sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," it goes on to say, "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in Ilis sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. iv. 12, 13).

4th. The word of God is also the food of God's children by which the life communicated by the word grows by it from spiritual infancy to Christian maturity. We are exhorted, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, to desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby, unto salvation. All thorough principles of interpretation, therefore, lie deep down, imbedded and embodied in spiritual experience. A necessary and the best possible preparation for the interpretation of the Scriptures is that one should know in himself the effects of their power. We believe and therefore speak, the Psalmist and Paul agree in saying. The word, to be felt in the full measure. of its power, even when preached by Paul, the chiefest of the Apostles, is to be taught and received, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in them that so believe. Grammatical and critical skill in regard to the forms of the language, knowledge of history, geography, and antiquities, furnishing matter of illustration,-these are not to be undervalued nor despised, but eagerly availed of by all who love the Scriptures; but the highest attainments in any or all of these, as a qualification for interpreting the real meaning of the Scriptures, are not worthy to be compared with the life-giving, cleansing, enlightening, and strengthening effects of the word of God experienced in one's own soul. We know that in the last days perilous times shall come, and doubtless they are already come, when

evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, and it is the sense of this as being now upon us that has called together this conference. But we have God's perfect resources provided for those times, the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, and the meaning of those Scriptures is to be confirmed to us by the character of those from whom we learn the truth. "Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." The safe interpreter of Scripture to us can only be he who exemplifies the effects of their power in himself. It is a wise judgment that, as a rule, one cannot go beyond his own spiritual experience of the truth in expounding it to others.

How sorrowful, in view of these considerations, to look over the "Christian world," as it is called, in most contradictory terms, and find the favorite and trusted expositors of the Scriptures to large circles of professing Christians, to be men ignorant or bitterly hostile in regard to the plainest teachings of God's word on some, and oftentimes on many of the most important lines of truthblind leaders of the blind, and both falling deeper and deeper into the ditch!

CHRIST'S USE OF THE SCRIPTURES.

The view of the word of God thus given, and the deepest principles of interpretation, have their profoundest illustration in the use made of the Scriptures by the Lord himself. We have no evidence that He ever read any other book than the Scriptures, but His teachings are full of these. He lived in them. There was with Him unquestioning acceptance of the Jewish Canon, of the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. Of the law He said not one jot or tittle should fall away, but all should be

fulfilled; from Isaiah lxi. He reads the precious summary of His own gracions work, and says to them in the synagogue at Nazareth, at the opening of His public ministry, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." Men have had most dispute as to the authority of Daniel's writings, of all the prophets, but Christ spoke of him as "Daniel the prophet." Men in our day, who claim, too, to be Christian teachers, have refused to the Pentateuch any higher character than that of a clumsy fabrication of post-exilic times, without a shred of the authority of Moses in its composition, except so far as his name is used in it to give currency to a "pious fraud." But the least to be regarded, in their opinion, of all the five books of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy, was the word of God to Christ in His temptation; and with the sword of the Spirit gathered from this armory and from this alone, He put Satan to defeat. From one of the Psalms He quotes a saying: "Ye are gods"; which, with all the difficulty it may still present to our understanding, is to be accepted by us, as it was by Him, as a part of the Scriptures "which cannot be broken." His whole teaching is studded with allusions to almost every part of Scripture, and with especial distinctness to those against which men have most cavilled. He confounded the Pharisees by quoting from the 110th Psalm, and asking them how Christ according to it could be David's Lord, and yet his son. He refuted the heresy of the Sadducees from the very name God had given Himself when He spoke to Moses from the bush. In His most intimate communications to His disciples the Scriptures are ever before His mind and used by Him for their instruction. In the most solemn hours of conflict, trial, and suffering for Himself, the word of God is ever in His heart and on His lips, and the last word He uttered on the cross is a quotation from the 31st Psalm. After His resurrection, to the two disciples on the way to

Emmaus, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself," under two heads, relating to His sufferings and to His glory, thus binding all Scripture together in one grand unity, Christ himself being the one great theme. Of these two disciples He opened the understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. Many a Christian, doubtless, in reading of this discourse, has wished that he had a record of it to guide him in the study of the Old Testament. But we may be assured that if needed, it would have been given to us, and its substance is without question ministered to all God's children who cease to grieve the Spirit and give themselves up to Him to be taught according to the Saviour's word, "He shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you."

And so even after His resurrection we see from the 1st chapter of Acts that the Scriptures were the great theme of His instructions during the forty days, and His last communication to His Church is full of references to the words previously given to His Church in the Old Testament and by Himself and His apostles.

What enemy to the truth can ever break the force of Christ's own example in using the Scriptures, so as to lead God's children to disregard or set aside any part of the precious word of God? And what methods or systems of interpretation that neglect or depreciate any part of the book of God which was an organic whole to Christ, can find acceptance with His Church?

DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURES.

Alleged Discrepancies of the Gospels.—A great multitude of the supposed difficulties in the Gospels disappear at once when we abandon the utterly unworthy,

but not uncommon view of the four lives of Christ, that any or all of them are fragmentary and imperfect in any sense. Such a view is in entire contradiction

of all that has been said in reference to the character and authorship of God's Word. Each gospel is perfect in itself for the end the Spirit had in view in giving it. No attempt is made to give all the details of Christ's life or to record all He says. The contrary is expressly stated. Loving students of the Scriptures, during the last half century especially, have brought to light that each gospel looks at Christ's life from its own peculiar point of view which imparts to each a particular object and character, and this being ascertained and kept in mind, the materials selected and used from the life of Christ in each gospel are all seen to be in beautiful harmony with the end proposed.

Thus Matthew traces the genealogy of Christ as the Son of David and the Son of Abraham, the gospel being Jewish in character, and presenting Christ as their Messiah. Luke, who presents Christ as the Son of man in His grace to the whole world, traces His genealogy up to Adam, the father of the race. The omission of the ascension scene from Matthew's gospel is explained in the same way. Many have been surprised that John's gospel makes no mention of the stupendous scene of the transfiguration of which he was an eye-witness, nor of the sufferings in Gethsemane, nor of the cry on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" But these things all belong to the history of Christ as the Son of man, not as the Son of God. While John's gospel itself tells us that it was written to this end, that "ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”

THE INSCRIPTION ON THE CROSS.

Men professing reverence for the Scriptures have been so perplexed with the difficulty of reconciling the accounts