John Owen · 67 of 123

Book VI. Part I. The Reason of Faith. · Chapter III. · Part 1

There are sundry cogent arguments, which are taken from external considerations of the Scripture, that evince it on rational grounds to be from God. All these are motives of credibility, or effectual persuasives to account and esteem it to be the word of God. And although they neither are, nor is it possible they ever should be, the ground and reason whereon we believe it so to be with faith divine and supernatural; yet are they necessary unto the confirmation of our faith herein against temptations, oppositions, and objections. These arguments have been pleaded by many, and that usefully, and therefore it is not needful for me to insist upon them; and they are the same, for the substance of them, in ancient and modern writers, however managed by some with more learning, dexterity, and force of reasoning than by others. It may not be expected, therefore, that in this short discourse, designed unto another purpose, I should give them much improvement. However, I shall a little touch on those which seem to be most cogent, and that in them wherein, in my apprehension, their strength doth lie; and I shall do this to manifest that although we plead that no man can believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, with faith divine, supernatural, and infallible, but upon its own internal divine evidence and efficacy, yet we allow and make use of all those external arguments of its sacred truth and divine original which are pleaded by others, ascribing unto them as much weight and cogency as they can do, acknowledging the persuasion which they beget and effect to be as firm as they can pretend it to be. Only, we do not judge them to contain the whole of the evidence which we have for faith to rest on or to be resolved into; yea, not that at all which renders it divine, supernatural, and infallible. The rational arguments, we say, which are or may be used in this matter, with the human testimonies whereby they are corroborated, may and ought to be made use of and insisted on. And it is but vainly pretended that their use is superseded by our other assertions, as though, where faith is required, all the subservient use of reason were absolutely discarded, and our faith thereby rendered irrational. And the assent unto the divine original and authority of the Scriptures, which the mind ought to give upon them, we grant to be of as high a nature as it is pretended to be, — namely, a moral certainty. Moreover, the conclusion which unprejudiced reason will make upon these arguments is more firm, better grounded, and more pleadable, than that which is built merely on the sole authority of any church whatever. But this we assert, that there is an assent of another kind unto the divine original and authority of the Scriptures required of us, — namely, that of faith divine and supernatural. Of this none will say that it can be effected by or resolved into the best and most cogent of rational arguments and external testimonies which are absolutely human and fallible; for it doth imply a contradiction, to believe infallibly upon fallible evidence. Wherefore I shall prove, that beyond all these arguments and their effect upon our minds, there is an assent unto the Scripture as the word of God required of us with faith divine, supernatural, and infallible; and, therefore, there must be a divine evidence which is the formal object and reason of it, which alone it rests on and is resolved into, which shall also be declared and proved. But yet, as was said in the first place, because their property is to level the ground, and to remove the rubbish of objections out of the way, that we may build the safer on the sure foundation, I shall mention some of those which I esteem justly pleadable in this cause; and, —

1. The antiquity of these writings, and of the divine revelation contained in them, is pleaded in evidence of their divine original, and it may be so deservedly, for where it is absolute it is unquestionable; that which is most ancient in any kind is most true. God himself makes use of this plea against idols: Isa. xliii. 10–12, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared, and have saved, and I have showed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.” That which he asserts is, that he alone is God, and no other: this he calls the people to testify by this argument, that he was among them as God, — that is, in the church, — before any strange god was known or named. And so it is justly pleaded in behalf of this revelation of the mind of God in the Scripture, — it was in the world long before any other thing or writing pretended to be given unto the same end. Whatever, therefore, ensued with the like design must either be set up in competition with it or opposition unto it, above which it hath its advantage merely from its antiquity. Whereas, therefore, this writing, in the first books of it, is acknowledged to be ancienter than any other that is extant in the world, or indeed that ever was so, and may be proved so to be, it is beyond all reasonable apprehension that it should be of human original; for we know how low, weak, and imperfect, all human inventions were at the first, how rude and unpolished in every kind, until time, observation, following additions and diminutions, had shaped, formed, and improved them. But this writing coming forth in the world absolutely the first in its kind, directing us in the knowledge of God and ourselves, was at first and at once so absolutely complete and perfect, that no art, industry, or wisdom of man, could ever yet find any just defect in it, or was able to add any thing unto it whereby it might be bettered or improved. Neither from the beginning would it ever admit of any additions unto it, but what came from the same fountain of divine revelation and inspiration, clearing itself, in all ages, from all addition and superfetation of men whatever. This at least puts a singular character upon this book, and represents it with such reverend awe and majesty that it is the highest petulancy not to pay it a sacred respect.

This argument is pursued by many at large, as that which affordeth a great variety of historical and chronological observations; and it hath been so scanned and improved that nothing but the giving of it a new dress remains for present or future diligence. But the real force of it lies in the consideration of the people by and amongst whom this revelation first commenced in the world, and the time wherein it did so. When some nations had so improved and cultivated the light of nature as greatly to excel others in wisdom and knowledge, they generally looked upon the people of the Jews as ignorant and barbarous; and the more wise any of them conceived themselves, the more they despised them. And, indeed, they were utter strangers unto all those arts and sciences whereby the faculties of men’s minds are naturally enlightened and enlarged; nor did they pretend unto any wisdom whereby to stand in competition with other nations, but only what they received by divine revelations. This alone God himself had taught them to look upon and esteem as their only wisdom before all the world, Deut. iv. 6–8. Now, we shall not need to consider what were the first attempts of other nations in expressing their conceptions concerning things divine, the duty and happiness of man. The Egyptians and Grecians were those who vied for reputation in the improvement of this wisdom; but it is known and confessed that the utmost production of their endeavours were things foolish, irrational, and absurd, contrary to the being and providence of God, and to the light of nature, leading mankind into a maze of folly and wickedness. But we may consider what they attained unto in the fullness of time by their utmost improvement of science, wisdom, mutual intelligence, experience, communication, laborious study, and observation. When they had added and subducted to and from the inventions of all former ages from time immemorial, — when they had used and improved the reason, wisdom, invention, and conjectures, of all that went before them in the study of this wisdom; and had discarded whatever they had found by experience unsuited to natural light and the common reason of mankind, — yet it must be acknowledged that the apostle passeth a just censure on the utmost of their attainments, namely, that “they waxed vain in their imaginations,” and that “the world by wisdom knew not God.” Whence, then, was it that in one nation esteemed barbarous, and really so with respect unto that wisdom, those arts and sciences, which ennobled other nations; from that antiquity wherein it is not pretended that reason and wisdom had received any considerable improvement; without converse, communication, learning, or experience, — there should at once proceed such a law, doctrine, and instructions concerning God and man, so stable, certain, uniform, as should not only incomparably excel all products of human wisdom unto that purpose, however advantaged by time and experience, but also abide invariable throughout all generations, so as that whatever hath been advanced in opposition unto it, or but differing from it, hath quickly sunk under the weight of its own unreasonableness and folly? This one consideration, unless men have a mind to be contentions, gives sufficient satisfaction that this book could have no other original but what it pleads for itself, — namely, an immediate emanation from God.

2. It is apparent that God in all ages hath had a great regard unto it, and acted his power and care in its preservation. Were not the Bible what it pretends to be, there had been nothing more suitable to the nature of God, and more becoming divine providence, than long since to have blotted it out of the world; for to suffer a book to be in the world from the “beginning of times,” falsely pretending his name and authority, seducing so great a portion of mankind into a pernicious and ruinous apostasy from him, as it must do and doth if it be not of a divine original, and exposing inconceivable multitudes of the best, wisest, and soberest among them, unto all sorts of bloody miseries, which they have undergone in the behalf of it, seems not consonant unto that infinite goodness, wisdom, and care, wherewith this world is governed from above. But, on the contrary, whereas the malicious craft of Satan and the prevalent power and rage of mankind have combined and been set at work to the ruin and utter suppression of this book, proceeding sometimes so far as that there was no appearing way for its escape; yet, through the watchful care and providence of God, sometimes putting itself forth in miraculous instances, it hath been preserved unto this day, and shall be so to the consummation of all things. The event of that which was spoken by our Saviour, Matt. v. 18, doth invincibly prove the divine approbation of this book, as that doth its divine original, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” God’s perpetual care over the Scripture for so many ages, that not a letter of it should be utterly lost, nothing that hath the least tendency towards its end should perish, is evidence sufficient of his regard unto it. Especially would it be so if we should consider with what remarkable judgments and severe reflections of vengeance on its opposers this care hath been managed, instances whereof might easily be multiplied. And if any will not ascribe this preservation of the books of the Bible, not only in their being, but in their purity and integrity, free from the least just suspicion of corruption, or the intermixture of any thing human or heterogeneous, unto the care of God, it is incumbent on him to assign some other cause proportionate to such an effect, whilst it was the interest of heaven and the endeavour of earth and hell to have it corrupted and destroyed. For my part, I cannot but judge that he that seeth not an hand of divine Providence stretched out in the preservation of this book and all that is in it, its words and syllables, for thousands of years, through all the overthrows and deluges of calamities that have befallen the world, with the weakness of the means whereby it hath been preserved, and the interest, in some ages, of all those in whose power it was to have it corrupted, — as it was of the apostate churches of the Jews and Christians, — with the open opposition that hath been made unto it, doth not believe there is any such thing as divine providence at all. It was first written in the very infancy of the Babylonian empire, with which it afterwards contemporized about nine hundred years By this monarchy, that people which alone had these oracles of God committed to them were oppressed, destroyed, and carried into captivity; but this book was then preserved amongst them whilst they were absolutely under the power of their enemies, although it condemned them and all their gods and religious worship, wherewith we know how horribly mankind is enraged. Satan had enthroned himself as the object of their worship, and the author of all ways of divine veneration amongst them. These they adhered unto as their principal interest; as all people do unto that they esteem their religion. In the whole world there was nothing that judged, condemned, opposed him or them, but this book only, which was now absolutely in their power. If that by any means could have been destroyed, then when it was in the hands of but a few, and those for the most part flagitious in their fives, hating the things contained in it, and wholly under the power of their adversaries, the interest of Satan and the whole world in idolatry had been secured. But, through the mere provision of divine care, it outlived that monarchy, and saw the ruin of its greatest adversaries. So it did also during the continuance of the Persian monarchy, which succeeded, whilst the people was still under the power of idolaters; against whom this was the only testimony in the world. By some branches of the Grecian monarchy a most fierce and diligent attempt was made to have utterly destroyed it; but still it was snatched by divine power out of the furnace, not one hair of it being singed, or the least detriment brought unto its perfection. The Romans destroyed both the people and place designed until then for its preservation, carrying the ancient copy of the law in triumph to Rome, on the conquest of Jerusalem; and whilst all absolute Power and dominion in the whole world, where this book was known or heard of, was in their hands, they exercised a rage against it for sundry ages, with the same success that former enemies had. From the very first, all the endeavours of mankind that professed an open enmity against it have been utterly frustrated. And whereas, also, those unto whom it was outwardly committed, as the Jews first, and the antichristian church of apostatized Christians afterwards, not only fell into opinions and practices absolutely inconsistent with it, but also built all their present and future interests on those opinions and practices; yet none of them durst ever attempt the corrupting of one line in it, but were forced to attempt their own security by a pretence of additional traditions, and keeping the book itself, as much as they durst, out of the hands and knowledge of all not engaged in the same interest with themselves. Whence could all this proceed but from the watchful care and power of divine Providence? And it is brutish folly not to believe that what God doth so protect did originally proceed from himself, seeing it pleads and pretends so to do; for every wise man will take more care of a stranger than a bastard falsely imposed on him unto his dishonour.

3. The design of the whole, and all the parts of it, hath an impress on it of divine wisdom and authority: and hereof there are two parts; first, To reveal God unto men; and, secondly, To direct men to come unto the enjoyment of God. That these are the only two great concerns of our nature, of any rational being, were easy to prove, but that it is acknowledged by all those with whom I treat. Now, never did any book or writing in the world, any single or joint endeavours of mankind or invisible spirits, in the way of authority, give out a law, rule, guide, and light for all mankind universally in both these, — namely, the knowledge of God and ourselves, — but this book only; and it any other, it may be, like the Alcoran, did pretend in the least thereunto, it quickly discovered its own folly, and exposed itself to the contempt of all wise and considerate men. The only question is, how it hath discharged itself in this design? for if it have completely and perfectly accomplished it, it is not only evident that it must be from God, but also that it is the greatest benefit and kindness that divine benignity and goodness ever granted unto mankind; for without it, all men universally must necessarily wander in an endless maze of uncertainties, without ever attaining light, rest, or blessedness, here or hereafter. Wherefore, —

(1.) As it takes on itself to speak in the name and authority of God, and delivers nothing, commands nothing, but what becomes his infinite holiness, wisdom, and goodness; so it makes that declaration of him, in his nature, being, and subsistence, with the necessary properties and acts thereof, his will, with all his voluntary actings or works, wherein we may be or are concerned, so as that we may know him aright, and entertain true notions and apprehensions of him, according to the utmost capacity of our finite, limited understanding. Neither do we urge his authority in this case, but here and elsewhere resort unto the evidence of his reasonings, compared with the event or matter of fact. What horrible darkness, ignorance, and blindness, was upon the whole world with respect unto the knowledge of God, what confusion and debasement of our nature ensued thereon, whilst God “suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, and winked at the times of their ignorance,” the apostle declares at large, Rom. i., from the 18th verse to the end of the chapter. The sum is, That the only true God being become unknown to them, as the wisest of them acknowledged, Acts xvii. 23, and as our apostle proved against them, the devil, that murderer from the beginning, and enemy of mankind, had, under various pretences, substituted himself in his room, and was become “the god of this world,” as he is called, 2 Cor. iv. 4, and had appropriated all the religious devotion and worship of the generality of mankind unto himself; for “the things which the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to devils, and not to God,” as our apostle affirms, 1 Cor. x. 20, and as may easily be evinced, and I have abundantly manifested it elsewhere. It is acknowledged that some few speculative men among the heathen did seek after God in that horrid darkness wherewith they were encompassed, and laboured to reduce their conceptions and notions of his being unto what reason could apprehend of infinite perfections, and what the works of creation and providence could suggest unto them; — but as they never could come unto any certainty or consistency of notions in their own minds, proceeding but a little beyond conjecture (as is the manner of them who seek after any thing in the dark), much less with one another, to propose any thing unto the world for the use of mankind in these things by common consent; so they could none of them either ever free themselves from the grossest practical idolatry in worshipping the devil, the head of their apostasy from God, or in the least influence the minds of the generality of mankind with any due apprehensions of the divine nature. This is the subject and substance of the apostle’s disputation against them, Rom. i. In this state of things, what misery and cohesion the world lived in for many ages, what an endless labyrinth of foolish, slavish superstitions and idolatries it had cast itself into, I have in another discourse particularly declared. With respect hereunto the Scripture is well called by the apostle Peter “a light shining in a dark place,” 2 Pet. i. 19. It gives unto all men at once a perfect, clear, steady, uniform declaration of God, his being, subsistence, properties, authority, rule, and actings; which evidenceth itself unto the minds and consciences of all whom the god of this world hath not absolutely blinded by the power of prejudices and lusts, confirming them in an enmity unto and hatred of God himself. There is, indeed, no more required to free mankind from this horrible darkness, and enormous conceptions about the nature of God and the worship of idols, but a sedate, unprejudiced consideration of the revelation of these things in the books of the Scripture. We may say, therefore, to all the world, with our prophet, “When they say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them,” Isa. viii. 19, 20. And this, also, plainly manifests the Scripture to be of a divine original: for if this declaration of God, this revelation of himself and his will, is incomparably the greatest and most excellent benefit that our nature is capable of in this world, more needful for and more useful unto mankind than the sun in the firmament, as to the proper end of their lives and beings; and if none of the wisest men in the world, neither severally nor jointly, could attain unto themselves or make known unto others this knowledge of God, so that we may say with our apostle, that “in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God,” 1 Cor. i. 21; and whereas those who attempted any such things yet “waxed vain in their imaginations” and conjectures, so that no one person in the world dares own the regulation of his mind and understanding by their notions and conceptions absolutely, although they had all advantages of wisdom and the exercise of reason above those, at least the most of them, who wrote and published the books of the Scripture; — it cannot, with any pretence of reason, be questioned whether they were given by inspiration from God, as they pretend and plead. There is that done in them which all the world could not do, and without the doing whereof all the world must have been eternally miserable; and who could do this but God? If any one shall judge that that ignorance of God which was among the heathens of old, or is among the Indians at this day, is not so miserable a matter as we make it, or that there is any way to free them from it but by an emanation of light from the Scripture, he dwells out of my present way, upon the confines of atheism, so that I shall not divert unto any converse with him. I shall only add, that whatever notions of truth concerning God and his essence there may be found in those philosophers who lived after the preaching of the gospel in the world, or are at this day to be found among the Mohammedans or other false worshippers in the world, above those of the more ancient Pagans, they all derive from the fountain of the Scripture, and were thence by various means traduced.

(2.) The second end of this doctrine is, to direct mankind in their proper course of living unto God, and attaining that rest and blessedness whereof they are capable, and which they cannot but desire. These things are necessary to our nature, so that without them it were better not to be; for it is better to have no being in the world, than, whilst we have it, always to wander, and never to act towards its proper end, seeing all that is really good unto us consists in our tendency thereunto and our attainment of it. Now, as these things were never stated in the minds of the community of mankind, but that they lived in perpetual confusion; so the inquiries of the philosophers about the chief end of man, the nature of felicity or blessedness, the way of attaining it, are nothing but so many uncertain and fierce digladiations, wherein not any one truth is asserted nor any one duty prescribed that is not spoiled and vitiated by its circumstances and ends. Besides, they never rose up so much as to a surmise of or about the most important matters of religion; without which it is demonstrable by reason that it is impossible we should ever attain the end for which we were made, or the blessedness whereof we are capable. No account could they ever give of our apostasy from God, of the depravation of our nature, — of the cause, or necessary cure of it. In this lost and wandering condition of mankind, the Scripture presenteth itself as a light, rule, and guide unto all, to direct them in their whole course unto their end, and to bring them unto the enjoyment of God; and this it doth with such clearness and evidence as to dispel all the darkness and put an end unto all the confusion of the minds of men (as the sun with rising doth the shades of the night), unless they wilfully shut their eyes against it, “loving darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil:” for all the confusion of the minds of men, to extricate themselves from whence they found out and immixed themselves in endless questions to no purpose, arose from their ignorance of what we were originally, of what we now are, and how we came so to be, by what way or means we may be delivered or relieved, what are the duties of life, or what is required of us in order to our living to God as our chiefest end, and wherein the blessedness of our nature doth consist. All the world was never able to give an answer tolerably satisfactory unto any one of these inquiries, and yet, unless they are all infallibly determined, we are not capable of the least rest or happiness above the beasts that perish. But now all these things are so clearly declared and stated in the Scripture that it comes with an evidence like a light from heaven on the minds and consciences of unprejudiced persons. What was the condition of our nature in its first creation and constitution, with the blessedness and advantage of that condition; how we fell from it, and what was the cause, what is the nature, and what the consequences and effects, of our present depravation and apostasy from God; how help and relief is provided for us herein by infinite wisdom, grace, and bounty; what that help is, how we may be interested in it and made partakers of it; what is that system of duties, or course of obedience unto God, which is required of us, and wherein our eternal felicity doth consist, — are all of them so plainly and clearly revealed in the Scripture, as in general to leave mankind no ground for doubt, inquiry, or conjecture. Set aside inveterate prejudices from tradition, education, false notions, into the mould whereof the mind is cast, the love of sin, and the conduct of lust, — which things have an inconceivable power over the minds, souls, and affections of men, — and the light of the Scripture in these things is like that of the sun at noon-day, which shuts up the way unto all farther inquiry, and efficaciously necessitates unto an acquiescency in it. And, in particular, in that direction which it gives unto the lives of men, in order unto that obedience which they owe to God, and that reward which they expect from him, there is no instance conceivable of any thing conducing thereunto which is not prescribed therein, nor of any thing which is contrary unto it that falls not under its prohibition. Those, therefore, whose desire or interest it is that the bounds and differences of good and evil should be unfixed and confounded; who are afraid to know what they were, what they are, or what they shall come unto; who care to know neither God nor themselves, their duty nor their reward, — may despise this book, and deny its divine original: others will retain a sacred veneration of it, as of the offspring of God.

4. The testimony of the church may in like manner be pleaded unto the same purpose. And I shall also insist upon it, partly to manifest wherein its true nature and efficacy do consist, and partly to evince the vanity of the old pretence, that even we also, who are departed from the church of Rome, do receive the Scripture upon the authority thereof; whence it is farther pretended, that, on the same ground and reason, we ought to receive whatever else it proposeth unto us.