Nor is the severity of the prohibition at all more alarming than the occasion requires —
[In no other way can we offer a greater insult to God, or do a greater injury to man, than by erasing what God has spoken, or by obtruding any conceits of our own under the sanction of his authority. If we presume to leave out any thing which God has revealed, what is it but an impeachment of his wisdom in revealing it ? And if we presume to add any thing to his word, what is it but a denial of his goodness, in withholding from us information which he ought to have com- municated ? And both in the one case and the other, it is a most impious imposition upon man, whom we defraud by our concealment of the truth, or deceive by substituting our own falhble dogmas in the place of it.
When Moses made the tabernacle, this solemn injunction was repeatedly given to him ; " See thou make all things ac- cording to the pattern shewn to thee in the Mount." And it would have been at his peril to have deviated in any respect from it ; because the whole structure, together with all the
fur-
1221.] PERFECTION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 427 furniture thereof, was typical of things which were to be more fully revealed under the Christian dispensation: and any de- parture from the instructions given him would have destroyed the beauty and harmony of the whole. So will it be at our peril to change or modify any part of that system which God has revealed in his word. We must take the wiiole simply as we have received it, and not in any respect presume to be wise above what is written.]
The prohibition to alter the Scriptures yet farther marks,
III. The reverence due to them —
If we are not to change the word of Scripture, neither are we to elude its force. On the contrary, we are to maintain the strictest jealousy over our- selves, that we make not any portion of the Inspired Writings void, but that we adhere to them with the utmost possible fidelity,
1. In our exposition of their import — [It is perfectly surprising to see with what unhallowed boldness many will put their own construction upon God's blessed word, denying its plainest import, and annexing to it a sense totally contrary to its most obvious meaning. To what a fearful extent this liberty has been taken by Papists is well known : but, to the shame of Protestants, I must confess, that in this guilt they also participate to a great extent. Nor do I here speak of those only, who fearlessly expunge those parts of Scripture which are hostile to their views, but of those adverse parties in the Church, who, whilst they profess to reverence the whole of the Inspired Volume, wrest and pervert its plainest assertions, in order to maintain a system of their own. This it is that has introduced endless dissentions, divisions, and bitter animosities into the Church of Christ. Men have adopted sentiments of their own, instead of submitting to be taught of God; and then they have la- boured, by forced constructions and ingenious criticisms, to make the Scriptures accord with their views. The different parties all see and condemn this disingenuousness in their ad- versaries, whilst yet, without remorse, they practise it them- selves. In truth, so fettered are the great mass even of teachers themselves by human systems, that there are scarcely any to be found, who will dare to give to the whole of Scrip- ture its true import, and to bring forward in their Ministra- tions all that God has spoken in his word : and so vitiated is the taste of the generality of their hearers, that scarely
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