But that he had and hath done so, he declares, (Jer. xxiii. 26-29,) " How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy
816 THE DIVINE OEIGINAL OF SCRIPTURE.
lies ? that are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream ; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat ? saith the Lord. Is not my word like a fire ? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ? " In the latter days of that church, when the people were most eminently perplexed with false prophets — both as to their num- ber and subtlety — ^yet God lays their eternal and temporal safety or ruin on their discerning aright between his word and that which was only pretended so to be. And that they might not complain of this imposition, he tenders them security of its easiness of performance. Speaking of his own word comparatively, as to every thing that is not so, he says it is as wheat to chaff, which may infallibly — by being what it is — be discerned from it; and then absolutely, that it hath such properties as that it will discover itself — even light, and heat, and power. A person, then, who was truly SsoVi/EuoTog, was to be attended unto because he was so.
As, then, it was said before, the Scriptures being SsoVfsuirro/, is not the case the same as with a man that was so ? Is there any thing in the writing of it by God's command that should impah its autho- rity ? Nay, is it not freed from innumerable prejudices that attended it in its first giving out by men, arising from the personal infirmities and supposed interests of them that dehvered it ? (Jer. xliii. 3 ; John ix. 29 ; Acts xxiv. 5.)
This being pleaded by it, and insisted on, its testimony is re- ceived, or it is not. If it be received on this account, there is in it, we say, the proper basis and foundation of faith, whereon it hath its iToaraffis, or " subsistence." If it be rejected, it must be not only with a refusal of its witness, but also with a high detestation of its pretence to be from God. What ground or plea for such a refusal and detestation any one hath, or can have, shall be aftenvard con- sidered. If it be a sin to refuse it, it had been a duty to receive it ; if a duty to receive it as the word of God, then was it sufficiently manifested so to be. Of the objection arising from them who pre- tend to this inspiration falsely, we have spoken before; and we are as yet dealing with them that own the book whereof we spake to be the word of God, and only call in question the grounds on which they do so, or on which others ought so to do. As to these, it may suffice, that — in the strength of all the authority and truth they pro- fess to own and acknowledge in it — it declares the foundation of its acceptance to be no other but its own divine inspiration. Hence it is
WEITTEN WOED SUPERIOR TO EVERY OTHER REVELATION. SI 7
Again, in that dispute that was between Abraham and the rich man, (Luke xvi. 31,) about the best and most effectual means of bring- ing men to repentance : the rich man in hell, speaking his own con- ception, fixes upon miracles — if one rise from the dead and preach, the work Avill be done. Abraham is otherwise minded — that is, Christ was so, the author of that parable; he bids them attend to Moses and the prophets, the wiitten Word, as that which all faith and repentance was immediately to be grounded on. The inquiry being, how men might be best assured that any message is from God, did not the Word manifest itself to be from him, this direction had not been equal.
The ground of the request for the rising of one from the dead, is laid in the common apprehension of men not knowing the power of God in the Scriptures; who think that if an evident miracle were ■\\Tought, all pretences and pleas of unbelief would be excluded. Who doth not think so ? Our Saviour discovers that mistake, and lets men know that those who will not own or submit to the authority of God in the Word, would not be moved by the most signal miracles imaginable. If a holy man, whom we had known assuredly to have been dead for some years, should rise out of his grave and come unto us with a message from God, could any man doubt whether he were sent unto us of God or no ? I suppose not. The rising of men from the dead was the greatest miracle that attended the resurrec- tion of our Saviour; (Matt, xxvii. 52, 53;) yea, greater than his OAvn, if the Socinians may be believed, viz., in that he raised not him- self by his o\^T.i power: yet the evidence of the mission of such a one, and the authority of God speaking in him — our Saviour being judge — is not of an efficacy to enforce belief, beyond that which is in the Aviitten Word, nor a surer foundation for faith to repose itself upon.