mortal. It was indispensable, we say, for men's guidance, that they should have a distinct and absolute understanding on this subject; and nothing could serve the purpose better than just an isolated book whose visible margin, as it were, separated and marked off that which was of divine inspiration from that which was of human invention or human judgment. But when, instead of this, we are told that the limit does not lie around the book, but meanders in some obscure and untraceable way within it when taught to believe, as we are by the advocates of a partial inspiration, that man's words as well as God's words are there, and that, to find the line of demarcation between them, we have not as every plain and unsophisticated man wont to imagine, we have not to make a circuit around the four quarters of the Bible, but to make incursion within the fence, and there separate the precious from the comparatively vile -when deprived of the palpable criterion we had formerly, which was simply and surely that this book is the depository of God's revelation, and all its contents are to be honoured and regarded as such, we are sent a rummaging among these contents, as if partly divine and partly human-and, without any such criterion as we had before by which to discriminate between them-we are thrown adrift among the ambiguities of a question where all is loose and indeterminate, and are left at a loss to know what we shall trust as the sayings of God, and what we shall treat as the sayings of a fallible mortal like ourselves. The separation between them was trodden under foot, when the

outer wall of the court was taken down; and by ne giving up of a universal inspiration, we are left without a Bible-for we are left to guess as we may when it is or when it is not, that the voice speaketh to us from heaven. It may well be said to emit an uncertain sound, when thus made uncertain of the quarter where the sound comes from; nor can we imagine ought more precarious, than when given to understand, that there is a mixture of various sorts of inspiration in the book, and thus all is reduced to a dim and shadowy question of degrees which is wholly unresolvable. It may continue to be called the Bible. But from the moment we are made to believe that it is not all over the word of God, its character as a clear and unequivocal directory from our Master and Lawgiver in heaven is henceforth nullified. The second advantage then of testimonies in the particular form which we have been considering is, that they lead us to respect the whole Bible equally, or at least to rely on the whole equally.

10. To reassemble these observations into one, or at most two steps of an argument. We have, in the first place, a collection of writings repeatedly adverted to in scripture; and having one or more titles which served to mark them, just as distinctively, as the book of our own faith is at present separated from all other authorship, by its wellknown denomination either of the scriptures or the Bible. At one time the appellation is given to them of ἡ γραφη or & γραφαι; at another τα λογια του Θεου, as in the verse where it is said that "unto the Jews were committed the oracles of

God;" at a third time, ra ga ygappara, as when Timothy is said to have known from a child the holy scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation. Under one or other of these titles, it is one of the surest points of ecclesiastical history, that all the books of our present Old Testament were comprehended, and these exclusively, when spoken of as they repeatedly are by our Saviour and His Apostles: And these are the very titles, which, beginning with the Apostles and descending from them with an evidence as copious and sure as that by which the miracles and all the historical foundations of our faith are substantiated, have, by the general consent of Christians, been extended to the pieces which make up our present New Testament-so that whatever is predicated in the Bible of the subjects which are thus designated, may be regarded as the testimony of revelation to the perfections and properties of this volume, or to the degree of authority which belongs to it.

11. Now, confining ourselves to a few of those passages in the New Testament, where the scriptures are referred to under one or other of the denominations that have been now specified. "Jesus said unto them, Ye err, not knowing the scriptures." "Search the scriptures." "Scripture" (this we think the most distinct and unequivocal of all possible testimonies,) "the scripture cannot be broken." This cannot be exceeded; but it is equalled by the following testimony. "The scriptures must be fulfilled." The necessity thus alleged is, in another place, made the reason why our Saviour would submit to any endurance,

rather than that one jot or one tittle of the scriptures should fail" But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be." "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope"not some things in scripture, but whatsoever things were written there, were written for our learning. Now some of these testimonies apply expressly to each and every part of scripturebearing at all times in mind, that this scripture is inclusive, by the testimony of Christ and His Apostles, of all that we now have in the Old Testament, and exclusive of every Jewish writing beside; inclusive also, on the very evidence which accredits Christianity at all, of every book that enters into our present New Testament, and exclusive of every Christian writing beside. Of this scripture, in its totality, it is said that it cannot be broken-which it could, if any part of it, however small, might, as being but of human character and authority, be detached from the rest as being of divine authority: And it is also said that whatsoever things were written there, were written for our learning-making no distinction whatever between the degree of faith and docility due to certain of these things, over certain others of them. then when further told to search the scriptures, and that scripture must be fulfilled-this injunction and this information, distinct and definite as they are, when understood of a well-known book so denominated and of all within the perimeter thereof, become altogether vague, useless, bewilder

And

ing, and in fact convey no injunction that we can act upon, and no information that we can specifyif, on the principle of partial inspiration, the duty of searching, the certainty of fulfilment, apply only to certain parts of this scripture we are told not what, to certain places and passages thereof we are told not where. At this rate, each is left to guess or to find a scripture for himself; and, with all the properties and excellences ascribed to this book, we positively do not know at this rate what the portions are which this description is meant to light upon.

12. But more than this. There are certain other designations, which, though not always appropriated to scripture, yet have at times the utmost likelihood of being expressly and specifically so applied-or, if otherwise, leave the passages in which they occur without meaning, or at least strip them of all their usefulness. Every property, for example, ascribed to the word of the Lord, if not to be understood of scripture and of all scripture, is to us at least of no utility and of no practical significance whatever. Had God never published a Word to the world in which we live, it would have been of no importance to let us know that the "word of the Lord is pure ;" and it would just be of as little importance, if, though He may have published such a word, we are left in uncertainty as to what it is. But apply this saying to the scriptures, and we instantly restore effect and importance to it; and believing, as we do, that it is really expressive of scripture, our interpretation of this testimony is, that in the yeapn, the ga γραμματα, the τα λόγια του Θεοv, the Bible in