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INTRODUCTION.

ON THE NECESSITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION, AND THE GENUINENESS, AUTHENTICITY, INSPIRATION, &c. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES.

them it has been transmitted to modern times.-Lardner's works, vol. vi.-Horne's Introduction, vol. i.— Bishop Tomline's El. of Theol.

The volume which is made up of the Old and New Testament contains a great number of different narratives and compositions, written by several persons, at distant periods, in different languages, and on various subjects. Yet all of these collectively claim to be a divine revelation: that is, a discovery afforded by God to man, of himself, or of his will, over and above what he has made known by the light of nature or reason.

The objects of our knowledge are of three kinds :Thus some things are discernible by the light of nature without revelation; of this kind is the knowledge of God from the traces of his wisdom and power exhibited in the works of creation, 'for his invisible things, even his eternal power and Godhead since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,' (Rom. i. 20). Other things are of pure and simple revelation, which cannot be known by the light of nature; such is the doctrine of the salvation of the world by Jesus Christ. Others again are discoverable by the light of nature, but imperfectly, and therefore stand in need of revelation to give them further proof and evidence; of this sort are a future state, and eternal rewards and punishments. But of what degree soever the revelation may be, whether partial or entire; whether a total discovery of some unknown truth, or only a fuller and clearer manifestation of truths imperfectly known by unassisted reason; it must be supernatural and proceed from God.-Bishop William's Sermons at Boyle's Lectures.

THE collection of writings which is regarded by Chris- | writings which contained those dispensations, and from tians as the sole standard of their faith and practice, has been distinguished at different periods by different appellations. Thus it is frequently termed the Scriptures, the sacred or holy Scriptures, and sometimes the canonical Scriptures. It is called the Scriptures, as being the most important of all writings; the holy or sacred Scriptures, because the books composing it were written by persons divinely inspired; and the canonical Scriptures, either because it is a rule of faith and practice to those who receive it, or because, when the number and authenticity of its different books were ascertained, lists of these were inserted in the ecclesiastical canons or catalogue, in order to distinguish them from such books as were apocryphal, or of uncertain authority, and unquestionably not of divine origin. But the most common appellation is that of the Bible-a word derived from the Greek B3λ05 (biblos)—which, in its primary import, simply denotes a book, but which is given to the writings of Moses and the prophets, of the evangelists and apostles, by way of eminence, as being the book of books, infinitely surpassing in excellence and importance every unassisted production of the human mind.—Lardner's Works, vol. vi.—Jahn's Introduction ad Vet. Fed. and Horne's Introduction, vol. i. and ii. That portion of Scripture which the Jewish church received as of divine authority, is usually called The Old Testament,' in order to distinguish it from those sacred books which contain the doctrines, precepts, and promises of the Christian religion, and which are designated 'The New Testament.' The appellation of Testament is derived from 2 Cor. iii. 6, 14. where the words ἡ Παλαια Διαθηκη, and ἡ Καινη Διαθηκη are, by the old Latin translators, rendered antiquum testamentum, and novum testamentum, instead of antiquum fœdus, and novum fœdus, the old and new covenant; for although the Greek word Atonen signifies both testament and covenant, yet in the Septuagint version it uniformly corresponds with the Hebrew word (berith,) which always signifies a covenant. The term ' old covenant,' used by St Paul in 2 Cor. iii. 14. is evidently applied to the dispensation of Moses, and the term 'new covenant,' in ver. 6 of the same chapter, is applied to the dispensation of Christ; and these distinguishing appellations were applied by the early ecclesiastical authors to the

No one who believes that there is a God, and that he is a Being of infinite power, wisdom and knowledge, can reasonably deny, that he can, if he thinks fit, make a revelation of himself and of his will in an extraordinary way, different from the discoveries made by men themselves, in the more natural and ordinary use of their own rational faculties and powers. For if the power of God be almighty, it must extend to whatever does not imply a contradiction, which cannot be pretended in this case. Can it be supposed that the author of our being has it not in his power to communicate ideas to our minds, for informing and instructing us in those

things which we are deeply concerned to know; our in- | philosophers and sages of antiquity, we shall find, that ability clearly to explain the manner in which this is they were not only ignorant of many important points done, is no just objection against it. And as it cannot in religion, but also that endless differences and inconreasonably be denied that God can, if he sees fit, com- sistencies prevailed among them with regard to points municate his will to man, in a way of extraordinary reve- of the greatest moment; while some of them taught doclation; so he can do it in such a manner, as to give those trines which directly tended to promote vice and wickedto whom this revelation is originally and immediately ness in the world, and the influence of all in rectifying made, a full and certain assurance that it is a true and the notions and reforming the lives of mankind, was divine revelation. For if men can communicate their altogether ineffectual. But in order to illustrate, and thoughts by speech or language, in such a way as that confirm the point, we shall advance a few particulars. we may certainly know who it is that speaks to us, it would be a strange thing to affirm, that God, on supposition of his communicating his mind and will to any person or persons, in a way of extraordinary revelation, has no way of causing his rational creatures to know that it is he, and no other, who makes this discovery to them. To admit the existence of a God, and to deny him such a power, is a glaring contradiction.-Leland's Advant. and Necess. of Revelation.

Since no man can presume to say that it is inconsistent with any of the attributes of a Supreme Being, or unbecoming the wisdom of the Creator of all things, to reveal to his creatures more fully the way to happiness; to make a particular discovery of his will to them; to set before them, in a clear light, the rewards and punishments of a future state; to explain in what manner he will be pleased to be worshipped; and to declare what satisfaction he will accept for sin, and upon what conditions he will receive returning sinners: nay, since, on the contrary, it seems more suitable to our natural notions of the goodness and mercy of God, to suppose that he should do all this, than not, it follows undeniably, that it was most reasonable and agreeable to the dictates of nature, to expect or hope for such a divine revelation. Accordingly we find it to have been the general belief of mankind in every age, that some kind of commerce and communication subsisted between God and man. This was the foundation of all the religious rites and ceremonies which every heathen nation pretended to receive from their deities, and the generality of the heathen world were so fully persuaded, that the great rules for the conduct of human life must receive their authority from heaven, that their chief legislators, such as Minos, Pythagoras, Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, &c. &c. thought it not a sufficient recommendation of their laws that they were agreeable to the light of nature, unless they gave out also that they received them from God.

Besides, the wisest and best of the heathen philosophers, particularly Socrates and Plato, were not ashamed to confess openly their sense of the want of a divine revelation, and to declare their judgment that it was most natural and truly agreeable to right reason, to hope for something of that nature.-Clarke's Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Relig. Prop. vi.—Boyle's Lectures, vol.

ii. fol. ed.

Farther, a divine revelation was not only probable and desirable, but also absolutely necessary.

The history of past ages clearly shows, that mankind, by the mere light of nature, could never attain to any certain knowledge of the will of God, of their own true happiness and final destiny, or recover themselves from that state of moral corruption and depravity into which they had fallen.

If we examine the writings of the most celebrated

1. The ancients were ignorant of the true origin of the world, and of mankind.

Some of them asserted that the world existed from eternity; others admitted that the formation of the world was owing to chance; others ascribed it to a plurality of causes or authors; while those who acknowledged that it had a beginning in time, knew not by what gradations, nor in what manner the universe was raised into its present beauty and order.

2. They were ignorant of the origin of evil, and of the cause of the depravity and misery which actually exist among mankind.

The wisest and most judicious of the heathen philosophers were not backward to complain, that they found the understandings of men so dark and cloudy, their wills so biassed and inclined to evil, their passions so outrageous and rebellious against reason, that they looked upon the rules and laws of right reason as scarcely practicable, and which they had very little hopes of ever being able to persuade the world to submit to. They saw that human nature was strangely corrupted, but at the same time they were compelled to confess, that they neither knew the origin of the disease, nor could discover a sufficient remedy. They could not assign any reason why mankind, who have the noblest faculties of any beings on earth, should yet generally pursue their own destruction with as much industry as the beasts avoid it.-Clarke's Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Relig. Prop. vi. and Horne's Introd. vol. i.

3. They were ignorant of the manner in which God might be acceptably worshipped, and of the means by which such as have erred from the paths of virtue, and have offended God, might again be restored to his favour; they were utterly unable to discover any method by which a reconciliation might be effected between an offended God and his guilty creatures, and his mercy exercised without the violation of his justice. The light of nature, indeed, taught them that some kind of worship or other was due to the Supreme Being, but in what particular manner, and with what kind of service he will be worshipped, unassisted reason could never discover. Accordingly, even the best of the heathen philosophers, such as Plato and Cicero, complied with the outward superstitious religion of their country, and advised others to do the same, and while they delivered sublime and noble sentiments concerning the nature and attributes of the supreme God, they fell lamentably into the practice of the most absurd idolatry.

The light of nature showed their guilt to the most reflecting of the ancient philosophers, but it could not show them a remedy. From the consideration of the goodness and mercifulness of God, they entertained a hope that he would show himself placable to sinners, and might in some way be reconciled; but what kind of

sistent scheme on this head, nor had the doctrine of the immortality of the soul any prominent place among the tenets of their sect. But even among those philosophers who expressly taught this doctrine, considerable doubt and uncertainty appear to have prevailed. Thus Socrates, a little before his death, tells his friends,' I am now about to leave this world, and ye are still to continue in it: which of us shall have the better part allotted to us, God only knows;' from the scope of which passage, it appears, that he was doubtful whether he should have any existence after death or not. And again, at the end of his admirable discourse concerning the immortality of the soul, he said to his friends, who came to pay him their last visit, I would have you to know, that I have great hopes that I am now going into the company of good men; yet I would not be too presumptuous and confident concerning it.' In his apology to his judges, he comforts himself with the consideration that there is much ground to hope that death is good; for it must necessarily be one of these two; either the dead man is nothing, and has not a sense of anything; or it is only a change or migration of the soul hence to another place, according to what we are told. If there is no sense left, and death is like a profound sleep and quiet rest without dreams, it is wonderful to think what gain it is to die; but if the things which are told us are true, that death is a migration to another place, this is still a much greater good.'—Plato in Phæd. Apolog. Socrat. in fin.

propitiation he would be pleased to accept, and in what | Aristotle himself. The Stoics had no settled or conmanner this reconciliation must be made, the light of nature could not point out. Here nature fails, and expects with impatience the aid of some particular revelation. That God will receive returning sinners, and accept of repentance, instead of perfect obedience, they cannot certainly know to whom he has not made such a revelation; or whether God will not require something further, for the vindication of his justice, and of the honour and dignity of his laws and government, and for | more effectually expressing his indignation against sin, before he will restore men to the privileges they had forfeited; they cannot be satisfactorily assured, without a special revelation: for it cannot be satisfactorily proved, from any of God's attributes, that he is absolutely obliged to pardon all the sins of all his creatures at all times, barely and immediately upon their repenting. There arises therefore from nature, no sufficient comfort to sinners, but anxious and endless solicitude about the means of appeasing the Deity. Hence those various ways of sacrificing and those numberless superstitions which overspread the heathen world, but which were so little satisfactory to the wiser part of mankind, even in those times of darkness, that they could not forbear frequently declaring, that they thought such rites and sacrifices could avail little or nothing towards appeasing the wrath of an offended God, or making their prayers acceptable in his sight, but that something seemed to them to be still wanting, though they knew not what.—Plato's Alcibiades, 2.-Clarke's Evid. Prop. vi.

4. They knew little or nothing respecting the necessity of divine grace, and assistance towards our attainment of virtue and perseverance in it.

It was, indeed, a general practice among the heathens to pray to their gods; but then the things they ordinarily prayed for were only outward advantages, or what are usually called the goods of fortune: as to wisdom and virtue, they thought every man was to depend upon himself alone for obtaining them. The Stoics, who were the most eminent teachers of morals among the heathens, endeavoured to raise man to a state of absolute independency, and some of them asserted that the will of man is unconquerable by God himself. (Epictetus, b. i. chap. 1.). Seneca represents it as needless to apply to the gods by prayer, since it is in every man's own power to make himself happy; and speaking of virtue, and a uniform course of life always consistent with itself, he says, 'This is the chief good which, if thou possessest, thou wilt begin to be a companion to the gods, not a suppliant to them.'-Sen. Epist. 41.-Leland's Advant, and Necess. of Revelation. vol. ii. chap. ix.

5. They had but dark and confused notions of the summum bonum, or supreme felicity of man.

On this topic, Cicero tells us, there was such a disagreement among the ancient philosophers, that it was almost impossible to enumerate their different sentiments, while he at the same time states the opinions of more than twenty philosophers, all of which are equally extravagant and absurd.

6. They had but weak and imperfect notions of the immortality of the soul.

The existence of the soul after death was denied by many of the Peripatetics, or followers of Aristotle, and this doctrine seems to have been disbelieved by

The same doubts were entertained by Plato, the most eminent of the disciples of Socrates. Cicero, who ranks among the most eminent of the heathen philosophers, laboured under the same uncertainty. After having advanced a number of excellent arguments in behalf of this doctrine, and stated several opinions concerning the return and duration of the soul, he says, 'Which of these two opinions is true, (that the soul is mortal or immortal), God only knows, and which of these is most probable, is a very great question.'-Cic. Tuscul. Qæst. b. i. In another place he says, ' I know not how, when I read the arguments in proof of the soul's immortality, methinks I am fully convinced, and yet after I have laid aside the book, and come to think and consider of the matter, alone by my myself, presently I find myself slip again insensibly into my old doubts.'-Ibid. While these great men and their followers were perplexed with doubts on this great point, others of the heathens entertained the most gloomy notions, some imagining that they should, after death, be removed from one body into another and be perpetual wanderers, and others contemplating the grave as an eternal habitation, and death as the complete termination of man's existence.Jortin's Discourses.-Horne's Introduction, vol. i.— Clarke's Evidences.

verse,

7. The ancient philosophers attained to no certainty respecting the eternal rewards and punishments of a future state, and of the resurrection of the body. The poets indeed celebrated, in sublime and beautiful the joys of Elysium, or a state and place of future bliss, and painted in dismal colours the miseries of Tartarus, or hell, but these were only regarded as fabulous representations: and although the philosophers and legislators were sensible of the importance and necessity of the doctrine of future punishments as well

both among the Greeks and Romans. Among the Spartans they were not only generally treated with great harshness and insolence, but it was part of their policy to massacre them on several occasions, in cold blood, and without provocation; the gratification of the sensual appetites, and of the most unnatural lusts was openly taught and allowed.

And not only did these sentiments and principles, which were entertained and inculcated by the philosophers and legislators of antiquity, lead to all kinds of immorality and wickedness, but the very religious sys

as rewards, to the well being of society, yet, strange as it may seem, they in general discarded this doctrine, and represented all fears of future punishment as vain and superstitious. Polybius complains that in his time the belief of a future state was rejected by the great men and by the bulk of the people, and to this disbelief he ascribes the great corruption of manners; but even while Polybius blames the great men among the Greeks for encouraging the people to disbelieve and despise future punishments, he himself represents them as only useful fictions. Cæsar also treated the notions respecting future punishments as fables, and Pliny, the natural-tems and established forms of worship of the heathens, ist, represents them as childish and senseless fictions of mortals who were ambitious of never-ending existence. As to the resurrection of the body, neither the philosophers, nor the common people among the Greeks and Romans, seem to have had any notion of it. For although their poets made frequent mention of the ghosts of departed men appearing in a visible form, and retaining in the shades below their former shapes, yet by such representations, if they mean any thing, they mean no more than that the soul, after this life, passes into another state, and is there invested with a body made up of light aerial particles, quite different from those of which the former body had been composed. When St Paul at Athens spoke of the resurrection of the dead, we are told his hearers mocked or treated it with contempt as a strange doctrine. (Acts xvii. 18, 20, 32.) The Epicureans and Stoics are particularly mentioned in this passage, but the other sects of philosophers, even those who argued most for the immortality of the soul, held the doctrine of the resurrection of the body in contempt. They could not conceive that the gross matter which they saw laid in the grave, or reduced to ashes on the funeral pile, or blown away by the winds and scattered in the air, should ever be raised or collected again and revivified neither did those who argued for the immortality of the soul, believe that the resurrection of the body, if it were possible, was desirable; for they looked upon the body as the prison of the soul, and considered that the happiness of the soul consisted in its being loosed and disengaged from the body.

instead of being calculated to preserve men in the practice of morality and virtue, only served to plunge them deeper in vice and degrading superstition. They paid divine worship to oxen, crocodiles, birds and reptiles. They metamorphosed beasts into gods, and conversely transformed their gods into beasts, ascribing to them drunkenness, unnatural lusts and the most loathsome vices. Drunkenness they worshipped under the name of Bacchus, lasciviousness under that of Venus. Momus was with them the god of calumny, and Mercury the god of thieves. Even Jupiter, the greatest of their gods, they considered to be an adulterer and a rebellious son. The worship of avowedly evil beings at length became prevalent among them, and hence many of their rites were cruel and contrary to humanity, and hence also the licentiousness and impurity of their whole religious system became notorious. Thus, to select one or two instances out of many, the rites of the goddess Cybele were no less infamous for lewdness than for cruelty, and the practice of these rites spread far and wide, and formed part of the public worship at Rome. The aphrodisia, or festivals in honour of Venus, were observed with lascivious ceremonies in divers parts of Greece; and Strabo relates that there was a temple at Corinth so rich that it maintained above a thousand harlots sacred to her service. These abominable customs were not confined to Greece, for Herodotus informs us that they were observed at Babylon, and other authors relate that they existed in Syria and Africa. The feasts of Bacchus were equally impure and licenWhen therefore we consider the ignorance and un- tious, and according to Herodotus, many of the Egypcertainty which prevailed among some of the greatest tian rites were cruel and shockingly obscene. teachers of antiquity, respecting those great and funda- offering up of human sacrifices was, for many ages, very mental truths which are the chief barriers of virtue and general in the heathen world. It obtained among the religion, it appears certain that the heathens had no per- Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabians, Carthaginians and other fect system of moral rules for the conduct of life, or for people of Africa, and among the Egyptians till the the promotion of piety. Thus most of the philosophers time of Amasis. The same thing we are told concernaccounted revenge to be not only lawful but commend-ing the Thracians, the ancient Scythians, the Gauls, able. Pride and the love of popular applause were Germans and Britons. And though this horrible rite esteemed the best and greatest incentives to virtue and was never so common among the Greeks and Romans, as noble actions; suicide was regarded as the strongest mark of heroism, and the perpetrators of it celebrated as men of noble minds. Theft, as is well known, was permitted in Egypt and in Sparta. Plato taught the expedience and lawfulness of exposing children in particular cases. The exposure of infants, and the putting to death of children who were weak or imperfect in form, was permitted at Sparta by Lycurgus. At Athens the women were treated and disposed of as slaves; and it was enacted that infants which appeared to be maimed, should either be killed or exposed. Nothing could exceed the cruelties which were exercised against slaves

The

among some other nations, yet it continued for a long time to be in use among them upon extraordinary occasions.

In short, when we examine the history of the Pagan nations of antiquity, we cannot but be struck with the accuracy of the description which the apostle Paul, in the first chapter of the Romans, gives of these nations generally, when he tells us that they were given up to uncleanness and vile affections; that they were filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; that they were full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inven