pervades every thing, perceives every thing, and is the first and supporting Cause of all other. We, therefore, owe our existence to Him, and also all the blessings of this life. The serious contemplation of such a Being is overwhelming; His perfections are sufficient to inspire us with profound awe and admiration; and the utmost reverence that the soul is capable of expressing or experiencing is due to Him for ever. Our trust in Him should be implicit and abiding, for He cannot err or be unkind. Universal obedience to Him is our duty, and will prove our highest pleasure; and to worship Him will constitute our purest enjoyment throughout eternity.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

PART I.

1. THE holy Scriptures a Revelation from God. II. 1. The holy Scriptures defined. 2. The Apocrypha excluded. 3. The Bible written by inspired men in different ages. 4. The Books of Scripture enumerated and arranged. 1st. The Old Testament. 2nd. The New Testament. 5. Inspiration claimed for the whole. III. Revelation defined. IV. Inspiration. 1. Defined. 2. Degrees of inspiration not warranted by Scripture, and not binding upon our reception. 3. Plenary inspiration. 1st. Defined. 2nd. Claimed by the inspired writers. 3rd. Claimed for the Old Testament writers. 4th. For the New Testament writers. 4. The difference of estimation in which we must hold the Scriptures, if we consider them only partially or fully inspired.

I. THE existence of God having been considered, it will be our next duty to inquire, whether He has made any revelation of Himself to man, or whether He has given any directions for our conduct, or for our mode of approach to Him as our Maker and Lord. The inspired Scriptures profess to be such a revelation, and to be a perfect rule for the regulation of the actions of men: "All Scripture 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." (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.) Thus the divine origin and inspiration of the Scriptures are claimed, and their design for the benefit of mankind declared.

II. 1. By the Holy Scriptures we mean that volume which, in its collective form, is called "the Bible;" the whole of which we acknowledge to be "given by divine inspiration;" and although many "holy men were employed as instruments in communicating it, yet the revelations it contains are the words of God, as truly as if He had spoken them immediately from heaven to man.

2. As, however, in different ages some have claimed for the writings of uninspired men a divine origin and authority which they have not possessed; and as these apocryphal writings, through ignorance, imprudence, or otherwise, have been occasionally incorporated and bound up with the sacred volume, it will be requisite, at an early stage of this chapter, to define what is meant by "the Scriptures,' for the whole of which we claim the solemn title of "inspired." When the apostle said, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," it is evident from the context, that he did not mean common writings;

for he there calls them "the Holy Scriptures." (2 Tim. iii. 15.) These alone we affirm to be given by divine inspiration.

3. Those holy men who were inspired to write the Scriptures, did not all live in the same age or place, but were raised up at different periods and places, to speak and to write as the Spirit gave them utterance. The Bible, therefore, is composed of the writings of these men, which writings have been collected and arranged, either by men who were themselves under divine inspiration, and therefore were competent to the task, or by such authority, when impartially con sidered, as to assure us of their genuineness and authenticity, and to enable us implicitly to receive them. The two great divisions of the Scriptures are, The Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament contains all those scriptures which were written and preserved by divine authority before the coming of Jesus Christ; and the New Testament contains all the writings of the evangelists and apostles, which were designed to be transmitted to posterity, from the birth of Christ to the closing of the sacred volume by St. John, when Christ in the most solemn manner declared the period of inspiration was finished; so that no man could either add any thing to the sacred writings, or take from them, without incurring the heaviest penalty that an immortal being can endure, viz., having his name taken from the holy city, and being assigned to endure the punishment of all the plagues which are written in the book of inspiration. To remove all doubt, it will be requisite to enumerate those books which constitute the Old and New Testament, by which all apocryphal writings of every age will be excluded, and those only retained, which have been, and still are, considered and received as inspired by every pure section of the church, both under the old and new dispensations.

4. The Holy Scriptures are arranged into two great divisions; the first containing all the sacred writings which were given before the coming of Christ; and the second, those which belong to the new, of Christian, dispensation. These, and these only, are recognised by the faithful to be the Word of God.

1st. The Old Testament, the books of which are divided and arranged under three general heads, viz., Historical, Poetical, and Prophetical. The historical books are, First. The Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, bearing the respective names of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy: these contain the history of the creation in general, and of man from our first parent to the death of Moses. Secondly. The continuation of historical books relating to the church of God from the death of Moses to the great national reformation under Nehemiah, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. Twelve books are included in this division, viz., Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Two Books of Samuel, Two of the Kings, Two of the Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Secondly. The poetical books, which are five, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Thirdly. The prophetical books, which are sixteen, the Lamentations of Jeremiah being usually considered as an appendix to his predictions: these are arranged into two classes:-First. The

greater prophets, comprising the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, who were designated as "greater" from the size of their books, and not because they were more eminently inspired than the others. Secondly. The minor prophets, which contain the writings of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These constitute the books of the Old Testament Scriptures, the total number of which is thirty-eight, or, if the Lamentations of Jeremiah are considered as distinct from the prophecies, thirty-nine.

2nd. The New Testament Scriptures, which were written after the advent of Christ: these are classified in the following order :— First. The historical books, the first part of which treats of the history and acts of our Lord, and which were written by the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and the second part, comprising the history of the church under the apostles, after the ascension of Christ, termed the Acts of the Apostles. The historical books are therefore five in number. Secondly. The epistolary, or doctrinal, writings of the apostle Paul; consisting of The Epistle to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and the Hebrews; being fourteen epistles. Thirdly. The Catholic, or General, Epistles, viz., of James, two of Peter, three of John, and the Epistle of Jude, in the whole seven. And, Fourthly. The Revelation of John the Divine; making a total of twenty-seven books in the New Testament; and a total of the Old and New Testaments conjointly of sixty-six books, which form the entire holy Scriptures; the whole that are recognised as having been "given by inspiration of God."

5. For each of these books separately, and for the whole collectively, we claim a divine authority. This claim, however, does not extend to the arrangement of the books in systematic order, or to any arbitrary division, but to the production of each book as it came from the hand of its writer; and to the whole as forming a perfect revelation of God; so that each truth contained within the volume of inspiration is binding upon the credence of every man; and every precept and duty enjoined, are binding upon the practice of all men as moral agents; and the whole revelation of the divine mind is therein completed, so that nothing can be added to it, or taken away from it by any man, or by any authority whatever. For the entire volume of the Holy Scriptures we claim, in the most comprehensive and unequivocal sense, a divine origin, and that it is a revelation of the mind and will of God, perfect and complete, so far as it was requisite for man to receive in this state of his existence, and that each writer particularly, and the whole collectively, wrote and spoke under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost. But before we enter upon the proofs of these assertions, it will be requisite for us to define what is meant by the terms "Revelation," and "Inspiration."

III. Revelation is the act of revealing, or making a thing known; and in a theological sense, it refers to the communication of sacred truth to man, which could not have been acquired by any

process of human reasoning, or by the exercise of our faculties, without immediate and direct divine assistance. A revelation, therefore, is a certain intelligent and understood expression and signification, made by the Holy Spirit upon the human mind, and wrought in such a manner, that the person who receives it has the assured conviction that the truth communicated is received by him directly from God. The methods of communicating revelations were various, but all were above the control of man, and all of immediate divine appointment. That God did not confine Himself to any particular mode of manifesting His will is evident, yet each manifestation was so certified to him to whom it was given, that he was assured of its divine origin, so that, although there were diversities of operations, yet they were all evinced to those who received them to be from the Holy Ghost. Sometimes revelations were made by an audible voice, at others by irradiation of the intellect, by impressions in dreams and visions, trances, opening the understanding, and in various other manners; but whatever mode of operation was adopted, every one who received such a communication, was confidently assured that it was supernaturally produced, and that it proceeded directly from God.

IV. 1. Inspiration is that act by which God takes full possession of the human mind, and thereby assists and controls the person so influenced, that he is enabled to speak or write divine truths under His immediate direction, and by His authority. The Holy Ghost is the agent which effects this influence; and he who receives it, is so completely under supernatural and spiritual control, that the truths which he utters during the period of inspiration, are not his own productions, but truly and properly the words of God. "No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation., For 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." (2 Peter i. 20, 21.) This is the character of the inspiration which we claim for all the writers of the sacred page: they were "holy men," and therefore morally prepared as instruments for conveying the divine will; they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake as the Spirit gave them

utterance.

2. Some theologians have divided inspiration into three, and others into four, classes, which they have termed Inspiration of "direction," of "superintendency," of "elevation," and "suggestion ;" and others have thought that there were some modes by which God communicated His will which do not come under any one of the classes so denominated. It is questionable whether such a division is desirable, especially as the use made of it by some writers tends to diminish the sacredness, and to repudiate the divine origin, of the Holy Scriptures, as a complete and entire revelation of God. "All Scripture" is given by the Holy Ghost consequently, no part of it is of less than divine authority, and the whole forms one complete revelation of the mind and will of God to man. These assertions are equally applicable to each and every part; so that no part can be said to be inspired in a less degree or in a less extent of signification than another. The