It is to this sacred source of light and guidance that the Holy Spirit of God urges us to apply in every hour of our need. The Bible is the sword which the Christian is directed to take to help him forward in his warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The expression, the sword of the Spirit appears peculiarly appropriate in its application to the Bible; it is not said take the shield of the Spirit, or the breastplate of the Spirit, but the sword of the Spirit. And it is a fact familiar to us, that in the hour of battle, the sword is a weapon useful both for attacking the enemy, and also for defending against attack: and thus is it with the Bible, the Christian is often called upon to assail deep-rooted sinfulness, and strong destructive prejudices, both in morality and religion; and he finds the holy precepts and principles inculcated in the Bible, the only safe and certain weapon he can use. Again :-He has day by day, and hour by hour, to guard himself against

every species of seducing and sinful temptation; and here, also, for his own defence and preservation, the sword of the Spirit, -the Word of God, will be his only prevailing weapon.

Having now endeavoured to point out to you the blessing and benefit which the Bible is calculated and intended to bestow upon mankind, and the great encouragement given to us both by the precept and example of our Saviour to apply to it in all our necessities, let us enquire what opportunities and means we have of learning God's will that we may do it,—of obeying the command to search the Scrip

tures.

In the first place, let us consider the age of this holy book, and the circumstances which have occurred in the progress of time to endanger its safe-keeping and transmission from generation to generation. The early portions of the Bible were written three thousand three hundred years ago; and the Jews, the chosen

G

people of God, were made the depositories of his word and promises. If the history of this people proved that they were in a state of constant and uninterrupted peace and prosperity during all the ages of their being the guardians of the Scriptures, we should see little cause to wonder at their being so safely preserved; but such is not the fact we know them to have lived in great and frequent persecution and oppression; we know them to have been taken captive to Babylon for seventy years, and during that period to have lost not only their city, but their temple, and even the ark of God, in which the original of the Scriptures was deposited ;-we know them to have joined themselves to the worship of idols, to have served strange gods, and to have corrupted their religious faith; but notwithstanding the many causes we find in their history likely to have affected the preservation of their Scriptures, still they were safe amidst surrounding destruction, and riding securely, like

the ark of old, on the bosom of every flood of persecution; they have borne, even down to us, that precious Word, of which no jot or tittle shall pass away, and which shall, by grace and mercy, make men "wise unto salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord."

In this country, my brethren, we are singularly blessed with means and opportunities of becoming acquainted with the written Word of God. It has been observed: "There is the strongest reason for believing that as Judea was chosen for the especial guardianship of the original revelation, so has England been chosen for the especial guardianship of Christianity;"* and one among many other reasons, which may be found for this opinion, is the knowledge we have of the great labour and attention which have been bestowed in our country in increasing the number of copies of God's Word,

* Dr. Croly's Preface to his work on the Apocalypse of St. John.

and extending their circulation. The ancient Scriptures of the Jews, united to the subsequent revelation of Christianity,— that is, the Old and New Testaments, which together form our Bible,-are now translated into more than one hundred different languages, of which millions of copies are in circulation. It is not only around our own homes, and amongst our own people, that the Bible is found the breath of its holy comfort is not permitted to disseminate itself only to purify the moral and religious atmosphere of our own land; but by the pious and charitable exertions of our countrymen, its voice is indeed "gone out into all lands;" and now, in the wilds of the wildest countries, the inspired record of God's will to man may be found blossoming as the rose of Sharon, and shedding its healing fragrance even on the hearts of the heathen. A great and glorious subject of thought is it, my brethren, that we as a nation are thus permitted to be an instrument in the hand