Necessity of them as teachers, became inevitable. When once the passions are Revelation. moved, cool and rational discussion ceases: and when the individual No other Origin of the becomes anxious to support the system which he has adopted, and is prejudiced against every argument which tends to render it doubtful, he but increases the distance from his object the further he pursues it. The great ends for which the disputants set out, the universal duties and benefit of mankind, are lost in the disputations between the Grove, the Porch, and the Lyceum. The object becomes less to elicit truth, than to establish a party. Besides which, what standard can be obtained? Is it nature? She is found under the government of the passions, rather than of the reason, and those passions manifest themselves to be corrupt. Is it the fitness of things? How shall this apply to the savage who has no means of comparison? The most intellectual, as they possess the greatest power of ascertaining what is fit and harmonious, ought, on this principle, to be the most moral; but they are not so.? Is it conscience? Alas, who is not aware that this moral power may be vitiated? that conscience may be depraved, perverted, extinguished? Is it philosophy? Philosophers are not agreed on this momentous point. Where is the standard then? Socrates observes, there can be none unless it be revealed; and he, therefore, expected a divine teacher. This is the tribute of reason to the necessity of revelation. But morals are not the only subject of human investigation that require revelation. God has connected them with the most interesting and the most ancient records of the human race. The origin and destination of the material universe, lie hid in shadows, which no light can disperse, but "the day-spring from on high." Some philosophers contended that the beautiful order of nature was the result of chance; and that the grand machinery, so admirably filling up all the purposes of its construction, was nothing more than an effect produced by the fortuitous concourse of certain solid and indivisible bodies, necessarily moved by the force of their natural Epicureans. gravity. This was the doctrine of the Epicureans. Cicero justly asks, "if this concourse of atoms can make a world, why does it never form a portico, a temple, a house, or a city, which are certainly much easier to be effected?" Others held the eternity 1 Cic. de Nat. Deor. II. 37. of the world. Among these, Aristotle has been classed. But his representations are so different on various occasions, that one can hardly decide, whether he meant to say, the matter out of which the universe was composed was eternal, or the form itself in which it subsists. The latter has been generally understood: and if so, he maintained his position in the face of reason and of facts; for it is reasonable to conclude, that whatever is eternal should be also unchangeable? and it is the fact, that the material world, which he assumes to be eternal, is every day undergoing some alteration. The Egyptians held, according to Diodorus Siculus, that man Egyptians sprang from the earth, when it was in a miry, and almost fluid state, as insects exude from the mud of the Nile, when the intense heat of the sun causes putrescences to be formed out of it. Why marshy places, acted upon by the heat, do not produce men and women now, if this hypothesis be rational, remains to be explained: as also, since none of those productions are to be met with in the present day, and the laws of nature are assumed by such reasoners to be immutable, when, and from what cause, the earth lost her power to generate human beings, while she retains that of producing vegetables. Amidst these and other contradictory theories, the result of much study, and defended with no inconsiderable zeal, was it not essential to man's happiness that the questions, "Whence am I? What am I," should be answered? "Whence are the existences around me ? What is required of me? Whither am I tending? In what shall these things terminate ?"-The greater part of the observances of the ancients so completely originated in tradition, that their most distinguished men confessed they were unable to account for usages which they practised. Plato, Pythagoras, and Porphyry, expressed their astonishment at the universal prevalence of sacrifice, and their entire ignorance as to its origination. Whatever related to futurity, as it could be reasoned upon with so little satisfaction, was examined in its traditional shape, and adopted with an eagerness that proved at once the importance of the subject, and the scantiness of their information. "Being of Beings," said Aristotle, "have mercy upon me!" What would such a philosopher have given for “ a sure word of prophecy?" And can it be imagined that the Parent of the universe should leave his children destitute of that information which is so essential to their The Bible. Inspiration.! present well-being, their comfort in dying moments, and their interests in eternity? If revelation be necessary (and after such considerations, furnished by reason, philosophy, facts, the concurrent testimony of antiquity, and the actual condition of human nature, the position is no longer problematical,) can it be imagined that such a revelation has not been granted? and if it has been given, where shall we look for it but as it rises in the fountains of sacred history? For all its doctrines are essentially connected with its FACTS. If the question of revelation be conceded, it will then be seen that no pretensions to it have been tenable, not to say established, but those advanced by the Bible. The Hindoo institutions, usually deemed the most philosophical and intellectual, have no sustainable antiquity in comparison with those of Moses. The boasted Koran of Mohammed, is evidently of later date-borrowed in its most important facts and precepts from the book which it attempts to rival: the whole work is too contracted to apply to universal man; too mean to support the claim of inspiration; and too sensual to emanate from the pure and infinite Spirit. Other assumptions, among different nations, when brought to the test, will be found to be no less defective; and if placed in comparison with scripture, will only confirm its claims. The question of Inspiration arises out of revelation, and is inseparable from it. Revelation must be either immediate or transmissive: it must be communicated to the human race one by one, individually and immediately; or be committed to a few, by them written down, and thus circulated and perpetuated. The first supposition requires perpetual inspiration in respect of every man; the last is that which is claimed by the Bible, and connected with the character of sacred history. We cannot have a revelation without inspiration. All that reason could achieve has been attempted by philosophers of various ages and countries; and the sacred historians could have no advantage over others, excepting on this ground. Whatever superiority of information distinguishes the Bible, must be inspiration-whatever inspiration rests upon the whole, must belong to its history, as a part of that whole :-and in so far as this is true, it not only gives the facts recorded a superhuman authority, but imparts a different character to the historians themselves. The character of the narrator in all history stands first in point of order. He must possess integrity, or we cannot rely upon his representations; wisdom, or we cannot confide in his discrimination; an unbiassed mind, or we shall only obtain partial statements. The narrator in this case is God himself, the Fountain of Truth; to Narrator. whom all things are open, who is incapable of error, and whose authority is impressed upon the whole communication. The historian becomes no more than the medium through which inspiration acts; and all his faculties are under the direction of a power superior to themselves. His memory acquires a supernatural extent; while "all things are brought to his remembrance" in their order, and are recorded with an accuracy unattainable in any other way, unimaginable on any other principle. They are not original authors, but scribes to the Great Narrator. And if the principle be not carried so far-if in cases of which they were eye-witnesses they may be said to be authors-the admission of their statements into revelation supposes that their natural faculties were under a superior influence, preserving them from those errors to which human infirmity, with the very best intentions, renders the mere human historian liable. This superintendence comports with leaving the writer to choose his own words, and retain his own style and manner. It is obvious, with regard to the prophets, that, although they record events so evidently out of the reach of human prescience at the time when they wrote;-events unconnected with any existing train of circumstances which could give countenance to them as probable, much less enable the writers to embody them from futurity;-they nevertheless retained their several peculiarities of style, and are as distinguishable from each other in manner and language as any other writers. Prophecy puts their inspiration beyond doubt; and the retention of their peculiarities by each, as clearly evinces that inspiration does not necessarily interrupt the usual manner of the historian. the sacred Even had it been otherwise, and were we required to waive the character of plea of inspiration altogether, the natural character of the sacred historians. historians ranks them with the first of human beings. In point of grandeur and sublimity of conception, of the power of discrimination, of unaffected simplicity, of ingenuous disinterestedness, of unbending integrity, of successful execution, they are unrivalled; and it is only necessary to compare their productions with the most admired labours of antiquity, to assign to them unhesitatingly the preference. Events narrated. From the enactments of Moses, almost all legislation has been drawn, both as to principle and to form; and where any departure from his grand outline is attempted, the change has been perceptibly for the worse: while the most elegant critic of the heathen world has produced the opening of his narrative, as the most striking specimen of the true sublime, which could be presented.—“ God said-what? Be light-and light was. Be earth-and it was so. Few will dispute the authority of Longinus on such a subject; and none can doubt his taste and judgment. If sacred history be tried by the character of its narrators, it wears the marks of undoubted authenticity. Let it be tried by the events narrated, another important criterion of history. The earliest and most interesting events form the subject of its record. It begins where revelation must be supposed to commence its testimony, with the origin of the visible creation. The first inquiries of man are directed towards the material universe, himself constituting so noble a part of it, and its destinies being so inseparably associated with his own. Urged by a nobler impulse than curiosity, he endeavours to retrace the stream of time to its fountain, and to penetrate even to the Infinite Cause, by whom all events are generated. What was to the philosopher a subject of speculation, giving birth to numberless and contradictory hypotheses, is to Moses simply a subject of history. The first sentence of his narrative unveils the hidden and eternal cause, settles the disputes of philosophy, assumes the fact of the creation, declares the Creator, and proceeds to a detail of the circumstances attending this stupendous transaction. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth;"'—a grandeur of expression, not inferior, perhaps, to the celebrated passage so distinguished by Longinus. Around this revealed truth, as a central point, the scattered schemes of philosophy rally; correcting their errors, reconciling their differences, and contributing their researches: science finds the base upon which to place a fulcrum that can raise the world; history discovers the spring of the ever-flowing tide of time; and chronology the punctum stans, the fixed, determinate, immoveable point, whence all her dates are deduced, and to which all divisions of time are to be referred. This great fact being established, the historian proceeds briefly, yet distinctly, to enumerate the leading particulars of this operation; passes on to a consideration of man's primeval state; unfolds the |