all could judge of their reality by their ordinary senses, and all were conscious of having witnessed them; they and their children were all concerned in them: thirdly, there were various monuments of the different events preserved from time to time as they occurred, and remaining from age to age; there were the overthrown walls of Jericho, the miraculous stream of water in the wilderness, the tables of the law, the pot of manna, Aaron's rod that periodically budded, the feast of the passover, regularly commemorated every year from the night of their departure out of Egypt; there was circumcision, the annual feast of tabernacles, and that of Purim; there was the family of Aaron, and the tribe of Levites, the conquest of Canaan, and expulsion of the Canaanites; the twelve large stones set up in Gilgal, and many other memorials or observances connected with the different events of their extraordinary history, all attesting, at the time, the certainty of the facts they were intended to perpetuate, and the truth of the history that recorded them. The commencing of these monuments and observances in the very age of their occurrence, and their preservation down to the latest periods of the Jewish national history, afford full satisfaction to the fourth rule above laid down; and in connexion with the preceding, completely answer to the tests that have been established.

We might notice several other important topics intimately connected with the argument, especially the remarkable fact of the inflexible attachment of the Jews to their religion, amidst the great reverses of their fortune, and the abundant materials to be gathered from profane writers, attesting their national existence as far back as the time of Moses. But as we are merely introducing to the notice of our readers the subject of the canon, and the ascertainment of the text, we must cut short our observations, with briefly observing that the sanction given alike to the Mosaic writings and the rest of the Old Testament, by Jesus Christ, sufficiently authenticates it for all the sacred purposes for which we as Christians use it.

We propose, therefore, now to give a brief account of the manner in which the scriptures of the Old Testament came to be universally accepted by the Jews, and to be formed into one sacred volume. In the first place, the law of Moses, with the rest of the pentateuch, was, as we have already stated, written and fully established as of divine authority during his life time. An authentic copy was kept always deposited in the ark of the covenant;-many other copies were used for the service of the priests; and, probably, most of the families, or at least the heads of the people, were in possession of it, as they were commanded to read it to their children, and make them thoroughly acquainted with its contents. Then there could be no difficulty, no uncertainty, about its preservation in the early

periods of their history. Every prince succeeding to the throne was required to copy it out with his own hand, in order to secure his complete knowledge and accurate memory of its contents. Its integrity was therefore nearly as well guarded as that of the Bible now is among us, by its universal diffusion. The book of Joshua, that of Judges, of Ruth, and the two books of Samuel, which were on the best authority admitted, at the time, to be written by Samuel, or under his inspection, with some slight circumstantial additions to the books of Samuel after his death, were all preserved during the Babylonish captivity, in the hands of various individuals, because there was then no public depositary. But after the return, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah, all inspired men, together with the great Sanhedrim, exercised the utmost care in making a general collection of all the sacred books; or settling the canon up to their own times. They were fully competent to such a task, being themselves under the guidance of inspiration, at the head of the nation, and having the command of all suitable means. They were an ample guarantee to their own nation, and therefore to us, for the authority of those books, to which they gave the sanction of divine authority. From the second book of Maccabees, ch. ii., ver. 13, we derive a valuable historic testimony to the fact that Nehemiah added to the law or writings of Moses the other sacred books expressly named, as the two books of Kings and Chronicles, the prophets, the writings of David and Solomon, and in short that collection appears to have contained all the Old Testament as it now exists, with the exception of Malachi. What was historical in the entire collection, was of a public nature, and therefore of public notoriety, and of equally public scrutiny; for, after the time of the return, and this recension of their sacred books, they were publicly read in the synagogues throughout the whole land every sabbath day. These synagogues were also instituted in other countries as well as in Judea, and thus the sacred writings of the Jews may be said to have been secured by their multiplication after the time of Ezra, against corruption or material alteration; and from this period they became matter of curious inquiry to the philosophers among heathen nations. Their integrity, therefore, through the period from the return to the coming of Christ, is amply guaranteed by the fact of their publicity. No important alteration could have been introduced. It would have been just as impossible as to alter the text of Homer or Virgil, at the present day, without adequate authority. The short prophecy of Malachi, which was written about 420 years before the Christian era, could not have been added to the canon without the authority of the Sanhedrim. It is generally admitted to have been done in the time, and with the approbation of Simon the Just; but at all event was done with the consent of the national council, and

upon the evidence which its author had given of being a true prophet. And indeed it may be remarked of this book, as well as of all the other books of the prophets, they carry their own vouchers with them, being now severally verified as inspired by the accomplishment of the great subject to which they all more or less relate. Their internal evidences are alone sufficient to attest their claim to inspiration. But we have an additional voucher for the integrity of the whole Jewish canon up to the year 285 before Christ, in the production of the Greek version, which was certainly made from the standard authorities of the Jews, and deposited in the hands of the heathen literati, who had been curious to possess the Hebrew writings in a language familiar to themselves; and whether all that has been recorded of the occasion and circumstances which led to the production of that version, be true or false, of its actual appearance in the Greek tongue about that period, there can be no more reason to doubt, than of the existence of the Hebrew original, from which it was made. From that period it became additionally impossible for the Jews of succeeding times, to effect any material alteration in their sacred books, had they been so disposed. But we know that on the contrary they exercised the most scrupulous care, even to the numbering of verses, of words, and of letters.

About this period, or perhaps before it, the Hebrew had become a dead language, except for religious purposes. The Syriac and the Greek superseded it, and these continued in common use up to the time of Christ's appearance. Thus, then, we have the double security, first, of the ancient copies which the Jews kept in their temple, and in their synagogues generally throughout the world, and which were perpetuated and multiplied from age to age as circumstances required; and then we have the Greek version, which came into public notoriety and general use before the time of our Saviour, wherever the Greek language was spoken, and the scattered Jews dwelt, and which it was impossible for either Gentiles or Jews to corrupt, in any thing of importance. The Greek version and the Hebrew original thus mutually check and support each other.

Considering the manner in which books were then preserved and multiplied, the length of time through which the Jewish scriptures have been kept, we may say, without material infraction or corruption, considering the amazing disasters and vicissitudes which both the Jews and their Grecian conquerors have experienced, it may well be a matter of admiration and astonishment, that these writings should have been preserved to the world in such a high state of integrity to the present times. There are probably some slight errors of the pen, arising from the multiplicity of copiers; sometimes words written on the margin for explanation, or to supply defects that had arisen from injuries in

former manuscripts, have at length crept into the text. Accidental errors, and officious as well as injudicious alterations have doubtless been made during the long lapse of ages, but there is no reason to suspect any intentional falsification, nor any alteration, materially affecting the import of these ancient and invaluable records. The various discrepancies among the numerous versions and ancient manuscripts, which the rigid and long continued scrutiny, both of friends and foes, has detected, cannot be said to affect the authority of any doctrine, the import of any precept, or the accuracy of any narrative. When it is considered that the five books of Moses are about 600 years older than any remaining writings, or known books of any nation in the world; and that most of the other sacred books of the Old Testament are of an age equal, if not superior, to any of the known writings of the Greeks; perhaps, even of the Chinese, with all their vaunted antiquity; the wonder will then be, that they should have come to us in so perfect a state, and that the evidence of their inspiration should be so full and triumphant.

It has been already observed that the Jewish nation have been a sort of perpetual guarantee from age to age, for the authority of their scriptures, and that Christ and his apostles have given their undoubted sanction to the canon of the Old Testament, as it existed in their day, and that this alone supplies, at least to Christians, a short and satisfactory method for settling the authority of that part of the sacred scripture. But the New Testament canon never did, and from the peculiar nature of the case, never could receive the same sanction. There was no succeeding race of apostles or prophets, upon whose judgment their contemporaries and successors could rely. Neither had it been possible in the first age of Christian inspiration, to hold any general assembly or council of inspired men, who might have settled the question at issue between the genuine and the apocryphal books. The Christian churches in that age were not combined into a regular and compact body. They had adopted no system of general dependance and subordination. Every church was complete in itself, and independent of every other church, at least so far as authority and control were concerned. The jealous and persecuting spirit both of the Jewish and heathen governments, precluded the possibility of any general council. The Christian churches, therefore, long continued to communicate their sacred writings to each other in a confidential and secret manner. The utmost vigilance was employed by their enemies to discover and destroy these sacred books, supposing that they should thereby weaken, if not eradicate, the Christians themselves.

Another preliminary consideration, in reference to the canon of the New Testament, which it is important to notice, implicates indeed the very foundations of the Protestant religion, and involves the gist

of our whole controversy with Romanists, and we may add, with the modern Oxfordists, whose essential Romanism is no longer a matter of question.

The doctrine of these parties is, that the church, meaning by that equivocal term, at least from all such pens, not the body of believers, but the clergy, can alone determine what is, and what is not, genuine scripture; and that, therefore, our present canon of the New Testament depends altogether upon the judgment of the Romish church. Hence they are arrogant and presumptuous enough to affirm, that we Protestants owe our Testament to them; for that it was their church which selected the inspired books from the apocryphal, and which it has preserved pure and complete from the times of the apostles; and that it is the seal of the church that imparts the stamp of inspired authority. One popish author has affirmed, that the scriptures are of no more value than Æsop's Fables, without the authority of the church. Another says, he should give no more credit to Matthew than to Livy, unless the church obliged him; another calls this, the only way of distinguishing between canonical and apocryphal 'scriptures.' Indeed these parties are fully agreed that the church only can teach what is scripture, or of inspired authority, as well as determine among various senses which is the divine one.

This theory evidently admits the possibility of making any book to be received as divine which the church admits to be so, and also the possibility of depriving a divine book of its authority

or any part of the alleged canonical scripture of its natural and proper import, by imposing upon it another more agreeable to the wishes or opinions of the church. There have been times and states of the church of Rome, when all these enormities and absurdities were not only possible, but when they were actually effected. But the very proposition itself that the church has the authority entrusted to it of determining what the canon of scripture should contain, involves an egregious solecism, because the very foundation of the Christian church is the Christian revelation. There can be no church set up by inspired sanction, and especially can there be no church authority, until there is a previous settlement of the question of revelation. The Bible makes the church, and not the church the Bible. It is altogether absurd to vaunt ecclesiastical authority, or speak of divine rights and principles of revealed religion, till we have ascertained the divine source whence all these must proceed. So that it seems impossible to imagine a greater solecism than to say the church must determine what is scripture, when the scripture is the only authority competent to determine what the church is, or what it ought to be. They say the church must authorize the scriptures,-but when it is asked, who authorizes the church to authorize the scriptures? the only reasonable answer then can be given, is—

VOL. VIII.