natural means are fufficient to the purposes of God; but analogy and comparison may help us to fome conjectures, and we cannot err very widely from the truth in expecting God to act in the like manner in like inftances. My fecond remark is this, that, in folving the difficult problem of divine infpiration, that folution, which leaves the feweft difficulties, perplexities, and contradictions, is to be preferred; rejecting every other, which, inftead of removing those difficulties, tends rather to make them inexplicable..

I will now examine whether the preceding theory of infpiration may be applied to the infpiration of the holy fcriptures. Let us firft confider the different fubjects of the facred writings. They contain doctrines, prophecies, and hiftories. The doctrines are of fuch a nature, that we may apply to them the forementioned divifion. There are pofitive doctrines, and arbitrary precepts; not fo in themselves, but with respect to the understanding of man. Thus we may apply to these the foregoing confequence, that they were imparted to mankind by the first and fourth kind of infpiration. God has made known to the infpired perfon, what he and others fhould do, by means of an oral or written instruction; and this inftruction was communicated fupernaturally, as no ordinary or natural inftruction would have been fufficient to the purpose. But again, natural means were as much as poffible employed, and the laws of human reason as little as might be deviated from. Thus the most important inftruction mult have been communicated in human guife, and in the manner of common information. Superior beings must have appeared as men, and uttered human words, or the perfon infpired muft at leaft have heard a human voice. The most weighty religious precepts were imparted to the apoftles by the Son of God in humanform, and in a natural manner. In fome extraor

dinary cafes only, for which they were not prepared, and in which their ignorance might have led them into great perplexity, a fupernatural revelation was communicated to them. So far, however, as these truths and precepts might have followed of themfelves from their natural and acquired knowledge, we may prefume, that the third fpecies of infpiration was combined with the firft. Thus from the union of these two kinds the most perfect infpiration arofe; whence we may conclude, that they were the most ufual, though without exclufion of the fecond and fourth. Thofe doctrines and precepts which are not arbitrary, but merely rational, as in fome of the Pfalms for inftance, the Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclefiaftes, and the book of Job, may aptly be referred to the third fpecies, and the fame may be faid of them as of history.

Prophecies come under the fecond and fourth kinds of inspiration. They are imparted by vifion and fymbolical perceptions in trances or dreams, in which future events are reprefented as in a picture, or in which human voices and words are heard. This distinction is here to be made, that, when the fubject of the prophecy is made known to the prophet by external types, the fecond kind takes place : but when it is feen or heard by means of an immediate influence on his imagination, the fourth. How far this fourth kind of inspiration is more or less natural, I fhall not venture to determine. It is fo far fupernatural, however, that one man cannot infpire another by its means, but only God himself, or perhaps fame being fuperior to man, under his direction and inafmuch as we can form no idea of the . operation which produces a series of conceptions in the mind, not founded on its former ideas, on its previously acquired knowledge, or on any external perceptions, this kind of infpiration is not only fupernatural, but the most wonderful of all, One VOL. III. Pp

thing,

thing, however, I must observe, that it happens for the most part, in all probability, if not conftantly, in a dream or trance. And the reafon of this feems to be, that the perfon inspired might have a remarkable ground of diftinction, whereby to difcriminate the divine infpiration from his own thoughts and conceptions. This would be difficult, if not impoffible, were the infpiration confounded with the chain of his ordinary conceptions, without any ftriking mark of diftinction, and were it preceded by no warning to point it out as extraordinary and divine. A mere internal admonition, that what a man is about to think will be by divine infpiration, feems fcarcely fufficient to fecure him from felf-deception, if the admonition be unaccompanied with decifive external circumftances, or if the perfon infpired be affured only by his natural conceptions. If such criterions fail, he cannot be certain, that the thought of an approaching infpiration itfelf is not his own natural conception, and particularly if he be accuftomed to expect infpirations from God. This remark is perfectly confonant to what we learn of immediate infpiration from the holy fcriptures. When the prophets fay the spirit of the Lord is upon me: if we suppose it to mean, that the spirit came over them, or fell upon them, it will unquestionably fignify a state of fupernatural trance. The prophets received what was revealed to them in vifions and dreams. When Paul was honoured with that high revelation, he was entranced, fo that he knew not whether he was in the body, or out of the body. Peter faw a vifion, when he was inftructed, that the diftinction betwixt the Jews and Gentiles fhould be done away. An angel appeared to him in prifon, to acquaint him, that he fhould go out of it free. We find, that, in every town upon his journey, the fpirit informed Paul, by prophets, and not by an indifcriminate inspiration, that affliction and bondage awaited him in Jerufalem.

At

At another time, a man ftood by him in a dream, telling him what he was to do. Thefe, and many ..other examples which I could produce, seem to fhew, firft, that, when an immediate infpiration took place, it happened in trances or dreams; fecondly, that, when this did not occur, the divine inftruction was communicated by means of external appearances, intelligible expreffions, or other figns; and thirdly, that every immediate infpiration was accompanied with fuch remarkable and extraordinary circumstances as convinced both the infpired perfon and others of a fupernatural influence.

A knowledge of paft occurrences was imparted, where it was poffible, by means of the third fpecies of infpiration. Here we may limit the divine infpiration to a particular call of God, or a requifition from providence to write (a call that might be communicated to the hiftorian by means of the remarkable circumstances in which he was placed) to the indication of the neceffary materials, to the gift of requifite attention, ability, and love of truth, and finally to fuch a combination of circumftances, as would produce a hiftory as accurate and perfect as the fources whence it was derived would admit, and fully adequate to the purpose for which it was writOn thefe principles, as it appears to me, fhould we form our judgment of the hiftorical writers of the Old Testament. They have compiled a true and accurate history from the accounts and documents which they had before them. They frequently refer to those more ancient accounts, as the fources and vouchers of their narration. If in these they found circumftances not true, which however we have no reason to prefume, they must have recorded them, fuppofing them not fufficiently important to have prevented the defign and utility of their history. Excepting this cafe, then, which is not a very probable one, we must allow them the fame credibility

ten.

as a profane hiftorian, whofe hiftory of ancient times is interspersed with improbable ftories foreign to his fubject. This would be fo far from weakening his authority, that it would rather be a proof of his authenticity for it was the characteristic of the earlieft ages to relate natural occurrences in a poetical and allegorical style, to dress up true hiftory in the imagery of fancy, and to give it an appearance of the marvellous, by which none who knew how to ftrip it of its poetic garb were deceived. Such being the characteristic of the firft ages, and the most ancient records we have being written in fuch a ftyle, it was neceffary for the hiftorian carefully to pursue the fame track, and by no means diveft his account of those traits, which would tend to prove his veracity to pofterity.

On these principles, the hiftory of the New Teftament has a great pre-eminence over that of the Old, in this refpect, that its writers deliver the hiftory of their own times, and relate things which they faw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, or which they received from immediate eye or earwitneffes. As they tell what they heard from the word of life, what they had feen with their eyes, and what they had felt with their hands, or as they had received it from thofe who faw all from the beginning, and were minifters of the word, and as they relate every thing from the commencement, they have a claim to the confidence of their readers: and when they advance this, they appear by the ftyle of their hiftory, to lay claim only to human credibility, though to the highest degree of it. If to this we add what has been faid of that species of inspiration, according to which they wrote, their history will not want any of that divine authority that can be attributed to the teftimony of an hiftorian, who, as I fhall hereafter fhew, muft alfo retain credibility as a It will diminish the general authority of their history

man.