his face, voice, or handwi'iting ? Certainly then it cannot seem strange tliat the God of lieavcn should be discerned from his sorry creature, by his voice and writing in tlie sacred Scriptiires. Do \ve not see that lu> hatli interwoven his glorious name so in the works of creation, tliat they speak liis j)ower and Godhead, and call him Maker in their thoughts, who never read the Bible, nor heard of sucli a book ? — so that they could not steal the notion tlience, but had it from the dictates of their own consciences, extorting the acknowledg- ment of a Deity ; and much more will an enlightened conscience and sanc- tified heart be commanded by the overpowering evidence that shines forth in the Scriptiu'es to fall down and cry. It is the voice of God, and not any creature that speaks in them. Indeed, tlie grand truths and cliief notions found in the Scriptures are so connatural to the principles of grace, whicli the same Holy Spirit who is the inditer of them liath planted in tlie hearts of all the saints, that their souls even spi-ing and leap at the reading and hearing of them, as the babe did in Elizabeth's womb at the salutation of the V' irgin Mary. The Lamb doth not more certainly know her dam in the midst of a whole flock (at whose bleating she passeth by them all to come to be suckled by her) than the sheep of Chi'ist know his voice in the saving truths of the Scriptxires, the sincere milk whereof tliey desire, and are taught of God to taste and discern from all other. Indeed, till a soul be thus enlightened and wrought upon by the Spirit of God, he may have his month stopped by such arguments for the divinity of them as he cannot answer ; but he will never be pei-suaded to rest on them and cordially embrace them as the word of God ; as we see in the scribes and Phaiisees, who often were confounded and struck down speechless by the dint of Christ's words; yet as those wretches sent to attack the person of Cln-ist rose up from the earth, (where the majesty of Christ's Deity looking out upon them had thrown them grovelling,) to lay violent hands on him ; so those obdurate Pharisees and scribes, after all their convictions, re- turned to oppose the doctrine he preached, and that, most of them, imto death. Yea, that part of the Scripture which they seemed to cry up so highly, the law of jMoses, and made the groimd of their quarrel against Christ, our Saviour is bold to tell them, that, as great admirers as they were thereof, they did not so much as believe it to be the word of God : how could they, indeed, have a true divine faith on it, who wanted the Spirit of God, which alone works it ? John V. 46 : ' Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me.'
Erasmus tells his friend, in a letter, that he met with many things charged on Luther, by the monks, for heresies, which in Augustine passed among them for sound truths ; but certainly they did not really believe them to be truths in Augustine which they condemned in Luther. Neither did the Pharisees in truth believe what Moses wrote, because they opposed Christ, who did but verify what Moses before, from God's mouth, had spoke. But because, wlien the Spirit of God comes to raise the heart to a belief of the word of Ciod, he doth it by putting his own weight and force to those arguments which are couched in tlic word, and so leave the print or character of them sealed upon the soul, therefore I shall draw out an argument or two, among many that are to he found in the Scripture itself, proving the parentage thereof to be Divine. I know it is a beaten patli I am now walking in, and I shall rather speak the same things for substance which you may meet in many othei's, only a little other- wise shapen. For my own part, I think it more wisdom to borrow a sword of proved metal at another's hands, than to go with a weak leaden one of my own into the field, and come home beaten for my folly and pride.
CHAPTER IV.
AN ARGUMKNT FOR THE DIVINITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, DRAWN FROM THEIR ANTIQUITY AND THE SINCERITY OF THE PENMEN THEREOF.
First, The very matter contained in the Holy Scriptures demonstrates their lieavenly descent, it being such as cannot be tlie birth or product of a creature. Let us search the Script ures a little, and consider the several parts thereof, and see whether they do not all bear the image of God upon them. Consider the historical, prophetical, doctrinal, and preceptive, with its promises and
2 o 2
(-^4, AND THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT.
threatenings to enforce the same, and see if the print of a Deity be not stamped upon them all.