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Scripture: Inspiration of the Scripture
229. Scripture. God has a design and meaning which the penmen
never thought of, which he makes appear these ways: by his own
interpretation, and by his directing the penmen to such a phrase and
manner of speaking, that has a much more exact agreement and consonancy
with the thing remotely pointed to, than with the thing meant by the
penmen….
303. Solomon’s Song. I imagine that Solomon, when he wrote
this song, being a very philosophical, musing man and a pious man, and
of a very loving temper, set himself in his own musings to imagine and
to point forth to himself a pure, virtuous, pious, and entire love, and
represented the musings and feelings of his mind that in a philosophical
and religious frame was carried away in a sort of transport, and in that
his musings and the train of his imaginations were guided and led on by
the Spirit of God. Solomon, in his wisdom and great experience, had
learned the vanity of all other love than of such a sort of one. God’s
Spirit made use of his loving inclination, joined with his musing
philosophical disposition, and so directed and conducted it in this
train of imagination as to represent the love that there is between
Christ and his spouse. God saw it very needful and exceeding useful that
there should be some such representation of it. The relation that there
is between Christ and the church, we know, is very often compared to
that that there is between a man and his wife. Yea, this similitude is
abundantly insisted on almost everywhere in the Scripture, and a
virtuous and pious and pure love between a man and his spouse is very
much of an image of the love between Christ and the church. So that it
is not at all strange that the Spirit of God which is love, should
direct a holy amorous disposition after such a manner, as to make such a
representation, and it is very agreeable to other the like
representations.
352. Inspiration of the Scripture. As Moses was so intimately
conversant with God, and so continually under the divine conduct, it
cannot be thought that when he wrote the history of the creation and
fall of man, and the history of the church from the creation, he should
not be under the divine direction in such an affair. Doubtless, he wrote
by God’s direction, as we are informed that he wrote the law and history
of the Israelite church. And the other histories of the Old Testament
were written by their prophets, for they used to be the writers of the
history of the church, 1 Chr. 29:29.
358. Inspiration of the Scriptures. It is certainly necessary
that in the Word of God we should have a history of the life of Christ,
of his incarnation, his death, his resurrection and ascension, his
actions in the world, and of the instructions he gave the world. If
there be any history that is divine, without doubt we have some divine
history of this kind, because we cannot be Christians without it. And it
is reasonable to suppose that we have some further revelation of the
doctrines of the gospel, besides what we have in this history of the
life of Christ, because we are there informed that the disciples were
not fully instructed, because they could not bear many Christian
doctrines at that time (John 16:12-13). It is reasonable to suppose that
the Christian church should have [had] delivered unto them that more
full discovery of truth, which the Holy Ghost gave the apostles, when he
descended. For this more full and clear revelation was given [to] them
for the Christian church, and not for themselves only. But we have not
this at all, if we have it not in the epistles of the apostles. It is
also exceedingly agreeable to reason that we should have some divine
account of the first beginning and establishment of the Christian
church, the history of the apostles, the calling of the Gentiles, and
the success of the gospel after Christ’s resurrection, so much spoken of
by Christ and in the Old Testament. But we have this nowhere else but in
Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. It is also reasonable to expect that the
Christian church should have some prophecy of the future changes that it
was to pass through to the end of the world. For it has, we know, been
God’s method from the beginning of the world, to inform his church,
beforehand, something of their future state. We cannot therefore think
that the Christian church, from Christ to the end of the world, should
have nothing of this nature. But we have such a prophecy nowhere, if it
is not in the book of Revelation.
We
may certainly conclude that God expects that those books of the New
Testament, which are and have been received by the Christian church as
apostolic writings, should be received by us as parts of the New
Testament, except there be some distinguishing mark, some apparent
difference in them, or in something relating to them that we can come
at, that directs us which to choose and which to refuse. If God expects
that we shall receive any New Testament at all, we must suppose that
God’s providence would be concerned in this matter. If he has ordered it
so in his providence, that such and such books should be put into the
New Testament, received by his church, and from age to age delivered
down as such (without any distinguishing properties or circumstances),
it is his plain voice to us that we must receive them as his Word. God
took this care with respect to the books of the Old Testament, that no
books should be received by the Jewish church and delivered down in the
canon of the Old Testament, but what were his Word and owned by Christ.
We may therefore conclude that he would still take the same care of his
church with respect to the New Testament.
465. Christian Religion. Inspiration of Scripture. It is an
evidence that the apostles had their doctrine from inspiration of some
invisible guide and instructor, that there was such a vast and apparent
difference made in them at once after Pentecost. They were illiterate,
simple, undesigning, ignorant men before, but afterward, how do they
express themselves in their speeches and epistles! They do not speak as
being in the least at a loss about the scheme of salvation and the
gospel mysteries. With what positiveness and authority do they teach! In
how learned and intelligent a manner! How [did] Saul come by his scheme
and by all his knowledge of the Christian doctrines and mysteries,
immediately upon his conversion? He was evidently under the influence of
some spirit in his teaching.
598. The Scriptures. Much of the Scriptures is apt to seem
insipid to us now, as though there were no great matter of instruction
in it, because the points of instruction most plainly contained in it,
are old to us and what we have been taught from our infancy. They have
been most plainly taught in the world these many hundred years, so that
doctrines seem self-evident and so plain to us now, that there seems to
have been no need of a particular revelation of such things, especially
of insisting upon them so much. But how exceedingly different would it
have seemed if we had lived in those times when the revelation was
given, when the things were in a great measure new, at least as to that
distinctness and expressiveness of their revelation? It is so now with
some of those that seem to us very plain points of what is now called
natural religion. If we had an idea of the state of the world when God
gave the revelation, they would appear glorious instructions, bringing
great light into the world, and most worthy of God. We are ready to
despise that which we are so used to, which is so common and old to us,
as the children of Israel despised manna. |
