36. Circumstances of the general argument of a book may also con- vince it of a human or fallible original. This they do, for instance, in the book of Judith;—for such a Nabuchodonosor as should reign in Nineve, chap. i. 1, and make war with Arphaxad, king of Ecba- tane, verse 13; whose captains and officers should know nothing at all of the nation of the Jews, chap. v. 3, that waged war against them in the days of Joakim (or, as other copies, Hliakim) the high priest, chap. iv. 6; after whose defeat the Jews should have peace for eighty years at the least, chap. xvi. 23, 25; is an imagination of that which never had subsistence “in rerum natura:” or [the book may be] a represen- tation of what 1°37, a Jewish woman ought, as the author of it con- ceived, to undertake for the good of her country. Setting aside the consideration of all other discoveries of the fallibility of the whole dis- course, this alone is sufficient to impeach its reputation. Our Epistle is no way obnoxious unto any exception of this nature. Yea, the state of things in the churches of God, and among the Hebrews in particular, did at that time administer so just and full occasion unto a writing of this kind, as gives countenance unto its ascription unto the wisdom and care of the Holy Ghost. For if the eruption of the poisonous brood of heretics, questioning the decty of the Son of God, in Cerinthus, gave occasion to the writing of the Gospel by St John; and if the dissensions in the church of Corinth deserved two epistles for their composition; and if the lesser differences between believers of the Jews and Gentiles, in and about the things treated of in this Epistle, had a remedy provided for them in the epistles of St Paul unto them; is it not at least probable that the same Spirit who moved the penmen of those books to write, and directed them in their so doing, did also provide for the removal of the prejudices and healing of the distempers of the Hebrews, which were so great, and of so great importance unto all the churches of God? And that
62 CANONICAL AUTHORITY OF THE [ EXERC. 1.
there is weight in this consideration will evidently appear, when we come to declare the ¢ime when this Epistle was written.
37. The most manifest eviction of any writing pretending unto the privilege of divine inspiration may be taken from the subject-matter of it, or the things taught and declared therein. God himself being the first and only essential Truth, nothing can proceed from him but what is absolutely so; and truth being but one, every way uniform and consonant unto itself, there can be no discrepancy in the branches of it, nor contrartety in the streams that flow from that one fountain. God is also holy, “glorious in holiness,” and nothing proceeds immediately from him but it bears a stamp of his holiness, as also of his greatness and wisdom. If, then, any thing in the subject-matter of any writing be untrue, impious, light, or any way contradictory to the ascertained writings of divine inspiration, all pleas and pretences unto that privilege must cease for ever. We need: no other proof, testimony, or argument, to evince its original, than what itself tenders unto us. And by this means, also, do the books commonly called apocryphal, unto which the Romanists as- cribe canonical authority, destroy their own pretensions. They have all of them, on this account, long since been cast out of the limits of any tolerable defence. Now, that no one portion of Scripture is less . obnoxious to any exception of this kind, from the subject-matter treated of and doctrines delivered in it, than this Epistle, we shall, by God’s assistance, manifest in our exposition of the whole and each particular passage of it. Neither is it needful that we should here prolong our discourse, by anticipating any thing that must necessarily afterwards, in its proper place, be insisted on. The place startled at by some, chap. vi, about the impossibility of the recovery of apos- tates, was touched on before, and shall afterwards be fully cleared. Nor do I know any other use to be made of observing the scruple of some of old, about the countenance given to the Novatians by that place, but only to make a discovery how partially men in all ages have been addicted unto their own apprehensions in things wherein they differed from others; for whereas, if the opmion of the Novatians had been confirmed in the place, as it is not, it had been their duty to have relinquished their own hypothesis and gone over unto them, some of them discovered a mind rather to have broken in upon the authority of God himself, declared in his word, than so to have done. And it is greatly to be feared that the same spirit still working in others, is as effectual in them to reject the plain sense of the Scripture in sundry places, as it was ready to have been in them to reject the words of it in this.
38. The style and method of a writing may be such as to lay a just prejudice against its claim to canonical authority: for although the subject-matter of a writing may be good and honest in the main