them all as subordinate to the Bible itself, and as standing or falling by it. They regard them not as giving authority to the Scripture, but as deriving all their authority from it. As to an infallible and paramount rule of faith, the Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of the Protestant. If men err, it is not from the insufficiency of the Holy Word, but because, as our Lord teaches us, they either know not the Scriptures; or make them of none effect through their traditions.

But this efficacy of the Bible will more fully appear when we notice, what the text next calls us to consider, THE MANNER IN WHICH IT PRODUCES ITS EFFECT-through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

This is added, because the power ascribed to the Bible to make men wise unto Salvation is of course only the power of an authoritative standard and perfect revelation of truth. Faith is still required on the part of those who read it, in order that its salutary effects may be produced. A simple and implicit belief, a disposition to receive humbly whatever God declares, is essential to a right use of Holy Scripture. Without this, the Book cannot guide men to Heaven, because without this it cannot be read in a right spirit nor employed to its proper end-the salvation of the soul.

The word of God will not profit, unless it be mixed with faith in them that hear it.

For what, if men read the Scriptures only to cavil, to raise curious questions, to select some favourite parts merely, to model divine truth after the dictates of a corrupt reasoning, or to rest in a cursory formal speculation on its chief topics? What, if they read it without attention, without seriousness, without prayer P Will it in such a case make us wise unto salvation? No, my brethren. The Scriptures, to be efficient, must be read with a lively [faith. We read other books, indeed, in order that we may reject or receive what is proposed to us, according to our best judgment of truth. We are to try them by some standard. We come to them as judges. But when we read the Scriptures, we are to come, not as judges, but disciples. They are themselves the standard of all religious doctrine. We are to receive them as the unerring revelation of God. We are to submit all our sentiments, all our prejudices, all our doctrines, all our conduct, to their authoritative guidance. It is not reasoning, but faith, which God requires. And therefore the young and ignorant as to other things, may sometimes make more solid advances in the Wisdom of salvation, than the most refined scholar, because they may have the true key to its blessings-a heart which believes unto righteousness.

Nay, the very mysteries of our religion, which are the stumbling-block to a proud and hazardous objector, are the food and nourishment of faith. We believe the doctrines of the proper deity of our Lord, of the personality and divinity of the Holy Ghost, of the purposes and decrees of God, of the fall and impotency of man, of the efficacy of divine grace in regenerating and sanctifying the heart, and if there be any other doctrine most commonly objected to as mysterious; not because we can resolve all the difficulties which a presumptuous mind may advance against them, but because they are revealed in that book, which is to be received with silent faith, and not arraigned at the bar of the very sinners whom it was given to illuminate and save.

The Apostle adds concerning this faith, that it is In Christ Jesus; because he would direct us to that distinguished truth which gives all their virtue to the Holy Scriptures. They can make us wise unto salvation, because they reveal the Saviour. And faith is the means by which such effects are produced, because faith, amidst all the other doctrines of the Bible, fixes most intently on that which includes and surpasses them all-the doctrine of the Cross.

More especially, in the case of Timothy, to whom the Epistle was addressed, the knowledge of the writings of the Old Testament, in

which he had been trained from his infancy, would make him wise unto salvation; not if he rested in the letter of them, and rejected or despised the Messiah after he had appeared on earth, but if he welcomed with faith that Saviour and acknowledged in Hiin the hope and consolation of the Church.

But indeed, generally, faith, when it is genuine, conducts in the first instance to the same commanding truth. All the knowledge which it acquires respecting the guilt of sin, the holiness of the Law, and the justice and wrath of God, only quicken its eagerness in embracing the record which is given of the Saviour. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; he that hath the Son, hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life. This is THE TRUTH by way of eminence. The sum of the whole Bible is, that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. Christ is the Shepherd, the Friend, the Prophet, the High Priest, the King of his church. He is that in the spiritual world, which the bright orb of day is in the natural, the source of light and warmth and life and consolation. All the faith in the Holy Scriptures, and all their efficacy to salvation, meet at last in Him, for the excellency

of the knowledge of whom, the Apostle declared that he esteemed every thing as loss.

But I pass on towards a brief conclusion of my discourse.

For if the DUTY of communicating the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures to the young from their earliest childhood be such as I have described; and if the inestimable BENEFIT arising from the right discharge of it be the making them wise unto salvation, then I can have little to add on the particular object of charity for which I am now to plead.

For I am persuaded you will agree with me in considering the NATIONAL SCHOOLS as a national blessing. The design of these noble institutions is, to supply the want of ability or consideration on the part of the parents of the poor, as to the religious instruction of their children—a benefit of quite incalculable moment. It is doing the most important good at the proper, and indeed only, opportunity for doing it. It is taking advantage of the opening years of childhood to give a right direction to the entire life. It is educating those who will be the parents of the next generation. For it is a profound thought, I think of Bishop Butler, that the character of every succeeding age is left, under the ordinary blessing of God, to the example and labours of the foregoing. We cannot then engage in a work where all the