knowledge, he must do that which is right and best: he can have no motive to do otherwise, and cannot do it without motive. From these will follow the free, spontaneous, and disinterested goodness of God. His stores are exhaustless; he can be under no temptation to withhold, from the fear of being impoverished; neither can he be under any temptation to bestow, from the desire of greatness; for he is sufficient in himself, he can receive no addition to his happiness or dignity; his goodness, therefore, must be free, spontaneous, and perpetual.

Thus it appears, that the being and attributes of God are demonstrable to reason. I would not be understood to say, that reason could of itself find out the being and attributes of God: I believe not. I believe that the idea of God came into the world originally by revelation, God revealed himself to Adam, and Adam communicated his knowledge to all his descendants to the time of Noah and the Flood. Noah communicated his knowledge to his descendants after the Flood; and when they were dispersed, they carried with them, wherever they went, the original idea of Divine revelation: and though the further they went from the source, the more that idea became weakened, corrupted, and debased; it never was entirely parted with. I believe there never was a nation in the world that came to the idea of God any other way than this at the first. But though the idea of God and his attributes was given to the world by revelation, when suggested, it is so consonant with our reason, and so consonant, I may say, with all the appointments of our nature, that the moment it is suggested, the mind lays hold of it, and receives it with a tenacity which nothing can equal; it seems to fall into the mind as into a place made for it naturally, and to fix itself there so that it cannot be parted with. Man must tear out the very sentiments of his nature, the very innate ideas of his soul, before he can part with the idea of a God. Therefore, the Scriptures do not set out with proving to us that there is a God, but with asserting the fact: yet having given us the idea, they afterwards show us how it is to be corroborated and affirmed by every thing around us. The great Apostle of the Gentiles (alluding to those men who had not the Scriptures in their possession, but only the idea of God from the primitive revelation,) shows that they might have corroborated this idea in their minds by every proper view of the nature and constitution of things: for, says he," the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead;" so that they are inexcusable for having parted with that idea, and descended to the worship of beasts and stones.

It is not, then, inere poetry, but it is sound reason and argument which

says

"God is a name my soul adores,

Th' Almighty Three, th' Eternal One:
Nature and grace, with all their powers,
Confess the Infinite Unknown.

"How shall polluted mortals dare

To sing Thy glory and Thy grace?
Beneath Thy feet we lie afar,

And see but shadows of Thy face.

"Who shall behold Thy blazing light?
Who shall approach consuming flame?
None but Thy wisdom knows Thy might,
None but Thy Word can speak Thy Name."

"He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is," what the Scriptures represent him to be, "the rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

THE SCRIPTURES, then, ARE A TRUE REVELATION from God ofF HIM AND OF HIS PERSON. This is another first principle of religion.

Now, to prove this to them who deny it, it would not be proper to say that the Scriptures themselves assert the fact, and that the Spirit of God witnesses to that fact in the breasts of believers. It is very true, that the Scriptures do frequently assert the fact that they came from God, and that the writers of them were inspired by the Spirit of God. Frequently they address us in the name of God, with a "Thus saith the Lord." And it is very true, that the Spirit of God attests the fact in the breasts of all believers: they have the witness in themselves; they have a divine light within them; the eyes of their understanding have been opened that they may know the things that are freely given them of God. There is a close correspondence between the sentiments of Scripture and the inwrought sentiments of their own breasts: they perceive such an agreement of the Scriptures with their own cases, consciences, feelings, and capacities, as convinces them that the Author of both is one and the same. They can no more doubt the Divinity of the Scriptures than they can their own existence; and they could as soon part with the conviction of the one as with the other.

But though this is true, and very delightful to believers; and though it ought to have weight with unbelievers, as being the accredited testimony of veracious men; yet it is no infallible argument to them. The Scriptures must be proved to them from their own principles, apart from the Scriptures' testimony and the testimony of believers. Not to be able to do this, would be to betray a weakness in our cause, and to leave unbelievers with an excuse for their infidelity. To say that they must believe the Scriptures to be of God, because the Scriptures themselves assert that fact, would be to argue in a circle. It would betray a weakness in our cause-it would leave them, too, without excuse for their infidelity, if we could not show that there was sufficient argument to convince them of the fact on their own principles. This can be done; and it must be gratifying to believers to know that it can be done, and that all men, to whom the Scriptures come, are without excuse if they do not, upon principles common to them, receive them for the Word of God.

We are not unwilling to confess, that the subject is of a nature which does not admit of demonstration, strictly speaking; for the writing of the Scripture, being the Word of God, it cannot be proved to be necessarily so, or impossible to be otherwise. All that can be required of us is this-to show that he who denies the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of God, is involved thereby in such gross absurdities, as to be compelled upon his own principles to retract the denial, and admit the inspiration of the Sacred Books.

Favour me with your attention, then, to the following arguments:

First. We have the very same reasons to believe the Scriptures to be written by the men whose names they bear, and at the time they profess, as we have to believe the same with respect to any other books. There are many things which have been done in ancient times, of which we have no knowledge but through the books that were written about them at or near the time of their taking place. Now, all the reasons which move us to receive those books as true move us also to receive the Scriptures as true. We receive these as true, because they have been successively delivered; that is, because we have met

with references to them from age to age as we go back, almost to the very time of the things which they report. So it is with the Scriptures. Are they received because the writers of them were competently informed upon the things they wrote-were either eye or ear witnesses of them themselves, or of those who were so? So with the Scriptures. Are they received because the things they relate, though wonderful, are not impossible-do not contradict any essential principles of human nature? So with the Scriptures. Are they received because they allude to persons, to places, to customs, and institutions, that are referred to afterwards, by other writers in various places, as existing at that time, and agreeing with them? So it is with the Scriptures. Are they received because they might have been contradicted, if false, at the time by those who were in existence when they were written, but were never so contradicted? So with the Scriptures: for all classes of persons, even the adversaries of the Sacred Writers, admitted the existence of the facts recorded in the Sacred Books, while they reasoned in a contrary way. Then, what reason can there be given in the whole world for receiving the one and rejecting the other? Is it not plain, almost to demonstration, that they stand or fall together? For the very same reasons that you have for receiving other books of antiquity, you have for receiving the Sacred Writings.

Secondly. We have more reason for believing the truth of the facts reported in Scripture than for the truth of any other book. This appears from the circumstances in which the writers of them were placed. He who shall deny the facts reported in Scripture to be true, charges the writers with imposture; and then it is incumbent on that man to do one of two things-either to prove that the writers of the Sacred Books were base and corrupt men, or else to point out certain ends capable of working on human nature to induce them to put forth impostures as facts, and to show that these ends operated in the case of the Sacred Writers.

Now, this we may defy all men and all devils to do. Who ever could prove the Sacred Writers to be base and corrupt men? And as for the ends that moved them to write and speak as they did, what other could they be than the force of truth? All the ends that can move human nature to utter impostures are such as these:-their safety, or their gain, or their reputation and renown. But is it not notorious, that all these had no influence in the case of the Sacred Writers? Their safety was to have been consulted by their silence; but their writing and speaking brought them into danger and suffering of every kind, exposed them to the persecution of heathen governors and princes, and to the malignity of a bigoted priesthood-the rulers of their own nation. The things which they had to record were so repugnant to the prejudices of men, and to all the false religions that prevailed in the world, that they were sure to have the whole world raised up against them; and they must have known that the publication of them would do so. Then what could move them to speak and to write these things but the force of truth and the authority of their Master, who charged them to utter these things, and not to keep silence on peril of his everlasting displeasure?

The highest motives which actuated other writers to speak the truth were such as these:-a certain manliness of mind, a desire to stand well with their compeers, and to gain the honour of posterity. These were the highest motives they had to speak the truth, and very inferior ones to those of the Sacred Writers. Do you believe, then, the relations of those who wrote from these

inferior motives, and do you not believe the records of those who wrote from motives so far superior and more influential?

I admit that this is not demonstration: I admit that it might be possible for all these men to have been deceivers; that there was a bare possibility that all the Sacred Writers might agree to assert things that were not true; to declare that they saw or heard what they never saw or heard; and that they were informed of what they were never informed that might be possible. But for what end they should do this, and how they could do it, so as to preserve a proper agreement in all their impostures and frauds in every place, though writing at different times and in different parts of the world, is a thing so incredible, so unlike what has ever taken place in the history of mankind, that he who shall be willing to entertain the supposition is open to the wildest misconceptions on earth. And yet this he must entertain, or else he must admit the truth of the facts recorded in the Sacred Books.

Thirdly. The truth of the facts being thus proved, prove the truth of the doctrines. The truth of the facts related by the Sacred Writers prove the truth of the doctrines declared in them; because the doctrines are interwoven with the narrative; with the account of the circumstances they have a close connexion; the facts corroborate the doctrines.

The Sacred Writers report, that Jesus of Nazareth gave himself out to be the Son of God; that he said he came down from heaven out of the bosom of his Father; came to deliver his Father's will to mankind; came to inspire his Apostles with the Holy Spirit, to complete that revelation when he was gone. Now, we might hesitate to believe it for his own sake; but the writers who report these assertions, report at the same time wondrous works performed by him in connexion with them, of unquestionably supernaturally divine power; such as the curing of diseases with a touch, with a word, with the hem of his garment; such as giving sight to men born blind, ears to men born deaf, and feet to men born lame; such as raising the dead, stilling the elements, walking on the waves, casting out devils. Now, you cannot believe the facts, and reject the doctrines that they were wrought to attest. You cannot receive the divine attestation of the doctrines, and refuse to believe the doctrines themselves. And yet these attestations, these facts of the Sacred Writers as to the truth of them, are, from the circumstances of the writers, placed beyond all doubt: so that the one guarantee the other. You must believe the facts; and believing the facts, you cannot doubt or deny the doctrines they were wrought to seal.

Fourthly. The Old and the New Testaments confirm one another. There can be no doubt that the Sacred Writings, which the Jews have in their possession at the present day, are the very same that were in existence at the time of our Saviour. For, before the time of our Saviour, they had synagogues in various parts of Asia, of Greece, of Rome, of Egypt, of Arabia, and all the adjacent provinces of Judea. And in these synagogues there were copies of these Sacred Writings, which were multiplied for the sake of preventing the Law from ever wearing out; and the Jews took such remarkable care of them, as to number the very letters of every Book.

Now, upon comparing the ancient copies of their Sacred Writings that are extant in various languages, with the Sacred Writings of the Jews at present, we find a substantial agreement in every place. Those writings, therefore, cannot have been altered or mutilated. It is a thing perfectly inconceivable, that men of different ages and countries could have agreed to corrupt these

writings in the very same places and in the very same way, so as to preserve that agreement between them which is now existing. It follows, therefore, that the Sacred Writings of the Jews in the present day are the same with those that were in existence before the time of our Saviour. And they were the same with those which had been delivered from a remote antiquity.

Now, those writings declare that Moses was inspired of God; that he was sent on a divine mission; that he was to reveal the mind of God to mankind; and that other prophets like unto him would be raised up in succession after him. You might hesitate to believe that for the sake of Moses; but these writings, that declare him to have made these assertions, declare, at the same time, that supernatural wonders were performed by him in attestation of them: such as turning his rod into a serpent, and that serpent back to a rod again; such as bringing into the land of Egypt swarms of frogs, insects, and locusts, and thick darkness that might be felt; such as destroying all their first-born, at the dead of night, both of man and beast; such as dividing the Red Sea, receiving the Law from God in thunder and lightning on a mountain, fetching water from a rock; and his successor, dividing Jordan; and the prophets after him, writing in the name of God. Now, though you might disbelieve Moses for his own sake, you are compelled to believe him for the works' sake. And if you believe the Old Testament, you must the New; because the New Testament is founded upon that; it fulfils its prophecy, it fills up its outline. There is a perfect consent and agreement between the two; they answer to one another just like the two cherubim on each side of the ark, looking each other in the face, smiling upon and countenancing each other. So that to receive the Old Testament and reject the New, is manifestly inconsistent, and is ground on which no one can stand: both must be received, or both must be rejected.

It seems, then, very clear, upon principles of human reasoning, that every man to whom the Scriptures come is bound to receive them as the Word of God, and no man on earth can justify himself for receiving the word of man and rejecting the Word of God. And as that Word of God, which he rejects, bears the highest impress of his nature, and is fraught with momentous consequences to his own peace and welfare, so his rejection of it bears the stamp of equal folly and guilt. And as he is bound to receive the Scriptures, so he is bound to receive them in their plain and consistent sense, however strange that sense may be, as the ground of their divine authority, and at once-as soon as he perceives the plain and consistent sense of Scripture. He is not to wait till he can comprehend the whole of the facts asserted, or perceive himself their propriety and fitness: that would be no honour to the Divine Author, but a compliment to his own understanding. But as the will of man must submit itself to the will of God in the affair of precept; that is, as he must do all that God enjoins, whether it be agreeable to him or not; so the understanding of man must submit itself to the understanding of God in the affair of doctrine. What God says, he must believe on its divine authority: even reason itself demonstrates to every man that the finite must subject itself to the Infinite.

But though it is clear on principles of human reasoning, that every man to whom the Scriptures may come, or who may hear of them, and could receive them, is bound so to do; and that his reason will condemn him if he do notthat he is without excuse, upon his own principles, if he do not receive them; yet it must be conceded, such is the worldliness and sinfulness of human nature, that he cannot believe so as to be influenced by them without the aid of the