Could we hear a voice from heaven, accompanied with such a divine power as to evidence itself to be from God, should we not rest in it as such ? I suppose men think they would. Can we think that any man should withdraw his assent, and say, Yea, but I must have some testimony that this is from God? All such evasions are pre- cluded, in the supposition wherein a self-evidencing power is granted. What greater miracle did the apostles of Christ ever behold, or heai, than that voice that came i/'ro rng n,iya>.o'7rpi'xo\Jg bo^ni-, " from the excellent glory " — " This is my beloved Son ? '' Yet Peter, who heard that voice, tells us that, comparatively, we have greater secu- rity from and by the written Word than they had in and hy that miraculous voice. We have (Ss/Sa/orEpov rov irpocprinzh y.oyov. We heard, saith he, that voice indeed; but we have " a more sure word of pro- phecy " to attend unto — ^more sure, not in itself, but in its giving
SIS THE DIVINE ORIGINAL OF SCEIPTUEE.
out its evidence unto us. And how doth it appear so to he ? The reason he alleges for it was before insisted on. (2 Pet. i. 18-21.)
Yea, suppose that God should speak to us from heaven as he spake to Moses, or as he spake to Christ; or from some certain place, as Numb. vii. 89 ; how should we be able to know it to be the voice of God ? Cannot Satan cause a voice to be heard in the air, and so deceive us ? or, inay not there be some way (in this kind) found out, whereby men might impose upon us with their delusions? Pope Celestine thought he heard a voice from heaven, when it was but the cheat of his successor. Must we not rest at last in that to ^sTov which accompanies the true voice of God evidencing itself, and ascertain- ing the soul beyond all possibility of mistake ? Now, did not this rsz/j,yipiov accompany the written V/ord at its first giving forth ? If it did not, as was said, how could any man be obliged to discern it from all delusions ? If it did, how came it to lose it ? Did God appoint his Word to be Avritten, that so he might destroy its autho- rity? If the question be, whether the doctrines proposed to be believed are truths of God, or " cunningly devised fables," we are eent to the Scripture itself, and that alone, to give the determination.
CHAPTER IV.
Innate arguments in the Scripture of its divine original and authority — Its self-evi- dencing efficacy — All light manifests itself — The Scripture light — Spiritual light evidential — Consectaries from the premises laid down — What the self-evidencing light of the Scripture peculiarly is — Power self-evidencing — The Scripture the power of God, and powerful — How this power exerts itself — The whole question resolved.
Having given some few instances of those many testimonies which the Scripture, in express terms, bears to itself, and the sprmg, rise, and fountain of all that authority which it claims among and over the sons of men — ^which all those who pretend, on any account what- ever, to own and acknowledge its divinity, are bound to stand to, and are obliged by — the second thing proposed, or the innate arguments that the Word of God is furnished withal for its own manifestation, and whereby the authority of God is revealed, for faith to repose itself upon, comes in the next place into consideration. Now, these arguments contain the full and formal grounds of our answer to that inquuy before laid down, viz., why and wherefore we do receive and believe the Scripture to be the word of God. It being the formal reason of our faith, that whereon it is built and whereinto it is resolved, that is inquhed after, we answer as we said before, We do so receive, embrace, believe, and submit unto it, because of the authority of God who speaks it, or gave it forth as his mind and will, evidencing itself by the Spirit in and with that Word,
THE LIGHT OF SCRIPTURE MANIFESTS ITSELF. S19
unto our minds and consciences : or, because tliat the Scripture, being brought unto us by the good providence of God, in ways of his appointment and preservation, it doth evidence itself infallibly unto our consciences to be the word of the hving God.
The self-evidencing efficacy of the Scripture, and the grounds of it — ^which consist in common mediums, that have an extent and latitude answerable to the reasons of men, whether as yet they acknowledge it to be the word of God or no — are those, then, which, in the remainder of this discourse, I shall endeavour to clear and vindicate. This only I shall desire to premise, that whereas some grounds of this efficacy seem to be placed in the things themselves contained in the Scripture, I shall not consider them abstractedly as such, but under the formality of their being the Scripture or written Word of God ; %vithout which consideration and resolution the things mentioned would be left naked, and utterly divested of their authority and efficacy pleaded foi", and be of no other nature and importance than the same things found in other books. It is the writing itself that now supplies the place and room of the persons in and by whom God originally spake to men. As were the persons speaking of old, so are the writings now. It was the word spoken that was to be believed, yet as spoken by them from God ; and it is now the word written that is to be believed, yet as written by the command and appointment of God.