Mohammedanism; we have tried deism and philosophy; and "we cannot look upon them even with respect." The Scriptures contain the only system of truth which is left us. If we give up these, we have no other to which we can repair. We must travel back under the faint and trembling lights of reason and nature, where "darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people."

Gray, (Dr. J.) What axioms are to the mathematician, and facts to the philospher, the same should be a "thus saith the Lord" to the theologian.

Ed. Old and New Testaments. Those who reject the former, soon cast off the latter.

Gregory. The Sacred Scriptures are the Library of the Holy Ghost. The Bible is the standard of truth, the judge of controversy, and the pole-star to direct us to heaven.

The Bible is the good man's vocabulary.

The Bible goes forth among the nations, finding friends nowhere, but making them everywhere.

Ed. Other books bespeak their own age. The Bible was made for all ages. Uninspired authors speculate upon truths before made known, and often upon delusive imaginations. The Bible reveals truths before unknown, and otherwise unknowable. We cannot comprehend all the advantages which God has over all human authors, nor all the excellencies of the Bible over other books. But the following things are obvious:

Suc

1. The Bible is distinguished for its exact and universal truth. Time and criticism only illustrate and confirm its pages. cessive ages reveal nothing to modify the Bible representations of God; nothing to correct the Bible representations of human nature. Passing events fulfil its prophesies, but fail to impeach its allegations. When God speaks, he speaks in view of all truths, past, present, and future; which enables him to utter exact and universal truth. But all human authors are very limited in vision, and their feelings are warped by prejudice.

2. The Bible is distinguished by the moral purity of its precepts. All the divine precepts are "according to godliness," and adapted to make us "wise unto salvation.” They bear with

equal weight against all errors and sins, and in favor of truth and goodness.

3. The Bible is distinguished for its spirituality. It reaches, it searches the heart, and points out all its errors and false hopes. In its own expressive language, it is "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

4. The sacred writers are distinguished for their consistency. "It is fated to error to run crooked;" but a complete harmony runs through all the parts of the evangelical system.

5. The Bible is distinguished for its originality. It is the sun in the literary constellation, which has emitted much light, but borrowed none. The theology of the Bible is original — its laws are the basis of legal science — its ethical code formed the science of morals. Poets lighted their lamps from sacred song. The abounding and striking imagery of the Bible is its own. The sacred writers not only struck out new light in all the departments of theological and moral science, but still remain the master spirits of truth, of thought, and of beauty.

The Bible is also distinguished for its sublimity. Its pages abound with the most impressive truths, in the most artless and simple style. Said Dr. Dwight, "So comprehensive are the doctrines of the Gospel, that they involve all moral truth known by man; so extensive are its precepts, that they require every virtue, and forbid every sin. Nothing has been added to them by the labors of philosophy, or by the progress of human experience." For specimens of the master-sublime, see the Mosaic account of the creation, of the fall of man, the deluge, and the decalogue, together with Christ's sermon on the Mount, the Lord's prayer, and his account of the general judgment. It is not, however, so much the mode of expressing things, as the things and thoughts revealed, which constitute the sublimity of the Bible. God's natural attributes and moral perfections are incomprehensible. His chief end is the most sublime thought conceivable. The methods he has adopted in creation and redemption to secure it, are immeasurably sublime. The variety, uniformity, and extent of creation - its contrasts, changes, and

BIBLE, ENGLISH VERSION.

53

progressive order the amount of evils that exists as the occasion of good, and the ultimate amount of rapidly increasing good in the intelligent creation, that may yet make its evils appear as comparatively nothing and vanity—these, together with the ultimate glory and blessedness of God, are revealed objects which constitute an ocean of sublimity without a shore.

I will add, that the Bible is distinguished by the weight of its moral power. I mean its reproofs, its warnings, its invitations, expostulations and promises, and its threats and denunciations, all sanctioned by the infinite authority of God, and by eternal

consequences.

These features of the Bible, so prominent and obvious in all its parts, render it infinitely more instructive, profitable, impressive, and important, than all other books. The productions of human genius are trash, mere trash, when compared with the oracles of God. A fraction of its internal evidence is enough to satisfy any intelligent and unprejudiced mind of its divine origin. "O, earth! earth! earth! hear the word of the Lord," and "search the Scriptures."

66

71. BIBLE, ENGLISH VERSION.

Spring. The English Bible is the purest specimen of English, or Anglo-Saxon, to be found in the world. Says a learned commentator, "Our translators have not only made a standard translation; but they have made their translation the standard of our language. The English tongue, in their day, was not equal to such a work. But God enabled them to stand as upon Mount Sinai, and crane up their country's language to the dignity of the originals; so that after the lapse of two hundred years, the English Bible, with very few exceptions, is the standard of the purity and excellence of the English tongue," 72. BIBLE PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

Whelpley. The Bible abounds in plain truth, expressed in plain language: in this it surpasses all other books.

Spring. In the historical compositions of the Bible, we have the most simple, natural, affecting, and well-told narratives in the world. The characters walk and breathe. They are nature, and nothing but nature. By a single stroke of the pen

cil you often have their portrait. You see them. You hear them. Every scene in which you behold them is a fit subject for the painter.

McKnight. It is remarkable, that through the whole of their histories, the Evangelists have not passed one encomium upon Jesus, or upon any of his friends: nor thrown out one reflection against his enemies; though much of both kinds might have been, and no doubt would have been done by them, had they been governed either by a spirit of imposition, or enthusiasm. Christ's life is not praised in the gospels; his death is not lamented; his friends are not commended; his enemies are not reproached, nor even blamed: but every thing is told, naked and unadorned, just as it took place; and all who read are left to judge, and make reflections for themselves.

73. BIBLE SUBLIME AND COMPREHENSIVE. Human wisdom has produced a multitude of books: Divine wisdom has compressed her counsels into one.

Jones, (Sir Wm.) I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written. Ames, (Fisher.) No man ever did or ever will become truly eloquent, without being a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.

74. BIBLE DIVINELY INSPIRED.

Madam De Stael. I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity, than the Lord's Prayer.

Dr. Channing, in speaking of the Gospel as related by the four Evangelists, once remarked in his pulpit, as reported by a stenographer: "Its incongruity with the age of its birth; its freedom from earthly mixtures; its original, unborrowed, solitary greatness; the suddenness with which it broke forth amidst the general gloom; these, to me, are strong indications of its Divine descent: I cannot reconcile them with a human origin.” [See 398.]

Em.

BIBLE.

75. BIBLE RESISTED AND PERVERTED.

Sinners of all classes find

55

themselves described in the Could they read or hear

Bible, which makes them hate it. the Gospel, without discovering their sinful and dangerous condition, they would take more pleasure in reading and hearing the Word of God, than any other book in the world, because it unfolds the most grand, beautiful, and instructive scenes and objects.

lb. There is nothing in the Bible which sinners so much hate, as the God of the Bible.

Ed. In always and everywhere opposing the Bible, the "Man of sin" answers to his name.

Wms., T. Commentaries, expositions, paraphrases, translations, versions, and notes have been multiplied and employed to blunt the point, and turn the edge of Divine truth. Systems of theology, volumes of sermons, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and tracts, are poured upon the world, like a flood, to afford a bathing place, that we may be relieved. Still, Moses and the Prophets, the Evangelists and the Apostles stand in the name and strength of God against man.

He that casts away his Bible because it shows him his sins, is like him that should break his looking-glass, because it shows him his deformity.

76. BIBLE, STUDY OF.

The careful study of the Bible is a very valuable intellectual, as well as moral discipline.

Ed. Properly searching the Scriptures spoils all other reading. The oldest book is always new.

Dr. Ide. A knowledge of the Bible gives interest and importance to every other kind of knowledge.

77. BIBLE NEGLECTED.

Puritan Rec. In days gone by, the Bible occupied that position which God, and our souls' destinies demanded: When at home · abroad on the Sabbath in the week, it stood

the child—

foremost; when the hoary—the middle-aged reverenced its pages and treasured its precepts. But a change

has come over us. Religious books, periodicals and papers,