THE DIVINE PLAN OF REVELATION: AN ARGUMENT FROM INTERNAL EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT BEING THE BOYLE LECTURES FOR MDCCCLXIII. BY THE REV. EDWARD GARBETT, M.A., INCUMBENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, SURBITON; AUTHOR OF "THE BIBLE AND ITS CRITICS," "Humana omnia dicta argumentis et testibus egent, Dei autem sermo ipse sibi testis "Magnifice et salubriter Spiritus Sanctus ita scripturas modificavit, ut locis apertioribus LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 1864. 100. r 26. PREFACE. THE Lectures contained in this volume were preached in 1863, the third and last year of my office as Lecturer in the foundation of the Hon. Robert Boyle. The Lectures for 1861 were published in the same year, under the title of The Bible and its Critics, and were received in a much more favourable manner than I could have ventured to anticipate. The Lectures for 1862 dealt with The Conflict between Science and Infidelity, and were directed to prove that the principles of judgment applied by modern rationalism to the Sacred Scriptures were contradictory to the principles applied to other scientific inquiries, and were subversive of the very foundations of human knowledge. Such thought, as the claims of a lectureship held for three years and the pressure of ministerial engagements have allowed me to give to the subject since then, has confirmed me in my belief of the solidity of this view. But the treatment of the subject involved so wide a range of inquiry and so great a variety of topic that I have been anxious to give it a more thorough reconsideration than circumstances have hitherto rendered possible. The Lectures for 1863 are now printed in this volume, with slight additions and revision from the original manuscript. The publication has been delayed by the varied occupations incident to a change of residence and the entrance upon a new sphere of ministerial labour. In giving them to the world, I am actuated by a sense of the pressing importance of the question discussed in them, and of the duty incumbent on every man to contribute, to the best of his power, to the vindication of the Bible from sceptical attack and the consolidation of its evidences. I am fully sensible of their many defects; but venture to hope that they contain suggestive matter for further inquiry and research, the first rude cultivation of a field of thought which may hereafter yield, perhaps to the sickle of some future Boyle Lecturer, an ample harvest to the glory of God, and to the faith and consolation of the Church. I humbly pray that the Spirit of God may be pleased to honour this effort meanwhile. EDWARD GARBETT. Christ Church Parsonage, Surbiton, June 2, 1864. CONTENTS. The authorship of the Bible must be determined by the proof either of its fragmentary character, or of its structural unity. Modern rationalism has set itself to prove the first alternative, while Christian orthodoxy has ever maintained the second. The critical reasons adduced in favour of its fragmentary character have not touched the positive external evidences for the histo- rical veracity and Divine authority of the Bible; and, could they be proved, they would only bring the argu- ment to this dilemma,—that one line of evidence posi- tively affirms the authoritative inspiration which another line of evidence invalidates. Hence arises the necessity for a closer review and analysis to detect the latent fallacy. This may be done: 1. Negatively; by disproving the hostile conclusions of rationalism. 2. Affirmatively; by adducing counter internal evi- dence in favour of the unity of the Bible. The present Lectures will follow the latter plan, and will contain an argument from design, analogous to the proof adduced by natural religion, for the existence of God. If the doctrine of final causes be admitted, the adapta- tion of means to ends constitutes a competent proof of design, and a design involves a designer. If this can be proved to exist throughout books confessedly vary- ing so widely in their date as the books of the Bible, the intelligent mind that framed and executed it must be the mind of God, because no human intellect can page |