Christian or infidel, to convince him of the divine origin of the Scripture revelations, independent of any objections that may be made against them. To accomplish this object it was absolutely necessary that we should undertake it upon some undoubted principles for testing the correctness of our conclusions as founded on the recognized phenomena of human nature. Of these the most undeniable is the fact that mankind universally act from special motives. Courts of Law not only regulate their proceedings on this principle, but it is distinctly recognized by all intelligent individuals; indeed it is impossible to suppose that the agents in any human transactions could act otherwise. Hence we conducted our investigations on the issue made, pages 89, 94, that the writers of the Scriptures could only be either righteous and disinterested men, or that they were consciously knaves or impostors.

The result of our investigations of the Scripture scheme, has been the exposition of such an extraordinary number of particu- lars in its construction, so utterly contradictory to all notions of human wisdom or policy concerning civil, ecclesiastical and religious institutions, that we are unable to discern the influence or operations of any human motives whatever, in the formation of the Scripture scheme. Hence, we can only come to the conclusion that the writers of the Pentateuch, the prophets, and the apostles, had nothing whatever to do in the elaboration of the Scripture scheme, and the deduction is irresistible that they have merely written out what they had been commissioned of God to proclaim to mankind.

Having thus exhausted our amount of human argument that bears on the question of the credibility of the Scripture writers, we then showed that God himself has set His seal to the correctness of our conclusion, in the fact of the fulfilment of predictions. made by his prophets centuries before they occurred.

INVESTIGATIONS,

HISTORICAL AND ANALYTICAL,

CONCERNING

JEHOVAH'S SEVERAL REVELATIONS TO MANKIND, AND OF HUMAN CONDUCT UNDER EACH PARTICULAR

DISPENSATION.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

OBSERVATIONS SHEWING THE NECESSITY OF MAKING A HISTORICAL EXPOSITION OF THE INSTITUTIONS, DOCTRINES AND PRIVILEGES ANNOUNCED BY GOD TO MANKIND UNDER THE PATRIARCHAL JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS PREVIOUS TO STATING WHAT ARE THE PRACTICAL REQUIREMENTS, PRIVILEGES, &C., OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME.

WE have hitherto been engaged in establishing but two particulars-first, that the Scriptures distinctly instruct us that men as intelligent moral free agents of limited capacities, have been placed in this world by their Creator in a probationary state, in which they are required by him to attain to their utmost intellectual and moral perfection through their own voluntary exertions. In this work, however, they will be assisted by God, provided they seek his favor according to the modes through which he has promised to answer them. In the second place, we have established the divine commission of those individuals who promulgated the religious system communicated in the Scriptures, by as large and complete an amount of evidence as such a system admits of; for beyond a certain amount, greater evidence would subvert human free agency, by superceding,the necessity of exercising our intelligent capacities as free agents in determining on the subject through our own rationality.

Though it may seem after our previous disquisitions to be a simple course, that we should now proceed to make an exposition of the several particulars required from human faith and obedience in the New Testament, yet it would be wholly inexpedient to do so at the present time. For every one must be aware that the Christian world is divided into sects, who differ in their interpretations as to the precise nature, character and extent of almost every particular of doctrine, institution or observance that is announced in the Scriptures. If we, therefore, should now undertake to make an exposition of what we consider to be the true system of things promulgated in the New Testament, we would be embarrassed at almost every step with controversies as to the significance of the communications made both in the Old and New Testaments, on almost every subject of theological or ecclesiastical importance,

Such a condition of things as this, however, involves no perplexity of explanation to the Christian reader, for that mankind should differ in their opinions more or less on these various particulars, is a necessary consequence pertaining to the condition of free agents of an imperfect capacity placed in a probationary state, in which they are left to their own inferences or conclusions.

But since there are no material differences between theologians as to the mere text of the Scriptures concerning the doctrines, institutions and observances announced in them, it must be evident that the disagreements of Christian sects on these subjects have proceeded from misinterpretations; for it must be clear to every one that there can be but one true exposition of the particulars of the scheme inculcated in the Scriptures.

The inference from this simple conclusion, however, is of momentous importance to every professing Christian. For if any one shall fail, as many necessarily must do in consequence of our conflicting schemes of theology, to accomplish that perfection which God has required from him in the Scriptures, through misapplication or by erroneous constructions of what has been formally announced in the Scriptures; or if he has followed in the place of God's appointed requirements or privileges, any scheme of willworship of human devising;-such individual undeniably has made himself obnoxious to all the consequences that follow from breaches of God's covenants. All acceptance of mankind with him, according to the Scriptures, is exclusively on the ground of their implicit

obedience and strictest religious conformity to what he has required from them.

I do not mean, however, to say that such transgressions will be followed by an everlasting condemnation. But nevertheless, it seems to me that no excuse or palliation in the above instances can be accepted, but on the ground that the individual took all earnest pains to understand God's revelations; and that his errors were simply the consequences of his unavoidable though conscientious misjudgment.

St. Paul in 1st Cor. iii. 10-15, is very distinct on this principle. Whoever has even a moderate acquaintance with the history of the Christian Church, must be aware that there is no scheme of theology announced in formal terms in the Scriptures, and the inference seems direct that the various conflicting systems now advocated in Christendom have arisen from the universal proclivity among men to bring all subjects of an intellectual character into a systematic harmony.

In carrying out this purpose which commenced in the second century after Christ, and has continued ever since, theological speculators, according to the universal mode of reasoning then employed by intellectual men on all other subjects, obtained their premises through deductive inferences, which rested upon assumptions of the truth of great abstract principles, from which they reasoned downward as to the significance and nature of all particulars comprehended in any system of things.

On similar principles Christian theologians having assumed the infinitely perfect and excellent abstract attributes of the Creator of the Universe, they then inferred that the Scriptures, as emanating from such a source, had been dictated under an immediate inspiration from him, not only as to the substance of the communication made, but that even the very words and terms by which they were written, had been prompted by the spirit of God. As the theologians also held at the same time, that the ministers of the Gospel were a divinely commissioned class of men, having exclusive authority to determine what was the true meaning of the Scripture text, so under the combination of the assumptions above mentioned, there could be no limit assigned to the deductive inferences as to the doctrines, institutions and observances that were gradually introduced and elaborated into the scheme of Christianity as a theological system.

To illustrate the fallacy of this deductive mode of reasoning, we shall refer merely to St. Athanasius' vindication of the Nicene

Creed. If, says he, "the expressions are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as we said before, they contain the sense of the Scriptures," (i. e. according to our deductions,) "and expressing it," (i. e. the sense,) "they convey it to those who (with ecclesiastical arrogance he asserts) have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine."

But as the Arians could not discern any such sense of Scripture, as deduced by the Council of Nice, they remained unconvinced and asserted the correctness of their own deduction; and since there is no test by which the true value of conflicting deductive reasonings can be determined, the question is, or formerly was, decided by force; i. e. according to which ever party could obtain the assistance of the civil government.

We however need say nothing further on this subject, the reader must perceive with all distinctness, that if it be possible to extricate the true exposition of the Scriptures concerning doctrines, institutions and observances from the mass of irreconcilable theological controversy in which they are now involved, it must be by investigating the subject on a very different plan than the one by which it has been hitherto conducted. No discussion as to the real value of the arguments by which theologians now vindicate their conflicting interpretations of Scripture would be of the least avail towards bringing them into harmony of view on such subjects, for all their several arguments sustaining their different conclusions, having been stereotyped as it were on the minds of their advocates for centuries, are still urged with as much pertinacity as ever.

Under these perplexing considerations, the only mode in our apprehension by which we can now be able to attain to the true interpretation and import of the Scripture revelations in their original doctrinal and practical applications, will be to adapt the principle and rules of proceeding which the wisdom and long experience of courts of law have laid down for determining the true meaning of any human document, when a controversy takes place as to its correct interpretation. The reader should therefore carefully read over what we have quoted on this subject, in our Abstract concerning Courts of Law, sections 20 and 21. See Appendix to this volume.

The substance, however, of the proceeding of courts of law, is, that they strictly limit their enquiry to ascertaining what intention do the words of the instrument express; without regard to any intention independent of the words; and that no parol evidence is