The church interprets and explains herself; there are books, also, that carry their own explanation with them, and so need no interpretation or further explanation; but manifestly the Bible is not such a book. It is inspired; it is true; it is infallible; and is, as St. Paul says of all Scripture, divinely inspired, “profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good word and work” (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17); but it bears on its face the evidence that it was addressed to men who were already believers, and already instructed, partially at least, in the truths it teaches or enforces, and that it was not written to teach the faith to such as had no knowledge of it, but to correct errors, to present more fully the faith on certain points, to point out the duties it enjoins, to exhort to repentance and reform, and to hold up as motives on the one hand, the fearful judgment of God upon those who disregard his goodness, or despise his mercy, or abuse his long-suffering, and, on the other, the exceeding 155 riches of divine love, and the great reward prepared in heaven for those that believe, love, and obey him. No one can read it without perceiving that it neither is nor professes to be the original medium of the Christian revelation to man, but from first to last supposes a revelation previously made, the true religion to have been already taught, and instructions in it already received. This is true of the Old Testament, and more especially true of the New Testament; and we know historically, and nobody denies it, that the faith was preached and believed, and particular churches, congregations of believers, were gathered and organized, before a word of the New Testament was written.