mind, the same purpose is served by truth, for nothing but truth can be known. Without truth there would be no knowledge, no holy happiness, no holy exercises, no truly rational action. Even God glorified is nothing but truth displayed. If it is important that all worlds should be filled with the glory of God, it is important that truth should flood the universe. All the infinitely grand and expensive measures which God has taken to make himself known, are only measures to pour truth upon the eyes of the creation. The only good resulting from the mission, death, and reign of Christ, is involved in truth displayed. What is the law of God, with all its penalties and rewards, but truth presented in the form of knowledge, imposing obligations, and offering motives to obedience? The eternal empire of Jehovah over a universe of moral agents, is sustained by nothing but truth,-is nothing but truth illustrated and applied as motives to obedience, adoration, and praise. Infinite is the value of truth as an instrument of divine government, as a medium of revealing the divine glory; two things which act and react upon each other. The government of God and all the sanctions of his law, and all the discoveries of him in creation, providence, and grace, are no other than glorious truths to feed the understandings and sway the hearts and lives of creatures. truth is not important in this office, the moral empire of God and all the discoveries of his glory have been in vain. The word of God is nothing but a body of truth: and it may expected of that revelation that it will not discredit truth by pronouncing it useless in governing and blessing the universe. be If That expectation is realized. It seems even to be suggested that there is no salvation where the Gospel does not come. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?—So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”* And as it is by faith that God purifies the heart,† Christians are said to be "clean through the word." Because the Ephesians believed and trusted in God" after that" they had "heard the word of truth," that word is called "the Gospel of" their "salvation."§ "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believè.”|| If the "ingrafted word" is received with the "meekness" of faith, it "is able to save" the soul. God "called" the Thessalonians "to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth," "by" the "Gospel" which Paul had preached.** To denote that a divine energy attended the word, it is said, "His word was with power." And yet the mere word did no more than when it was said, Be thou made whole. "Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost." 'My speech and my preaching was—in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."++ "The preaching of the cross-unto us which are saved,—is the power of God."‡‡ The Agent and the 66 John 15. 3. * Rom. 10. 13-17. John 17. 20 † Acts 15. 9. § Eph. 1. 13. || 1 Cor. 1.-21. ¶ James 1. 21.- ** 2 Thes. 2. 13, 14. Luke 4. 32. 1 Cor. 2. 4, 5. 1 Thes. 1. 5. ‡‡ 1 Cor. 1. 18. Minis means are sometimes thrown together in a sort of mystical confusion. "I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified." By a figure of speech intended to denote the comparative hardness of different people, it is said that if the Gospel had been carried to others they would have believed ;† which cannot mean, even upon the opposite plan, that they would have believed without the Spirit. "For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power." ters, as they plant and water the field, are fellow labourers with him who gives the increase. "Who then is Paul and who is Apollos but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.—We are labourers together with God." In conviction, and especially in repentance, truth penetrates the heart like sharp arrows or a drawn sword, or, like fire and a hammer upon a rock, it breaks it in pieces. "Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee.' "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents *Acts 20. 32. + Ezek. 3. 6. Matt. 11. 21. #1 Cor. 4. 20. § 1 Cor. 3. 5-9. of the heart." "Is not my word like as a fire-and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ?”* Thus far there is nothing which has the least semblance of opposition to divine efficiency. We come now to a new class of texts. By an easy figure the speaker is so identified with the word spoken, that to him is ascribed the instrumentality of the latter. The word is dropt from view and he is put for the whole. By exactly the same figure the word is so identified with the divine Agent who wields it, that the energy of the Spirit is ascribed to the word. The Spirit is dropt from the account and the word is put for the whole. In both cases the nearest and most visible cause is selected as that on which the imagination most naturally dwells. The perfect sameness of the figure in the two cases however, ought effectually to guard against misconstruction. And even our brethren cannot insist on a literal meaning: for that would entirely exclude the word in one case and the illuminating Spirit in the other. "Go ye—and disciple all nations." "Delivering thee from-the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God." "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers."+ Here the eye is filled with the nearest object, and the more remote object is put out of view. Now turn to the other texts which fill the eye with the next nearest object and put out of view the Agent * Ps. 45. 5. † Mal. 4. 6. Jer. 23. 29. Heb. 4. 12. Rev. 1. 16. and 2. 12. Acts 26. 17, 18. behind the scene. "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." "The word of God is not bound." "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed;" the Holy Ghost, though enforcing it with miraculous power, being not named. "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." Compare that however with this: "He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles." Again: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free;" meaning, from sin. "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learnt of the Father, cometh unto me." Every man is in darkness until he is enlightened from above. For "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." This strong figure by which the Gospel is called spirit and life, cannot exclude the holy Spirit, for he is named in this very sentence as the real quickener. "Not of the letter, [the law,] but of the spirit; [the Gospel, called in the context "the ministration of the Spirit," because accompanied with |