the glorious page of the word of God. Need I remind you of the other evidences that this book is true-of the miracles that sealed it, of which we have infinite evidence? Need I add, that from the day when the patriarch slept, till the present moment, each prophecy, as it came to be fulfilled, has been like something rising from the dead, testifying to man that God inspired the one and watched over the performance and completion of the other? These are all voices from below, and voices from above; analogies from nature, intimations from conscience, conclusions from reason, and inferences from facts to this great proposition, (and would to God that the Holy Spirit would make it a living conviction in every heart,) "Thy word, O God, is truth!"

If we

I must draw one or two inferences before I close. If the Bible is sufficient to lead us to the knowledge of everlasting life, it is impious to ask for any additional evidence. If the sun is sufficient to illuminate us by mid-day, it is absurd to ask for a hand-lamp to guide us through the fields. If you have access to the fountain, you need not care much about a "canonized cup" to draw with. have God's great word vouched to be sufficient-a fortiori sufficient, because it has the evangelists and apostles, added to Moses and the prophets, then we need nothing more; we must ask for nothing more, we must look for nothing more. If on this evidence the Bible be sufficient to lead us to a knowledge of everlasting life, let us not forget our solemn responsibility in possessing it. Every man may thus carry in his pocket the witness that may condemn him, or the "savour of life unto life," by which he may be saved. If men would only read the Bible, if they would only study it honestly and impartially, they would find it impossible to escape the conclusion that this book is the inspiration of God. It needs no great extent of ex

ternal, or internal, or experimental evidence; it only needs an honest reading. The greatest skeptics, I have ascertained, have admitted that they only read snatches and scraps of the Bible, that they never read it for any other purpose than to find out flaws in it, just as Zoilus read Homer of old, not to admire his beauties, but to detect defects. Those who read the Bible to find flaws in it, and therefore to reject it, will find their discoveries to be stings. and lashes, tormenting their souls when time shall be no more. Let us recollect that the Bible is the last revelation that we shall receive in this dispensation. So much so, that if I were to see descend into the midst of the sanctuary literally and truly an angel from heaven, filling the whole place with his splendour, and every soul with a sense of his glory-if that angel were to preach to me that justification by the righteousness of Christ alone, is what the Puseyites call a Satanic, Lutheran doctrine, and that we are justified only by our own merits, admitted into heaven only through the efficacy of our own blood, I would not trouble to canvass that angel's credentials. I would have nothing to do with him. I would bid him be off. I would say, let him be anathema. Say what you like, consistent with the Bible, and I will listen to you; but if you say any thing against it, and say to me that you are commissioned so to declare, I can have nothing to do with you. "For," says the apostle Paul, "if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that which ye have received, let him be anathema." And what "we" was this? The recent convert from Damascus. He supposes the possibility, and admits the hypothesis, that an apostle might preach another gospel. If Paul, or some one in Paul's name, professing to have authority, were to preach to me another gospel than that which I have received, I would say, let him be anathema. The apostle

says "any other" gospel, which is not "another;" there are two distinct words used. It is (Erepov) a succeeding gospel-not merely something contradictory, but something additional to the gospel. Such would not be (aido) another gospel, but a totally different gospel. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son from heaven." I have heard Christ's voice, and I will hear no other. I have seen his glory; I dare not suffer any other to supersede it. I have his word; I cannot add to it, lest its curses be added to me; I dare not subtract from it, lest my portion in the book of life be taken from me.

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LECTURE VI.

THE VINEYARD LABOURERS.

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto them, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.-MATT. XX. 1–16.

ONE of the most frequent symbols under which the kingdom of heaven, that is, the dispensation of the gospel, is represented in Scripture, is that of a vineyard. We can scarcely open a single book without finding allusion to it. Thus, in Isaiah v. 1, 2, "Now will I sing to my wellbeloved, a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill;

and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes," and so on. And the same is brought before us in that beautiful Psalm, (lxxx. 8,) « Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." It is thus, then, that very frequently in Scripture God represents his church, his people, under the shadow or the symbol of a vineyard; and perhaps one reason for this was, that vineyards of old were the most precious and the most valuable kind of property, and were tended with special care, and received marked and peculiar attention and labour from those who were their proprietors. Our blessed Lord also represents himself under the figure of a vine: "I am the vine; ye are the branches; and my Father is the husbandman." Now I do not suppose here, that the vineyard, or the kingdom of God, thus committed to the earth, is the mere visible church: I do think it is too sacred and too sublime a figure to be exhausted, or to be adequately met, in the mere visible church-that church which is composed alike of the tares and the wheat, the good and the bad. I would rather view the kingdom of heaven as a trust; a trust that was committed to Adam in Paradise first of all, and which he lost; a trust which was committed subsequently to the Jews, and which they forfeited; a precious trust, and a holy deposit, which is now committed to the Gentiles; for the use, the acceptance, or the rejection and abuse, of which they will be respon