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write unto us are the commandments of the Lord. It is nothing to the purpose, whether the matter of the command be attainable or not attainable by reason; nothing to the purpose, whether the writer was capable of saying the same thing himself without inspiration; since inspiration, or something equivalent to it, is necessary to make it a precept of divine obligation; to impress it with the seal and enforce it by the sanction of God's authority. And this leads

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III. In the last place, just to observe the impiety and immorality of despising the inspiration of scripture; which is despising, in the last result, not merely men, the instruments, but God, the giver.

All scripture, St. Paul tells Timothy, is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. And in the verse before, he commends him, because that from a child he had known the holy scriptures, which, he says, were able to make him wise unto salvation. If therefore we consider the nature and use of scripture, we shall immediately discern how impious and immoral it must be to despise it, to detract in any degree from its authority, or to obstruct its influence in the world. It is the word of God, and given by his holy inspiration; to despise it, therefore, or in any sense to think more meanly of it than we ought to think, is at once heinous ingratitude and dreadful impiety. And as its great use and design is to instruct and reform mankind, to teach them the noblest and most useful knowledge, 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.

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to make them perfect, to furnish them unto all good works, and to make them wise even unto salvation; the contempt of it, or, considering it only as the words of men, how wise or good soever, must in this view be immoral. For it tends to defeat all those excellent purposes; to destroy the usefulness of scripture; to lessen its value and authority; to obstruct its influence and good effects; and consequently to hinder the reformation and improvement, the perfection and happiness, of mankind. Our obligation to believe and obey the scriptures does not arise from their having been written by men, by whatever names or titles they might be distinguished, but from their containing and revealing the mind and will of God. This depends upon their inspiration; so far therefore as you take away from that, so far you take away from the word of God, and leave in the room the words only of some fallible men. It is therefore surprising to hear persons sometimes, who would pass for good believers, give up the point of inspiration with little reluctance; give it up, I mean, in part, as to some particular texts and passages; for if they give up the whole, they can be no better than infidels. But surely we cannot be so weak as to think that it is any trouble or difficulty to God, or the Spirit of God, to continue the influence or inspiration on the writer's mind all the time he is writing: which seems too, in itself, to be a more rational and consistent notion than a broken, interrupted inspiration; which can produce at last only a motley composition, as it were, of divers colours, half human, half divine. Let us ever remember the solemn admonition with which St. John concludes the Revelation; for it may justly be

applied to the whole sacred volume: If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life". It is a more fatal wound, because given in a more vital part, to take away from the inspiration of scripture, than to take away only some words and syllables; and it is no small aggravation thereof, when the scripture receives this wound from the hands of its friends. Let us ever remember, that St. James enjoins us to receive with meekness the engrafted word, because it is able to save our souls°. But then we must not only read, or hear it, but practise it also; for they who are not doers of the word, but hearers only, deceive their own selves. "As all

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holy scriptures were written for our learning, let "us so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of God's holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the "blessed hope of everlasting life, which he has given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ P." To whom, &c.

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n Rev. xxii. 18, 19.

• James i. 21.

P See Collect for second Sunday in Advent.

SERMON X.

REV. xxii. 19.

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

THOUGH these words have a more immediate relation to the book of this prophecy, of which they are the conclusion, yet they have a remote reference, as they may be fitly enough applied to the whole book of God. All scripture is given by inspirationa; is equally sacred as to its divine original, and should therefore be all equally screened from the fraudulent practices and corrupt arts of men. And indeed as this revelation to St. John was the last which God was pleased to make to mankind, it may justly enough be supposed, that the Holy Spirit intended the solemn warning and admonition in the text, to be at once the close and security of the canon. It is in a way not much different from this, that the prophet Malachi shut up the words and sealed the book of the Old Testament; Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. As if he had said, Ye are now to expect no more extraordinary interpositions; you have a standing revelation given you

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by Moses, which, together at least with the subsequent instructions of the prophets, will lead you into all necessary truth, and teach you all, that you are to observe, and do, under the present dispensation. Towards the end of it, Behold, God will send you Elijah the prophet, a person of his character and spirit, who will turn the heart of the fathers with the children, and the heart of the children with the fathers, in order to prepare them to receive their so often promised, their so long expected Messiah, the Lord and Prince of the future age. In this manner, and to this purpose, the prophet of the gospel, who finishes the evangelical writings, endeavours to guard them from all injury and encroachment. You have now the whole book of God, and the whole revelation of Christ, abundantly sufficient to direct you to glory and virtue; preserve them as the most valuable trust, as the most sacred depositum, without tampering with them, or trying practices upon them, without adding to or taking from them: expect no further prophecies, no new revelations, for they are needless; make no alterations, no abatements in what you have already, for they were not given in vain. There is no scheme of salvation, no future economy of religion, to succeed the present, as that did the past; but when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again, it will be at the consummation of all things, in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and dead. And he which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Happy would it have been for the church, if men had always paid that awful regard which is due to

< Mal. iv. 5, 6.

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