ness. We see this gracious condescension in nothing more strongly than in that teaching by parables and similitudes, which there occupies so prominent a place. No one turns away from them in pride as too childish; none retreat from them in despair as too high. In the parable the truth of God is not sought to be transplanted, as a full-grown tree, into our minds; for, as such, it would never take root and flourish; we never could find room for it there. But it comes first as a seed, a germ-small to the small, but with capacities of indefinite expansion; it grows with our growth, enlarging the mind which receives it to something of its own dimensions. Little by little the image reveals itself more fully; some of its fitnesses are perceived at once, and more and more, as spiritual insight advances; all of them, perhaps, never, lying as they do so deep, and having 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 are here brought 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,

I

our enquiries. As one said of old, Habet Scriptura Sacra haustus primos, habet secundos, habet tertios. There is, indeed, a tone and temper of spirit, in which if we allow ourselves, all its wells will seem dry, and all 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 answer from its lips, who has never known himself "a pilgrim of eternity," to whom life has never, like that fabled Sphinx, presented riddles which either he must solve, or, not solving, must perish,—such a 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 tedious monotony and inexpressible weariness. But 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 far 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" which are displayed alike in his works and in his Word.

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 fruitfulness of Scripture is an aspect of my sub. ject, which I may fitly bring under your notice today. I propose, in other words, to consider the germ of life which it has been in all the noblest regions of man's activity; with its productive energy impregnating the world; until, to use the image suggested by my text, every thing has lived where these healing waters have come; this Word approving itself still as the unfolder and sustainer of all the nobler life of the world, and thus as being of Him from whom alone any good and perfect gift can come. And these are considerations which will suit as well at a period of these discourses, when they are drawing nigh to their conclusion. For it were to little profit to have affirmed that the Holy Scriptures ought to have been all this, that they were fitted for being all this, unless it could be shown also that they had been; unless we could point to the world's history in

evidence that they had done that, which we proclaim they were 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 true answer to every misgiving question of a like kind. The real evidence for ought which comes claiming to be from God, is its power-the power which it is able to put forth for blessing and for healing. If the Scriptures manifested no such power, all other evidence for their divine origin, however convincing we might think it ought to be, yet practically would fail to convince. Men will not live for ever on the report of anything, that it 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 he 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 came of these men? 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 make answer, Is there not a difference? Besides all other condemnation under which they lie, besides the absence of historic attestation, and the want of inward religious meaning and aim, are they not selfcondemned, in their utter insignificance-in their barrenness-in the entire oblivion into which they have fallen-in the fact, in short, that nothing has come of them? What men have they moulded? what stamp or impress have they left of themselves upon the world? where is there a society, or even a man, that appeals to them or lives by them?

Thus, let any one acquainted with the apocryphal gospels, compare them for an instant with the sacred Four which we recognize and receive. It is not merely that there is an inward difference between these and those, which would be characterized not too strongly as a difference like that finding place between stately forest-trees and the low tangled