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that allows men to enervate all the force of truth by miserable evasions and diluted paraphrases? What is it that leads men, by adopting new and unauthorised readings, gradually to substitute another book instead of the Bible? How is it that they impose on the scriptures, rules of interpretations which they would never tolerate for a moment in any profane author? How is it we hear of one part of scripture being magnified at the expense of another?-The gospels and the sermon on the mount, for instance, set up against the epistles?-St. James opposed to St. Paul?-The words of our Lord, to the writings of his apostles?—The New Testament to the Old? Whence is all this, but from a secret unbelief; a secret irreverence; a secret reliance on human reasoning; a tacit neglect of the revelation of God as committed to writing by the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost?

II. On the other hand, the class of errors, not generally so fatal, but yet most injurious, which spring from a forgetfulness of the human character and form of the plan of inspiration, is to be guarded against. If the inspiration of scripture be so interpreted as to supersede the free and natural flow of the writer's mind; if sound and reasonable means of expounding the force of terms, the import of metaphors, the signification of allusions to local customs be discarded-if the book is considered as so divine in its form, as well as its matter, as to exclude man's agency—if the human character of the manner of writing is forgotten; the errors which may arise are by no means inconsiderable. Truth is conveyed off, as it were, into the lifeless reservoirs of human contrivance, instead of flowing fresh from the living sources of the divine mind. Harsh and unnatural interpretations are imposed; arguments are violated, or misstated; figures and parables are pushed into minute and far-fetched novelties. Systems of theology are framed according to the taste and habits of the student, and not after the native simplicity of the divine word. A few passages are taken out of their connexion, and forced to an unnatural

(h) Schleusner abounds with such faults.

sense, and then the scriptures compelled to bend to that exposition. The various statements and arguments of the holy scriptures, instead of being diligently examined and compared, as so many phenomena, from which inferences are to be drawn with the care of the inductive philosophyare hastily put together, reduced to a few rigid and unbending propositions, and are made the first principles of all subsequent advances. By these means the doctrine of the inspiration is overstrained and misapplied. The human part is forgotten. Men pass over and obliterate all the finer traits, all the hidden and gentle whispers of truth, all the less obvious, and yet natural and affecting impressions of character; all what Lord Bacon calls the "first flowings of the scriptures." "We want," says that great author, "short, sound, and judicious notes and observations on scripture, without running into common-places, pursuing controversies, or reducing those notes to artificial method; but leaving them quite loose and native. For certainly, as those wines which flow from the first treading of the grape, are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle crush of the scriptures, and are not wrung into controversies and common-places."

III. Such a pliant yielding to the human impression of the language of scripture, connected with the firmest faith in all the parts of it, as infallibly inspired, is the main lesson to be derived from the doctrine we have been considering. Indeed, THE SPONTANEOUS DICTATE OF THE HUMBLE AND TEACHABLE MIND, when it once understands these illustrations of the plan on which the divine inspiration proceeds, is to submit at once to the divine wisdom. The first dictate of a penitent's heart, when he receives a revelation from God, is to bow implicitly to the discovery, both as to the matter and the means of it. The same temper of docility, on which we have all along insisted, will at once conduct him through the labyrinth which human pride and unbelief have contrived to throw around the doctrine of inspiration. Neither of the classes of error to which I have

adverted, will occur to him. The whole question will be settled the moment he apprehends the nature of the case. If God has given a revelation of his will, and has consigned all the parts of that revelation to books, by the hands of apostles endowed with miraculous qualifications, those books are the infallible word of God himself. They can contain no mixture whatever of mistake or error. If God has further been pleased to permit the sacred writers to exercise their own faculties; to employ all their natural and acquired knowledge; and to leave throughout an impression of human feeling in their way of delivering this revelation, then their books are to be interpreted and understood according to the ordinary rules of common life-that awe only being preserved and that caution used in the application of those rules, which the solemnity of the occasion requires. Thus truth meets the mind, entire and simple in its own harmony and force. The human form of the writing lessens not the divine impress of the inspiration. Every part of the Bible is the unerring standard of religion. The main gift of God to man is this infallibly inspired rule. Its entire strength and inconceivable dignity remain. The whole scripture is divine. It resembles not the mystic image seen by the Babylonish monarch, the feet of which were partly of iron and partly of miry clay; and which, smitten at length, fell prostrate and helpless: but it stands erect and secure, its materials are all of heavenly origin; it rests in every part on the immediate support and power of God; and - defies unshaken the violent assaults, and more secret aggressions of its foes.

But we have lingered too long on this particular question. It has drawn us off insensibly from the grandeur of the Christian evidences. It ought never to have been raised. Inspiration is involved in every part of the argument we have already considered, and will appear yet more distinctly in those branches of the internal evidences, to which we shall soon call your attention. But the question having been once agitated, it required to be thoroughly examined. It is the grand means of evasion in a literary period like the present. Men will allow every thing except the inspi

ration; because, from every thing else they can escape, and frame a Christianity to their own taste. Inspiration—a full, unerring inspiration of every part of scripture-brings an obligation which no sophistry can elude; it leaves every part of truth in all its mighty energy; it makes its demands direct upon the conscience: whilst the human mould into which it is cast, augments the guilt of unbelief and disobedience, because it renders the misunderstanding of the revelation impossible, except where the mind is dishonest to itself.

Let us now rapidly REVIEW THE COURSE OVER WHICH

WE HAVE PASSED IN THE PRESENT VOLUME, AND CONCLUDE THE CONSIDERATION OF THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCES of the

Christian faith.

It will be recollected, that our design has been to enable the Christian, and especially the young Christian, to give an answer to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope that is in him, with meekness and fear. With this view, we have endeavored to combine the historical with the internal evidences, to give him such information as to the external proofs of Christianity, as may prepare him for those which spring from the intrinsic excellency of the gospel, and its holy effects on his heart and life. We have accordingly, not treated the argument abstractedly and formally, but as a matter of immediate interest and feeling. We have appealed continually to the conscience, and have enforced each topic with such practical addresses, as might, by God's blessing, imprint it on the inmost soul. We took up the argument on the admissions of natural religion; and have traced out, step by step, the evidences of the truth and importance of the Christian revelation, as they would be presented to the mind of a candid and sincere inquirer. We have not confined ourselves to a simple proof of each point, but have aimed at exhibiting the accumulated force of the respective testimonies, so as to augment and deepen the impression of the unutterable value of the Christian religion, and the immense obligation under which every one lies, to receive and obey it.

In the present volume, we have gone through the proofs of the authenticity, credibility, divine authority, and complete inspiration of the sacred books; reserving the consideration of the internal evidence for another occasion.

Previously to our entering upon these topics, we considered THE TEMPER OF MIND in which the question should be studied; and showed that some measure of docility and willingness to examine the question with fairness; of earnestness in the pursuit; of prayer to God; and of a practical obedience to truth, so far as it was known, were essentially necessary, and might be most reasonably required. It appeared, however, that in infidels, whether we looked at the literary, the careless, or the low and uneducated classes, this temper was so entirely wanting, that their impiety, mockery of all religion, debasing principles of morals, and general selfconceit and immorality, sufficiently proved the badness of their cause.i

The NECESSITIES of mankind next engaged our attention, and we found that the Heathen nations before the coming of Christ, were plunged into a most fearful gulf of ignorance, idolatry, vice and misery, with nothing to recal them to the knowledge of the true religion-without hope, and without God in the world. We saw moreover, that the superior light of Deists in Christian countries, was borrowed from the very Christianity which they reject-that the Pagan nations now are in precisely the same state of misery and darkness, as those before the coming of Christ; and that the condition of Christian countries, in proportion as the Christian religion is inadequately known and obeyed, confirms every other argument in favor of the indispensable necessity of a revelation from God, if man was ever to be raised from a state of hopeless degradation, blindness, and woe.j

sufficient to

These points, preliminary as they are, were settle the whole question with a sincere mind: The necessities of man addressed such a cry of misery to the Father of mercies; and the want of all religious feeling in the opponents of revelation, so betrayed the wretched motives of (j) Lect. III.

(i) Lect. I.

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