sume a more irreconcilable appearance, than in the four Gospels. Yet that these discrepancies may be satisfactorily explained, appears, amongst other examples, from the successful attempt of Mr West to prove the entire harmony of all the four Evangelists in their account of the resurrection of Christ, notwithstanding their varieties in the manner of relating it.* Nor ought we to omit a just and important remark, which Chrysostom and many succeeding authors have made on this subject. Had the Evangelists intended to palm an imposture on the world, they would have acted in confederacy, and been exceedingly careful to avoid the slightest appearance of contradicting each other; but under the leadings of divine inspiration, they, without fear or scruple, narrate the facts regarding our Saviour, each in his own way, one passing over circumstances which another supplies. A satisfactory proof is thus afforded that they are no impostors, but that, as independent witnesses, and faithful historians, they all bear an upright testimony to those facts which they record.

The argument in favour of the credibility and inspiration of the sacred records, founded on the concord and unity of their various parts, has been considerably strengthened and extended by those writers, who, of late years, have directed the public attention to the "undesigned coincidences," which may be traced between separate books of Scripture. In this interesting field of inquiry, the precedence is unquestionably due to the late Dr Paley, who led the way by his admirable work, entitled "Hora Paulina, or the Truth of the Scripture History of St Paul evinced, by a Comparison of the Epistles which bear his name with the Acts of the Apostles, and with one another."

6. The last proof of the inspiration of the Scriptures we shall here notice, is their salutary power and efficacy. These holy writings do certainly claim to themselves a power to accomplish important and happy effects on the hearts and lives of men. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth." "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation." These and other parallel texts imply that the ScripObservations on the Resurrection of Christ, by Gilbert West, Esq. † Ps. xix. 7-Ps. cxix. 103-Jer. xxiii. 29-2 Tim. iii. 15.

tures possess, in themselves, a native tendency to operate wonderfully on the human soul; and that, in spite of the blindness and obduracy of fallen mankind, they become, by the concurring influences of the Spirit, effectual for their illumination, renovation, and comfort.

Let their efficacy be considered, as it appears in individuals. How often does the recollection of their awful warnings disturb the security of the reckless transgressor, restrain him in his destructive career, and compel him to relinquish his iniquitous purpose! How frequently has the Christian acknowledged to the praise of the God of the Bible, that his word has exercised a mighty influence upon him, which he could not overbear; that it aroused his conscience from deep and pernicious slumbers; made manifest the secrets of his heart; penetrated by its light and energy into the most latent chambers of his soul; recalled afresh to his remembrance long-forgotten iniquities, and set before him in dreadful array their multitude, aggravations, vileness, and demerit; abased those high imaginations of his own innocence and goodness he had fondly cherished; conducted him, as a poor, naked, trembling sinner, to the foot of the cross; poured the balm of divine consolation into his drooping spirit; dispelled his distressing fears and perplexities; healed the wounds of his conscience and the diseases of his soul; filled him with the unutterable joy of God's salvation; determined him to renounce every idol, to abandon every sin, and to suffer, if required, the loss of all things for Christ; and inspired him, in fine, with an ardent desire to follow the Saviour fully, and to go on to perfection!

Let the happy revolutions which the Scriptures effect on the state of society, be also surveyed. Wherever the sacred volume has been introduced; wherever, by means of reading, preaching, meditation, and conference, its unadulterated doctrines and precepts have been made to bear upon the minds of men, it has never failed, to a greater or less extent, to manifest its benignant virtue. It has accomplished happy reformations in families, in social circles, in nations and kingdoms, which no other system of religion, and no human philosophy, was ever able to effect.

*

The force of this evidence can be duly appreciated, only by those to whom the Gospel has come, not in word only, but in power. Suppose a man to profess faith in the Gospel of Christ,

See an able illustration, in various views, of the argument derived from the efficacy of the Scriptures, in Dr Dick's Essay on Inspiration, pp.

225-241.

and to be aware that this Gospel represents itself as a sovereign remedy for curing spiritual diseases, it is obvious, that so long as he has no personal experience of its healing virtue, his conviction of its divine origin must be feeble and precarious; and that, whatever rational arguments he can muster in its defence, the wind of temptation may soon toss him hither and thither, and cause him utterly to apostatize from the truth. Happy is that person, on the contrary, who has felt the virtue of God's word, as it "effectually worketh in them that believe."* Only let an individual experience the power of this word, as a sharp two-edged sword, to convince him thoroughly of sin; its efficacy as a medicine to relieve his agonizing conscience, to diffuse over his soul a peace which passeth all understanding, and to purify all the faculties of his nature; and its utility as heavenly food, by which he is nourished and invigorated for the active discharge of duty and the patient endurance of affliction-and then he will possess, in his own bosom, a testimony in favour of the truth, most valuable, delightful, and permanent a testimony that can withstand the shock of the most powerful temptations, and of which neither subtlety nor violence can ever deprive him.t

Let these select arguments and brief illustrations, in the mean time, suffice. Our present purpose does not require us even to glance at various other proofs of the credibility and inspiration of the sacred oracles, which many Christian authors have urged with great propriety and force.. Nor do we propose to examine in detail the evidence that demonstrates the genuineness and authenticity of the several books of the Old and New Testament Scriptures; to discuss the question relative to some inspired books, rashly alleged to have been lost; or to expose the pretensions of the Apocryphal books. These important services have been well executed, in a foregoing part of this volume. We shall therefore conclude this chapter with one additional remark.

* 1 Thes. ii. 13.

We gladly take this opportunity of recommending an excellent manual, well adapted to general usefulness, entitled, “Three Discourses on the Internal Evidence of Christianity and the Causes of Unbelief," by the Rev. Jonathan Watson, Cupar in Fife. The observations of Dr Werenfels, on" The Excellence of Revealed Religion," and on the "Zeal for the Glory of God conspicuous in the Scriptures," are also striking and important.-New Family Library, vol. i. pp. 461–477, 524–539.

See Dr Alexander's Treatise on the True Canon of Scripture, with Dr Dickson's Notes, passim.

VII. Inspiration must be attributed only to the original writers of the Scriptures, not to copyists or translators.

To multiply copies of the sacred volume, and to translate it into the various languages spoken among men, were good and necessary works, correspondent to the gracious counsels and commands of their divine Author. Without the intervention of a miracle, or at least of some very extraordinary occurrence, the autographs, that is, the original manuscripts of Scripture, could not have been preserved to all succeeding generations. Whatever care had been exercised in keeping them, they must at last have become illegible by length of time, and even crumbled into dust. The original copy of the law, written by the hand of Moses, most probably perished at the destruction of the first temple. Tertullian, who flourished in the second century, refers to some autographs of the New Testament Scriptures as then extant; but all of them, it is generally agreed, have long since disappeared.

Many ancient apographs, however, that is, copies of the original Hebrew and Greek, as well as of old translations, still remain. Yet it were rash to imagine that either the men who copied the autographs, or those who translated the Scriptures into other languages, possessed the advantage of inspiration. Had God so pleased, he could easily have upheld a regular series of infallible scribes and translators, during the successive ages of the world. With the same facility, too, he could have ensured impeccability to printers. In his adorable wisdom, however, miracles, strictly so called, were in every form discontinued, shortly after the completion of the Canon of Scripture. It was left to the church, to whom the oracles of God were committed, under the ordinary agency of his Spirit and providence attending the use of suitable means, to preserve them pure and entire.

High pretensions have been advanced in favour of some ancient versions. A Jewish tradition represents the translation of the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek, executed at Alexandria nearly three hundred years before the birth of Christ, and commonly called the Septuagint, as aggrandised by a wonderful miracle. The Popish Council of Trent were

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This version is said to have been made, under the auspices of Ptolemy Philadelphus, by seventy-two Jewish Elders. Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, affirms, that in their interpretations they all so exactly agreed as not to differ so much as one word-from whence he infers that they acted not herein as common interpreters, but as men prophetically inspired and divinely directed, who had every word dictated to them by the Holy Spirit of God, through the whole version." The story was afterwards im

also pleased, in their wisdom, to canonize, as authentic, the Latin translation, denominated the Vulgate, which abounds with errors and mistakes, and to decree that the originals should be corrected by that version. But the Jewish tradition regarding the Septuagint is obviously fabulous; and the Popish decree, in reference to the Vulgate, accords with the other proceedings of "that man of sin, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, and who sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Who does not see, that, as in the case of human testaments and royal charters, so in that of the inspired volume, which is the Testament of God our Saviour, and the great charter of salvation granted by the King Eternal to mankind, the original documents form the standard by which all copies and translations ought to be tried and corrected.

That there was any pre-eminent dignity or excellence either in the Hebrew or the Greek tongue, considered in themselves, by which they were peculiarly entitled to the preference above every other language, as the primitive vehicles of divine revelation to men, it is not necessary for us to believe or affirm. Yet, independently of the circumstances that the Hebrew was possibly the most venerable for antiquity, and was the living tongue of that nation which was first privileged with the sacred oracles; and that the Greek was the language most extensively spoken throughout the known world at the commencement of the Christian dispensation, and the one best understood, in general, both by the writers and the first readers of the New Testament-we have cause to adore the divine wisdom in so arranging matters, that the Old Testament, excepting a very small portion in Chaldee, † was written in proved by the additional fiction of the learned interpreters being shut up in separate cells, where each made a distinct version by himself, yet all the versions, when compared, perfectly agreeing in every word. See Prideaux's Connection, &c., vol. iii. p. 38-71; and Dr Alexander's short notice of the Septuagint, p. 16.

* 2 Thes. ii. 3, 4.

†The Chaldee language, it is well known, is cognate to the Hebrew. "The Biblical and more ancient Chaldee," says a competent judge, “as to its external form, differs not more from the Hebrew than the modern Spanish from the Latin, or even than the Doric from the Attic or Ionic dialect in Greek." The same writer adds the following statement regarding the use made of this language in the Old Testament:-" Besides some Chaldee words originally inserted in the historical and prophetical books, after the Israelites became acquainted with the Assyrians and Babylonians, the following parts of Scripture are written in the Chaldee dialect: namely, Jeremiah, chap. x. verse 11; Daniel, from verse 4 of the second to the end of the seventh chapter; Ezra, chap. iv. from verse 8 to chap. vi.