LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTORY. INFIDEL OBJECTIONS STATED.

Prevalence of infidel sentiments, and of an increasing tendency to think meanly of the Scriptures. -Their Plenary Inspiration generally relinquished.-Design of these Lectures stated.Necessity of Revelation.-The character that must belong to a Composition which has God for its Author.-Inquiry proposed: Do the books called the Holy Scriptures come up to this character ?-Answered in the affirmative by the Lecturer, but the proof reserved for the subsequent Lectures:-Answered in the negative by the Deist, on the alledged grounds, that the books in question contain statements that are contradictory to each other, some that are at variance with science and reason, and some that are repugnant to morality; and that, beside these positive objections, the greater part of them is occupied with indifferent and insignificant matters.-General reply, that all such objections arise from taking a merely superficial view of the Scriptures, and

B

from an ignorance of their true nature; and that they may be retorted so as to assist in proving what the true nature of the Scriptures is.—Appeal to the reader, on the ill consequences of infidelity.

THERE is a prediction in the second Epistle of Peter*, which can hardly fail to present itself to the thoughts of every believer in Divine Revelation, when he reflects upon the deluge of infidelity, which, in the present times, is seen pouring upon the world. The apostle says, "there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts:" upon which it has been justly remarked by advocates of Christianity, that the circumstance of the wide diffusion of hostility to Revelation which it is the lot of the present generation to witness, itself affords a testimony of the truth of the Scriptures; since it is the fulfilment of a prophecy which the Scriptures contain. Another divine prediction of Holy Writ, will also frequently occur to the recollection of him who contemplates this state of things: Jesus Christ says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."+ It is now generally admitted by expositors of Scripture, that

* Ch. iii. ver. 3.

+ Matt. xxiv. 35.

the so often occurring prophetical figure of the passing away of heaven and earth, denotes the overturning of ecclesiastical and civil establishments. Of these occurrences the present generation has seen more extensive examples, than have before been witnessed since the first esta. blishment of Christianity; and were it not for the divine assurance that the words of Jesus Christ shall not pass away,-(and these words, in fact, include the whole of the Word of God, since we are assured by Peter that the spirit which inspired the old prophets was the spirit of Christ*; -were it not for this divine assurance,) we might almost expect, when we observe the activity with which deistical publications are circulated, and the avidity with which, in too many cases, their poison is imbibed, that, amongst the moral and civil revolutions of which the present is so remarkable an era, all belief in divine revelation would be abolished from the human mind; the awful consequences of which would be, to place the moral world in a situation precisely similar to that in which the world of nature would stand, were the sun to be abolished from the firmament. In a neighbouring nation we actually have seen this revolution temporarily effected. Profligacy of manners and atheistical writings had together destroyed, in a great portion of the people, all reverence for revealed truth: persons of

* 1 Ep. i. 11.

this class possessed themselves of the government; and decrees were issued proclaiming Christianity abolished, and disowning any Divinity but the Divinity of reason. The horrors that ensued, by exciting a re-action, prepared indeed the way for re-establishing the profession of Christianity; but as this is there disguised among the mummeries of Popery, it is not likely, though now favoured by the government, to make many but political conversions and the disregard to the Word of God appears to be nearly as great as ever, though contempt for it is not so indecently expressed. Indeed, there is ample reason for believing, that, in all Roman Catholic countries, infidelity, in a greater or less degree, is prevalent with most of those, who consider themselves raised above the vulgar by station and acquirements.

Are the Protestant countries on the continent of Europe exempt from the contagion? There is reason to apprehend, that the poison of infidelity is here also spreading, not less rapidly than where it is fostered by the corruptions of the church of Rome: of which ample evidence might be afforded. But here also another extraordinary feature, discovering the tendencies of the present age in regard to the belief in revelation, becomes conspicuous. Not only is absolute infidelity very prevalent, but the religion that is professed is more and more assuming a character, which renders it different from infidelity, less in sub

stance than in name.

worthy ideas of the

The most low and unChristian Redeemer are

daily superseding the honour that is his due; and, in the same ratio, ideas equally low and unworthy regarding the inspiration of the Sacred Volume, are spreading with celerity. The church of Geneva, so long regarded by a large portion of the Christian world as the centre of illumination, has published a reformed creed, disavowing any belief in the divinity of the Saviour: and the universities of Germany, which have formerly rendered such essential services to the cause of Biblical Learning, seem now to be labouring, through the works of their Professors, to reduce the standard of inspiration to as low a degree as is consistent with any belief, that the books which claim it contain a system of true religion; so low indeed, that it becomes difficult to perceive wherein they differ from the productions of writers who do not pretend to be inspired. A few years since, Dr. G. Paulus, a Professor in the University of Jena, and a Clergyman, published a new edition of the works of the celebrated atheist or pantheist, Spinoza, with a laudatory preface, in which he maintains, that the sentiments of this acknowledged infidel respecting the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, are the same which, in the hands of Professor Eichhorn of the University of Gottingen, have led to such superior elucidations of the holy