There are four grand arguments for the truth of the Bible. 1. The miracles it records. (These are easily proved to have been recorded and published at the time they profess to have been, and not having been disputed for several hundred years after, can not be doubted.) 2. The prophecies it contains. (See those in the Old Testament, held by the Jews then and to this day, who disbelieve in the Messiah Jesus Christ and the New Testament, but which prophecies any child may see fulfilled in Christ and in the events of his time.) The celebrated infidel Rochester was converted by reading the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. 3. the goodness of the doctrine, (the greatest infidels acknowledge it and no one can deny it.) 4. The moral character of the penmen.

      The miracles flow from divine power; the prophecies, from divine understanding; the excellence of the doctrine, from divine goodness; and the moral purity of the penmen, from divine purity.

      Thus Christianity is built upon these four immutable pillars--the power, the understanding, the goodness, and the purity of God.

      The Bible must be the invention of good men or angels; of bad men or devils; or of God.

      It could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither would nor could make a book and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, "Thus saith the Lord," when it was their own invention.

      It could not be the invention of bad men or devils, for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their own souls to all eternity.

SIMPSON, 1832, page 311.      

Source:

David Simpson. "The Truth and Divinity of the Bible." The Millennial Harbinger 3 (July 1832): 311-312.

NOTE: Extracted from A Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings: Addressed to the Disciples of Thomas Paine and to Wavering Christians of Every Denomination by David Simpson (1745-1799). Baltimore, MD: Printed by George Dobbin and Murphy for John Hagerty, 1807; Philadelphia, PA: Solomon Wieatt, 1809.

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