- 
 gree, has a tendency to obscure the light of truth, 
 and diminish the force, both of the internal evi- 
 dence and the external testimony by which the 
 truth is supported. " Every one that doeth evil 
 hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his 
 deeds should be reproved." Nor is it any marvel,
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 3Q1 
 
 when we consider the rectitude of God's govern- 
 ment, that he should send upon such persons " strong 
 delusions, that they should believe a lie ; that they 
 all might be damned who believe not the truth, but 
 have pleasure in unrighteousness." 
 
 3. Another remark suggested by the kind of 
 evidence on which our argument has rested, relates 
 to a long-cherished, oft-repeated, and most unwar- 
 rantable doctrine of the church of Rome, in regard 
 to the authority of the Sacred Writings. Among 
 the many Roman Catholic principles the influence 
 of which ought to be counteracted, is the bold as- 
 sertion, that the fact that the Bible is the word of 
 God rests upon the testimony of the Papal church ; 
 and that the canonical authority of the sacred 
 Books is proved and handed down from her alone, 
 as the infallible oracle. In all the principal contro- 
 versies between Protestants and Romanists, both in 
 Europe and in this country, her high boast is, that 
 the appeal of Protestants to the Bible is a virtual ap- 
 peal to her ; because, as she is pleased to say, it is by 
 her decisions that the various books which compose 
 it were ascertained to belong to the divine record. 
 
 There is so little force in this reasoning, or rather 
 in this statement, that it scarcely deserves to be 
 called sophistry. For the sake of argument, let this 
 claim be conceded. It does not follow, that the 
 divine origin of the Scriptures rests upon her deci- 
 sion ; nor that her decision does anything more than 
 indicate where the inspired books are to be found. 
 What if the Council of Trent had first invented the
 
 302 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 mariner's compass ; it would not follow that the ten- 
 dency of the magnetic needle to the pole depends on 
 her invention. A certain mathematician of Greece 
 produced the evidence, that in any triangle the sum 
 of all the angles is equal to two right angles ; but it 
 does not follow that the Grecian philosopher origi- 
 nated this truth, and that the angles specified were 
 not equal to two right angles before. If the Papal 
 church has decided correctly what books belong 
 to the Sacred Writings, it was upon evidence that 
 existed independently of her decision, and because 
 they were antecedently of divine 'origin. She did 
 not assign to them their high origin : that they 
 would have possessed, even though discarded by 
 Rome. When by an induction of facts she satisfied 
 herself that God had already given them that high 
 place and character, she announced her conviction 
 and her decision to the world. The fact itself, that 
 God has given a revelation of his will, was a fact 
 before she announced her conviction of it ; her con- 
 viction rested on the fact, and not the fact on her 
 conviction or decree. Rome was never more at 
 fault than in this pretension to argument. She first 
 proves the authority of the church of Rome from the 
 Scriptures, and then the authority of the Scriptures 
 from the church of Rome. Both claims cannot be 
 valid. For if the authority of Rome depends upon 
 the Scriptures, the authority of the Scriptures does 
 not depend upon Rome ; or, if the authority of the 
 Scriptures depends upon Rome, the authority of 
 Rome does not depend upon the Scriptures.
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 303 
 
 But this is not all we have to suggest against 
 these arrogant claims. If the argument for the di- 
 vine origin of the Scriptures which has been pre- 
 sented is a valid one, its claims do not in any degree 
 rest upon the decisions of Rome, but upon the inher- 
 ent evidence of the Book itself. We may respect 
 the decisions of councils in this matter, but we do 
 not need them. We see that this Book is the word 
 of God for ourselves ; we have a right, independently 
 of Rome, independently of all the world, to examine 
 and judge of the evidence by which its divine origin 
 is supported. When, with a right spirit, we inspect 
 the Book itself, our perceptions of its superhuman 
 origin are absolutely irresistible. A child of five 
 years might as well be supposed to have been the 
 architect of Solomon's temple, as any uninspired 
 man, or set of men to have been the authors of the 
 Holy Bible. Compared with the productions of the 
 unlettered fishermen and tent-makers of Judea, the 
 greatest productions of the human mind on religious 
 subjects were like the earth when it was without 
 form and void, in contrast with this fair creation as 
 it rose in order and beauty at the command of its 
 Creator. When we read the Scriptures, we discover 
 in them that of which human wisdom, human good- 
 ness, human purity were not the authors. In an age 
 when there are not wanting those who would under- 
 mine the deep foundations of confidence in God's 
 word, and for its own intrinsic and superhuman 
 excellence substitute the decisions of men, we have 
 deemed the argument which has been presented in
 
 304 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 the preceding pages, not out of place. With the 
 men who now live, and those who come after us, 
 the struggle with Rome is not over. The turning 
 point in the controversy with her respects the word 
 of God, as the only infallible rule of faith and prac- 
 tice. Without the internal evidence of its divine 
 origin, Rome might have the vantage ground ; with 
 this evidence, the vantage ground is ours. 
 
 4. Another subject on which the preceding argu- 
 ment may legitimately have an important bearing, 
 respects the province of reason in all matters of 
 religious faith. We have no quarrel with those 
 who advocate the right of private judgment. It 
 belongs to man, from the constitution of his intel- 
 lectual and moral nature. The faculty of judg- 
 ment was given in order to be exercised ; the right 
 to exercise it is implied in the exhibition of all the 
 evidences by which the truth is established ; it is 
 implied in the doctrine of personal responsibility, 
 and in the nature of religion as a personal thing ; 
 divine revelation itself makes an appeal to it ; while 
 for the exercise of it men are accountable to God 
 alone. " To their own Master they stand, or fall. 
 Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ?" 
 But while we say these things, we are not to forget, 
 that thinking error to be truth does not make it 
 truth ; and that it is only when men come to right 
 conclusions, that they may not only think they are 
 right, but know themselves to be so. The Holy 
 Scriptures are the only safe directory. Antiquity 
 cannot guide us ; for if it does, it is quite as likely
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 305 
 
 to lead us into error as into truth. Tradition cannot 
 guide us ; it is too intangible and indefinite we 
 know not where to look for it. Human reason, 
 with all her boasted powers, and all her rights of 
 private judgment, cannot guide us she herself 
 needs a guide. 
 
 We do not deny, that human reason has its appro- 
 priate province in every question of religious truth ; 
 but its limits are reduced to the single effort of ascer- 
 taining what God has revealed. It is not a teacher, 
 but a pupil : its province is not to dictate, but to learn, 
 and submit to the dictates of unerring wisdom : its 
 proper employment is, not to decide what the word 
 of God ought to contain, but simply to find out what 
 it does contain. It is absolutely shut up to the bind- 
 ing force of instructions revealed from heaven. No 
 matter how fearlessly men come to the word of God, 
 so long as they come honestly ; not to pronounce 
 judgment on what God has revealed, but to form 
 their judgment by the divine testimony. I said, no 
 matter how fearlessly : perhaps the language is too 
 strong. " The meek will he guide in judgment ; 
 the meek will he teach his way." The understand- 
 ing is darkened by sin ; and it were no marvel, if 
 the inspired writers do not pay the profoundest 
 homage to human wisdom. " Open thou mine eyes, 
 that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law," 
 is the most reasonable language in the world for man 
 who is a worm. It is the true characteristic of a 
 great mind. The truest and the profoundest rea- 
 soner on religious subjects is the truest and the pro-
 
 306 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 foundest listener to the teachings of heavenly truth. 
 You may not alter ; you may not expunge ; you 
 may not supply ; you may not wrest from its true 
 import a single truth which God, the Lord, has 
 uttered. " If I, or an angel from heaven, preach 
 any other gospel, let him be accursed!" Here 
 reason may rest with confidence, as the ultimate 
 ground of authority. Desert this record, and all is 
 the darkness of midnight the abyss of Atheism. 
 Reason is no longer rational than she is satisfied 
 with a record that has the endorsement, the seal 
 and superscription, of Eternal wisdom. 
 
 5. Another remark from the preceding discus- 
 sion, relates to a common error of modern Rational- 
 ists. There is a class of minds, in which the spirit 
 of inquiry supersedes the love of truth. Truth 
 already attained holds a less important place in their 
 estimation than that which is doubtful and sought 
 after. Whether there be more of egotism than the 
 love of truth in this state of mind, they who cher- 
 ish it can perhaps best decide. It is no uncommon 
 thing to boast of light that is new, when it is only 
 new to us ; while the incense that is offered on the 
 altar of a proud and self-complacent egotism, may 
 indicate the ignorance, as well as the vanity of the 
 worshipper. 
 
 The love of investigation merely, where it is not 
 under the influence of a humble and docile spirit, is 
 much more likely to give the thoughts a wrong, 
 than a right direction. There are those who are 
 " ever learning, and never come to the knowledge
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 3Q7 
 
 of the truth." They live upon intellectual excite- 
 ment, rather than upon intellectual gratification. 
 " If," says the German philosopher Lessing " if 
 God held in his closed right hand all truth, and in 
 his left the single, ever active impulse after truth, 
 though with the condition that I should wander in 
 continual error, and should say, Speak ; choose ! I 
 would humbly point to the left hand and say, Father, 
 give : pure truth is for thee alone !" There is 
 ensnaring beauty in such a representation as this, 
 and there is seeming modesty ; while in reality it is 
 but an ingenious, though transparent covering of a 
 heart that " loves darkness rather than light." Such 
 is the sceptic's love of truth, but not the Christian's. 
 The intellectual excitement fostered by doubt, hesi- 
 tation and inquiry, is not enough for him. To think, 
 to search, to be " driven about by every wind of 
 doctrine," is not enough for him. It is not the labor 
 merely, but the fruit that he desires : it is not intel- 
 lectual excitement, but intellectual repose : it is not 
 doubt that he is seeking after, but certainty. He is 
 a lover of truth that never alters. If he can but 
 learn the truth, he will listen thoughtfully to it, in 
 whatever guise it approaches him. He will sit hum- 
 bly at the feet of his Divine Teacher, or gather it 
 from the lips of babes. A single truth, stamped with 
 the impress of Heaven, outweighs with him all the 
 vain pride of the mere philosopher and rationalist in 
 his researches. The spirit of inquiry is not one 
 which he wishes to see suppressed, or even embar- 
 rassed ; but he would that it were always wisely
 
 308 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 directed, and made subservient to truth. And where 
 can it be indulged so freely, where is there such scope 
 for it, as in " the depth of the riches both of the wis- 
 dom and the knowledge of God ?" God has wisely 
 bestowed upon us this ever active impulse after 
 truth, but with no condition that leads us to error. 
 Nay : while he opens his left, he also opens his right 
 hand, dispensing with exuberant bounty truth, pure 
 truth, from the eternal habitation where he dwells. 
 
 The thought has more than once been suggested, 
 that the evidence by which the divine origin of the 
 Sacred Writings is established, is, after all, nothing 
 more than that which results from the manifold com- 
 bination of strong probabilities in its favor. The 
 writer well remembers the impression which this 
 thought made upon his own mind in early life, when 
 he first met with it in a published discourse of a 
 justly celebrated theologian of our country. " No 
 Christian," says this writer, " can certainly know that 
 the Gospel itself is of divine inspiration." It were 
 no marvel if this single remark, as dangerous as it is 
 unwarranted, had made as many unbelievers, as the 
 able and unanswerable discourses of the same author 
 on " The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy" 
 have made believers. Whatever depends on probable 
 evidence only, can never produce the conviction of 
 certainty. The most that can be said of all proposi- 
 tions of this sort is, that there is a strong probability 
 in their favor ; and that they are rather suspended 
 over the fancy as an airy vision, than recognized as 
 immutable truth. I confess I shudder at the thought
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 3Q9 
 
 that we have no higher evidence in favor of the 
 divine origin of the Scriptures. Is it so ? Is it so, 
 that nothing more can be affirmed of the divine lega- 
 tion of Moses and the prophets, Christ and the apos- 
 tles, than that it is in a very high degree probable ? 
 Is it no more than probable that there was such a 
 personage as Jesus Christ, " who was delivered for 
 our offences, and rose again for our justification?" 
 Did Paul reason thus, when he said, "I know whom. 
 I have believed ?" Did John reason thus, when he 
 said, " We Jcnow that when he shall appear, we shall 
 be like him ?" Perish all such scepticism as this ! 
 Trust it, who may ; but God forbid that the faith of 
 his people should rest on such a questionable basis ! 
 The highly respected and venerable author himself, 
 to whom we have just referred, in defiance of his 
 theory, could not help contradicting it, whenever his 
 own ardent and strong mind kindled with the impor- 
 tance and responsibility of his theme. Comparing 
 Christianity with infidel philosophy, he says, " Here 
 is no uncertainty, no wavering, no tossing on the 
 billows of anxiety, no plunging into the gulf of des- 
 pair ; your path is a straight and beaten way, and 
 were you way-faring men and fools, you need not 
 err therein." 
 
 Every proposition within the circle of moral 
 science, is either certainly true, or certainly false : 
 otherwise we know, and can know nothing about 
 it. We may conjecture much, and hope much ; we 
 may be strongly persuaded ; but we know, absolutely 
 nothing : our minds must necessarily be in that state
 
 310 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of suspense which is the medium between absolute 
 certainty and absolute unbelief. And this state of 
 suspense admits of as many degrees as there are 
 between the lowest and highest probability. If such 
 were the basis of our reasoning in regard to the 
 divine origin of the Sacred Writings, it would be 
 impossible for us absolutely to affirm, or deny the 
 truth on this great question. We might have a pre- 
 vailing opinion one way or the other, which ap- 
 proaches the nearest step to certainty ; but we must 
 still have some degree of doubt. There is nothing 
 desirable in such a state of mind as this on any sub- 
 ject ; much less on the great subject involved in the 
 preceding discussion. Unless it be from a strong 
 desire to divest himself of all moral obligation, or 
 from a vain desire of intellectual distinction, or from 
 the dread of credulity, or from the love of error, no 
 man ever prefers ignorance to knowledge, doubt to 
 certainty. On some subjects there is no necessity 
 for such a state of mind, because there is no foun- 
 dation in the nature of the subjects themselves for 
 uncertainty. Nor is there any foundation for uncer- 
 tainty in the nature of the subject we have been con- 
 sidering. The proposition that the Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testaments are of divine origin, is 
 either true, or false it is either certainly true, or 
 certainly false. It cannot in its own nature be a 
 doubtful question. It may be doubtful in the mind 
 of the inquirer; but it is not so in itself, and in 
 reality. There is truth and certainty on this subject, 
 as well as every other, and nothing but truth and
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 31 1 
 
 certainty. The admission of the opposite hypothe- 
 sis unsettles the whole subject ; nor can those who 
 admit such an hypothesis, gain anything more than 
 to keep truth and certainty at a distance from their 
 own minds, and the minds of others, for a time only. 
 Certainty exists, and it is impossible to reason it out 
 of existence ; while every effort to do so is as logically 
 absurd as it is practically unwise. 
 
 It is certainty that we have been seeking in the 
 foregoing pages. We hope we have sought it honest- 
 ly and modestly. But we have no desire to disguise 
 the fact that we have sought it. Those who doubt on 
 this subject, do so where there is no room for doubt- 
 ing. No man is called on to believe that the Bible is 
 not of man, merely because there is a strong prepon- 
 derance of probabilities that man was not its author. 
 
 6. We may not overlook, in these concluding ob- 
 servations, the great importance of established prin- 
 ciples on all religious subjects. The truth cannot be 
 too often repeated, nor too deeply felt, that men are 
 no better than their principles. There are excep- 
 tions to the remark, that where a man's principles are 
 good, his character is good ; but it is always true, that 
 where his principles are bad, his character is bad. 
 Right principles lie at the foundation of moral obli- 
 gation. No man is one thing in his principles, and 
 another, and the opposite, in his sense of duty. Con- 
 science is governed by light and truth ; and just so 
 far as the character is controlled by conscience, it is 
 controlled by principles. The character of men has 
 its sources and foundation. The principles of a man
 
 312 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 lie at the foundation of his character, and influence 
 his thoughts, his emotions, his conversation, his de- 
 portment. " Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor 
 figs of thistles." Nor may they, with any more sem- 
 blance of reason, look for a virtuous and good char- 
 acter from principles that are vicious and bad. Moral 
 rectitude, is conformity of heart and life to truth ; 
 wickedness, is conformity to error. The devil first 
 corrupted men, and corrupts them still, by inducing 
 them to adopt false principles ; and in all the efforts 
 of his mercy to reclaim them, the great means which 
 the God of truth makes use of are principles of the op- 
 posite character. In all the ordinary affairs of human 
 life, men are controlled by their principles. The poli- 
 tician is controlled by his principles of government ; 
 the merchant, by his principles of commerce ; the ju- 
 rist, by his principles of law ; the scholar, by his prin- 
 ciples of literature and science. It is impossible that 
 men, in the exercise of their rational faculties, and a 
 due discretion, should be controlled in any other way. 
 
 The same may be said of principles that are relig- 
 ious, or irreligious. No matter when, or where, or 
 how they are imbibed, they exert an influence ; just 
 as wheat produces wheat, or tares produce tares, 
 whether sowed by the agriculturist, or deposited 
 by the wind or the birds of the air. Nor is the ap- 
 propriate influence, either of good or bad principles, 
 prevented or impeded by the sincerity with which 
 they are received ; but rather secured by it, and ren- 
 dered more permanent. 
 
 Nor is this abstract speculation j it is the state-
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 313 
 
 ment of facts. History, both sacred and profane, 
 shows them to be facts ; biography shows them to 
 be facts ; observation and consciousness demonstrate 
 them to be veritable realities. The true character 
 of the pagan world the true character of the fol- 
 lowers of Mahomet; the true character of papal 
 Rome of Protestantism, of Infidelity, and of Chris- 
 tianity, is to be traced to the respective principles of 
 each of these distinct systems of religion. Princi- 
 ples are nothing without their practical nature and 
 tendency. What is virtuous character, if not the 
 application of virtuous principles to the heart and 
 life ? and what constitutes vicious character, if not 
 the application of vicious principles to the heart and 
 life ? Good principles generate good institutions, 
 good habits ; evil principles, those that are evil. Let. 
 good principles hold dominion over the minds of 
 men, and virtue and true piety will progressively 
 win their way over our lost world; while, in the 
 same proportion in which loose and evil principles 
 hold dominion, will virtue languish and wickedness 
 triumph. 
 
 And not only may this result be looked for as 
 the natural and necessary sequence of the effect 
 from the cause ; but it is the matter of deliberate, 
 moral calculation. Men imbibe and cherish good 
 principles, with the deliberate and express design of 
 being influenced by them ; and when they pursue a 
 wrong course of conduct, they fall back upon wrong 
 principles to justify them. They intend to be gov- 
 erned by their principles, be they good or bad. No 
 
 Bible not of Man.
 
 314 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 man attributes his character to accident or contin- 
 gency ; nor does he, for any considerable time, ever 
 suppose that his principles will be ineffectual and 
 abortive. If men act from good principles, it is 
 because they mean to do so ; and if they act from 
 bad principles, while they may not acknowledge 
 that their principles are corrupt, they would rather 
 be driven to this acknowledgment, than to the con- 
 fession that they act from no principle at all. It is 
 for the most part the deliberate purpose of men, that 
 their principles shall affect their character and con- 
 duct. Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Frederic 
 of Prussia, rejected the Christian religion ; and their 
 object in so doing was to fortify themselves in their 
 sworn confederacy to subvert all religion and estab- 
 lished order, and introduce the reign of universal 
 licentiousness. David Hume lived and died an 
 avowed sceptic and Atheist ; and though the annals 
 of scepticism do not furnish a more favorable exam- 
 ple of moral reputation, his life and death show that 
 he intended his conduct should be governed by his 
 principles. His life was devoted to unsettling all 
 fixed principles of belief in the human mind ; to 
 subverting the whole system of moral obligation ; 
 to obliterating a sense of God's authority from the 
 conscience, and to inculcating the innocence of the 
 greatest crimes ; while his dying hours were occupied 
 at the card table, and the thoughts of his dying pil- 
 low devoted to his insipid raillery of the doctrine of 
 a future state and final retribution. 
 
 The infidelity of the present age has learned a
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 315 
 
 better lesson than to hold the Bible in contempt. It 
 is a part of its policy to award to it great excellence, 
 a sound morality, and a benign influence on the 
 social relations. It regards the writers of it as far 
 in advance of their contemporaries in moral science, 
 and as deserving higher consideration than the most 
 eminent of ancient sages. But it does not award to 
 it the infallibility of unerring wisdom, nor listen to 
 it as the oracle of God. It is a more specious ififi- 
 delity than that of Voltaire and Paine, but it is 
 infidelity still. It has strong pretensions to an im- 
 partial rationalism ; it has the semblance of ingenu- 
 ousness and candor ; it invests itself with the broad 
 mantle of a professed charity ; but it pays its court 
 to unblushing infidelity, and reduces the Book of 
 God to a level with the teachings of uninspired men. 
 It has, too, a scholar-like modesty. It would not be 
 too confident ; decently suggesting, that strong and 
 tangible proof is excluded from this sphere of relig- 
 ious inquiry. 
 
 Now we deem it important to possess better and 
 more established principles on this great subject than 
 any of these. This is not the reception the Sacred 
 Writings demand. Their credentials are of such 
 force and authority, as to afford no room for this 
 hesitating state of mind. If they are a cunningly 
 devised fable, no matter how soon, or how decidedly 
 they are exploded ; if they are true, every man ought 
 to be satisfied of their truth, and hold them fast to 
 the end. 
 
 We cannot appreciate too highly the importance
 
 316 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 of firm and established principles on this great sub- 
 ject, and more especially in strong and well-culti- 
 vated minds. Truth is easily distinguished from 
 error, when men are once willing to see the differ- 
 ence ; and when they are once willing to see this, 
 they will no longer regard it as of little consequence 
 what they believe. " Buy the truth and sell it not," 
 is the kind counsel of heavenly wisdom. Nothing 
 is too dear to part with for the truth. Pride, vain 
 reason, prejudice, interest, sloth, sin, the favor of 
 men, are all of little worth compared with the truth 
 of God. Buy it at any rate ; part with it for no- 
 thing not for ease, nor fame, nor gold, nor life. 
 Love the truth, adorn the truth, honor the truth ; 
 be witnesses for the truth, and the truth shall make 
 you free. 
 
 7. It were also a natural deduction from the series 
 of observations presented in this volume, and not to 
 be omitted, that the Sacred Writings deserve the 
 most serious and patient study, and affectionate 
 regard. It is the Great God who speaks to men in 
 these writings. It is God your Maker, your Law- 
 giver, your Redeemer, your Judge. It is the voice 
 of your Father who is in heaven, uttering truths 
 which no human intellect ever conceived ; dictating 
 them by his own Spirit, and subscribing them with 
 his own name and seal. He who inhabits eternity, 
 and fills arid occupies it as his own dwelling-place, 
 here makes discoveries of the eternal world to the 
 view of mortals, as momentous as the heaven where 
 he dwells. Every other book is fiction and romance,
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 317 
 
 compared with this. If there be an altar where the 
 human intellect may how in profoundest reverence, 
 and where human learning may find laurels that 
 never wither, it is at the altar of revealed truth. 
 These wondrous writings have done more to extend 
 the field of human thought, than all others combined. 
 Men of genius and learning, men who have been dis- 
 tinguished for superior strength of mind, for elo- 
 quence of tongue and pen, for brilliancy of imagina- 
 tion and acute powers of disquisition, on opening the 
 Bible, have found themselves to be children ; and 
 been constrained to honor its ever-blessed and ador- 
 able Author. 
 
 " Learning has borne such fruit in other days 
 On all her branches ; piety has found 
 Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer 
 Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews." 
 
 Names that are the adornment of their race, and in 
 the highest and most enlightened classes of society, 
 have identified their ripest honors with their apolo- 
 gies for the Christian faith. 
 
 This one Book will live when the remembrance 
 of all other books is passed away. It will go down 
 through the successive generations of men ; and 
 when the earth shall be burnt up, and the heavens 
 shall pass away with a great noise, it shall remain 
 inscribed on the hearts of an exceeding great mul- 
 titude, which no man can number. It shall go up 
 to the bar of God, shall enter into the gates of the 
 heavenly city, and there be hailed as the charter of 
 14*
 
 318 THE BIBLE NOT OF MAN. 
 
 its immortal joys. Precious, precious, thrice precious 
 Book of God ! It can cheer when every other com- 
 forter is far away. It can visit the chambers of 
 solitude, and counsel and comfort on the bed of lan- 
 guishing. It can soothe griefs which nothing else 
 can soothe. It holds up the torch-light of heaven's 
 tenderest mercy in the midst of the dark valley ; it 
 is the comforter of the otherwise comfortless, wip- 
 ing away the tear that trembles in the eye which 
 fixes its last look on things below. Who that does 
 not deliberately purpose to live without God, and 
 without hope ; that is not prepared to seal the Avar- 
 rant that consigns him to a hopeless death and an 
 undone eternity ; can live in the allowed neglect of 
 the Holy Scriptures ? " Hear ye, and give ear ; be 
 not proud, for the Lord hath spoken." That man 
 shall not lose his reward, who is a diligent and hum- 
 ble student of God's word. We do earnestly invite 
 the sons and daughters of men to this rich field of 
 thought. We bid them rove over it from flower to 
 flower, and we bid them dig for its hidden treasures. 
 It has running streams, and sparkling fountains, and 
 deep wells, at which he who drinks shall find living 
 water. 
 
 It were a fearful state of mind to believe in the 
 divine origin of this holy Book, and neglect its great 
 salvation. This is one of those facts in the moral 
 history of man, which his extreme depravity alone 
 can account for. The simple truth that the Bible is 
 the word of God, one would think, were enough to 
 rouse every man who reads it from spiritual apathy,
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 319 
 
 and fix impressions on his mind that would render 
 him solemn as eternity. Yet is there not one of all 
 the truths here revealed, but is sober verity. It is 
 even so. The God of truth declares it. There is 
 no delusion in the Bible. No, there is no delusion 
 in the Bible. Its great God, its holy God, its just 
 God, its God of love and mercy, is the greatest of all 
 realities. Its vast and immeasurable eternity, where, 
 though millions of ages roll away, they shorten not 
 its duration, is too an unwasting reality. Its all 
 gracious, Almighty, and Infinite Saviour too, is the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 
 O ye, who are fallen by your iniquity, and to 
 whom this wondrous redemption is revealed and 
 offered in the Bible ye, who are so insensibly and 
 rapidly borne on the broad and rapid torrent of time 
 to that eternity, where the friends of this Bible and 
 this Saviour will encircle the throne, and where the 
 enemies of this Bible and this Saviour will have lost 
 a throne, never to be regained ; is it to that blissful 
 presence that you are bending your course ? or to 
 that mournful exile ? That eternity is at no great 
 distance ; you stand upon its brink : it is but a little 
 moment and you pass into it. Time is too short, 
 life too precious, to disregard the counsels of this 
 Bible, to trifle with this eternity, and this salvation. 
 O perverse, O senseless world ! that can be blinded 
 thus, and thus infatuate, while all below is vanishing 
 like a shadow, and there is yet an eternity to lose, 
 or an eternity to gain ! 
 
 THE END.
 
 
 
 

 
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 GURNEY'S LOVE TO GOD. 
 FOSTER'S APPEAL TO THE Vor.vj. 
 ABBOTT'S YOUNG CHRISTIAN. 
 ABBOTT'S MOTHER AT HOME. 
 ABBOTT'S CHILD AT HOME. 
 JAMES' YOUNO MAN FROM HUME. 
 
 CHRISTIAN MEMOIRS. 
 
 REV. CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, LL.D., in- 
 cluding his Christian Researches in 
 Asia. 
 
 REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 REV. HENRV MARTYN. 
 
 KEV. DAVID BRAINERD. 
 
 REV. EDWARD PAYSON, D. D. 
 
 HARRIET L. WINSLOW, Missionary in 
 linlia. 
 
 JAMES BRAINERD TAYLOR. 
 
 HARLAN PAGE. 
 
 \ORMAND SMITH. 
 
 RICHARD BAXTER. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP LEIHIITON. 
 
 MATTHEW HENRY. 
 
 REV. C. F. SCHWARTZ, Mis^onan tt 
 
 India. 
 
 REV SAMUEL PEARCE. 
 REV. SAMUEL KILPIN. 
 HANNAH HOBBIE.
 
 OTHER SPIRITUAL WORKS. 
 
 EnWARDS ON THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 BAXTER'S CALL TO THK UNCONVERT- 
 ED. 
 
 ALLKINE'S ALARM TO THE UNCON- 
 VERTKD. 
 
 FLAVEL'S TOUCHSTONE. 
 
 FLAVEL ON KEEPING THE HEART. 
 
 HELKFENSTEIN'S SELF-DECEPTION. 
 
 TIKE'S RELIGION AND ETERNAL LIFE. 
 
 SHERMAN'S GUIDE TO AM ACQUAINT 
 
 ANCE WITH GOD. 
 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. 
 MATTHEW HENRY ON MEEKNESS. 
 ANDREW FULLER'S BACKSLIDER. 
 SCUDDER'S REDEEMER'S LAST COM 
 
 MAND. 
 
 SCUDDER'S APPEAL TO MOTHERS. 
 BURDER'S SERMONS TO THE AQED. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 
 
 BOGUE'S EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 KEITH'S EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 
 MORISON'S COUNSELS TO YOUNG MEN. 
 THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE. 
 NEVINS' THOUGHTS ON POPERY. 
 SPIRIT OF POPERY, [with 12 engravings.] 
 
 THE COLPORTEUR AND ROMAN CATH- 
 OLIC. 
 
 MASON ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 BEECHER ON INTEMPERANCE. 
 RAISING op LAZARUS FROM THE DEAD. 
 HYMNS FOR SOCIAL WORSHIP. 
 
 POCKET MANUALS. 
 
 CLARKE'S SCRIPTURE PROMISES. 
 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 
 THE BOOK OF PROVERBS. 
 DAILY SCRIPTURE EXPOSITOR. 
 GEMS OF SACRED POETRY. 
 BEAN AND VENN'S ADVICE TO A MAR- 
 RIED COUPLK. 
 REASONS or REPOSE. 
 DAILY FOOD FOR CHRISTIANS. 
 
 HEAVENLY MANNA 
 
 CECIL AND FLAVKL'S GIFT FOR MOURN- 
 ERS. 
 
 DAILY TEXTS. 
 
 DIARY, [Daily Texts interleaved. 1 
 CRUMBS FROM THE MASTER'S TABLE. 
 MILK FOR BABES. 
 DEW-DROPS. 
 
 BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. 
 MANY OF THEM BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS 
 
 GALLAUDET'S SCRIPTURE BIOGRAPHY, 
 7 vols., from Adam to David. 
 
 GALLAUDET'S YOUTH'S BOOK OF NATU- 
 RAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 CHILD'S BOOK ON REPENTANCE. 
 
 PEEP OF DAY. 
 
 LINE UPON LINE. 
 
 PRECEPT UPON PRECEPT. 
 
 AMELIA, THE PASTOR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 TREES, FRUITS, AND FLOWERS OF THE 
 BIBLE, [9 cuU.j 
 
 ELIZABETH BALES. By John Angell 
 James. 
 
 EMILY MARIA. 
 
 NEWTON'S LETTERS TO AN ADOPTED 
 DAUGHTER. 
 
 CHILD'S BOOK ON THE SABBATH. 
 
 NATHAN W. DICKEKMAN. 
 
 MARY LOTHROP. 
 
 JOHN MOONEY MEAD. 
 
 HENRY OBOOKIAH. 
 
 CAROLINE HYDE. 
 
 GALLAUDET'S LIFE OF JOSIAII. 
 
 THE DAIRYMAN'S DAUGHTER, etc. 
 
 CHARLES L. WINSLOW. 
 
 WITHERED BRANCH REVIVED. 
 
 PEKT'S SCRIPTURE LESSONS. 
 
 CHILD'S BOOK OF BIBLE STORIES. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 AMOS ARMFIELD, or the Leather-covered 
 
 Bible. 
 THE CHILD'S HYMN-BOOK. Selected by 
 
 Miss Canlkins. 
 
 SCRIPTURE ANIMALS, [16 cnts.J 
 LETTERS TO LITTLE CHILDREN, [13 
 
 cuts.] 
 
 GREAT TRUTHS IN SIMPLE WORDS. 
 CLEMENTINE CUVIER. 
 ROLLS PLUMBE. 
 PICTORIAL TRACT PRIMER. 
 WATTS' DIVINE AND MORAL SONGS. 
 With numerous similar works. 
 
 ALSO 
 
 IN FRENCH 12 volumes. 
 IN WELSH Pilgrim's Progress and Bai- 
 ter's Saints' Rest and Call. 
 
 DR. EDWARDS' SABBATH MANUAL, Parts 
 
 1, 2, 3, and 4. 
 
 DR. EDWARDS' TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 
 Is GERMAN 31 vols. various sizes. 
 
 ALSO, upwards of 1,000 Tracts and Children's Tracts, separate, bound, or in packets, 
 adapted for convenient sale by merchants and trailers, many of them with beautiful 
 engravings in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, 
 Swedish, and WeWi. 
 
 t^jF" It is the design of the Society to issue all its publications in good type, for Vlie 
 poor as well as the rich ; and to sell them, as nearly as may be, at cost, that the Society 
 may neither sustain loss nor make a prosit by all its sales.
 
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