he will see the same truths illustrated by imagery with which he is practically familiar, and so coming home to his heart, with a power so real and so decided, that he will feel that never book spake like this book, as it was said of old of its author, "Never man spake like this man." But it is very remarkable, that, while there is all that is needed to edify, all that is fitted to charm and to instruct, there is not one word adapted merely to gratify an itching curiosity. If I had been writing a book that I wanted to be very popular, and if I had been desirous of using the most likely elements, I should have taken care to give responses to the thousand and one curious questions that humanity ever asks and never comprehends. If I had been narrating, even as a human being, and wishing to speak sincerely, that Lazarus rose from the dead, I should have tried to throw in some expressions or sketches of his wonderful experience when separated from the body—not that it would have done man good, but it would have gratified his curiosity, and made my work acceptable. But upon that and kindred subjects the Bible is silent. "Lord, are there many that be saved?" How often have we asked this question! How fine was the answer. Strive to enter in at the strait gate!" Again, the question is asked, "What shall this man do?" Hear the answer- "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." The silence of Scripture is sometimes its most thrilling eloquence. The blanks and chasms in Scripture the questions it leaves unanswered the problems it bequeathes unsettled-the perplexities it leaves unsolved, are to my mind some of the strongest and brightest credentials that the Bible has God for its author, truth for its matter, everlasting joy and felicity for its happy issue. - - The Bible consists not merely of so many individual books, but of two great divisions. The Old and the New Testament are the two great sections of the book called the Bible. What is the difference between them? The Old Testament is a lock with wards and interstices, far more complicated than Chubb or Bramah could contrive; and the New Testament is the exquisitely cut key, which, applied to the lock, completely unlocks it, and opens a door of entrance to the bright vision of light and immortality, clearly brought to view. The Old and New Testament are different portraits of the same great and glorious original. The Old Testament is the portrait seen by moonlight; the New Testament is the same portrait seen by sunlight; the one hazy and dim, but still real; the other bright and illuminated, like a noonday landscape, on which the minutest and most majestic features may be read and understood by him that runs while he reads. We have these books in all their integrity. Oh! what a ground of thankfulness to God is a Bible, unmutilated, únshortened, uncorrupted! The Socinian has tried to abstract from it that which is Divine; the Romanist has added to it that which is human; but we have this book still in its inspired integrity; it is here that one can see a providence in our divisions. While our differences may be the evidences of human weakness, they have been overruled by God to be the means of the Bible's preservation. If a Church of England man had tried to put in a word in favor of Episcopacy, the Independent would have pounced upon him and shown the fraud; if the Scotch Churchman had tried to put in a word in favor of his Confession of Faith, the English Churchman would have exposed him in the light of noonday; if the Baptist had interpolated a word about plunging, the Pædobaptist would have instantly shown it should be sprinkling. Thus our little divisions, which are the evidences of our frailty, have been overruled, in the good providence of God, to be the means of keeping in its unmutilated integrity and perfection that blessed book which is the anchorage ground of us all. The very existence of the Bible has always appeared to me a perpetual miracle. This book, lying upon the pulpit, or upon the desk, or upon the table, is itself a glorious sign. Suppose there were to come into our presence a man who had lived eighteen hundred years - suppose he had been cast into the sea a dozen times, and was never drowned suppose arsenic and prussic acid had been administered to him, according to the best prescriptions, and yet he was never poisoned · suppose he had been riddled with bullets, and yet is not numbered with the slain. if that man were to march into a room this day, and to present himself before us, what would be inferred? That God's omnipresence must have been his shield, and God's omnipotence his safety at every moment. This book, the Bible, has been cast into the flames, and it is not burned; it has been thrown into the sea, and it is not drowned; it has been buried in the pestilential notes of Douay, and it has been seized in the bearlike grasp of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and yet it is not crushed. At this day it comes before us in primæval purity and majesty, and thus eighteen centuries demonstrate what Jesus uttered in the first century, "Thy word, O Lord, is truth." But more than this. There are certain books called the classics, written in Greek and Latin, some of them beautifully written, many of them with intermingling corruptions, and appeals to what is worst and most wicked in our common humanity. Now, it is remarkable that unregenerate human nature would any day prefer a book written by man that will minister to its corruptions, to a book written by God that rebukes those corruptions. Yet the classics, those books that man tried to save, the books that he loved because they prophesied good about him, the books that he labored, and suffered, and expended to protect and preserve, are all of them mutilated, and many of them totally lost; while this book, which all men hated till they came under its supremacy, and which all men persecuted, because, like the prophet, it prophesied evil concerning them, remains in all its perfection and integrity to this day. Does not this prove that God has been with this book from the beginning until now? The Church of Rome tells us, we got the Bible from her, and that we ought, therefore, to take her opinion of it, her limits, restrictions, and counsel in the interpretation of it. I suspect, however, that we rather snatched it from her grasp, than got it as a present from her generosity; but at all events, in whatever way we got it, we are certainly most thankful to God that so blind a woman kept in her hand for us so bright a light, and left it for our guidance; and all our regret is, that she was so blind as not to see its light herself. But that same Church turns round and says, "As you got the Bible from us," or, to put it in a phraseology not uncommon, "As you are indebted to the Church for the Bible, you ought to take the Church's interpretation of it." I must demur, “The Apostles got the Old Testament from the Jews; but if they had taken the Jews' interpretation of the Bible, they would have joined with them in crucifying the Lord of glory. We will take the Bible from you, but we will not take your interpretation of it." Suppose a will is brought into a court of justice, and that two persons who signed the will are brought forward as witnesses to the genuineness and authenticity of the document: the moment they have given their testimony, one of the witnesses, very communicative and obliging, says to the judge, "My lord, now that we have signed the will, and shown it to be genuine, and handed it to you in this court, an uncorrupted and authentic document, I beg to inform your lordship that the will leaves 500l. to my friend, 250l. for myself, and 10007. for somebody else." What would the judge say? "Gentlemen, you are excellent witnesses to the genuineness of the will, but the interpretation of the document you must leave to other parties altogether." If the Church of Rome insists that she did convey the document to us in all its integrity, we say, "We are exceedingly obliged to you; but if you insist that you are therefore to interpret the document, we tell you at once that you come into court simply as witnesses to its genuineness; we cannot accept you in any office in which you have not even presented yourselves, or, at least, in which you ought not to present yourselves." But if she will insist that we shall not have the Bible unless we take her opinion of it, we must tell her that we will dispense with all her services; that we extremely regret it; but that faithfulness to the Author of the Bible necessitates it. For it happens that the Church of Rome was not the only Church during the last eighteen centuries. There was the Greek Church that she separated from, or that she says separated from her, about the sixth century; and there was an Anglo-Saxon Church in England, before a Popish monk came over. The Romish Church is not the old Church, she is quite mistaken, she gets into the dotage of age, instead of asserting the evidence of age; there was a church here that protested against her novelties long before the days of Hildebrand, and even of Gregory the Great: there was also in Scotland the old Culdee Church, the Syriac Church, and other sections of the Church universal scattered throughout the whole world. I will apply to one of these. Everybody is trying to find out new plans for supplying this great metropolis of ours with pure water; suppose one company came to me, and said, (I do not say they do say so; I am only putting the case hypothetically,) "We will supply your family with water, but we have been persuaded, by careful chemical investigation, that to cover |