(=4=) The later writer in the Old Testament who quotes some earlier portion of narrative is often observed to supply independent information,--entering into minute details and particulars which are not to be found in the earlier record.--Now, "with the same Almighty SPIRIT for their guide, what was it to be expected that the historians of our Blessed LORD would do? What, but the very thing which they have done? that they would walk in the path, which the holy Prophets of old had marked out? that they would often tread full in each other's steps; often relate the same miracle, or discourse, or parts of it, in the words of the same prior writer; sometimes compress, sometimes expand; always shew to the diligent inquirer, that they did not derive their information, even of facts which they relate in another's words, from him whom they copy, but wrote with antecedent plenitude of knowledge and truth in themselves; without staying to inform us whether what they deliver is told for the first time, or has its place already in authentic history[156]." (=5=) It may be worth remarking that though _the Inspiration_ of no part of either Testament has ever been doubted in the Church, there do exist doubts as to the _Authorship_ of more than one of the Books of the Old Testament; and _one_ Book in the New, (the Epistle to the Hebrews,) has been suspected by some orthodox writers _not_ to have been from the pen of St. Paul, but to have been the work of some other inspired and Apostolic writer. (=6=) History, Didactic matter, and Prophecy,--is found to be the subject of either Testament. (=7=) In the New Testament, as in the Old, we are presented with the singular phenomenon of more than one Book being in a manner _copied_ from another,--yet with the addition of much independent original matter. It is superfluous to name Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, on one side,--and the Gospels on the other. To the Gospels may be added the Second Epistle of St. Peter and the Epistle of St. Jude. (=8=) Lastly, the same _modest_ use of the Supernatural is to be found in either Testament.--In both, the writers are observed to pass without effort, and as it were unconsciously, from revelations of the most stupendous character, to statements of the simplest and most ordinary kind[157].--In both, there is the same prominence given to individual characters[158]; the same occasional minuteness of detail where it might have been least expected[159]. 3. But by far the most remarkable phenomenon remains to be noticed; namely, the immense number of quotations, (so far more numerous than is commonly suspected,)--extending in length from a single word to nearly a hundred and fifty[160],--together with allusive references, literally without number, which are found in the New Testament Scriptures; _the writings of the elder Covenant being in every instance, exclusively[161], the source of those quotations,--the object of those allusions_.