the books are written, and from the different manners in which the same events are related and predicted by different authors, it appears, that the sacred penmen were permitted to write as their several tempers, understandings, and habits of life, directed; and that the knowledge communicated to them by inspiration on the subject of their writings, was applied in the same manner as any knowledge acquired by ordinary means. Nor is it to be supposed that they were thus inspired in every fact which they related, or in every precept which they delivered. They were left to the common use of their faculties, and did not, upon every occasion, stand in need of supernatural communication ; but whenever, and as far as, divine assistance was necessary, it was always afforded." Again he says, "Though it is evident that the sacred historians sometimes wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it does not follow that they derived from revelation the knowledge of those things which might be collected from the common sources of human intelligence. It is sufficient to believe, that by the general superintendence of the Holy Spirit, they were directed in the choice of their materials, enlightened to judge of the truth and importance of those accounts from which they borrowed their information," (and which he states afterwards were accounts written by uninspired men)" and prevented from recording any material error." He is here treating of the writers of the Old Testament; of the writers of the New Testament his sentiments are the same. He says, "If we believe that God sent Christ into the world to found a universal religion, and that, by the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, he empowered the apostles to propagate the gospel, as stated in these books, we cannot but believe that he would, by his immediate interposition, enable those whom he appointed to record the gospel for the use of future ages, to write without the omission of any important truth, or the insertion of any material error." And these sentiments are generally receiv

ed as orthodox-are quoted from Bishop Law, and recommended, though not expressly adopted, by the late Bishop Watson, in his answer to Paine, and are laid down in numerous works as the true principles of Scripture Inspiration. What ideas the profoundly learned Bishop Marsh, one of the Professors of Divinity at Cambridge, entertains of the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, is evident from his laboured scheme to account for the composition of the three first gospels, as given with his translation of Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament; in which he supposes a principal and a supplemental sketch of the Saviour's life and discourses to have been first drawn up by unknown authors, to have had various additions made to them afterwards as they passed through various unknown hands, --and at last to have been digested by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with further additions, into the form of their respective gospels. Other statements of this nature might be mentioned; but they all agree in the leading principle of allowing only a very partial inspiration to the sacred writers. Bishop Lowth, for instance, is a name ever to be mentioned with respect by the Biblical student, for his valuable Prelections on Hebrew poetry, and Version of Isaiah but when he represents the prophets as borrowing ideas from one another, and as improving or debasing what they thus borrowed according to the sublimity of their poetical genius or the purity of their critical taste; does he not degrade them, in a great degree, from prophets to mere poets? He certainly endeavours to elevate our esteem for their talents as men ; but he assists in abolishing our reverence for their writings as flowing from the immediate dictate of God.

Now how do Deists receive these concessions so liberally made? The advocates of Revelation may be regarded as saying to them, "See! we have come half way to meet you surely you will not obstinately refuse belief, now that we require you to believe so little.". What does the

Deist answer? He says, "You are admitting, as fast as you can, that we are in the right. If you, who view the subject through the prejudices of your profession, are constrained to give up half of what we demand, unbiassed persons will augur from the admission, that truth would require a surrender of the whole." No, my friends and brethren! he who would effectually defend the Christian faith must take his station on higher ground than this. What! tell the world, that to escape the increasing influence of infidelity, they must surrender the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures! As well might we tell them, that to obtain security when a flood is rising, they should quit the top of the mountain to take refuge in a cave at its base.

Assuredly, this is a state of things, calculated to fill the breast of the sincere and humble Christian with profound concern, if not with deep alarm. On the one hand, he beholds Divine Revelation assaulted with unprecedented fury and subtlety by those who avow themselves as its enemies; on the other, he sees it half betrayed and deserted by those who regard themselves as its friends. Every devout believer in Revelation feels an inward predilection for the opinion, that the inspiration of a divinely communicated writing must be plenary and absolute. He feels great pain on being told, that this is a mistaken notion; that he must surrender many things in the Sacred Writings to the enemy, to retain any chance of preserving the rest that he must believe the writers of the Scriptures to have been men liable to error, as a preliminary to his assurance that the religion of the Scriptures is true. Surely, every one whose heart does not take part with the assailant of his faith, must be glad to be relieved from the necessity of making surrenders so fatal. The bowed staff eagerly springs back to its natural straightness, when lightened of the weight under which it bent: so he who has relinquished the doctrine of plenary inspiration, only because he saw no other way of accounting for the diffi

culties which have been pointed out in the Sacred Writings, will return to it with joy, as soon as he sees how those difficulties may be explained, without the hypothesis of error in the inspired penmen. Reflection, then, upon these things, has occasioned a desire in myself and some friends, to bring before the public, a view of the nature of the Holy Word in which this is done,-a view which, I strongly feel, is the only one that places the Divine Book beyond the reach of injury from infidel objections. It is, however, with much diffidence, that I address an auditory from a station, which is at other times occupied by some of the ablest men, whom the Christian ministry of this metropolis can boast :* [and I feel the same self-distrust, in a still greater degree, on addressing the public from the press.] My only hope of obtaining acceptance, is founded in my conviction of the solidity of the sentiments, which I am to be the very inadequate organ of unfolding: sure, also, I am, that no candid minds will be less pleased wit the truth, because it is offered through a channel, which they might not previously have supposed adapted to convey it. The defence of the oracles which contain the revelation of the Christian religion, is the common duty of all who assume the Christian name and all who are sincerely attached to the Christian cause, will extend the right hand of fellowship to any one, be he otherwise who he may, who can point out a new line of defence, and shew how the divine authority of Revelation may be more effectually upheld. We are assured, also, that the Lord's care over his church can never be intermitted; that in proportion to the magnitude of the dangers to which she is exposed, will be the communication of means by which she may be defended and it is perfectly in harmony with the ordinary economy of Divine Providence, that those

* A séries of Lectures on Scripture Biography was then in a course of delivery at Albion Hall, by the most eminent Ministers of the Independent Connexion.

means should come from a quarter whence they are least expected. Confiding then in the divine support, on the one hand, and relying, on the other, on the charity and love of truth which must ever reign in the bosom of the true Christian ;-appealing also to the liberality and regard to pure reason which is constantly professed by the Deist; I beg the favourable and earnest attention of this auditory, [and of the reader,] while I discuss the subjects announced for consideration in these Lectures.

The question of the Necessity of Divine Revelation, has been so frequently and so satisfactorily treated by others, that, as it is my wish, as far as possible, to avoid going over ground that has been trodden before, I shall not dwell long on this part of the subject.

The view which I would take of this question, is this. It is certain, that all the facts with which history brings us acquainted in regard to the state of mankind in former ages, and all those which are supplied to us by the observations of travellers respecting the present state of mankind in the different countries on the globe, afford the most decided evidence, that, without aid from Revelation, man is little better than a brute;-that to Revelation are owing all the superior excellences which ennoble his character as a man. Infidel writers talk of the light of reason, and they speak of the duties of man in society, with every thing necessary to his moral and intellectual improvement, as being easily deducible by the light of nature. The high utility of these sources of intelligence I readily admit but when I hear such assertions as these, I always feel a wish to be informed how it has happened, that the light of nature never conducted man to these discoveries, except when Nature had the means of lighting her candle at the torch of Revelation. It is evidently from the general improvement in the intelligence of the human mind which Revelation has produced, that modern infidels