~*&LuLCi4^

THE

PLENARY INSPIRATION.

OP

THE SCRIPTURES

ASSERTED,

AND

THE

WITH A

ALL OBJECTIONS^sgSBiif^IVINITY.

IN SIX LECTURES, (VERY GREATLY ENLARGED,)

DELIVERED AT ALBION HALL, LONDON WALL.

WITH AN APPENDIX, ILLUSTRATIVE AND CRITICAL.

BY THE REV. S. NOBLE.

o KcXcros, — " Et jtt«/ 817 &€A7j<re<nj/ airoicpivfff&cu (JMI us Troira yap otSa, aAA' ws e| ttre Travruv Ki]8o/j.fV<i) eu av exo*."— 5e /tot TOISTOV n TreirotTj/cej/ot, a>s et TXS TTJ AtyvTrrw eTriSTj/UTjtros, e^a o/ /Lcey Aiyvjrricav aotyoi, Kara TO. irarpia ypap.iMnat iro\\a fyiXoaotyaai irept roav vap' avrois V€vo/j.ifffji.ft/(av beicov, 01 Se itiiarrai fj.v&as Tivas aKSffavres wv rss \oyss HK fTTis-airai, p.eya CTT' avrois <ppova<riv uero iravra ra fayvTrruav tyvw- Kevai, rots fiuorais avruv fj.afr>iT€V(ras, Kai /uTjSew rwv tepewj/ (ru^t|as, ^5* OTTO nvos avTUV ra Aiyvrrriwv airopp-rrra p.a&<av. Orig. cont. Cels. L» i.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL,

STATIONERS' HALL COURT, LUDGATE STREET.

1825.

Hodson, Printer, 15, Cross Street, Hatton Garden.

; 7 /2- V

PREFACE.

So numerous are the works which have been produced in vindication of the divine authority of the Scriptures and of the truth of the Christian Religion, so high the reputation of many of them, and so unquestionably great their merit, that it might almost appear like presumption in any one again to handle this argument. Certainly, however, while fresh attacks upon the foundations of the Christian Religion are continually .being made, it is ne- cessary that fresh works should be composed in its defence; even though they added no more that is new to the vindication of Revelation, than the renewed ranks of its assailants produce against it.

But laudable and useful as the production of works of this class is, he who now solicits the attention of the Public would never have appeared as an Author, merely to add to their number. He has long been impressed with a se- rious conviction, that fully to meet the difficulties which infidel writers have raised, it were necessary to put the controversy on a different ground from that which has been taken by the most popular of the Christian advo- cates. He is of opinion, that the ablest of their works are more adapted to silence, than to satisfy, even an in- genuous inquirer. The former effect is or ought to be pro- duced, when such circumstances and considerations are al-

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iy PREFACE.

leged as cannot be accounted for upon any other hypo- thesis than that which supposes the truth of the religion : but to accomplish the latter object, the circumstances in the documents of the religion, which, as the Sceptic thinks, are incompatible with the belief of their divine origin, must, also, be satisfactorily explained. This is what few of the modern advocates of Revelation attempt; and they who have attempted it have seldom satisfied even their own friends : indeed it is now usual to admit, that some of the difficulties are such, as, in the present state of knowledge upon the subject, or by any principles which have yet been applied to it, are inexplicable. With this drawback, the success with which they have handled the other part of the argument too often fails to produce any deep conviction; notwithstanding they have proved, with a completeness which leaves little room for fair denial, that Christianity, in general, may, — nay, must be true, whether all the seeming difficulties in its records can be explained or not.

The perpetual theme of modern defenders of Christian- ity, is, Miracles ; which, they shew, were certainly per- formed by Jesus Christ and the apostles, and which they extol as the proper evidences of a Divine Revelation. So far as relates to the latter assertion, the Deist is ready enough to take them at their word : he admits that mi- racles are proper evidences, and desires, therefore, to see some performed. With the express terms of this re- quest, the Christian advocate declines to comply ; but he undertakes to prove, instead of it, that the sceptics of former ages might, if they pleased, have had that satis- faction.

But do not both parties here somewhat mistake the matter ? If^ the evidence of miracles were so convincing as the Deistical writers usually suppose, how come some

PREFACE.

of their acutest reasoners to object to Christianity on that very ground,— -because it records them among its docu- ments? If, on the other hand, that evidence were so essential as the Christian advocates admit, how can we account for their having ceased ; and ceased, not only in countries were the profession of Christianity is established, but even where attempts are made to sow in new soils the seed of the gospel ? Ought not this palpable fact to make the Christian hesitate about affirming so confidently, that miracles are so highly important as evidences of the truth of Revelation ? Ought it not to lead us to conclude, that, either separate from, or in addition to, this use of miracles, some other cause was required to their exhibi- tion ; and that, this ceasing to operate, they ceased also ? Thus may we not infer, that they were performed under the Jewish dispensation, because they were suited to the nature of that dispensation, and to the Jewish character; that they were performed also at the commencement of Christianity, on account of its original connexion with Judaism ; because, likewise, the Jewish dispensation was not finally terminated till the destruction of Jerusalem, which put a total end to the types and shadows of the ceremonial law; and because, in general, they were suited to the state of the human mind at that time ? but that the cause of their entirely ceasing soon afterwards*, was,

* What was the exact period of their cessation,— whether, with some, we suppose the power of performing them to have died with the Apostles ; or, with others, to have continued for one, two, or three centuries afterwards; or even, with the Roman Catholics, to exist still ; is of little consequence j since few will contend that, after the Apostles, it was constantly enjoyed by the teachers of Christianity, or was so exercised as to add much effect to their preaching. The phenomena which may have sometimes attended private acts of faith, or, as most will prefer to say, (in regard, at least, to modern cases,) of imagination, belong to a different order.

VI

PREFACE.

because they were not suited to the nature of the Chris- tian dispensation, nor to the state of the human mind which was introduced with, or produced by, that dis- pensation ? It is certain that, with the introduction of Christianity, the human mind received a capacity of being enlightened by the substance of those things of which the Jewish law, with the miracles wrought to confirm it, and those also wrought among the Jews by the Founder of Christianity, were types : and this new state of the mind required evidences more congenial to its own nature.

Now this view of the subject does more for the sup- port of Christianity, by nullifying the demand of the Deist for present miracles, than would be effected in its behalf by miracles themselves, could they still be pro- duced. For certain it is that miracles would not have that convincing effect which both parties ascribe to them. Accordingly, when they were wrought by the first teachers of Christianity, the conversion of opposers does not appear to have been their chief intention : on the contrary, where opposition prevailed, it is said of the Saviour himself, that he could not do many mighty works, because of their unbelief*; and never did he perform one when defied to it. Still, because no one, in those days, doubted the possibility of such perfor- mances, the fame of them spread abroad. But we well know what excuses the Jews readily framed, for refusing to believe the Revelation thus authenticated to them : and are we sure that even all of those, who now are loudest in condemning the folly, in this re- spect, of the Jews, and who take most pains to prove the infallibility of miracles as evidences to a Divine Revelation, would accept any doctrine which they now reject as contrary to their reason, could its advocates

* Markvi. 5; Matt. xiii. 58.

PREFACE, vil

work a miracle for their satisfaction ? Would they not presently evince as much ingenuity as the Jews, in evading the force of the miraculous proof, and justifying their adherence to their former opinion ? We may infer the result from the example of a celebrated controver- sialisyand a strenuous advocate for the efficacy of mi- raculous proof; who yet scrupled not to affirm in one of his publications, that were an angel from heaven to an- nounce to him a certain doctrine, which many think they plainly read in the Scriptures, he would tell him in reply, that he was a Jying spirit : If then a celestial visitor would have been so rudely treated by this mighty po- lemic, who also was an eminent philosopher, what would be the fate of a human teacher of any obnoxious doctrine who should pretend to confirm it by miracles ? Would he not be reviled as a juggler and a cheat ? would not the philosophic science of his antagonists be put in requisi- tion to devise for the phaenomena some plausible solution from natural causes ? and would not some secret method of putting these causes into action be the utmost that would be allowed to the operator ? The only difference between the philosophic and the Jewish opponent would be this; that while the one allowed a positive miracle to have been wrought, but assigned the cause of it to Satanic energy, the other would deny any miracle at all, and would ascribe the whole to the energies of Nature.

Let us suppose, however, the Deist to be somewhat more candid, and to be capable of being satisfied, at the time, that a miracle had been performed : Imagine him then to appeal to a modern inheritor of the Apostolic gifts, (if any such existed,) enumerating the difficulties with which, to him, the documents of Revelation seem to be attended, affirming that certain statements in the Sacred Records appear to him repugnant to reason and

i-

yiii PREFACE.

replete with contradictions, and begging to be informed how the difficulties may be reconciled, and the record containing them viewed as altogether worthy of a divine origin : And suppose the Christian teacher to answer, " I will presently convince you that the Record is from God ; but as for the difficulties in it, you must reconcile them yourself in the best manner you can ;" and were im- mediately to perform some notable miracle : How would the Deist be affected by it ? Would the wonder displayed before his eyes remove all darkness from his mind ? When thus certified that the Revelation came from God, would he understand it any better ? If he before thought it un- worthy of God, would he now see the ground of his error ? If it before appeared to him to include contra- dictions, would these immediately vanish? In short, though silenced, would he be satisfied ?

Now this appears nearly to resemble the situation,] in which the inquirer, whose attention has been directed to the difficulties which have been raised by Infidel Ob- jectors, is placed by the defences of Christianity most in esteem, when they insist so much upon the miracles wrought at its origin. A compulsory conviction (, com- pulsory as far as it goes,) is produced, that the religion thus evidenced must be true : but the question as to how it can be true, is left just where it was before : and yet till this also be seen ; till the question of reason be as satisfactorily answered as the question of fact ; no con- viction can penetrate very deep. The miracles wrought by the first promulgators of Christianity, are certainly brought again, by the labours of modern advocates, al- most before our senses ; but, happily, not quite : for if they were, the effect would be, to deprive the mind of that superior freedom which Christianity, among its other benefits, was introduced to restore, and not to open the

PREFACE. ix

understanding, but to close it. A sceptic thus convinced that the Scriptures have the sanction of divine authority, would be placed in the situation of an Englishman and a Protestant in such a country as Spain : in his heart he might think the government a tyranny and the religion priestcraft; but being quite satisfied of their power, the fear of the Inquisition might compel him to hold his tongue. It is not congenial to the nature of the human mind to ac- quiesce in implicit faith contrary to the dictates of its own understanding : and if this is not congenial to the nature of the human mind in general, assuredly it is peculiarly repugnant to it at the present day, when so astonishing a spirit of inquiry has so universally gone abroad. The sceptic will now ask, "While the phaenomena of nature are in every direction becoming intelligible, and we are admitted to see the rationale— the philosophy, of every other science, is Theology for ever to present nothing but dogmas, for which faith is demanded while understanding is denied ? Will she, alone, never answer the request for her reasons, but by alleging her miracles? "

Let not, however, these remarks be misunderstood. Nothing is further from the intention of the writer, than to depreciate the merit, or undervalue the utility, of the vindications of Revelation here alluded to : all that is meant to be insinuated is, that they require something in addition to render them fully efficient to their object. If, while the Deist is convinced by them that miracles were actually wrought at the commencement of Christianity, and that Revealed Religion had a divine origin, he is in- duced, in consequence, to suspect that the circumstances in its documents which he regards as revolting to reason only appear so because they are not understood : the con- viction wrought in him may be lasting, arid may finally be exalted into an enlightened faith. But to secure this

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X PREFACE.

result, it surely is necessary to lead him, as well as to drive him ; — to resolve his doubts and remove his difficulties, as well as to assure him, that the religion is true in spite of them all.

It has long, then, been the conviction of the writer of these pages, that such a view of the Volume of Revelation might be presented, as should be adequate to this object : but he little thought that ever he should venture to attempt it himself. The present work is entirely the product of circumstances, and its publication is what they who do not acknowledge a Providence in every thing, would call purely accidental.

The public mind having for some time past had the question respecting the divinity of the Christian Oracles thrust before it in every possible shape, it occurred to the Author, during the last winter, that some benefit might be communicated, at least to a few, by the delivery of some Lectures, in a public Lecture-room, upon the subject. The thought and its execution were equally sudden ; so much so, that the chief part of each Lecture was composed, amid other engagements, and, at first, without the most remote view to any other mode of publi- cation, in the week which preceded its delivery. The ap- probation with which the effort was received, by a nume- rous and respectable auditory, far exceeded the Author's most sanguine expectations. From the commencement, urgent solicitations were made to him to allow the Lec- tures to be printed ; and when, towards the conclusion, he announced his determination to comply with the request, it was received with the strongest expressions of satisfac- tion. This statement is made simply from a sentiment of gratitude, and to account for the appearance and form of the work ; but without any idea on the part of the Author, that the decision of his auditory will in the slightest de-

PREFACE. XJ

gree influence, or even that it can afford any means for anticipating, the decision of the public at large, before whose tribunal he has thus been encouraged to venture. It is also necessary to state, further, that when he consent- ed to publish the Lectures, he really was not aware of what he had undertaken. So hastily had they been pre- pared, that, when he had finished reading them, he hardly knew of what they consisted. He was well apprised that much revision would be necessary, and that many impor- tant things had been cursorily passed over, which must be more distinctly treated : but he fully expected that the whole would have been comprised in less than three hundred pages. The work was put immediately to the press, and the first Lecture was printed without any very considerable alterations from the original copy : the five others, however, have been enlarged, upon an average, to three times their original extent ; and a copious Appendix has also been added.* Altogether, the book has assumed dimensions much beyond what was wished ; but for this it is hoped, the importance of the subject will be a suffi- cient apology. As neither the whole of the work, nor any large portion of it, was ever under the Author's eye toge- ther, till it was irrevocably fixed in print, he is aware that it may afford abundant occasion for the severity of criticism : he would wish therefore that it might be judged by its matter and design, rather than its manner and execution. If the former merit condemnation, let condem-

* To the last Article of the Appendix, — the Remarks upon the late excellent Bampton Lectures by the late Rev. Mr. Conybeare, — no reference occurs in the Work itself, the Author not having read them till that part of his Work was printed in which the notice of them would properly have come : he takes the opportunity, therefore, of making the reference here.

Xii PREFACE.

nation be awarded; but for the latter he craves some indul- gence. The mode of its origin necessarily threw the work into a popular form, which it still retains, especially in the first Lecture : but the Author has endeavoured to render it not unworthy the attention of the lover of studious in- quiry and of biblical literature, while he has mainly en- deavoured to assist the pursuit of the earnest investigator of revealed truth. The question respecting the divinity of the professed Oracles of Revelation, is equally mo- mentous to the simple and to the sage ; and this, he hopes, will be accepted as an apology by the learned, for his having treated it in a concio ad populum*

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I. — Page 1 to 44.

Introductory. Infidel Objections stated.

Prevalence of Infidel sentiments, and of an increasing tendency to think meanly of the Scriptures. Their Plenary Inspiration generally relinquished. Design of these Lectures stated. I. Necessity of Revelation. II. The character which must belong to a Composition which has God for its Author. Inquiry proposed : Do the books called the Holy Scriptures come up to this character? Answered in the affirmative by the Lecturer, but the Proof reserved for the subsequent Lectures. Answered in the negative by the Deist, on the alleged grounds, that the books in question contain some Statements which are contradictory to each other, some that are at variance with Science and Reason, and some which are repugnant to Morality ; and that, beside these positive Objections, the greater part of them is occupied with Indifferent and Insignificant Matters. Examples. General Reply : That all such Objections arise from taking a merely Superficial View of the Scriptures, and from an Ignorance of their True Nature ; and that they may be retorted, so as to assist in proving what the True Nature^ of the Scriptures is. III. Appeal to the Reader, on the ill consequences of Infidelity.

LECTURE 1L— Page 45 to 120.

The True Nature of the Scriptures Explained.

Design with which the Scriptures were given, and the Nature of their Composition, stated for proof. I. That the title "the Word of God," and the Plenary Inspiration which that title implies, are claimed by the Scriptures. 1. By Moses and the Prophets for their respective Writings. 2. The claim allowed them, and their abso-

XIV CONTENTS.

lute Infallibility asserted, by the Lord Jesus Christ. 3. Their

Plenary Inspiration insisted on by the Apostles. 4. And recognised,

till lately, by the majority of Biblical Critics. II. Proofs, from

rational and philosophical grounds, that a Composition which is

really " the Word of God," must contain stores of wisdom in its

bosom independently of any thing that appears on the surface. III.

That the Composition received as the Word of God, continually

assures us that it is inwardly replenished with such wisdom. 1. This

intimated by the writers of the Old Testament: 2. Expressly

declared by the Lord Jesus Christ; 3. And by his Apostles: 4.

Generally believed by the Christian Church, (1.) for many ages,

from the Apostles downwards, (2.) and still recognised by the

best Interpreters. IV. But this great truth having been abused,

that endeavours have been made, during the last two or three

Centuries, to restrict the meaning of the Scriptures to their Literal

Sense alone. Admitted, that all Controversies are to be decided,

and Points of Faith established, by the Literal Sense : But that the

objection against a further sense would fall to the ground, could

it be shewn, that the Scriptures are written throughout according

to an immutable Law or Rule, a knowledge of which would, in

explaining them, substitute certainty for conjecture, and cut off

the sources of vague interpretation.

LECTURE III.— Page 121 to 221.

The Law or Rule Explained according to which the Scriptures are written.

Preliminary Remark, on the Reasons why the Scriptures are not written in plainer Language. Short Recapitulation. I. A Univer- sal Rule of Interpretation afforded in the Mutual Relation, which exists by creation, between things Natural or Material, Spiritual or Moral, and Divine. II. The Nature of this Relation considered. 1. The whole Universe an Outbirth from the Deity, whence it bears, in all its parts, an immutable relation to the attributes which belong to the Divine Essence. 2. That on all things belong- ing to tthe Moral, Intellectual, and Spiritual Worlds, the Divine Creator has thus first stamped a certain Image of himself. 3. And that he has done the same, though under a totally different form, on all the objects of Outward and Material Nature: (1.) In the chief organs and parts of the Human Frame, and in the arrangement of Pairs observable through all Nature : (2.) In the imitation of the Human Form which reigns throughout the Animal Kingdom, and,

CONTENTS. XV

by Analogous Parts and Functions, in the Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms also : (3.) In what may be called the Moral Qualities of Animals : (4.) Digression on the origin of Malignant Qualities in Animals and the other productions of Nature. (5.) The subject resumed, and instanced in the Essential Properties of Vegetables and Minerals. 4. Thus that all things in Nature, being Outward Pro- ductions from Inward Essences, are Natural, Sensible, and Material Types of Moral, Intellectual, and Spiritual Antitypes, and, finally, of their Prototypes in God. III. That, were the Relation between these different orders of Existences fully understood, a Style of Writing might be constructed, in which, while none but Natural Images were used, purely Intellectual Ideas should be most fully expressed. — 1. That this is in a great measure intuitively perceived by all Mankind. (1.) Hence our conclusions from the Expression of the Countenance to the Emotions of the Mind. (2.) And hence the origin of many Forms of Speech in common use. (3.) If such a relation of Analogy between Moral or Spiritual and Material or Natural Objects exists in a great number of cases, it must be universal. 2. Palpable Instances of the occurrence of such Forms of Speech in the Holy Word. IV. That in ancient times this con- stant Relation between things Natural, Moral or Spiritual, and Divine, was extensively understood. 1. Proved from intimations in the Historical Parts of Scripture. 2. Confirmatory remarks, drawn from the Mythological Fables of the Greeks and Asiatics, and the Hieroglyphics of Egypt, some of which are explained. V. That in this Relation, then, is to be found the Law or Rule accord- ing to which the Scriptures are written, and that a knowledge of it will afford the Key by which their "dark sayings" must be deci- phered.— Conclusion : That the Doctrine of Analogies is not liable to the reproach either of Fancifulness or of Novelty, and is worthy the attention of every friend of Revelation and Piety, and of Reason and Knowledge.

LECTURE IV— Page 222 to 382.

Proofs and Illustrations, evincing that the Scriptures are written according to the Law or Rule developed in the last Lecture.

I. Of the Style proper to a Divine Composition. Such a Style afforded by the Relation of Analogy between Natural Things and Spiritual, as explained in the last Lecture. II. That if the Scriptures are written by a Plenary Divine Inspiration, they must be composed

XVI CONTENTS.

in this Style. 1. The Word of God must be governed by the same General Law as his Works ; and this is the Law of the above Analogy. (1.) That when the Divine Speech, or the Divine Word, which is the same thing as the Divine Truth, emanates from the bosom of Deity into the circumference of Creation, or into the world of Nature, it there clothes itself with Images taken from that world, and that it cannot otherwise be presented to Mankind : (2.) But it thus is presented with a fulness which no other kind of Language could afford : 2. Variety of Phraseology in the different Inspired Penmen, not inconsistent with Verbal Inspiration. 3. The difference between Plenary and Personal Inspiration ; and that the former is necessarily occasional, and not permanently attendant on certain Persons. III. That the Holy Scriptures are the Divine Truth thus brought into a natural form ; and that therefore their Interior Meaning can only be understood by an application to them of the Law which governs the Relation between Natural Objects and Spiritual and Divine Essences. IV. Applicability of the Rule to the Prophecies of the Divine Word. The View proposed supplies exactly what, in other Systems, was felt to be wanting. 1. Sen- timents of Biblical Critics on the Double Sense of Prophecy. Necessity of making the System uniform. 2. Rule of Analogical Interpretation adopted by Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Warburton. 3. Defects of their Rule, and the necessity of extending it further. V. Examples of the Light which results from the application of the Rule of Analogy between Natural Things and Spiritual to the Prophecies. 1 . Ezekiel's Prophecy of a great Sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel. (Ezek. xxxix. 17 to 20.) (1.) General Re- marks on the Class of Prophecies which can be intended for Spiritual Fulfilment only. (2.) Evidence that this Prediction belongs to that Class. (3.) General Signification of Judaea and the surrounding Countries. (4.) The Spiritual Analogy of the relations of Place deduced. (5.) The Signification of the Land of Gog and Magog as resulting from this Analogy, and of an Invasion thence of the Land of Judaea. (6.) The light thrown by this Prophecy upon that portion of the Prophetic Word which treats in its Letter of particular Countries and Nations. (7.) The Import, in the Lan- guage of Analogy, of the Address to the Fowls and Beasts. 2. The Lord's Prophecy of his Second Coming in the Clouds of heaven, (Matt. xxiv. 29, 30.) (1.) The former part of this Chapter a remarkable instance of that Class of Prophecies which admits a Literal Fulfilment: yet the Spiritual Fulfilment the principal thing intended. (2.) The impossibility of connecting the former part of the Prophecy with the latter by the Literal Sense alone, and the

CONTENTS.

Inconsistencies incurred by Commentators in the attempt. (3.) Inquiry instituted into the specific Signification of the Coming of the Son of man in the Clouds. (4.) The terms must have a determinate meaning. (5.) The Import of the phrase, " Son of man," as used in Scripture. (6.) The Ground of that Import in Analogy. (7.) Signification of the Clouds, when mentioned in Scripture ; with the Analogical Reason for it. (8.) The Meaning of the Prophecy thus rendered evident. 3. John's Vision of Spi- ritual Babylon, (Rev. xvii. 3 to 6.) (1.) Signification of Babylon in Scripture, as discoverable from the circumstances predicated respecting it : (2.) Of the circumstances predicated of Babylon personified.*— Conclusion : That the Prophetic Parts of Scripture are composed in the Divine Style of Writing, and that, thus far, the claims of the Scriptures to Plenary Divine Inspiration are established.

LECTURE V.— Page 383 to 544.

Proofs and Illustrations continued.

The Argument, respecting the proof of the Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures by their Style, more distinctly stated. I. Ap- plicability of the Law which governs the Relation between Natural Objects and Spiritual and Divine Essences, or of the Science of Analogies, as a Rule for the Interpretation of the Historical Parts of the Divine Word. 1. Sentiments of Biblical Critics, and admissions of Expositors, on the Typical Nature of the Scripture History : (1.) In regard to the Miracles; (2.) And other Circumstances. 2. Necessity of making the System uniform. II. Just Ideas of the nature and uses of the Israelitish Dispensation necessary to the right apprehension of the Israelitish History. 1. The selection of the Israelites as a peculiar people, not intended so much for their own benefit as for the general benefit of mankind. 2. It promoted this object j (1.) By their filling a station indispen. sable in the Divine Economy, during a period in which a higher or more extensive Dispensation could not have been received, and in supplying the Preparation without which such superior Dis- pensation could never be given at all : (2.) By furnishing the means by which the Holy Word might be written : which they did by representing1 divine things under External Symbols and Natural Occurrences ; for which office they were peculiarly suited by their distinguishing Temper and Genius. III. Examples of the Light which results from the application of the Rule of Analogy between Natural

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CONTENTS.

things and Spiritual to the Scripture Histories. 1 . The Miraculous Capture of Jericho: (Josh, vi.) (1.) The Acts of Violence per- formed by the Israelites, and some of the Enactments of the Law, merely permitted to them " because of the hardness of their hearts," and because they could be so overruled as to afford exact Symbolic Representations of the Spiritual and Heavenly things which are the real objects of all the Divine Commandments. (2.) The Spiritual Import of the Command to destroy the Canaanites; (3.) of the circumstances attending the Capture of Jericho. 2. Jephthah and his vow: (Judges xi.) Remarks on the literal history. (1.) Ne- cessity for an appearance, on the face of the Narrative, as if the Sacrifice took place. (2.) The Origin of Human Sacrifices : (3.) And of Sacrificial Worship in general ; with its Ground in, and Sig- nification by, the Science of Analogies. (4.)* The Signification of an apparent, and of the actual Sacrifice of a Child. (5.)f The principles applied to the case of Jephthah's Vow, and shewn to explain, most satisfactorily, the statements of the Narrative. 3. The combat of David and Goliath. (1 Sam. xvii.) 4. The circumstances attending the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. IV. Examples of the Light which results from the application of the Rule to the Ceremonial Precepts of the Divine Word. 1. The Sacrifices in general : 2. The Prohibition of various kinds of meats : (Lev. xi.) 3. The Law of the Nazarite : (Numb, vi.) 4. Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; which were instituted under the Christian Dispensation as an Epitome of the whole Ceremonial Law. — In- ference from the whole. V. Additional Argument, 1. Proposed and Illustrated: A false Rule of Interpretation could not draw from the Scriptures a coherent sense throughout : But the Doctrine of Analogies does this : Wherefore it must be the True Rule of In- terpretation, and the Scriptures must be written according to it. 2. The argument afforded by the fact, That a number of Writers, living at distant periods, produced Compositions all uniformly fol- lowing this Law. — Inference repeated,— That the Style in which the Scriptures are composed is the truly Divine Style of Writing ; and that nothing short of Plenary Divine Inspiration could be ade- quate to their production. Thus they are truly denominated THE WORD of GOD.

* Erroneously marked in the place referred to, (S.) t Erroneously marked (4.)

CONTENTS. XIX

LECTURE VI.— Page 545 to 631.

The whole Fabric of Infidel Objections shewn to be without Foundation.

T. General View of the System and Arguments of the preceding Lectures: 1. The first stage of the Argument: 2. The second: 3. The third : Important additional Testimony : 4. The last. II. The four Classes of Infidel Objections stated in the first Lecture resumed, and examined by the View which has been developed of the nature of the Holy Word, and of the means of deciphering its true Sig- nification. 1. Imputed Inconsistencies with Reason and Science considered: (1.) Style of Writing in the first part of the book of Genesis. (2.) Genius of Mankind in the Primeval Ages. (3.) Co- incidences between the Narratives of this part of Scripture and ancient Traditions. — Conclusion : That the Word of God pro- nounces no dictum upon the questions agitated by Science. 2. Im- puted Contradictions considered. (1.) The case of the water turned into blood by the Magicians of Egypt. (2.) Why were four Gospels written? (3.) Theory of their variations proposed. (4.) Illustrated by the different accounts of the treatment and behaviour of the Lord Jesus Christ at the Crucifixion : (5.) By the two modes of representing the conduct of the Thieves. (6.) The two accounts of the Temptation in the Wilderness. "(70 Matthew's naming Jere- miah instead of Zechariah a necessary result of his Inspiration. — Conclusion : That the varying statements of the Sacred Writers, fairly interpreted, actually become evidences of their Inspiration. 3. Imputed Violations of Morality considered. (1.) That they only evince the Representative Character of the Israelitish Dispensation. (2.) David not the Pattern of a saint, but the Type of one. 4. Im- puted Insignificance considered. General Reply confirmed j— That all such Objections arise from taking a merely superficial view of the Sacred Scriptures, and from an utter Ignorance of their true Nature. III. Address to Christians on the Necessity of taking higher ground in then: Controversy with Deists. IV. Address to Deists, on the internal causes of Scepticism. 'Conclusion.

APPENDIX.

Page

No. I. Proofs of the Symbolic Character of the Writings of the Old Testament afforded by the Revelation of John . i

XX CONTENTS.

Page

No. II. An Attempt to discriminate between the Books of Plenary Inspiration contained in the Bible, and those written by the Inspiration generally as- signed to the whole . .... ix

No. Ill, The Great Objects and Phsenomena of the Mun- dane System considered, as they are referred to in the Language of Prophecy, and of the Scrip- tures in general xxxv

No. IV. The Signification of the Clouds, when mentioned

in Scripture, further Illustrated . . xliv

No. V. Illustrations of the Jewish Character ; evincing its Aptitude for a Dispensation consisting chiefly in External Rites .... liii

No. VI. Critical Examination of Jephthah's Vow . Ix

No. VII. Arguments for the Literal Interpretation of the

first part of Genesis considered . . Ixx

No. VIII- Remarks on the Recent Volume of Bampton Lec- tures, by the late Rev. J. J. Conybeare, M.A. ; and on the Support which it affords to the main Principle of the present Work . . Ixxi

ERRATA.

Page 17 line 6 After treated dele of

49 27 Dele then

116 2 For bringing prominently, read bringing prominently

forward

— — 126 14 For men read man

— — 171 14 For is read arc

190 24 For where read whose

103 13 For that read then

247 12 For Bishop Randolph read Dr. Randolph

271 15 For Judah read Judsea

366 22 For bodieg read their bodieg

398 13 For first read second

406 32 For should read shall

424 9 For sufficiently read sufficient

— —514 7 For uncircumcited. That read uncircumcised, that

569 8 For image read images

The reference to Dr. Paley, in the Note, p. 334, should be to his Evidences. Pt. II. Ch. iv. § Hi.

INTRODUCTORY. iM'lbliL UIUEC'IIONS STATED.

Prevalence of infidel sentiments, and of an increas- ing tendency to think meanly of the Scriptures, — Their Plenary Inspiration generally relin- quished.— Design of these Lectures stated. — Necessity of Revelation. — The character that must belong to a Composition which has God for its Author. — Inquiry proposed: Do the books called the Holy Scriptures come up to this cha- racter ? — Answered in the affirmative by the Lee- turer, but the proof reserved for the subsequent Lectures : — Answered in the negative by the Deist, on the aliedged grounds, that the books in question contain statements that are contradictory to each other, some that are at variance with science and reason, and some that are repugnant to morality; and that, beside these positive objections, the greater part of them is occupied with indif- ferent and insignificant matters. — General reply, that all such objections arise from taking a merely superficial view of the Scriptures, and

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from an ignorance of their true nature ; and that they may be retorted so as to assist in proving what the true nature of the Scriptures is. — Appeal to the reader, on the ill consequences of infi- delity.

THERE is a prediction in the second Epistle of Peter*, which can hardly fail to present itself to the thoughts of every believer in Divine Re- velation, when he reflects upon the deluge of infidelity, which, in the present times, is seen pouring upon the world. The apostle says, <f there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts :" upon which it has been justly remarked by advocates of Christianity, that the circumstance of the wide diffusion of hostility to Revelation which it is the lot of the present generation to witness, itself affords a testimony of the truth of the Scrip- tures; since it is the fulfilment of a prophecy which the Scriptures contain. Another divine prediction of Holy Writ, will also frequently occur to the recollection of him who contem- plates this state of things: Jesus Christ says, fe Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." f It is now gene- rally admitted by expositors of Scripture, that

* Ch. fii. ver. 3. f Matt. xxiv. 35.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED,, &C. 3

the so often occurring prophetical figure of the passing away of heaven and earth, denotes the overturning of ecclesiastical and civil establish- ments. Of these occurrences the present gene- ration has seen more extensive examples, than have before been witnessed since the first esta- blishment of Christianity ; and were it not for the divine assurance that the words of Jesus Christ shall not pass away, — (and these words, in fact, include the whole of the Word of God, since we are assured by Peter that the" spirit which in- spired the old prophets was the spirit of Christ*; — were it not for this divine assurance, ) we might almost expect, when we observe the activity with which deistical publications are circulated, and the avidity with which, in too many cases, their poison is imbibed, that, amongst the moral and civil revolutions of which the present is so remarkable an era, all belief in divine revela- tion would be abolished from the human mind; the awful consequences of which would be, to place the moral world in a situation precisely similar to that in which the world of nature would stand, were the sun to be abolished from the fir- mament. In a neighbouring nation we actually have seen this revolution temporarily effected. Profligacy of manners and atheistical writings had together destroyed, in a great portion of the peo- ple, all reverence for revealed truth : persons of * i Ep. i. 11. B 2

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this class possessed themselves of the government ; and decrees were issued proclaiming Christianity abolished, and disowning any Divinity but the Divi- nity of reason. The horrors that ensued,, by excit- ing a re-action,, prepared indeed the way for re-es- tablishing the profession of Christianity ; but as this is there disguised among the mummeries of Popery, it is not likely, though now favoured by the government, to make many but political con- versions : and the disregard to the Word of God appears to be nearly as great as ever, though con- tempt for it is not so indecently expressed. In- deed, there is ample reason for believing, that, in all Roman Catholic countries, infidelity, in a greater or less degree, is prevalent with most of those, who consider themselves raised above the vulgar by station and acquirements.

Are the Protestant countries on the continent of Europe exempt from the contagion? There is rea- son to apprehend, that the poison of infidelity is here also spreading, not less rapidly than where it is fostered by the corruptions of the church of Rome: of which ample evidence might be afford- ed. But here also another extraordinary fea- ture, discovering the tendencies of the present age in regard to the belief in revelation, becomes conspicuous. Not only is absolute infidelity very prevalent, but the religion that is professed is more and more assuming a character, which renders it different from infidelity, less in sub-

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 5

stance than in name. The most low and un- worthy ideas of the Christian Redeemer are daily superseding the honour that is his due; and,, in the same ratio, ideas equally low and un- worthy regarding the inspiration of the Sacred Volume, are spreading with celerity. The church of Geneva, so long regarded by a large portion of the Christian world as the centre of illumination, has published a reformed creed, disavowing any belief in the divinity of the Saviour: and the universities of Germany, which have formerly rendered such essential services to the cause of Biblical Learning, seem now to be labouring, through the works of their Professors, to reduce the standard of inspiration to as low a degree as is consistent with any belief, that the books which claim it contain a system of true religion ; so low indeed, that it becomes difficult to perceive wherein they differ from the productions of writers who do not pretend to be inspired. A few years since, Dr. G. Paulus, a Professor in the University of Jena, and a Clergyman, published a new edition of the works of the celebrated atheist or pantheist, Spinoza, with a laudatory preface, in which he maintains, that the sentiments of this acknowledged infidel respecting the inspiration of the Sacred Scrip- tures, are the same which, in the hands of Professor Eichhorn of the University of Gottingen, have led to such superior elucidations of the holy

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Volume. This Professor Eichhorn has published an Introduction to the Old and New Testaments, with several other works on Biblical criticism, which have been hailed with enthusiasm among his learned compatriots, as prodigies of erudition and genius. By erudition and genius he doubt- less is distinguished: but how far his works tend to exalt the Scriptures, however they may elucidate questions connected with their lan- guage and with oriental antiquities, will be seen when it is stated, that, like our excentric countryman, Dr. Geddes, he denies any inspira- tion to Moses. And it is well known that simi- lar latitudinarianisnr, miscalled liberality, cha- racterizes the works of the modern German li- terati, and teachers of Christianity, in generaJ. Let us now turn our eyes for a moment to our own country. Britain may undoubtedly be re- garded as the Latium of modern times. As in Latium, according to the fables of the ancient mythologists, the virtues of the golden age took refuge after they had been banished from the rest of the world ; so is it in Britian, unquestionably, that the greatest portion of true religion is in these ages to be found. Here also, however, the destroy ing- plague has been let loose ; and its ravages have been exten- sive. Owing in part to the freedom which the human mind in this favoured country enjoys, and the liberty of publishing its thoughts which is

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 7

necessary to the keeping alive of this inestimable privilege,, deistical and atheistical writings have long been here abundant : a Hobbes set the ex- ample to Spinoza, as did a Toland and Tindal to Voltaire : and the most desponding anticipations were long ago formed by the friends of religion, of the devastating effects which might finally result from the audacity of its assailants. What would these worthy persons have thought, had they witnessed the indecency, as well as audacity, which characterizes the efforts of infidelity in the present age? In their times, but comparatively a few speculative persons entertained any doubts of the truth of the Christian religion: and the attacks which were then made against it only excited attention in the reading portion of so- ciety, which in those days was comparatively small : nay, the authors of such attacks then only addressed them to men of education, and thought the attempt to unsettle the faith of the multitude too desperate an experiment. How different this conduct from that of the present generation of the opposers of Revelation ! Wisely concluding, that the less informed the mind is, the less will it be capable of detecting the fallacy of their arguments, the infidels of the present day chiefly aim at accommodating their publications to the taste of the mob; whose passions, also, they labour to enlist on their side, still more than to convince their understanding.

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Arrogant assertion., coarse ridicule, affected con- tempt., bold falsehood., and overweening dog- matism, with unfounded representations of the happiness which would ensue were mankind liberated from what they call the tyranny of kings and priests, and placed under no controul but that of the presumed infallible guide, Rea- son ; — these are the chief weapons by which they now make conquests: and as there is un- doubtedly much in the human heart, to which all this is congenial and agreeable, their success has certainly been extensive and alarming. The profligate, to whom the restraints of reli- gion are irksome, finds it extremely consolatory to be assured, that the principles which govern his conduct are really (( the Principles of Na- ture" : and the sciolist in learning feels it highly gratifying to his vanity, to decry as falla- cious, all that is beyond the reach of his puny attainment. Sceptism — as incredulity is flatter- ingly called, — may be termed a short road to uni- versal knowledge : for he who derides as idle speculation whatever he cannot grasp by the exercise of his sluggish senses, is in his own con- ceit as wise as the archangel, to whom all the mysteries of God's providence stand open, and all the wonders of the Creative Energy are known.

Here then are two classes of persons among whom the contagion of infidelity has spread ra- pidly indeed. But is it among such, only, that its

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 9

converts are to be found ? This we would by no means presume to assert. No doubt, many have had their minds unsettled in regard to the truth of revealed religion, who were not pre- pared to take the inoculation of infidelity by a predisposed state of the mental organization; many even, to whom it would be a great relief, could they have their doubts removed to the full satisfaction of their understanding. These arethey who have had their attention directed to certain difficulties which appear to exist in the sacred volume; and which must ever appear as real dif- ficulties to those who are not aware of the true nature of every divine composition, and of the design for which, and the principles according to which, it is written; although when these are correctly understood, all seeming inconsistencies at once disappear. Whilst then these difficul- ties are so industriously brought forward, and presented to the attention with every comment that can help to make them appear insuperable; whilst also an antidote of sufficient power is not afforded by the writings which have been pub- lished in reply, — for such, I fear, must be allowed to be the fact; — we cannot so much wonder at the immense increase of infidel sentiment at the present day; an increase which is really tre- mendous and appalling ; such as must excite the strongest apprehensions of the final issue with all who do not confidently rely on the assurance of

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Jesus Christ : — Cf Heaven and earth shall pass away : but my words shall not pass away."

And whilst the fortress of revelation is thus furiously assailed by those without, how is it de- fended by those within ? Alas ! by giving up its outworks to the enemy, and leaving unguarded a passage to the citadel. I am not now speaking of the works that have been written in defence of Christianity ; but of the principles which., in modern times,, have been laid down from high authority, regarding the inspiration of the Scrip- tures themselves. By way, as it would appear, of compromising the matter with the enemy,, the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Holy Word has, within a recent period, been generally relinquished by those who sit in Moses' seat, and who pronounce, ex cathedra,, what the church is to believe. I allude not to such as are generally regarded as apostates from the orthodox faith ; but the authorities to which I refer, are the ac- knowledged oracles of the orthodox church. The present Bishop of Winchester, for example, in his work designed for the instruction of young clergymen, called ff the Elements of Christian Theology/' lays down the doctrine upon this question thus : cc When it is said that the Sacred Scriptures are divinely inspired, we are not to un- derstand that God suggested every word, or dic- tated every expression. From the different styles in which the books are written, and from the dif-

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 11

ferent manners in which the same events are re- lated and predicted by different authors, it ap- pears, that the sacred penmen were permitted to write as their several tempers, understandings, and habits of life, directed ; and that the know- ledge communicated to them by inspiration on the subject of their writings, was applied in the same manner as any knowledge acquired by or- dinary means. Nor is it to be supposed that they were thus inspired in every fact which they related, or in every precept which they delivered. They were left to the common use of their faculties, and did not, upon every occasion, stand in need of supernatural communication ; but whenever, and as far as, divine assistance was necessary, it was always afforded/* Again he says, " Though it is evident that the sacred historians sometimes wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it does not follow that they derived from revelation the knowledge of those things which might be collected from the common sources of human intelligence. It is sufficient to believe, that by the general superintendance of the Holy Spirit, they were directed in the choice of their materials, enlightened to judge of the truth and importance of those accounts from which they borrowed their information/' (and which he states afterwards were accounts written by unin- spired men) ec and prevented from recording any material error." He is here treating of the

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writers of the Old Testament ; of the writers of the New Testament his sentiments are the same. He says, Cf If we believe that God sent Christ into the world to found a universal religion., and that,, by the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, he empowered the apostles to propagate the gospel, as stated in these books, we cannot but believe that he would, by his immediate interposition, enable those whom he appointed to record the gospel for the use of future ages, to write without the omission of any important truth, or the in- sertion of any material error/' And these sen- timents are generally received as orthodox — • are quoted from Bishop Law, and recommended, though not expressly adopted, by the late Bi- shop Watson, in his answer to Paine, and are laid down in numerous works as the true princi- ples of Scripture Inspiration. What ideas the profoundly learned Bishop Marsh, one of the Pro- fessors of Divinity at Cambridge, entertains of the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, is evi- dent from his laboured scheme to account for the composition of the three first gospels, as given with his translation of Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament; in which he supposes a principal and a supplemental sketch of the Sa- viour's life and discourses to have been first drawn up by unknown authors, — to have had various additions made to them afterwards as they passed through various unknown hands, — and at last to

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 13

have been digested by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with further additions, into the form of their respective gospels. Other statements of this nature might be mentioned; but they all agree in the leading principle of allowing only a very partial inspiration to the sacred writers. Bishop Lowth, for instance, is a name ever to be mentioned with respect by the Biblical student, for his valuable Prelections on Hebrew poetry, and Version of Isaiah : but when he represents the prophets as borrowing ideas from one ano- ther, and as improving or debasing what they thus borrowed according to the sublimity of their poetical genius or the purity of their criti- cal taste; does he not degrade them, in a great degree, from prophets to mere poets? He cer- tainly endeavours to elevate our esteem for their talents as men ; but he assists in abolishing our reverence for their writings as flowing from the immediate dictate of God.

Now how do Deists receive these concessions so liberally made ? The advocates of Revelation may be regarded as saying to them, ff See ! we have come half way to meet you : surely you will not obstinately refuse belief, now that we require you to believe so little." What does the Deist answer? He says, "You are admitting, as fast as you can, that we are in the right. If you, who view the subject through the prejudices of your profession, are constrained to give up half of

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what we demand, unbiassed persons will augur from the admission, that truth would require a surrender of the whole/' No, rny friends and brethren ! he who would effectually defend the Christian faith must take his station on higher ground than this. What ! tell the world, that to escape the increasing influence of infidelity,, they must surrender the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures ! As well might we tell them, that to obtain security when a flood is rising, they should quit the top of the mountain to take refuge in a cave at its base.

Assuredly, this is a state of things, calculated to fill the breast of the sincere and humble Christian with profound concern, if not with deep alarm. On the one hand, he beholds Divine Revelation assaulted with unprecedented fury and subtlety by those who avow them- selves as its enemies ; — on the other, he sees it half betrayed and deserted by those who re- gard themselves as its friends. Every devout believer in Revelation feels an inward predilec- tion for the opinion, that the inspiration of a divinely communicated writing must be plenary and absolute. He feels great pain on being told, that this is a mistaken notion; — that he must surrender many things in the Sacred Writings to the enemy, to retaiu any chance of preserving the rest ; — that he must believe the writers of the Scriptures to have been men liable to error, as a

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED., &C. 15

preliminary to his assurance that the religion of the Scriptures is true. Surely, every one whose heart does not take part with the assailant of his faith,, must be glad to be relieved from the neces- sity of making surrenders so fatal. The bowed staff eagerly springs back to its natural straight- ness, when lightened of the weight under which it bent: so he who has relinquished the doctrine of plenary inspiration,, only because he saw no other way of accounting for the difficulties which have been pointed out in the Sacred Writings, will return to it with joy, as soon as he sees how those difficulties may be explained, without the hypothesis of error in the inspired penmen. Reflection, then, upon these things, has occasioned a desire in myself and some friends, to bring before the public, a view of the nature of the Holy Word in which this is done, — a view which, I strongly feel, is the only one that places the Divine Book beyond the reach of injury from infidel objections. It is, however, with much diffidence, that I address an auditory from a sta- tion, which is at other times occupied by some of the ablest men, whom the Christian ministry of this metropolis can boast:* [and I feel the same self-distrust, in a still greater degree, on addressing the public from the press.] My only

* A series of Lectures on Scripture Biography was then in a course of delivery at Albion Hall, by the most eminent Ministers of the Independent Connexion.

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hope of obtaining acceptance, is founded in my conviction of the solidity of the sentiments, which I am to be the very inadequate organ of unfold- ing : sure, also, I am, that no candid minds will be less pleased with the truth, because it is offered through a channel, which they might not pre- viously have supposed adapted to convey it. The defence of the oracles which contain the revelation of the Christian religion, is the com- mon duty of all who assume the Christian name: and all who are sincerely attached to the Christian cause, will extend the right hand of fellowship to any one, be he otherwise who he may, who can point out a new line of defence, and shew how the divine authority of Revelation may be more effectually upheld. We are assured, also, that the Lord's care over his church can never be intermitted; that in proportion to the magnitude of the dangers to which she is exposed, will be the communication of means by which she may be defended : and it is perfectly in harmony with the ordinary economy of Divine Providence, that those means should come from a quarter whence they are least expected. Confiding then in the di- vine support, on the one hand, and relying, on the other, on the charity and love of truth which must ever reign in the bosom of the true Christian; — appealing also to the liberality and regard to pure reason which is constantly professed by the Deist; I beg the favourable and earnest attention of this

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 17

auditory,, [and of the reader,] while I discuss the subjects announced for consideration in these Lectures.

The question of the Necessity of Divine Reve- lation, has been so frequently and so satisfactorily treated 4$ by others, that, as it is my wish, as far as possible, to aroid going" over ground that has been trodden before, I shall not dwell long on this part of the subject.

The view which I would take of this question, is this. It is certain, that all the facts with which history brings us acquainted in regard to the state of mankind in former ages, and all those which are supplied to us by the observations of travellers respecting the present state of mankind in the different countries on the globe, afford the most decided evidence, that, without aid from Revelation, man is little better than a brute ; — that to Revelation are owing all the superior excellences which ennoble his character as a man. Infidel writers talk of the light of reason, and they speak of the duties of man in society, with every thing necessary to his moral and intellectual improvement, as being easily deducible by the light of nature. The high utility of these sources of intelligence I readily admit : but when I hear such assertions as these, I always feel a wish to be informed how it has happened, that the light of nature never conducted man to

D

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these discoveries, except when Nature had the means of lighting her candle at the torch of Re- velation. It is evidently from the general im- provement in the intelligence of the human mind which Revelation has produced, that modern in- fidels have been enabled to illuminate their reve- ries with some beautiful truths: These truths were not discovered to them either by the light of nature or the light of reason : they took them first from that religion in which they had been brought up ; and then, finding them recommend themselves by their own evidence, and to be agreeable to the light of reason and nature, they have ascribed them to that source ; and thus they set up the offspring of Revelation to destroy the authority of the parent.

Never yet was a nation known to have emerg- ed from barbarism to civilization, without instruc- tion communicated, either immediately or tra- ditionally, from Revelation. According to the testimony both of the Scriptures, and of other ancient authorities, all religion, which was all originally founded in Revelation, began in the east, and has thence been diffused in the west ; and it is well known, that the same has been the tract in which civilization has flowed over the world. The first created men had, as the Scrip- tures assure us, the knowledge of God and of their duty communicated to them by immediate Revelation. After the flood, Revelation was con-

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 19

tinned in the family of Noah, by whose posterity all the powerful and highly polished nations of antiquity were founded. Even the Grecian and other ancient mythologies were corruptions of the originally true religion communicated by Revelation to Noah and his descendants. This takes away the plea of those, who would appeal to the philosophers of Greece as examples of the efficacy of the light of nature. This plea has indeed been well answered by Leland and others, who have shewn, that, under the name of philosophy, the most ridiculous fancies in theory, and the most corrupt abominations in morals, were often foisted on mankind, and that a man would wander in darkness indeed, who should draw all his light from such foun- tains alone. But admitting, for argument's sake, that it would be safe to take the best of the phi- losophers as guides in religion and morals: it is a well known fact, that both Plato and Pythago- ras derived a part of their systems from the priests of Egypt, whom they went expressly to consult; and though the pure light of Revela- tion was in Egypt greatly obscured, yet it is cer- tain that all the true knowledge of a religious nature which the Egyptians possessed, was what remained from their original descent from the son of Noah. As natives of Greece then, where the religion derived from the revelation to Noah existed under one form of corruption,

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and as students in Egypt, where the same original religion existed under another form of corruption, Pythagoras and Plato possessed themselves of all the remains of knowledge which tradition had preserved from that Revelation. I would by no means affirm, as some learned men have done, that Plato borrowed any of his ideas from the Jews, or that the writings of Moses afforded any of the materials for the Grecian mythology : but there was a revelation existing in the world before that given by the instrumen- tality of Moses, and which was similar to his in substance, though different in form ; and this, turned into symbolic representations, was the foundation of the popular religion, whilst the ideas veiled in those symbols were the basis of philosophic speculation, among all the dis- tinguished nations of antiquity.

The sceptic may laugh at the assertion, but I arn satisfied that they who can view things in their causes will see its truth; that, whatever they who would separate science "from religion may pretend to the contrary, Revelation is, in an in- direct manner, the fountain-head of all science ; for it is in consequence of the elevation of the faculties that is occasioned by the reception of the truths which are the objects of revelation, and the consequent illumination of the mind with heavenly light, (allow this phrase, ye ad- vocates of the light of nature! — for if there be

.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. ... 21

. ^^.-'fe k <»

such a thing as Revelation,, the perceptions which are its offspring must be the progeny of heavenly light,,) that it becomes receptive of higher de- grees of natural light, and is capable of making greater discoveries in the truths which are the objects of science. It is true that these may be separated, and that men may excel in natural science, who ridicule every thing spiritual : yet it is only in consequence of their receiving the outward part of the sphere of illumination, which continually flows from God into the human mind, through the medium of those who re- ceive the internal part of it, by admitting the truths of Revelation, that progress is made in natural science. All real intelligence, on what- ever subject, must unquestionably be the product of a sphere of illumination flowing continually from God. The highest objects of this illumina- tion must be the truths that relate to man's welfare as an immortal being, — the lowest, those which conduce only to his well-being in this world. Intelligence in the former respect then, must be considered as the operation of an interior sphere of divine illumination ; and intelligence in the latter, as the operation of an exterior sphere of the same. Now the former must be to the latter, just what the soul is to the body : and the latter can no more be entirely separated from the former without extinction, than the body can be separated from the soul without death. Again :

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Illumination in spiritual things is to illumination in natural^ what the heart is to the members. If the femoral artery be divided and secured, the limb will still receive nourishment through the anastomosing vessels : this answers to the case of the existence of scientific attainments, with those who deny religion ; who yet receive the exterior sphere of illumination from God, in consequence of living in connexion with those who receive the interior sphere also : but separate the limb entirely from communication with the heart, by dividing all the vessels, and the limb will speedily waste away : and this exhibits the fate of science, were it altogether separated from Revelation. Transplant then a colony of atheistic philosophers (Deists, as retaining from Revelation the belief of a God, would not be proper subjects for the experiment : — but transplant a colony of atheistic men of learning,) to a remote corner of the globe, and allow them no communication whatever with the disciples of Revelation ; and the certain effect would be, that they would degenerate by degrees into absolute barbarism. To what cause can be attributed the wonderful supe- riority in literature and the arts, which the in- habitants of Christendom have so long main- tained over all the other nations on the globe, but to their minds being more receptive of light of all kinds, in consequence of their admitting the light of Revelation ? How extraordinary too

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 28

is the power which they derive from this source ! See how they have covered the whole western world with their colonies, and how the aboriginal inhabitants have faded from before them ! Be- hold what an empire they have established in the east, almost without colonization, by the pure force of moral superiority ! It is not meant to be asserted that they have always made the best use of their superiority, but only that it unquestionably exists. Superiority in arms is, undoubtedly, the offspring of superiority in arts and science; and these are the products of natural light, which is the offspring of spiritual ; and thus Christians are the arbiters of the des- tinies of the world, because they are the de- positaries of the Word of God. As the tropical climates so immensely excel all others in the luxuriance of their vegetable productions, be- cause they receive most directly the recreating energies of the orb of day; and as all other countries are productive or otherwise according to the proportion which they obtain of the vivifying beams, till, at the poles, perpetual sterility reigns : so are the powers of the human mind invigorated or otherwise in proportion to their reception of the beams of Revelation, and when excluded from these, they languish in the torpor of dulness and ignorance. Paradoxical then as the assertion may sound in the ears of some, it is a certain fact, that could those who cul-

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tivate science without regard to religion, and who reject the Holy Word, the parent of all science, accomplish the object which some of them have aimed at, of destroying the Holy Word by the aid of her rebel progeny; they would accom- plish much more than they intended : in digging a grave for Religion, they would open one, in which, not long afterwards, Science also would be entombed.

. In one word, Until an instance can be adduced of a nation that has flourished in arts, morals, and civilization, without any assistance from Re- velation, we have full reason for concluding, that Revelation is necessary. For the attainment even of these natural benefits, — in order to man's enjoyment of the true excellences and attaining the perfections of his nature, in this life, the light of Revelation is indispensable: of the existence and attributes of God, of his own immortality, of the existence and nature of a life hereafter, and of the means by which he may there attain the true end of his being, without the light of Revelation, he would know nothing at all. Here then it becomes indispensable indeed; and there- fore, in all ages of the world, it has been afforded.

Since then we have such ample reason for concluding, that a revelation from God, under some form or other, is absolutely necessary to the well-being of man: — on the supposition that

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 25

God, to make the advantages of revelation con- stant and permanent,, should cause it to be com- municated in a written composition ; what is the character which,, we may justly conclude, such a written revelation would assume ? Our ideas on this question will be regulated by the ideas we have conceived of the nature of God Him- self: certainly, if these are such as are worthy of the Father of creation, we shall be led to expect something of a most exalted nature in a written revelation of his will. Who then is this wonderful Being, whom we assume to be the author of the writings called the Holy Word ? Infidelity itself must allow, that this question cannot be more appropriately answered, than is done, as from the mouth of the Lord Himself, by the prophet Isaiah : " I arn the First, and I am the Last, and beside me there is no God." <e Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth, in a measure, or weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, has taught him? With whom took he counsel, or who in- structed him, and taught him in the path of judg- ment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as the drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: be-

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hold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing: Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,, and the beasts thereof for a burnt offering! All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him as less than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God ? or what likeness will ye com- pare unto him?" He is (C the High and Lofty One that inhabiteih eternity, whose name is Holy/'* It is by such images as these that the prophets of the Old Testament depict the grandeur of the Author of the Bible ; nor does the New Testa- ment describe him in less impressive terms. When he manifested himself to John, as related in the first chapter of the Revelation, it is writ- ten ; " I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, saith the Lord, Who Is, and Who Was, arid Who is to Come, the Almighty. "f — I forbear to add any thing to these scriptural representations : for in attempting to delineate the ineffable perfections of God, all human lan- guage must fall infinitely too low : — yea, this is a theme of so transcendant a nature, that the tongues of angels could never do it justice. Let us elevate our ideas as far as we possibly can above all that is earthly and gross; — let us form the grandest conceptions we possibly can of the intense ardour of the Divine Love, of the transcendant brightness of the Divine Wisdom, and of the immense extension of the

* Isa. xliv. 6, xl. 12 to 18, Ivii. 15. f Ver. 8.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. £7

Divine Omnipotence : and then let us recollect, that these Diyine Attributes are infinitely beyond all that the highest efforts of imagination can conceive.

Now whilst we are meditating on these three grand attributes of Deity, — his Love, his Wis- dom, and his Power; — if we would endeavour to picture to our thoughts how far they might respectively be exerted, we certainly could never conceive any thing beyond what the Scriptures represent them as having actually performed. Thus if we were to consider in what works the Divine Love might most evidently be displayed, we assuredly could imagine nothing more replete therewith than the wonder^ of our own creation and redemption. For the Lord doubtless created mankind expressly with the design to bless them with every felicity: he also provided an eternal heaven in which that felicity might be perma- nently enjoyed: and what could Infinite Love do more? Yet the Love of the Lord has .done more. For when man had entirely receded from the end of his creation, such was the mercy of Him by whom all things were made, and without whom was not any thing made that was made*y that he assumed man's nature by incarnation in the world, in order to lead him back to his Maker and to bliss.

If again we were to consider within ourselves, * John i. 3. E 2

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in what manner the Divine Power of the Lord might be most evidently displayed, we could not possibly imagine any more stupendous ex- ertions of it than those which we see around us. For what amazing power must that have been, by which this fair globe was formed,, and peo- • pled with innumerable inhabitants; by which the enormous orb that gives us light and heat was created; and by which myriads of other such immense repositories of heat and light, each with a train of dependant worlds,, were called into existence, and arranged in an order that baffles all human intellect to conceive, through the boundless fields of immeasurable space !

Since then these manifest exhibitions of the Divine Love and the Divine Power are of so immense and magnificent a nature, must we not expect that an immediate revelation of the Divine Wisdom would be equally wonderful and glorious? That in all the works which we have already mentioned the Divine Wisdom is appa- rent, and that none of them could have existed without it, is, indeed, a certain truth : still we may imagine a method in which the Divine Wisdom might be more immediately and ex- pressly discovered. The readiest means we have of judging of the intelligence or understanding of men, is, by their sentiments and conversation ; knd if a man writes a book, we expect to find

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED., &C. 29

in it the plainest evidence of his wisdom, know- ledge, and mental attainments. Suppose then the Lord God Almighty himself should reveal his Wisdom in this manner; suppose he should write, or cause to be written, a book for the instruction of man ; should we not conclude, that such as the Lord God Almighty is, such his book would be? should we not infer, that such a book, like its author, must, as to its contents, be infinite and divine? Should we not expect to see the glories of eternal wisdom shine forth from every page? All mankind, with one voice, must answer these questions in the affirmative.

Here then we come to the great question that is at issue between the Christian ^nd the Deist. It cannot be denied, we see, that a written Reve- lation that is really from God, must answer the character which we have attempted to depict: Do then the writings contained in the book called the Bible, come up to this character; and are we, on that account, authorised to re- ceive those writings as the Word of God? I hesitate not to reply, with the fullest confidence, that they do; and I hope to make this in some degree evident before the conclusion of these Lectures.

By the Deist, however, such an answer as this may be received with the utmost scorn. He will readily enough admit, that a book that is really communicated by divine inspiration, ought to

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answer to the character which we have just described : but he will declare, that he can discover no traces of such a character in the book called the Bible. He will affirm, that such a character as this can by no means belong to a book in which there are many statements that are contradictory to each other; many that are contradictory to reason and science ; many that are contradictory to just morality; and the greater part of which book, moreover, is occupied with matters of an indifferent nature, unworthy of the concern of an Infinite Being. To these four heads may all the classes of infidel objections to the Scriptures be reduced. Some of the objec- tions are, in my estimation, fully refuted in the many valuable defences of the Scriptures which have been published by various authors ; but some of them, I candidly acknowledge, have not, in my opinion, been adequately met : the reason, I apprehend, has been, because the generality of those who have written in modern times in de- fence of the Sacred Scriptures, had not those just ideas of the primitive ages respecting their true nature and design, which alone can meet every objection fully and without reserve. I will here give a slight statement of the nature of each of these four classes of objections : and I will not shrink from stating them with all the force of which they are susceptible : — because I am com- pletely satisfied, that the views I shall develope in

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 31

the succeeding Lectures, will be fully adequate to overthrow them all. It is of no real use to pre- sent things partially and unfairly : this always gives opportunity of triumph to an enemy ; and will only secure the attachment of a friend, so long as we can secure his remaining in ignorance.

Great stress has been laid by infidel objectors upon their charge of contradictory statements of facts : and of the instances alleged to be such, they have collected a great number.

Thus, after Moses had directed Aaron, saying, c( Take thy rod, and stretch out thy hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood ; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone*;" — and after it is related, in the two next verses, that the miracle was performed accordingly; — objectors affirm that Moses must strangely have forgotten himself, to say in the verse following, fc And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments." When all the water of Egypt was turned into blood before, how, it is asked, could the magicians repeat the operation? — But the varieties observable in the manner in which the different evangelists state the events of the life of Jesus Christ, sometimes disagreeing in the order of time, and sometimes * Exod. vii. 19.

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in the circumstances with which the facts were attended, have afforded an extensive field for opprobrious animadversions. When Matthew*., in relating the temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ in the wilderness, makes it conclude with the rebuff he gave the tempter on being offered the dominion of all the kingdoms of the world on condition that he would worship the Satanic deceiver; whilst Lukef places last the sugges- tion to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple in proof of his being the Son of God ;— it is argued., that the whole is a fiction, marked as such by the prevarication which so commonly attends the testimony of witnesses who undertake to support a falsehood : and Christian advocates, while they deny the in- ference that the whole or any part is a fiction, allow that one of the relaters must have been mistaken in regard to the order of time, and that, though he relates true events, he relates them from his own imperfectly informed mind, and not from divine inspiration. Again, the objectors ask, What credit is to be given to the veracity of writers, — and, especially, what becomes of their claim to divine inspiration, — when they misquote so grossly the books which they esteemed sacred, as to assign to one writer what is only to be found in the book of another? Thus Matthew, on occasion of the purchase of * Ch. iv. 10. f Ch. iv. 9.

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the potter's field with the refunded price of the treachery of Judas, says, "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying1, ' And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potter's field; as the Lord appointed me/'* The only passage in the Old Testament which bears any similitude to this, is not in the book of JEREMIAH, but in that of ZECHAiuAH.f And the harmonizers of Scripture have seen no way of surmounting this difficulty, but by one of two equally dangerous admissions; — either that Matthew was mistaken ; or that the book of Je- remiah has come down to us in a very mutilated state. The only other example of deistical objec- tions from alleged contradictions which I shall mention, is that drawn from the account of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus, as given by Matthew and by Luke. After relating the cruel scoffs with which the Saviour was insulted by the Jews as he hung on the cross, Matthew saysj, fc And the thieves also, which were cruci- fied with him, cast the same in his teeth :" whereas Luke§ affirms that only one of them dis- played this brutality, and that he was rebuked for it by the other; who, so far from mocking, " said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when

* Matt xxvii. 9, 10. f Ch. xi. 12, 13. : Ch. xxvii. 42. Ch. xXiii. 39 t6 43.

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thou comest into thy kingdom." This difference is accounted for variously by the commentators, some of whom say, that when Matthew speaks of thieves, in the plural, he only means one of them ; whilst others suppose that they both, at first, joined in the scoffs, but that one of them afterwards repented. But the objectors treat these solutions as mere evasions ; affirm that the passages are in direct opposition ; and ask in triumph, which we are to receive as the pure Word of God.

The second class of Objections — the imputed contradictions to science — chiefly regard the Mosaic account of the creation and the deluge. The account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis, it is alleged, cannot possibly be true ; because the science of geology, which within a few years past has received such great improvements, fully evinces that the whole globe of earth, with its innumerable tribes of inhabi- tants, vegetable, animal, and human, was not formed within the short space of six days, as there detailed. Besides, it is affirmed, that, inde- pendently of geology, reason alone proves the inaccuracy of the statement : for light is said to have been produced on the first day*; whereas the sun, moon and stars were not created till the fourth dayf; and it is very certain, as we now often experience on a very cloudy night when

* Ver. 3, 5. f Ver. 16, 19.

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the moon is below the horizon,, that without sun, moon, and stars, there cannot be any light. It is likewise related, tha't all the vegetable creation was produced on the third day*, thus before the formation of the sun ; yet every rustic knows that without the heat of the sun there can be no vegetation. So also the history states, that, after Cain had killed his brother, he was terrified lest every one that met him should kill him, to prevent which a mark was set on him by Godf ; — which evidently supposes, that at this time the earth had numerous inhabitants ; although, ac- cording to the record, none were then living on it, beside Cain, but his father and mother, who would know him whether a special mark were set on him or not. With regard to the deluge, they affirm it to be improbable that any general deluge ever should have existed, after the globe was once brought into a state adapted for the support of a human population ; and they raise great objections as to the possibility of providing room in the ark sufficient for the ac- commodation of the immense multitude to which the prescribed numbers of animals of all species must have amounted^, and to contain, besides, an adequate stock of provision. According to the history, Noah with his companions, animal and human, remained in the ark a year and ten

* Vcr. 11, 13. t Gen. iv. 14, 15.

t Cha. vii. 2, 3.

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days* : and a long period must afterwards have elapsed before the devastated earth produced a sufficiency of new food for their support. This objection has been answered by calculations to prove the immense bulk of the ark, which., it has been shewn, must have been equal in magnitude to twenty first rate men of war, and to more than forty of the largest Indiamen ; but this, while it is alleged to be still quite insufficient for the purposes required, has furnished the infidel with another objection, who contends, that no vessel of such magnitude could be made to cohere together.

But the most serious class of Objections against the divinity of the Sacred Scriptures, is that which has recently been urged in such shameless terms, declaring the Bible, — which well-disposed minds have revered for ages as the code of all perfect morality, — to be the most immoral book in the world ! Certainly, to ground this charge, as is in great part done, upon those passages in which criminal practices are mentioned for the express purpose of beingcondemned, and of warning man- kind against the dreadful consequences which must overtake the perpetrators ; or even to ground it upon the incidental mention, without comment, of the commission of great crimes;— surely this evinces the accusation to have originated in nothing but deep malignity against the Bible,

* Gen. vii. 11. \iii. 11.

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its Author., and its friends. But the charge deserves more attention when they support it by instances of criminal conduct in persons that are spoken of as peculiarly accepted by God. Thus they dwell much upon the case of Jacob, who, at the instigation of his mother Rebekah, defrauded his brother Esau of his father's bles- sing, by a most extraordinary deception practised upon Isaac, and supported, when the old man suspected it, by the strongest asseveration of a deliberate falsehood.* By the example of the same patriarch, who had two wives and two concubines ; — and indeed of nearly all the Jewish worthies and kings, a sanction is given, they allege, to polygamy and concubinage; an opi- nion also which has not been confined to Deists, since Dr. Madan, a clergyman of the Church of England, published a well-known book with the design to prove, from the above examples, that polygamy and concubinage are allowable to Christians. But the objectors contend, that worse things are sanctioned even than these ; for by the examples of Ehud and Jael, licence is given to assassination. The former was one of the Judges, raised up, it is said, by the Lord, to deliver Israel when in subjection to the Moabites ; and who, under the pretence of carrying a present to the king of Moab, ob- tained a private audience, and then sheathed a

*Gen. xxvii. 6 to 29.

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dagger in his bowels.* Jael was the wife of Heber the Kenite ; and when Sisera, the general of the army of Jabin king of Hazor, was de- feated by Deborah and Barak, "he fled, to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace/' it is expressly said <( between Jabin the King of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, Turn in my lord, turn in to me: fear not." And when she had thus inveigled him into her power, and had lulled him to sleep, she drove a nail through his templesf : for which act, it is said of her in the prophetic song of Deborah and Barak, Cf Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent/' £ As for the scandals to which the conduct of David has given rise, who, though called the man after God's own heart §, was guilty both of murder and adultery || ; these are too painful to dwell upon. Moved by such seeming incongruities, the Mar- cionites and Valentinians, with other early sects of Gnostic Christians, regarded the God of the Jews as an evil genius,— as fc the prince of this world" whose power Jesus came to destroylT: and the modern Deists charge Christians with blas- phemy, for receiving the record of such trans- actions as the Word of God.

* Judges, iii. 15 to 22. f Judges, iv. 17 to 21. } Ch. v. 24.

* 1 Sam. xiii. 14; Acts, xiii. 22. H 2 Sam. *i. 2, 15. f John xii. 31, xiv. 31.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED; &C. #9

The last class of Objections against the Sacred Scriptures, is drawn from what persons uninformed respecting their true nature, deem the insigriifi* cance of a large portion of their contents. What sort of ideas (they ask) must we form of the Divine Being, on the supposition that he is the Author of the Bible, when we find whole books filled with directions for the performance of cere- monies, which in themselves can be of no import- ance*; when we see chapters taken up with precepts respecting what sort of food his ser- vants should eat, and what sort of clothing they should wear.f What minute cares must we suppose to engage his breast, when we see him giving such exact instructions about the dimen- sions of the Tabernacle, and the size and form of all its vessels ! J What useless services must we imagine him to be pleased with, when we find him commanding such a variety of sacrifices to be offered, and giving such precise orders res- pecting the manner in which the minutest part of the rites was to be performed ! § And what contracted and partial attachments and antipa- thies must we suppose to reign in his bosom, when we behold him exhibiting a peculiar regard to the insignificant nation of the Jews || , to the

* See Leviticus throughout, and much of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

t Levit. xi. Exod. xxviii. I Ex. xxv. to xxxi. $ I^v, i. to vii. &e. || Exod. xix. f>.

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exclusion of the rest of the world ; or when we hear of his commissioning prophets, with all the solemnity of divine authority, to denounce ana- themas,, not only against great metropolitan cities,, such as Babylon*, or Ninevehf, or Damascus^, but against the insignificant abodes of an insig- nificant population, — sudi as the villages inha- bited by the tribes of Moab and Ammon ! § Can the Father of the universe (they de- mand) feel such concern, and command it to be written in his Book for the information of the remotest generations, about the domestic affairs of nations whose very name was shortly to perish from the earth, — about the condition of cities which were presently to crumble into dust, and confound the skill of geographers to decide where they stood? Such solicitudes as these (our opponents will allege) might not be unbecoming iu those fancied deities of the ancient heathens, who were supposed merely to preside over particular districts ; but how (they ask) can we conceive them to dwell in the breast of your great I Am, the High and Lofty One that inhabi- teth eternity, the Creator of myriads of worlds?

Such, under a general form, are the strongest objections which the adversaries of the Scriptures make to their divine authority ; and some of them, it must be candidly admitted, are such as to em- barras the rational inquirer, who enters on the * Jer. 1. li. t Jonah i. iii, | Amos i. iii. $ Jer. xlviii, xlix.

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study of the subject without a correct idea of its proper bearing. However, plausible as they may appear, I undertake to affirm, and hope in the succeeding lectures to make good the affirma- tion, that to adduce from such considerations an argument against the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, is entirely to mistake the whole nature of the case; that the argument thence deduced falls to the ground of itself, as soon as the true nature of the Word of God is seen, and the design is regarded for which it was given to mankind ; that, in fact, the existence of such things in the Scriptures as we have adverted to, affords no argument at all when adduced to prove that they have no origin in Divine Autho- rity, but yields an irrefragable one when applied, as it only ought to be applied, to evince, that the Scriptures must contain much more in their bosom than is extant upon their surface. We propose then to wrest the weapons of the infidel out of his hands, and make them assist in esta- blishing this great truth ; to prove by their aid, not that the Scriptures are not the Word of God, but that they are ; to demonstrate by their help, what is the genuine DIVINE STYLE OF WRITING, — what are the true characteristics of a DIVINE COMPOSITION.

I will conclude at present with exhorting all who favour me with their attention, to be care-

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ful to cherish such thoughts of God, and of a revelation from God, as are worthy of the sub- ject. Let us above all things be on our guard how we lightly fall in with the prevailing infide- lity of the times. I have no doubt that there is nothing against which the Divine Providence is more anxious to preserve mankind,, (so far as it can be done without infringing that freedom without which man would not be a man,,) than from falling into contempt for the Holy Word : and that man cannot more perversely abuse the noble powers with which he is endowed, nor run more directly counter to the designs of his Maker, than when he reasons himself out of all reverence for the written revelation of the Divine Will. Little as it may generally be supposed, the Holy Word is the chief medium of commu- nication between man and heaven, and indeed between man and God; which communication is cut off, and man falls into a merely natural and animal state, in proportion as he regards with contempt this highest and best of his Maker's gifts. Confirmed infidelity — such as extends to scorn and hatred against revelation — is in most cases the result of depravity of heart; how speciously soever this may be glossed over before the world by subtle reasonings, and a proud display of merely natural, superficial vir- tues; though indeed even this covering is cast away by some of the present race of Deists and

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED., &C. 43

Atheists; whose works exhibit such malignity of disposition, as sufficiently evinces the foulness of the source whence their sentiments issue. Most true is the saying of the Apostle; that cffif the gospel be hid/' — (finally, that is; — for we are not to judge harshly of those who,, with sincere intentions, are embarrased by honest doubts, — ) " it is hid to them that are lost :" — that is, to those who are so enslaved to worldly and selfish lusts, as to be unwilling to hear any thing, which, by calling them to higher pursuits, would disturb them in their sleep of darkness and of death. I make not these remarks with any wish to intimidate: — the freedom of the rational fa- culty in the present age is too complete to admit of intimidation : — but I make them to induce those whose tendency to scepticism has not set- tled into confirmed negation, fairly to weigh both sides of the question before they decide, and to go into the inquiry with that solemnity of attention which is reasonable, where so much is at stake. These I would intreat especially to regard that assurance of Jesus Christ, so conso- nant to pure reason, — that rectitude and purity of object in making our inquiries, is the best preservative against error in drawing our con- clusions : " If any man/' says he, " will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."* This is the only safe rule, where

* John, vii. 17.

G 2

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the thing inquired into is religious truth : and my conviction is, that they who act in the spirit of this rule will find their reverence for the Holy Word continually increase,, and their understand- ing of its contents continually improve, till they are satisfied that, like the Word incarnate, it fc proceeded forth and came from God."

LECTURE II,

THE TRUE NATURE OF THE SCRIPTURES CONSIDERED.

Design with which the Scriptures were given, and the Nature of their Composition, stated for proof. I. That the title fc the Word of God," and the Plenary Inspiration which that title implies, are claimed by the Scriptures ; and that this is recog- nized by many critics. II. Proofs, from rational and philosophical grounds, that a Composition which is really " the Word of God," must contain stores of wisdom in its bosom, independently of any thing that appears on the surface. III. That the Composition received as the Word of God, con- tinually assures us that it is inwardly replenished with such wisdom: — 1. This intimated by the writers of the Old Testament ; — 2. Expressly declared by the Lord Jesus Christ; — 3. And by his Apostles : — 4. Generally believed by the Christian Church, for many ages, from the Apostles downwards, and still recognized by the best Interpreters. IV. But this great truth having been abused, that endeavours have been made, during the last two or three Centuries, to

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restrict the meaning of the Scriptures to their literal sense alone. Admitted, that all Points of Faith are to be established by the literal sense : But that the objection against a further sense would fall to the ground, could it be shewn, that the Scriptures are written throughout according to an immutable Law or Rule, a knowledge of which would, in explaining them, substitute cer- tainty for conjecture, and cut off the sources of vague interpretation.

IN our opening Lecture we took a brief view of the present state of public opinion,, on the subject of the divine inspiration of the Word of God,, or Holy Scriptures ; and we have seen that, while absolute infidelity is at present more prevalent throughout Christendom than at any former period since the establish- ment of the Christian religion ; while the attacks upon the credibility of the Christian revelation were never so unremitted and daring ; the cause has been half betrayed by many of its advocates., in the lax notions which they inculcate respecting the nature of Scrip- tural inspiration. We also drew a faint pic- ture of what must be the character of a compo- sition which has God for its Author; we stated the four leading classes of objections by which

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED

infidels deny this character to belong to writings called the Holy Scriptures; and we advanced it as a fact, to be afterwards proved., that all difficulties would disappear, were the true nature of the Holy Scriptures distinctly understood, and the design for which they were given fully discerned. What this design was, we now proceed to state.

When well-meaning men have been induced to make the admission, that the sacred writers might not, on all occasions, be inspired, it has been in consequence of not considering, any more than the opposers to whose railings they have so far yielded, what was the sole design for which the divinely inspired volume was composed. Things, for example, that appear like contradictions, have in some places been pointed out; and though most of these admit of being satisfactorily answered even in the literal sense, yet, because some of them, if we confine our attention to the literal sense alone, are attended with real difficulty, many, even of the sincere friends of Christianity, have admitted, that the Scriptures may, in some instances, have proceeded from fallible authors,— from penmen who were not at all times inspired ! This ad- mission they have made, to open a door for retreat, in case any of the statements made in the letter should be proved by an adversary to be indefensible. But surely had it been consi-

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dered, that whatever proceeds immediately from God, in the nature of a communication of his will, must be spiritual and divine, and that the sole design of it, in every part, must be, to im- prove man in the wisdom of salvation ; it would have been seen, that merely historical circum- stances, however important to the actors in them, can never be of such moment in the eyes of an Infinite Being, as that the communication of even the most correct knowledge respecting them can be a thing to have place in his ex- press Word of revealed Wisdom, unless things of far higher consequence be at the same time referred to and represented by them. Hence, when we find such things spoken of in a book which its Divine Author assures us was given from Him, and which bears so many marks, both internal and external, that evince the truth of this assurance; we ought to be sa- tisfied, that things of far higher, even of eternal moment, are shadowed forth, and represented to us, under these historical relations ; — as we shall see presently is also expressly declared by the Lord and his Apostles. In short, we ought to conclude, (as we shall find both reason and Scripture assure us must be the case with every composition that has God for its Author,) that in the Sacred Scriptures there is an internal or spiritual sense, distinct from the letter, but con- tained within it, and no otherwise capable of

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 49

being conveyed to human beings in this world of nature; which spiritual sense must treat, not of natural things, but of spiritual; not of things relating to the body of man and his transitory life, but to his soul and life eternal: And we ought to conclude further, that although the historical circumstances detailed in the literal sense are in general substantially true, having occurred as they are related, yet if there are any of them that are in any respect contradictory^ the reason must be, not because the narrative is not divinely inspired, but because the letter has been forced, in such instances, to bend a little, as it were, under the weight of the important matters contained within it, to express which more fully, a slight turn has been given to the literal narration. Nor is there, in this supposi- tion, the smallest degree of inconsistency. For every composition, either human or divine, must be judged of, according as it is adapted to ex- press the Design of the Author. But a revela- tion from God cannot be designed to improve us in natural knowledge, but in heavenly or spi- ritual. If then the literal sense of the Holy Word is so adjusted, as to be a proper vehicle for the divine realities of a spiritual kind with which it is inwardly replenished, <fc*n it answers the Design for which it was given, whether the literal expression, regarded by itself, be in all respects perfectly coherent or not; — whether

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the historical occurrences,, respecting which,, re- garded by themselves, it is no part of the Divine Author's plan to communicate information, are detailed with all possible clearness or not. In short, if the Design for which a revelation from God must be given, had been steadily kept in view, and the outward expression had been judged of accordingly, it would have been seen that the Word of God does, in every part, con- tain a spiritual sense, which treats solely of the Lord, his kingdom, man's soul, and his improve- ment in heavenly graces, and that the literal sense is constructed purely in subserviency to the spiritual: and then the objections against its divine inspiration would never have been raised, or, if they had, would soon have obtained a completely satisfactory answer. To evince that this is its true character, will be the main object of this and our subsequent Lectures.

I. The first thing necessary to the clearing up of this argument, is, to ascertain, what is the kind of inspiration which the Scriptures claim for themselves.

Here then the fact, that the title, C( the Word of God/' is claimed by the Scriptures for them- selves, is alone* sufficient to satisfy us, that they assume to have been written by a plenary divine inspiration. For what can te the Word of God" be, but divine speech or revelation flowing from

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 51

God? And if this is given us by the instrumen- tality of men,, then must they, so to give it us, have been divinely inspired: — otherwise what they wrote would not be the Word of God, but the word of men, — of illuminated men, perhaps, but whose writings could convey nothing more than they themselves conceived and apprehended — the mere sentiments of the writers.

1 . That the books of Moses claim to be the Word of God, is expressed by its being so re- peatedly said, that <e the Lord spake unto Moses, saying*/' and also, that (c Moses wrote all the words of the Lord f :" And whoever has looked into the writings of the prophets, knows how often they make the declaration, "The word of the Lord came unto me, saying/' J

2. But that the title "Word of God" is pro- perly applied to the Sacred Scriptures, is evinced by the use of the expression by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Speaking of the law written by Moses, he first observes, " For Moses said, Honour thy father and mother : and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:" and then he adds, " But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or his mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free ; and ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his

* See almost every Chap, ia Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, t Exod. xxiy. 4. J See the Prophets throughout. H 2

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mother; making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition/'* Thus we see that the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which we may be sure do not rank higher than those of the New,, are denominated, by the highest authority, " the Word of God :" of course they must have been given by a plenary divine inspiration.

The same expression is used again, and the idea conveyed by it affirmed of all that is pro- perly called " the Scripture/' in another debate of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Jews. When they were about to stone him for having said, ff I and the Father are One/' he reasoned with them thus : (C Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came, — and the Scripture cannot be broken, — say ye of himf," &c. Here, not only is the revelation communicated to the Jews called by its real Author, " the Word of God/' but it is authoritatively declared, that fc the Scripture cannot be broken;" where the word cf broken" is admitted by the Commenta- tors to be idiomatic, the meaning being, that the Scripture is not to be contradicted or denied, — that its authority is not to be infringed. The purport of the clause, then, paraphrased into familiar language, is clearly this: " If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came — and this you cannot deny, because the authority of * Mark vii. 10 to 13. f John x. 34, 35.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, <&C. 53

the Scriptures is unimpeachable, — say ye of him/' &c. Thus then the revelation given to the Jews is recognized by fc the Word made flesh/' as the Word of God; and the attributes of that Word are assigned to what is emphatically called the Scripture, which is declared, on this ground, to be, what no partially inspired com- position can be, absolutely infallible, — an autho- rity which, on no pretence whatever, is to be impugned. The same sanction, conveyed by the same expression, is given by Jesus Christ to lf the law and the prophets," or to the whole of the ancient Scriptures, when he says, after referring to them, ff Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven."* Here, to break one of the least of the commandments of the law and the prophets, does not mean merely to live in the neglect of it, but to weaken its authority: the. word in the original is the same as in the passage just quoted from John, and means literally to loosen, or dissolve, that is, to take away its obligation. The unlawfulness of this, we find, in regard to the least of the com- mandments of all the law and the prophets, Jesus Christ most decidedly affirms : what then are we to think of those who tell us, that " it is not to be supposed that they [meaning Moses * Matt. v. 19.

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and the prophets,,] were even thus inspired [meaning,, even according to the lowest notions of inspiration,] in every fact which they related,, or in every precept which they delivered" Did not Bishop Tomline see, when he penned these awful words, that he was herein cc loosing/' or destroy- ing the authority of, at any rate, some of ef the least of the commandments/ 'and was thus setting his authority in opposition to the authority of Jesus Christ, who so solemnly recognizes the whole as to the immovable Word of God.

3. But perhaps it may be objected, that the title^ ff Word of God/' is nevertheless only appli- cable to such parts of the Scriptures as contain precepts expressly delivered in the name of God. We do not, however, find that Jesus Christ makes any such distinction; so that we have divine authority for denying that any such distinction exists. Besides, what a door for un- certainty would this throw open ! If the writers who recorded those precepts which they deliver in the name of God, were not inspired through- out, they might as easily err in this part of their duty as in any other ; and thus it would be im- possible for us to know whether what they de- livered as divine precepts were really such or not. However, we are not left to decide this question by our own reasonings; for, in addi- tion to the unlimiting declarations of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul gives us the strongest

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 56

assurance we can possibly require, as to the en- tire inspiration of the whole. He says, " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God*:" And it is here to be noted, that the five words, S( given by inspiration of God/' have but one word [$£07rv£u<rro£] , answering to them in the original; and that is one so expressive, that it conveys all that our translators have stated, with that addition of force which results from condensation. A single word might be framed in English to convey the same meaning, but it would sound harsh, as being unusual : We how- ever might say, (C All scripture is God-breathed:'9 which indeed is just the same in sense as " given by inspiration of God ;" only the word " inspi- ration," being derived from a Latin, and not an English root, does not convey to English ears the primary meaning that belongs to it, which is that of breathing-in. Nothing then can be more conclusive than this passage for the full inspira- tion of the whole of the Word of God. All Scripture was inspired, or breathed-into the writers, by God, — was the result of a divine afflatus, which took such entire possession of the inspired penmen, that it was not they who wrote, further than as to the mere motion of the fingers, but God himself who wrote with their hands. This is what is included in the idea of fc Inspiration of God;" and to restrict it to any thing short of * 2 Tim. iii. 16.

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this, is to charge the Apostle with having spo- ken at random, without understanding the meaning of his language.

Paul however does not stand alone in this testimony. He is supported in it by Peter, who affirms the same doctrine, though in quite dif- ferent terms. (f Prophecy/' says he, {f came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost/'* It is here to be remembered, that the Jews called the writers of the historical books ff prophets/' as well as those of what we call the prophetical books ; as is known to every one who has seen a Hebrew bible. Now of all these holy men, the Apostle affirms, that they spake, not by the will of man, but as they were moved by the Holy Ghost: clearly excluding their own will, and of course their own under- standing, from any concern in the matter. And here also it will be useful to attend to the force of the principal original word. The Greek term [<pepojw,svoi] translated fc moved/' is one that conveys a much stronger idea than that of the gentle sort of impression to which we ap- ply the term "moved:'' It means carried away, — rapt, — transported; — taken altogether out of themselves, and possessed entirely by the power of God. So positive is the language of the heaven-taught writers on the subject of divine * 2 Ep. i. 21.

THE SCRIPTUttES ASSEUTRD, &C. 57

inspiration; and so decisive is the testimony which they bear to the plenary inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures.

Such being the strength and unequivocal nature of the expressions in which the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures is affirmed by infallible autho- rity, it really seems extraordinary how they who undertake to explain the divine books, should ever have thought of limiting their inspiration to so low a degree of it, as is unworthy of the name altogether: and it can only be account- ed for by the reason before assigned; that being pressed by the Deist with the difficulties which some passages present, and not reflecting that these should lead to a higher mode of inter- pretation., the Christian advocates have seen no way of maintaining the general credibility of the sacred penmen, but by allowing their liability to little mistakes. It would however be but a sor- ry expedient for the preservation of a country situated like Holland, when threatened with an inundation from the fury of the ocean, should they who have the care of the dykes, fearing lest these should be washed away, purposely make a gap in them, as a means of averting the de- structive effects of the waves: here, every one sees, that the country, though in a more gradual manner, would equally be drowned ; but the dykes, though no longer of any use, might pos- sibly be preserved. By admitting only such an

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inspiration as does not exclude fallibility,, religi- ous establishments may perhaps for a time be preserved: but the objects for which they were instituted will be undermined and subverted. Infidelity will be confirmed and extended ; and the Faith that remains, being emptied of its spi- rituality, will differ from infidelity in little but in name. Religion will degenerate into a cold morality, which Deism may supply almost as well.

4. Such laxity, however, did not characterize the sentiments of former times. Though now it

o

is otherwise, the general belief once was, that in- spiration really is inspiration; and they who wrote upon it, did not attempt to define the thing, to be something entirely different from what is expressed by the name. This might be proved by copious evidence, if necessary ; but it will be quite sufficient here to give the statements of Bishop Marsh, in the Notes to the third Chapter of his translation of Michaelis; for though he had such low ideas of the nature of in- spiration, at least as far as regards the inspira- tion of the Evangelists, when he formed his sin- gular theory of the origin of the three first gos- pels, he seems, when he translated the first part of the Work just mentioned, which was several years previously, to have been inclined to favour the higher views of the subject: at least, he had, and has, too much integrity to keep them out of

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 59

sight. He there, complaining of his Author for not himself giving a definition of Inspiration, says, that cc some understand an inspiration of words, as \vell as ideas, others of ideas alone ; a third class understand by inspiration an intervention of the Deity, by which the natural faculties of the sacred writers were directed to the discovery of truth ; and a fourth class assume a kind of negative intervention, by which they were pre- vented from falling into material error; some again assume a total inspiration, declaring that the supernatural influence of the Deity was ex- tended to the most minute historical accounts, while others suppose that it was confined to certain parts of Scripture." And, as the autho- rities for the opinion, that inspiration extends both to words and ideas, he gives " most of the German divines of the last [or seventeenth] century, and many in the present" [the eigh- teenth—for this was written in 1793.] The Author whom he translates,— Michael is, — seems very unsettled in his own mind, both respecting what he should determine inspiration to be, and what books in the Bible he should regard as possessing it; it appears, however, that where it exists at all, he thought it must be plenary, applying to this subject a passage of Paul, which in our translation stands thus : " We speak not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing na-

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tural things with spiritual*:" which declaration he renders thus : " We deliver doctrines in words taught by the Holy Ghost, explaining inspired things with inspired words/' I do not quote this version by Michaelis as adopting it, or as accepting his application,, in the context, of the doctrine he appears to mean to deduce from it; but only as evidence of what this great scholar's opinion of inspiration really was : Hereupon Bi- shop Marsh justly remarks, "It seems then, that he understands a verbal inspiration, agreeably to the sentiments of many ancient Fathers, and many modern divines, who have considered the Apostles and Evangelists merely as passive instruments. It is true," the Bishop adds, (and we shall con- sider the sentiment in the sequel,) "that this hypothesis renders it difficult to account for the great variety of style observable in the Greek Testament: on the other hand, several writers, especially Ernesti, contend, that it is difficult to abstract an inspiration of ideas from an inspir- ation of words." Assuredly, it is difficult : and this avowal from the celebrated Ernesti, will perhaps be felt as the more valuable, when it is remembered, that he was by no means uninfected, on some points, with the lax principles of the moderns; so that his testimony in favour of plenary inspiration, must be considered as drawn from him by the unassisted force of truth. I will * 1 Cor. iv. 13.

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only add further upon this question, that what the sentiments of profoundly learned British di- vines formerly were respecting it, is sufficiently indicated in the maxim adopted by Pococke, and prefixed as a motto to the Notce Miscellanea, appended to his Porta Mosis of Mairnohides : it is this : " There is not in the Law or Holy Scrip- ture a single letter, on which matters of the greatest importance [in the Hebrew, great moun- tains,] are not dependent.'* *

These testimonies, I trust, will be sufficient to show, that many writers, and those of the highest authority, have heretofore believed, that when Jesus Christ terms the Scripture the Word of God, and declares that it must not be broken, or its authority impeached ; and when the Apostles assure us that it is given by inspiration of God, and that those who wrote it were carried out of themselves by the Divine Spirit that pos- sessed them ; they really mean what they say : — those, therefore, who may now be disposed to believe that they mean what they say, will find a cloud of witnesses to support them. It is true, that, at present, the fashion of the times runs the other way; but it is not a new thing for heaven and the world to stand in opposition : and, on this point, the authorities are sufficiently great and numerous to render the profession of

rmra r» *

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the truth honourable in the eyes of men, as well as in the sight of God.

This question, respecting the nature of the inspiration which the Scriptures claim for them- selves,, though of the greatest moment to the Christian,, will be little regarded by the Deist: it was,, however, necessary to consider it, because we shall find it pregnant with consequences,, in which the Deist also is deeply interested.

IL It being then certain,, that the Scriptures claim to be ff the Word of God/' according to the full meaning of that weighty expression ; and it being likewise true that many of the greatest Biblical scholars deemed the claim thus made by the Scriptures too positive to be evaded, so that we must as much believe them, when they assert their own plenary inspiration, as when they assert any thing else : we beg to be allowed to assume, for the present, for argu- ment's sake, that they really are the Word of God: and with this admission, we proceed to offer proofs, from rational and philosophical grounds, that, if so, they must contain stores of wisdom in their bosom., independently of any thing that appears on their surface.

If the Bible could, throughout, be understood, and would,, in every part, afford a clear, intel- ligible, and instructive meaning, by consulting the literal or grammatical sense of the words

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 63

and phrases alone ; or if by thus restricting our researches after its meaning,, we could always obtain as clear a one as is to be drawn from the works of uninspired writers; there would then be more reason (but by no means sufficient) for contending, that it never was meant to contain any thing- more : but when we find in it pas- sages,, to which, unless we allow them an in- ternal sense, we must deny any intelligible sense at all ; — we surely must reject the notion, that the literal sense is all that is intended, — a notion so derogatory to the divine inspiration of the Sacred Writings, and which, if suffered to re- gulate our views of them entirely, would compel us to think less highly of the Word of God, than we do of many of the compositions of men. However, I do not mean to beg the question, but to shew that the possession of stores of hidden wisdom, is not only necessary to vindicate for the Scriptures their title of the Word of God, but is an inseparable characteristic of every Divine Composition ; that without it, no writing whatever, were its outward form just what the sceptic would require, (would he define what that is,) can be entitled to that appellation..

Who then does not see, that the difference be- tween Compositions that are really the Word of God and the compositions of men, must be as great, as between the works of God and the works of men? And wherein does the latter

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difference most remarkably consist? Is it not in the interior organization which the works of God possess, beyond what appears in their out- ward form? When we look at a picture or a statue, which are among the most exquisite pro- ductions of human ingenuity, after we have seen the surface, we have seen the whole : and al- though there are pieces of curious mechanism which contain a complication of parts within their outside case, this only carries us one step farther : when \ve look at any of the parts, we see the whole ; — the interior texture of the ma- terial of which they are composed not being the work of the human artist, but of the Divine Creator. Whereas, when we look at any of the works of his omnipotent hand, beautiful and exact as they are in their outward form, still the most beautiful and wonderful parts of them are within. Some of these hidden wonders are dis- coverable to the diligent inquirer by means of dissections and by the aid of glasses : but when the most ingenious investigator has extended his researches into the interior construction of any natural production to the utmost limits that human means can conduct him, he must, if he is a wise man, be convinced, that what he has thus discovered, is, after all, but general and super- ficial, compared with the greater wonders which still lie concealed within. The most expert anatomist never, for instance, reached the seat of

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the soul, — still less the principle of

ness and life of which the soul itself is merely the organ ; all which, and even the material forms which are their first envelopes, still lie beyond the most subtile forms that the gross observation of the senses can discover. The farther, however, the observation of the senses can extend, the greater are the wonders which appear. Just so it is with the Word of God: and so it must be, if it has in reality God for its Author.

An attention to one or two more unquestion- able truths, will make this fact more evident; and will discover to us with the utmost certainty, what must be the character of a composition that is rightly named te the Word of God."

God, we know, is a Being Infinite and Eternal. He made the world, and all things in it; gifting, in particular, every living object with faculties suited to its nature, or to the use it is designed to perform in the grand whole. But although every thing in nature plainly bespeaks its Divine Author, he has not, in any part of nature, a visible existence. His immediate, personal re- sidence, is far above the sphere of this world, or of the universe, of nature, — yea, above that of the worlds of spirit, the abodes of angelic beings : ff for behold, even the heavens, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him:" — much less this gross, material world, the lowest sphere of his divine activities.'

K

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Now man, while he is an inhabitant of this natural world,, enjoys the gift of speech: and there can be no doubt that he will retain this valuable endowment when he departs hence,, to move in a higher sphere of existence. Indeed, there can be no doubt that this faculty must be enjoyed, in some mode or other, by all orders of intelligent creatures, from man on earth to the angels of the highest heavens, and even up to the Creator himself, from whom finite in- telligences receive it. But as the personal forms of angelic beings are not visible to the corporeal eye of man in the world, so neither is their oral language audible to his bodily ear. Hence the Apostle Paul informs the Corinthians, that when he was caught up, as to his spirit, to the third heaven, he heard there Cf unspeakable words, such as it is riot possible" (according to the marginal reading of our bibles, which is allowed to give the true meaning which the original word bears in this place ; — such as it is not pos- sible) ee for man to utter/' There cannot be a plainer testimony to the difference between spiritual and natural speech or language. While the Apostle was in heaven and in company with the angels there, and was thus, for the time, in a state similar to theirs; he heard and understood their discourse, and possibly took a share in it : but when he returned into his natural state, as an inhabitant of the natural world., though no

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doubt he retained some of the general instruction which was communicated in the angelic dis- course,, as to the ideas, he found he could recollect nothing of the words in which it was conveyed to him,, but only the conviction,, that, by natural organs, they were altogether ineffable.

If then the words of angels are such as are un- speakable to man; what must the words of God be, as they proceed immediately from himself? Doubtless, they must be far above either the hearing or the comprehension of any finite being ; and they must be immensely, indeed, beyond the hearing or the comprehension of the inhabitants of the natural world. Before they could become apprehensible to them, they must pass through the spheres inhabited by the higher orders of in- telligent creatures, who would hear them in their own spiritual language. For the Divine Being to speak, immediately from his own mouth, in natural language, must be as impossible, as it is for him to appear, in all the glory of his Divine Person, before the natural eye. Consequently, if the Word of God, as we have it, in natural language, is really his Word, its literal sense must be a covering, with which it is invested to adapt it to the apprehension of the inhabitants of the natural world ; and the essentially divine speech must lie concealed far within. And as be- tween the immediate personal residence of Deity and outward nature, must be arranged the abodes

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of all intermediate intelligences ; so between the immediate divine speech of the Lord and the natural expressions into which it falls when it descends into the domains of nature,, must be distinct forms of Divine Truth, adapted to the apprehension of all orders of angelic beings.

But to resume the analogy between the Word of God and his works. From all that has been advanced it may be seen,, that to suppose the literal sense of the Word of God, (upon the as- sumption that it is rightly so named,) to be all that it contains., because nothing more is ob- vious to a superficial inspection, is just as rea- sonable as to affirm., that the human body consists of nothing but skin, because this is all that meets the unassisted eye : but as the researches of anatomists have assured us, that within the skin which covers our frame there are innumera- ble forms of use and beauty, each of which consists again of innumerable vessels and fibres; whilst, after science has carried her discoveries to the utmost, the principle that imparts life to the whole still eludes the search : so the letter of the Holy Word,, which may be regarded as its skin, includes within it innumerable spiritual truths, adapted in some measure to the ap- prehension of spiritually minded men, but more completely to the intellects of purely spiritual beings; whilst the Essential Divine Wisdom which gives life to the whole, is beyond the com-

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 69

prehension of the highest finite intelligence, and can only be known to its Infinite Original. And such must be the character of the ivhole of the Word of God, — as well of those passages which afford a clear, instructive sense in the letter, as of those which do not: for the Word of God, to be truly so, must be like itself throughout, and must every where be composed upon one uni- form principle. Every mind that reflects deeply upon the subject, will, I am persuaded, see, that to deny the Holy Word, to possess such contents as we have described, is equivalent to denying it to have God for its author. It makes it no- thing more than the word of men; — of men pious, perhaps, and enlightened, but still finite and fallible.

Such then are the views to which even reason, fairly consulted, would lead us, when we in- quire, what must be the nature of a composition, which is, really and truly, the Word of God : We must now then proceed to inquire, how far these agree with the views which are presented by the Writings which take that title, on the subject of their own nature.

III. We continually find the Holy Word itself, in its very letter, directing the reader to elevate his mind above the merely literal ex- pression,— above the natural ideas and images which compose its outward language, — and to

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explore the deep and truly divine wisdom that is contained within; thus the very letter repeat- edly assures us, that the Word of God contains stores of wisdom in its bosom, independently of any thing that appears on the surface. This testimony it bears to itself in all its parts, — in the books of the Old Testament, in the discourses of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the writings of the Apostles.

Many plain intimations are afforded by the writers of the Old Testament ; but I will just notice one or two in the Psalms alone.

J . What can be meant by that passage in which the Psalmist prays, " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law?"* Is not this a plain declaration, that the Law or Word of God does contain within it wonderful things, which cannot be discerned unless the eyes of the mind, or the intellectual faculties, be opened to discern them? — thus, things which do not appear immediately on the surface, but lie stored up within? And that these wonderful things, or divine mysteries, are not only contained in those parts which give out- ward indications of it, by the obscurity and evi- dently mystical character of the language in which they are expressed, but in those parts likewise where the letter is perfectly plain and simple, is openly declared in the 78th Psalm.,

* Ps. cxix. IS.

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which begins with these words : <c Give ear, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old." Now nothing can appear more extraordinary, to those who think of nothing further, when they read the Scriptures, than what appears upon the face of them, than to find such a declaration as this prefixed to such a composi- tion as follows. When the writer has declared in so solemn a manner, that he is about to open his mouth in a parable, to utter dark sayings of old, the reader is naturally led to expect, in the continuation of the Psalm, a series of myste- rious language, containing an enigma in every word. But what does follow? Nothing, whate- ver, but a very plain abridgment of the history of the Israelites, from their departure out of Egypt to the reign of David, couched in language that is not even elevated by poetical figures, but appears to be the natural style of sober matter of fact. Can there then be a plainer declar- ation than this, that the whole of the Israel- itish history has a parabolic meaning, — that the language^ in which this history is given, plain and simple as it appears, is in reality a series of dark sayings ? Every sentence of a composition written in the style of this Psalm, which, making allowance for the metrical arrangement, is similar to that of the historical parts of Scripture in

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general, is, in fact, more dark, in proportion as it outwardly appears more plain. The hidden spiritual meaning is, in reality, rendered more recondite, by the plainness of the literal historical meaning, the simplicity of which tends to chain the attention to the narrative of facts, and to pre- vent it from looking for any thing beyond. Let any person read this Psalrn, one of the plainest, in its literal sense, in the whole book, and remem- ber at the same time that the inspired writer is throughout speaking parables, — uttering dark sayings ; — and he must confess that every literal expression here contains a hidden meaning; and, of course, that it is at least highly probable, that the case is the same throughout the Holy Word.

We find then from this testimony of David, that such is the character of the law of Moses, arid of the historical narratives of the Old Tes- tament;— it will therefore be more easily ad- mitted, that such must be the character of the prophetical books also. We proceed then to consider the evidence of the New Testament on the subject ; and we will begin with that of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Were we to adduce all the testimony which is afforded in the discourses of the Lord Jesus Christ to the spiritual nature of the Scriptures, we should find ample matter for a Lecture by itself; wherefore we must confine ourselves to a few instances.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 73

One very strong testimony, bat the force of which might be overlooked by a reader who <loes not consider the purport of the chief ex- pressions, is given by Him when he says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." * Some have found it difficult to recon- cile this declaration with the fact, that the greater part of the Mosaic law actually was abolished by the establishment of Christianity, the observance of it not being enjoined on Christians, and the power of observing it being taken away even from the Jews, by the destruction of their city and temple, where alone the chief of the cere- monies could be performed. It is indeed said, and with truth, that the whole of the ceremonial law was fulfilled by Jesus Christ in his own per- -son: but this does not account for the abolition of it afterwards : otherwise we must suppose the moral law, which he fulfilled likewise, to be abolished also : and this has never been asserted by any but the wildest Antinomian perverters of Divine Truth. It is besides evident, that he is not here speaking of what was done in his own person, but of what would be the effect of his doctrine, or of the illumination of the human mind which he came to impart. When therefore Jesus Christ declares, that he came to fulfil the law and the prophets, he means that he came to prevent * Matt. v. 17.

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them from being any longer regarded merely as to their surface or shell; to bring to light the divine things with which they are inwardly filled; and to establish a church which should be in the exercise of that spiritual worship, of which the carnal worship of the ceremonial law was a figure or type. The word "fulfil/' being now no longer used except in its secondary senses, which are, ct to answer a prophecy or promise by performance/' — " to answer a desire by com- pliance/'— ffto answer a law by obedience/' — the English reader of the New Testament is apt to forget its primitive meaning, which is, to fill full, — "to fill till there is no room for more*;" — which also is the primitive and proper meaning of the Greek word [n^pooi] for which it is used : to fulfil the law, is then to Jill it full; — and this is, to discover the substance of which the cere- monies were shadows, and the inward principles from which the outward acts, even of the moral law, must be performed. The Divine Speaker immediately proceeds to illustrate his meaning by examples. After referring to the Mosaic pro- hibitions of murder and adultery, he proceeds to forbid all uncharitable sentiments and. unclean thoughts ; and after referring to the Mosaic law of retaliation, he inculcates the most unbounded forbearance and forgiveness : by which he in- structs us, that those precepts of the ancient law * Johnson.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED,, &C. 75

convey much more than the letter expresses; that under the prohibition of murder, every degree of hostile feeling is interdicted; that the prohibition of adultery extends to every species of uncleanness ; and that the law of retaliation is a representative appointment only,, exhibiting an immutable arrangement of the Divine Order in the government of the universe, which is such, that no evil can be practised or intended, without falling eventually upon the contriver; but that this law is reserved, as to its execution, to the Unerring Judge alone ; and is not meant to be that by which man is to regulate his conduct towards his trespassing brother. These then are examples by which Jesus . Christ shews, how, in the dispensation which he came to institute, the law was to be fulfilled ; in cc the newness of the spirit, not in the oldness of the letter*:" by introducing into the outward ob- servance of the moral code the inward spirit and life; and by substituting for the ceremonial observances those vital graces of which they were the types. It was thus that the righteous- ness of the disciples of Jesus Christ was to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, who thought of nothing further than an outward obedience.

There are however other instances, in which Jesus Christ still more plainly refers to the

* Rom. vii. G.

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divine wisdom included within the veil of the letter of the Holy Word. What a remarkable statement is that, where it is said, after his re- surrection,, when he discovered himself to his disciples, " Then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures !" * Is it not plain from this, that the Scriptures contain a hidden meaning*, not explicitly dis- covered in the letter, which cannot be understood unless the understanding be opened to perceive it? Thus this statement is a counterpart of the prayer of the Psalmist before adverted to; ff Open thoii mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law :" and both together illustrate that saying of Jesus Christ, ff Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righte- ous men have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear the things which ye hear, and have not heard themf:" words which imply, that even the sin- cere lovers of truth, who lived under the Jewish dispensation, in which divine things were either enigmatically expressed in the Sacred Writings, or darkly shadowed out in the symbolic rites, could not have that clear understanding and perception of heavenly mysteries, which were brought to light Jby the coming of the Lord, and by that new illumination of the understand- ing which he then afforded.

* Luke xxiv. 45.' t Matt. xiii. 17.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 77

This plain distinction between the outward language in which divine Truth is conveyed,, and the divine wisdom which is included within it, is what is intended by the Lord Jesus Christ,, in that otherwise unintelligible question and answer, which he proposes and gives, respecting the ob- stinacy and blindness of the Jews. He says to them, " Why do ye not understand my speech?" and he answers the question by adding, (C Even because ye cannot hear my word/'* Here he makes a plain distinction between his speech and his word. To a superficial reader the two expressions may appear synonimous: but to suppose that they are so, is not only to impute the most insipid tautology to the Divine Speaker, but the most palpable no-meaning: for the whole sense of the declaration is concentrated in the difference which is pointed to between his cc speech*' and his fc word/' Understand by his "speech" the outward expression and literal sense of his divine communications, and by his " word," the pure truth which is concealed within ; and the sense of the declaration at once appears, and is to be found to be most weighty and important; nor cail any other interpretation render it worthy of the Author. Here then we are clearly taught this most momentous truth : that unless the hidden wisdom of the Lord's divine communications be acknowledged and attended

John viii. 43.

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to, the outward expression of them will never be understood.

We will quote only one more testimony from the immediate lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the sixth chapter of John he holds a long dis- course with the cavilling Jews, couched entirely in those dark sayings which so generally con- stitute the letter of the Holy Word. He tells them, that He is the living bread which came down from heaven, of which if a man eat he shall live for ever : to which he adds, " And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world/'* This puzzled the Jews extremely, and they (c strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus, however, enforced his assertion, and fc said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you :" which affirmation he dwelt upon at some length. f This confounded even many of his disciples, and they said, " This is a hard saying: who can hear it|?" meaning, Who can understand and receive such a paradox as this ? But it is added, " When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, He said, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" And he subjoins, as a key to the

* Ver. 51. f Ver. 52 to 5,8. J Ver. 60.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 79

mystery, fc It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing- : the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."* How is it possible to state more decidedly, that it is the spiritual meaning of divine language which is to be looked for, and that we are not to abide in the gross, carnal interpretation? And how plainly are we hereby instructed, that the difficulties which stagger and offend many, when they look at the mere outward covering", or " flesh'* of the Divine Word, would disappear, could they raise their ideas to a perception of its ec spirit" and its " life!"

It is clear enough then, from these declara- tions, what is the nature of the words of Jesus Christ; and also what is the nature of the whole Word of God, if it really is the " Word of God/' God-breathed — ce given by inspiration of God :" viz. that it every where contains much more than meets the eye or ear. We are now to see how far the Apostles bear a similar testimony.

3. Not then to dwell upon that passage of Paul, in which he says, that " the letter killeth, the spirit giveth lifef;" although this might be shewn to be strong to our purpose ; we will ad- vert to a few of the numerous instances in which this Apostle directs the attention of his readers to the spiritual signification of the Scriptures of the Old Testament — those of the New being not * Ver. 61, 62, 63. t 2 Cor. iii. 0.

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then written ; or such of them as were written not generally known.

Speaking of the pilgrimage of the children of Israel in the wilderness, the Apostle states,, that fc they did all eat of the same spiritual meat,, and did all drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and that rock was Christ/'* Here we are evidently taught,, that something more was conveyed by the manna which was given them from heaven,, and the water that was produced for them from the rock,, than merely natural food and drink for the support of the body ; as also, that the rock itself, out of which the water was obtained, was representative of the Rock of Ages : for that the rock in Horeb was not literally Christ,, is sufficiently evident : yet the Apostle says, ff and that rock was Christ;" he must mean then, that it was a representation, figure, emblem, or type of Christ, who alone, as being " THE Truthf/' and " THE WordJ," can refresh the fainting soul with streams of ff living water§," which is an emblem of pure Truth, communi- cated by the Word, from Himself?

The same Apostle gives a spiritual meaning of so apparently plain a history as that of Abraham, his wife and concubine, and their sons, Isaac and Ishmael. (f It is written/' he

* 1 Cor. x. 34. f John xiv. 6. J John i. 1.

§ John iv. 10, vii. 38.

THB SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 81

observes, " that Abraham had two sons,, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free woman : but he who was of the bond-woman was born after the flesh ; but he of the free woman by promise. Which things/* he continues, Cf are an allegory:" and he accordingly explains them,, as being emblematical of the Israel itish and Christian dispensations.* Now if this plain narrative contains an allegorical or inward meaning besides its literal or outward sense, what reason can be given for doubting, that the whole of the historical relations of the Divine Word do the same? If Isaac, from his birth, was a type of the Christian Dispen- sation in general, may we not conclude, that the nation descending from him represented, in their history, all the particulars of the same? or, what is substantially the same thing, all the spiritual things belonging to the Lord's true Church under every dispensation? This, we- have already seen, is taught us by David; and we shall see in the sequel, that there is abundantly more scriptural evidence of the same great truth.

But we have not yet done with the testimony

of Paul, who inculcates this fact more explicitly

still, because more generally, when he says,

! He is not a Jew which is one outwardly ;

neither is circumcision that which is outward

* Galatians iv. 22, to end. M

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in the flesh : but he is a Jew which is one in- wardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter."* In these words we are clearly instructed,, that when the Jews are mentioned in Scripture,, we are to understand, not merely the descendants of the man named Judah, or the inhabitants of the country called Judaea,, but the member of the Lord's true church, under whatever dispensation ; and that the initiatory rite of Judaism was re- presentative of the purification of the heart and its affections; as is also plainly declared by Moses himself.f

Of the nature of the Mosaic vwritings, the Apostle gives us several more examples in the Epistle to the Hebrews. With what force of argument does he demonstrate, that Melchi- zedeck was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ! J So, how positively does he assert the typical nature of all the ceremonial institutions! Thus, speaking of the priests, and of the gifts which they offered according to the law, he says, that they <c serve unto the example" [WoSf typa — properly, according to Schleusner, that which presents something visible to the sight] ff and shadow of heavenly things :" which interpre- tation he confirms by adding, cc as Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to

* Rom. ii. 28, 29. f Deut. x. 16, ch. xxx. 6.

jChs. v. and vii.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 83

make the tabernacle; for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern [VuTros] shewed to thee in the mount/'* Soon after, taking up more particularly the subject of the tabernacle constructed by Moses, he affirms, that it ff was a figure for the time then present f:" and he presently calls the rituals of the tabernacle worship " the patterns [UTTO- of things in the heavens," and speaks

* Heb. viii. 5. It is necessary to remark, that the words rt'Troj in this passage, and amrvnrof in that to he noticed immediately, have meanings exactly the reverse of those which the words type and antitype have acquired in English. With the Apostle, the type is the pattern, and the antitype is that which, as a copy, answers to the type: hut with us, the type is the copy, and the antitype is the original, or pattern, of the type. This seems to have originated in inaccurate writers confounding the Greek particle anti with the Latin particle ante. To hear the popular meaning, the word should be spelled antetype : though then it is an incongruous compound from two languages. The ambiguity introduced by the translators in the use of the word pattern, should also be noticed. In the passage above, they use it in the sense to which it is now fixed, —as the original from which a copy is made : but in the next quotation they use it in the sense, not of a pattern, but of a copy taken from a pattern. It must further be noticed, that the word amrvwoc, in the passage quoted below from Peter, does not mean an antitype in either of the senses here explained, but something that answers to another thing of the same order as itself; not as a copy to a pattern, or as a pattern to a copy, but as two similar things, of the same kind or degree, that exactly match each other.

t Hcb. ix. 9.

M 2

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of them in contrast with C{ the heavenly things themselves* ;" immediately adding, that " the holy places made with hands,, are the figures [awruTro] of the true."f Agreeably to this view of the Mosaic rituals, he speaks of (f the law" as (C having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the thingsj :" where by f( the image/' as has been judiciously remarked, he means, what is respectively a substance; — a solid statue being a substance respectively to its own shadow.

We find then that the testimony of the Apostle Paul is very copious and conclusive : He affirms the representative character of the persons mentioned in the Old Testament; of all the particulars attending the celebration of the Mosaic worship ; of the history of the Israelites in general ; and, in fact, of every thing connected with that people and church: and he repeatedly calls our attention from the mere Cf letter" of Scripture, to the ff spirit" that resides within.

The epistolary writings of the other Apostles, and the remains of their discourses, being small in extent, and almost entirely occupied with practical exhortations, are less explicit on this subject. Peter, however, plainly discovers, in two or three instances, what his sentiments respecting it were. Thus, in his first sermon,

* Heb. ix. 23. t Ver. 24. J Cb. x. 1.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C.

he not only applies to the gift of the spirit, which they had just received, the following part of a prophecy of Joel, — " It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams ; and on my servants and on my hand- maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy:" — but he cites the remainder of Joel's prediction also, as then receiving its accomplishment; — ff And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come."* Now al- though the words first quoted may be con- sidered as bearing, in their literal sense, a relation to the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it is only in a sense quite different from that of the letter, that the other part of the prediction was then fulfilled.

The same Apostle assures us, that there is a symbolic meaning in the history of Noah. Having mentioned the ark, " wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water;" he adds, " the like figure [awruTrov] whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us, (not the * Actsii. 10 to 21.

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putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ/'* Here we are expressly told, that the waters of Noah were as truly a figure of something spiritual, as are the waters of baptism, these being the fellow-type to the other: their import is also briefly stated.

But not only does Peter mention particular instances in which a spiritual sense is contained within the letter of the Scriptures, but he also declares that this is the case universally, when he says, " We have also a more sure word of pro- phecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise, in your hearts:" — If he had concluded here, he would have clearly described the fact, as it exists. The prophetic writings are called a light shining in a dark place : how beautifully does this des- cribe the difference between their literal expres- sion and the divine wisdom within it! — the light denoting the pure truth of their inward meaning, and the dark place in which it shines the obscurity of the letter, which is such, that, to discover the light, devout contemplation is necessary, until it shines as the day-star in our own minds also. But to make the fact more certain, and to encourage us to the study of the

* 1 Pet, iii. 20, 21. See Note above, p. 83.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, 87

Scriptures under this view of them, the apostle adds, (f Knowing this first; that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation."* Now the Scriptures would be of ff private inter- pretation/' if their meaning* were confined to the natural occurrences to which they usually refer in their letter, — if nothing more .were in- tended beyond the persons and things there commonly mentioned. I am not unapprized of the other modes in which this statement has been explained ; but I am fully satisfied that this is the only one which comes up to the apos- tle's meaning. If regard is to be had to the context, both that which precedes and that which follows, as well as to the proper force of the words, the meaning surely must be that which is quoted by Dr. Doddridge from Dr. Clarke and Mr. Baxter, who understood the passage as if the Apostle had said, " Scripture is not to be interpreted merely as speaking of the particular person of whom it literally speaks ; but as having a further sense, to which the ex- pressions of the prophets were overruled under the influence of the Spirit/' &c. Evidently, if the meaning of the Scriptures is not be regarded as appropriated merely to the persons and things of which they treat in their letter, — if they thus are not of private but of universal interpretation; then they must contain an interior sense, a hid-

* 2 Pet. i. 19,20.

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den wisdom, adapted to the edification of every Christian in every age of the world.

The evidence, then, to the nature of the Scrip- tures of the Old Testament, is already very complete : but had all the other writers of the New Testament been silent on the subject, we still should have had sufficient information to guide our judgment, in the book that closes the canon of Scripture. In this book — the Revela- tion of John, how full is the testimony which we find to the hidden wisdom contained in all the affairs and writings relating to the Jewish dispensation ! It would, however, engage us too long, were we to examine it in detail : suffice it then to say, that much of the imagery of this book is taken from the state of things which existed under the Mosaic law. Though written, ac- cording to the best computations, upwards of twenty years after the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, it contains repeated mention of both*; — as also of the arkf, — of the altars of incenset and of burnt offerings§,— of the twelve tribes of Israel || , notwithstanding ten of them had long before been entirely dispersed and mixed with other nations; beside many of the persons** and placesff treated of in the

* Ch. iii. 12, xxi. 2, xi. 1, 19, xv. 5, 8, xvi. 1, 17.

t Ch. xi. 19. : Ch. viii. 3. § Ch. xi. 1. || Ch. vii. 4 to 8.

** Ch. ii. 14, 20, ch. iii. 7, v. 5, xi. 3, 4, (see Zech. iv. lit 14.

tf Ch, xi. 8; chs. xvii. and xviii. xxi. 2, &c.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 89

sacred history of the Jews; all which furnish the writer with a copious store of imagery that is evidently purely symbolic : how plain then is the inference, that these things belonging to the circumstances of the Jewish dispensation, and which are here incontrovertibly used as mere symbols, bearing a spiritual meaning, were equally symbols, and equally bore a spiritual meaning, when they really existed in, or in the vicinity of, the land of Canaan, and when they are spoken of in the letter of the other books of Scripture.*

Thus it is perfectly clear, that every thing relating to the Jews as a people, typified some- thing belonging, either to the true Jews spoken of by Paul, who are such inwardly in the spirit and not outwardly in the letter, or else to those mentioned in the Revelation, (C who say they are Jews and are notf ;" in other words, either to the true or to the merely professing members of the Church universal : and as the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, in the literal sense, refers to such things, it follows, that the whole of the Sacred, Scriptures contains an inward meaning distinct from that of the letter, — that they are replete with stores of wisdom in their bosom, independently of what appears upon the surface. And it follows further, that in forming a judg-

* See this argument farther deduced in the Appendix, No. I. •\ Ch. ii. 9, iii. 9.

N

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merit of their pretensions to inspiration, we are to be guided by their inward contents,, and not solely by their outward form and appearance. To allude again to the image used by the Lord Jesus Christ, we are not to be offended at the "flesh/* because we have not discernment to discover cc the spirit/'

4. It having thus been so plainly taught by the Lord and his apostles, that the Scriptures are, in their inward bosom, spirit and life, it will be expected that the primitive Christian Church, which derived its ideas of the nature of the Scriptures from the teaching of the apostles, must universally have allowed them to possess this character : and, accordingly, ecclesiastical history, and the writings of those times which are still extant, shew that such was the case. Indeed, no truth in history is more certain than this ; that for at least fourteen or fifteen hundred years, few who received the Scriptures at all, ever thought of denying that they contained mysteries in their bosom which do not appear updn the surface. It is true that some were dissatisfied, and even disgusted, with the inter- pretations which had been given by others, and rather sought to ascertain the true literal sense than to explore what might lie beyond : but few ever thought of affirming, that nothing beyond the letter was included in them. The accounts which are contained in that well-known work,

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 91

Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, abundantly prove this : and as it is not our intention here to inquire what the interpretations were, which, in consequence of their admission of a hidden sense, were given of Scripture by ancient Chris- tian writers, but only to establish the fact, that they believed it to contain such a sense; the statements of this author will be sufficient for our purpose.

(1.) Mosheim was himself one of the modern writers who lay it down as a ff golden rule," that the Scripture contains but one sense, which is that of the letter ; on which his translator, Dr. Maclaine, found it necessary to remark, that " this golden rule will often be found defective and false*/' unless many exceptions be made to it . Mosheim, however, was strongly attached to it ; and hence the opprobrious language which he uses in regard to all who maintain the opposite opinion, must be received with many grains of allowance. Such being his senti- ments, he evidently is much annoyed at being obliged to record, that the belief of a hidden sense was universal in the primitive ages : he, however, does record it, though he depreciates the writings of those who adopt the principle. Thus, speaking of the mode of interpreting Scripture in the first century, he says, ff It must be acknowledged, that even in this century, * Cent. xvi. Sec. 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 1, § 16, Note (a). N 2

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several Christians adopted that absurd and cor- rupt custom, used among the Jews, of darken- ing the plain words. of the Holy Scriptures by insipid and forced allegories, and of drawing them violently from their proper and natural signification,, in order to extort from them cer- tain hidden and mysterious significations. For a proof of this we need go no farther than the Epistle of Barnabas, which is yet extant/'* It is well he did not say " the epistles of Paul;" for we have seen that Paul quite as decidedly favour- ed the practice of drawing from the plain words of Scripture, not, indeed, insipid and forced alle- gories, but weighty and just ones ; and it must be remembered, that Barnabas was an apostoli- cal man, the friend of Paul and the other Apostles, and sometimes called an Apostle him- self f : although then Barnabas might err in his application of the general principle, — -that there is a hidden sense in the Scriptures, — we hardly can suppose that he was mistaken in the prin- ciple itself. The intimate friend of the Apostles must have known, whether this principle was acknowledged by them, or not.J

* Cent. 1, Pt. 1, Ch. 3, § 2. f Acts, xiv. 14.

I Mosheim indeed, with some others, does not allow the author of the epistle of Barnabas, to have been the Barnabas who was the companion of Paul; but upon no other grounds, than because he does not consider the epistle to be worthy of such a man. He allows it, however, to be a production of the first century; and none of the early Christians seeni to have denied its being genuine.

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 93

When he comes to the second century, speak- ing of the veneration with which the Holy Scriptures were then regarded, Dr. Mosheirn says, that many employed their (C useful labours in explaining and interpreting them/' As the chief of these expositors he mentions Pantaenus, the head of the Alexandrian school of divinity • Clement of Alexandria, whom he had before described as fc the most illustrious writer of this century, and the most justly renowned for his various erudition, and his perfect acquaintance with the ancient sages/' and whose works, Cf yet extant, abundantly shew the extent of his learn- ing, and the force of his genius;" Justin, "a man of eminent piety and considerable learning, who from a pagan philosopher became a Chris- tian martyr;" and Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, whose works are " remarkable for their erudition/' though not for (C their order and method:" and of these distinguished lights of the church he says, that " they all attributed a double sense to the words of Scripture, the one obvious and literal, the other hidden and mysterious, which lay concealed, as it were, under the veil of the outward letter/'*

Proceeding to the third century, and com- memorating the pains then taken by some to multiply correct copies of the Scriptures, he mentions the celebrated Origen in these words : * Cent. 2. Ft. 2, Ob. 3, § 4, 5; and Oh. 2, § 5.

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"But Origin surpassed all others in diligence and assiduity ; and his famous Hexapla*, though almost destroyed by the waste of time, will remain an eternal monument of the incredible application with which that great man laboured to remove the obstacles which retarded the progress of the gospel. "f He had previously^ given the character of Origen in stronger terms still. Speaking of the principal writers of the third century,, he says., fc The most eminent of these., whether we consider the extent of his fame, or the multiplicity of his labours, was Origen, a presbyter and catechist of Alexandria; a man of vast and uncommon abilities, and the greatest luminary of the Christian world that this age exhibited to view. Had the justness of his judgment been equal to the immensity of his genius, the fervour of his piety, his indi- fatigable patience, his extensive erudition, and his other eminent and superior talents, all en- comiums must have fallen short of his merit. Yet such as he was, his virtues and his labours deserve the admiration of all ages; and his name will be transmitted with honour through the annals of time, as long as learning and genius shall be esteemed among men/' Higher eulogy

* A work in which he exhibited, at one view, six copies or versions of the Scriptures, after the manner of the modern Polyglotts.

t Cent, 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 3, § 4. J Ibid, Ch. 2, § 7.

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could not easily be penned : and the reserve that is made on the score of his judgment,, may fairly be ascribed to the prejudice of the writer against any but the literal interpretation of Scripture. No literary pursuit requires a more accurate judgment than sacred criticism: and Origen is universally allowed to have been one of the most laborious and judicious critics that ever lived. He was in no respect inferior to the Weststeiris and Griesbachs of our days, in that species of erudition and industry to which they devoted all their attention. He displayed the utmost diligence and acumen in fixing the text, and ascertaining the literal sense, of Scripture : but he did not, like many who have followed him, in modern times, in this walk of biblical litera- ture, because he excelled in it, extol it as the whole, or the highest. This great man, then, strenuously maintained that the chief wisdom in the Scriptures lies beyond the letter. ffHe alleged/' to quote again from Mosheim, ffthat the words of Scripture, were, in many places, absolutely void of sense; and that though, in others, there were indeed certain notions con- tained under the outward terms according to their literal force and import, yet it was not in these that the true meaning of the sacred writers was to be sought, but in a mysterious and hidden sense arising from the nature of the things them-

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selves/'* Mosheim adds, "A prodigious number of interpreters, both in this and the succeeding ages,, followed the method of Origen, though with some variation; nor could the few who ex- plained the sacred writings with judgment, and a true spirit of criticism/' [so our author is pleased to give his opinion ; though we have seen that Origen himself was one of the greatest of critics,,] " oppose, with any success, the tor- rent of allegory that was overflowing the church/'f Very strong testimony, this, as to the state of opinion in those ages on the nature of the Scriptures. And it must be kept in mind, that: this is all that we are concerned with. I undertake not to vindicate the interpretations themselves, but only the general principle \vhich all such interpretations assume ; — that there is in the Scriptures more than meets the eye.

But if I would not vindicate the interpreta- tions of these early times, farther than as re- gards their general principle, still less would I defend, in any other respect, the expositors of the following ages. It will not however be without its interest and its use, if we take, from our author, a rapid sketch of the state of Scrip- ture interpretation, through the succeeding ages, to the period of the Reformation from Popery.

As after the third century many deviations from the pure Christian doctrine and worship became

* Cent. 3, Pt. 2, Ch. 3. § 5. f Ibid. § 6.

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general, it cannot be deemed surprising if the interpreters of Scripture should be found to have fallen into serious errors, and grievously to have misapplied the great general truth, that the Scriptures contain a sense beyond that of the letter. We find, however, that all the eminent names in the church continued to adhere to this truth, with very few exceptions, down to the age of Luther. The most learned of the fathers of the fourth century, were Eusebius and Jerome; and these Mosheim puts in his list of allegorical interpreters : he claims Augustine as adhering to the letter; but he cannot mean that this father denied there to be any thing beyond the letter; since his writings contain many beautiful spiritual interpretations. In the fifth century he only gives the names of one or two who confined themselves to the literal sense, as exceptions to the general practice. In the sixth century the number of interpreters is described as considerable: Among the Greeks, our author states, the principal were Procopius of Gaza, Severus of Antioch, and Julian ; and among the Latins, Gregory the Great, Cassio- dorus, Primasius, Isidore of Seville, and Bellator. The commentators of this age, he affirms, may be divided into two classes : the first of whom merely collected the interpretations of the an- cient doctors of the church, (who, we have already seen, proceeded in their writings upon

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the admission of a spiritual sense,) which collec- tions afterwards acquired the technical name of chains ; and the other class followed their own ideas, setting up Origen as their great model. The seventh century produced but few exposi- tors : The Grecian doctors all followed the alle- gorical mode: but "the Latins/' says Mosheim, in his usual sarcastic style, te were so diffident of their abilities, that they did not dare to enter these allegorical labyrinths, [under their own guidance, he means,] but contented themselves with what flowers they could pluck out of the rich collections of Gregory and Augustine." In the eighth century, both the Greeks and Latins confined themselves almost entirely to the task of compilation: but those who framed any thing of their own, as Alcuin, Authpert, and the venerable Bede, all men of the greatest abilities, always sought for the "hidden and mystical meaning, which they usually divided into allegorical, anagogical, and tropological." The same description applies to the writers of the ninth century, with the partial exception of two, Druthmar, and Bertharius : Mosheim con- tinues to divide the rest into compilers and original authors; and he thus describes the form which the system of Scripture-interpretation had now assumed : " The fundamental principle, in which all the writers of this class [those who were not mere compilers] agree, is, that, beside

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. 99

the literal signification of each passage in Scrip- ture, there are hidden and deep senses which escape the vulgar eye; but they are not agreed about the number of these mysterious significa- tions. Some attribute to every phrase three senses ; others four ; others again five ; nay, their number is carried to seven, by Angelome, a monk of Lisieux, an acute though fantastic writer, and who is far from deserving the meanest rank among the expositors of this century." The tenth century was an age of great darkness, which produced few expositors of Scripture; and these were chiefly mere compilers. There were more writers in the eleventh century, and of the same two classes. In the twelfth century the number of interpreters is described as great, but, unless Rupert of Duytz is to be considered as an exception, the same character is given of them as before. "The Christian interpreters and commentators of the thirteenth century, differ very little/' says Mosheim, ff from those of the preceding times. The greatest part of them pretended to draw from the depths of truth, what they called the internal juice and marrow of the Scriptures, i. e. their hidden and mysterious sense:" he adds, (and, I doubt not, correctly; for I repeat, though I conceive their general principle to be right, I readily concede that their application of it was wrong,) "and this they did with so little dexterity, so little plau-

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sibility and invention, that most of their expli- cations must appear insipid and nauseous to such as are not entirely destitute of judgment and taste/' This I quote,, because he mentions as examples, beside Anthony of Padua, our Arch- bishop Langton, and Hugo de St. Cher, or Car- dinal Hugh de St. Caro; whence we see, as in former instances, that although the biblical ex- positions of those days might be unsound, they often proceeded from the most solid judgments of the age, and from men who deserved well of posterity. The common reader of the Bible is indebted for the facility of finding and re- membering its various contents, to Archbishop Langton, who first divided it into chapters, and who moreover is called by Mosheim's transla- tor, ' f a learned and polite author, for the age in which he lived :" and the more diligent student owes the help he derives from a Concordance, to Cardinal Hugo, who compiled the first that ever was made, and whose work has been the model of all theConcordances which have fol- lowed, whether in Hebrew or Greek, in Latin or English: he, likewise, had so much of the sober-minded critic in his character, that he com- piled a very learned collection of the various readings of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts of the Bible. In the fourteenth century, except Nicholas de Lyra, all the com- mentators followed the methods already ex-

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plained: and of those of the Jlfteenth century the same character is given. This brings us to the era of the reformation ; when the desire of receding as far as possible from the Roman Catholics, who continued to adhere to the old system,, joined to disgust at the manner in which the doctrine of a spiritual sense had been abused, by being applied to confirm the errors of the Roman Catholic church,, induced some of the Reformers to reject it; though it has continued to have many eminent advocates among them to the present day. If it could be shewn that the doctrine itself was a corrupt in- vention of the Romish church, there would be reason for rejecting it : but when it can be proved to have been the belief of the primitive ages, and this because it is taught in the Scriptures themselves, we ought to take the pains to sepa- rate the errors that have been attached to it, from the truth itself and not reject both to- gether. As, during many ages, every thing connected with religion suffered the most grie- vous perversion, it is not to be wondered at that the same fate attended the spiritual in- terpretation of the Scriptures : but to deny the truth of the principle on this account, is just as reasonable as it would be to deny the truth of the declaration — " All power is given to me iu heaven and in earth */'— made by the Lord

* Matt, xxviii. 18.

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Jesus Christ, because to this doctrine has been attached the monstrous appendage,, that the Pope is his Vicar.

I will conclude this statement of the senti- ments of the primitive and middle ages on the subject of Scripture-interpretation, in the words of two eminent luminaries of the Anglican Church. Archbishop Wake, one of the most learned and pious prelates that ever sate in the English Metropolitan Chair, in the introduction to his translation of " the Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers/' has some remarks in defence of the spiritual expositions of Scripture, and of Barnabas in particular. He says*, " I need not say how general a way this was of interpreting Scripture in the time that St. Bar- nabas lived. To omit Origen, who has been noted as excessive in it, and for whom, yet, the learned Huetius has lately made a reasonable apology; who has ever shewn a more diffusive knowledge than Clemens Alexandrinus has done in all his composures ? and yet in his works we find the very same method taken of interpreting the Holy Scriptures, and that without any re- proach either to his learning or judgment. What author has been more generally applauded for his admirable piety than that other Clement, [Clemens Romanus, a disciple and " fellow labourerf" of Paul,] whose epistle to the Corin- * Ch. vii. * 25. t Phil. iv. 3.

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thians I have here inserted? and yet in that plain piece we meet with more than one instance of the same kind of interpretation ; which was nevertheless admired by the best and most pri- mitive Christians/' So Bishop Home, in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms, speaking of the testimony of the ancients, has these words: "They are unexceptionable wit- nesses to us of this matter of fact : that such a spiritual method of interpreting the Scriptures, did universally prevail in the church from the beginning."

So far then as authority is to be consulted in the decision of such a question, the weight of evidence for the spiritual sense of the Scriptures is irresistible. What regard is to be had to the doubts of a few moderns, when opposed to the unanimous decision of all antiquity, — to the unvarying acknowledgment of so many ages? Although, through part of its course, the doc- trine of spiritual interpretation may have been rendered less clear by the foulness of the channel through which it flowed ; and although it has, in modern times, been made less distinguishable by a mixture of other waters ; it unquestionably had its rise in the virgin days of Christianity: Unless then it is to be contended, that the farther from the fountain, the purer the stream, it must be admitted, that the doctrine of spiritual inter-

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pretation is the pure doctrine of the Christian church.

(2.) The Reformation from Popery introduced in the Christian church a great variety of opi- nions; and it would be a very extensive task to trace,, through the numerous sects which have thus sprung up, the fluctuations of sentiment in regard to the principles of Scripture-interpret- ation. And the task would be nearly as unprofitable as it would be tedious : since the opinions of the moderns can have no other weight, than that which they derive from their evident reasonableness and agreement with Scripture : as authority, they have none. I shall confine myself therefore to a few English tes- timonies; only observing, once for all, of the modern writers in general, that while the ancients generally believed the spiritual sense to extend throughout the Scriptures, few of the moderns allow it this complete universality; on the other hand, while many of these deny its existence generally, few of them refuse to admit it in particular instances. This qualification then must be applied to the testimonies I shall adduce from them in favour of a spiritual sense ; but we shall see in the sequel, that, if we make the admission at all, we must, with the ancients, make it universal.

As the most recent of modern testimonies of

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importance, I select that of the Rev. T. H. Home, with an older author or two cited by him: we shall also have occasion to refer to other au- thorities in our subsequent Lectures. In his laborious fc Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures/'— a work which has rapidly passed through three editions, and has been received with the general applause of biblical students, Mr. Home ex- presses himself thus : f: The spiritual interpret- ation of Scripture has been as much depreciated by some commentators and biblical critics as it has been exaggerated and carried to the extreme by others: but if the argument against a thing from the possibility of its being abused be in- admissible in questions of a secular nature, it is equally inadmissible in the exposition of the Sacred Writings. All our ideas are admitted through the medium of the senses; and conse- quently refer, in the first place, to external objects : but no sooner are we convinced that we possess an immaterial soul or spirit, than we find occasion for other terms, or, for want of these, another application of the same terms to a different class of objects : and hence arises the necessity of resorting to figurative and spiritual interpretation. Now, the object t>f revelation being to make known things which feye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man to conceive/ it seems hardly

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possible that the human mind should be capable of apprehending them, but through the medium of figurative language or mystical represent- ations/' * In this passage, as it appears to me, the question is placed upon exactly the right ground ; and a clue is at the same time given to the discovery of the law or rule according to which the Scriptures are written,, and by which their spiritual sense is to be decyphered. It is perfectly true that our ideas are received, in the first instance, by the instrumentality of the senses : these, however, can bring us acquainted with none but external and sensible objects ; the images of which, thus obtained, become, never- theless, the basis of all our future thoughts, and, in numberless instances, are transferred from their primary notions, and used as the signs of totally different things. It has been objected by Infidels, that as all our ideas have a reference to the objects of outward nature, and we cannot think even of immaterial things without the help of images thence compounded, this is a proof that nothing but nature has a real exist- ence, and that all beyond is purely the creature of the imagination : but this is a most gratuitous assumption : the true statement of the case would be, that there is between material and immaterial objects such a sort of regular analogy, that the former present the most appropriate

* Vol.2, Pt.2, Ch. 1,§5.

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signs for the expression of the latter. We shall see in the sequel, that it is by this immutable principle that the Word of God is written. Mr. Home has established this truth by a beautiful quotation from Dr. John Clarke, who states it thus:

" The foundation of religion and virtue being laid in the mind and heart, the secret dispositions and genuine acts of which are invisible, and known only to a man's self; therefore the powers and operations of the mind can only be expressed in figurative terms and external symbols. The motives, also, and inducements to practice, are spiritual, such as affect man in a way of moral influence, and not of natural efficiency ; the principal of which are drawn from the consideration of a future state ; and, consequently, these, likewise, must be represented by allegories and similitudes, taken from things most known and familiar here. And thus we find in Scripture the state of religion illustrated by all the beautiful images we can conceive. — In the interpretation of places, in which any of these images are contained, the principal regard is to be had to the figurative or spiritual, and not to the literal sense of the words. — Of this nature are all the rites and ceremonies prescribed to the Jews, with relation to the external form of religious worship ; every one of which was intended to shew the obligation, or recom-

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mend the practice, of some moral duty, and was esteemed of no farther use than as it produced that effect. And the same may he applied to the rewards and punishments peculiar to the Christian dispensation, which regard a future state. The rewards are set forth by those things in which the generality of men take their greatest delight;— and the punishments are such as are inflicted by human laws upon the worst of malefactors : but they can neither of them be understood in the strictly literal sense, but only by way of analogy, and corres- ponding in the general nature and intention of the thing, though very different in kind/' *

ec But/' adds Mr. Home, "independently of the able argument a priori, here cited, in favour of the mediate, mystical, or spiritual interpretation of the Scrip, ures, unless such interpretation be admitted" [in conjunction, he means, with the truth of the literal sense,] " we cannot/' [in the conclusive words of the late Bishop of Calcutta,] " avoid one of two great difficulties: for either we must assert, that the multitude of applications made by Christ and his apostles, are fanciful and unauthorized, and wholly in- adequate to prove the points for which they are quoted; or, on the other hand, we must believe, that the obvious and natural sense of such pas- sages was never intended, and that it is a mere*

* Folio Collection of Boole's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 229.

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illusion. The Christian will object to the former of these positions ; the Philosopher and the Critic will not readily assent to the latter/'* This powerful writer says again,, in a passage not quoted by Home, that,, without such a two- fold explanation,, <c it will be impossible to place any of the citations in the New Testament, except, indeed,, direct and avowed prophecies, on any better footing than that of being acci- dentally apposite to the occasion. A quotation from the Psalms., by St. Paul,, will not, in its application, possess any advantage over a quota- tion from Horace by Addison/'f

Here then I am contented to rest my case,, in regard to the question, of the propriety of claiming for the Scriptures a spiritual sense, upon the supposition that they are rightly desig- nated "the Word of God.5' If philosophy, and the immutable nature of things, are to be consulted, " the Word of God" must contain such a sense within it. If the testimony which the Scriptures bear to themselves is to be re- garded, they do contain such a sense. If f( the multitude of applications" made of texts ee by Christ and his Apostles" was not " fanciful and unauthorized," the double sense of Scripture is irrefragably established. If the concurrent acknowledgment of all who lived in the best * Doct. of Greek Article, p. 580. f Ibid. p. 588.

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days of Christianity is of any authority, we are constrained to admit this sense. If the pre- servation of this acknowledgment through so many centuries, even through the ages of the greatest darkness, when the sentiments arising from it, together with all the doctrines of the Christian religion, suffered gross perversion; — if this, nevertheless, is an index that points to the source whence the acknowledgment was derived ; — then is the doctrine that the Scriptures do contain such a sense, a fundamental doctrine of the true Christian religion. And, finally, if the force of truth has pointed out this conclusion to the most intelligent of the moderns; if these, after throwing off the trammels of authority, and recurring to the original sources, are con- strained to confess, that the spiritual sense of the Scriptures cannot be denied, without denying their truth altogether : assuredly we ought to embrace the doctrine, as we would embrace the palladium of the Christian faith. We shall find in the end, that, when rightly apprehended, it will prove a palladium indeed, by its power of preserving the Christian faith from the as- saults of its opponents.

IV. But, as has already been observed, though the testimony to the fact, that the Word of God contains stores of wisdom in its bosom, independently of what appears on the surface, is so ample, objections, during two or three

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. Ill

centuries past, have been made to it, and its credit has gradually diminished. The belief in the spi- ritual sense of Scripture, has run parallel with that of its plenary inspiration: as this has de- clined, so has the other. Indeed, they are in- separably connected : for, as we have seen, if the Word of God is written by a plenary divine inspiration, it must contain interior treasures within its outward shell, necessarily formed there by its descent from the Inmost of all things into the world of nature ; whereas if it is not so written, it cannot include such hidden wisdom ; at least, whatever it might thus contain beyond the letter, would be, in the latter case, the result of artificial contrivance in the writers, not, as in the former, naturally inherent in writ- ings so imparted : and the looking at the spiri- tual sense thus, as a merely artificial contrivance, has greatly helped to bring it into doubt. We have seen, also, that the expositions of this sense usually offered, have not been such as were adapted to recommend it. Things of little moment, savouring only of the little minds of men, and quite unworthy of the wisdom of Deity, have too generally been produced as spi- ritual interpretations : and where more elevated ideas have been presented, satisfactory reasons not being assigned for them, they, also, were liable to be ascribed to the mere fancy of the writers. Among the explications thus offered,

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there was likewise an endless variety, and gene- rally as much disagreement. When, therefore,, so much error was thus mixed up with the prac- tice of spiritual interpretation, it was not extra- ordinary that, however true in itself, discredit should in time be thrown upon the principle also. Thus many began to shut their eyes to the Scripture testimonies in its favour; to re- gard it as merely opening a door to uncertainty and confusion; and to insist that the letter of the Holy Word should alone be studied, as the only basis of certainty, and as containing, in fact, all that was intended to be revealed.

Nothing can be farther from my intention, than to depreciate, in the slightest degree, the literal sense of the Scriptures, or the importance of studying it with diligence : on the contrary, I am fully sensible of the obligations which the Christian world owes to the learned moderns, who have endeavoured to revive a knowledge of the original languages of Holy Writ, and to restore the true import of its words and phrases. Their labours have furnished the biblical student of our days with more efficient helps to the right understanding of the letter of the sacred pages, than have been before enjoyed since the times when Hebrew and Greek were living languages: and if the partial neglect, or even denial, of the spiritual sense, was necessary to turn men's minds to the study of the literal sense, with the

THE SCRIPTURES ASSERTED, &C. US

concentration of powers necessary to its com- plete elucidation ; we may see, in the end for which this was permitted, an object worthy of Divine Providence; for we see the means hereby provided, by which the study of the spiritual sense may be placed on a safer basis than it ever stood upon before. Most heartily do I concur in the observation of Bishop Lowth, that ff the deep and recondite senses" of Scrip- ture, Cf must owe all their weight and solidity to the just and accurate interpretation of the words. For whatever senses are supposed to be included in the Prophet's words, Spiritual, Mystical, Allegorical, Analogical, or the like, they must all entirely depend on the literal sense. This is the only foundation upon which such interpretations can be securely raised ; and if this is not firmly and well established, all that is built upon it will fall to the ground/' * Every one must also admit the following remark to be equally true and candid : " Strange and absurd deductions of notions and ideas, foreign to the author's drift and design, will often arise from the invention of Commentators, who have no- thing but an inaccurate translation to work upon. This was the case of the generality of the Fathers of the Christian Church, who wrote comments upon the Old Testament: and it is no wonder, that we find them of so little service in * Lowth's Isaiab, Prel. Dis. Q

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leading us into the true meaning and deep sense of the Prophetic Writings.1' Whoever then assists us better to understand the letter of the Scriptures, is entitled to our thanks ; and to our forgiveness if, while intent on this, he should have undervalued their spirit.

But the literal sense of Scripture, and the right understanding of it, have also important uses of their own, independently of that which they furnish in yielding a foundation for the higher meaning to rest on. Although there is a great part of the Word of God, which, with- out the spiritual sense, would be quite useless as to any spiritual improvement, yet there are other parts in which the most important truths are presented to view in the very letter ; and this in sufficient abundance to establish all the points of faith that ought to be insisted upon in the codes of Christian instruction. Unquestionably, all doctrine should be drawn from the literal sense, and proved by it: by this, likewise, should all controversies be decided : and no- thing which cannot thus be shewn and esta- blished, should be considered as binding upon the conscience of any one : otherwise, there would indeed be reason to complain of uncer- tainty in regard to the foundations of our faith ; since the spiritual sense of any particular text, though capable of being clearly exhibited to the intellectual eye, can never appear so un-

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questionable to a mind that judges solely on the evidence of the senses, as a statement of the same truth in plain words. The letter of the Holy Word is therefore so constructed, that the doctrines most necessary to salvation may therein be openly discerned. Although the divine truth and wisdom contained in the Scriptures, only shine with all their glory in the spiritual sense, they do not assume their full power, till they appear in a plain statement in the letter; as the energies of the human mind, assume, as their instrument of action, the human hand. We have compared, in a former part of this Lecture, the letter of the Word of God to the skin that covers the body, and its hidden contents to the interior organs and members ; but, to illustrate the present subject, the Holy Word in general may be compared to a beautiful female, clothed in becoming drapery, but whose face and hands remain uncovered : thus, while the greater part of the letter of the Scriptures consists of truths veiled over by natural images, which cannot be decyphered without a key, the things most indispensable to be known are openly displayed. The spiritual sense of Scripture is not how- ever without its use, in the framing of systems of doctrine also : but its use here will be, not to present the truths which are to be believed, independently of the statements of the letter, but to prevent us from mistaking one of the

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two classes of passages just alluded /to for the other,, and thus bringing promineritlWand under- standing according to their outwardexpression, some obscure texts,, as if (to carry on our com- parison) they belonged to an important feature of the face,, while they form part,, in reality, of the skirt of the garment. Every one knows that there are statements in the Scriptures which appear to be in opposition to each other; as when it is sometimes said of the Divine Being, that he repenteth*, and at others, that he repenteth not.f It is evident that both these assertions cannot be true in the same sense : and yet, if they equally form part of the Word of God, they must both be true in some sense: what then is the plain inference, but that the one passage delivers the naked truth, the other, the truth covered w7ith the veil of a mere appearance taken from human ideas ? In both declarations, a spiritual sense is included : but in the one it only exalts and extends, in the other it is re- quired to correct and rectify, the statement of the letter. Deny any sense beyond the letter, and you fix such passages in irreconcilable op- position : you have then no alternative, if you still believe the Scriptures to contain a system of truth, but to fix your attention wholly on the one class of passages, and slur over the other without notice : and you may even select for your * Gen. vi. 6. f Numb, xxiii. 19.

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preference the class of passages which present the" truth under a veil, and may confirm in your mind, as the genuine truth, the outward enigmati- cal expression, to the neglect of the truth itself, which other passages openly discover. This has been the immediate origin (though not the final cause,) of all the mistakes, which, in various ages, have been obtruded on the world as the doctrines of the Scriptures : — an insight into the interior meaning of the Sacred Word would have corrected them at once.

We see then, on the one hand, that the most devoted adherents to the letter of Scripture need not oppose the belief of its containing a farther sense besides, under the apprehension, that this would abolish the former: so far from making void the letter, by viewing it in con- nexion with the spirit, we thereby establish the Better. On the other hand we see, that a refer- ence to the spiritual sense is highly requisite, to secure us from error in the interpretation of the literal. Like soul and body, they are equally necessary to each other. As the soul, without the body, could not make its existence perceptible in the world of nature; so neither could the spiritual sense of the Scriptures,, without the letter, be communicated to the inhabitants of the natural world : and as the body, without the soul, would be void of life ; so would be the letter of Scripture, if entirely separate from

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its spirit. It is the translucence of the spirit through the letter which makes this the vehicle of conveying divine truth to the mind, and which presents the truth, in greater or less ful- ness, even to those, who deny its distinct exis- tence ; just as the body of man derives from the soul the life it exhibits, even in the case of the materialist, who will not believe that he has a soul within him. There must be an animating principle somewhere ; and the inquiry must be highly important which would teach us what it is.

But many fear to admit this idea, in regard to the Scriptures, under the impression, that any departure from the letter must necessarily intro- duce uncertainty and confusion. The objection would be well founded, if no rule could be laid down of general application, but we were to be left to mere conjecture, every expositor being guided solely by his own fancy; in which case, although, like Justin Martyr*, he might be persuaded that he had been endowed with a special gift for understanding the Scriptures, others, not seeing any reason for his expla- nations, must be prone to doubt their truth. But could it be shewn that the Scriptures are written throughout according to an immut- able Law or Rule, a knowledge of which would, in explaining them, substitute certainty

* Dial. Par. 2. p. 352, 390.

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for conjecture and cut off the sources of vague interpretation: — then this objection, which is the only plausible one, against their contain- ing a spiritual sense, falls immediately to the ground. That they must be written upon one uniform principle, follows as a necessary con- sequence, upon the supposition that they pro- ceeded from a