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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
iznow
what
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
of
various
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,