THE FIRST CLASS OF PROOFS TAKEN FROM THE WISDOM AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD.

422, Tats doctrine, we affirm, is already proved, for every one who believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures, by the simple consideration of the divine wisdom and veracity.

This is almost a question of the plainest common sense. Only suppose that a clever watchmaker, by a wonderful exertion of his abilities, prepares and finishes, at a great expense, all the parts of a perfect chronometer, which is intended for the use of a beloved son in his travels to foreign parts; shall we not admit, as we would an axiom, that, having thus made it, he would not intentionally leave it out of doors exposed to all the accidents of the weather, or to injuries from passers-by? And who, then, can admit that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would cause His only Son to come down from heaven for His chosen people, without guaranteeing for them the record of His life and teachings? or that He would have commissioned His apostles to write their books by the Holy Spirit, without taking care to preserve in aftertime so precious a deposit? that He watched over these books while they were being written, and ceased to watch over them when once they were given to the world? that He cared. no more about them when the churches had received them from the hands of the apostles? and that, in consequence, they have been transmitted from age to age, from country to country, from one generation to another, abandoned henceforward, like any common book to all the hazards of eighteen centuries? Would such negligence be in harmony with the principles of His government; with the care which He takes of the Church to the end of time; with His declarations of the value of the Scriptures, and the permanent certainty of their declarations; with His denunciations against the crime of adding anything to them, or taking anything from them? He numbers the hairs of our head, and would He not number the books of His oracles? He does not allow a sparrow to fall to the ground without His permission, and would He allow the Scriptures to fall from heaven to the ground, which have been given by Himself for the universal gathering together of His elect? What good to give them divinely inspired, unless He transmit them divinely guarded? Why preserve them from all error, if not preserved afterwards from all dangers? He who said, “Every word of God is pure, . . . . add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee,”¹ will He not keep a jealous eye upon it? And if, by the mouth of Paul, He pronounced an anathema against any who should preach “any other gospel than what His apostles preached,”² would He afterwards permit this condemnation to fall on the entire collection of their oracles, by allowing inspired writings to be lost from it, or forged writings to be admitted into it? This is not possible. And we must all admit. that, the inspiration of the Scriptures being recognised, our doctrine is already proved by the simplest knowledge of the wisdom and veracity of God.

The learned Grotius has developed this thought very ably in the third book of his treatise on the truth of the Christian religion.³

SECTION FIRST.

BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WHICH ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN LOST,

423. Nor must it be alleged here that books composed, it is said, by prophets of the Old Testament, or by apostles of the New, have been lost — “unfortunately lost” — to speak as some theologians do in the present day.⁴ None have been lost; and those persons who have advanced the contrary on mere suppositions can furnish no proof. The Church, for a longer or shorter time, may have suspended her judgment on the canonicity of this or that scripture; but not an instance can be cited of any book that has been once admitted into the canon that it has been afterwards excluded or lost.⁵

424. Such allegations, it is true, have been made as to the Old Testament respecting The Book of the Wars of Jehovah,⁶ cited in the Pentateuch; The Book of Jasher,⁷ cited in Joshua and Samuel; also the books of Gad, of Nathan, of Ahijah, of Jeddo, of Semahiah, of Heddo, cited in the Chronicles;⁸ and as to the New Testament, a pretended Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, that no one has ever seen, and another pretended Epistle to the Corinthians, which also has not been seen.

425. But to speak first of the Old Testament. The Book of the Wars of Jehovah never made part of the Holy Scriptures as a distinct work. The Jews who came after Moses knew it only by the citation of Moses. They have even thought with Aben-Ezra, and some rabbis, that he meant only the Book of Numbers. Lightfoot believed it was a collection of instructions left by Moses to serve Joshua as a guide;⁹ others, with Hengstenberg,¹⁰ that it consisted of songs of praises on the wars of Israel; and others, with Calmet, that it was a series of annals written by public persons among the Hebrews, to which, perhaps, at different times, the successive titles had been given of The Book of the Wars of Jehovah, The Book of Jasher, The Book of Days. But at all events, none of these authors imagined that it was a lost canonical book.

As to The Book of Jasher, (the right, the just,) the Jewish Targum explains it of The Book of the Law; others of The Book of the Wars of Jehovah, or of the Book of Judges; but no Israelite ever imagined that it was a sacred book which “had been lost.”

And lastly, as to those of Gad and Nathan — those two prophets who had assisted King David in the difficulties of his reign and in the administration of holy things¹¹ — they wrote themselves the history of this prince in the sacred book of Samuel, at least from the part where¹² Samuel left it at his death.

Since, then, the scripture itself of the book of Chronicles declares that the history of David contained in the books of Samuel is the work of these two men of God, how can it be maintained that their books are lost?

It is the same as to the history of King Solomon contained in the Book of Kings,.and if the Chronicles inform us in like manner that the prophets Nathan and Ahijah wrote it,¹³ as Iddo and Shemaiah that of Rehoboam¹⁴ and Jeroboam, why should it be said that their books are lost? Do they not make a part of those scriptures which were deposited in the temple, as Josephus¹⁵ tells us?

426, Yet it will be said that these books, though they were deposited in the temple, have not preserved their distinct individuality, and we possess them at this day mixed in one body of history as Ezra or some other prophet compiled them. This is possible; but what does it signify? Even in that case they would not be lost, since they would be given to us under the form in which the Holy Spirit wished us to have them. And if it be true, which I do not affirm, that Ezra received as a prophet an order to digest their histories, and to combine them with care in one and the same book, called either the Book of Samuel or the Book of Kings, it would be absurd as well as incorrect to say that their books were “lost,” and “unfortunately lost.” We possess them as it was proper we should have them — abridged if you please — but, happily, surely and divinely guarded. So much for the Old Testament.

SECTION SECOND.

BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WHICH ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN LOST.

427, As to the New Testament, the fact will be still more simple. First, a letter of Paul to the Laodiceans is alleged to have been lost.

None of the fathers ever saw this pretended epistle, and it never was made a question to insert it in the canon. In the time of Jerome, about the year 400, one universally rejected,¹⁶ he says, had been shewn, and that an impostor had forged it to correspond with that passage of Paul to the Colossians,¹⁷ where some have wished to find the indication of a letter written by that apostle to the Laodiceans. But “this was too clumsy a fraud,” says Calvin, “that I know not what cheat could dare, under this covert, to counterfeit and put forth a letter as written by St Paul to the Laodiceans, and, withal, so silly and ridiculous, that we know not how anything could be forged more opposite to the spirit of St Paul.”¹⁸

But this is not all; for, besides that no father professes to have seen Paul’s true epistle, Paul himself never said that he had written one; and “those persons,” Calvin adds, “have doubly deceived themselves who have thought that Paul actually wrote to the Laodiceans.”

Paul, in that passage, satisfies himself with recommending the Colossians to read the epistle coming from Laodicea, (τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας,) — that is to say, according to Calvin, “an epistle which . had been sent from Laodicea to Paul, and which he thought it desirable to be read by the Colossians;” or, according to others, an epistle written by Paul, which was to be passed from Laodicea to Colosse. And what epistle? Very plainly, without doubt, that which he had written at the same time to the Ephesians, and which, not being addressed to “the elders and deacons” of that city, was rather, as many think, an encyclical epistle.

428, But another epistle has been alleged.. Many have imagined, from some equivocal expressions of Paul to the Corinthians, that this apostle,¹⁹ antecedently to his two canonical epistles, wrote another, which has been “unfortunately lost,” or which, at least, not having been destined to make a part of the sacred oracles, would never have been inserted in the canon. This letter, we reply, was never lost, because it never existed. It is true that, in this instance, a more modern impostor, availing himself of these words of Paul, has attempted to fabricate one, of which we shall say nothing, because it has never obtained the least credit, and the anachronisms found in it demonstrate the imposture. Besides, no father ever said that he had seen this pretended epistle of Paul which is said to have been “lost.”

429. The fact is, that the very simple meaning of the apostle’s words has been misunderstood.

“I have written to you in this epistle,” he says to the Corinthians, “not to company. with fornicators.”

He does not say, as some translators have incorrectly rendered it, “I have written to you in an epistle,” but “in the epistle, (ἔγραψα ὑμῖν ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ)” — that is to say, “in this epistle,” for this is the form of the definite article used by the Greeks for the demonstrative pronoun;²⁰ and it is thus all the translators have understood the same expression in the four other passages where it occurs in the New Testament.

Rom. xvi. 22: “I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, (ὁ γραψας τὴν ἐπιστολὴν.)” It is, “who wrote the epistle.”

Col. iv. 16: “And when this epistle (ἦ ἐπιστολὴ, the epistle) is read amongst you.”

1 Thess. v. 27: “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle (τὴν ἐπιστολὴν, the epistle) be read unto all the holy brethren.”

2 Thess. iii. 14: “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, (διὰ τῆς ἐπιστολῆς, by the epistle,) note that man.”

“I have written to you (or I write — ἔγραψα) in this epistle,” says the apostle, “not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world . . . . for then ye must needs go out of the world; but now [ have written (or I write — ἔγραψα) unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother,” &c.

We see that the apostle does not oppose what he writes now to what he had written in a preceding letter. He does not oppose one tense of the verb to another, not ’γράφω to ἔγραψα, — the aorist ἔγραψα is used in the two successive members of the sentence, which are by no means adversative, the second being only a development of the other, and the aorist of this verb being freely used elsewhere in a present sense.²¹

Paul recalls to the Corinthians the oceasion of the scandal of which he has spoken to them here for the first time. He had just exhorted them in this same epistle (eight verses before) not to have familiar intercourse with men who, while making a profession of Christianity, led immoral lives: — “It is reported commonly that there is such uncleanness among you as is not named amongst the Gentiles. And yet ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. But I, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, have judged to deliver such an one to Satan; . . . . therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” Then, four verses lower, and without quitting the subject, he adds, “I have written in this epistle not to company with fornicators. But now I write to you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother,” &c.

Such, then, is the perfectly natural sense of this passage, without there being any question either of a preceding epistle or a “lost epistle.” .

430. Do we mean to say by this, that Paul, burdened every day with continual care for all the churches, did not write, either to the brethren or to the churches, other letters besides the fourteen epistles in the New Testament during the thirty years of his ministry? Doubtless he did, but “the Lord,” Calvin remarks, “has by His providence consecrated as a perpetual memorial those which He knew were necessary for His Church; and, however little there may be, this was not a matter of chance, but by the wonderful counsel of God the volume of Scripture has been formed as we have it.”²²

We see, then, even the words really inspired of the apostles and prophets, even those of Jehovah, when He conversed with Moses on the mountain or in the desert, those even of the Son of God speaking to His most beloved servants in the most important hours of His ministry, (Luke xxiv. 27, Matt. xvii. 3,) have not been preserved for us. But is this a loss for the Church? We think not; since it has not been the will of God to give them to her. It was needful that the number of those He reserved for her should be reduced to wise proportions. “The world could not have contained all that it would have been possible to reveal,’ (John xxi. 25;) and the Gospels required to be very brief. Not every acorn that falls from an oak produces an oak; but enough remain for God’s purposes. His holy Word is also a seed; it has been sown in due measure, and has given us all we ought to have.

431. Yet it must not be imagined that all the discourses or writings of an Isaiah or a Daniel, of a Peter or a Paul, during a ministry of thirty years like that of the apostles, of sixty years like that of Isaiah, or of ninety years like that of Daniel, were from morning to evening under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We believe we have established this fact elsewhere by sufficient quotations.²³ These prophets and apostles were inspired at certain times, determined by God, and for certain objects; but out of these times, and apart from these objects, they were not always inspired. God has not guaranteed to us all the words of Paul in his disputes with Barnabas, nor all the parchments he left with Carpus, (2 Tim. iv. 13.) What is guaranteed to us is the Holy Scripture — “all scripture divinely inspired,” (πᾶσα νγραφὴ θεόπνευστος.) But beyond this spoken or written theopneustia, which in these men of God was like their other charisms, an intermittent grace, they were, without doubt, most frequently enlightened and directed from on high, as may be the case with simple believers in the present day; but they no longer spoke as “borne away and impelled” by the Holy Spirit, and what they uttered, though always cee the most respectful attention, was no longer infallible.

432. There is, then, nothing lost of the books that God designed to give us by His prophets — nothing of the canon of the Scriptures. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one iota of His holy Word shall ever pass away, (Matt. v. 18.)

Yet there is another class of proofs for the doctrine of the canon, still more simple and manifest — those arising from the consideration of what has been done during a long course of ages for the Old Testament,

1) Ps. xii, 6, xvili. 80; Prov. xxx. 5, 6.

2) Gal. i. 8.

3) Lib. iii., cap. 9: — “Ad haec addo quod, si recipimus curare Deum reg humanas et maxime eas, quae ad honorem cultumque suum pertineant; non potest fieri, ut is tantam multitudinem hominum, quibus nihil aliud propositum erat, quam Deum piè colere, passus sit falli mendacibus libris. . . . .” Cap 15: — “Tum quod de divina providentia attigimus, ad partes praecipuas non minus quam ad totos libros pertinet, et non convenire ut siverit Deus tot millia hominum pietatis studiosa et aeternam salutem sincero proposito quaerentia, induci ineum errorem, quem vitare omnind non possent,”

4) Even the eminent Dr Olshausen, in his valuable treatise on “The Authenticity of the New Testament,’ ch. 5, p. 99, of the French translation.

5) See Prop. 393.

6) Num. xxi. 14.

7) Josh. x. 13; 2 Sam. i. 18.

8) 1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15, xiii. 22.

9) Lightfoot, Chronica Temporum. Opera, i., 37, (Ultrajecti, 1699.)

10) Die Authent. des Pentat., ii., 225.

11) 1 Chron. xxix, 29, xxi. 9; 2 Chron. ix. 19, xxix. 25; 1 Kings i. 10, 22; 2 Sam. vii. 2, 4, 17, xxi. 1, 24; xxv. 11, 14, 19.

12) 1 Sam. xxiv.

13) 2 Chron. ix. 29.

14) 2 Chron, xii. 15,

15) Ant. Jud, v., 11.

16) In Catal. — “Ab omnibus exploditur.”

17) Col, iv..16.

18) Comment. sur Coloss., tom. iv., p. 107. Paris, 1855.

19) 1 Cor. v.. 9.

20) On this subject see Bishop Middleton’s admirable work on the use of the article in the New Testament.

21) Ἔγραψα. is often applied by the apostle to what he has just written. See 1 Cor. ix. 15; Philem., 19, 21; 2 Cor. ii. 3; Gal. vi. 11; also 1 John. ii. 14.

22) Commentary on Eph, iii. 3.

23) Theopneustia, chap. iii, sect. i, quest. 12, 18, p. 118, (Scott’s trans.)