truths are not conveyed drily and systematically, but clothed with human feelings, scattered over all the parts of the volume, repeated and inculcated in a thousand forms. The main doctrines and duties of Christianity cannot be misunderstood except by negligence or perverseness.

4. By the same divine wisdom in the plan of inspiration, the sacred books become capable of supplying those diversified proofs of authenticity and credibility which we detailed in our early lectures. They are the books of men like ourselves, as to the form and circumstances of them. They were written by our fellow-mortals. The simplicity of style, the artlessness of description, all the marks of veracity and integrity in the minute and circumstantial nature of the narrative are accordingly found in them. They are susceptible of the same proof as to the authors by whom they were composed, and the credit due to all their statements, as other ancient writings. However low you stoop in examining the outward historical evidences of Christianity, you find them human to the very bottom. The divine inspiration leaves the native characters of truth fresh and unobscured.

5. In like manner, all the internal evidences of the truth of Christianity to which we shall next proceed, are by this method of inspiration preserved. Whatever in the doctrines, the precepts, the character of Christ, the tendency of the revelation, its suitableness to the state and wants of man, may be found in illustration of a divine religion, are capable of being traced with the same certainty, as if the works were merely human; instead of being, as they are, thoroughly human indeed in their form, but completely inspired in their infallible communications.

6. Once more, the scriptures are more adapted to be a moral probation of the heart and disposition of the readers, as we have frequently observed. Truth, as now inspired, is obvious and easy to the humble, but hidden from the proud. Its discoveries, mixed and interwoven with the history and feelings and habits and circumstances of men, are a touchstone of sincerity; and are only to be apprehended by those who study the scriptures in the same temper in which they

were written. Examples of every kind are exhibited according as the wisdom of God saw fit. "Every sentence is indeed the sure testimony of God, but it is only so in that sense in which it is proposed as truth. Facts occurred and words were spoken, as to the import of them and the instruction contained in them, exactly as they stand recorded. But the morality of words and actions, merely recorded as spoken and done, must be judged of by the doctrinal and preceptive parts of the same book." The Bible, therefore, is all light to the simple and devout; but darkness in parts to the corrupt and worldly-minded. The falls and errors of the true servants of God, the courses and manners of the wicked, the corruptions and disorders of the church, are recorded for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. The New Testament is human throughout, describes man as he is, exhibits the defects as well as the graces of the saints; whilst, at the same time, it is divine as to its authority, truth, and infallible inspiration.

Now, it is obvious that an inspiration which should have obliterated all the peculiarities of mind and thought in the writers, and made them the mechanical organs of the Holy Spirit, would have produced a book quite different from the Bible. It might and would, if God had seen fit so to act, have accomplished its ends in other ways. But in the meantime, we may and ought to point out the difference between such a plan and that which divine wisdom has, in fact, adopted. An inspiration which should have suspended all the operations of the writer's mind must have spread an uniformity and sameness over the whole surface of scripture-must have expunged all the varieties of style, diversities of narrative, and selection of topics-must have impressed one and the same phraseology and turn of expression upon all the sacred books in the same languagemust have required the perfectly pure preservation of all the copies in all ages from the errors of transcribers,-must have rendered various readings and imperfect translations of fundamental injury-must have blotted out many of the proofs of the authenticity and credibility-must have alter(d) Scott's preface.

ed entirely the character of the internal evidences-and have left it a very different test of the moral feelings of the reader,—that is, it must have produced a book wholly dissimilar from our present scriptures, infinitely less suited, so far as we can judge, to our capacities-infinitely less intelligible to the mass of mankind-infinitely less attractive to the young and the unlearned-infinitely less replete with all those marks and indications of a divine wisdom which now appear on all sides, whether you descend to the first elements of its external testimony, or rise up to the loftiest heights of its full and infallible inspiration. All bears the impress of the simplicity and majesty of its divine author.

A practical reflection or two on the importance of fully admitting and acting upon the doctrine of inspiration thus illustrated, may now be offered.

I. It is ESSENTIAL TO THE RIGHT RECEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY. The very first point in Christianity is to entertain a deep practical persuasion of the infallible truth of the whole of the scriptures; to receive them in all their parts as the word of God; and not to consider the most trivial allusions in the sacred volume to be so alienated from the divine superintendency, as to leave an opening to men to assume to themselves the office of separating what they term the uninspired, from the inspired parts of scripture. The large admissions we have made on the side of human agency are not, therefore, to be abused. The moment men begin to apply these admissions to the matter revealed, they commit the most fatal error. The moment man dares to consider any part of scripture as uninspired, he sets up his own prejudices as the rule of judgment; he believes only what he likes; and he commonly ends in undervaluing or rejecting some of the fundamental truths of the gospel. "A partial inspiration is to all intents and purposes no revelation at all. Mankind would be as much embarrassed to know what was inspired and what not, as they would be to collect a religion for themselves."e A pious and cordial belief of the full and entire inspiration of the Bible is of the highest moment.

(e) Seed.

I allow indeed still, as I did in the commencement of the last lecture, that if the scriptures had been left by Almighty God to be written by men, merely to the best of their ability, and were to be considered only as the authentic and credible writings of their respective authors, they would bind the conscience and direct to salvation. But I maintain also, after what has been proved, that to stop there is not enough. We are now called on by every obligation which can touch a responsible creature, to admit the positive and irrefragable evidence of the inspiration of the sacred books. The corruption of our nature is not to be left to mere human inculcations of revealed religion, when God has affixed his broad seal of infallible inspiration to the records of it. This is a point of vital importance to the very existence of any practical fruits of Christianity. "Without it, the star which is to direct our course is clouded; our compass is broken to pieces, and we are left to make the voyage of life in sad uncertainty, amidst a thousand rocks, shelves, and quicksands."

II. Need I say that the view we have taken of the subject is not only indispensable to a right reception of Christianity, but tends also to CLOSE THE AVENUES TO SOME OF THE MOST PERNICIOUS EVILS WHICH HAVE desolated the church.

A neglect of the unerring truth of the Bible in all the matters, however minute, of the revelation contained in it, has been a source of one class of corruptions. A forgetfulness of the natural and characteristic manner in which the sacred writers use the language and express themselves according to the habits of the particular age and country where they lived, has been the occasion of others.

I. The first is, of course, the most formidable evil, because it saps the foundation of the whole of Christianity. From the want of a cordial submission to the inspiration of the scriptures, have sprung the usurpations over conscience; the authority of tradition in the interpretation of scripture; the claim of infallibility in a visible head of the church; the prohibition of the free use of the Bible to the laity; (f) Doddridge.

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the exclusive imposition of a particular translation; and the intermixture of apocryphal with canonical writings. The plenary and authoritative inspiration of the New 'Testament would have taught the church of Rome, that the only infallible standard of truth was the word of God; that that word was able and sufficient to make us wise unto salvation; and that it was to be interpreted according to the ordinary rules of human language, and not by the inconsistent and often erroneous dictates of the fathers-in short, that the aids of learning, and the wisdom of antiquity, and all the accumulated illustrations of former and later commentators were to be brought to the scriptures as the standard-and not the scriptures to them.

Again, licentious interpretations generally, would be checked by a recurrence to the infallible inspiration of the scriptures. What are all the monstrous expositions of the German infidel school? What all their daring and absurd attempts to explain away every mystery; to evade the force of the most fundamental doctrines; to reduce the claims of every divine miracle; to bring down revelation to a mere narrative of ordinary history, and a barren code of natural religion; but the result of an impious disparagement of the divinely-inspired books of the Holy Ghost?

And where is it that the Socinians of our own country have begun their work of demolition, in sweeping away all the peculiar mysteries of the gospel-the fall-redemption -the deity of our Lord-the atonement-the personality and grace of the Holy Spirit? Is it not by denying or lowering the inspiration of the scriptures? Is it not by opposing their own reasonings and opinions to the decisions of the apostles? Is it not by acting as if the sacred penmen had argued inconclusively?

Whence, again, are we to trace all the hazardous strokes of conjectural criticism, and the resistance to the fair import and bearing of those parts of truth which most abase the pride and contradict the passions of man, so prevalent even amongst divines who admit the divine authority of the scriptures, and the great features of revelation? What is it

(g) The Vulgate Latin.