Passages of the Old Testament cited, as they are in all parts of the New with many and many a glance or tacit unexpressed reference, link all the parts of the volume together and give it a character of unity and completeness. The contents themselves of the volume do the same. They also give unity and completeness to it, for they are a series of events which stretch from the beginning to the end, from the creation to the kingdom. And prophecies in the Old Testament of events in the New are as quotations in the New of passages in the Old. And thus, in the mouth of several witnesses of the highest dignity, we have the oneness and the consistency of the divine volume from first to last fully set forth and established. Thus the divine original of the Book, as well as its unity and consistency, is established. And we hold to these truths in the face of all the insult which is put upon them by unreasonable and wicked men. Oppositions of criticism, falsely so called, only spend themselves in vain like angry waves upon the seashore. God Himself has set the bounds, and these things only return upon themselves, foaming out their own shame.
Quotations are found in every part of the New Testament, and are taken from every part of the Old from Genesis to Malachi—and that very largely. So that we have, in the structure of the divine volume, nothing less than the closest, fullest, and most intricate interweaving of all parts of it together, the end too returning to the beginning, and the beginning anticipating the end. In a certain sense, we are in all parts of the volume when we are in any part of it, though the variety of communications in disclosing the dispensations of God is infinite. Surely it is marvelous! But the Spirit of Him who knows the end from the beginning accounts to us for it; nothing less can. "The Book," as has been said, "is a greater miracle than any which it records."
Citations out of His own writings from the Old Testament by God Himself, first in the Person of the Son in the gospels, and then in the Person of the Holy Ghost, in the Acts and epistles, are beautiful. And God sent forth these writings from Himself at the beginning, being the source of them, so after they have come forth and been embodied in human forms, and accepted of men, He Himself comes to accredit them. He has inspired them and sealed them—and we receive them thus introduced to us by Himself—and we ask no more.
And we may say of the Scriptures from the beginning to end, that one part of them cannot be touched without all being affected. To use inspired language, "Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it" (1 Cor. 12:2626And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. (1 Corinthians 12:26)), God has so tempered all of it together. And I may go further in the same analogy, and say, The uncomely parts have been given more abundant honor—as for instance, in the book of Proverbs, we get as rich and blessed a witness of the Christ of God in His mysterious glories as we find anywhere.