THE Scriptures being written on purpose to acquaint us with the will of GOD, and to instruct us in all things necessary to our everlasting salvation, there is no doubt to be made, but that in the form we now have them (which for divers wise reasons, was so contrived by the Holy Spirit,) they are sufficient to that end; so that whoever reads them with due care and attention, may, without any further help, be truly and fully informed what he ought to believe and do, in order to be saved. I will add also, that he whose peculiar business it is to instruct the ignorant, to guard the unwary, and to stop the mouths of gainsayers, may be thoroughly furnished from hence unto all these good works. Nay, farther, had the Scriptures exhibited religion to us in that regular form and method to which other writers have reduced it, there would, to me at least, have been wanting one great proof of the authority of those writings, which being penned at different times, and upon different occasions, and containing in them a great variety of wonderful events, surprising characters of men, wise rules of life, and new unheard-of doctrines, all mixed together with an unusual simplicity and gravity of narration, do, in the |