wells of Scripture, and leave them among the burning sands far from the fountain of eternal life. What, after all, do these systems offer to us?-Broken cisterns, clouds without water; at the utmost, perhaps, those imaginary rivulets which the sun of vain-glory will picture to them for a season, like an illusive mirage over the sandy deserts of their natural thoughts.

What would be said of a philosopher who should pretend to seek from Joseph the carpenter, or in the schools of Nazareth, the interpretation of the sayings and doctrines of Jesus Christ? Idle and pernicious! you would exclaim. The same must be said of all those conjectural systems which seek humanly to account for the composition of the Scriptures. Idle and pernicious! say we. Admit inspiration, and all this labour becomes foolish. The Scriptures are the Word of God; they are dictated by Him; and we know that "no prophecy of Scripture came by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Pet. i. 20, 21.)

The account of the nephew of St. Paul, warning his uncle in the Antonian prison of the conspiracy against him, is inspired of God, although Luke may possibly have heard it twenty times from the mouth of the apostle, before he had received it from the Holy Spirit: this account is as much inspired as what is recorded of the invisible messenger who smote Herod upon his throne in the town of Cæsarea. The history of Jacob's ring-straked and speckled sheep is as much dictated by God as the record of the creation of the heavens and the earth. The account of the doom of Ananias and Sapphira is as much inspired as that of the fall of Satan and his angels.

Yes, doubtless, there was a standard document, according to which these holy men of God spake; but, as Bishop Gleig has so well observed, this document was none other than the ministry and life of our Divine Saviour. He was their Prototype.

When, therefore, we hear it asked, From what documents did Matthew derive his account of the birth of Jesus Christ; Luke, that of his early years; Paul, the Saviour's manifestation of himself to St. James, or the words of the Lord on the blessedness of giving; Hosea, the tears of Jacob; and Jude, the prophecy of Enoch, and Michael's contention about the body of Moses? Let us answer, They obtained them from the source where Moses learned the creation of the heavens and the earth. "The Holy Spirit," says the illustrious Claude, "has used the pen of the evangelists and apostles, of Moses and of the prophets; he instructed them when to write; and he gave them the desire and the strength for the work. The matter, the order, the method, and the expressions, are by his immediate inspiration and direction."

We have just shown how a sound apprehension of the nature of the inspiration of the Scriptures will shield the young from two considerable errors of modern criticism, and at the same t me enable them to derive from Science all the benefit which she can bestow. The first of these aberrations we have said is to pretend to judge the Scriptures, after having received them collectively as authentic: the second is to give way to dangerous speculations upon the sacred books. But we have yet to consider one important relation existing between science and the great question before us.

Sacred Criticism is only the doorway of the

Temple.

In

Science is a portico which leads to the temple of the Scriptures: never forget that she is not the deity within it, and that her residence is not within the edifice. other terms, be careful when you study sacred criticism not to carry it beyond its proper boundary, even in its connection with science; dismiss it ere you enter the temple.

Here, then, is our argument. If, indeed, you enter the temple of the Scriptures, then not only will you find it written by the hand of God on all its walls that God fills it, and that he is everywhere; but you will moreover experience the proof of this: you will see him everywhere, you will feel him to be everywhere. That is, when you read attentively the oracles of God, you not only find the frequent declaration of their entire inspiration by God, but you receive through unexpected touches, and often by the power of a verse, or even of a word, a conviction of the Divinity which pervades the whole.

It must not be imagined that we depreciate the investigations of science. It happens, however, but too often that a prolonged study of the outworks of the sacred book-of its history, manuscripts, versions, language, &c.-so absorbs the attention of those who devote themselves to it, that they become inattentive to its more intimate characteristics, its import, its aim, the moral power displayed, the beauties disclosed, and the life which flows from it; yet as there exists an essential relation between these characteristics and those which are external, there result to one so exercised two grievous evils. As a mortal, he stifles his spiritual life, and perils his eternal life (but it is not of this evil that we speak in these pages); as a scholar, he compromises Science, and renders himself incapable of a sound appreciation of the very objects with which she is occupied. Alone, science remains incoherent and crippled, and thereby restricted and abased. Can such an one be acquainted with the temple? He has seen only its stones-he knows nothing of the Shekinah! Can he understand the types? He has no intelligence of the Antitype-he has seen nothing but the altars, the sheep, the knives, the vessels, the blood, the fire, the incense, the garments, and the ceremonies-he has never seen the redemption of the world, futurity, heaven, and the glory of Jesus Christ! In this condition he cannot

even trace the relations which these external objects have with each other, because he has entirely failed to understand their harmony with the whole.

A learned man devoid of faith, who in the days of Noah might have acquainted himself with the construction of the ark, would not only himself have perished, but would have remained in ignorance of a great many of the very objects which he pretended to appreciate.

Would you know the qualifications of a physician? -You will doubtless inform yourself of his country, of the universities in which he has studied, and examine the testimonials by which he is recommended: but when he shall come and speak of your most occult ailments, and define to you all the symptoms of your malady; when he shall tell you of feelings, of which, though vaguely felt, you had the conscious reality; and especially when he administers to your lips the only medicine which had ever given you relief; oh! then would not such experience bespeak his skill far better than his diplomas?

Well; this is the advice which we venture to give to all those of our readers who have acquired any knowledge of sacred criticism:-Read the Bible; study the Bible in itself and for itself; inquire, if you will, where it has taken degrees, and in what schools its writers have studied; but come to its consultations like a sick man eager to be cured; take as much pains to understand its words as you would to understand its credentials, its history, and its language; and then not only will you be cured (which is not here the question), but you will be enlightened:-" He that healed me said unto me, Take up thy bed and walk. Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." (John v. 11; ix. 25.)

Read then the Bible: complete your science by adding this to it. It is the Bible which will convince you; it is that which will tell you whether it is from God:

and when you have heard its voice, now more powerful than the noise of mighty waters, and anon sweet and winning like that which greeted the ear of Moses "The Lord merciful and gracious, pitiful and of tender mercy, abounding in grace, the God of consolation, the God who pardons abundantly:" oh! then, we take upon ourselves to affirm it, you will experience that the simple reading of a psalm, a narrative, a precept, a verse, and even one word of a verse, will more powerfully prove to you the Divine Inspiration of the entire Scripture than could the most eloquent and profound among philosophers or books. You will then see, hear, and feel that God is everywhere in it; you will no longer inquire whether it is throughout inspired, for you will feel it to be powerful and efficacious, "discerning the thoughts and affections of the heart, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow;" causing tears to flow from deep and secret sources, overwhelming you with irresistible power, and restoring you with a tenderness and sympathy which can be found only in God.

What we have here said is only in the way of counsel; but we are about to show in what respect these considerations may be presented, if not as a proof, at least as a powerful presumption in favour of the inspiration even of the words of Scripture. We will, indeed, point out to our readers a three-fold experience in it, which has ever produced deep conviction in the hearts of Christians, whose testimony ought at least to appear worthy of the most serious consideration.

Undoubtedly one of the strongest proofs of the Divinity of the Scriptures is that inherent sublimity which fills us with amazement and reverence. It is the imposing unity of this book, composed during a period of fifteen hundred years by so many authors, some of whom wrote two centuries before the fabled times of Hercules, Jason, and the Argonauts; others in the