INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.

THE SCRIPTURES.*

2 TIMOTHY III. 16.

ALL SCRIPTURE IS GIVEN BY INSPIRATION OF GOD, AND IS PROFITABLE FOR DOCTRINE, FOR REPROOF, FOR CORRECTION, FOR INSTRUCTION IN

RIGHTEOUSNESS.

In the present Lecture, designed to be preliminary to a series of discourses on Christian doctrine, I shall present and defend my view of the authority of the Sacred Scriptures, and especially of the New Testa

ment.

The Old Testament consists of thirty-nine separate books, all of them originally written in Hebrew, by nearly as many different authors, and at intervals during a period, as is commonly supposed, of more than a thousand years. The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books, written originally in Greek, by ten different authors, in the interval between the reputed date of our Saviour's ascension, and the close of the first century. These last books I shall quote in the following Lectures as of plenary authority on all mat

* The substance of this Lecture, originally delivered from the pulpit, was published in the Christian Examiner for May, 1842.

ters of Christian doctrine, while I shall also make occasional reference to the Old Testament, as indicating the divine mind with reference to the fundamental principles of religion.

We have a superabundant weight of external and internal evidence to convince us, that the books of the Old and New Testament, (with unimportant exceptions,) were written by the men whose names they bear, or at the times when, and the places where they purport to have been written; that they were written honestly and in good faith; that they have in all times been regarded with reverence and confidence by those, who have enjoyed the best means of knowing their true character; and that the books of the New Testament were, most or all of them, written by the personal companions and followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or by their immediate disciples and friends. Now, were the Bible merely a series of historical works, or did it relate to matters of secondary interest and moment, we should be fully satisfied with this ample proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the several books which it contains. But the most honest men are liable to error, especially in quoting the sayings of others on abstract and spiritual subjects; and on subjects of this kind a very slight misrecollection might materially pervert the sense of what was uttered. How know we, then, but that the evangelists, though honest men, may, by the frailty of their own understandings and memories, have grossly misrepresented the language and spirit of Jesus? Some of these books, too, are not in a narrative form, but didactic and doctrinal; and, if they were written by

fallible, yet honest men, without any peculiar illumination from heaven, how know we, that they are always sound in their counsels and right in their judgments? How can we assure ourselves, that they have not erred widely on matters both of doctrine and duty, as have many wise and honest men before and since?

These questions throw open the whole subject of inspiration; and it may be well for us to enter upon our inquiry with just notions of its magnitude. How much then does it involve? Does it cover the whole ground between Christian faith and infidelity? By no means. Whoever receives the history of Jesus as authentic, has within his reach enough of unquestionable truth to serve as the basis of Christian character. No one can believe the evangelists to have been honest men, without believing the principal facts in the life of Jesus and the essential doctrines of his religion. But the difference lies here. He, who regards the sacred writers as divinely inspired, deems himself possessed of an unerring guide as to all the minutiae of doctrine, of an infallible compass for his whole path in life. His only question is, 'What say the law and the testimony? settled, he need seek no farther. hand, who denies inspiration, while he would feel satisfied with regard to great truths, might be uncertain as to many lesser, yet important points; might often doubt whether the apostles spoke after the mind of Christ, or uttered their own fallible judgments; and thus, where the voice of Scripture was entirely clear, might be painfully perplexed as to the way of truth and duty.

That

He, on the other

But what is inspiration? We mean by this word,

in its application to the Scriptures, a divine influence exerted upon the minds of the sacred writers, to aid them in the exhibition of truth, and to save them from hurtful error. No one, we presume, at the present day, would maintain that the very words of Scripture were dictated by the divine spirit; that the genealogies in the first book of Chronicles were breathed from heaven into the author's mind; or that there was anything supernatural in Paul's sending for his cloak and parchment. We observe in each of the sacred writers peculiarities, and sometimes imperfections of style, such as would naturally grow out of his education, mode of life, and temperament. Amos, the herdsman of Tekoah, writes in a much simpler style, and with a much greater affluence of rural imagery, than Isaiah and Ezekiel, whose condition in life seems to have differed widely from his. How easy is it to trace the impetuous Peter, the modest and affectionate John, the glowing and devoted Paul, in their respective writings! But, if the words of the Bible were dictated by God, instead of this great diversity of style, we should expect to see the whole Bible written in one unvarying style of unique grandeur. This strict verbal inspiration would detract greatly from the value of some portions of Scripture, particularly of the devotional parts; for their worth consists in their being expressions of devout feeling on the part of their authors,-upbreathings of hearts touched with a living coal from God's altar, and enabled to light a kindred flame in other souls, and thus to furnish examples and forms for the devotion of all coming times. We doubt not that the Jewish minstrels drank