SEWN. III., INWARD WITNESS TO CHRISTIANITY. 4$ that christianity is divine, and that these doctrines are from heaven, though a text or two may be written false, or wrong translated, or though a whole book or two may be hard to be proved authentic. The learned well iznowwhat need there is of turning over the histories of ancient times, of 'the traditions and writings of the fathers, and authors, pious and profane ; what need of critical skill in the holy languages, and in ancient manuscripts; what a wide survey ofvarious cir- cumstances of fact, time, place, style, language, &c. is necessary, to confirm one or another book or verse of the New Testament, and to answer the doubts of the scrupulous, and the bold objections of the infidel; what laborious reasonings are requisite to found our faith on this bottom. Now how few of the common rank of ehristians, whose hearts are inlaid with the true faith in the Son of God, and real holiness, have leisure, books, instructions, advantages, and judgment to make a tho- rough search into these matters, and to determine, upon a just view of argument, that these books were written by the sacred authors whose names they bear, and that these authors were under an immediate inspiration in writing them? What a glorious advantage is it then to bave such an infallible testimony to the truth of the gospel wrought and written in the heart by renewing grace, as does not depend on this laborious, learned, and argumentative evidence of the divine authority of the bible, or of any particular book or verse of it ? 2. If we consider what bold assaults are sometimes made upon the faith of the unlearned christian, by the deists and unbelievers of our age, by disputing against the authority of the scripture, by ridiculing the strange narratives and sublime doctrines 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 this book is the word of God, or that the religion it teaches is divine ?" In such an hour 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,
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