420, THE doctrine which concerns the canon of Scripture is this — that God himself has made Himself its guarantee, — that His almighty providence is engaged for the preservation of this sacred deposit, — that He has guarded, now guards, and will guard it, till heaven and earth have passed away. In more precise terms, it is, that God, by a secret and perpetual agency, watches over His written Word, because He watches over His Church; it is, that He has invisibly, but sovereignly, made use, first, of the Jewish people, during 3350 years, to make them the sure depositaries of the sacred oracles of the Old Testament; and, still later, of Christian people — that is to say, of all Christian churches, good or bad, to make them, in like manner, through fourteen centuries, and to make them to the end, depositaries not less sure of the oracles of the New Testament.

421. This doctrine may be established most firmly, as we think, by six classes of proofs.

(1.) By evident reasons taken from the wisdom of the Most High and His faithfulness.

(2.) By the very simple consideration of what “the God of the holy prophets”. has not ceased to do, during more than thirty-three centuries, in relation to the sacred collection of His Scriptures,

(3.) By the infallible testimony borne by the apostles, and the Son of God himself, to. the Old Testament, and to the preservation of His canon.

(4.) By a direct and positive declaration of the Holy Scriptures.

(5.) By the whole assemblage of the facts of Providence, splendid, incontestable, and numerous — facts extending through ages, all of which powerfully attest the sovereign agency of this Divine Providence for the preservation of Moses and the prophets.

(6.) Lastly, by a new assemblage of other facts, not less striking and incontestable, all of which attest, with equal force, the same continued agency of the Most High for the preservation of the New Testament.