the other scriptures, unto their own destruction."

The entire history of our religion is one continued proof of the close and intimate connection subsisting between genuine Christianity and intellectual improvement. That fulness of time, in which the Father sent his Son to announce to the world the glad tidings of salvation, was the period of the utmost improvement of unassisted reason: when in the confusion of the middle ages a barbarous ignorance overspread the before civilized world, religion was almost wholly lost amidst the abuses of an absurd superstition: and when the intellectual light again broke forth, the eyes of men were opened to the enormities which ignorance had engendered in the time of darkness, and the Reformation asserted the purity of a scriptural religion. The connection of the Reformation with learning is too evident to be questioned. Melancthon, who completed it in Germany by composing the confession of Augsburgh, was confessedly the most distinguished scholar of his age; and Calvin, however we may dissent from his peculiar opinions, produced in his celebrated Christian Institution a work, which proves him to have possessed a mind cultivated with all the aids of learning. If intellectual refinement has been ever opposed to religion, it has been where the religion of the people was too grossly superstitious to satisfy a reasonable

and reflecting being. The same God who gave us reason, has also given us his revelation ; and if God be true, they cannot be at variance. The most improved reason can but enable us to comprehend more perfectly, and to appreciate more highly, the communications which the great author of our reason has thought it proper to impart; and it cannot be, as doctor Bruce has represented, that the faith of an illiterate Christian should be more firm and secure than that of the true philosopher.

The same disposition to lower the standard of scriptural interpretation appears to have, in the third sermon, induced the author to narrow, as much as possible, the portion of the sacred writings, from which our religious opinions should be collected. We are accordingly required to dismiss from our consideration the book of the acts of the apostles, and the whole body of the apostolic epistles, as relating almost exclusively to the concerns of ecclesiastical government; and in studying the gospels themselves we are directed to admit that only as authorised doctrine, which may be clearly proved from the narratives of all the four evangelists, rejecting as superfluous to human salvation every declaration of divine truth, which might be found in the writings of fewer than the whole number. Each gospel, we are told, must have contained the whole of that which was necessary for the instruction of mankind,

and therefore a communication not made by all should be regarded as not demanding our belief and acceptance.

This method of narrowing the foundation of our faith for the purpose of contracting the superstructure, now employed to justify the arian doctrine, had been by doctor Priestly applied to remove the difficulties of simple unitarianism, and has already been condemned as unwarranted by bishop Horseley, in his celebrated controversy with that distinguished leader of the unitarians of England. "Nothing," says bishop Horseley, "seems to have been less the intention of any of the evangelists, than to compose a system of fundamental principles. Instruction, in that age, was orally delivered. The general design of the evangelists seems to have been nothing more, than to deliver in writing a simple unembellished narrative of our Lord's principal miracles; to record the occurrences and actions of his life, which went immediately to the completion of the ancient prophecies, or to the execution of the scheme of man's redemption; and to register the most interesting maxims of religion and morality, which were contained in his discourses. The principles of the christian religion are to be collected, neither from a single gospel, nor from all the four gospels; nor from the four

* Horseley's Tracts, p. 285. Dundee 1812.

gospels with the acts and the epistles; but from the whole code of revelation, consisting of the canonical books of the Old and New Testament and for any article of faith the authority of a single writer, where it is express and unequivocal, is sufficient. Had St. Paul related what he saw in the third heaven, I hope, Sir, you would have given him implicit credit, although the truth of the narrative must have rested on his single testimony."

When it is considered that the book of the acts of the apostles is a narrative of the conduct of the commissioned messengers of our Redeemer, in founding the several churches of christians, and that the epistles contain the admonitions, which they judged necessary to be addressed in writing to those, whom they could not then personally visit, it seems really inconceivable that documents of so great authority should be excluded from consideration for any other reason than, however unconsciously, for this, that they contain passages embarrassing to a system of opinions, which the author is determined to maintain. The reason assigned, namely, that they do not profess to give a full and perfect account of the christian faith, is unsatisfactory, for it amounts only to this, that no fundamental and important truth can be found in the writings of any person, even though divinely inspired and commissioned, who has not professed that his specific purpose

was to make a perfect exposition of the whole truth of christianity. Why should it be supposed, that no part of the sacred writings can furnish authority for any article of religious belief, unless it propose to detail the entire system? It appears rather that the reasonable mode of forming a judgment concerning the importance of the communications made in these writings, would be to consider, whether the author faithfully recorded the declarations of men specially instructed by the Holy Spirit, as in the case of the book of the acts of the apostles, or was himself so preserved from the possibility of doctrinal error, as in that of the epistles, whatever might have been the object, which he immediately proposed.

Doctor Bruce indeed contends, that the narratives of the discourses of our Saviour must contain a perfect exposition of christian doctrine, which cannot require any further illustration. But, though our Saviour did say to his apostles, "all things that I have heard from my Father, I have made known unto you," it should be remembered that he also said to them, "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." It It may therefore be admitted that the many things, which he had still to say to them, related to the abrogation of the ritual