Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/45

Rh to the discernment even of an apostle: "I give you to understand, (says he.) that no man can say, that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit," 1 Cor. xii. 3. The Holy Spirit is divine truth.

AS man is born in utter ignorance of divine things, and incapable of deriving from the mere light of nature any real knowledge of the existence of a God, of life eternal, of heaven and hell, and of many other things conducive to his future welfare and happiness, a revelation is necessary to supply this defect. In all ages of the world, therefore, mankind have been blessed with a revelation from heaven, either by an immediate internal dictate, called perception, enlightening each individual of the church, as was the case with the men of the most ancient times before the flood; or by an external written Word, as was the case with their posterity after the flood, and as is likewise the case in the present day. The first written revelation, which may be called the Ancient Word, though now lost, is yet quoted by Moses in Numb. xxi. 14, 15, 27 to SO; by Joshua, chap. x. 12 to 14; by David, 2 Sam. i. 17 to 19; and by Jude, ver. 14, 15. To this Ancient Word succeeded the Word written by Moses and the Prophets, usually called the Old Testament; and again another Word, written by the Evangelists, usually called the New Testament; both of which are included in what we now call the Sacred Scripture, or Word of God.

The Word, being a revelation from the Divine Being, must therefore be essentially holy and divine; containing in its bosom the divine love and divine wisdom, or what amounts to the same, the divine