of our present lecture fixes this as being the Word of God and the Word of God only. Until this be established, we have no certain standard, and no ground on which to prove the other doctrines which are to be brought forward. Let us, then, calmly and prayerfully consider why we Protestants believe the Word of God to be the only Rule of Faith.

This I shall endeavour to lay before you under five points :

I. The Word of God is inspired, and so permits no doubt.

II. The Word of God is complete, and so neither needs nor permits additions.

III. The Word of God is sufficient, and so needs no human interpretation.

IV. The Word of God is given to all, and so to be withheld from none.

V. The Word of God is the revelation of Christ, "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," and therefore anything not included in it must be spurious.

I. Our first business is to establish the inspiration of the Word of God, since, if once we accept it as the dictation of the Holy Ghost, it can admit of no doubt, and we can lawfully appeal to it in support of our other propositions.

Now we must bear in mind that if the Bible be not inspired, it is a forgery and a falsehood,

for it says of itself (2 Tim. iii. 16), "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." How, then, has God treated this book, which professes to be an inspired revelation of His will? He has providentially protected it in all ages; it is the only book that has never been lost; preserved during the captivity, and in all the dangers and persecutions of the Jewish nation; carried throughout the known world by their dispersion; now multiplied and circulated in the most. marvellous manner. Would God have interfered for its preservation, and permitted its multiplication and reception throughout Christians of every race, if it had been the forgery which is its only alternative from being His own inspired Word?

Again, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, testifies that the Old is what it professes to be, and therefore inspired. He quotes passages, points out fulfilled prophecy, recalls commandments, and mentions persons and facts as realities, in a way which proves the inspiration of the records to which He refers.

And, still further, God has in unnumbered cases used the written word to bring souls out of darkness into His marvellous light. History, ancient and modern, and many cases probably known to all present, unite in showing how God has used His word for the conversion of souls. And would He have used it thus, had it been

the forgery which it must be if anything but inspired? God's own treatment of His word is an argument for its inspiration which can never be overthrown.

Then, passing to internal evidence, follows the argument from unity of design.

We have at least thirty-one different writers, of very different periods and positions-from the ranks of kings, lawgivers, generals, seers, shepherds, scribes, publicans, courtiers, physicians, and fishermen-all differing in style, all showing forth the same scheme and plan in various stages, though in some cases thousands of years. apart; all opposing themselves to man's own ideas and habits; all testifying of one Saviour, and agreeing in facts the most unlikely. Could this be if all were not inspired by one Spirit the Holy Ghost. For instance, could Moses, Isaiah, and Micah, at such different times, have prophesied the birth of a Saviour of a virgin, and the Evangelists have recorded the actual fact, had not their words been written by inspiration of God?

From this point, we naturally find our next argument in the fulfilment of prophecy and the completion of types. As the latter will, probably, come before us in another form, it is only necessary now to draw your attention to the exposition of the Book of Leviticus, which we find in the Epistle to the Hebrews; but on the

former point we may get most material help. The numberless prophecies of our Lord, expressive of His various attributes, His life, death, and resurrection, are too well known to need much said about them and their fulfilment, but some other special points deserve special remark. The twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, containing the denunciations of captivity, sword, famine, desolation, and dispersion of the Jewish nation, has been literally fulfilled, so that its fulfilment has been recognised by the Jews themselves. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit, foretold in Joel ii., is brought before us in Acts ii., with every particular carried out; while the prophecy of Isaiah, naming Cyrus and his work 140 years before his birth, is another of the many proofs that "the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Another very important proof of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, is the powerlessness of many of the authors to have written at all, if undirected by the Holy Ghost. Could Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, have himself compiled his wonderful prophecy? Could St. Matthew, unaided by the Spirit of God, have written his touching, carefully-arranged, gospel narrative? Could St. John, from the nets on the shore of Gennesaret, if uninspired, have written those heart-searching and heart-satisfying truths with

which the books which bear his name abound? And yet these unlearned and ignorant men are the teachers of the world; and, to use the words of Bishop Wordsworth, "the greatest sages of this world, the Bacons and the Newtons, the Keplers and the Pascals, sit down as little children at the feet of St. Matthew and St. John."

One more proof of this portion of our subject shall suffice: it may be called the proof of interpretation. To the greatest scholar, the deepest thinker, the profoundest philosopher, the Bible, if read only by the light of his own intellect, is a sealed book; but to the humblest student of God's word-poor and untaught, it may be, or young and uninformed, but seeking the aid of God the Holy Ghost to enlighten the heart-its truths are poured forth with a clearness and distinctness which even experienced Christians cannot realise. Thus oftentimes the dying pauper teaches the clergyman; the child leads the parent to the discovery of truth before unknown; and the man of letters and thought finds that matters which are dark and hidden from him are clear to those far beneath him in the social and intellectual scale. The Holy Spirit is the only interpreter of the Word of God; and surely this fact shows that that word cannot be otherwise than inspired by the same Holy Ghost.