rude and inaccurate, when compared with the ideas of those who lived in a more enlightened and refined state of society; and that their representations of the Divine Being, and the nature of our duty to him, should be accommodated to the manners and taste of their contemporaries. Besides, there was a similar diversity in their education and rank, some of them being princes and rulers, and others the lowest of the people; some of them being learned, and others illiterate. The sentiments of the great and the vulgar, of philosophers and mechanics, usually differ as much, especially on abstract subjects, such as many of the doctrines of religion are, as the sentiments of a polished and a barbarous age.

Notwithstanding these considerations, from which we might have expected to find the Bible full of contradictions, we observe in it, with no small astonishment, the most perfect harmony in sentiment and design, though it contain the writings of more than thirty different authors. All the prophets agree in predicting a person, who, by some of them is styled the Messiah, and by them all is described as the Saviour of his people; and their ideas of his dignity, his humiliation, his sufferings, and his glory, are in exact unison with those which are detailed by the evangelists. The whole of the New Tes tament, indeed, agrees with the Old, as being a fulfilment of its types, promises, and predictions. In the writers, whether of the former or of the present dispensation, we meet with the same represen tations of the character and perfections of the Deity; the same plan laid down for the restoration of sinful men to his favour; the same views of the nature and blessings of redemption, though in one

;

place the language may be figurative, and in another place, plain; the same method pointed out of enjoying an interest in those blessings; the same vices condemned, and the same virtues enjoined. The religion which they teach, is in substance the same; the only alteration which we observe, is in its external form and for that alteration such reasons are assigned, as exempt God from the charge of mutability, and the sacred writers from the charge of contradiction. In fact, the introduction of a new dispensation having been announced by the prophets, not to overthrow, but to perfect the dispensation under which they lived, had not the ceremonial law been abolished, the New Testament would have been at variance with the Old; and we should have searched in vain for evidences of divine wisdom, in the continuance of institutions, which were become useless and unmeaning, because their end was accomplished. Some instances, indeed, in which it is pretended that the inspired writers contradict themselves or one another, have been industriously collected and pompously displayed, in order to disprove the divinity of the scriptures. As I purpose to consider the objection drawn from this topic in the next chapter, it is at present only necessary to observe, that the alleged contradictions do not affect the grand doctrines and principles of the scriptures, but only some subordinate and less important matters; and that, after all, with a little diligence and attention, they may be reconciled.

It must be acknowledged, that a number of individuals, by a previous arrangement of their plan, and mutual communication in the course of executing it, might compose a work, which should ex

hibit perfect unity of thought and design. It is certain, at the same time, that such an attempt could rarely succeed; and that, if they should endeavour to impose their work upon the world, as the production of one man, the fraud could hardly fail to be detected by some means or other. The harmony of the sacred writers cannot be suspected to be the result of a well-concerted scheme to give to a fable the air and the consistency of truth, because they lived, as we have seen, not at one time, but in different ages, and by consequence could be under no engagement to co-operate, nor have any common purpose to accomplish. They could never meet to contrive a plan, nor to give an uniform appearance to the parts which they had separately executed. As, then, they could not write in concert; as, notwithstanding the detached character and absolute freedom of the writers, (freedom, I mean, from the restraint which human authority, or a previous stipulation might have laid upon their thoughts) their works most perfectly harmonize; as it would be a proof of insanity to suppose that their harmony, since it could not be the effect of design, was the result of accident; is it not manifest that they were guided by one and the same Spirit, namely, the Spirit of truth, who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever? When the laws of nature are suspended in the moral and intellectual world, we have equal reason to infer an interposition of the Deity, as when there is a suspension of its physical laws. If then a number of persons, who would have differed much had they acted according to their native genius and dispositions, unite most cordially in all their views, we must con

sider them, as in that case, subject to a supernatural influence, by which their minds are moulded and fashioned alike. Those pens which have described letters so exactly similar, must have been guided by the same hand; those instruments, which conspire to form so sweet a concord, must have been tuned by the same artist. The spirit of error and imposture could not, in such circumstances, have assumed the distinguishing attribute of truth, immutability.

VI. The last argument for the inspiration of the scriptures, is founded in their wonderful, and I may add, miraculous preservation.

The sacred books of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and other ancient nations, have perished, though no means were ever used to destroy them. The leaves of the Sibyl have long since been scattered by the winds *; and of her oracles, which were consulted with such reverence, and preserved with such superstitious care, I know not whether a fragment remain. Those which are quoted by the fathers are clumsy fabrications of some christian, more zealous than honest. It is more than three thousand years since the first of our sacred books, and nearly two thousand since the last of them was written ; and yet not one of them, nor even, I may. venture to assert, a single sentence of them hath been lost.f

Vid. Virgilii Æneid. Lib. iii. lin. 441–452.

Large collections of various readings of the scriptures have been made by the industry of critics. But of these, some are merely conjectural; others are absurdly, in my opinion, taken from ancient versions; others are trifling, as they relate to syllables and words of little moment, and are undeserving, therefore, of the pains with which they have been gathered, and the pomp with which they are displayed; and the most important of them do not deprive us of one article of faith, nor establish any heresy or error.

Very ancient books, it must be acknowledged, have come down to us through a long succession of ages; but their case, when attentively considered, will appear to be very different from that of the scriptures. Against those books no person had conceived any ill-will, nor did any man feel himself interested in suppressing them, because they neither contradicted his prejudices, nor opposed any obstacle to the gratification of his passions, and the success of his schemes; whereas kings and emperors, both before, and since the coming of Christ, have been the determined enemies of the scriptures, and have employed all their authority, and the utmost severity of persecution, to accomplish their destruction. Antiochus Epiphanes, in the prosecution of his design to establish the idolatrous worship of the Greeks, in Judea, caused all the copies of the law which could be found, to be burnt, and forbade, under the penalty of death, any Jew to retain the scriptures in his possession.* The furious persecution of Diocletian commenced by an order to demolish the churches of the christians, and burn the scriptures.† Bishops and presbyters were cruelly tortured to constrain them to deliver up their sacred books; and those, who were overcome by fear or pain, received, from their more courageous and indignant brethren, the infamous appellation of traditors. Besides the lusts of men; have, in all ages, been at war with the scriptures ; and the patrons of heresies and errors have experienced them to be the chief impediments to the

* 1 Maccab. i. 56, 57.

† Vide Euseb. Lib. viii. cap. 2. Lactan. de mortibus perseoutorum, cap. 12.