which befel them, the one in private, the other in public life, and which were in fome degree connected with the honor and profperity of the nation to which they belonged.

In the book of Job we have the hiftory of a perfonage of high rank, of remote antiquity, and extraordinary virtues ; rendered remarkable by uncommon viciffitudes of fortune, by the moft fplendid profperity at one time, by an accumu lation of the heaviest calamities at another; conducting himfelf under the former with moderation, uprightness, and unbounded kindness to the poor; and under the latter, with the most exemplary patience and refignation to the will of Heaven. The compofition is throughout the greater part highly poetical and figurative, and exhibits the noblest reprefentations of the Supreme Being and a fuperintending Providence, together with the most admirable lessons of fortitude and fubmiffion to the will of God under the severest afflictions that can befall human nature. The Pfalms, which follow this book, are full of such exalted strains of piety and devotion, fuch beautiful and animated descriptions of the power, the wisdom, the mercy, and the goodnefs of God, that it is impoffible for any one to read them without feeling his heart inflamed with the most ardent affection towards the great Creator and Governor of the universe.

The Proverbs of Solomon, which come next in order, contain a variety of very excellent maxims of wisdom, and invaluable rules of life, which have no where been exceeded except in the New-Teftament. They afford us, as they profefs to do at their very first outset, "the inftruction of wif dom, juftice, judgment, and equity. They give fubtility to the fimple; to the young man, knowledge and difcretion."

The fame may be faid of the greater part of the book of Ecclefiaftes, which alfo teaches us to form a juft estimate of this world, and its feeming advantages of wealth, honor, power, pleasure, and science.

The prophetical writings prefent us with the worthieft and moft exalted ideas of the Almighty, the jufteft and pureft notions of piety and virtue, the awfulleft denunciations against wickednefs of every kind, public and private; the

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most affectionate expoftulations, the moft inviting promises, and the warmest concern for the public good. And befides all this, they contain a series of predictions relating to our bleffed Lord, in which all the remarkable circumstances of his birth, life, miniftry, miracles, doctrines, fufferings, and death, are foretold in fo minute and exact a manner (more particularly in the prophecy of Isaiah) that you would almost think they were defcribing all these things after they had happened, if you did not know that these prophecies were confeffedly written many hundred years before Christ came into the world, and were all that time in the poffeffion of the Jews, who were the mortal enemies of Christianity, and therefore would never go about to forge prophecies, which moft evidently prove him to be what he profeffed to be, and what they denied him to be, the Meffiah and the Son of God. It is to this part of fcripture that our Lord particularly directs our attention, when he fays, "fearch the Scriptures, The teftimony he for they are they that teftify of me."* alludes to is that of the prophets; than which no evidence can be more fatisfactory and convincing to any one that reads them with care and impartiality, and compares their predictions concerning our Saviour with the hiftory of his life, given us by those who conftantly lived and conversed with him. This history we have in the New Teftament, in that by the name of GOSPELS. part of it which goes

It is these that recount thofe wonderful and important events with which the Chriftian religion and the divine Author of it were introduced into the world, and which have produced fo great a change in the principles, the manners, the morals, and the temporal as well as the fpiritual condi tion of mankind. They relate the first appearance of Christ upon earth; his extraordinary and miraculous birth; the testimony borne to him by his forerunner John the Baptift; his temptation in the wildernefs; the opening of his divine commiffion; the pure, the perfect, the fublime morality which he taught, especially in his inimitable fermon from the mount; the infinite fuperiority which he fhewed to every other moral teacher, both in the matter and manner of his difcourfes; more particularly by crufhing vice in its very * John v. 39.

cradle, in the first rifings of wicked defires and propenfities in the heart; by giving a decided preference of the mild, gentle, paffive, conciliating virtues, to that violent, vindictive, high-fpirited, unforgiving temper, which has been always too much the favorite character of the world; by requiring us to forgive our very enemies, and to do good to them that hate us; by excluding from our devotions, our alms, and all our other virtues, all regard to fame, reputation, and applaufe; by laying down two great general principles of morality, love to God and love to mankind, and deducing from thence every other human duty; by conveying his inftructions under the easy, familiar, and impreffive form of parables; by expreffing himself in a tone of dignity and authority unknown before; by exemplifying every virtue that he taught in his own unblemished and perfect life and converfation; and above all, by adding those awful fanctions, which he alone, of all moral inftructors, had the power to hold out, eternal rewards to the virtuous, and eternal punishments to the wicked. The facred narrative then represents to us the high character he affumed; the claim he made to a divine original; the wonderful miracles he wrought in proof of his divinity; the various prophecies which plainly marked him out as the Meffiah, the great defiverer of the Jews; the declarations he made, that he came to offer himself a facrifice for the fins of all mankind; the cruel indignities, fufferings, and perfecutions, to which, in confequence of this great defign, he was expofed; the accomplishment of it by the painful and ignominious death to which he fubmitted; by his refurrection after three days from the grave; by his afcenfion into heaven; by his fitting there at the right hand of God, and performing the office of a mediator and an interceffor for the finful fons of men, till he comes a fecond time in his glory to fit in judgment on all mankind, and decide their final doom of happiness or mifery for ever.

These are the momentous, the interesting truths, on which the GOSPELS principally dwell.

The ACTS OF THE APOSTLES Continue the history of our religion after our Lord's afcenfion; the astonishing and rapid

propagation of it by a few illiterate tent-makers and fifher men, through, almoft every part of the world, "by demonftration of the fpirit and of power;" without the aid of eloquence or of force, and in oppofition to all the authority, all the power, and all the influence of the opulent and the great.

The EPISTLES, that is, the letters addressed by the Apof tles and their affociates to different churches and to particu lar individuals, contain many admirable rules and directions to the primitive converts; many affecting exhortations, expoftulations, and reproofs; many explanations and illuftrations of the doctrines delivered by our Lord; together with conftant references to facts, circumstances, and events, recorded in the Gofpels and the Acts; in which we perceive fuch striking, yet evidently fuch unpremeditated and unde figned coincidences and agreements between the narratives and the epiftles, as form one most conclusive argument for the truth, authenticity, and genuineness of both.*

The facred volume concludes with the Revelation of St. John, which, under the form of vifions and various fymbolical reprefentations, prefents to us a prophetic history of the Christian religion in future times, and the various changes, viciffitudes, and revolutions it was to undergo in different ages and countries to the end of the world.t

Is it poffible now to conceive a nobler, a more compre-henfive, a more useful fcheme of inftruction than this; in which the uniformity and variety, so happily blended together, give it an inexpreffible beauty, and the whole compofition plainly proves its Author to be divine?

"The Bible is not indeed (as a great writer obferves‡) a *See the Hora Paulina of Dr. Paley.

A fuller and more detailed account of the contents of the feveral Books of Scripture may be found in Mr. Gray's Key to the Old Teftament, Bp. Percy's to the New, and the Bishop of Lincoln's late excellent work on the Elements of Chriftian Theology. That part of it which relates to the Scriptures has been lately re-printed for the accommodation of the public at large, in a duodecimo volume, which I particularly recomend to the attention of my readers,

Archbishop Secker, V. 6.

plan of religion delineated with minute accuracy, to instruct men as in fomething altogether new, or to excite a vain admiration and applaufe ; but it is fomewhat unspeakably more great and noble, comprehending (as we have feen) in the grandeft and most magnificent order, along with every effential of that plan, the various difpenfations of God to mankind, from the formation of this earth to the confummation of all things. Other books may afford us much entertainment and much instruction; may gratify our curiofity, may delight our imagination, may improve our understandings, may calm our paffions, may exalt our fentiments, may even improve our hearts. But they have not, they cannot have that authority in what they affirm, in what they require, in what they promife and threaten, that the Scriptures have. There is a peculiar weight and energy in them, which is not to be found in any other writings. Their denunciations are more awful, their convictions stronger, their confolations more powerful, their counfels more authentic, their warnings more alarming, their expoftulations more penetrating. There are paffages in them throughout fo fublime, fo pathet ic, full of fuch energy and force upon the heart and confcience, yet without the leaft appearance of labour and study for that purpose; indeed, the defign of the whole is fo noble, fo well fuited to the fad condition of human kind; the morals have in them fuch purity and dignity; the doctrines, fo many of them above reafon, yet fo perfectly reconcileable with it; the expreffion is fo majeftic, yet familiarized with fuch eafy fimplicity, that the more we read and study these writings with pious difpofitions and judicious attention, the more we shall fee and feel of the hand of God in them."*

That accomplished scholar and diftinguished writer, the late Sir William Jones, chief justice of Bengal, at the end of his Bible wrote the following note; which, coming from a man of his profound erudition, and perfect knowledge of the oriental languages, cuftoms, and manners, must be confidered as a moft powerful testimony, not only to the fublimity, but to the divine infpiration of the facred writings.

"I have (fays he) regularly and attentively read thefe Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion, that this volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more true fublimity, more exquifite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer ftrains both of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been composed.