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ART. way of treating them. And if the providence of God fhould fo order them in the management of their compofures, that it may afterwards appear that predictions were intermixed with them; yet they are not to be called Prophets, unless God had revealed to them the myftical intent of fuch predictions: so that though the Spirit of God prophefied in them, yet they themselves not understanding it, are not to be accounted Prophets. Of this laft fort are the books of the Pfalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclefiaftes, &c.

According to the different order of these inspirations was the Old Teftament divided into three volumes. The infpiration of the New Teftament is all to be reduced to the first fort, except the Revelation, which is purely and ftrictly prophetical. The other parts of the New Teftament are writ after a fofter and clearer illumination, and in a style fuitable to it. Now because enthusiasts and impoftors may falfely pretend to divine commiffions and infpirations, it is neceffary (both for the undeceiving of thofe who may be mifled by a hot and ungoverned imagination, and for giving fuch an authority to men truly inspired, as may diftinguifh them from falfe pretenders) that the man thus infpired should have fome evident fign or other, either fome miraculous action that is vifibly beyond the powers of nature, or fome particular difcovery of fomewhat that is to come, which must be fo expreffed, that the accomplishment of it may fhew it to be beyond the conjectures of the most fagacious: by one or both of those a man must prove, and the world must be convinced, that he is fent and directed by God. And if fuch men deliver their meffage in writing, we must receive fuch writings as facred and infpired.

In these writings fome parts are historical, fome doctrinal, and fome elenchtical or argumentative. As to the historical part, it is certain that whatsoever is delivered to us, as a matter truly tranfacted, must be indeed fo: but it is not necessary, when discourses are reported, that the individual words should be fet down juft as they were faid; it is enough if the effect ‹.f them is reported: nor is it neceflary that the order of time fhould be ftrictly obferved, or that all the conjunctions in such relations fhould be understood feverely according to their grammatical meaning. It is vifible that all the facred writers write in a diverfity of style, according to their different tempers, and to the various impreffions that were made upon them. In that the inspiration left them to the use of their faculties, and to their previous cuftoms and habits: the defign of revelation, as to this part of its fubject, is only to give such reprefentations of matters of fact, as may both work upon and guide our belief; but the order of time, and the strict words

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having no influence that way, the writers might difpofe them, AR T. and exprefs them varioufly, and yet all be exactly true, the conjunctive particles do rather import that one paffage comes to be related after another, than that it was really tranfacted after it.

As to the doctrinal parts, that is, the rules of life which thefe books fet before us, or the propofitions that are offered to us in them, we muft entirely acquiefce in thefe, as in the voice of God who fpeaks to us by the means of a person, whom he, by his authorizing him in fo wonderful a manner, obliges us to hear and believe. But when these writers come to explain or argue, they ufe many figures that were well known in that age: but because the fignification of a figure is to be taken from common ufe, and not to be carried to the utmost extent that the words themselves will bear, we must therefore enquire, as much as we can, into the manner and phrafeology of the time in which fuch perfons lived, which with relation to the New Teftament will lead us far: and by this we ought to govern the extent and importance of these figures.

As to their arguings, we are further to confider, that sometimes they argue upon certain grounds, and at other times they go upon principles, acknowledged and received by those with whom they dealt. It ought never to be made the only way of proving a thing, to found it upon the conceffions of those with whom we deal; yet when a thing is once truly proved, it is a juft and ufual way of confirming it, or at least of filencing those who oppose it, to fhew that it follows naturally from those opinions and principles that are received among them. Since therefore the Jews had, at the time of the writing of the New Teftament, a peculiar way of expounding many prophecies and paffages in the Old Teftament, it was a very proper way to convince them, to alledge many places according to their key and methods of expofition. Therefore when divine writers argue upon any point, we are always bound to believe the conclufions that their reafonings end in, as parts of divine revelation but we are not bound to be able to make out or even to affent to all the premifes made ufe of by them in their whole extent; unless it appears plainly that they affirm the premises as exprefsly as they do the conclufions proved by them.

And thus far I have laid down fuch a fcheine concerning infpiration and infpired writings, as will afford, to fuch as apprehend it aright, a folution to moft of thefe difficulties with which we are urged on the account of fome paflages in the facred writings. The laying down a fcheme that afferts an immediate infpiration which goes to the ftyle, and to every tittle, and that denies any error to have crept into any of the copies, as it feems on the one hand to raise the honour of the Scriptures

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ART. Scriptures very highly, fo it lies open on the other hand to great difficulties, which feem infuperable in that hypothesis; whereas a middle way, as it fettles the divine infpiration of these writings, and their being continued down genuine and unvitiated to us, as to all that, for which we can only fuppofe that inspiration was given; fo it helps us more eafily out of all difficulties, by yielding that which ferves to anfwer them, without weakening the authority of the whole.

I come in the laft place to examine the negative confequence, that arifes out of this head, which excludes those books commonly called Apocryphal, that are here rejected, from being a part of the Canon: and this will be eafily made out. The chief reafon that preffes us Chriftians to acknowledge the Old Testament, is the teftimony that Chrift and his Apostles gave to thofe books, as they were then received by the Jewish Church; to whom were committed the oracles of God. Now it is not fo much as pretended, that ever these books were received among the Jews, or were fo much as known to them. None of the writers of the New Teftament cite or mention them; neither Philo nor Jofephus fpeaks of them. Jofephus on the contrary fays, they had only twenty-two books that deserved belief, but that those which were written after the time of Artaxerxes, were not of equal credit with the reft: and that in that period they had no prophets at all. The Chriftian Church was for fome ages an utter ftranger to those books.. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, being defired by Onefimus to give him a perfect catalogue of the books of the Old Teftament, took a journey on purpose to the Eaft, to examine this matter at its fource: and having, as he fays, made an exact enquiry, he fent him the names of them juft as we receive the Canon; of which Eufebius Eufeb. Hift. fays, that he has preferved it, because it contained all those books 1. iv. c. 26. which the Church owned. Origen gives us the fame catalogue according to the tradition of the Jews, who divided the Öld In Pfal. i. Teftament into twenty-two books, according to the letters of In Synop. their alphabet. Athanafius reckons them up in the fame manInEp.pafch, ner to be twenty-two, and he more diftinctly fays, "that he

"delivered thofe, as they had received them by tradition, and "as they were received by the whole Church of Chrift, because "fome prefumed to mix apocryphal books with the divine "Scriptures: and therefore he was fet on it by the orthodox (6 brethren, in order to declare the canonical books delivered as "fuch by tradition, and believed to be of divine infpiration. "It is true," he adds, "that befides these there were other "books which were not put into the Canon, but yet were ap"pointed by the fathers to be read by those who first come to "be inftructed in the way of piety: and then he reckons up "moft of the apocryphal books." Here is the first mention.

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we find of them, as indeed it is very probable they were made at AR T. Alexandria, by fome of thofe Jews who lived there in great numbers. Both Hilary and Cyril of Jerufalem give us the fame catalogue of the books of the Old Teftament, and affirm that they delivered them thus according to the tradition of the ancients. Cyril fays, that all other books are to be put in a Catech, 4. fecond order. Gregory Nazianzen reckons up the 22 books, and adds that none befides them are genuine. The words that are in the Article are repeated by St. Jerom in feveral of his prefaces. And that which should determine this whole matter, is, that the council of Laodicea by an exprefs canon delivers the Can. 95, catalogue of the canonical books as we do, decreeing that thefe and 60. only fhould be read in the Church. Now the canons of this council were afterwards received into the code of the Canons of the univerfal Church; fo that here we have the concurring fenfe of the whole Church of God in this matter.

It is true, the book of the Revelation not being reckoned in it, this may be urged to detract from its authority: but it was already proved, that that book was received much earlier into the Canon of the Scriptures, fo the defign of this Canon being to establish the authority of thofe books that were to be read in the Church, the darkness of the Apocalypfe making it ap pear reasonable not to read it publickly, that may be the reafon why it is not mentioned in it, as well as in fome later catalogues.

Here we have four centuries clear for our Canon, in exclufion to all additions. It were easy to carry this much further down, and to fhew that these books were never by any express definition received into the Canon, till it was done at Trent: and that in all the ages of the Church, even after they came to be much efteemed, there were divers writers, and those generally the most learned of their time, who denied them to be a part of the Canon. At firft many writings were read in the Churches, that were in high reputation both for the fake of the authors, and of the contents of them, though they were never looked on as a part of the Canon: fuch were Clemens's Can. 47. Epistle, the books of Hermas, the Acts of the Martyrs, befidi s feveral other things which were read in particular Churches. And among thefe the apocryphal books came alfo to be read, as containing fome valuable books of inftruction, befide feveral fragments of the Jewish hiftory, which were perhaps too eafily believed to be true. These therefore being ufually read, they came to be reckoned among canonical Scriptures: for this is the reafon affigned in the third council of Carthage, for calling them canonical, because they had received them from their Fathers as books that were to be read in Churches: and the word Canonical was by fome in thofe ages uted in a large

fente,

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ART. fenfe, in oppofition to fpurious; fo that it fignified no more than that they were genuine. So much depends upon this Article, that it feemed neceffary to dwell fully upon it, and to ftate it clearly.

It remains only to observe the diversity beween the Articles now established, and those fet forth by King Edward. In the latter there was not a catalogue given of the books of Scripture, nor was there any diftinction ftated between the Canonical and the Apocryphal books. In those there is likewise a paragraph, or rather a parenthefis, added after the words proved thereby, in thefe words, Although fometimes it may be admitted by God's faithful people as pious, and conducing unto order and decency: which are now left out, because the authority of the Church as to matters of order and decency, which was only intended to be afferted by this period, is more fully explained and stated in the 35th Article.

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