men in every age), having unanimously concurred in handing down to us the Scriptures as a divine revelation, and having very little differed about the books which form a part of that sacred deposit, must be allowed to be a consideration of great importance. And I cannot but suppose, that if a being of entire impartiality, of sound judgment, and holy disposition, should be shown the two companies, of those who have received and of those who have rejected the Scriptures; and should compare the seriousness, learning, patient investigation of truth, solid judgment, holy lives, and composure in a dying hour, (without unmanly terror or indecent levity), of the one company, with the character and conduct of the other; he would be induced to take up the Bible with profound veneration, and the strongest prepossession in its favour.

II. The agreement of the sacred penmen among themselves is another cogent argument of their divine inspiration. Should an equal number of contemporaries, of the same country, education, habits, profession, natural disposition, and rank in life, concur in writing a book on religious subjects, as large as the Bible, each furnishing his proportion, without comparing notes together; the attentive reader, whose mind had been long inured to such studies, would be able to discover some diversity of opinion among them. But the penmen of the Scripture succeeded each other, during the term of fifteen hundred years: some of them were princes, or priests: others shepherds and fishermen, &c.: their natural abilities, education, habits, and employments, were exceedingly varied: they wrote laws, history, prophecy, odes, devotional exercises, proverbs, parables, doctrines, controversy, &c. each man had his distinct department: yet they all exactly coincide, in the exhibition they give us of the perfections, works, truths, and will of God; of the nature, situation, and obligations of man; of sin and salvation; of this world and the next; and in short, of all things connected with our duty, safety, interest, and comfort, and in the whole of the religion inculcated by them. They all were evidently of the same judgment, aimed to establish the same principles, and applied them to the same practical purposes. Apparent inconsistencies will indeed perplex the superficial reader: but they will vanish after a more accurate investigation: nor could ever any charge of disagreement among the penmen of the Bible be substantiated; for it can only be said, that they related the same facts with different circumstances, which are perfectly reconcileable; and that they gave instructions suited to the persons whom they addressed, without systematically shewing the harmony of them with other parts of divine truth. They wrote not by concert, and bestowed no pains to avoid the appearance of inconsistency; yet the exact coincidence that is perceived among them by the diligent student is most astonishing, and cannot be accounted for on any rational principles, without admitting that they "wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." To this we may add, that the Scripture history accords, in a wonderful manner, with the most authentic records which remain of the events, customs, and manners of the countries and ages to which it stands related. The rise and fall of empires, the revolutions that have taken place in the world, and the grand outlines of chronology, &c., are coincident with those stated by most approved ancient writers; whilst the palpable errors in these respects, detected in the apocryphal books, constitute one of the most decisive reasons for rejecting them as spurious. The history of the Bible is of far greater antiquity than any other records extant in the world; and it is remarkable, that in many instances it shows the real origin of those absurd fables, which disgrace and obscure all other histories of those remote times; and this is no feeble proof, that it was derived from some surer source of information than human tradition.

III. The miracles by which the penmen of the Scriptures confirmed their divine mission to their contemporaries, afford us also a most convincing proof in this matter. The account of these miracles may be evidently shown to have been published in the very ages and places in which they were said to

have been wrought, openly, in the presence of vast multitudes, enemies as well as friends; yet this public challenge never called forth any man to deny that they were really performed, nor was an attempt of this kind ever made till long afterwards. Can any man of common sense think, that Moses and Aaron could possibly have persuaded the whole nation of Israel, that they had witnessed all the plagues of Egypt, passed through the Red Sea, with the waters piled on each side of them, gathered the manna every morning, and seen all the wonders recorded in their history, if no such events had taken place? If, then, that generation could not be thus imposed on, when could the belief of such extraordinary events be palmed upon the nation? Surely it would have been impossible, in the next age, to persuade them that their fathers had seen and experienced such wonderful things, when they had never heard a single word about them in their lives; and when an appeal must have been made to them, that these were things well known among them! What credit could have been obtained to such a forgery at any subsequent period? It would have been absolutely necessary, in making this attempt, to persuade the whole people, that such traditions had always been current among them; that the memory of them had for ages been perpetuated by days and ordinances observed by them all; and that their whole civil and religious establishment had thence originated: and could this have possibly been effected, if they all had known, that no such memorials and traditions had ever before been heard of among them? The same might be shown concerning the other miracles recorded in Scripture, especially those of Christ and his apostles; and it might be made evident, that the man who denies them to have been actually performed, must believe more wonderful things without any evidence, than those are which he rejects, though established by unanswerable proof. But brevity will only allow me to insist on one miraculous event, viz. the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; for this being once proved, the whole Scripture is evinced to be a divine revelation. His doctrine and authority establishes the authenticity of the Old Testament; and the witnesses of his resurrection were the penmen of the New Testament.

Almost all human affairs are conducted by testimony; the concurrence of two or three unexceptionable witnesses is sufficient to prove any fact, that is in its own nature credible: and the resurrection of a dead person, by Omnipotence, and for the most important purposes, cannot reasonably be deemed incredible. The ancient prophets had predicted the resurrection of the Messiah (Psalm xvi. 10; Isaiah liii. 10-12): and indeed every pre-intimation of his glorious and perpetual kingdom, when compared with the prophecies of his sufferings and death, implied that he would rise again from the dead. His very enemies knew, that he had foretold his own resurrection within three days, and took precautions accordingly; yet the body was gone, and they could give no rational account what was become of it. They had the whole authority vested in them; and their reputation was deeply concerned yet they rather chose to bear the open charge of the basest murder and prevarication imaginable, than excite any further inquiry; by bringing either the soldiers, who guarded the sepulchre, or the disciples, who were said to have stolen the body, to a public trial; though they had the latter in their custody. The eleven apostles (to whom a twelfth was soon added) were a sufficient number of competent witnesses, being men of plain sense and blameless lives; they could not but identify the person of their Master, whom they had so long attended; they unanimously testified, that they had received the fullest assurance of their senses to his resurrection, and at length beheld him ascend up towards heaven, till he was received out of their sight and they persisted invariably in this testimony for many years. They were evidently intimidated, to a great degree, by the crucifixion of their Lord, and backward to credit his resurrection: they could have no possible secular motive to invent and propagate such a report; for ignominy, torture, and death must be the probable consequences of espous

ing the cause of one, who had been crucified as a deceiver. In all other things they appeared simple, upright, holy men: yet, if in this they deceived, the world never yet produced such a company of artful and wicked impostors! Yet they evidently proposed no advantage to themselves from their deep laid and well conducted schemes! They spent all the rest of their lives in promoting the religion of Jesus; renouncing every earthly interest; facing all kinds of opposition and persecution; prepared habitually to seal their testimony with their blood; and most of them actually dying martyrs in the cause, recommending it with their latest breath. Moreover, when they went forth to preach Christ as risen from the dead, they were manifestly changed, in almost every respect, from what they had before been: their timidity gave place to the most undaunted courage; their carnal prejudices vanished; their ambitious contests ceased; their narrow views were immensely expanded, and zeal for the honour of their Lord, with love to the souls of men, seem to have engrossed and elevated all the powers of their minds. There were also many other competent witnesses to the same great event, even to the number of five hundred: these too concurred in the same testimony to the end of their lives; and neither fear, hope, nor dissention among themselves induced so much as one of them to vary from the testimony of the rest: nay, the apostates from Christianity never openly charged the apostles with any imposition in this respect. A more complete human testimony to any event cannot even be imagined: for if our Lord had shown himself" openly to all the people" of the Jews, and their rulers had persisted in rejecting him, it would have rather weakened than confirmed the evidence; and if they had unanimously received him as the Messiah, it might have excited in others a suspicion, that it was a plan concerted for aggrandizing the nation.

But God himself was also pleased to add his own testimony to that of his servants; conferring on them the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enabling them to impart the same miraculous powers to others, by the laying on of their hands. Thus the number of witnesses continually increased, the testimony was more widely diffused, and no enemy could deny, that they, who attested Christ's resurrection, performed most stupendous miracles (Acts iv. 13-16.) In consequence of this, the unlettered, unarmed, and despised preachers of a crucified and risen Saviour prevailed against all the combined power, learning, wealth, superstition, and wickedness of the world, till Christianity was completely established upon the ruins of Judaism and Pagan idolatry! Here again, it may be demanded, when could the belief of such facts have been obtruded on mankind, if they had never happened? Surely not in the age, when they were said to have been witnessed by tens of thousands, who were publicly challenged to deny them if they could! Not in any subsequent age; for the origin of Christianity was ascribed to them, and millions must have been persuaded, that they had always believed those things, which they had never to that time so much as heard of! We may then venture to assert, that no past event was ever so fully proved as our Lord's resurrection; and that it would not be half so preposterous to doubt, whether such a man as Julius Cæsar ever existed, as it would be to question, whether Jesus actually arose from the dead. What then do they mean, who oppose some little apparent variations, in the account given of this event by the four Evangelists (which have repeatedly been shown capable of an easy reconciliation,) to such an unparalleled complication of evidence, that it did actually take place?

IV. The prophecies contained in the Sacred Scriptures, and fulfilling to this day, prove them to be divinely inspired. These form a species of perpetual miracles, which challenge the investigation of men in every age; and which, though overlooked by the careless and prejudiced, cannot fail of producing conviction proportioned to the attention paid to them. The prophecies of the Messiah, which are to be found in almost all the books of the Old Testament, when compared with the exact accomplishment of them, as recorded in the authentic writings of the Evangelists, abundantly prove them

to have been penned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: whilst the existence of the Jews, as a people differing from all others upon the face of the earth, and their regard to them, as the sacred oracles handed down from their progenitors, sufficiently vouch for their antiquity (though further proof in abundance is at hand, did brevity admit of it). According to the predictions of these books, Nineveh hath been desolated (Nahum i, ii, iii); Babylon swept with the besom of destruction (Isaiah xiii, xiv); Tyre become a place to dry nets in (Ezek. xxvi. 4, 5); Egypt the basest of the kingdoms, &c. (Ezek. xxix. 14, 15). These and many other events fulfilling ancient prophecies, so many ages after they were delivered, can never be accounted for, except by allowing that he, who sees the end from the beginning, thus revealed his secret purposes; that the accomplishment of them might prove the Scriptures to be his word of instruction to mankind.

In like manner, there are evident predictions interwoven almost with the writings of every penman of the New Testament, as a divine attestation to their doctrine. The destruction of Jerusalem, with all the circumstances predicted in the Evangelists (an account of which may be seen in Josephus's History of the Jewish Wars); the series of ages during which that city hath been trodden under foot of the Gentiles;" the long continued dispersion of the Jews, and the conversion of the nations to Christianity; the many antichristian corruptions of the gospel; the superstition, uncommanded austerities, idolatry, tyranny, and persecution of the Roman hierarchy; the division of the empire into ten kingdoms; their concurrence during many ages to support the usurpations of the Church of Rome; and the existence of Christianity to this day, amidst so many enemies, who have used every possible method to destroy it; when compared with the predictions of the New Testament, do not come short of the fullest demonstration which the case will admit of, that the books that contain them are the unerring word of God.

V. Only the Scriptures (and such books as make them their basis) introduce the infinite God as speaking in a manner worthy of himself; with simplicity, majesty, and authority. His character, as there delineated, comprises all possible excellency, without any intermixture; his laws and ordinances accord to his perfections; his works and dispensations exhibit them, and all his dealings with his creatures bear the stamp of infinite wisdom, justice, purity, truth, goodness, and mercy, harmoniously displayed. The description there given of the state of the world, and of human nature, widely differs from our ideas of them; yet the facts unanswerably prove it to be exactly true. The records of every nation, the events of every age, and the history of every individual, confute men's self-flattery in this respect; and prove, that the penmen of the Bible knew the human character better than any philosopher, ancient or modern, ever did. Their account teaches us what men are about, and what may be expected from them; whilst all, who form a different estimate of it, find their principles inapplicable to facts, their theories incapable of being reduced to practice, and their expectations strangely disappointed. The Bible, well understood, enables us to account for those events which have appeared inexplicable to men in every age and the more carefully any one watches and scrutinizes all the motives, intentions, imaginations, and desires of his heart, for a length of time; the clearer will it appear to him, that the penmen of the Scriptures give a far more just account of his disposition and character, than he could have done of himself. In short, man is such a being, and the world is in such a state, as they have described yet multiplied facts, constant observation, and reiterated experience are insufficient to convince us of it, till we first learn it from the Bible: and then comparing all that passes within and around us, with what we there read, we become more and more acquainted with our own hearts, and established in the belief of its divine original.

The mysteries contained in Scripture rather confirm than invalidate this conclusion: for a pretended revelation without mystery would confute itself.

Incomprehensibility is inseparable from God, and all his works, even as low as the growth of a blade of grass; the mysteries of the Scriptures are sublime, interesting, and useful: they display the divine perfections, lay a foundation for our hope, and inculcate humility, reverence, love, and gratitude. What is incomprehensible must be mysterious; but it may be intelligible as far as revealed; and though it connect with things above our reason, it may imply nothing contrary to it. So that, in all respects, the contents of the Bible are suited to convince the serious inquirer, that it is the word of God.

VI. The tendency of the Scripture constitutes another proof of this. Put the case, that all men believed and obeyed the Bible, as a divine revelation ; to what conduct would it lead them, and what would be the effect on society? Surely repentance, and renunciation of all vice and immorality, when connected with the spiritual worship of God in his ordinances, faith in his mercy and truth, through the mediation of his Son, and all the fruits of the Holy Spirit, as visible in the lives of every true believer, would form such characters, and produce such effects, as the world hath never yet witnessed! Men would then universally do justice, speak truth, show mercy, exercise mutual forgiveness, follow after peace, bridle their appetites and passions, and lead a sober, righteous, and godly life. Murders, wars, bitter contentions, cruel oppressions, and unrestrained licentiousness, would no more desolate the world, and fill it with misery; but righteousness, goodness, and truth, would bless the earth with a felicity exceeding all our present conceptions. This is, no doubt, the direct tendency of the Scripture doctrines, precepts, motives, and promises; nothing is wanting to remedy the state of the world, and fit men for the worship and felicity of heaven, but that they should believe and obey the Scriptures: and if many enormous crimes have been committed under colour of zeal for Christianity, that only proves the depravity of man's heart: for the Scripture, soberly understood, most expressly forbids such practices; and men do not act thus because they duly regard it, but because they will not believe and obey it.

The tendency of these principles is exhibited in the characters there delineated, whilst the consistency between the truths and precepts of Scripture, and the actions of men recorded in it, implies another argument of its divine original. Ungodly men are characterized, and their actions are recited, according to the abstract account given of human nature; and believers are represented as conducting themselves exactly in that manner, which the principles of the Bible might have led us to expect. They had like passions with other men; but they were habitually restrained and regulated by the fear and love of God, and other holy affections: their general conduct was good, but not perfect; and sometimes their natural proneness to evil broke out, and made way for bitter repentance and deeper humiliation so that they appear constantly to have perceived their need of forgiveness and divine assistance; to have expected their felicity from the rich mercy of God; and instead of abusing that consideration, to have thence deduced motives for gratitude, zeal, patience, meekness, and love to mankind.

:

But one character is exhibited in the simplest and most unaffected manner, which is perfection itself. Philosophers, orators, and poets, in their several ways, have bestowed immense pains to describe the character of some man, in such a manner, that no fault could be found in it: and they have given us complete models of their own estimate of excellency, and sufficient proof that they laboured the point to the utmost of their ability. But the four evangelists, whose divine inspiration is now frequently doubted on the most frivolous pretences, without seeming to think of it, have done that which all other writers have failed in. They have shown us a perfect character, by simply relating the words and actions of Christ; without making any comment on them, or showing the least ingenuity in the arrangement of them. This is a fact which cannot be denied; no perfect character is

L