ing-presses and steam engines, then these things are as much an objection to the God of Nature, as the late appearance of Christianity is against the God of the Bible. Or rather, considering God's progressive methods in all other things, we may at least conclude that, in this respect, the Bible looks like one of his works.

If a master in drawing give a few rude lines to a beginner, and a more finished copy to more advanced pupils, those who have received some advantage from the more complete specimen must not, on that account, deny the ruder outline came from the same hand; or say that it indicates a want of skill and power, since the different pieces were for different purposes-adapted to the stages of the learners. So if God gave but an imperfect outline of himself to the Jews, this is no disparagement, nor must we judge merely by this, but by the express image afforded unto us; nor can we reasonably reject Christianity because Judaism is imperfect, for that is the reason why Christianity was introduced. There is much confusion in men's minds on this subject; looking at the New and Old Testaments as if on the same footing; and not remembering that the Old was intended chiefly for the Jews; whilst God hath in these latter days spoken unto US BY HIS SON.

Thus far we have considered some of those preliminary objections, which an intelligent infidel of our own age might bring against the Bible, were it now found and presented to his examination: but, indeed, this is stating the Bible cause at a great disadvantage; for we ought rather to suppose these documents put into the hands of a heathen,—a Chinese, or Hindoo, or into the hands of a Grecian philosopher; and would these find the objections we enumerated? No; but, together with a less amount of ceremonies than they are accustomed to, they would find the great truth of one God, and be astonished at the simplicity, wisdom, and grandeur of the Old Testament; whilst it is only those who have to some extent been educated by the New, who excuse their rejection of both by pointing out the incompleteness of the Old: which has indeed been laid aside for the fuller manifestation made in the gospel. We must, therefore, consider rather what a heathen would say, and not what is thus unfairly pointed out in the beginning, by the light borrowed from the end. But those who have received no benefit from Christianity would be in no condition to criticize even Judaism. And this is another reason why the gospel was of so late introduction; God left men to themselves, to advance in all refinement of philosophy, and to try their power in religion and morals, that, advancing as they did in these matters, in the downward direction, towards a complication of idolatry and viceturning their genius and refinement to adorn superstition and gratify lust -when thus in the wisdom of God, the world had been left to its own wisdom, by which he was not known, it pleased him by the preaching of what it may call foolishness, to make foolish the wisdom of the world, by comparison, with his own word of life. While God was maturing his plan amongst the Jews, the world was also making another experiment on its own account; and when this failed, God tried his own; sending Paul to the very centre of arts, politeness, and philosophy, with this message, "Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."

Setting aside, then, such preliminary objections, with which some satisfy themselves-objections which mistake the meaning and purpose of the Bible, confound the times and circumstances of the Old and New Testaments, and overlook the analogies of nature, in which there are the same imperfect commencement of things that are to be judged of in their maturity, we may inquire more directly and deeply,-Is the Bible from God? And this question we shall chiefly answer by another,-If it be not from God, from whom has it been derived?

And first, we observe, that the Bible exists, and that it did not make itself; otherwise, it is the only book, or anything else that has been its own author. Other books require a writer, to consider and express the subject, care in writing, copying, or printing; and in general we may observe that, however foolish a book may be, it is always the product of intelligence and design. The intelligence is of two sorts, that indicated in the material process of paper or parchment, printing or writing; and secondly, that implied in the thoughts it contains, their expression, arrangement, purpose, and adaptation.

If you were to find a beautifully chiselled statue, you would not for a moment doubt that it was a work of art, and that it displayed a genius in the artist, proportioned to the beauty of the sculpture. If we see a rose growing, we admit it to be (in ordinary language) a work of nature, Now this method of reasoning is applicable to the case before us, to show that, as the statue is a work of art, the rose a natural production, so the Bible is a SPIRITUAL PRODUCTION, the highest form of art, or, if you please, of nature or creation. And first, towards the proof of this, we suggest that the Bible did not make itself, but required some author ADEQUATE in all respect to the performance. Who, then, is this author, or who are the authors?

We observe, secondly, that besides its not making itself, NO EVIL SPIRIT, demon, or malicious deity, could or would make it. Take for instance such a personage as the Bible describes Satan to be, and we see his moral incompetence: the work bears no trace of such an author; it would be counterworking himself, placing mankind on their guard, against his own wiles. He could not make it, because he is bad, and it is good; he would not make it, for the very same reason. And further, he is too cunning to frustrate his own purposes; Satan does not cast out Satan; he is too wise to be so divided against himself. (See Matt. xii. 22-30.) And whatever, for the present, we may think of personal possession by demons, it is at least certain, that the great object of the Bible is to expel Satan from all influence and authority in this world, to "exorcise" him from the hearts of men; and therefore, both from policy and from selfishness, he would have no willing hand in making such a book; besides, it is contrary to the nature of things, for a cause to produce an effect the opposite of itself: for black to produce white; for the devil to make a Bible. And therefore, here are two things we must exclude from the authorship; it did not make itself, and Satan could not, and would not make it; for "the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil." From whom, then, did the Bible originate?

Thirdly, we assert that MEN COULD NOT MAKE IT. Suppose the book were unknown to you, except as having certain titles to its different parts;

what would be your idea of its authorship? We are supposing that you have found the originals, and could read and understand them: you would then want an author capable of such a production: CAPABLE EVEN of FORGING IT of making such a book, whether true or false. What qualities of intellect, and character of mind, would all this imply! certainly greater than that which has produced any other book; higher in intellect, and altogether different in philosophy and morals: FOR IT IS A BOOK THAT ARISES OUT OF NO OTHERS: as Mohammed's book is a plagiarism from this; with sufficient differences to point out the true original: as indeed even poems and books of science grow out of former poetry and previous science; but not so with this production: it is not a collection of ordinary facts or observations; nor, like most philosophies, the result of original mind dealing with the leading thoughts of the age.

Now in proof of these assertions, to show that men could not make it, we may notice, first, the variety of style in this book. In general, every man writes like himself, and a discerning judge can perceive the same hand in various productions: but what an astonishing variety of handling there is in this book! Here is the simplest narration of history, there the sublimest flights of eloquence; the pen of a child and of an orator : here again, dark emblematical sayings, responded to, there by clear facts, recorded in another hand, and evidently in another age: in one place, indignant remonstrance; in another, affectionate warning; in a third, biting satire here, exquisite parables; there, elaborate reasoning: altogether, as a matter of style and authorship, showing a perfection and variety to be found in no other book. IT WOULD BE EASIER TO INVENT A SHAKSPeare, Homer, OR MILTON, or all three together, THAN TO INVENT A BIBLE, merely as a question of genius or style, independently of truth or falsehood. Admit then, as from this variety you must, that many hands, and these of no ordinary character, have been employed in producing this book.

But again, as to the style, examine and you will find that it intimates not only a variety of hands, but different and remote ages of the world, which shows plainly that these men, living at distant periods of time, DID NOT LAY THEIR HEADS TOGETHER; the book is no concerted scheme from the combined energies of a number of gifted men: they were too far off from one another to admit of collusion. For if you take the stages of society herein implied (and every book carries not only the stamp of its author but the stamp of its times and country,) there will be observed pastoral simplicity growing up into monarchial luxury; and the course of society downward from this to degeneracy and dissolution: this will be observed along with indicative changes in the methods or style of expression. Look at David and Solomon, the golden age of Hebrew greatness, as also of the Hebrew language. Notice Augustus Cæsar, the culminating point of Roman greatness and the purity of the Latin tongue; go back from Virgil, Horace, and Cicero, to the rudeness of the earlier writers, or forward to the degeneracy of later ones; and every writer is a sign of his age: so these different parts of the Bible indicate different stages of the world. And there is a consistency between the style and subject and the times. For instance, we can trace the elements of national character, the sources of degeneracy and superstition: as the calf on the

road from Egypt, and other superstitions joined to this in Canaan as subsequent contributions from the nations with whom they afterwards came in contact.

Do we find anything here about Israel being carried captive, (as in Daniel) the account is written in the dialect of the people whose yoke the Israelites suffered under. Just as a book, written soon after the Norman conquest of England, has the mark of that time, by the mixture of languages, as if the conqueror had with his own hand signed such a book; so in the book of Daniel, where there is an account of Israel's captivity being carried to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar might have signed that book, for the Chaldee or Babylonish dialect there appears and exists ever afterwards in Jewish literature. Again, as the result of the Norman conquest, our law was written in the conqueror's language, which in some formalities, is used to the present day: and so after the Babylonish captivity, besides that the Bible-books are tinged with that language, the Jewish commentaries are written in that dialect.

So far then, taking one great division of the Bible, the Old Testament, here is plainly a great number of writers, living in very different stages of society; the books indicating these stages, not by figures or dates, but by the nature of the facts contained, and the method of conveying them, by varying styles and dialects.

Consider then the other division, the Christian part of these books: look at the language and style, and from this, say in what stage of the world they were written. First, we have a Hebrew method of thinking, a modern degenerate Greek style of writing, and evidences of a Roman form of government. When, therefore, must these writings have been produced? evidently in a later age, when the Greek power was decayed, and its language, though prevailing, degenerate, and when the Roman power was uppermost; such is the style of the second class of papers, by men of Hebrew thoughts under Roman power, and using the Greek language. And what events do these papers relate? Events suited to the time, which time is stamped on every sentence, namely, when Judea was a Roman province; and when therefore a Roman magistrate could put to death the chief person about whom these later books are written. Again then, we say, the style of these books show that they were written at a later age than the others: wherefore the writers could not have concerted together.

And further, which is equally important, those people (the Jews) who cling to the first set of these books (the Old Testament) were the judicial murderers of that person about whom the other set of books (the New Testament) were written; so there can be no collusion here.

And thus much for the style of the Bible, which proves it to have been written by different men, in different ages, who could have no intercourse with each other and the writers of the one part were persecuted and are still denounced by the adherents of the other part.

Secondly, we notice the purpose of the whole book: all these separate contributions form one entire system; there is a definite object running through the whole series and completed by the last additions. WHOSE PURPOSE then was this? Not the purpose of the writer of the first * See Divine Legation of Moses, book iv. sec. 6.

book; otherwise why not state at once fully what he meant, and not leave the matter so unfinished, for the hap-hazard additions of men a thousand years distant, and of men who, not being in his secret, could not forward his purpose?

Nor have we in the first book a principle, as axioms of geometry, by the help of which the system might be reasoned out, nor is the first book a preface or introduction to all the others, stating the writer's design, so that after writers might complete it: there is only so much intimated as to awaken expectation, not enough to tell us clearly what to expect, and therefore the next writer would be at a loss what to add in order to advance a purpose of which he was ignorant. How then is it to be explained that each writer does add that which gradually brings on the consummation? It is plainly because these different penmen were but the SECRETARIES OF SOME GREAT AUTHOR, who, by degrees, announced his purpose, according as he guided onward the wheels of time and man's affairs. Together with the march of events, this purpose was made plainer by the history of those events which were to bring it about, as well as by the intimations of promises and types. So then, here was a wide purpose, which the particular writers could not fully see; but which the abiding editor, author, and publisher of these separate pamphlets communicated by degrees to his various amanuenses, as the progress of the world warranted. And then came the end, which was the ministration and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It would have been of no use for these writers to have known clearly the full purpose, since it was a purpose to be carried out on the basis of facts; and these facts were beyond their power: Christianity is an historical religion based not on mere THEORY, but on the EVENTS of the Redeemer's life. The writers had not to compose a tragedy, and each contribute an act, but to record the progress and completion of a tragedy in actual life, woven into the world's history to affect the world's destiny. The commencement was no outline from which the plan might be guessed and completed, but a seed from which the whole was to grow, and be developed into completeness, not on paper, in theory or imagination, but by the marshalling of events, till the catastrophe on Calvary, as the final scene in this sublime heavenmanaged tragedy. Here is then a record of facts, which facts are a development, in human history, of a divine idea. Whilst from the style of the record we have seen that it indicates several hands, and several stages in the world's history,-primitive or patriarchal, Jewish, Egyptian, and the intervening stages till the Christian era,-indicating these ages by its own likeness to them in style, spirit, subject, and peculiar dialects; thus, as a thing of growth, retaining the traces of its growth, as the circles in a tree, or the strata of the earth, or as the various styles of architecture, including every stage of progress, and forming one cosmopolitan structure; still the plan of the building was beyond the reach of the masons who, at various times and in divers manners, added stone to stone.

We have seen the style of the Bible and the purpose of the whole to be too wide for those who recorded only the progress of what they could neither hasten onwards nor fully comprehend, till the tragedy of the cross was completed and explained. We now notice, thirdly, THE MORAL of this tragedy. So far it has been regarded as a purpose developed histo