is a doctrine which all serious Christians will embrace as necessary to give a glow to their piety and precision to their faith.

This then we consider as one of the articles of a standing or a falling church. We are aware of the propensity of the human mind to bigotry; and we have no wish to bandy about those abused terms, heretic and heresy, on the heads or hearts that do not deserve them. But the moment the public confidence in the full inspiration of Scripture is shaken, we believe that the church is overthrown and the gospel is gone. This we believe to be the polluted source of the most dangerous delusions in religion that are now abroad.

There are some we are aware who pass under the name of Christians, who allow the Bible to be an excellent book, containing some of the best precepts and purest moral examples, who hold up its inspiration in such a way as entirely to destroy its power. They say, to be sure, that all wisdom comes from God; his common providence is extended over all his works; all extraordinary genius is his gift; and the same being that endowed a Newton with his sublime faculties, gave a Paul his ability to write. Thus it is covertly insinuated that Paul was no more inspired to deliver the counsels of Heaven and the rules of faith, than a great philosopher is inspired to give us the structure of the material heavens. But will such views satisfy the anxious mind that is looking

for a rule of duty? Surely this is to mock us with the name of inspiration when the thing itself is denied. No man believes that Newton was inspired, in the proper sense of that word. We believe that he was an extraordinary man with extraordinary faculties; and by diligence and study, he gave us many important truths, which he had discovered; but no man imagines in any thing Newton says, that he sees a divine command. We believe, when the apostles spoke, they uttered the divine will as much and as truly as if the voice had come from the radiant throne. So says the Son of God. He that heareth you, heareth ME. This is the appropriate notion of inspiration, and all who do not believe it, conceal their sentiments as they will, have abandoned the ground of the whole Christian church; and are but infidels in disguise.

The artifice of calling a bad invention by a good old name, and then endeavoring to shuffle it off under the protection of that name, is too stale, the present day, to prevail without detection. If a man calls his dark lantern, the sun; it makes it not a whit the brighter or better light.

Some believe the Bible is partly inspired. But which part is to be rejected and which is to be received, they are not very careful to say. We are aware here, that much quibbling may be asking what is the Scripture, and are we to receive a book as inspiration because we find it bound up in a volume which we call the Bible? In answer to such

raised by

inquiries, we simply say, that when the united church, after ages of examination, have agreed to put certain books into the canon and exclude others, such decision is the best proof that human affairs allow, that that canon is the word of God. It stands whole and entire -the code of Heaven and the guide of man. Any doubts, needlessly suggested, that part is not inspired, is throwing us back into the night of ignorance; it is teaching infidelity by piecemeal. Who shall say what part is inspired? The rule is broken; the sun is gone; the shadows thicken into midnight; and man is a pilgrim on the wilderness, without a ray to guide him to safety and to peace.

Some teach that the Bible is not a revelation; but a record of inspiration. Eternal truth spoke the word, but fallen men recorded it. We might ask them, for whose benefit God revealed his word, for those who immediately heard it, or for all mankind? Would he

at first have given a perfect pattern and then have left that pattern to have been mutilated and corrupted by the unskilful servants to whom it was committed? Besides, how does such a sentiment comport with the solemn promise, which Christ gave his apostles, that if he departed he would send them the Comforter to lead them into all truth?

The best antidote to all such foolish and wicked opinions, is a knowledge of the Bible itself. Let each one read it, and see what it is, and what it claims to be. The best Christians are Bible Christians. They

who open it with reverence; read it for information; reflect on it with prayer; and pass from its pages to retain its truths and walk by its spirit; they, and they alone are the children of light.

I have already remarked, that I consider all virtue as founded on the requirements of some law; without such a previous conception, virtue would be instinct, good nature, blind impulse-any thing rather than a fixed and sublime principle. For the heathen we are obliged to assume a law of nature; i. e. a knowledge of God and his will, discovered (dimly, to be sure, but still discovered) by tradition, reason, conjecture, or any other mode that is not revelation. And we see then, virtue failed for want of authority. Now the essence of the new dispensation is, that it brings us in direct contact with the authority of the Lawgiver, i. e. God. But a law must be prescribed; not confined, as Blackstone says, to the breast of the legislator. What prescribing is, in reference to municipal law, the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures is with reference to the law divine. It is the medium by which we know its authority; and by which the articles of faith are made more clear than the dictates of reason.

THERE are serious hours when the soul sinks into a deeper consciousness of its own character and wants than it possesses in the ordinary tenor of life. Religion is addressed to our consciousness; just as much so as light to the eye. The reason why it is not universally received is, that the soul is turned out of its own interior feelings by having its attention solicited and seduced abroad. Were it not for this, the truth of the Christian religion would strike us with an instant impression; and we should see its beauties as soon as our hearts were conformed to its spirit. The truth is, there are two kinds of consciousness in man; the common and the extraordinary; the superficial