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 am the First, and I am the Last, and beside me there is no God." "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 instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, 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: behold, 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 compare unto him?" He is "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth 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 Testament describe him in less impressive terms. When he manifested himself to John, as related in the first chapter of the Revelation, it is written; "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, saith the Lord, Who Is, and Who Was, and Who is to Come, the Almighty."—I forbear to add any thing to these scriptural representations for in attempting to delineate the ineffable perfections of God, all human language 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 Divine Omnipotence and then let us recollect, that these Divine 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 Wisdom, 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 wonders 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 permanently enjoyed and what could Infinite Love do more? Yet the Love of the Lord has done more. For when man had creation, such was

entirely receded from the end of his

the mercy of Him by whom all things were made, and without whom was not any thing made that was made,* 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, in what manner the Divine Power of the Lord might be most evidently displayed, we could not possibly imagine any more stupendous exertions 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 peopled with innumerable inhabitants; by which the enormous orb that gives us light and heat was created; and by which my

* John i. 3.

riads 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 apparent, 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 expressly discovered. The readiest means we have of judging of the intelligence or understanding of men, is, by their sentiments and conversation; and if a man writes a book, we expect to find in it the plainest evidence of his wisdom, knowledge, 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 and the Deist. It cannot be denied, we see, that a written Revelation 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 receive those writings as the Word of God? I hesitate not to reply, with the fullest confi

dence, 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 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 objections 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 defence 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 completely satisfied, that the views I shall develope in the succeeding Lectures, will be fully adequate to overthrow them all. It is of no real use to present 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, "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, "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 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 Luket places last the suggestion 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 inference that the whole or any part is a fiction,

* Exod. vii. 19.

1 Ch. iv. 10.

Ch. iv. 9.