THIRD CLASS OF PROOFS TAKEN FROM THE DECLARATIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

450 WHAT God in His wisdom, and in harmony with His other works, needed to do for the constant and perfect preservation of the sacred oracles confided to His people — what all the faithful under the old covenant firmly believed He had done — St Paul declares that He has actually done, and informs us by what means. It was, he says, by means of the Jews; God himself having confided to them for this end, under the invisible government of His providence, the sacred deposit of the Scriptures. It was thus that, by a sovereign and mysterious decree, He constituted this inconstant and wayward people the sure and faithful depositary of His Holy Word. “Unto them were committed the oracles of God, (ἐπιστεύθησαν τὰ λόνγια τοῦ Θεοῦ.)”

In consequence of this appointment, this people, notwithstanding all their unfaithfulness and misfortunes, carry everywhere with them for thirty-three centuries the Word of the Old Testament inviolate and complete, to the ends of the earth. They always present it to the nations of the world, throughout all ages, in the furthest exiles to which their sins have dispersed them, be it the centre of Africa or in the cities of China. They continue to read it every Sabbath in all their synagogues, and, to preserve it always free from any admixture, they count the books, the chapters, the verses, and even the letters, and by this jealous and unceasing vigilance from age to age, and in the time even of their severest chastisements, they never cease to give to the whole world this unalterable Scripture, every page of which condemns them!

This important declaration is found at the beginning of the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans — “What advantage, then, hath the Jew?” The apostle supposes an objector to say, “What is his privilege, since, according to you, all men, Jews as well as Greeks, are under the condemnation of the law?” “This privilege is much every way, (πολυ, κατὰ πάντα τρόπον,)” he replies, “but chiefly in this, (πρῶτον μὲν) that they were trusted with the oracles of God, (ὅτι ἐπιστεύθησαν τὰ, λόνγια τοῦ Θεοῦ.)”

Their privilege, according to the apostle, is, then, not only that of possessing the Scriptures, which "are the very oracles of God our Saviour, but especially that of having received them as a deposit under the guardianship of God, and thus being divinely charged with their preservation.

It is not said merely that the oracles had been given to them, as they have been to us and to so many others, but that they were intrusted (ἐπιστεύθησαν) with them; so that this nation, though almost always rebellious through the long course of their history — though rejected to this day, and dispersed by the blast of God’s wrath, which has “come upon them to the uttermost,’ St Paul says,! and has continued for eighteen centuries, — this nation, “always resisting the Holy Ghost,’2 as St Stephen said, — this very nation has shewn itself constantly faithful for thirty-three centuries on this single point of the Scriptures: it has guarded and still guards them for ever unaltered! See here the privilege — “the advantage” — of the Jew, (τὸ περισσὸν τοῦ ’Ῑουδαῖου,) to use St Paul’s words. See it even in our own days. “As your fathers, so are ye.” We might say to them, as Stephen did, “Stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.” “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and ye are like them.” But no matter; still the oracles of God are confided to you, and we may say of you at this day what Augustin wrote a thousand years ago, what is the na.ion of the Jews, even in our day but, as it were, a keeper of the records for Christians, carrying everywhere the law and the prophets? as a witness of all the Church affirms, (“Et quid est aliud, hodieque, gens ipsa Judaeorum msi quœdam scrinaria Christianorum bajulans Legem et Prophetas ad testimonium assertionis ecclesiae?”)¹

451, Many persons at the first glance may object that our explanation of Paul’s language gives at once a more extended and a more definite meaning to it than the expressions allow. But with the evidence of all the facts that we shall bring before our readers, they will feel obliged to acknowledge that this is its legitimate sense and exact intention, and that if the apostle has not expressed himself with greater fulness and precision on this divine preservation of the canon by means of the Jewish people, it is precisely because that doctrine, as we have already shewn, was an object of deep-felt conviction among all the Jews, among all the saints, and prophets, and apostles. It was amply sufficient that the divine fact should be here recalled to mind by these significant words — “Their advantage is much every way, but chiefly that they were intrusted (ἐπιστεύθησαν) with the oracles of God.”

452. We shall go even further. When once all the striking and enduring facts that we are about to mention have passed under review, and demonstrated to us the true sense of this sentence of Paul — when once they have firmly established that such is indeed the part assigned by God thirty-three centuries ago to the Jewish nation for the perpetual preservation of the Old Testament — we shall demonstrate that such is equally the part assigned by Heaven to the collective body of Christian churches, good or bad, for the preservation not less perfect of the New Testament. And for this purpose we shall prove, by a fresh. assemblage of other facts, not less striking and not less providential, that if the God of Moses and the prophets has set apart the indestructible race of the Jews to be the guardians of His first oracles, the same God, when He was pleased to give His new people the eternal gospel, and the oracles not less imperishable of His new covenant, made use in like manner of the collective body of the Christian churches; so that all of them unanimously, in spite of their differences and angry controversies on so many other points, have presented us for fourteen centuries with the same sacred collection, and have ever been for the New Testament depositaries not less faithful than Israel has been for the Old.

453. Our faith, let us say, once more, possesses for the doctrine of the divine preservation of the canon a fourth and fifth class of proofs, both full of force and beauty. They comprise a twofold assemblage of facts — facts inexplicable apart from a divine intervention — facts tangible, splendid, and permanent.

As these facts relate to each Testament respectively, we shall pass them under review in two successive chapters, confining our notice to the most important.

1) Gontra Faustum, lib. xii, c. 138.