important points, prevails among those who all nominally belong to her communion, than among the different sects that claim the common name, Protestant. The truth is, this infallibility of the Church is a fiction, an absurd, an irrational, an impious fiction; but the infallibility of the Scripture is a truth, a glorious truth,—a reality, a blessed, a consolatory reality. The Scripture is perfect, it is sure, and the Apostle Peter thought it more to be depended on than a voice from heaven, saying of it, "We have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." The Scripture has God for its author, and is called God's testimony; and surely, attach as much importance as you may to the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. The Bible is the word of God: in it God speaks, and it is his glorious character, that he cannot lie. And this is the security, the glory of those Churches that take the infallible word of God for their guide, in preference to the erring and discordant opinions of fallible men, that they are "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." May we not say, "their rock is not as our rock, they themselves being judges." Hear the accurate and unanswerable Chillingworth: "I, for my part, after a long, and, as I verily believe and hope, impartial search after the true way of eternal life and happiness, do profess plain, that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot, but upon this rock only, The Bible, The Bible alone. I see plainly, with my own eyes, that there are Popes against Popes, Councils against Councils, some Fathers against others, the same Fathers against themselves, a consent of Fathers of one age against a consent of Fathers of another age, the Church of one age against the Church of another age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No tradition, but only of Scripture, can derive itself from the fountain; but may be proved to be brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty, but of Scripture, for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe. This I will profess. According to this I will live, and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but gladly, die. Propose to me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible

to human reason, I will subscribe it with heart and hand, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true."

The rule of faith also should be immutable. Absolute immutability is an attribute of God, and to the exclusive possession of it he lays claim, saying, 'I am the Lord, I change not;' and so utterly and completely free from change is he, that the Apostle James, speaking of him as the Father of lights, says of him, that he is without variableness, or shadow of turning. The luminary of the heavens has his parallaxes and his tropics; his aspect, his position, and his appearance vary; but the Father of lights has neither parallax nor tropic,-neither variableness nor change, nor even the semblance of them. He has stamped his word with the impress of his own immutability. Men may vary their opinions, and Churches may change their creeds and their codes of discipline; individuals may make shipwreck of faith, and the purest Churches may apostatize, or may disappear. But amid all these changes and fluctuations, the word of God abideth for ever. It is not dependant on circumstances; it varies not with the ever varying tempers and opinions of mankind; it changeth not with the modifications of society and forms of government. It is, like its author, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,-the same to-day as on its first promulgation, the same in the thick gloom of the middle ages, (had men but lent an ear to it,) as at the morning dawn of the Church when it was first published,- -or as it will be in the noon-tide radiance of the Church's millennial glory. For though all flesh is grass, and the glory of man is as the flower of the grass, which speedily withers and vanishes, the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And should not this word be the standard of thought, and feeling, and action,—this word, that remains unimpaired, by the lapse of time, and unchanged amid the revolutions of ages, ever holding out the same testimony regarding God, and uttering the same voice to mankind; this word that comes robed, as it were, in celestial light, and clothed with divine authority, pointing out the path of immortality, and unfolding the principles by which its glorious Author will one day judge the human race?

Now, of the things that have been spoken this is the sum. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments alone, and not the writings called the Apocrypha, nor the oral Traditions of which the

Church of Rome professes to be the sole depository, possess a valid claim to be received as the word of God. These writings, therefore, and these only, and not the Decrees of Councils, the authority of Churches, or the writings of the Fathers, are to be regarded as the supreme judge of controversy, the infallible rule of faith, and the ultimate standard of practice. To this character they have a paramount claim, from the consideration that they are the oracles of God. For the authority of the word of God must be not only high, but the highest; and as he gave this word, for the very end of guiding the faith and practice of men, and as he is infinitely wise, it must be not only calculated, but best calculated, infinitely well calculated, to answer it. The Holy Scriptures themselves lay claim to this authority; to refuse that claim, or to give in to another, is absolutely to contradict their own declarations, and practically to deny them to be inspired. The practice of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles, the practice of the inspired writers of Scripture, and of their glorious Author, is a comment upon these declarations, and furnishes inspired and infallible authority, for considering the Holy Scriptures as the ultimate standard of appeal, in all matters of religion. And then, it is in the Holy Scriptures, and in them only, that we find united all the essential requisites of a rule of faith, which should be known, perfect, infallibly-certain, and absolutely immutable. These requisites are possessed by the Holy Scriptures, and by them only; to them, therefore, and to them only, do we bow, as being, not the word of man, but the word of the living God.

And as every man has an immortal soul to be saved or lost, and must give account for it, to the Judge of the quick and dead, it is every man's indispensable duty to read his Bible, and to judge of its sense for himself. God the Father created our souls, God the Son redeemed them, and God the Holy Ghost sanctifieth them. They are the living temples of this one God. He searcheth all their secrets, and to every thought he will give just retribution. The Omniscient Spirit inspired the Scriptures; Jesus ratified them with his blood, he commands them to be read, he asserts their sufficiency for salvation, and denounces an awful curse against adding to them, or taking any thing from them. He and his Apostles gave the example of appealing to the Scriptures, for the confirmation of their own doctrine.

According to the doctrines of this Church, it is not by the patience

and study of the Scriptures that we are to arrive at truth or hope; but by taking our place at the feet of Pontiffs or Cardinals. In them, it is contended, that infallible Spirit dwells, who dwelt in the first instructors of the faithful; and wherever they and their adherents are properly convened, to reject their statement is to reject the Holy Ghost, and to rebel against the Majesty of Heaven, there assuredly present in the person of his delegates. It will be seen, therefore, that the Catholic Priesthood assumes the authority, and even more than the authority, which pertained to the Apostles themselves. The substance of the reasoning employed in support of this theory, is, that if each man be allowed to form his own judgment respecting the communications of the Scriptures, there will be no end to the diversities of religious opinions; and as we applaud the wisdom, which, in every civilized country, provides for an order of men to be authorized interpreters of its laws, so should we be prepared to recognise in the Christian Priesthood, the equally, and the only authorised interpreters of the Sacred Writings. Now there would be some plausibleness in this hypothesis, if, in the New Testament, the word Church always, or even chiefly, meant the Pastors of the Church alone,-if the Sacred Scriptures extended to a series of ponderous volumes, like the codes of empires,—if they were drawn up, too, in that dry, technical form by which the enactments of human legislators are characterized; or if what they contain on the subject of human responsibility was really favourable to this view of it. But in the place of all this, we find that the word Church was never designed to be applied to teachers, to the exclusion of the taught,—that the whole of divine revelation is comprised in such a space, that the wayfaring man may render himself familiar with it,-that, as to style, nothing can be conceived less technical, or more evidently adapted to the popular apprehension, than that which generally obtains in the Bible, while the whole current of its instruction clearly suggests, that he who reads and does not understand, fails, not on account of the obscurities of the text, but on account of his own criminal inaptitude. Well might it have been too if the advocates of this scheme, while describing themselves as the only dwelling-place of wisdom, had been able to afford to the world, whose aberrations they had so vainly striven to correct, some tolerable proof that they have been themselves of one mind, and themselves somewhat suitably affected by the doctrines, of which they profess

to be the special guardians. But the fact is, that no Church has ever nourished such a motley host of heresies in her bosom, as the Church of Rome; nor has any Priesthood ever resorted to so much that is grossly and flagrantly unchristian, in the avowed support of a Christian cause. The whole scheme, therefore, is grounded on an impious presumption, and the superstructure is worthy of its basement. It is man coming out, and, unbidden, taking the place of God; and that man, in the name of God, so far enslaving the capacities of his fellows, as to become, in no few instances, the most efficient instrument of Satan, while claiming to be the special vicegerent of Jehovah. It is despotism in the place of liberty, and a despotism descending to all the secret places of the soul, affecting all that constitutes us men. Some taste of freedom may be conceded, under special circumstances, even to the children of bondage; but this limited good, wherever it exists, we number among the benefits indirectly conferred by the genius of Protestantism. To see Popery as it is, we must view it when unchecked by Protestant vigilance and inspection. In every such region it stands forth as the man of sin, who, sitting in the temple of God, exalteth himself above all that is called God, uttering great words of blasphemy.

The liberty of exercising private judgment in reading the Scripture may, like all other blessings, be perverted and abused; but as revelation and reason are most precious gifts of God, it is the duty of the wise and good conscientiously to improve them, even though bad men should turn both into a curse. As, to the careful perusal of the Scriptures, there is the promise of all good, so there is nothing to be feared from the exercise of reason, if it be used in the fear of the Lord, and in submission to the authority of Revelation. If Protestants exalt their reason above revelation, as Roman Catholics do their traditions, similar bad consequences would follow: but God has, in various ways, secured the serious reader of the Bible from dangerous error. The Bible teaches and inspires profound humility, and guards us against hasty and rash judgments, especially in such momentous points as would endanger our salvation. The Bible also encourages its readers to pray for the sanctifying illuminations of the Holy Spirit, by which it was inspired with the promise, that they shall be given; and at the same time declares, that it cannot be rightly understood without them. It is every man's bounden duty to submit all he hears and reads, to the best of his judgment, to exami