First, The historical : in which let us consider the antiquity of the matter related. There are some pieces that could not possibly drop from a creature's pen : where should or could he have his reading and learning to enable him to write the history of the creation? The heathen, by the inquiry of natural reason, have made a discovery thus far, that the world had a beginning, and could not be from eternity, and that it could be the workmanship of none but God ; but what is this to the compiling of a distinct history, how God went to work in the production thereof, what order every creatin-e was made in, and how long God was finishing the same ! He that is furnished for such an enterprise must be one that was pre-existent to the whole world, and an eye-witness to every day's work ; which man, that was made the last day, cannot pretend unto. And yet there is history more ancient than this in the Scripture, where we find what was done at the council-table of heaven, before the world began, and what passed there in favour of man, whom afterward he would make. Who could search the court rolls, I wonder, and bring us intelligence of the ever- lasting decrees then resolved on, and promises made by the Father to the Son, of eternal life in time to be conferred on his elect ? Titus i. 2. Secondly, The simplicity and sincerity of the holy penmen in relating what most concerns them- selves and those that were near and dear to them. We may possibly find among human authors some that carry their pen with an even hand in writing the history of others, the making known whose faults casts no dishonourable reflection upon him that records them. Thus, Suetonius spared not to tell the world how wicked great emperors were, who therefore is said to have taken the same liberty in writing their lives that they took in leading them. But where is the man that hath not a hair upon his pen when he comes to write the blemishes of his own house or person ? Alas ! here we find that their pen will cast no ink : they can rather make a blot in their history than leave a blot on their own name ; they have, like Alexander's painter, a finger to lay upon these scars, m-, if they mention them, you shall observe they learn their pen on a sudden to write smaller than it was wont. But in the history of the Scripture none of this self-love is to be found ; the penmen whereof are as free to expose their own shame and nakedness as any others. Thus Moses brands his own tribe for the bloody murder on Shechem, Gen. xxxiv. 30. An enemy could not have set it heavier on their name than he doth it; his own brother is not favoured by him, but his idolatry set upon the' file, Exod. xxxii. 21. The proud behaviour of his dear sister, and the plague of God which befell her, escapes not his pen, Numb. xii. No, not the incest of his own parents, Exod. vi. 20. So that we must say of him, concerning the im- partiality of his pen in writing, what he himself saith of Levi in the execution of justice, that he ' said imto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him ; neither did he acknowledge his brethren,' Deut. xxxiii. 9. In a word, to despatch this particular, he is no more tender of his own personal honour than he is of his house and family, but doth record the infirmities and miscarriages of his own life, as his backwardness to enter upon that difficult charge, Exod. iii. iv., wherein he discovered so much unbelief and pusillani- mity of spirit, notwithstanding his clear and immediate call thereunto by God himself; his neglect of a Divine ordinance in not circumcising his child, and what that sin had like to have cost him ; his frowardness and impatience in murmuring at the troubles that accompanied this place wherein God had set him, Numb. xi. 11 — 15 ; and his unbelief, after so many miraculous seals from heaven set to the promise of God, for which he had his leading staff" taken from him, and the honour of conducting Israel into Canaan denied him, — a sore and heavy expression of God's displeasure against him. Numb. xx. 12. Certainly, we must confess, had not his pen been guided by a spirit more than human, he could never have so perfectly conquered all carnal affections as not the least to favour himself in reporting.things thus prejudicial to his honour in the world. And the same spirit is found to breathe in the evangelists' history of the gospel, they being as little dainty of their own names as Moses was, as may be observed in their freedom to declare their own blemishes and their fellow- apostles'. So far were they from wronging the church with a lame, mutilated
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