CHAPTER VII.

し

AUTHENTICITY, GENUINENESS, AND CREDIBILIY OF THE BIBLE.

OLD TESTAMENT.

"To them were committed the oracles of God."

THERE is in our hands a very ancient Book which is in every respect a most extraordinary volume. Of all the learned volumes with which the world has groaned for many ages, no other has exerted a thousandth part of the salutary moral influence upon mankind, or retained so great an ascendency over intelligent minds. The great Sir William Jones, one of the most learned men of any age, who was familiar with twenty-eight different languages and the most able productions in them, testifies, "I have carefully and regularly studied the Bible, and am of the opinion that this volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and of eloquence, than could be

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collected within the same compass from all other books which were ever composed." The opinion of this distinguished scholar, is also the growing opinion of the most profound and cultivated intellects of both continents.

Judging of causes from effects, it is a book of transcendent power. The power to which I now refer, is not simply or mainly that of a literary kind; it is, as every thinking man must see, the power of its moral principles. It discloses laws and facts, which experience proves to be true to nature and to our necessities. The power of the Bible is the power of living and momentous thoughts from the invisible world, striking deeply into the kindling spirit of man.

Could you see at one view the millions of learned volumes that promised immortality to their authors, which have gone to their long home of oblivion, and the tendency of every human production to perish from the minds of men, and in the same views observe the steady and strong march with which the Bible has been continually gaining upon the world, you would have a striking manifestation of its pre-eminence over all other volumes.

Observe also how triumphant its power over its enemies. There is not a passage or a thought-in the Bible, which has not been assailed in innumerable ways. The loftiest pretensions of learning, science, and philosophy, and the most malignant

arts of wit, satire, and scurrility, have been employed against it in vain.

Were all the books which have been written against the Bible, and have gone to their grave, to be raised from the dead and collected into one volume, no library would be spacious enough to receive the book, and the common age of man would not suffice to read it through. Thousands of times

has the Bible been condemned, banished, burned; still it survives, developing fresh and ever-growing energies; and never did it promise a more certain and speedy reign over the whole empire of human minds, than at this very hour.

I approach the subject of the authenticity, genuineness, and credibility of the Bible, painfully conscious of the impracticability of exhibiting the strength of so voluminous a subject, in one or two chapters. I can only introduce you into the vestibule of the great temple.

Admitting the existence of a God of infinite power, wisdom, and moral excellence, and admitting our moral accountability to him, it is to be presumed that he would make communications to us; and that for this purpose, he would employ not only the laws and operations of nature, but also language that comprehensive, quick, and energetic vehicle of thought.

By a written revelation from God we are not to understand a system of arbitrary fabrications. It

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is information respecting certain facts in the universe, which it is important for us to know. It is a strong concentration of intellectual and moral light from the past, present, and future, made by the Infinite Mind to our minds, clearly developing our present duty, with its consequences to our future interest as accountable subjects of moral govern

ment.

But certain infidels, such as Herbert and Bolingbroke, have said, "If a revelation is necessary to teach us religion, how are they to blame for irreligion who have not received this special gift?" To this I reply, They are not to blame in so high a sense as we are, if we sin against this superior light. Still the light of nature is sufficient, as Paul has taught, to render all men inexcusable for not loving and serving the God of nature; who is also the God of the Bible. When we say a revelation is necessary, we mean not in the most absolute sense. We do not mean to say that a man cannot be truly religious by the mere light of nature; but that such is his fallen and dark condition, that a special visitation to him from God, is eminently important-sufficiently so to authorize the expectation of one.

It is also necessary to discriminate between the competency of men to recognize the truths of a revelation when actually made to them, and what they would themselves have accomplished towards

discovering them, if unaided by revelation. This distinction exists in natural as well as religious science. Pythagoras demonstrated to us the celebrated 47th proposition of Euclid. Thousands of men since, availing themselves of what he has done, have been enabled to demonstrate the same; who, but for the revelation made to us by that master-mind, would never have known how to do it. So of the sublime revelations of Copernicus, of Newton, and of many others. The truths which they have taught us, we are competent to recognize as truths, and to see that they would be truths in nature, even if they had never been made known to any human mind.

Thus you observe that one design of a written revelation from God is, to help us to knowledge which we should not in fact obtain without it; but which, when obtained, has a distinguishing moral claim upon us, just as do the revelations of natural science or experience. A written revelation from God does not create the facts and truths of objective religion; it simply discloses them to us.

Another design of a written revelation is, to give higher illumination to truths already perceived by the light of nature. If you look upon a lofty edifice by moon-light, you obtain some general impressions of its architecture; if you look upon the same after the sun has risen upon it, you can identify it with the building which you saw by moon