Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

which are acceptable to the Deity, was by the Jews very imperfectly understood. Do you admit the magnitude of those your obligations to Heaven? Ask yourself, then, in the second place, whether you are leading such a life as corresponds with an avowed sense of those obligations: such a life as is consistent with a conviction of the extraordinary blessings conferred on you by the Almighty of his own free grace? While you are wondering that the Jews, enlightened by immediate communications from above, could relapse with such frequency into the darkness of idolatry; ask yourself whether, in the full enjoyment of greater light, you are not deviating into the paths of darkness. "The covetous man," saith the Scripture, "is an idolater * ; and hath no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." The glutton is branded in the Sacred Volume with the same stigma†: and his end is declared to be "destruction." Whenever you permit any inclination, any passion, any motive, any interest, to predominate in your heart over the fear and the love of God, you incur the guilt of idolatry. And unless through the Divine grace you sincerely repent, and turn from sin unto habitual holiness, you shall have "no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and of God: " your end "shall be destruction."

* Eph. v. 5.

+ Philip. iii. 19.

K

130

CHAP. IV.

ON THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

In the preceding chapters the Scriptures of the Old Testament have been regarded as sacred records of unquestionable authority. As the faith of Christians ought in every particular point to be established on rational evidence and sober conviction; it will be proper in the present chapter to lay before the reader a brief statement of the grounds, on which the claim of the Jewish Scriptures to his belief and reverence is established.

The Old Testament, taking those words in the widest acceptation, resolves itself into two leading divisions; the canonical books and the apocryphal books. * The canonical books are those which were written by the

* These general terms, together with many of the modern names, as Genesis, Exodus, &c., by which the books of the Old Testament are distinguished, have been borrowed from the denominations used by the Greek translators and commentators. The words "canon," and "canonical," are derived from Kavwv, a rule; and imply that the authenticity and inspiration of the books of Scripture to which they are applied have not been hastily taken for granted but have been examined and ascertained by the proper rule or criterion. Or, as some affirm, the Scriptures are characterised by these terms, as being eminently the great rule or standard to Christians in every thing pertaining to faith and practice. Apocrypha and apocryphal, words derived from ажокρуπт, to hide, denote that the writings to which they are affixed are not of manifest and indisputable authority.

:

aid and under the guidance of Divine inspiration. The apocryphal books were composed by uninspired men; and are, therefore, liable to error: but, on account of the religious instruction and the historical facts which they contain, were subjoined by the Jews, yet separately and as a detached appendix, to the sacred volume; and have been for the same reasons continued in that place and character by the Christian church.

The canonical books were again subdivided by the Jews, for the sake of convenient reference and quotation, into three classes; not so distinguished through any difference in the authority assigned to them, for in that respect they were all held perfectly equal, but through a degree of difference between the subjects of which they respectively treat. These classes were

denominated "the Law," "the Prophets," and "the "Psalms." "The Law" contained the five books of Moses; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: and received its name from the Divine Law, the subject most prominent in those books. In "the Prophets" were comprehended not only the books of Isaiah, and of all the other prophets to Malachi inclusively, together with the book of Job; but likewise the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther as these books also were written or revised by prophets. "The Psalms +," included Pro

* The five books of Moses are frequently termed the Pentateuch; a word of Greek etymology, implying a collection of five volumes.

+ This class was also termed emphatically by the Jews "Writings" (Chetubim); and by the Greeks Hagiographa, Sacred Writings. In later times we have become accustomed to apply the terms "Scriptures," that is to say, "the Writings," by way

verbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, together with the book of Psalms; from which book, as being placed first, and of primary importance, this concluding subdivision received its appellation. *

What proof, then, of the inspiration and authenticity of the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, in the very form in which we have them at this hour, is the utmost which even an objector could reasonably demand. He might require this, and this only: satisfactory evidence that those Scriptures were written under the superintendence of inspiration; and that they have been transmitted in their primeval integrity to the present day. That proof, I apprehend, may be demonstratively furnished.

It will, however, be proper antecedently to state with precision what we mean, when we affirm that the books in question were written under the superintendence of inspiration. Although numberless passages in the Scriptures are unquestionably expressed in terms immediately and precisely suggested by the Holy Ghost; we do not mean that the Spirit of God dictated to the inspired writer every word, or every sentence,

of eminence, and "the Bible," ("the Book," from the Greek word Bibλos,) to the Old and New Testaments taken collectively.

* The number of canonical books in our Bible is thirty-nine: whereas Josephus and other Jewish writers enumerate only twenty-two. The cause of the seeming difference is this: the Jews unite Judges and Ruth into one volume, or book; the two books of Samuel they count as one book, and also those of Kings, and of Chronicles, respectively; Ezra and Nehemiah form one book; the Prophecies and Lamentations of Jeremiah one; and the twelve minor prophets, so called merely on account of the comparative brevity of their compositions, one.

of his composition. The Divine interference to such an extent was not requisite, as far as we may presume to judge, for the attainment of the objects which inspiration was designed to accomplish. And the

opinion of its interference to that extent appears to be contradicted by the great similarity of style and manner, which is found to pervade the writings of any one of the inspired penmen considered singly; and by the striking difference in sentiment and language, by which the several writers are distinguished one rom another circumstances which indicate that each writer was generally permitted to follow in an ample degree the natural bent of his faculties and thoughts as to the mode of expressing the Divine communications. Neither do we mean that the mind of the prophet or historian was in every case supernaturally impressed with the full knowledge of facts, which, by his own present observation, or by his distant recollection, or even by true and sufficient intelligence received from others, he already was thoroughly competent to describe. We mean that inspiration was given so far as it was essentially necessary to effect all the purposes, special and general, for which it was bestowed: namely, to encourage the righteous and reclaim the guilty; to confirm the truth and unfold the import of the Jewish dispensation; and when that introductory system should be done away, to demonstrate the Divine origin, illustrate the nature, and forward the universal dominion, of the religion of Jesus Christ. For these purposes it seems essentially necessary that, in communicating religious truths, in declaring a revelation of unknown or imperfectly known transactions, and in predicting future events, the instrument employed should be preserved from all error; and that in reciting facts from his own knowledge, and in drawing

« AnteriorContinuar »