Believe the Bible.

My third theme was, as you remember, Believe the Bible.

Having read and understood the Bible you are to believe it. You must know the nature and contents of its message, ere you can trust it. I do not mean that you must understand all Scripture ere you receive it as God's word, for in such a case faith would be impossible, as there are many things in Scripture above your comprehension. There are mysteries in nature; and they may be expected also in the book of grace. Yet you must know the leading facts and doctrines of the gospel before you can believe. Faith must have an object as well as a foundation. Why then do you look upon the Bible

as the word of God? for what reason do you regard it as inspired? how know you that it has come from heaven? You ought, my young friends, to be able to answer such questions, "to be ready to give an answer to every one that asketh you, a reason of the hope that is in you." You should have clear and accurate ideas on this subject, and not mere vague and floating notions; you should be as firmly convinced of the divinity of Scripture as you are of your own existence; and you should be prepared to state the grounds of such convictions.

And, first of all, feel deeply convinced of the need of a divine revelation. Saving truth is beyond the discovery of man. His intellect could not reason it out, his imagination could not invent it, his heart did not dare to hope for it, or aspire to its possession. The problem, how can God be a "just God and a Saviour," is too profound for man to solve. How shall guilty man be pardoned and the majesty of the law be maintained? is a question which the united ingenuity.of mankind could not answer, for they could not determine the previous difficulty, Shall sinners be pardoned at all? The heathen world, both ancient and modern, affords ample evidence, that men "did not like to retain God in their knowledge"-" having the understanding dark

ened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts." Their notions of a divine Being were low and obscure, unworthy and puerile, dark and corrupting for "they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things." They bowed to "gods many and lords many." Of the one living and true God they had no idea. Each country had its deities and temples, each city its own idols and shrines. Victims smoked, and incense burned, in honour of gods whose character was a horrid mixture of debauchery and blood. Nay, in the insane rage to multiply objects of worship, Athens had in it "an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD." The Greek satirist Lucian, himself a heathen, has said-" If you go to Egypt, you will find Jupiter with the face of a ram, Mercury as a dog, Pan a goat. The Ibis is a god, so is the crocodile, so is the ape. Shaven priests tell us that the gods in a panic of terror, when the giants rebelled, assumed those shapes." The priests of such divinities were guardians of pollution, and their rites consisted of the basest sensuality. Alluding to their religious mysteries, the apostle says "it is a shame even to speak

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of those things which are done of them in secret." Deeds which language shrinks from describing were done as acts of worship. "God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Yet Gibbon the historian speaks of the rites of paganism as "innocent mysteries." Their ideas of morality were as loose and debasing as their notions of religion. Immortality also was unknown,it was sometimes hoped for, seldom believed in. But of its nature they knew nothing. Their Elysium might be a scene of classic retirement, but it was earthly, sensual, devilish;" the passions still raging in fury, the heart still filled with unholy inclinations, and the life still polluted by base and bestial pursuits. Nor is the heathen world of the present day improved. Idolatry is as rife, ignorance is as dense, worship is as degrading as in the ancient times. The priest and his god, the altar and its victim, the temple and its service, are as bloody and impure on the banks of the Ganges, the isles of the Pacific, and the continent of Africa, as they were on the fields of the Tiber, the valley of the Nile, or the mountains of Scandinavia. The experience of eighteen centuries has not benefited modern heathenism. Philosophy cannot teach it, poetry cannot charm it, science cannot improve it. It still remains, "having no hope and without God." The names of Socrates

and Plato, Cicero and Cato, were but feeble stars in the surrounding gloom. Man of himself cannot arrive at the knowledge of God, or come back to favour and peace. God must teach, and change him. A book of divine instruction, such as the Bible, is necessary. The light of nature fails to bring man to a Saviour, the leadings of Providence are unseen and contemned. A special revelation from heaven is requisite. And in it God stoops to man in order to raise us to Himself and to happiness. As has been remarked by a master in theology,-"the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any book, however fair, is set before them, though they perceive something written, cannot yet make out two words in succession, still when aided by glasses, they can read distinctly, so scripture gathering together impressions of Deity which lay confused, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly."* And my young friends, your own country was no better than other nations. Your ancestors were poor benighted pagans. The Druid shrouded in bloody mystery reigned over Scotland, and Mars had a temple in ancient Caledonia. On the spot occupied by St Paul's in London stood a shrine of Diana, and the fane of Apollo covered the

* Calvin.