constitute what we now denominate The New Testament.

Now, during all this interval, how was religious truth diffused? how were the facts of the evangelical history announced? how were the praises of God celebrated? how were disorders in the church prevented or corrected? how were errors detected? how, in brief, were the purposes of public worship ensured, the proprieties of public worship maintained; or how, indeed, could they be, without supernatural illumination, without those "manifestations of the Spirit" in the church assemblies by which the primitive Christians were edified, encouraged, and preserved in the faith?

It is plain, from the Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians and the Ephesians, that spiritual gifts of extraordinary energy, diversity, and utility, in the furtherance of truth and the detection of error, were possessed, not merely by the apostles, but by several persons in every religious assembly. It is not necessary to my present argument to attempt a classification or explication of those extraordinary powers; but, referring you to the researches of D'Oyley, Macknight, and Macleod (especially the latter) upon this interesting topic, I simply entreat you to consider whether those gifts and endowments, conferred not upon a few, but upon many Christians (see their enumeration in 1 Cor. xii.) were not absolutely necessary for the preservation and extension of the church in that early part of its history of which I am now speaking?

And if neither the existence, nor the necessary existence, of these gifts among ordinary Christians can be

reasonably doubted, why should any one hesitate to allow that the Apostles, to whom a still more momentous task was assigned, received also their appropriate illumination from that "selfsame spirit which divideth "to every man severally as he will?"

Under the old covenant dispensation, when an individual was selected for an extraordinary undertaking, his commission seems often to have been sealed with the inspiring assurance I will be with thee. Maimonides asserts that supernatural power was regarded as conveyed by this striking formula. And thus, indeed, we find that it endowed Moses with political wisdom and the spirit of a wise governor; Joshua and Gideon, with military courage and prowess; Jeremiah, with supernatural constancy, and undaunted boldness in enforcing his reproofs and asserting his authority.

It is not, I think, unnatural to infer that our Lord, when giving his commission of ineffable mercy to eleven Jews, to "go forth, and teach all nations," employed the same language (n) to convince them that in their arduous undertaking they should receive such communications of Holy influence and illumination, as should be in every respect commensurate with the importance of that commission, and the otherwise insuperable difficulties which it involved. Nor were those communications withheld. It is evident that, in order to ensure the ends for which the apostles were appointed and sent forth, besides the ability of con

(n) Maimon. Doctr. Perplex. p. 2, c. 38. Gen. xxxix. 2, 3, 21. Exod. iii. 12. Josh, i. 5. Judges, vi. 13-16. Jer. i. 6—8. Matt. xxviii. 20.

firming the truth of their mission by the occasional exercise of miraculous energy, it was necessary that they and their assistants should be understood by the inhabitants of every country which they should visit in the course of their ministry; that they should be furnished with a clear and perfect knowledge of the facts and doctrines they were selected to announce, and of the institutions which they were to establish; and that, whether they communicated the knowledge with which they were thus endowed, by preaching or other oral instruction, or in writings, historical or epistolary, they * were preserved from error by the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus every degree of inspiration proceeded from God: and though inspired men reasoned as others do, yet they might justly regard their conclusions as infallible, from the irresistible conviction that their reasoning faculties were enlightened, elevated, and expanded, that they might adequately comprehend and treat "the deep things of God." "Not," says St. Paul," that we are sufficient of our"selves, λoyiσaola, to reason any thing as of ourselves, "but our sufficiency is of God." This sufficiency gave them their wonderful success; and it will be our highest wisdom to peruse their writings, providentially handed down for our instruction, with the entire persuasion that they are not merely interesting, impres sive, and instructive, but divine.

In estimating the authority claimed by the eight writers of the New Testament, we must not only consider their unbroken, unimpeachable integrity, but that five of them were of the number of the apostles to

whom the promises just cited were made. Of the other three, one, namely, Luke, is generally admitted to have been of the seventy disciples sent out by Christ, and who received the promise of divine superintendence and inspiration recorded in his Gospel. (0) With regard to Mark, if his own immediate inspiration cannot be established, that of his Gospel can, since it has never been questioned that he wrote under the superintendence of Peter, an inspired apostle. There then remains only Paul, who repeatedly and solemnly asserts his own inspiration, and his equality in every respect with all the other apostles: who even taught before he conversed with them, recorded words of our Lord referred to by none of the Evangelists, and appeals to miracles publicly wrought by himself in proof of his divine commission.

That the apostles themselves had a firm persuasion that they wrote under Divine inspiration is evident from a great variety of texts; to some of the most important of which I shall refer you, (p) that you may consult them carefully, and allow them their full impression upon your mind. They professed themselves to be inspired by God, in books whose genuineness and authenticity we have established; and God has attested their commission by miracles; therefore we are bound to believe them. You will find, too, that the apostles considered themselves as communicating to the world

(0) Luke, xii. 11, 12. See also Luke, x. 16.

(p) 1 Cor. ii. 10–16. iii. 21–23. xi. 23. xiv. 37. 2 Cor. ii. 10. iii. 5, 6. iv. 8. xi. 7. xiii. 3. Gal. i. 11, 12. Eph. iii. 3-5, 10. iv. 11, 12. 1 Tim. i. 11. 1 Pet. i. 12, 21. 2 Pet. iii. 2, 15, 16. John, x. 35. 1 John, ii. 20. iv. 6. Rev. i. 1, &c. 1 Thes. i. 5. 2 Thes. ii. 13.

a perpetual rule of faith and practice, which would be comprehended by all except the finally impenitent. If, say they, "if our Gospel be under a veil, it is "veiled to those that destroy themselves." (q) On these accounts, as it should seem, they preferred themselves before the Prophets, not merely of their own but of preceding times, saying (7) "God hath set in the "church, first, Apostles; secondly, Prophets; thirdly, "Teachers:" language which could not properly have been employed, had the apostles been inspired only to preach and not to write; for in that case they would manifestly be inferior to the Prophets, who in their writings, as well as their oral denunciations, "spake as "they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

The preceding are arguments for the general inspiration of the writers of the New Testament; but it also behoves me farther to remark, that the care with which the most voluminous writer among the apostles distinguishes between those instances in which he delivers the dictates of the Spirit, and those in which he presents merely his own private judgment, leads us naturally to infer that, wherever he has not made such distinction, he ought to be understood as teaching with Divine authority. Thus, when he treats of the relative advantages and disadvantages of the single and the married state in the perilous times in which he lived, he says, "I speak this by permission, not by command"ment." Again, a little farther on, "Unto the "married I command, yet not I, but the Lord." And soon afterwards, "To the rest speak I, not the Lord." (q) 2 Cor. iv. 3. See the original. (r) 1 Cor. xii. 28. Eph. ii. 20.