redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation. It does not appear, from any thing I have seen, that the system of our opponents can, with any plausibility, be pretended to equal ours, respecting love to Christ. All that can be alleged, with any colour of reason; all, however, that I have noticed, is this; That, in proportion as we, in this way, furnish motives of love to Christ, we detract from those of love to the Father, by diminishing the freeness of his grace, and exhibiting him as one that was incapable of bestowing forgiveness, unless a price was paid for it. To this it is replied: If the incapacity of the Father to show mercy without an atonement, consisted in a want of love, or any thing of natural implacability, or even a reluctance to the bestowment of mercy, there would be force in the objection: but, if it be no other than the incapacity of a righteous governor, who, whatever goodwill he may have to an offender, cannot bear the thought of passing by the offence without some public expression of displeasure against it; that, while mercy triumphs, it may not be at the expense of law, of equity, and of the general good; such an incapacity rather infers a perfection, than an imperfection, in his nature; and, instead of diminishing our regard for his character, must have a powerful tendency to increase it. LETTER XII. ON VENERATION FOR THE SCRIPTURES. Christian Brethren, If we may judge of the nature of true piety by the examples of the prophets and holy men of old, we may conclude, with certainty, that an affectionate attachment to the holy scriptures, as the rule of faith and practice, enters deeply into the spirit of it. The holy scriptures were desribed, by David, under the names of the word, statutes, laws, precepts, judgments, and testimonies of God; and to these, all through the Psalms, especially in the 119th, he professes a most ardent attachment. Such language as the following was very common with him, as well as others of the Old-testament. writers; O how I love thy law!-Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.—Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wonderous things out of thy law.—My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.-Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.—Thy statutes have been my song in the house of my pilgrimage.—The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver. Dr. Priestley often professes great regard for the sacred writings, and is very severe on Mr. Burn, for suggesting, that he denied" the infallibility of the apostolic testimony concerning the person of Christ." He also tells Dr. Price, "No man can pay a higher regard to proper scripture authority than I do." We may therefore take it for granted, that a regard for the authority of scripture is a virtue; a virtue that our opponents, as well as we, would be thought to possess. I wish, in this Letter, to inquire, supposing the sacred writers to have been honest and good men, What a regard to the proper authority of their writings includes, and to compare it with the avowed sentiments of our adversaries. By those means, brethren, you may be the better able to judge for yourselves, whether the spirit which animates the whole body of the Socinian divinity does not breathe a language unfriendly to the sacred writings, and carry in it something hostile to every thought being subdued to the obedience of Christ. In order to judge of a regard for proper scriptural authority, it is necessary, in the first place, to have recourse to the professions of the sacred writers concerning what they wrote. If any man venerate the authority of scripture, he must receive it as BEING WHAT IT PROFESSES TO BE, AND FOR ALL THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH IT PROFESSES TO BE WRITTEN. If the scriptures profess to be divinely inspired, and assume to be the infallible standard of faith and practice; we must either receive them as such, or, if we would be consistent, disown the writers, as impostors. The professions of the sacred writers are as follow: The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue: the God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spake to me.—Thus saith the Lord. -And Jehoshaphat stood,and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.* New-testament writers bear ample testimony to the inspiration of those under the Old Testament. 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, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.-No prophecy of the scripture is of private interpretation-it is not to be considered as the private opinion of a fallible man, as the case is with other productions-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 Spirit.† Nor did the New-testament writers bear testimony to the inspiration of the prophets only; but considered their own writings as equally inspired: If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. Peter ranks the Epistles of * 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3. Isa. xlii. 1. 2 Chron. xx. 20. + 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. 2 Peter i. 20, 21, Paul with other scriptures.* There seems to have been one instance in which Paul disowned his having received any commandment from the Lord, and in which he proceeded to give his own private judgment:† but this appears to have been a particular exception from a general rule, of which notice was expressly given; an exception, therefore, which tends to strengthen, rather than to weaken the argument for apostolic inspiration. As the sacred writers considered themselves as divinely inspired, so they represented their writings as the infallible test of divine truth, to which all appeals were to be made, and by which every controversy in religious matters was to be decided. To the law, and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.-These are the true sayings of God. That which is noted in the scriptures of truth.—What_saith the scripture?-Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.-The Bereans searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.‡ The sacred writers did not spare to denounce the most awful judgments against those who should either pervert their writings, add to them, or detract from them. Those who wrested the apostolic Epistles, are said to have wrested them, as they did the other scriptures, to their own destruction.—Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let them be accursed.—What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.-If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life.§ Nothing short of the most perfect divine inspiration could justify such language as this. or secure those who used it from the charge of bold presumption and base imposition. * 1 Cor. xiv. 37. 2 Pet. iii. 16. † 1 Cor. vii. 25. Isa. viii. 20. Rev. xix. 9. Acts, xvii. 11. Rom. iv. 3. John, v. 39. 2 Pet. iii. 16. Gal. i. 8. Deut. xii. 32. Rev. xxii. 18, 19. Dr. Priestley often professes great regard for the scriptures, and, as has been observed before, is very severe on Mr. Burn for representing him as denying" the infallibility of the apostolic testimony concerning the person of Christ. Far be it from me to wish to represent the sentiments of Dr. Priestley in an unfair manner or in such a light as he himself could justly disavow. All I mean to do, is to quote a passage or two from his own writings, and add a few remarks upon them. Speaking in favour of reverence for the sacred writings, he says, "Not that I consider the books of scripture as inspired, and, on that account, entitled to this high degree of respect, but as authentic records of the dispensations of God to mankind, with every particular of which we cannot be too well acquainted." Again; "If you wish to know what, in my opinion, a Christian is bound to believe with respect to the scriptures, I answer, that the books which are universally received as authentic, are to be considered as faithful records of past transactions, and, especially, the account of the intercourse which the Divine Being has kept up with mankind from the beginning of the world, to the time of our Saviour and his apostles. No Christian is answerable for more than this. The writers of the books of scripture were men, and therefore fallible; but all that we have to do with them is in the character of historians and witnesses of what they heard and saw. Of course, their credibility is to be estimated, like that of other historians; viz. from the circumstances in which they wrote, as with respect to their opportunities of knowing the truth of what they relate, and the biases to which they might be subject. Like all other historians, they were liable to mistakes with respect to things of small moment, because they might not give sufficient attention to them; and with respect to their reasoning, we are fully at liberty to judge of it, as well as that of any other men, by a due consideration of the propositions they advance, and the arguments they allege. For it by no means follows, because a man has had communications with the Deity for certain purposes, and he may be depended upon with respect to his account of those communi |