they lie deep, and have their roots in the mind of God, who has constituted this outward world to be an exponent of the inner, a garment of mysterious texture which his creative thoughts have woven for themselves. But for this very reason, we come back again and again to these divinely chosen similitudes with fresh interest, with new delight, being continually rewarded with glimpses, unperceived before, of the strange and manifold relations, in which the visible and the invisible stand to one another.

Thus, brethren, have I endeavoured to present to you this day a few of the aspects under which this Word of the Scripture may be contemplated as one fitted evermore to provoke, and evermore to reward, our enquiries. Habet Scriptura sacra haustus primos, habet secundos, habet tertios. There is, indeed, a tone and temper of spirit in which if we are, all its wells will seem dry, and its fields barren. The superficial dealer with this Word, he who reads, formally fulfilling an unwelcome task, he who feels in no living relation with the things which he reads, who consults the oracle, but expects no living answers from its lips, who has never known himself a pilgrim of eternity, to whom life has never, like that fabled Sphinx, presented riddles which he must solve, or, not solving,

ness.

must perish, such an one may say, as in his heart he will say, What is this Word more than another? it may bring to him no other feelings but those of monotony and inexpressible weariBut with the loving and earnest seeker it will prove far otherwise: he will ever be making new discoveries in these spiritual heavens; ever to him will what seemed at first but a light vaporous cloud, upon closer gaze, to his armèd eye, resolve itself into a world of stars. The further he advances, the more will he be aware that what lies before him is more than what lies behind-the readier will he be to take up his hymn of praise and thanksgiving, and to wonder with the Apostle at "the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"

LECTURE VII.

THE FRUITFULNESS OF SCRIPTURE.

EZEKIEL XLVII. 9.

And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live.

THE portion of my subject, which I desire this day to bring under your notice is, the fruitfulness of Holy Scripture; how it has shewn itself a germ of life in all the noblest regions of man's activity; how it has with its productive energy impregnated the world; how, to use the image suggested by my text, everything has lived whither these healing waters have come, and this Word attested itself that which in my preceding lectures I have endeavoured to prove that it was fitted for being, that which we might beforehand presume it would be, namely, the unfolder of all the nobler and higher life of the world. And this is a subject which will suit us well at a period of these discourses, when they are drawing nigh

to their conclusion. For it were to little profit to have shewn how the Scripture ought to have been all this, how it was fitted for being all this, unless it could be shewn also that it had been ; unless we could point to the world's history in evidence that it had done that which we say it was adapted for doing. "The blind see, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised;" --it was to these mighty works that Christ appealed in answer to the question, “Art thou He that should come, or look we for another?" And this is the answer to every question of a like kind. The real evidence for ought which comes claiming to be from God, is its powerthe power which it exercises to bless and to heal. If the Scriptures manifested none of this, all other evidence, however convincing we might think it ought to be, yet practically would fail to convince. Men will not live on the report that ought is great or true, unless they so see it, and so find it themselves. But if they do, no assertion on the part of others that it is small, will prevail to make them count light of it. For a moment the confident assertions of gainsayers may perplex, or even seriously injure, their faith but presently it will resume its hold and its empire again.

Thus it has been well and memorably said, that the great and standing evidence for Christianity is Christendom; and it was with good

reason, and out of a true feeling of this, that Origen and other early apologists of the Faith, albeit they had not such a full-formed Christendom as we have to appeal to, did yet, when the adversaries boasted of their Apollonius and other such shadowy personages, and sought to set them up as rivals and competitors with the Lord of glory, make answer by demanding What became of these? what significance had they for the world's after development? what have they bequeathed to shew that they and their appearance lay deep in the mind and counsel of God? what society did they found? where is there a fellowship of living men gathered in their name? or where any mighty footmarks left upon the earth to witness that greater than mortals have trodden it? And the same answer is good, when it is transferred to the books which at any time have made ungrounded claim to be divine records, and as such, to stand upon a level with the Canonical Scriptures; and which sometimes even in our day are brought forward in the hope of confounding the Canonical in a common discredit with them. We in the same way may make answer, Is there not a difference? besides all other condemnation under which they lie, besides the absence of historic attestation, the want of inward religious meaning and aim, are they not self-condemned, in their utter insig