ART. fpirations, it is neceffary (both for the undeceiving of VI. those who may be misled by a hot and ungoverned imagination, and for giving fuch an authority to men truly infpired, as may diftinguifh them from falfe pretenders) that the man thus infpired fhould have fome evident fign or other, either fome miraculous action that is vifibly beyond the powers of nature, or fome particular difcovery of fomewhat that is to come, which must be so expreffed, that the accomplishment of it may fhew it to be beyond the conjectures of the moft fagacious: by one or both of those a man muft prove, and the world must be convinced, that he is fent and directed by God. And if fuch men deliver their meffage in writing, we must receive fuch writings as facred and infpired. In these writings fome parts are hiftorical, fome doctrinal, and fome elenchtical or argumentative. As to the hiftorical part, it is certain that whatsoever is delivered to us, as a matter truly tranfacted, muft be indeed fo: but it is not neceffary, when difcourfes are reported, that the individual words fhould be fet down juft as they were faid; it is enough if the effect of them is reported: nor is it neceffary that the order of time fhould be ftrictly obferved, or that all the conjunctions in fuch relations fhould be understood feverely according to their grammatical meaning. It is vifible that all the facred writers write in a diverfity of style, according to their different tempers, and to the various impreffions that were made upon them. In that the infpiration left them to the ufe of their facul ties, and to their previous cuftoms and habits: the defign of revelation, as to this part of its fubject, is only to give fuch reprefentations of matters of fact, as may both work upon and guide our belief; but the order of time, and the ftrict words having no influence that way, the writers might difpofe them, and exprefs them variously, and yet all be exactly true. For the conjunctive particles do rather import that one paffage comes to be related after another, than that it was really tranfacted after it. As to the doctrinal parts, that is, the rules of life, which these books fet before us, or the propofitions that are offered to us in them, we muft entirely acquiefce in thefe, as in the voice of God, who fpeaks to us by the means of a perfon, whom he, by his authorifing him in fo wonderful a manner, obliges us to hear and believe. But when thefe writers come to explain or argue, they ufe many figures that were well known in that age: but because the fignification of a figure is to be taken from common ufe, and not to be carried to the utmost extent that VI. that the words themselves will bear, we must therefore ART. inquire, as much as we can, into the manner and phrafeology of the time in which fuch perfons lived, which with relation to the New Teftament will lead us far: and by this we ought to govern the extent and importance of these figures. As to their arguings, we are further to confider, that fometimes they argue upon certain grounds, and at other times they go upon principles, acknowledged and received by thofe with whom they dealt. It ought never to be made the only way of proving a thing, to found it upon the conceffions of thofe with whom we deal; yet when a thing is once truly proved, it is a juft and ufual way of confirming it, or at least of filencing those who oppose it, to fhew that it follows naturally from those opinions and principles that are received among them. Since therefore the Jews had, at the time of the writing of the New Teftament, a peculiar way of expounding many prophecies and paffages in the Old Teftament, it was a very proper way to convince them, to allege many places according to their key and methods of expofition. Therefore when divine writers argue upon any point, we. are always bound to believe the conclufions that their reasonings end in, as parts of divine revelation: but we are not bound to be able to make out, or even to affent to, all the premises made ufe of by them in their whole extent; unless it appears plainly that they affirm the premifes as exprefsly as they do the conclufions proved by them. And thus far I have laid down such a scheme concerning inspiration and infpired writings, as will afford, to fuch as apprehend it aright, a folution to most of these difficulties with which we are urged on the account of fome paffages in the facred writings. The laying down a scheme that afferts an immediate infpiration which goes to the style, and to every tittle, and that denies any error to have crept into any of the copies, as it feems on the one hand to raise the honour of the Scriptures very highly, fo it lies open on the other hand to great difficulties, which feem infuperable in that hypothefis; whereas a middle way, as it fettles the divine infpiration of these writings, and their being continued down genuine and unvitiated to us, as to all that, for which we can only fuppofe that infpiration was given; fo it helps us more eafily out of all difficulties, by yielding that which ferves to answer them, without weakening the authority of the whole. I come in the last place to examine the negative confequence 13 VI. ART. quence that arifes out of this head, which excludes thofe books commonly called Apocryphal, that are here rejected, from being a part of the Canon: and this will be eafily made out. The chief reafon that preffes us Christians to acknowledge the Old Teftament, is the teftimony that Chrift and his Apoftles gave to those books, as they were then received by the Jewish Church; to whom were committed the oracles of God. Now it is not fo much as pretended, that ever thefe books were received among the Jews, or were fo much as known to them. None of the writers of the New Teftament cite or mention them; neither Philo nor Jofephus fpeaks of them. Jofephus on the contrary fays, they had only twenty-two books that deferved belief, but that thofe which were written after the time of Artaxerxes were not of equal credit with the rest: and that in that period they had no prophets at all. The Christian Church was for fome ages an utter ftranger to those books. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, being defired by Onefimus to give him a perfect catalogue of the books of the Oid Teftament, took a journey on purpose to the East, to examine this matter at its fource: and having, as he fays, made an exact inquiry, he fent him the names of them juft as we receive the Canon; of which Eufebius Eufeb. Hift. fays, that he has preferved it, because it contained all 1. iv. c. 26. thofe books which the Church owned. Origen gives us the fame catalogue according to the tradition of the In Pfal. i. Jews, who divided the Old Teftament into twenty-two books, according to the letters of their alphabet. AthaIn Synop. nafius reckons them up in the fame manner to be twenty In Ep. pafch. two, and he more diftinctly fays, "that he delivered "thofe, as they had received them by tradition, and as "they were received by the whole Church of Chrift, be"caufe fome prefumed to mix apocryphal books with the "divine Scriptures: and therefore he was fet on it by "the orthodox brethren, in order to declare the canonical "books delivered as fuch by tradition, and believed to "be of divine infpiration. It is true," he adds, "that "befides these there were other books which were not put into the Canon, but yet were appointed by the "fathers to be read by thofe who first come to be in"ftructed in the way of piety: and then he reckons up "most of the apocryphal books." Here is the first mention we find of them, as indeed it is very probable they were made at Alexandria, by fome of thofe Jews who lived there in great numbers. Both Hilary and Cyril of Jerufalem give us the fame catalogue of the books of the Old Teftament, and affirm, that they delivered them thus according Catech. 4. according to the tradition of the ancients. Cyril fays, that ART. all other books are to be put in a fecond order. Gregory VI. Nazianzen reckons up the twenty-two books, and adds that none befides them are genuine. The words that are in the Article are repeated by St. Jerome in feveral of his prefaces. And that which should determine this whole. matter is, that the council of Laodicea by an exprefs ca- Can. 95, non delivers the catalogue of the canonical books as we and 60. do, decreeing that thefe only fhould be read in the Church. Now the canons of this council were afterwards received into the code of the Canons of the univerfal Church; fo that here we have the concurring fenfe of the whole Church of God in this matter. It is true, the book of the Revelation not being reckoned in it, this may be urged to detract from its authority: but it was already proved, that that book was received much earlier into the Canon of the Scriptures, fo the defign of this Canon being to establish the authority of those books that were to be read in the Church, the darkness of the Apocalypfe making it appear reasonable not to read it publicly, that may be the reafon why it is not mentioned in it, as well as in fome later catalogues. Here we have four centuries clear for our Canon, in exclufion to all additions. It were eafy to carry this much further down, and to fhew that these books were never by any exprefs definition received into the Canon, till it was done at Trent: and that in all the ages of the Church, even after they came to be much efteemed, there were divers writers, and thofe generally the most learned of their time, who denied them to be a part of the Canon. At first many writings were read in the Churches, that were in high reputation both for the fake of the authors, and of the contents of them, though they were never looked on as a part of the Canon: fuch were Clemens's Can. 47. Epiftle, the books of Hermas, the Acts of the Martyrs, befides feveral other things which were read in particular Churches. And among thefe the apocryphal books came alfo to be read, as containing fome valuable books of inftruction, besides feveral fragments of the Jewish history, which were perhaps too easily believed to be true. Thefe therefore being ufually read, they came to be reckoned among canonical Scriptures: for this is the reafon affigned in the third council of Carthage, for calling them canonical, because they had received them from their Fathers as books that were to be read in Churches: and the word Canonical was by fome in thofe ages ufed in a large fenfe, in oppofition to fpurious; fo that it fignified no more 14 than ART. than that they were genuine. So much depends upon VI. this Article, that it seemed neceffary to dwell fully upon it, and to state it clearly. It remains only to obferve the diverfity between the Articles now established, and thofe fet forth by King Edward. In the latter there was not a catalogue given of the books of Scripture, nor was there any diftinction stated between the Canonical and the Apocryphal books. In those there is likewife a paragraph, or rather a parenthefis, added after the words proved thereby, in these words, Although fometimes it may be admitted by God's faithful people as pious, and conducing unto order and decency which are now left out, because the authority of the Church as to matters of order and decency, which was only intended to be afferted by this period, is more fully explained and stated in the 35th Article. ARTICLE |