PART nt. SERMON III. 35 trines of the bible, by setting the seeming contradictions in a blasphemous light, and then demanding, " How can you prove, or how can you believe, that thisbook is the Wordof God, or that the religion it teaches isdivine ?" In such anhour of contest, how happy is the christian that can say, " Though I am not able to `solve all the difficulties in the bible, nor maintain the sacred 'authority of it against the cavils of wit and learning; yet I am well assured that the doctrines of this book are sacred, and the Authority of them divine : For when I heard and received them, they changed my nature, they subdued my sinful appetites, they made a new creature of me, and raised me from death to life ; they made me love Godabove all things, and gave me the lively and well- grounded hope of his. love : Therefore I cannot doubt but that the chief principles of this book are heavenly and divine, though I cannot so well prove that the'very words and syllables of it are so too ;- for it is the sense of scripture, and not themere letters of it, on which I build my hope." 1 might say yet further, 3. This inwardwitness gives great support in honrs of dark- ness and temptations of the devil, when such sudden thoughts shall be thrown intothe mind even of a learnedchristian : "What if the scripture should not be divine? What if this gospel and the other epistle should not be written by inspiration ? What if these should be merely the words of men, and not the very word of God ?" The believer, who feels a renewed nature, and a divine lifeworking within him, can boldly repel these fiery darts of Satan, with such a reply as this : " Though I cannot at pre- sent recollect all the, arguments that prove Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to be divine historians, or Peter and Paul to be inspired writers ; yet the substance and chief sense of their gospels, and their epistles must needs be divine, and God is the author of it, for it has begun the spiritual and eternal life in my soul ; and this is my witness (or rather the witness of the Spirit of God within ene) that Christ is the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners, and the religion that I profess and practice is safe and divine." And though there are many and sufficient arguments drawn from criticism, history, and human learning, to prove the sacred authorityof the bible, and such as may give abundant evidence to an honest enquirer, and full satisfaction that it is the word of God ; yet this is the chief evidence that the greatest partof chris- tians can ever attain of the divine original of the holy scripture itself, as well as the truth of the doctrines contained in it, via,. That they have found such a holy and heavenly change passed upon them by reading Or hearing the propositions, the histories,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=