FINAL INFERENCES.

678. WHat striking facts, what powerful proofs have passed in review before us, all vying with each other in demonstrating that silent and sovereign use which God makes of the churches for the unchangeable preservation of His New Testament, a use perfectly similar to that which He has made of Israel during thirty-four centuries, for the preservation not less unchangeable of His ancient oracles!

In carrying on this review of the destinies of the New Testament, we could easily bring forward many other proofs of the same kind, but we are afraid of extending our work beyond all proper bounds; and, besides, our readers will be pleased to recollect that the doctrine of the canon is already established as to the oracles of Moses and the prophets. It is established by unparalleled facts — above all, by the testimony of the Son of God. It only remained for us to demonstrate it in regard to the oracles of the New Testament, and to the part assigned to all the churches of Christendom. It was our business to produce another quite different series of striking facts, extending through ages, and not less manifestly providential, — we have produced them. All of them, doubtless, have not equal value nor equal force; but the majority of them seem to us irresistible, and, taken in combination, they carry conviction.

679. And certainly it must be so, that the gates of hell might not prevail against the Church, since for this purpose God must prevent their prevailing against the Scriptures, on which the Church is founded. What should we be — in fact, what would the Church be — if God had not guaranteed His Sacred Volume from all alteration?

Moreover, all these new facts are in exact accordance with the first ways of God respecting His written Word; they carry on harmoniously and uninterruptedly the miracle, thirty-three centuries in duration, of the deposit committed to the Jewish people. Never has there been in the ways of the Lord a gap, a discontinuity like that which must be acknowledged, if you admit that, while the ancient oracles have been. committed to the miraculous guardianship of a whole people for a hundred generations, the guardianship of the new oracles, far more important, and given for all the nations of the earth, has not been committed to any one for these eighteen hundred years! But it is not so, and we are able to assert that the miracle of the churches, as guardians of the canon which has been perpetuated like that of the Jewish people as guardians of the Old Testament, presents an ascending progression of harmony and beauty. And seeing the Divine purpose accomplished in the one case by the constant fidelity of the Jews — a fidelity which began in the time of the Trojan war, and has never ceased — we must think it highly probable that, if it pleased God to give at a later period to the Gentiles another series of sacred oracles, He would also choose from among them other depositories commissioned to preserve this treasure till the great day of Jesus Christ. And how glorious must be the confirmation of our faith, when we have ascertained that this second miracle has been accomplished with even greater magnificence than the first! 680, Clasp, then, all your Scriptures to your hearts, ye Christians of every rank and of every age! You have them from God.

Clasp them all with the same tenderness and the same submission, the twenty-seven given you by the churches, and the twenty-two you receive from the Jews.¹ You hold them from the churches, you hold them from the Jews; but you have them from God — from God in their inspiration — from God in their preservation. You cannot read them with profit to your souls if they are not read with reverence; and they cannot be read with reverence, if not with a conviction of their authenticity and their inspiration. It is by this Word thus listened to, as descending from on high, that you will receive from God repentance, peace, adoption, joy, holiness, and life eternal!

681. But for this purpose it is necessary, Christian brethren, that you should know your privilege; it is necessary that you avail yourselves of it with God, and before all men; it is necessary that, relying on the doctrine of the canon, you make use of your holy books with the same confidence with which, in their time, Jesus Christ and His apostles made use of the “oracles committed” to Israel; it is necessary that you should say, “It is written.”:

The same canon is clearly demonstrated to you; the seals of the living God are attached to it. Never forget it.

It is within the heart, no doubt, that God marks the Scriptures for His elect with the incomparable seals of His Spirit; but you have been able to see very clearly also, that, even externally, God has marked them with His own seal by means of the wonderful testimony of all the generations of the Jewish people, and of all the generations of the Christian churches throughout the world.

Bear in mind, then, Christian brethren, the miracle of the Scriptures, and their Divine preservation. Keep your eyes open to these signs of God, and ever guard against that lamentable inattention for which Jesus reproached His disciples when they forgot the miracle of the loaves.

“Perceive ye not yet,” He said to them, “neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened? having eyes, see ye not? do ye not remember?” (Mark viii. 17.)

And why did they forget that miracle of the loaves? Alas! for the same reason that makes us too often forget the miracle of the Scriptures, and which ought, on the contrary, to render it more striking. For the reason that the sign, really so full of grandeur, was accomplished, as that of the Scriptures has been for so many centuries, without noise, without splendour, without parade, and with calmness. By natural means the people were seated on the grass, and the apostles carried the baskets from group to group. But, assuredly, it was not by accident that these five barley loaves and two fishes fed five thousand men. And assuredly, also, it is not an accident that the collection of the sacred books has been guarded for three thousand years, and that all the depositories render the same homage all over the earth to the written Word, that it may enlighten with the same light all God’s elect. Certainly the same divine power is in operation to guide and overrule them.

Christians, forget not the miracle of the loaves! Forget not that of the Scriptures!

682. And thou too, young man, who, touched by the Holy Word, hast had it in thy heart to preach it to the world, to consecrate to it thy life, and to prepare thyself at a distance from thy home by holy studies, go, leave thy country and thy father’s house, and, since it must be so, set out for the schools of science.

They are not always the schools of truth, nor of piety; but go, dear youth, and set out with prayer, committing thyself to thy Saviour, and putting on for this enterprise “the whole armour of God.” On thy heart the shield of faith, on thy head the helmet of the hope of salvation, the girdle of truth on thy loins; but above all, in thy hand, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. In thy left hand Moses and the Prophets, such as the Jewish people gave them to the world; in thy right hand the twenty-seven scriptures of the New Testament, such as all the Christian churches throughout the world have given them for 1500 years.

Guard them, dear youth, and they will guard thee; guard them with reverence, and thou wilt be in safety; thou wilt pursue thy studies under a divine unction; thou wilt be blessed. “Continue thou, Timothy, in the things thou hast learned, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.” “Avoid oppositions of science, falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith,” (2 Tim. iii, 14; 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21.)

Never allow thyself to take anything from this Holy Word — not the least book — the least epistle; it is of God thou holdest them; abandon nothing belonging to them, whoever may solicit thee, were he the most illustrious of the doctors of thy age, were he in thy eyes an angel from heaven. Hast thou not seen their aberrations? Surrender thyself to no man; God is above every human name. Hold fast His Word — it is thy safe-guard; and say with David, “Thou art my portion, O Lord; I have said that I would keep thy words,” (Ps. cxix, 57.)

If, then, they say to thee, What carriest thou in thy left hand? reply, The twenty scriptures of Moses and the Prophets. But who assures thee that they are from God? The Holy Spirit. I have felt His influence. Thou hast perhaps felt it in some passages; but who assures thee that all are equally from God? God Himself has declared that He intrusted them to the Jewish people, and the Jewish people have guarded them miraculously. But hast ' thou only this proof? If I had only this proof it would be sufficient. But I have many others. An astonishing and very numerous assemblage of marvellous facts, continued through centuries, and otherwise inexplicable, attest invincibly to me in this matter the intervention of the Lord and His fidelity. Moreover, I possess another most absolute and yet most simple proof, which alone renders all others superfluous: it is that same sword of the Spirit, the twenty-two Scriptures, which I carry in my hands; Jesus, my Saviour and my Master, carried them before me in His; through all His ministry He preached them; they were presented to Him in the synagogues; He read them there; He cited them to the devil and to men; He quoted all the books; He knew them without having studied them; He spoke of them constantly in His life, in His sufferings, even on the cross; and, after He had risen from the tomb, “He expounded” them from one end to the other to His disciples on the road to Emmaus, beginning at Moses, and going through all the prophets, (Luke xxiv. 27.) But our schools will teach thee not to receive them as of equal authority, and even to retrench superfluous books from this very Bible. They may do it; too often they have done it; but may God ever keep me from having another Bible than that which Jesus Christ had. To give up the Bible of Jesus Christ is to give Him up, and to give HIM up! — rather than that, my God, I would suffer twenty deaths!

Such, dear youth, will be thy answer for the Old Testament; but it will not be less decided for the New. If, then, they ask thee again, What dost thou carry in thy right hand? thou wilt answer, I carry the sword of the Spirit — the inspired Word of the New Testament — the twenty-seven books given by Jesus Christ to found His Church and to extend it to the ends of the earth, looking forward to the time when “all the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” But who assures thee, again, that these books are of God? I have felt it. Yes; perhaps for some; but that they are all from God? Dost thou not know that there is not one which is not disputed in our schools? I know it; but I know equally well that not one of your schools can justify or sustain their objections by valid reasons. I know, besides, as to the twenty-two homologoumena, forming thirty-five thirty-sixths of the whole New Testament, that, by science itself, it may be established that there has never . been a book in the whole field of literature, ancient or modern, sacred or profane, of an authenticity so powerfully guaranteed; so that already, on grounds of reason, all the attacks of your schools ought to confine their efforts to that thirty-sixth remaining part of the Sacred Volume. And yet, even for that thirty-sixth part, I have very simple and powerful reasons of assurance, within the reach of the humblest Christians, and of the least cultivated classes; for these classes have every day before their eyes a proof for the New Testament quite similar to that which the ancient people had for the Old Testament; for God has chosen a people entirely new to whom His new oracles have been intrusted, in order to be on their part the witness and guarantee,

“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith; to God the only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen,” (Rom. xvi, 25-27.)

1) Divided, we repeat, into thirty-nine books by all Christian churches.