CHAPTER II.

OF THE TRUTH OF REVELATION.

AFTER the being of God, it seems necessary to the existence of true religion, in the spirit of unity, (without which there can be no perfect human happiness,) to believe in revelation, or to believe that God hath made known his mind and will to men, by such infallible proofs as to satisfy the understanding, the heart and conscience, and be a firm and unsuspected foundation whereon to build for everlasting. This will naturally have respect in the first place to the truth of the Scriptures, which relate to the making known of his will at sundry times and in divers manners, by the prophets, by his Son Jesus Christ, and in connection with him, by his apostles and other followers. Abundance hath been written on this subject with great energy of thought and reason; but still the desired end is not effected, which yet must be. The holy Scriptures, no doubt, carry an evidence of their truth and divine original, in the very face of them, beyond common writings.

The subject matter of them, in great part, is beyond the possible knowledge of men, on any other principle than that of their origin being divine; the sublimity and worth of their communications, being of a spiritual and eternal nature, carry forcible evidence that they never sprung from an earthly-minded creature without divine influence; the honesty with which the writers have recorded their own crimes and those of one another argues with great propriety that they were not governed by that ruling and selfish passion of mankind, ever partial to themselves and to their peculiar party, but by that spirit of truth, which would not build on a foundation of deceit, and will let God be true but every man a liar, giving to God the supremacy, as the only fountain of worth, and acknowledging men to have no good in them except what they receive from HIM; the universally attributing of the glory and praise of all good things and of all excellence to God alone, evinceth that they were not dictated by that self-pleasing, self-exalting spirit of man who ever loves the pre-eminence.

The miracles which were wrought by the ministers of God, by Moses and some of the prophets, by Jesus Christ and his followers, are, in their own nature and place, incontestable proof of their divine original; but not direct, especially to those who have not seen them and do not credit the record. For should a man deny the truth of the record, there is no direct proof of the existence of those miracles, the existence of which must be confirmed before they can have their influence in confirming the divinity of the Scriptures. But indirectly, the record of those miracles is a weighty and serious proof. For it is not reasonable to suppose that such a record of facts could have been forged, and they attested to have been done in so public a manner as they were, and the forgery not have been detected at the

time and the scheme overthrown. Neither is it probable, or possible, in the face of the inquiring and aspiring temper which prevails in some at all times, that such a forgery could have been made and guarded until palmed on the people for truth, by dating the facts out of the remembrance of those who were then living; for they would have immediately inquired why these things were never known before, and especially as they are said to have been done, at least most of them, in the presence of a learned and enlightened people, such a people too as were enemies to the performance of many of these miracles, and would rather they could have been denied. But added to all this, their enemies have confessed many of the facts, as many writers have shown.

But the history of the facts in that open and public manner in which they are related, in a long succession of time, with the undoubted existence of the people among whom they were wrought, and as nothing can be produced really to overturn the evidence, is no contemptible proof of their truth. For the history, without unequivocal evidence to the contrary, hath at least a right to the same weight with other history. And as to the things which are narrated being out of the ordinary knowledge and experience of man, and therefore considered by some as matters of doubtfulness, the real truth is the contrary in the circumstances with which those things are connected; inasmuch as they are not alleged in favour of any of the vanities or temporal pursuits of men, but that everlasting substance which could never have entered into the heart of man without the existence and influence of superior wisdom; a substance which is not according to the selfish and inferior pursuits and propensities of men, but beyond and contrary to them all, and therefore exposed to be denied had it been possible to conceal them. For the very existence of the profession of Christianity, as before observed, to the extent to which it prevails, notwithstanding all the variety of forms and contradictions of sentiments, is a strong argument of its truth, as being originally divine. And so are the false religions which exist in the world, not excepting Mahometanism, an argument in favour of the true; because, however men may vary and new model, mix and divide, every one of these forms must have had something from which to take its rise, as much as counterfeit money, for the contrivance of which there could have been no motive without the existence and worth of the true.

Now the existence of Christianity is either by the doctrines of nature, or by revelation, and is either true or false. If by the doctrine of nature and false, nature is no longer to be trusted, and it is time for men who regard truth to cease pleading the authority of nature; but if true, nature confirms the authority of revelation and hath her instructions from the same source. But if Christianity, or revelation, hath its existence by the work and revelation of God, as the Scriptures say, those Scriptures which give an account of its origin from first to last, are of divine original: Christianity and they stand or fall together.

It is utterly uncandid and ineffectual to object against the truth of revelation, as some do certain things contained in the scriptures of the Old Testament, which are so full of metaphors and parables, and customs now unknown-as the account of the man who had his shoe loosed in Israel-as containing absurdity, because they cannot understand the reason of such things. All men cannot equally understand all matters

which prevail in the present tense, even those things in which they agree as far as the mind of each one is capable of apprehending them. And how shall they who have not made practical religion their business, understand all the customs and their reasons, which prevailed in ages of which they have no accurate knowledge? But whatever is to become of such matters as those, they are not set forth as the evidence by which the truth of the Scriptures is to be evinced; and the judgment of men concerning such matters cannot destroy that evidence for which men cannot account on any other principle than that of divine authority.

The truth of revelation, or the reality of the work of which the Scriptures speak and out of the spirit of which they sprang, together with the credibility of the Scriptures, in their own place and proper use, by no means depends on the logical accuracy of the language or narative, neither on the rigidly accurate consistency of all the parts in matters of less consequence, especially when we consider the exposedness of the Scriptures to errors through translations and transcriptions. Translations read differently in some instances. As for example, the difference of twenty years in two accounts of the age of Ahaziah when he began to reign, is removed in the Greek translation called the Septuagint it is twenty-two in each place. (See 2 Kings viii. 26. 2 Chron. xxii. 2.) But to be able to reconcile punctiliously and literally all narratives in matters of less consequence or of a parabolical nature, is no more necessary to support the credibility of the Scriptures, or the faith of that work of salvation to which they relate, either immediately or more remotely, or to be in possession of that salvation, than an accurate reconciliation of all historical facts relating to any country, or people, is necessary to the belief of the existence of that people. The truth of the Scriptures, or of revealed religion, is not materially affected by these things. There are not difficulties enough, or of a sufficiently serious and irreconcilable nature, to effect much with honest minds, while these same Scriptures carry in their face, evidences which may almost be called intuitive, and which could come from no other source than that to which they are ascribed.

For in the next place; the things which are taught by the Scriptures, as the duty and life of a Christian, are of such a nature and have such a tendency to counteract the current, or rather torrent, of man's nature and propensities, that it is impossible that they should ever have originated from this source. For it is a principle in nature as well as revelation, that as is the fountain such is the stream, and that no effect can exceed or be contrary to the cause.

Now should men have contrived a scheme of religion, it would have been adapted to their own inclinations; and whatever mortifications they might have counted necessary to obtain that end, that end or acquisition would have been accommodated to the natural feelings of the predominant principle; as it is said the Mahometans are led through much mortification, (to which they have been instigated likely by the knowledge of the self-denial and mortifications of the flesh prac tised by Christians,) with the prospect of a paradise of sensual delights; so that the whole plan is accommodated to the predominant sensual appetites of men. And this principle is proved in fact by the immensely superior number of those who profess Christianity on the express principle of its being founded on the revelation of God, who

accommodate the faith and rules of Christ to their own taste, until there is no discoverable difference, farther than the profession, between them and the non-professors.

But there is no principle in man ever to have produced that practical cross-bearing and self-denial which, according to the Scripture account, Jesus Christ taught his followers by word and by worksthat cross on which is crucified the flesh with its affections as well as its lusts. For they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. That cross therefore which everlastingly buries, without hope of restoration, all that lust of concupiscence which is the life of the world, so that it is said, He that will seek to save his life shall lose it, and which gives the promise of an everlasting reward in the enjoyment of that, for which natural men have no relish and of which they can have no real knowledge, is the cross of Christ, which is enjoined on the people who profess his name, to bear every day. This is that cross and this the self-denial taught in the Scriptures, which men naturally abhor, and which therefore there is nothing in them to have contrived.

I am not unaware that the earthly reasoning of men will make this cross an objection to the truth of genuine Christianity, saying, it is unreasonable because unnatural. But if unnatural whence came it? Surely not from nature; not from the spirit of iniquity, or principle of evil, which Christians call the devil, who ruleth in men, and who inclineth men to foster their natural lusts; for it is a principle of reason as well as revelation, that nature is not divided against itself, and that Satan is not divided against Satan.

But we need not marvel if such reasoning be found in those who professedly disbelieve revelation and allow themselves to be ruled by nature; when, preposterous as it is, those who acknowledge the truth of revelation, and that nature, as it now exists in men, is contrary to God and to all good, argue in the same way, and reject the Gospel which inculcates the same practical cross and self-denial, on the same account. These things show, as before stated, that if men had contrived a scheme of religion, they would not have had such a cross in it, there being no source in them ever to conceive of such a thing, as being necessary or proper. These things also show that the professed Christians and those whom they call infidels, have religion nearly allied together; all being of the earth, they savour alike the things of the earth.

But it is time to advertise the reader that the truth of the Scriptures, or of revelation, stands on an entirely different footing since the establishment of the faith of Christ's second appearing from what it has done for ages before. Men have been contending about names and sentiments, abetting the Scriptures in the letter while they had not the fruits of Christianity to show in its defence. But the profession of Christianity was reproached and the name of God blasphemed among the Gentiles, by the unhallowed lives of professors. The divisions, the animosities, the wars and bloodsheddings, the cruel and inhuman barbarities exercised in many places against each other, the avariçe of the major part of its ministers, as fast as they obtained power to support their avaricious temper, with many such iniquities,

have furnished the enemies of revelation with good reasons against its truth, and do yet where these evils are practised.

For while the professors taught that the Scriptures were the foundation on which the Church was built, and that Church was such a poor, mangled, divided, corrupt and incoherent thing, its members violating the precepts and example of Him whom they professed to serve, and of the Scriptures by which they professed to be governed, more especially in modern ages, they had poor arguments to offer in their defence; mainly those which were far-fetched by abstruse reasonings on history and other topics, or those which were only internal, and therefore incapable of being used to good advantage for the want of concomitant works as a confirmation. But it is a poor method to prove the truth of the Scriptures or of the profession of Christianity, to talk of an inward treasure, the proper and convincing fruits of which cannot be seen. Not disputing but many arguments used by many in those times and to this day, in defence of revelation, are proper and irrefragable in their own nature and place, but often inefficacious for the want of their proper concomitants-the Gospel fruits. For the profession of Christianity connected with the life of a man of the world, is a flagrant inconsistency.

Now, it is very exceptionable for those who believe the Scriptures, to teach that the Church is built on the Scriptures; for, according to the Scriptures, the house of God, or Church of the living God, is the ground and pillar [base, or foundation and style] of the truth; and the law goeth forth of Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and not Zion from the law, or Jerusalem from the Scriptures; neither are the Scriptures ever said to be the foundation on which the Church is built. The saying of the Apostle to the Ephesians, (ii. 20,) "And are built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone," hath been alleged as a proof that the Church is built on the Scriptures. But the argument is foreign and inconclusive; for the foundation of the apostles and prophets is evidently the foundation on which they were built, or to which they bore witness, which could not be the Scriptures, for they were built before the Scriptures were written, and stood firm while they were writing them, each one according to his day; and the foundation to which they bore witness was Christ. To him gave all the prophets witness, as well as the apostles, saying, Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ. Or the foundation of the apostles and prophets is the revelation of the truth of God, which centres altogether in Christ, who is the chief corner-stone. Some professors may object, that this is Popish doctrine. And what then? It is the truth of God; and is any truth objectionable because a people accounted corrupt believe it? The revelation of God is in the true Church of Christ, in every place where that Church is, and is its foundation and support, as well as its cement and Spirit of union.

There are serious disadvantages attending the opinion that the Scriptures are the foundation of the Church, which show themselves in the fruits of those churches or societies who believe so, none of them being able to exhibit the genuine fruits of the Gospel, the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, love, which is the bond of perfectness, and