apostolic truth; men with the Bible in their head and heart, and with gifts suited to the ministry. Will any be prepared to say that the boasted apostolical succession of the Popes, &c., will bear the test of this divinely inspired rule, and that there exists a succession of Bishops of this class in unbroken unity? Where is this form of sound words which was committed to Timothy, and has been handed down? It cannot be produced, and we are therefore compelled to go to the written record to find it. While the Apostles lived, they were legitimate sources of appeal in any controversy; after their death, their writings supplied their place. We could adduce numbers of passages from the early Fathers in proof of the fact that the Scriptures were considered sole authority in matters of faith; but time will not admit, as there is scriptural evidence of the fact, that they were intended to occupy this position. We just adduce one for the sake of its brevity: Irenæus, who flourished in the second century, says, "The Gospel which the Apostles preached, afterward by the will of God they delivered to us in the Scriptures, that it might be the foundation and pillar of our faith."*

Irenæus Advers. Heræs., B. iii., c. 1, p. 169, 1570. Stamp's edition of Elliott, p. 37.

In all ages since the written revelation was given, it has been the only warrant of doctrine, unless the immediate and miraculous sanction of God attended the individual. Joshua, although the companion of Moses, was commanded to make the written law his study and guide, as he valued prosperity: the people were commanded to study it, to teach it diligently to their children and domestics; it was made their birthright. The 119th psalm (the 118th in the Douay Bible,) proves the estimate formed in that day of the written word, as perfect, and suited to make wise the simple, and convert the soul. In the time of Jehoshaphat the itinerant instructers, and in Ezra's time he and his pious associates, used the written law to instruct the people. people were permitted to test the Prophets by the Scriptures:— "To the law and to the testimony." Our Lord recognised the inspired writings as occupying this position: he declared that if he had not done among the people the works that no other man did, they would not have had sin in rejecting his testimony. When he sent the seventy, he gave them miraculous powers to warrant their demand upon the submission of the people to their teaching. To prove to the Apostles his own authority to abrogate the ceremonial and typical parts of the Mosaic

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ceremony, the voice came from the cloud of the excellent glory on the mount,"This is my beloved Son, hear him." The Scribes and Pharisees had exactly the same views of oral tradition from the time of Moses, that the advocates of Popery assert to have existed from the time of Christ: but when they were appealed to, he emphatically condemned them as teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, and making the commandments of God of no effect by their tradition. To guard the people against such unauthorized teaching, our Lord assured them that they were blind leaders of the blind, and both would fall into the ditch. A passage is frequently appealed to as rendering even their teachings binding:

"The Scribes and Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses: all things whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do."* But this alludes to the seat of legislation. The Romans permitted the Jews to administer their own government; and, as good subjects, our Lord enjoined upon his disciples the duty of reverencing the powers that be; as religious teachers, he warned his disciples against their leaven in his own discourses a constant appeal was made to the written word, or to his miracles, as authority: "how readest thou-it *Matt. xxiii. 2.

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is written have ye never read-ye search the Scriptures and they testify of me." From the writings of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms, (an enumeration embracing the whole of the Jewish Scriptures,) he explained to his Apostles the things respecting himself. We might adduce numbers of such instances from the addresses of the Apostles, all tending to show that instead of the Scriptures coming in as a secondary means of instruction, the people were addressed as knowing the Scriptures; and on their knowledge of the Old Testament the truths of the New were grafted. The Bereans are praised for taking the sermon they had heard, and searching the Old Testament to ascertain the accordance. The Apostles declared their writings were intended to furnish saving instruction: St. John declares "these things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." St. Luke writes that we may know the verity of the things that were believed and preached. These writings are declared to occupy the same position with the Old Testament. St. Peter ranks his Epistle with the Scriptures of old, and designates it a more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take heed. He also classes the Apostle Paul's Epistle with the

other Scriptures :-" As also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."* This passage has been strangely urged as a reason for withholding the Scriptures as dangerous: whereas it recognises them as possessed by the members of the church, and written expressly for them. It is true it alludes to injury sustained; but it is by unfaithful wresting, in the case of unstable spirits. And this allusion is made, not to deter them from reading, but to guard them against unfaithfulness in reading: they are exhorted to diligence in reading; for immediately the Apostle urges them to grow in grace, and the knowledge of Christ. His Epistles, and in fact all epistles addressed to the churches, are expressly declared to be the inalienable right of the people, to all the saints, and even to children ; so that no authority but that which inspired and sent them forth has a right to limit their diffusion. The declaration of Dr. Milner, that "the whole business of the Scriptures is with the church," (that is, the Clergy,) * 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.