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XI-THE PROTESTANT RULE OF FAITH.

THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

PROCEEDING With the consideration of Dr. Wiseman's objections to the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith, we are now to enter upon the second point, that the difficulties raised by Dr. W. in the way of an ordinary and unlearned person, are not of that serious or insurmountable character which he would have us to suppose. And perhaps it will be the most satisfactory method, if we follow, step by step, Dr. W.'s own argument.

His first difficulty, as he himself states it, is this: that "before any one can even commence the examination of that rule, which his church proposes to him, he must have satisfied himself, that all those books or writings, which are gathered together in that volume, are really the genuine works of those whose names they bear; and that no such genuine work has been excluded, so that the rule be perfect and entire."* In other words, he must be convinced that the Scriptures. are authentic documents, and that the canon has been so settled as to be clear and indisputable. Now we trust that there will be little difficulty in showing, that the proofs and evidences on these points are so clear, so abundant, and so accessible, as to offer to every candid inquirer absolute demonstration, and that, by means of an investigation, which need be neither laborious nor prolonged.

This investigation, however, concerns two distinct

* Wiseman's Second Lecture, p. 32.

questions. We have the Hebrew Scriptures, or the books of Moses and the prophets, which were entrusted to the Jewish church, and which, under God's providence, were kept entire and pure from error by that church. And we have also the Greek Scriptures, or the books of the New Testament, of which the Jewish people never had charge, but which were deposited with the Christian church, and which that church, like the Jewish, has preserved whole and unconfounded with any spurious productions. This point, indeed, is worthy of remark, and ought to call for our grateful admiration. Both the Jewish church and the Christian have fallen into great sins and backslidings; but still that one peculiar duty which God put upon them, he took care that they should accurately fulfil. To the Jews" were committed the oracles of God," so far as the Hebrew prophets had declared those oracles; and to the Christian church, the like records concerning the gospel. The Jewish church even denied and crucified the Lord of glory, and was driven into exile and slavery for that crime; -but still this especial duty of bearing witness to the "holy oracles" was never forgotten, and to this hour that witness is borne, and those oracles are preserved, even in the midst of total apostasy and rejection of the gospel. The ancient Christian churches, too, as first planted at Jerusalem, at Antioch, and at Rome, have fallen into fearful error and apostasy; but still the duty of bearing witness to the oracles committed to them is in force, and that witness they do accordingly bear. Thus the Jewish church is perfectly clear and unfaltering in her testimony to the Jewish Scriptures; and the Christian churches, including even Rome herself, bear equally unhesitating witness to the Christian records. Each, in its own department, fully discharges the duty laid upon it. And thus it comes to pass, that the only apocryphal or doubtful writings which at all interfere with the clearness of this testimony, are those which Rome has endeavoured to add, not to her own sacred deposit, the Christian records, but to those of the Jews,

-to those with which, as keeper, she had no concern. In her own department, the care of the books of the New Testament,-even Rome herself was not permitted to go astray; but in that in which she had no office or function, the care of the Hebrew Scriptures, she was left to follow her own devices, and to do what mischief she could. But let it be always remembered, that the Jews, the keepers of the Hebrew Scriptures, are perfectly decided in their evidence as to what those Scriptures comprehend; and the Christian churches, which have the charge of the New Testament, are equally agreed on the canon of that part of holy writ. The only dispute has arisen from the church of Rome having gone out of its own province, and assumed the right of adding to the canon of the Jewish Scriptures, with the settlement of which she had nothing whatever to do.

Having made this remark in passing, we will now come to the main subject. Probably it will be the best course to take each of these two series by itself, and to begin with the Greek Scriptures, the books of the New Testament. Dr. Wiseman's objection is,that great difficulties meet the inquirer who wishes to ascertain, 1st. that all these books or writings are really the genuine works of those whose names they bear; and, 2d. that nothing has been omitted or excluded which ought by right to form part of the series.

To this question we will now address ourselves. And first, let us bear in mind the universal experience of mankind, as to the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of gaining credence and establishment for a forged work, especially if the matter contained in that work be of any importance or interest to mankind generally. We are told that David Hume, about a century ago, wrote and published a History of England. There is no one, of course, now living, who can at all attest the fact, from his own knowledge, that this very man Hume did write that identical book; and yet the man who refuses to believe that fact would be justly considered as little better

than a fool. And why? First, because the book has been universally received, in our own time, and in that of our fathers, as that of the author whose name it bears; and, secondly, because an immense body of corroborative evidence is accessible, consisting of the testimonies of various persons of that and succeeding periods, all testifying to the fact, that such a man did actually live at the time in question, and that he did write and publish that book.

But may not the public of that day have been deceived into the reception of a spurious work; and may not the writers in question have been involved in the same error? Such questions are best answered by inquiring, whether it would be easy, at the present instant, to gain credit for a forgery, purporting to be two additional volumes of the same history?

Every one at all acquainted with such matters, knows in an instant that the thing would be impossible. The imposture would be instantly detected, and the forgery, if it were remembered at all at a distance of fifty years hence, would only be remembered as a forgery.

General reception, then, is the strongest possible evidence for the authenticity of any work. Why do we entirely believe that Thucydides and Herodotus wrote the histories which bear their names, or that Virgil produced a poem called "the Eneid," or Milton one entitled" Paradise Lost?" Because we know by abundant experience, that an imposition upon the whole body of intelligent and educated men who are living at any one time, is, in any matter of moment, absolutely impossible; and that consequently, if a whole generation of such men have admitted a fact of this kind, the evidence of its truth is little short of that of our own senses.

Upon these principles we receive the works of various celebrated heathens, who lived in the same age with the evangelists and apostles,-such as Livy, Cæsar, and Seneca, although we have not, for any one of their works, evidence of the hundredth part of the strength of that which confirms the authenticity

of the Greek Scriptures. We receive them without a doubt. Not a dissentient voice, among all the philosophers and learned men, whether Christian or infidel, ventures to suggest the least ground for hesitation. And, in fact, any man who plainly declared his disbelief in the genuineness of Cæsar's Commentaries, would be instantly set down, by all competent judges as an irrational person, or in other words, as all but an idiot.

But it may be said, that this is all very well in the case of mere human works, the truth and authenticity of which may be of small importance; but that we must require, in a case of this vast and momentous kind, some higher evidence than mere human testimony?

We

Let us, however, reflect for a moment, what it is that we are asking. God has given to mankind a book, which is intended to be "a light unto their steps, and a lamp unto their path." We are not now to enter on that part of the subject, or we should urge, in the first place, that the intrinsic character of such a work must be its strongest evidence of authenticity. The book of God must be such a book as no human being could indite. And the Bible is such a book. But we must not open this part of the question. keep to external evidence, and remark, in the first place, that it were wholly unreasonable to expect that God, having given such a book to man, should set aside the laws of nature, and should himself, by a personal manifestation, or by an angelic messenger, place it in each individual's hand, as his immediate gift, supernaturally conveyed. Abundantly sufficient is it, if this book be not only found, when examined, to be such as God alone could have dictated; but if its authenticity and genuineness, as the true and real production of certain inspired prophets and apostles, whose names are thereunto affixed, and whose histories are fully known, be made not only as clear as the genuineness of other works, but a hundred times. more so. And this has been done, as we shall now proceed to show.