This argument is pursued by many at large, as that which affordeth a great variety of historical and chronological observations; and it hath been so scanned and improved that nothing but the giving of it a new dress remains for present or future diligence. But the real force of it lies in the consideration of the people by and amongst whom this revelation first commenced in the world, and the time wherein it did so. When some nations had so improved and culti- vated the light of nature as greatly to excel others in wisdom and knowledge, they generally looked upon the people of the Jews as ignorant and barbarous; and the more wise any of them conceived
CHAP. III.] EXTERNAL ARGUMENTS FOR DIVINE REVELATION. 23
themselves, the more they despised them. And, indeed, they were utter strangers unto all those arts and sciences whereby the faculties of men's minds are naturally enlightened and enlarged ; nor did they pretend unto any wisdom whereby to stand in competition with other nations, but only what they received by divine revelations. This alone God himself had taught them to look upon and esteem as their only wisdom before all the world, Deut. iv. 6-8. Now, we shall not need to consider what were the first attempts of other nations in expressing their conceptions concerning things divine, the duty and happiness of man. The Egyptians and Grecians were those who vied for reputation in the improvement of this wisdom ; but it is known and confessed that the utmost production of their endea- vours were things foolish, irrational, and absurd, contrary to the being and providence of God, and to the light of nature, leading- mankind into a maze of folly and wickedness. But we may consider what they attained unto in the fulness of time by their utmost im- provement of science, wisdom, mutual intelligence, experience, com- munication, laborious study, and observation. When they had added and subducted to and from the inventions of all former ages from time immemorial, — when they had used and improved the reason, wisdom, invention, and conjectures, of all that went before them in the study of this wisdom ; and had discarded whatever they had found by experience unsuited to natural light and the common reason of mankind, — yet it must be acknowledged that the apostle passeth a just censure on the utmost of their attainments, namely, that " they waxed vain in their imaginations," and that " the world by wisdom knew not God." Whence, then, was it that in one nation esteemed barbarous, and really so with respect unto that wisdom, those arts and sciences, which ennobled other nations ; from that antiquity wherein it is not pretended that reason and wisdom had received any consi- derable improvement; without converse, communication, learning3 or experience, — there should at once proceed such a law, doctrine, and instructions concerning God and man, so stable, certain, uni- form, as should not only incomparably excel all products of human wisdom unto that purpose, however advantaged by time and expe- rience, but also abide invariable throughout all generations, so as that whatever hath been advanced in opposition unto it, or but differ- ing from it, hath quickly sunk under the weight of its own unreason- ableness and folly? This one consideration, unless men have a mind to be contentious, gives sufficient satisfaction that this book could have no other original but what it pleads for itself, — namely, an immediate emanation from God.
2. It is apparent that God in all ages hath had a great regard unto it, and acted his power and care in its preservation. Were not
24 THE REASON OF FAITH. [BOOK VI., PART T.
the Bible Avhat it pretends to be, there had been nothing more suit- able to the nature of God, and more becoming divine providence, than long since to have blotted it out of the world ; for to suffer a book to be in the world from the " beginning of times," falsely pre- tending his name and authority, seducing so great a portion of man- kind into a pernicious and ruinous apostasy from him, as it must do and doth if it be not of a divine original, and exposing inconceivable multitudes of the best, wisest, and soberest among them, unto all sorts of bloody miseries, which they have undergone in the behalf of it, seems not consonant unto that infinite goodness, wisdom, and care, wherewith this world is governed from above. But, on the contrary, whereas the malicious craft of Satan and the prevalent power and rage of mankind have combined and been set at work to the ruin and utter suppression of this book, proceeding sometimes so far as that there was no appearing way for its escape ; yet, through the watchful care and providence of God, sometimes putting itself forth in mira- culous instances, it hath been preserved unto this day, and shall be so to the consummation of all things. The event of that which was spoken by our Saviour, Matt. v. 18, doth invincibly prove the divine approbation of this book, as that doth its divine original, " Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law." God's perpetual care over the Scripture for so many ages, that not a letter of it should be utterly lost, nothing that hath the least tendency towards its end should perish, is evidence sufficient of his regard unto it. Especially would it be so if we should consider with what remarkable judgments and severe reflec- tions of vengeance on its opposers this care hath been managed, in- stances whereof might easily be multiplied. And if any will not ascribe this preservation of the books of the Bible, not only in their being, but in their purity and integrity, free from the least just sus- picion of corruption, or the intermixture of any thing human or hete- rogeneous, unto the care of God, it is incumbent on him to assign some other cause proportionate to such an effect, whilst it was the interest of heaven and the endeavour of earth and hell to have it corrupted and destroyed. For my part, I cannot but judge that he that seeth not an hand of divine Providence stretched out in the preservation of this book and all that is in it, its words and syllables, for thousands of years, through all the overthrows and deluges of calamities that have befallen the world, with the weakness of the means whereby it hath been preserved, and the interest, in some ages, of all those in whose power it was to have it corrupted, — as it was of the apostate churches of the Jews and Christians, — with the open opposition that hath been made unto it, doth not believe there is any such thing as divine providence at all. It was first written in