fruit the better. In fact, if we take a view of the history of the Church, we shall find, that, as oft as any heresy has diminished her, she has repaired her losses, both by extending without, and growing in light and piety within, while we see the cut-off branches withering in remote corners. The works of men have perished, in spite of hell which supported them: the work of God hath stood fast, and the church hath triumphed over idolatry, and all errors.

XIII. General Reflections on the constant Progress of Religion, and the Connection there is between the Books of Scripture.

THIS Church, always attacked, and never vanquished, is a perpetual miracle, and a shining testimony of the immutability of the counsels of God. Amidst all the agitation of human affairs she always maintains herself with invincible power, so that by an uninterrupted series of more than seventeen hundred years, we trace her back to JESUS CHRIST, in whom she takes up the succession of the ancient people, and finds herself united to the prophets and patriarchs.

Thus the many astonishing miracles which the ancient Hebrews saw with their eyes, serve even at this day to confirm our faith. That great God, who wrought them for a testimony to his unity and omnipotence, what could he do more authentic to preserve the memory of them, than to leave

in the hands of an entire great nation, the records that attest them, detailed in the order of time? And this we still have in the books of the Old Testament, that is, in the most ancient books that are in the world in the books which are the only ones of antiquity in which the knowledge of the true God is taught, and his service ordained; in the books which the Jewish people have always so religiously kept. It is certain that this is the only people who have known, from their original, God the Creator of heaven and earth, and consequently the only one that can have been the depositary of the Divine secrets. They have also preserved them with an unexampled religiousness. The books which the Egyptians and other nations called divine, are long ago lost, and there scarcely is left us any confused memorial of them in the ancient histories. The sacred books of the Romans, in which Numa, the author of their religion, had written its mysteries, have perished by the hands of the Romans themselves; and the Senate caused them to be burned, as tending to overthrow religion*. These same Romans at last suffered to perish the Sibylline books, so long revered among them as prophetical, and wherein they would have had us believe they found the decrees of the immortal gods concerning their empire, yet without ever having exhibited to the public, I do not say one

Tit. Liv. lib. xlix. c. 29. Varr. lib. de cult. Deor. ap. Aug. de Civ. vii. 34.

single volume, but even one single oracle. The Jews have been the only people, whose sacred writings have been held the more in veneration, the more they have been known. Of all the ancient nations, they are the only one which has preserved the primitive monuments of their religion, though abounding with proofs of their own infidelity, and of that of their progenitors. And. even at this day that same people remain upon the earth to convey to all nations whither they have been scattered, together with the progress of religion, the miracles and predictions which render it unshaken.

When JESUS CHRIST came, and when, sent by his Father to fulfil the promises of the law, he confirmed his mission, and that of his disciples, by new miracles; these were written with the same exactness. The records of them were published to all the earth; the circumstances of time, persons, and places, rendered the inquiry easy to every one who was solicitous about his salvation. The world informed itself, the world believed, and any one, who hath ever so little considered the ancient monuments of the Church, must confess, that there never was an affair examined with more deliberation and knowledge.

But with the relation the books of the two Testaments have to each other, there is one difference to be considered; which is, that the books of the ancient people were composed at different times. Some are the times of Moses, some those of Joshua and the Judges, some those of the Kings, some

those wherein the people were brought out of Egypt, and received the law, some those wherein they conquered the promised land, some those wherein they were, by visible miracles, re-established in it. To convince the incredulity of a people, thus attached to their senses, God took a long series of ages, during which he so distributed his miracles and his prophets, that he might frequently renew the sensible proofs whereby he attested his sacred truths. In the New Testament he has followed another method. He no more reveals any thing new to his Church after JESUS CHRIST. In him is perfection and fulness; and all the divine books composed under the new covenant were written in the time of the apostles.

That is to say, the testimony of JESUS CHRIST, and of those whom JESUS CHRIST himself was pleased to make choice of as witnesses to his resurrection, was sufficient for the Christian Church. Whatever came afterward might edify her, but she regarded nothing as purely inspired by God, but what the apostles wrote, or what they confirmed by their authority.

But in this difference which is found between the books of the two testaments, God hath always observed that admirable order, of causing things to be written at the time they happened, or when the memory of them was still recent. And so those that knew them wrote them; those that knew them received the books which bore witness of them both left them to their descendants

as a precious inheritance, and pious posterity hath preserved them.

Thus was formed the body of the holy Scriptures, as well of the Old as of the New Testament: Scriptures, which, from their original, were looked upon as true in every particular, as given by God himself, and which were therefore preserved with so much religion, that it was believed none could, without the highest impiety, alter a single letter of them.

And thus have they been transmitted to us, always holy, always sacred, always inviolable; the one preserved by the constant tradition of the Jewish nation, and the other by the tradition of the Christian people; so much the more certain, that it hath been confirmed by the blood and martyrdom as well of those who wrote the divine books, as of those who received them.

St. Augustine*, and the other fathers, ask upon what authority we ascribe profane books to certain times and authors? Every one immediately answers, that books are distinguished by the different relations they have to the laws, customs, and histories of a certain time, by the very style, which bears stamped upon it the character of particular ages and authors; and above all this, by public belief and constant tradition. All these things concur to establish the divine books, to distinguish their dates, to ascertain their authors; and the more religious care has been taken to preserve them en

* Aug. cont. Faust. xi. 2. xxxii. 21. xxxiii. 6.