to view it as a safe guide; sufficient for all the purposes of life; adequate to the security of virtue and happiness. With us, they consider unenlightened conscience as a blind guide; and consequently discard the dangerous doctrine, which teaches submission to the mere impulse of feeling, whether resulting from an external or an internal sense. But closing their eyes against the light of revelation, they blindly follow, what they choose to call the dictates of reason. With them, philosophy is everything; and in their opinion it is sufficient to enlighten and reform the world, to discover the path of duty and lead man to happiness. Reason, if we use the term in its most enlarged sense, as denoting that faculty by which relations between things compared, are discovered, first principles, intuitively perceived and remote truths, deduced and established; reason, if we thus employ the term, has indeed its proper place in the investigation of religious truth and duty; and without it revelation itself would be unintelligible and useless. Still, however, it is altogether insufficient to guide us, with safety, through the mazes of life. Though capable of discovering many moral truths; enough, indeed, to render the heathen inexcusable for their idolatry and gross wickedness; yet biased as it is by the depravity of the heart, it rarely finds out and maintains even these doctrines of natural religion. Unaided by revelation, it would never lead us to a knowledge of the divine will concerning the great doctrines of grace, on which our duty, our destination and our happiness depend. Its range is circumscribed within a narrow space and confined to a short period of time. It is tied down to the earth, and restrained within the limits of the present life. It cannot advance a step beyond the grave. It leaves all futurity involved in darkness. From it, eternity,

with all its interesting scenes and animating hopes, is concealed by an impenetrable veil. Concerning the life to come, and the necessary preparations for happiness in that life, the conditions of pardon and the terms of salvation, it can give us no satisfactory information. On these subjects and subjects like these, it may, indeed, form conjectures and suggest the dreams of imagination. But they will be mere dreams, vain imaginations, unprofitable conjectures. Doubt and uncertainty will rest upon them, destroying all the consolation of hope, and leaving nothing of the energy of holy principle.

Without the aid of revelation, what can reason do? What has it done, to purify and elevate the character of man? The experiment has been made and the result is known. The history of the world illustrates and confirms the declaration of an inspired apostle : "The world by wisdom knew not God." However consistent with reason the doctrines of the gospel may appear to us, who have known the Holy Scriptures from our childhood; reason never would have discovered them; certainly never would have embraced them with that cordiality which gives them all their practical efficacy. The history of ancient philosophy and modern infidelity fully establishes this position, and proves conclusively the insufficiency of unassisted reason, to lead men into religious truth, and enforce upon them the claims of duty. This short-sighted guide, where the light of revelation has not shone upon her paths, has always become bewildered, and has led astray those who have pretended exclusively and implicitly to follow her steps. She has led some to atheism, some to polytheism, some to pantheism and all to error, darkness and bewildering scepticism. Let me not be misunderstood. I would not under

value the gift of reason.

It is one of Heaven's best

gifts to man. Nor would I deny its importance, and even necessity, in the investigation of religious truths; those truths on which duty and happiness chiefly depend. It is no less a constituent part of our nature than passion and appetite and conscience. Like them, too, it has its appropriate office; and this office is equally obvious and necessary. Without reason, we could neither discover the path of duty, nor understand those doctrines which furnish motives to holy obedience; which awaken conscience and move the heart. Christianity does not disclaim its authority, nor reject its agency. On the contrary, she addresses men as rational beings; and calls upon them to consider, to deliberate and judge, before they yield to feeling, or allow themselves to act; and finally, to act in accordance with their best judgment, and under the influence of enlightened and sanctified feeling. Indeed, true religion and sober reason can never be at variance with each other. Proceeding from the same perfect Being, they can never, till the one or the other is perverted, counteract each other's influence. Christianity even demands the highest and purest exercise of the intellectual powers; and the homage of the heart, which she claims, is sanctioned by the soundest maxims of philosophy. It is "science falsely so called," or superficial philosophy, or reason perverted by a corrupt heart and a perverse will; it is this, my hearers, which, inflated by vanity and pride, arrays itself against the gospel, and holds the doctrines and the disciples of Christ in contempt. But sound philosophy, well established science, sober and cultivated reason, is a friend and companion of pure and undefiled religion, of that "wisdom which is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be en

treated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

Still, as was said before, the most cultivated intellect, the most unbiased reason, must fail to guide the bewildered soul in its pilgrimage through this world, in its journey to heaven, in its preparations for that state which lies beyond the field of observation, into which philosophy cannot penetrate, and concerning which it can, by its highest efforts, make no discovery. Especially is this true, with regard to the great doctrines of grace, and the duties and hopes which flow from this wonderful scheme of redeeming mercy. We come, therefore, to the positive part of our principal proposition, and remark,

4. That the Scriptures constitute a safe guide in life, furnish the means of our becoming acquainted with every truth and duty necessary to human happiness; are therefore "profitable for correction and instruction in righteousness," able to make all who imbibe their spirit and follow their directions, wise unto salvation and "thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

"To the law and to the testimony," therefore we must repair, if we would find a perfect standard of truth and duty. The Bible, and the Bible alone, can teach us what we most need to know, and what we must do to be saved. In all the mazes of metaphysical inquiry, in all the subtilties of moral distinction, in all the controversies concerning duty and destiny, "This is the judge that ends the strife."

The Scriptures furnish a safe and perfect guide in life, because they were given by the inspiration of God, and were given for the express purpose of making known to man the will of God.

Yes, as stated at the commencement of the discourse, the declaration in the first clause of the text may be

applied to the whole Bible. And though we did not feel ourselves called upon to appropriate a distinct head of discourse to the discussion of the subject of inspiration; yet we may remark here, incidentally, and with direct reference to the leading subject of discourse, that it would not be difficult to justify this extended application, and prove, conclusively, the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, both of the Old Testament and the New; and show that they were written by holy men, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; by men so enlightened, prompted and directed, that we may rely on their testimony and instructions with implicit confidence. We might show, I think, to the doubting but sincere inquirer, that the writers of the New Testament supported their claims to inspiration by the consistency and harmony of their instructions, by their holy lives and conversation, and especially by the exercise of miraculous gifts; that they all participated in the blessed influence of the Holy Spirit, promised by the Saviour, when he said to his disciples: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." We might show that this promise of supernatural light and directing influence over the human memory and judgment, in furnishing instruction for the church and the world, extended not only to the first-appointed apostles of our Lord, and the apostolic men, who were their companions, such as Mark and Luke, but to the apostle Paul, who, though born into the kingdom and called to the apostleship of Christ, "out of due time," nevertheless substantiated his claims to inspiration, and showed that he was "not a whit behind the very chiefest apos