They can travel the broad way without light. The blind instinct of our fallen nature leads men along the path of their iniquity. But, when a sinner would turn to God and seek his highest good, he has no light from nature which can show him the way. If he finds out a way that seemeth right to his natural eye, the end thereof are the ways of death. The history of heathenism bears witness of this. The heathens had reason and conscience, with only natural light; and whither have they gone in search of heaven? Well did the prophet say, "They that make idols are like their idols; having eyes, and seeing not; ears, and hearing not; neither understanding with their heart."

But the people of God have a light. Our Holy Oracles, complete as revelations, plain and safe for instruction, are the light which shineth into our natural darkness and disperseth it, as the sun the mists of the morning. And we see their value as a fountain of religious knowledge when we observe

1. That, for the purpose of our religious instruction, the Holy Scriptures stand alone.

When sin had closed the human mind against right views of God from nature, there were special revelations given in various ways. In Eden, and after the expulsion from Paradise, the Lord spoke face-to-face with his chosen servants, but always in the person of the eternal Son, who alone reveals God to men. There were also visits and visions of angels, and voices from heaven, which told the mind of God to the people, addressing sometimes the outward eye and ear, while the secret working of the Spirit enlightened the mind within,—all the appearances and voices being a language conveying to his people the knowledge of himself and of his will. When certain of these divine communications were written down, with a record of some circumstances attending them, they became instructive to others, and grew by degrees into the full and permanent form of our present Holy Scriptures. Then the inspiration of God ceased to give new revelations, warned men not to add any thing to those records nor take any thing from them, and left those sacred writings to stand alone as the religious light of the world.

Thus, our only guide in religious doctrine and duty, our only final test of the truth of our thoughts and the righteousness of our deeds, is the word of God contained in the Old and New Testaments. Whatsoever is contrary to this in doctrine is untrue; whatsoever is contrary to this in practice is unrighteous. "To the law and to the testimony;" we must say of all men, if they speak not according to this rule, it is because there is no light in them. No conceit of inward light can be set up against the Holy Scriptures; no dreams or visions; no messages or responses from invisible beings, whether angels or spirits of men: no one nor all of these have any weight against or beside the Bible. The reason of every man wants help in discerning and applying truth; and that

help is the Holy Spirit who graciously lends his eye to the sinner. But the truth which any man's reason discerns by the help of the Spirit is given or implied in the Bible. If any one, by what he may call spiritual light, has discovered a doctrine which is not in the Bible, the doctrine has no authority, and the spirit which discovered it is not of God. The Bible, the written record of the doctrines and commandments of God, read in the light of an humble, childlike, spiritual experience, is our only unerring guide in religious faith and works.

There is great and precious knowledge to be found by a deep and genuine religious experience. By this means we learn much concerning our duty and character, and even the character of God. But all true religious experience is of the Holy Spirit, and is, therefore, either by means of the Scriptures, or strictly agreeable to them. The true religious experience consists in feeling the force of the truth taught in Scripture. The Spirit wrought in the inspired penman the thoughts and feelings recorded in the Bible; and He will not contradict himself by working any different thoughts and feelings in other people. The broken heart, which expresses itself in David, is the pattern of true contrition for us all. We know our experience to be genuine when the words of Holy Writ express it. We know that our thoughts and feelings are of the Spirit when they are such as the Spirit gave to Paul and the other apostles. The Scriptures are rays of the Sun of righteousness; and, when the sun shines into our hearts, it will shine with rays like those. If some may, possibly, by spiritual illumination, reach the measure of the Bible, no one could tell if he had. But, if any claim to go beyond it, they must show us mighty works that may bear them witness that they are of God, or we must not believe them. The thoughts of eminent Christians can never displace the doctrines of the Bible, for their agreement with the Bible must ever be the proof of their truth. Tradition can add nothing to the Bible, except its help in interpretation; for any teaching of tradition against or beside the Bible has no divine authority. Experience is nothing, except as it agrees with the Bible. With entire assurance, therefore, and in the broadest sense, must we say, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as a rule of faith. and practice, stand alone. Whoever hath not this light walketh in darkness.

2. And, while they stand thus alone, they are also infallible. On all the subjects treated in them they speak the truth and enjoin the right. No doctrine of Scripture will ever be found untrue. Their word abideth forever. Whatever they teach of the character, duty, and destiny of man, and of the character, government, and will of God, will never be contradicted by any word of authority. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. The course of nature goes on without variation, because God himself remains

forever the same. The word of God cannot fail, because the nature of God cannot change.

There is no defect in Holy Scripture to be supplied by future revelations. Men need not doubt what is now revealed, from any suspicion that it will be altered and amended by further teaching. The commandments defining right and wrong will never need a supplement to make our judgments safe when guided by them. To the end of the world, in all nations, in all conditions of humanity on earth, these sacred pages, few as they are compared with the volumes of men, will be an infallible guide for all mankind. They are the reflected rays of the Sun of truth and righteousness for all men. And as the laws of natural light find an adaptation in the eyes of all men, and need no change or correction to answer their end, so the radiance of Holy Writ will ever find adaptation in human minds to receive the light and recognise the things it reveals as infallible truth. It is equally infallible for all. There are simple thoughts for feeble understandings, and deep thoughts for the strong. The Christian philosopher, in his most profound and sublime discoveries, often finds that the inspired philosopher was there before him. And natural science, in her progressive enlargement and her deepest research, may clothe her loftiest · attainments in the sublime imagery of Holy Scripture.

The whole scheme of Christian doctrine and duty has its full and clear outline in the Bible. Its leading features cannot be mistaken. No one need confound it with any system of heathen faith and morals. No one can ascribe it to the unaided reason and conscience of a mere man. Its authority is not doubtful nor obscure. Every earnest inquirer can there discern a decision of the truth which puts an end to all controversy. How plain, through that field of revelation, appears the path to heaven-the way of love to God and love to man-the way of humility for the sinner and of faith in the sinner's only friend-the way of holiness, trodden by holy men of old, and by Jesus Christ himself, the author and finisher of our faith! The darkness of the world can never absorb the light of the Holy Book. No unbelief or disobedience can nullify its doctrines of truth or its laws of righteousness; no fraud can alter them, no sophistry obscure them, no corruption tarnish them; but, as long as man shall need a moral guide, he may find an infallible guide in the Bible-a lamp unto his feet, and a light unto his path. Whoever strives, with an honest, earnest heart, to follow the Holy Scriptures, will never go wrong.

3. The Scriptures are an accessible fountain of religious knowledge.

They were plainly written and spoken, at first, in the mother tongue of the people to whom the earlier portions of them were committed; and, as the people changed their languages and dialects, the sacred records followed them into the languages and dialects of all the people. The Israelites in Babylon suffered corruption

in their language; and when they returned from the Captivity, they required their law to be expounded to them in the dialect they had adopted; and this exposition of the law was at once introduced as a part of the public service of the synagogue. When a portion of the Jewish people exchanged the Hebrew language for the Greek, the Hebrew Scriptures were at once translated into Greek, and by that means became accessible also to other nations. The New Testament was written for the people, with the design of being read by all who might be able to read,-the Gospel according to Matthew having first been written in Hebrew for readers most at home in Hebrew, and then translated, while yet the author lived, and probably under his supervision, into the kind of Greek used by most of the church at the time. The Lord thus shows, by the course of his providence and the motions of his Spirit, that his word was to be written as really for all as for any; and that the leading method of building up the church must be to prepare the people, as fast as possible, to read in their own tongues the wonderful works of God.

The Scriptures were not be sealed up from the eyes of the multitude. Blind and depraved as the multitude might be, and liable to wrest the free use of the sacred oracles to their own destruction, they were still to gain nothing by being deprived of them. They would suffer yet more by perverting priestly teaching; to say nothing of perversion of Scripture by priestly deceit. The people were to have free access to the Scriptures, and to be followed with instruction how to use them and with caution and warning not to abuse them. It was wrong for the teachers of the church to deny the people access to the Scriptures. The ignorant may abuse them; yet, without them, who can be otherwise than ignorant? And as for ignorance being the mother of devotion, the devotion must be as ignorant as its mother; and an ignorant devotion, though convenient for teachers corrupt enough to seek such advantage, is not Christianity. No wonder, therefore, that both the leaders and the led fell into the ditch. The course of both providence and grace on this subject is plain. God would open the Bible to the eyes of all, and have all taught to read it; and he holds every one responsible for its proper use.

Time was when all could not obtain the written word; for the means of supplying all were not at hand. And the multitude, if they could obtain, could not read it. But now the copies of the divine oracles are multiplied like the leaves of the forest, printed in every tongue, and offered to every family. And such is the sentiment of the civilized world, that any attempt to stop the progress of the Bible toward universal diffusion would be felt as an attempt to bring back the darkness and barbarism of the heathen world. Witness the provisions for distributing our sacred records and making them useful to all. Behold the noblest talents, the richest learning, and the finest culture of the world devoted to the transla

tion and exposition of the Bible for the benefit of all the people; the most powerful and costly mechanism engaged in producing copies of the word of God, to be scattered over the habitable world; the hands and hearts of the benevolent united in the systematic distribution of the Scriptures, with the purpose never to rest till all the families of the earth shall be supplied. By such voices it is that the Bible is pronounced accessible, as a fountain of living water, for all the people. "The Spirit and the bride say come; and he that heareth saith come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely."

4. The Bible is a constant light. It does not shine with a fitful radiance as circumstances vary. Like the sun of the firmament, the Scriptures shine with perpetual light. But, unlike the natural sun, they do not allow the revolutions of the earth to produce alternate day and night, nor any clouds of earthly darkness to hide their face. The Psalmist calls the word a lamp unto his feet, not because it gave a feeble light compared with an orb of day, but because it gives light where it would otherwise be dark. It shines always in full strength, makes perpetual day; the traveller can always walk by its light. Even the night of affliction becomes light with joy unspeakable and full of glory. No man with faith in his heart and the knowledge of the Scriptures in his understanding ever feels that he is walking in darkness. But every true believer has the full persuasion that he is walking by the light of life; and that, with the Scripture for his guide, his feet can never stumble on the dark mountains of the second death.

5. And, finally, the Bible, as a fountain of religious knowledge, is inexhaustible.

Who ever yet believed he had learned all the Bible could teach? Books of natural science may be learned through and laid aside. If the student would go farther, he must take up other books. But what student of divine science ever thought he had finished the Bible? There we have the Alpha and Omega of spiritual learning the first lessons and the last. And the first and the last are so blended with one another, that the child in his alphabet and the most advanced scholar may study together on the same page. The same words may convey the simplest thoughts to the child and the profoundest thoughts to the riper understanding. Every one may draw, according to his capacity, from any point in this fountain of divine knowledge. And when the human student has finished his earthly course of learning, and is about to be received into the circle of higher knowledge in heaven, he then hopes shortly to see farther than ever into the meaning of these simple lessons of his spiritual childhood. Now he knows only in part. It is only in part that he knows the Bible. That pool of the crystal waters, with its bottom of priceless pearls, may have seemed to many a child of God, as he lay upon its verge, with his eye almost level with the