write for, and in what language.
Further, it should inquire into the fate of each book: how it was first
received, into whose hands it fell, how many different versions there
were of it, by whose advice was it received into the Bible, and, lastly,
how all the books now universally accepted as sacred, were united into a
single whole.

All such information should, as I have said, be contained in the
"history" of Scripture. For, in order to know what statements are set
forth as laws, and what as moral precepts, it is important to be
acquainted with the life, the conduct, and the pursuits of their author:
moreover, it becomes easier to explain a man's writings in proportion as
we have more intimate knowledge of his genius and temperament.

Further, that we may not confound precepts which are eternal with those
which served only a temporary purpose, or were only meant for a few, we
should know what was the occasion, the time, the age, in which each book
was written, and to what nation it was addressed.

Lastly, we should have knowledge on the other points I have mentioned,
in order to be sure, in addition to the authenticity of the work, that
it has not been tampered with by sacrilegious hands, or whether errors
can have crept in, and, if so, whether they have been corrected by men
sufficiently skilled and worthy of credence. All these things should be
known, that we may not be led away by blind impulse to accept whatever
is thrust on our notice, instead of only that which is sure and
indisputable.

Now, when we are in possession of this history of Scripture, and have
finally decided that we assert nothing as prophetic doctrine which does
not directly follow from such history, or which is not clearly deducible
from it, then, I say, it will be time to gird ourselves for the task of
investigating the mind of the prophets and of the Holy Spirit. But in
this further arguing, also, we shall require a method very like that
employed in interpreting Nature from her history. As in the examination
of natural phenomena we try first to investigate what is most universal
and common to all Nature--such, for instance, as motion and rest, and
their laws and rules, which Nature always observes, and through which
she continually works--and then we proceed to what is less universal;
so, too, in the history of Scripture, we seek first for that which is
most universal, and serves for the basis and foundation of all
Scripture, a doctrine, in