force, and apply to the characters and consciences of men, the discoveries of Revelation. But while "I magnify my office," and adore the wisdom of him who appointed it, never be it forgotten, my Christian friends, that the sacred volume is the ONLY RULE AND REASON OF YOUR FAITH. Bring to this test, as your ultimate appeal, all the explanations and arguments that are brought before you. Examine for yourselves. Remember your individual responsibility. God has not instituted the "ministry of reconciliation," to supersede your own inquiries. Never do you confer higher honour on our instructions than when they lead you to the better understanding of the word of God, and to a more habitual and exclusive deference to its supreme authority. Never do you more awfully degrade and pervert the design of that sacred office, I sustain, than when you receive implicitly without thought, and without examination, the sentiments which you are accustomed to hear defended and explained. Remember that religion is a "reasonable service." It is the illumination of the mind, the conviction of the judgment, the rational, voluntary and decided consecration of the heart to spiritual and divine objects. Christians are "not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Christian education, ritual ceremonies, external observances, and ministerial instructions, are only the moral machinery of religion; and whatever may be pleaded in their defence as subservient to the interests of piety, they can never produce by their own influence, any radical impressions on the heart-any permanent renovation of the conscience and the character. This is effected solely through the instrumental agency of divine truth, by the efficient power of the Holy Spirit. Even that

sacred truth, the truth of the Gospel, the truth revealed in the Scriptures concerning JESUS CHRIST AS THE ONLY SAVIOUR, can produce this important end, only so far as it is understood and received. Hence the absolute necessity of scriptural knowledge. Hence the accumulation of proof in favour of the divine origin of the Scriptures, derived from the experience of Christians in all ages, attesting its power and effect on the human heart! "The entrance of this word giv"eth light; it giveth understanding to the simple." It is " quick and powerful, sharper than any two"edged sword, piercing even to the dividing "asunder of soul and spirit-and, is a discerner "of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Let it be established as a settled principle in your belief, as a kind of axiom in your religion, that whatever opinion or system of opinions, tends directly or indirectly to diminish the authority of the sacred volume, to lower the estimate of its importance, and to produce as its natural result, any practical disregard to its directions, is most unquestionably erroneous, anti-scriptural, and pernicious: whether it be the boasted sufficiency of reason, or the self-constituted, arbitrary, and dogmatical power of an ecclesiastical tribunal.

Be thankful, Christians, for that immense variety of evidence, which irradiates by its splendour, and invests with its authority, this holy book. Let your faith stand, "not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." Exercise vigilant caution, and fervent prayer for divine teaching, in all your religious inquiries. "EVERY ONE

OF US SHALL GIVE AN ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF TO

GOD." The cares, anxieties, and occupations of life, will form no excuse for your indifference at the divine tribunal. You will then be judged, not according to the decrees and decisions of fallible

mortals, like yourselves, but "according to all "the things which are written in this book." This book, which God has revealed as the only guide of faith, and the only rule of conduct, will be the test, by which your individual characters will be ascertained, and your eternal destiny determined. In the anticipation of that day, let all your sentiments be formed, and all your actions regulated. Rejoice that you live at a time when the supreme and exclusive authority of the Scriptures is generally acknowledged, and in a country where the sacred rights of conscience are revered and protected. May these privileges never be abused and perverted! Take heed what ye hear: with "what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you, and unto you that hear, shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken " even that which he hath." (Mark iv. 24, 25.)

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LECTURE II.

ON ORAL TRADITION.

THE first discoveries of divine Revelation were communicated to the Patriarchs. By various methods, and in successive portions, the will of God was made known, and the designs of his mercy were gradually unfolded to the world. A long period intervened between the times of Adam and Moses; but during the whole of that period, the memory of divine communications was preserved by oral tradition. Before the introduction of alphabetical writing, of which we have no authentic proof, prior to the date of the Pentateuch, this must have been the principal if not the only method, of transmitting from age to age, the remembrance of important transactions. It might naturally be expected that the progress of time would increase the sources of corruption, and mingle the fictions of human fancy, with the communications of sacred truth. The early history of all ancient nations is involved in doubt and obscurity; and the darkness which envelopes their origin, must be ascribed to the uncertainties of verbal relation.

Various causes were combined in their operation, to preserve even by this conveyance, the comparative purity of divine Revelation in the first

ages of the world. Owing to the longevity of the Patriarchs, not more than seven or eight individuals were necessary to its preservation, from the death of Adam to the beginning of the Mosaic economy. The torch of heavenly truth required not a more frequent succession to bear it on high, and to irradiate the gloom of moral darkness that pervaded the world. Such also were the pastoral habits, the simple manners, and the religious authority of the venerable Patriarchs, over their direct and collateral descendants, that greater security was thereby afforded for the more faithful transmission of those principles and institutions, which constituted the Patriarchal religion. In addition to all these natural causes of the purity of tradition, there were special interpositions of divine providence for this purpose. A particular family was selected in the wise arrangements of the Almighty, to be the depositories of Revelation; and a series of remarkable events occurred, to define their limits, to separate them from the rest of mankind, to invest them with singular prerogatives for receiving and communicating the will of God, and to mark them out, as in every respect " a peculiar people."

In the natural course of human affairs, this family became extended and multiplied, and blended with a people of idolatrous principles and practices. The average duration of life was contracted to "three-score years and ten;" an entire revolution had taken place in their social habits and occupations: and if at this period a new economy had not commenced, the traditions of the Patriarchs would soon have been lost amidst things forgotten," or exchanged for the opinions and rites of their oppressive tyrants. The state of things was such, that the former methods of perpetuating the divine will would have been