revelation consisting of language without meaning, or at least without any meaning discernible by the very creatures to whose belief it was proposed. It is true indeed, that arguments from the mere terms of scripture used to designate the Divine nature, when taken in any sense founded on merely human. reason or experience, can add nothing to the sum of Christian knowledge; may even lead to dangerous errors: but deductions from scripture in the sense of interpretations of propositions, constitute the very substance and reality of the Gospel, of which the words are only signs. I need scarcely dwell further on this point for it involves so directly the question of the necessity of belief in any Christian doctrine, and therefore the necessity and truth of the whole Christian revelation, that a believer cannot hesitate in deciding on which side Christianity lies. II. In maintaining that deductions from scripture rightly interpreted, are sufficient to establish articles of faith, we must state the question clearly. It is not meant that new truths not taught by revelation, can be deduced from those that are, by the force of human reasoning; but that scripture may supply such premises that the conclusion is manifestly taught by scripture itself. E. 9. if in one part of scripture attributes are ascribed to a Being, which we are elsewhere told belong to God only, it follows necessarily that this Being is God. The conclusion is irresistible. If the scripture teaches the premises it teaches this conclusion and to suppose that the conclusion is not true, or that it may be held doubtful or needless to be believed, is to suppose that scripture is calculated to lead men into error. The same may be observed of conclusions which follow from a truth revealed in scripture, and from some other truth self-evident, or supported by the testimony of sense, and always universally admitted. E. g. if scripture affirms that Christ was made perfectly man, it also teaches that he is not without those powers or that portion of human nature which we call the soul, and the existence of which we know intuitively. The reason is, because revelation is addressed to man man, and therefore must presuppose all those principles and notions which are essential to human nature. as It is not meant that every deduction from the divine truths of scripture is a matter of faith, for there may be different degrees of clearness in the argument ; but I am now only speaking of the abstract possibility of a case in which scripture shall teach a truth, by teaching what necessarily infers it. There is no impossibility that God should choose to reveal some scriptural truths in this manner, and not in express terms, because even if he intended them to be believed explicitly by all his people, he might provide in his church, means by which those conclusions might be taught and proved too all from scripture. He might design by this method to excite men to the study of scripture, and to impose an important duty on his ministers. If the apostles, if Christ himself, acting as we believe under Divine inspiration, taught either by word or writing certain truths, from which others inevitably follow according to all the rules of reason and common sense; then, unless there was some most clear and unquestionable declaration made by the same authority, that the former truths alone were binding on Christians as articles of faith, it must have been the intention of Christ and the apostles that both kinds of truth should be believed equally; for it is impossible that they could have designed to oblige men to believe what was unnecessary, and equally impossible that they should have deceived them through inadvertence, or neglect. Consequently we have a right to demand from those who assert that conclusions which follow necessarily from the doctrine of scripture are not binding, some distinct unquestionable proof of this assertion delivered in express terms in scripture. If it be maintained without any such proof, then the integrity, the equity, the inspiration of the sacred writers, are denied. I will not urge the practice of our Lord and the apostles in arguing with Jews and unbelievers by means of deductions made from scripture". A practice which was adopted uniformly by all the Christian church in all subsequent ages, which was even employed by sects' which pretended to deny its validity when convincingly directed by the church against their heresies, has so great a weight of authority and probability attached to it, that the strongest evidence alone could demonstrate its inefficiency. It is surely to the last degree improbable, even humanly speaking, that the whole body of Christians from the beginning, should have mistaken altogether the mode of argument in proof of the articles of their faith. In supposing that what is necessarily, by all the rules of reason, deduced from scriptural doctrine, was designed to be believed by those to whom scripture is addressed, h Thomas' Tracts on Scrip. Consequences, p. 58.92. Spanhemii Disputat. Theol. pars ii. disp. xxvi. See Mr. Thomas' Tracts, p. 62, 63. we make no improbable assumption. We merely assume that the scriptures were not designed to deceive us, that they were addressed to man as he is by nature, a rational being capable of perceiving certain conclusions. We do not assume here that there are actually in scripture doctrines from which others inevitably follow: we only affirm that if there are such, the conclusions are binding. The denial of this without clear proof from revelation is not merely an error. It is a presumptuous and pernicious error, because it decides the particular mode in which God's revelation must be made, and thus would permit man to disbelieve whatever has not been revealed in the way he judges fit. On this principle infidels reject Christianity as only a partial revelation, or as not brought home to every man's mind by special illumination. This has always been the mode in which the opponents of the truth, when hard pressed by scriptural arguments, have endeavoured to defend themselves. The Arians demanded the express words of scripture in proof of the Christian doctrine of the Consubstantiality of the Son'. The Macedonians required the same in proof of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost ". The Apollinarians, the Monophysites", the Anabaptists, Familists, Antinomians, modern Arians, Socinians, and Rationalists, have all in their turn sheltered their errors from the otherwise irresistible force of scriptural argument, by insisting on the express words of scripture. This train is appropriately closed by Morgan the infidel, who assailed the doctrine of Scripture Consequences, early in the last century. It will be found on examination, that most if not all the above sects, themselves believed several points founded only on scriptural argument, not on the express words of scripture. The Wallenburghs in their "Methodus Augustiniana" (a mode of contending with the Lutherans which had been first invented by Du Perron, Veron, &c.), went partly into this principle. The general outline of this system was, to show that the onus probandi lay with the Protestants as accusers, reformers, and separatists'; that they were bound by their own principles and professions to furnish sufficient proof of their doctrines on matters of faith from scripture alone; that this proof ought to be in express terms of scripture, as well from their own principle of the sufficiency of scripture only, as from the ambiguity of consequences, and the incapacity of the people to follow them. Having yielded a confession that the questions in debate were not decided this occasion of expressing a deep sense of the value of a work which cannot be too widely known or too highly prized. Christians cannot fail to be inspired with greater zeal for the faith, and more watchful care of that precious deposit, by the perusal of "the State of Protestantism in Germany." P See his Letter to the Rev. J. Cumming, cited by Mr. Thomas in his "Tracts on Scripture Consequences," p. 10. 9 Tractatus Generales de Controversiis Fidei per Adrian. et Petrum de Walenburch, t. i. p. 15, &c. and p. 229, &c. Edit. Coloniæ Agripp. 1670. It seems indeed as if some of the Lutherans had spoken injudiciously on this subject. Eckius argues against their mode of requiring the express words of scripture in proof of doctrines. Enchiridion, p. 40, 41. Walenburch, p. 16. 246, &c. Ibid. p. 17. 293, &c. r |