If these methods of proving the inspiration fail, you must have recourse to outward authority—that is to say, to the testimony of man. But how is this to be obtained? Here again, considerable difficulties are introduced by writers on this subject. For there is a great difference between testimony to external and that to internal facts. We require a very different chain of evidence to connect the last link with the conviction of our minds, in the one and in the other. I will explain my meaning. That St Matthew, St Mark, or St John wrote the gospels which bear their names, is a public fact; one to which many persons might be qualified to speak, who either saw them engaged on them, or received them from them, or knew from public and uncontradicted belief, in or near their times, that they composed and published them. This historical evidence is considered sufficient for attesting the genuineness of any other author's writings; and I must consequently admit it here. Nay were you to deny the genuineness of the sacred writings, because there is not evidence of them for twenty or thirty years after they were written, you must reject many ancient works, which were not published for many years after their authors' deaths; of which yet, nobody doubts the genuineness.

But when you come to speak to me of what passed in the minds of the authors, when they wrote these books, I must have some more immediate connecting link—I must have the Parliest relater of the circumstance. Let us take a similar case; if I am told by history that such an architect erected a building among the ruins of Rome, and I find it recorded on the edifice, I do not doubt the fact: but if you tell me that he built it in consequence of a particular dream, which suggested the idea of its peculiar parts; in order to satisfy myself of the truth of this circumstance, I surely require a different character of testimony than will convince me of the overt, visible and notorious fact, that he merely raised it. I must trace it to some one who had it directly from him; for he alone can give testimony of the covert and inward fact. Thus, similarly, you may believe

who wrote and published those books, upon the simple attestation of history; but when you come to establish their inspiration —the internal, secret, mysterious communication that passed between the innermost soul of the writer and the Holy Ghost, of which none other could be conscious, or have evidence save from them, you require the last link of evidence which completes the chain, and which can alone establish the fact.

The authority then, of history, or of ecclesiastical tradition, independently of the divine force allowed it by the Catholic, can prove no more than the genuineness or truth of the Scripture narrative; but to be available as a proof of inspiration, it must carry us directly to the attestation of the only witnesses capable of certifying the circumstance. It may be true, that the Church, or body of Christians, in succeeding times, believed the books of the New Testament to be inspired. But if that Church and its traditions be not infallible, that belief goes no farther than a mere human or historical testimony; it can verify, therefore, no more than such testimony ever can, that is, outward and visible facts, such as the publication, and consequently, the legitimacy, of a work. The only way in which it can attest the interior acts which accompanied its compilation, is, by preserving the assurances of those who, besides God, could alone be witnesses to them. Now, ecclesiastical history has not preserved to us this important testimony; for nowhere have we it recorded of any of these writers that he asserted his own inspiration. And thus, by rejecting tradition as an infallible authority, is the only basis for the inspiration of Scripture cut away.

Hitherto, my brethren, of what have I been treating? Why of nothing more than the preliminaries, requisite to commence the study of the Protestant rule of faith. I have merely shown that the obstacles and difficulties to receiving the Bible, as the word of God, are numerous and complicated; and yet, if it is the duty of every Protestant to believe all that he professes, because he has sought and discovered it in the word of God; if, consequently, it is his duty to be satisfied only on

his own evidence, as the divines of his Church have stated; if, to attain this conviction, it is necessary for him to go through a long and painful course of learned disquisitions; and if, after all these have been encountered, he cannot come to a satisfactory demonstration of the most important point of inspiration, I ask you, can the rule, in the very approach to which you must pass through such a labyrinth of difficulties, be that which God has given as a guide to the poorest. the most illiterate, and simplest of his creatures?

men.

II. Such, then, is merely the difficulty of obtaining possession of the rule; but when it has been obtained-(I come now to speak of its application) is it not surrounded with equal or even greater difficulties than these? We are to suppose that God gave his Holy Word to be the only rule of faith to all It must be a rule, therefore, easy to be procured, and to be held. God himself must have made the necessary provision, that all men should have it, and be able to apply it. What, then, does he do? He gives us a large volume written in two languages; the chief portion in one known to a small and limited country of the world. He allows that speech to become a dead language, so that countless difficulties and obscurities should spring up regarding the meaning of innumerable passages. The other portion he gives in a language spoken by a larger body of mankind, but still by a very small proportion, considering the extent of those to whom the blessings of Christianity were intended to be communicated; and we are to suppose that he gives this book as a satisfactory and sufficient rule of faith.

In the first place, then, we must naturally understand that it is to be translated into every language, that so all men may have access to it: in the second place, it must be so distributed, that all may have possession of it; and, in the third place, it must be so easy that all men may use it. Are these

the characteristics of this rule?

1. Suppose it to be the only rule of all who believe in Christ, are you aware of the difficulty of undertaking a translation of it?

Whenever the attempt has been made, in modern times, in the first instance, it has generally failed; and even after many re peated attempts, it has proved unsatisfactory. Had I time, or were it necessary, I could show you, from various Reports of the Bible Society, and from the acknowledgment of its members, that many versions, after having been diffused among the natives of countries to be converted, have been necessarily withdrawn, on account of the absurdities, impieties, and innumerable errors which they contained. And this is the rule that has been put into the hands of men! But look to the history of even more celebrated translations, such as are put forth by authority. I speak not of those early versions, which were made when the knowledge of the facts and circumstances was fresh, and when those who wrote, better understood the original languages. But look at any modern version, such as that authorized in these realms. Read the account of how often it was corrected, what combinations of able and learned men it required to bring it to a tolerable degree of accuracy. Its worth, after all, as a rule, must depend upon the skill and fitness of individuals for the task of translating; and can we reasonably suppose that the providence of God would stake the whole usefulness and value of His rule upon the private or particular abilities of man?

2. Secondly, what are the difficulties attending its diffusion? Oh, my brethren! could you look at this matter in another age from the present, you might better understand it You fancy, possibly, that because Bibles are now multiplied by thousands, and by millions, their application as a rule is obvious and easy; that because there is one nation on the globe possessed of immense wealth and mighty empire, and having ships that frequent the farthest bounds of earth; that because there are men willing to devote their time, and wealth, and zeal, to the publication and diffusion of these books; that because, in this country, and at the present time, a combination of political, fommercial, and literary circumstances, facilitates this distribution, therefore the rule is sufficiently accessible to all man

kind. But God does not plan the rule of his faith in accort ance with the possible literary or commercial prosperity of any country; nor so construct the groundwork of his truth, as to depend upon the mechanical inventions of man. The Gospel's being the rule of faith, can have no connexion with the circumstance, that the press, by the aid of the strongest mechani- . cal power applied to it, has now produced the Bible in measureless abundance. God could not mean, that for 1,400 years, man should be without a religious guide; or that he should have to wait until human genius had given efficacy to one by its discoveries and inventions. Such cannot be the qualities or conditions of the rule. We must look for it as one for all times, and for all places; as something coming into operation so soon as delivered, and destined to last until the end of time. cannot, therefore, admit, as the only necessary rule of faith, that which depends for its adoption on the accidental instrumentality of man, and requires essentially his unprescribed co-operation,

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For I think, that, on reflection, any unprejudiced mind will rather wonder how, in the Word of God, there should have been no provision made for this important condition. Why do we never find any precept given to the Apostles to disseminate the Scriptures, after having them translated into all languages? How comes it, that no intimation is ever given therein, of the duty of ministers to provide copies of the sacred volume for those whom they are bound to instruct? If this dissemination of the written word was and is an essential part of Christianity, and if in Scripture alone is to be found the rule and criterion of all that is essential, how comes this important provision to be there omitted? Nay, as our acquaintance with history proves to us the utter impossibility of the Bible's being extensively circulated without the aid of the press, why was not its invention provided for, as the necessary instrument for arriving at the rule and groundwork of faith? Surely the Bible Society is no part of the economy and machinery of Christianity; and yet, without it, the Scriptures