the
order in which the philosophical and historical evidences ought to be
respectively presented, if our object be to give due heed to the desire
which an inquirer evinces to appropriate the truth which he believes. Such
too, if the opinion already advanced concerning the future of modern doubt
be correct, seems to be the final answer which the church can give.
Without undue compromise, commencing with the internal evidence, we thus
lead men to the external, and make philosophy as it were the schoolmaster
to lead to Christ.

The third question of those which we enumerated as likely to press upon
us, viz. that which refers to the inspiration of the scriptures, requires
only a few words; inasmuch as the treatment of it has already, to some
extent, been implied.

This question has been elevated, since the Reformation, to an importance
which it hardly possessed before. Since the authority of the Bible has
been substituted for the authority of the church, it has been usual to
regard the scriptures as the mode of leading men to Christ, instead of
considering the knowledge of Christ received through the ministrations of
the church as the clue to interpret scripture. Logically, the scripture is
the rule of faith, the ground of the church's teaching; but
chronologically, the teaching of the church is the means of our knowing
the scripture.(1047)

A caution hence arises, that we should not be willing to allow preliminary
difficulties, which a doubter may have in reference to the scriptures, to
deter us from leading him straight to Christ, and then allowing him by the
light of this teaching to reconsider the question of the scripture. The
difficulties will generally be found to have reference to the historical
and literary portions, rather than the doctrinal, or those portions of the
literature which contain the doctrinal. If indeed they refer to the
doctrinal, they must be answered at the outset in the manner already
shown. If however to the literary, they will be viewed in a different
light, if the doubter has been brought to appreciate the central truths of
Christianity, from that which they will bear if wrangled out on the
threshold of his approach. In the last century indeed, the comparative
importance of the doctrinal parts of scripture over the literary was so
perceived, when doubts were pressed on the attention of the clergy by the
pertinacity of the deist controversialists, that many of the eminent
writers restricted