untarnishable radiance of God.

says.

What it says, God

4. A fourth fact is the logical impossibility of any other counter position. "If we do not take direct Inspiration," says Waller, "what we are to take is not so clear." If we begin to admit inequalities in Revelation, where shall we stop? If we turn our attention away from the writing to occupy ourselves with the writerhis genius, his knowledge, the amount of assistance required-who does not see that this descent from heaven to earth, from the high Himalaya of the Divine to the low, marshy ground of the creatural human, must tend to gravitate, to minimize, and more and more, until your Bible is reduced to Shakespeare or (who knows?) to Bret Harte. The fabricators of degrees in Inspiration-the men who so self-confidently set forth to us their four classes, the inspirations of "elevation," of "superintendence," of "suggestion," of "direct dictation,"-tell us themselves that the last is the highest. Ah well! we will choose--we will cling to that highest. Why not? If dictation anywhere-in any one instance, then dictation all the way through. If not, why not? Where are the limits? Where shall we stop? Suppose certain words in the Scripture-only a few-to be put there by God. Suppose this admitted, and it is admitted-who shall define the number of those words? Who shall assume to stand up and tell us where God the Holy Ghost expresses Himself in the very form of the word and where He retires from the word and leaves it a shell merely human?

The difficulties attaching to any other view of Inspiration than the Verbal are simply overwhelming. Suppose that something, no matter how little-whatever you please -be left to the writers themselves, and who shall satisfy us that nothing essential has been omitted, nothing irrelevant or trifling has been emphasized, nothing inaccurate

has been set down? Who does not see that, so, inspiration is utterly lost?

5. And that leads, logically, up to the climacteric position, that we must hold to Verbal Inspiration, or if not, at last— give up the Bible. What other result can there be? Is not this just what it comes back to—“I receive what appeals to my likings, I repudiate what I dislike"? In other words, I make my consciousness my arbiter-my prejudice, my Book--and my self-will, my God.

The subject which has fallen to my lot in this discussion is, The Testimony of the Scriptures to themselves—their own self-evidence the overpowering, unparticipated witness that they bring.

Permit me to expand this witness under the following heads:

I. Immortality.

II. Authority.

III. Transcendent Doctrine.

IV. Direct Assertion.

V. The Casket of the Gem-the very Language in which Revelation is enshrined.

I. Immortality-"I have written!" All other books die.

"Most of the libraries are cemeteries of dead books." The vast perennial literature falls as the leaves fall, and perishes as they perish. Few old books survive, and fewer of those that survive have any influence. Even to scholars the names of Epictetus and Lucretius-of the Novum Organum-of the Nibelungen Lied, convey nothing more than a title. They have heard of those bookshave skimmed a page or two here and there, that is all. Most of the books we quote from have been written within the last three or even one hundred years.

But here is a book whose antemundane voices had grown old, when voices spake in Eden. A book which has sur

vived not only with continued but increasing lustre, vitality, vivacity, popularity, rebound of influence. A book which avalanches itself with accretions, like the snowball that packs as it goes. A book which comes through all the shocks without a wrench, and all the furnaces of all the ages-like an iron safe-with every document in every pigeon-hole, without a warp upon it, or the smell of fire. Here is a book of which it may be said, as of Immortal Christ Himself "Thou hast the dew of thy youth from the womb of the morning." A book dating from days as ancient as those of the Ancient of Days-and which when all that makes up what we see and call the universe shall be dissolved, will still speak on in thunder-tones of majesty, and whisper-tones of light and music-tones of lovefor it is wrapping in itself the everlasting past—and opening and expanding from itself the everlasting future; and, like an all-irradiating sun, will still roll on, while deathless ages roll, the one unchanging, unchangeable Revelation of God.

II. Immortality is on these pages, and Authority sets here her seal. This is the second point. A Standard. Useless to talk about no standard. Nature points to Conscience cries out for one-conscience which without a law constantly wages the internal and excruciating war of accusing or else excusing itself.

one.

There must be a Standard and an Inspired Standardfor Inspiration is the Essence of Authority, and authority is in proportion to Inspiration-the more Inspired the greater the authority-the less, the less. Even the rationalist Rothe, a most intense opponent, has admitted that "that in the Bible which is not the product of direct inspiration has no binding power."

Verbal and direct Inspiration is, therefore, the "Thermopyla" of Biblical and Scriptural faith. No breath, no

syllable; no syllable, no word; no word, no Book; no Book, no religion.

We hold, from first to last, that there can be no possible advance in Revelation-no new light. What was written at first, the same thing stands written to-day, and will stand forever. The Bible, the true fact beneath the Grecian myth, springs into light Minerva-like, full armed. The emanation of the mind of God-it is complete, perfect. "Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it." Its ipse dixit is peremptory-final. What can be more awful, more stupendous than the sanction which rounds up the Book, by which it is secured and sealed and guarded? "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the Book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of life, and out of the Holy City, and from the things which are written in this Book."

The Bible is the Word of God, and not simply coNTAINS it. This is clear,

Because all the words in it, even those of the Devil and of wicked men, were put down by the finger of God.

Because the Bible styles itself the Word of God. "The Word of the Lord is right," says the Psalmist. Again, "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet." "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word." "The grass withereth," says Isaiah, "the flower thereof fadeth, but the Word of our God shall stand forever."

Not only is the Bible called the Word of God, but it is distinguished from all other books by that very title. It is so distinguished in the 119th Psalm, and everywhere the contrast between it and every human book is deepened and sustained.

If we will not call the Bible the Word of God, then we cannot call it anything else. If we insist upon a description rigorously exact and unexposed to shafts of wanton criticism, then the Book remains anonymous. We cannot more consistently say "Holy Scripture," because the crimes recorded on its pages are not holy; because expressions like "Curse God and die," and others from the lips of Satan and of wicked men, are unholy. The Bible, however, is "holy," because its aim and its methods are holy. The Bible, likewise, is the Word of God, because it comes from God; because its every word was penned by God; because it is the only exponent of God; the only rule of His procedure, and the Book by which we must at last be judged.

1. The Bible is authority because in it, from cover to cover, God is the speaker. Said a leader of our so-called orthodoxy to a crowded audience but a little while ago: "The Bible is true. Any man not a fool must believe what is true. What difference does it make who wrote it?"

This difference, brethren: the solemn bearing down of God on the soul! My friend may tell me what is true; my wife may tell me what is true; but what they say is not solemn. Solemnity comes in when God looks into my face-God! and behind Him everlasting destinyand talks with me about my soul. In the Bible GoD speaks, and GoD is listened to, and men are born again by God's Word. "He is not a Christian who believes or obeys Matthew or John or Peter or Paul." What makes a Christian is believing and obeying God. “So then Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." It is God's Revelation that faith hears, and it is on God revealed that faith rests.

2. The Bible is the Word of God. It comes to us an