Before the committing of the Scriptures to writing, God had given the world an experiment what keepers men were of this revelation by tradition. Within some hundreds of years after the flood, all knowledge of him, through the craft of Satan and the vanity of the minds of men, which is imspeakable, was so lost, that nothing but as it were the creation of a new world, or the erection of a new church- state by new revelations, could reheve it. After that great trial, what can be further pretended on the behalf of tradition, I know not.
The sum of all is : The merciftil, good providence of God having, by divers and various means — using therein, amongst other things, the ministry of men and churches— preserved the writings of the Old and New Testament in the world, and by the same gracious disposal afforded them unto us, they are received and submitted unto by us,
' D. Ward, Essay, &c.
TWO GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 835
upon the grounds and evidences of their divine original before in- sisted on.
Upon the whole matter, then, I would know, if the Scripture should be brought to any man when or where he could not possibly have it attested to be the word of God — by any public or private authority of man or church, tradition or otherwise — whether he were bound to beheve it or no ? whether he should obey God in believing, or sin in the rejecting of it ? Suppose he do but take it into conside- ration, do but give it the reading or hearing, seeing in every place it avers itself to be the word of God, he must of necessity either give credit unto it or disbelieve it; to hang in suspense — which ariseth fi'om the imperfect actings of the faculties of the soul — is in itself a weakness, and, in this case, being reckoned on the worst side, is interpretatively a rejection. If you say it were the duty of such a one to beheve it, you acknowledge in the Scripture itself a sufficient evidence of its own original authority — without which it can be no man's duty to beheve it. If you say it would not be his sin to reject and refuge it, to disbeheve all that it speaks in the name of God, then this is what you say — God may truly and really speak unto a man, (as he doth by the Scripture,) and yet that man not be bound to believe him. We deal not thus with one another.
To wind up, then, the plea insisted on in the foregoing chapter, concerning the self-evidencing light and power of the Scripture, from which we have diverted, and to make way for some other considera- tions that tend to the confirmation of their divine original, I shall close this discourse with the two general considerations following : —
1. Then, laying aside these failing pleas, there seems to be a moral impossibility that the Word of God should not manifest its o^\xi. original, and its authority fi-om thence. " Qusehbet herba Deum." There is no work of God, as was showed, but reveals its author. A curious artificer imparts that of form, shape, proportion, and comeli- ness, to the fruit of his invention and work of his hands, that every- one that looks upon it must conclude that it comes from skill and abihty. A man in the deliveiy of his mind in the writing of a book, will give it such an impression of reason, that though you cannot conclude that this or that man wrote it, yet you must that it was the product of a man or rational creature; yea, some individual men of excellency in some skill are instantly known by them that ai-e able to judge in that art or skill by the effects of their skiU. This is the piece, this is the hand, the work of such a one. How easy is it for those who are conversant about ancient authors to discover an author by the spirit and style of his writings ! Now, certainly, this is strange beyond all belief, that almost every agent should give an impress to his work whereby it may be appropriated unto him ; and only the
S36 THE DIVINE OEIGINAL OF SCRIPTURE.
Word — whereia it was the design of the great and holy God to give us a portraiture, as it were, of his wisdom, hoHness, and goodness, so far as we are capable of an acquaintance with him in this life — is not able to declare and evince its original. That God, who is iirima Veritas, " the first and sovereign Truth," infinitely separated and dis- tinguished from all creatures, on all accounts whatever, should ^Yrite a book, or at least immediately indite it, commanding us to receive it as his under the penalty of his eternal displeasure, and yet that book not make a sufficient discovery of itself to be his, to be from him, is past all belief. Let men that live on things received by tradition from their fathers — who perhaps never had sense of any real transaction between God and their souls, who scarce ever perused the Word seriously in their lives, nor brought their consciences to it — please themselves in their own imaginations; the sure anchor of a soul that would draw nigh to God, in and by his Word, lies in the things laid down.