God. And when the same apostle commends Timothy for having "known from a child the holy Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus," can it be denied that he thereby concedes to Timothy a full authority to examine for himself into the meaning of those blessed writings? And above all, what do we learn from the declaration of St. Peter, that in his brother Paul's writings there were many things hard to be understood, which they who were unlearned and unstable wrested, as they did the other Scriptures, to their own destruction? What is it that is here said to be the cause of this miserable perversion of truth? Is it that the heretics" refused to hear the Church," that they did not interpret them by the original oral tradition, leaning to their own judgment rather than that of the Church Catholic? Not so indeed; their delusion is charged upon their personal want of learning, and their evil-disposed hearts. They were led astray by their love for falsehood, by their unholy dispositions, by their ignorance of the first principles of Scripture interpretation, and not by their neglect of any church or tradition. And the inference is undeniably obvious, that if they had studied and earnestly desired the

knowledge of the truth, they would have been enabled to discover it without trusting to any mortal leader.

This, also, is precisely in accordance with the directions for ascertaining the will of God which our Lord had Himself given:

"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." (John vii. 17.)

"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed: and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John viii. 31, 32.)

So also St. James writes:

"Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." (James i. 21.)

The whole context shows the connection between right dispositions, and the just understanding and reception of the pure truth.

God also declared to the Jews by the mouth of his prophet Isaiah, that those should continue to hold the pure truth who " turned from transgression in Jacob," who truly repented of their former sins :

"The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,

saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My Spirit that: is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever." (Is. lix. 20, 21.)

Thus we learn, that knowledge of the Gospel is promised to practical holiness; and a sinloving heart is declared to be the grand obstacle to the light of truth. And together with all this, the New Testament furnishes us with warnings against a tendency to pervert the written word through traditions. Our Lord most strongly condemned the Jews for thrusting out the law of Moses, to make way for their own inventions. And St. Paul gave this injunction to Titus," Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth." (Tit. i. 13, 14.)

But where, in the midst of this obscurity of Scripture, ever supplying the perverse with materials for their ungodly fancies to work upon, is the solitary direction to mistrust our own judgment when exercised humbly towards God? Where is the Church? Where the deposit ?

Where the standard to which men are to refer in their doubts and difficulties? The whole fabric vanishes; it appears that all the boasted injunctions of St. Paul are nothing more than warnings against wandering from the truth; and that so far from exalting his own original preaching to the office of interpreting his written announcements, the apostle looks upon it as liable to be perverted, mistaken, and forgotten.

By way, however, of meeting this reasoning, the question is sometimes asked, and that in a tone of triumph, "Supposing this to be true, why does not Scripture both assert its own sufficiency, and in plain terms direct all inquirers to its own pages for instruction?" To this I reply, that until it shall be proved that there exists a separate source of information on revealed truth, independent of the written word, and of equal divine authority and inspiration, Scripture does assert its own fulness and completeness as a guide to all faith and practice. I allude to St. Paul's much canvassed expression to Timothy, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." That

we are justified in applying this description of Scripture to the New Testament as well as to the Old, is manifest from the words of St. Peter, in which he speaks of St. Paul's writings as Scriptures," putting them upon a level, and giving them the same name, with the rest of the inspired books. In the passage before us, therefore, St. Paul must be considered as including in his declaration of the character of "all Scripture," his own writings and those of other inspired men; or we must resort to the almost impossible supposition, that he used such a phrase as "all Scripture," with intention to limit his meaning to the Old Testament, while the term was constantly employed to designate the writings of the apostles and evangelists.

The only possible meaning, then, which can be attached to this declaration, if it be not taken as an announcement of the sufficiency of Scripture, is this: that the writings of the New Testament are designed to be supplementary to some other fountain of God's truth; that the elements of the Gospel are to be gathered from some other source, and that the man of God is to betake himself to what is written, in order to be favoured with clearer and deeper views, and to be instructed in all the laws of Christian obedience.