whole, the perfect connection of its several parts, the relation of these parts to each other and to all the ways of God, to the person of Christ, to the Old Testament, to the heart of the renewed man who, through grace, knows himself, to the necessities of sinful man, to the dangers and difficulties which long afterwards sprang up in the Church, all combine to crown with divine glory the demonstration of the origin and the true Author of the book which contains these things. Its author is so much the more evidently God, from the human instruments having been many and diverse. But its unity and, above all, the intimate union of its different parts, demonstrate a complete and perfect body. If but one joint of a finger were wanting to a man, he is not a man such as God made him; it is at once perceived, he may have life, but he is imperfect. Take away a book from the New Testament, the remainder is divine undoubtedly, but it is no longer the New Testament in its divine perfection. As in a noble tree the inward energy, the freedom of the sovereign power which works in it, produces a variety of forms, in which the details of human order may appear to be wanting, but in which there is a beauty that no human art can imitate. Cut off one of its branches, the void is obvious; the minute connection of the remainder is destroyed, the gap which is made in the intertwining of its tender leaves proves that the devastating hand of man has been there. This then is how the Christian possesses the Word; each part of it acts divinely in him, and, in proportion to the progress he makes, it unfolds itself as a whole to the eyes of his faith, with a divine evidence which unites. itself with every element of his faith, with the varied glories of the person of Christ, and with the universal perfection of the ways of God; a perfection of which the christian has not judged a priori, but which he has learnt in the Word itself.

When I see a man do I need to be told that his form is complete? The more I know of anatomy the more I shall admire its structure. But it is the sight of the man himself which makes me apprehend his perfectness. Thus it is with all the works of God; only His Word

requires, as it produces, spiritual discernment. If any one be a prophet or spiritual let him acknowledge it. And do you know how the Word disposes of those who do not acknowledge it? "If any be ignorant let him be ignorant." It is humbling, no doubt, to have all one's learning treated thus; but this is as it should be between God and man. I repeat, I doubt not that outward evidences confirm the spiritual judgment. The learned man who creates doubts for himself, needs evidences to remove them. The simple Christian feeds on that which is divine, and knows nothing of the difficulties which man's poor learning creates. Lastly, I will go over, in order to show their futility, some of the arguments which are used to deny inspiration. It is a melancholy task, after having had one's thoughts directed towards the perfection of the Bible.

The first thing which strikes one is that all is judged from without. We are told that at the time of the reformation one authority was substituted for another. But observe, it is not through anything found in the Bible that unbelief judges its authority. Men would have faith to rest upon historical certainty and moral evidence. But this shews entire ignorance of what faith is. He who could be satisfied with this has never had divine conviction, feels not the need of divine faith, and knows not its nature; for no historical or moral certainty can be faith more or less. Faith comes from God, and receives a testimony, whereupon it sets to its seal that God is true. The rationalist, who has not the Spirit, can only see in Scripture the testimony of the man who wrote it. This is easy to be understood. He gives up the Spirit and the Word together, and falls back upon his own reason. Stress is laid also on the imperfection of the text of the New Testament, on its being written in a dead language, on its being read in translations; and, finally, we are told that its authors followed the opinions of the day in which they lived. This last objection is itself but a judgment formed upon the opinions of the present day, and is not worth a refutation. It is an accusation, not a proof: and the accusation is but a calumny. In fact if it were well-founded,

the same should be said of the Lord's own discourses, or the whole history should be rejected as false (see John iii. 33, 34; viii. 47). As to the other objections, I have a divine certainty of their futility, because, as I have already shewn, the Lord has set his seal to the Old Testament scriptures, in spite of the same difficulties. I would add a few words. Those who reason in this way confound the rule of faith with the means by which it is made known; in the latter, the imperfection of the instrument is felt. No one would assert that a translation was divine; but this is merely saying that through human diligence we profit by a divine work. The deposit, the rule of faith, remains in its original purity.

If clouds, formed by exhalations from the earth, obscure the light of the sun, they only prove, by thus veiling it, the power of that light which still suffices for all human purposes, although not seen in all its brightness. This objection, then, only tells us that when God gives blessing, we profit by the blessing according to our diligence. But this is not all. It is said that we do not even possess the original in its purity. This is, in the main, the same principle we have just touched on.

All that God gives He puts into the hands of men for their use, and they never know how to keep it as they ought. The revelation of God has been placed in the hands of men-of the Church. Man has not preserved it in its absolute perfection: be it so. God allows man to learn what he is; but faith knows that behind all this, there is the faithfulness of God, who watches over the Church, and that Christ nourishes and cherishes her. Experience teaches, and the Day of Judgment will make manifest, that faith in God is always in the right. Thus the believer quite supposes it possible that, through the carelessness of man, some defects may have crept into that which was committed to him; but he has full confidence in the faithfulness of God. His experience, as we have seen, confirms his faith, for he finds the Word divine. The judgment of God will decide that question for the unbeliever, which divine faith has already decided for the believer.

The examination of the text by learned men has,

indeed, shewn the rashness of infidel knowledge; but has left no serious doubt, except as to an extremely small number of texts, or rather of words, nor a shadow of obscurity upon any passage of the slightest importance as to the truth.

One learns that God was there, as much in His caring for, as in His gift of, the Word; although, apparently, He left all to the responsibility of man. To say that the meaning of a passage is doubtful, in order to deny its inspiration, is too absurd an argument to be repeated. It is saying, that the ignorance and incapacity of man are a proof that God has not acted in anything which man does not understand. There is a superficiality in such reasoning as this, which reveals the true value of mere human wisdom. The meaning is doubtful! doubtful to whom? I ask. It is said that the writers of the New Testament implicitly followed the translation of the Seventy. The contrary is the truth. When this translation gives the sense they used it. Half their quotations are faithfully rendered from the Hebrew; and if there are passages which differ from the present Hebrew text, the researches of the learned have proved that they are borne out by the testimony of the oldest translations. In many instances the meaning is given without attaching themselves to the exact words. Conscientious research on this point strongly confirms the divine inspiration of the authors of the New Testament. Inaccuracies, errors, and contradictions are alleged. I deny these contradictions and these inaccuracies. Let us remember that the certainty of the objector's knowledge must be first ascertained, and I have no confidence in it. I have known many cases in which man would prune away fruit of the spontaneous actings of the Spirit, and carve the beautiful tree into a round or a square. For my part, I have seen divine perfection in the form it has. All is divinely adapted to the object which the Holy Ghost had in view. We have seen that John does not mention the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane; Matthew and Luke omit what John relates. What does this prove to me? That John was not there? Not so; but that the Holy Ghost is the author of the two accounts, and not John

the

seen.

and Matthew. Man would have related what man had The Holy Ghost sets before me in the one Gospel, the man and the Messiah suffering; in the other, the Divine Person who offered up Himself, and whose life no man took from Him. I see divine perfection where human wisdom see blemishes. Luke puts the offer of the kingdoms of the earth before the temptation on the pinnacle of the Temple, and, in consequence, omits "Get thee hence, Satan!" "This is wrong!" cries the worldly scholar. "What perfection !" says the Christian. Matthew gives the historical order, Luke the moral order; for the spiritual temptation, through the written word, was of a deeper character than that of the offer of the whole world. The Man, the Messiah, Son of Man, the Holy One, relying on the promises, duly succeed each other. Now this moral order is characteristic of the whole of Luke's Gospel, excepting where the historical order is necessary to the truth of the recital. It is the Holy Ghost who writes. I have found difficulties in the Word: this has not surprised me, ignorant as I am; but I have found these difficulties, one after another, to be but the means of entering more fully into the perfection, the wisdom, and the divine beauty of the revelation of my God. If I still find more of these difficulties, and I do so, I wait upon Him to solve them for me; and I do not say "the meaning is doubtful," but "the meaning is doubtful to me." I do not say "there is inaccuracy, and I am accurate enough to judge it without divine light;" but "I am ignorant, and God will enlighten me in due time." Some have even gone so far as to say, that Scripture does not lay claim to inspiration. This shews an ignorance, or a disregard, of its contents, which, especially on such a subject, renders the arguments of those who could assert it unworthy of the attention of a serious man. The apostle asserts the exact contrary in the most clear and absolute manner. We have already seen how the Word, as a principle, speaks of the Scriptures. will not return to it. I have already exposed the folly of the argument, that inspiration is limited to the passage which asserts it-I say its folly; for why could not a text say, "All these writings are inspired." The