themselves. To such minds they have so great a selfevidencing power that they ask for no other proof, so that they are left in no doubt as to their divine origin. They ask for no supernatural or miraculous evidence -beyond the supernatural or miraculous power they exert on their own spiritual nature. This so thoroughly satisfies their hearts that they ask for none other.

It is however far from us to deny but there may be true Christians who have received the truth as it is revealed in God's word, without ever so much as to consider the question whether the Bible is inspired or not; but to all those who have fully studied the question and been satisfied, as they well may, with the evidence in support of its inspiration, that fact must be to them a source of comfort and strength in the midst of disquieting doubts, difficulties, and perplexities in regard to the eternal interests of their immortal souls.

To such it is a most comforting fact, that the Lord Jesus, who was the truth, had said in regard to the promises and rewards as well as to the judgments and threatenings of the Old Testament Scriptures-" I say unto you-Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished." God has seen to it that every jot and tittle, that is the very smallest or minutest sign or letter of the law has been so written down that it is in accordance with His will, so that all shall be accomplished as it is there written. "For, how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea," or accomplishment of them all (2 Cor. i. 20).

But if this fact be comforting and strength-giving to the trustful child of God, it should also be the lash or cord of love according as one looks at it, to the disobedient and distrustful, driving him from his sin and drawing him to his God. For though the Bible is God's revelation of His love to His lost sinful creatures and of His proposed method of saving them (and there is no other method known to man), it is also God's revelation of his justice and holi

ness, and of his proposed method of dealing with the erring and disobedient. Reason alone cannot guide the sinner into safety or holiness, for it has no sufficient data on which to found its conclusions. Experience here is not to be trusted as regards the great and awful issues of eternity, for as yet the truths that bear upon the realities of eternity, are not facts in man's history but propositions in his intellect. His instincts and desires are not to be trusted. For we must not reject a proposition simply because we do not like it. All we do or can know in regard to the fate of the wicked, their state beyond death and the grave must come from God's revelation. The future world is pre-eminently as far as reason, instinct and experience are concerned

"The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns."

men

But God in His great mercy and in His intense earnestness that no one of His creatures be lost for ever, has revealed to us that country. If then we would avoid mistakes, which all eternity cannot rectify, we must open our Bibles and see what God has there recorded. For not only has He revealed the facts, but He has revealed them in language which though written by men is yet God's. For these " spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost." "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard (and written), lest haply we drift away from them. For if the words spoken through angels (God's messengers, human or otherwise,) proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers and by gifts of the Holy Ghost according to His will" (Hebrews ii. 1-4).

VIII. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE.

Butler, in his Analogy, thus shows that difficulties are to be expected in a Revelation :

"It is credible from analogy that we should be incompetent judges of a revelation to a great degree, and that it would contain many things appearing to us liable to objection. There is no more ground to expect that Christianity should appear free from objections, than that the course of nature should. And the fact is, that men fall into infinite follies and mistakes, when they pretend to judge of the ordinary constitution and course of nature, and of what they should expect it to be. It is therefore probable that men would err much more when they pretend to judge of the extraordinary constitution and scheme of Christianity, and of what they should expect it to be. For if a man, in the things of this present world, is not a competent judge of the ordinary government of a prince; much less would he be so of any extraordinary exigencies in which that prince should suspend his known and ordinary laws. If men fancy there lie great objections against the scheme of providence in the ordinary and old laws of nature, much more may they fancy there lie objections against the scheme of Christianity in the extraordinary and new laws of religion. Both schemes are from the same God. And the objections against Christianity go upon suppositions, which, when applied to the course of nature, experience shows to be inconclusive. They mislead us to think that the Author of nature would not act, as we find by experience He actually does, and would act in such and such a manner, as we experience, in like cases, He does not.

"6 For instance, we are no sort of judges beforehand, by what laws, in what degree, or by what means, it were to have been expected that God would instruct us naturally in his ordinary Providence; how far He would enable men to communicate it to others: whether the evidence of it would be certain, highly probable,

or doubtful; whether it would be given with equal clearness to all; whether at once or gradually. In like manner, supposing God afforded us an additional instruction by a revelation, we must be equally ignorant beforehand whether the evidence of it would be certain, whether all would have the same degree of evidence, whether it would be revealed at once or gradually, &c. Now, if we are incompetent to judge beforehand of revelation, it is mere folly to object afterwards against its being left in one way rather than another.

"The only fair question is, whether Christianity be a real revelation, and whether the book containing it be of divine authority; and scarcely at all whether it be a revelation, and a book of such and such a sort. So that, when men object against the Scriptures as being obscure, as written in an inaccurate style, as having various readings, and being the subject of dispute, has no force, unless it can be shown that the sacred authors had promised that the book should be secure from those things. We are no judges whether it were to have been expected that these things should be found in it or not. In human writings we should indeed be judges, but not in divine." *

J. S. Mill admits that "The argument of Butler's Analogy is, from its point of view, conclusive; the Christian religion is open to no objections, either moral or intellectual, which do not apply at least equally to the common theory of deism."

There are things in this world which the wisest cannot understand. Mansel says, "Against this immovable barrier of the existence of evil, the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves unceasingly since the birth-day of human thought, and have retired broken and powerless, without displacing the minutest fragment of the stubborn rock, without softening one feature of its dark and rugged surface." We must often be content to say for the present, "I know

* From a summary by the late Bishop Wilson of Calcutta.

not; God knoweth." All will yet be made plain. "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter."

Some of the difficulties of the Bible will now be considered.

ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS." One provision," says Trench, "which is made for awakening attention, and for summoning men to penetrate more deeply into the meaning of the Bible, is to be found in its apparent contradictions. It is at no pains to avoid these. That Word with which we have to do, travels on its way, now boldly declaring its truth upon this side, and then presently declaring it as boldly and fearlessly on the other-not painfully and nicely balancing, limiting, qualifying, till the whole strength of its statements had escaped, not caring even though its truths should seem to jostle one another. Enough that they do not do so indeed. It is content to leave them to the Spirit to adjust and reconcile, and to show how the rights of each are compatible with the rights of the other-and not compatible only, but very often the one requires that the other have its rights, before it can truly have its own."

"It is a favourite weapon of attack against the Bible to try to convict the writers of inconsistency and contradiction. One of the Evangelists is used to disprove the statement of another; and the second, in turn, is impeached on the authority of the first. Besides this transparent vice of logic, in the treatment of the details of the history, there is a flagitious disregard of the sound and acknowledged principles of historical criticism. Variations, however innocent, are magnified into an irreconcilable disorder. Peculiarities in the narrative, such as occur in the most authentic historical writers, are imputed to contrivance. All who pursue historical studies, all who take notice of testimony in courts, or even of ordinary conversation, know how many occasions there are for varying the form of a narrative, besides a want of knowledge, or of honesty in the narrator. The desire of brevity leads