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the memorials of the one that went before it, till all at length reached a firm landing-place, in the consent and testimony of our Saviour and his Apostles by which the Hebrew canon has been made to repose on the stable basement of all the evidence historical and moral, which can be alleged for the truth of Christianity. The canon of the Old Testament is pillared on a foundation as strong as the credibility of the New.*

48. An investigation of the canon of the Old, forms the best preparative for those investigations which lead to the establishment and vindication of the canon of the New Testament. The materials for this inquiry are to be found in Lardner; and a very good digest of these has been given by Paley in his evidences of Christianity. Jones, with many excellent considerations on the subject, is deficient in his exhibition of the positive evidence for our actual Christian scriptures; and he has bestowed his main strength on the disproof of those spurious or pretended scriptures, which, in the name of gospels or epistles, imposed on the credulity of past ages, and have been alleged by modern infidels, for the purpose of casting a general disparagement and discredit on the Christian religion. His book on the canon of the New Testament is altogether worthy, however, of perusal, by the professional student-while, for the general reader, we would recommend Alexander on the Canon, as

* We do not repeat here, though it be a consideration of the utmost possible strength, the concurrence, on this one point of the identity of their scriptures, between Jews and Christians, who stand fiercely opposed in almost all others.

a good though brief manual upon the subject. It must be obvious from the nature of the case, that the scriptural evidence, which might be alleged in such force and fulness for the canon of the Old, must be very scanty, if it exist at all, for the canon of the New Testament-made up, as it has been, not by successive but by contemporaneous authors. Their references to the writings of each other can, in these circumstances, scarcely be looked for, however strong and valuable the concurrence of their independent depositions be, in regard to the great and common subject matter of all their writings. There is an undoubted reference in the writings of Peter to those of Paul, with this most important qualification too, that he as good as calls them scriptures; and assigns them co-ordinate rank and authority with the Jewish scriptures. See 2 Peter iii. 16-where, after having introduced the epistles of Paul to the notice of his readers, he complains of those unlearned and unstable, who wrest them, as they did also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. It has also been contended by some, that Paul in Rom. ii. 16, makes a reference to the Gospel of Luke, when speaking of "my gospel." This is more doubtful. But to evince the great importance of a prior investigation into the canon of the Old, ere we attempt to investigate the canon of the New Testament-to prove, in short, that, even for the object of establishing the authority of the Christian scriptures, the labour of this chapter has not been thrown away it should be remarked, as an essential steping-stone to the latter inquiry, that our chief argu

ment for the esteem, in which the writings of our evangelists and apostles were held from the earliest days of the church, is, that they are designed by the same title, and that quotations from them are introduced by the same restricted and appropriate phrases, as the more ancient are in the more recent scriptures; and as the Jewish scriptures are, both by Jews and Christians, from the days of the New Testament. It is a mighty circumstance, that Peter should do the same homage to the epistles of Paul that he does to the sacred writings of the Jews, by honouring them with the same title & ygapar-which is tantamount to saying, that the epistles of Paul have as good a title to a place in the Bible, as the Psalms of David or the Prophecies of Isaiah. These titles and peculiar phrases do, in fact, form the great link of communication between the Hebrew and the Christian argument for the canonicity of their respective scriptures; or rather go to identify them both into a common argument. When we read in the New Testament, or in any Jewish author, that "it is written," we may expect a quotation from the Hebrew scriptures; and when we read the same words in a Christian father, we may expect a quotation from the Christian scriptures. The latter, in fact, designate the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and quote from them both in the very The language which the New Testament uses, when signalizing the works of patriarchs and prophets, over all other works, is bequeathed to the fathers of the Christian church; and they make use of the very same language, by which to

same way.

signalize, in like manner, the works of the evange lists and apostles. We find through the New Testament itself, a midway passage from the argument which establishes the canon of the Old to that which establishes the canon of the New Testament; and we shall find it is by the very same midway passage, that, beginning with the inspiration of the Old Testament, we are led more surely and clearly than by any other track, to the inspiration of the New. In both arguments, the mighty importance of that prior investigation, by which we first ascertain what are the Hebrew scriptures, and secondly what is the degree of their authority, is alike obvious.

49. If the reader, whether learned or unlearned, shall undertake such an interior examination of scripture as we have now in a certain degree exemplified, he will find it laborious, but fruitful of the best impressions in favour of its perfect honesty and truth. He will meet with many thousand coincidences, which no impostor could ever have devised; and such evidences of reality, all beyond the reach of imitation, as will serve to convince and to confirm him, in a manner that no statement by another at second hand can possibly effectuate. The more thoroughly that he explores, the more will the instances of verisimilitude multiply upon his observation; till he at length sees the semblance to be a substance, and he will feel himself walking on the ground of solid history, and in the midst of actual transactions. It is thus that the Bible as it has been called its own best interpreter, will be also found its own best witness; and that, not a single, but a marvellously sustained

and multiplied testimony-for, looking to the composition of this volume, it is not at the mouth of two or three, but at the mouth at least of thirty witnesses, that the words of it are established.

CHAPTER II.

On the Inspiration of the Old and New
Testaments.

1. THE question which respects the Canon of Scripture, is distinct from that which respects the Inspiration of it. The object of the one is to ascertain, what are the actual books, which should be received into this collection of sacred writings. The object of the other is to ascertain, what are the kind and degree of their authority. We may allow a book to be canonical, and yet maintain opinions of all sorts and varieties in regard to the fulness or the partiality of its inspiration. The disciple of a plenary inspiration may deny to certain of our present scriptural books their title to a place in the canon; or he may contend that certain ex-scriptural books should also have occupancy there. On the other hand the disciple of a partial and limited inspiration, or one who affirms of some books in scripture as the prophetical that they are divinely inspired, while of the others as the historical that they are only the best and most faithful of all human compositions-he may be perfectly satisfied with the actual composition of our present

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