early that our individual faith, although grounded in the first
instance on parental authority, yet rests afterwards on wholly different
grounds; namely, on the direct evidence in confirmation of it which is
presented to our own minds. But with regard to those who are called the
Fathers of the Church, it is contended sometimes that we do receive the
Scriptures, in the end, upon their authority: and it is argued, that if
their authority is sufficient for so great a thing as this, it must be
sufficient for every thing else; that if, in short, we believe the
Scriptures for their sake, then we ought also to believe other things
which they may tell us, for their sake, even though they are not to be
found in Scripture.

In the argument there is this great fault, that it misstates the
question at the outset. The authority of the Fathers, as they are
called, is never to any sound mind the only reason for believing in the
Scriptures; I think it is by no means so much as the principle reason.
It is one reason, amongst many; but not the strongest. And, in like
manner, their authority in other points, if there were other and
stronger reasons which confirmed it,--as in many cases there are,--is
and ought to be respected. But, because we lay a certain stress upon it,
it does not follow that we should do well to make it bear the whole
weight of the building. Because we believe the Scriptures, partly on the
authority of the Fathers, as they are called, but more for other
reasons, does it follow that we should equally respect the authority of
the Fathers when there are no other reasons in support of it, but many
which make against it?

In truth, however, the internal evidence in favour of the authenticity
and genuineness of the Scriptures is that on which the mind can rest
with far greater satisfaction than on any external testimonies, however
valuable. On one point, which might seem most to require other
evidence--the age, namely, and origin of the writings of the New
Testament--it has been wonderfully ordered that the books, generally
speaking, are their own witness. I mean that their peculiar language
proves them to have been written by persons such as the apostles were,
and such as the Christian writers immediately following them were not;
persons, namely, whose original language and habits of thinking were
those of Jews, and to whom the Greek in which they wrote was, in its
language and associations, essentially foreign. I do not