received from God, according to their best judgment, and of course with some intermixture of human frailty? Or is it because these penmen communicate a revelation under the superintendence of the Spirit of God, so as to have been preserved from every kind and degree of error relating to the religion, and to have indited books, in the strictest sense of the terms, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost?

Now nothing can be more easy than the determination of this question, because we have arrived at a part of our general argument which admits of an immediate appeal to the sacred writers themselves, and which renders their decisions authoritative and final. A divine revelation they received- a divine authority is at the foundation of all their communications. We have only therefore to study the books themselves. We have only to open the pages of the New Testament, and see what is there stated upon the subject. All previous matters have been proved-authenticity, credibility, miraculous works, a prophetical spirit, a propagation of Christianity supported by the immediate interference of God, copious good effects which proclaim the author from whom they flow. What then do the writers of the holy books teach us upon the subject of inspiration? What can we reasonably infer from the testimony of our Lord and his Apostles concerning it?

This is the one simple point which now demands our attention: and in order to settle it,

We appeal to the unquestionable inspiration of the OLD TESTAMENT.

We appeal to the PROMISE which our Lord gave to the Apostles, and the GIFTS AND QUALIFICATIONS they received in consequence.

We appeal to THE CLAIMS which the writers themselves made.

We appeal to the testimony of the FIRST CHRIS

TIANS.

These particulars we shall illustrate in the present lecture.

The consideration of them must draw us into some length, but the whole influence of Christianity, practically speaking, rests on the scriptural adjustment of them, especially in a day like the present.

I. THE INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT MAY BE INFERRED FROM THAT OF THE OLD.

1. Need I remind you that our Lord and his apostles most distinctly assert the plenary inspiration of the Old Testament? Need I tell you that they recognize the whole of the canonical writings of the Jews in their threefold division of THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, and THE PSALMS, and attest and authorize separately, almost every book of each division? Need I remind you that what Moses, for instance, wrote in the Pentateuch, is expressly declared by Christ to have been spoken by God himself?" Have ye never read that which was SPOKEN TO YOU BY GOD, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ?" Need I remind you that what David wrote in the Psalms, is plainly said to have been spoken by the Holy Ghost, to have been written in the Spirit-uttered by the very mouth of God? "The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake.-How doth David in spirit call him Lord!-Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said," according to the Psalmist's own declaration," the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." Need I tell you that the prophet Isaiah is described as speaking under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit"Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet, saying?"

And what does St. Peter teach us universally as to the inspiration of the holy prophets? Does he not

distinctly, and in so many words assert, that what they delivered was by the Spirit of Christ speaking in them; and that they wrote-holy men as they were not by their own will or judgment, but as they were guided, borne along, moved by the Holy Ghost? Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

And what can be more completely decisive than the language of St. Paul in the text, where, enlarging the terms to the utmost latitude, but undoubtedly having an especial reference to the Old Testament, he declares that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God"-breathed, communicated, inspired in a divine manner into the minds of the sacred writers ?

This then, in fact, determines the whole question. We are inquiring whether the New Testament is divinely inspired. We take it for granted, in this inquiry, that the Old and the New Testament are equally authentic and credible, are of the same divine authority, and equally consist of books written for the instruction and guidance of the church. We next find that the first division is expressly and repeatedly declared to have been written by this divine inspiration. What then follows? Is it not that the second division also was composed under the same guidance? For can it for a moment be imagined that such assistance was given to Moses and the prophets, as to make their writings absolutely free from error in every thing that relates to the revelation they contain; and that the evangelists and apostles were left destitute of the same assistance, in their still more important writings?

It is true we have no books of an additional and later dispensation to testify to the inspiration of the

New Testament, as the New doth to that of the Old. The case admits not of that particular proof. Nor is it required. The writers of the New Testament brought the same miraculous credentials of their mission, with the penmen of the first Testament. If the credentials, then, of the economy of Moses included that inspired aid by which the Old Testament was written, we may assure ourselves that the case was the same with the credentials of the economy established by the only-begotten Son of the Father.

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This consideration acquires greater force, when we recollect that the New Testament dispensation, surpasses in all spiritual privileges and gifts, the Old. Among them that were born of women, there had not risen a greater than John the Baptist. He was a prophet, yea, and more than a prophet." And yetso much better are the promises, so much higher the gifts, so much clearer the light, so much greater the freedom, and especially so much more copious the effusion of the Spirit under the New Testament"he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." "For if the ministration of death was glorious, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit exceed in glory?" If there were inspired writers under the Mosaic economy-which was temporary, of which many blessings were earthly and figurative, and under which the Holy Ghost was not given, in the emphatical sense of the term-has not the Christian inspired writers also? If the Old Testament had oracular responses at one period, and an extraordinary dispensation of Providence attending it through all its course; with a succession of divine prophets and teachers and continued miraculous powers, age after age; though it was, after all, a dispensation of a confined range of influence and exertion are there not inspired teachers under the Christian dispensation ?-a dispensation

The testimony of the first Christians, and early Fathers, will be given hereafter.

2

universal and permanent, where all the blessings are spiritual-the last dispensation of God to man, and the fulfilment and accomplishment of the Jewish; under which the abundant effusion of the Spirit is bestowed; where, however, all extraordinary attendant aids are withdrawn-oracular responses, prophets, miraculous powers, the immediate government of the Almighty-and the whole church is left to this one single external source of truth in all successive ages? The luminous and permanent dispensation of Christ has surely a light at least equal to that of the dark and preparatory dispensation of Moses. It is not night to us as to an inspired scripture, when the legal economy had the day shining full upon it. We are not without writings, with the will of God infallibly communicated in them, when the Jews had an unerring revelation of that will. We are not left to rely on the credit of books written merely by persons of sincerity and piety, whilst the Jews had, and still have, divinely inspired scriptures. No. "We have not so learned Christ." The case is perfectly decisive. If we had no other arguments to adduce, we infer with undoubted certainty, that as the Old Testament was written under the superintendence and inspiration of God, the New was composed also with the same aid, and comes commended with the same features of infallible and unerring truth.

2. But this is not all. Our inference is strengthened by the distinct recognition of the New Testament as of equal authority with the Old.

The writers of the Christian books speak with the same authority as those of the Jewish, and evidently consider them as standing upon precisely the same footing of inspiration. If the prophets began with the solemn formula, "Thus saith the Lord;" the apostles begin with the same claim of a divine command;

2 "The law made nothing perfect." Heb. vii. 19.