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Now, since it has been shown that we have no principles of Reason, upon which to judge before

hand, how it were to have been expected revelation should have been left, or what was most suitable to the divine plan of government, in any of the forementioned respects; it must be quite frivolous to object afterwards as to any of them, against its being left in one way rather than another: for this would be to object against things upon account of their being different from expectations which have been shown to be without reason.'

Thus, according to Bishop Butler, the Almighty, in revealing to us any part of His will in writing, has done more than we had any reason to expect; and consequently He may have left' many parts of it unrevealed in writing, for aught Reason tells us to the contrary. It is consistent with all we know of God's attributes, to have revealed His will to man only orally, and left it to be handed down only by Tradition and consequently the supposition, that He may have left some parts of it to be thus handed down, cannot be inconsistent with any thing we know of them. And hence the first of the two canons under consideration, and à fortiori the second, are certainly not axioms, nor yet deducible from any principles of mere Reason.

2. Before entering into the inquiry, whether these canons can be proved from Scripture, it is

1 [That is, He may have done so, as far as all antecedent reasoning tells us, though in fact He has not so left any doctrine necessary to salvation.]

desirable to remind the inquirer, that all other considerations, besides the real sense of Scripture, must be laid aside bona fide. He must not carry in his mind a lurking prepossession in favour of one view rather than another: he must not say to himself that, though he cannot answer Bishop Butler's argument, still he is sure there is a fallacy somewhere, and in this state of mind search Scripture for a confirmation of what he already believes or at least, if he does this, it may be his wisest way to trust prejudice entirely, since he trusts it so much; without being at the pains to cheat himself with a mock inquiry.

The proposition to be proved is, "that God cannot be believed to have made any revelation to man, without causing it to be embodied in writing by some inspired person." The arguments by which it is commonly supported are as follows:

(1.) That many corrupt Traditions existed among the Jews in the time of our Lord: and that He rebuked them for making use of these in order to explain away the true meaning of the Law. (St. Matt. xv. 3. [St Mark] vi. 9.)

(2.) That our Lord directed the Jews to search the Scriptures of the Old Testament, for that they testified of Him. (St. John v. 39.)

(3.) That the Jews of Bercea were commended by St. [Luke] as more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures (that is, the Old

Testament) daily, whether those things were so. (Acts xvii. 11.)

(4.) That St. Paul mentions among the advantages which Timothy had through a religious education, "that of a child he had known the Holy Scriptures" (the Old Testament) "which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through Faith which was in Christ Jesus;" (2 Tim. iii. 15, 16.) adding also that "all Scripture" (that is, the Old Testament)" is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

(5.) That St. Luke assigns as the reason why he wrote his Gospel, that he wished his friend Theophilus "to know the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed." (St. Luke i. 4.)

(6.) That the Gospel of St. John was written that those to whom it was addressed "might believe that Jesus is the Christ....and that believing they might have life through His name." (St. John xx. 31.)

The two last arguments, though gravely brought forward by Bishop Burnet, will not, I suppose, be considered to require examination; but the others are still appealed to with confidence, as proving that Scripture contains a full, clear, unequivocal declaration of the whole counsel of God, as far as it is of importance to man. It is said that the manner in which the Old Testament is referred to in the above cited texts, is a proof that previous to

our Lord's coming God had made no unwritten revelations, and therefore that it cannot be conceived He would make any unwritten revelations afterwards; but that, as all that had been revealed formerly was contained in the Old Testament, so, when the canon of the New was complete, it must have contained whatever was revealed subsequently. And then are added several high-sounding phrases about "blasphemous additions to the word of God," and about daring "to accept human traditions as the interpreters of the divine will," &c. &c.; the relevance and good feeling of which, as applied to the doctrines of the primitive Church and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, may perhaps be illustrated in the following parallel.

Suppose then that a son, on coming of age, had strong representations made to him by his father's friends, who had attended his death-bed, that he had on that occasion expressed a wish concerning the distribution of his property, which was not formally embodied in his will: suppose farther, that on the son's refusing to attend to such representations, he assigned the following reasons for his conduct; viz. "That on a careful examination of his father's will, he had found in one of the codicils last appended to it, certain expressions proving to him that his father, up to the time he wrote it, had given no express directions concerning the distribution of his property, except those contained in the former codicils; whence it was clear to him that his father must have embodied all his subsequent

directions in that and the subsequent codicils: and that, for his part, such was his reverence for the sacred memory of his parent, that he did not dare to take any thing but his own words as interpreters of his wishes.

"Can I allow myself," suppose him to say, "so to trifle with the hallowed obligations of filial duty, as to put the vague impression of persons connected with me by no ties of blood, on a level with the recorded commands of my nearest relative? him to whom I owe every thing: not my property only, but also my very existence? No: I will adhere close to the very letter of the Will. I will add nothing to it. Nor will I believe or do or sacrifice any thing, in deference to imagined recommendations of my Father, without the most indisputable evidence1."

Now I put it to any one whether this would pass, even in the world, for an effusion of sense or piety? and, if not, whether there is more sense or more piety in setting at nought the friends and successors of the Apostles, because Jesus Christ has said to the Jews,"Search the Scriptures, for they testify of Me?" or because St. [Luke] praised the Beroans for "searching the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so ?"

[To give this argument its full force, it ought perhaps to be further supposed, that the unwritten directions tended on the whole to self-denial and self-sacrifice on the son's part; that they increased the call for circumspection, and abridged his right to do as he pleased with the property.]