below the plane of self-apology, or ghastly "criticism" of the Book which testifies to this. Infinitely guilty! That is what I am. Infinitely sinking, and, below me, an infinite Tophet. I know that. As soon as the Bible declares it, I know it, and, with it, I know that witnessing Bible divine. I know it-I do not know how-by an instinct, by conscience, by illumination, by the power of the Spirit of God; by the Word without, and by the flashed conviction in me which accord.

And, counterpoised above, me, a correlative InfiniteGod! What can be higher? What zenith loftier? What doming of responsibility more dread or more portentous ? Infinite God-above me-coming to judge me! On the way now. I must meet Him. I know that. I know it, as soon as the Bible declares it. I know it-I do not know how-by an instinct. Even the natural man must picture to himself when thus depicted, and must fear,

"A God in grandeur, and a world on fire."

An infinitely Holy God above me, coming to judge me. That is the Second Infinite.

Then the Third and what completes the Triangle, and makes its sides eternally, divinely equal--Infinite Atonement-an Infinite Saviour-God on the cross making answer to God on the throne-my Jesus-my refugemy Everlasting Jehovah.

By these three Infinites-especially this last-this infinite Atonement, for which my whole being cries out its last cry of exhaustion--by this third side of the stupendous Triangle-the side which, left to myself, I could never make out, the Bible proves itself the soul's Geometrythe one Eternal Mathematics-the true Revelation of God.

Aye! and by that ineffable something-self-luminous— flooding the soul, which bathing the Book bears the reader as well on its tide.

La larga ploia

Dello Spirito santo, ch'è diffusa

In su le Vecchie e in su le nuove cuoia,
È sillogismo, che la mi ha conchiusa
Acutamente si, che in verso d'ella

Ogni dimostrazion mi pare ottusa.

"The flood, I answered, of the Spirit of God.
Rained down upon the Ancient Testament and New,
This is the reasoning that convinceth me

So feelingly, each argument beside

Seems blunt and forceless in comparison."*

We take the ground that these three things-Guilt, God, Atonement-set thus in star-like apposition and conjunction, speak from the sky, more piercingly than stars do, saying: "Sinner and sufferer, this Revelation is Divine!"

We take the open ground, that a single stray leaf of God's Word, found by the wayside, by one who never had seen it before, would convince him at once that the strange and the wonderful words were those of his Godwere Divine.

The Scriptures are their own self-evidence. We take the ground the sun requires no critic-truth no divingbell. When the sun shines, he shines the sun. When God speaks, His evidence is in the accent of His words.

How did the prophets of old know, when God spoke to them, that it was God? Did they subject the voice, that shook their every bone, and made their flesh dissolve upon them, to a critical test? Did they put God, so to say-as some of our moderns would seem to have doneinto a crucible, into a chemist's retort, in order to certify that He was God? Did they find it necessary to hold the handwriting of God in front of the blow-pipe of anx

* Dante-Il Paradiso.

ious philosophical examination, in order to bring out and to make the invisible, visible? The very suggestion is madness.

The Scriptures are their own self-evidence. The refusal of the Bible on its simple presentation, is enough to damn any man, and, if persisted in, will damn him—for,

"A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic, like the sun,

It gives a light to every age,

It gives, but borrows none."

IV. Glory spreads over the face of the Scriptures, but this glory, when scrutinized closely, is seen to contain certain features and outlines-testimonies inside of itself, direct assertions, which conspire to illustrate again its high Divinity, and to confirm its claim.

This is our fourth point: The Scriptures say of themselves that they are Divine. They not only assume it; they say it. And this, "Thus saith the Lord," is intrinsica witness inside of the witness, and one upon which something more than conviction-confidence, or Spiritborn and saving faith, depends.

The argument from the self-assertion of Scripture is cumulative.

1st. The Bible claims that, as a Book, it comes from God.

2d. It asserts that its very words are the words of God. 3d. It asserts that each pen-stroke is God-breathedinspired.

Now, let us go back, and resume these three points a little more slowly; and,

1st. The Bible claims that, as a Book, it comes from God. In various ways, it urges this claim. "God in old times spake by

One thing; it says so.

the prophets; God now speaks by His Son." The question of Inspiration is, in its first statement, the question of Revelation itself. If the Book be divine, then what it says of itself is Divine. The Scriptures are inspired because they say they are inspired. The question is simply one of Divine testimony, and our business is, as simply, to receive that testimony. "Inspiration is as much an assertion," says Haldane, "as is justification by faith. Both stand, and equally, on the authority of Scripture, which is as much an ultimate authority upon this point as upon any other." When God speaks, and when He says "I speak!" there is the whole of it. He is bound to be heard and obeyed.

And God does speak. He brings the Bible to us, and He claims to be its Author. If, at this moment, yonder heavens were opened-the curtained canopy of star-sown clouds rolled back-if, amid the brightness of the light ineffable, the Dread Eternal were Himself seen, rising from His throne, and heard to speak to us in voices audible-no one of these could be more potent, more imperative, than what lies now before us upon Inspiration's page.

In the Bible, GOD speaks, and speaks not only by proxy. Leviticus is a signal example of this. Chapter after chapter of Leviticus begins: "And the Lord spake, saying"; and so it runs on through the chapter. Moses is simply a listener, a scribe. The self-announced speaker is God.

In the Bible, God himself comes down and speaks, not in the Old Testament alone, and not alone by proxy. "The New Testament presents us," says Dean Burgon, "with the august spectacle of the Ancient of Days, holding the entire volume of the Old Testament Scriptures in His hands, and interpreting it of Himself. He, the Incarnate Word, who was in the beginning with God,' and who was God'-that same Almighty One is set

forth in the Gospels as holding the volume of the Book' in His hands-as opening and unfolding it, and explaining it everywhere of Himself."

Christ everywhere receives the Scriptures, and speaks of the Scriptures, in their entirety-the Law, the Proph ets, and the Psalms, the whole Old Testament canon-as the living Oracle of God. He accepts and He endorses everything written, and even makes most prominent those miracles which infidelity regards as most incredible. And He does all this upon the ground of the authority of God. He passes over the writer-leaves him out of account. In all His quotations from the Old Testament, He mentions but four of the writers by name. The question with Him is not a question of the reporter, but of the Dictator. Suppose a sovereign like Kaiser Wilhelm dictating five or six letters to five or six different private secretaries at once. Suppose that six agents have penned the six parts of one letter! Our Saviour does not see the six pens. He sees the one Writer, the one Hand outstretched, viewless, infallible, awful-behind all human hands.

And this position of our Saviour which exalted Scripture as the mouthpiece of the living God was steadily maintained by the apostles and the apostolic Church. Again and over again, in the book of the Acts, in all the Epistles, do we find such expressions as "He saith," "God saith," "The oracles of God," "The Holy Ghost saith," "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet."

The Epistle to the Hebrews furnishes a splendid illustration of this, where, setting forth the whole economy of the Mosaic rites, the author adds, "The Holy Ghost this signifying." Further on, and quoting words of Joremiah, he enforces them with the remark, "The Holy Ghost is witness to us also." The imperial argument on