 Chapter 4 of Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Prayer. Part 2. 7. In the seventh place, prayer is one of the best receipts for happiness and contentment. We live in a world where sorrow abounds. This has always been its state since sin came in. There cannot be sin without sorrow. While sin is driven out from the world it is vain for anyone to suppose he can escape sorrow. Some, without doubt, have a larger cup of sorrow to drink than others. But few are to be found who live long without sorrows or cares of one sort or another. Our bodies, our property, our families, our children, our relations, our servants, our friends, our neighbors, our worldly callings. Each and all of these are fountains of care, sicknesses, deaths, losses, disappointments, partings, separations, ingratitude, slander. All these are common things. We cannot get through life without them. Some day or other they find us out. The greater are our affections. The deeper are our afflictions. And the more we love, the more we have to weep. And what is the best receipt for cheerfulness in such a world as this? How shall we get through this valley of tears with least pain? I know no better receipt than the habit of taking everything to God in prayer. This is the plain advice that the Bible gives, both in the Old Testament and the New. What says the psalmist? Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Psalm 1.15. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Psalm 4.22. What says the apostle Paul? Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4.6.7. What says the apostle James? Is any afflicted among you? Let him pray. James 5.13. This was the practice of all the saints whose history we have recorded in the scriptures. This is what Jacob did when he feared his brother Esau. This is what Moses did when the people were ready to stone him in the wilderness. This is what Joshua did when Israel was defeated before I. This is what David did when he was in danger at Caliah. This is what Hezekiah did when he received the letter from Sinatraab. This is what the church did when Peter was put in prison. This is what Paul did when he was cast into the dungeon at Philippi. The only way to be really happy in such a world as this is to be ever casting all our cares on God. It is the trying to carry their own burdens which so often makes believers sad. If they will only tell their troubles to God, He will enable them to bear them as easily as Samson did the gates of Gaza. If they are resolved to keep them to themselves, they will find one day that the very grasshopper is a burden, Ecclesiastes 12.5. There is a friend ever waiting to help us if we will only unbuzz him to him our sorrow, a friend who pitied the poor and sick and sorrowful when he was upon earth, a friend who knows the heart of a man for he lived thirty-three years as a man amongst us, a friend who can weep with the weepers, for he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a friend who is able to help us for there never was earthly pain he could not cure, that friend is Jesus Christ. The way to be happy is to be always opening our hearts to him. Oh, that we were all like that poor Christian Negro who only answered when threatened and punished I must tell the Lord. This can make those happy who trust him and call on him, whatever be their outward condition. He can give them peace of heart in a prison, contentment in the midst of poverty, comfort in the midst of bereavements, joy on the brink of the grave. There is a mighty fullness in him for all his believing members, a fullness that is ready to be poured out on every one who will ask in prayer. Oh, that men would understand that happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart. Prayer can lighten crosses for us however heavy. It can bring down to our side one who will help us to bear them. Prayer can open a door for us when our way seems hedged up. It can bring down one who will say, This is the way, walk in it. Prayer can let in a ray of hope when all our earthly prospects seem darkened. It can bring down one who will say, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Prayer can obtain relief for us when those we love most are taken away and the world feels empty. It can bring down one who can fill the gap in our hearts with himself. And say to the waves within, Peace, be still. Oh, that men were not so like Hagar in the wilderness, blind to the well of living waters close beside them. Genesis 21 19 I want the readers of this paper to be really happy Christians. I am certain I cannot urge on them a more important duty than prayer. And now it is high time for me to bring this paper to an end. I trust I have brought before my readers things that will be seriously considered. I hardly pray God that this consideration may be blessed to their souls. 1. Let me speak a parting word to those who do not pray. I dare not suppose that all who read these pages will be praying people. If you are a prayerless person, suffer me to speak to you this day on God's behalf. Prayerless friend, I can only warn you, but I do warn you most solemnly. I warn you that you are in a position of fearful danger. If you die in your present state, you are a lost soul. You will only rise again to be eternally miserable. I warn you that of all professing Christians you are most utterly without excuse. There is not a single good reason that you can show for living without prayer. It is useless to say you know not how to pray. Prayer is the simplest act in all religion. It is simply speaking to God. It needs neither learning nor wisdom nor book knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will. The weakest infant can cry when he is hungry. The poorest beggar can hold out his hand for an alms, and does not wait to find fine words. The most ignorant man will find something to say to God, if he has only a mind. It is useless to say you have no convenient place to pray. Any man can find a place private enough if he is disposed. Our Lord prayed on a mountain, Peter on a house top, Isaac in the field, Nathaniel under the fig tree, Jonah in the whale's belly. Any place may become a closet, an oratory, and a Bethel. And be to us the presence of God. It is useless to say you have no time. There is plenty of time. If men will only employ it. Time may be short, but time is always long enough for prayer. Daniel had all the affairs of a kingdom on his hands, and yet he prayed three times a day. David was a ruler over a mighty nation, and yet he says, evening, morning, and at noon I will pray. It is useless to say you cannot pray till you have faith in a new heart, and that you must sit still and wait for them. This is to add sin to sin. It is bad enough to be unconverted in going to hell. It is even worse to say, I know it, but I will not cry for mercy. This is a kind of argument for which there is no warrant in scripture. Call ye upon the Lord, saith Isaiah. While he is near, Isaiah 4-6, take with your words and come unto the Lord, says Hosea. Hosea 14-1, repent and pray, says Peter to Simon Magus. Acts 8-22. If you want faith and a new heart, go and cry to the Lord for them. The very attempt to pray has often been the quickening of a dead soul. Alas, there is no devil so dangerous as a dumb devil. Oh, prayerless man, who and what are you that you will not ask anything of God? Have you made a covenant with death and hell? Are you at peace with the worm and the fire? Have you no sense to be pardoned? Have you no fear of eternal torment? Have you no desire after heaven? Oh, that you would awake from your present folly! Oh, that you would consider your latter end! Oh, that you would arise and call upon God! Alas! Here is a day coming when men shall pray loudly, Lord, Lord, open to us, but all too late. When men shall cry to the rocks to fall on them and the hills to cover them, who would never cry to God? In all affection I warn you, beware lest this be the end of your soul. Salvation is very near you. Do not lose heaven for want of asking. 2. Let me speak in the next place to those who have real desires for salvation, but know not what steps to take or where to begin. I cannot but hope that some readers may be in the state of mind, and if there be but one such I must offer him encouragement and advice. In every journey there must be a first step. There must be a change from sitting still to moving forward. The journeys of Israel from Egypt to Canaan were long and wearisome. Forty years passed away before they crossed Jordan, yet there was someone who moved first when they marched from Ramesis to Sukkoth. When does a man really take his first step in coming out from sin and the world? He does it in the day when he first prays with his heart. In every building the first stone must be laid, and the first blow must be struck. The ark was a hundred twenty years in building, yet there was a day when Noah laid his axe to the first tree he cut down to form it. The temple of Solomon was a glorious building, but there was a day when the first huge stone was laid at the foot of Mount Moriah. When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart? It begins so far as we can judge when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer. If any reader of this prayer desires salvation and wants to know what to do I advise him to go this very day to the Lord Jesus Christ in the first private place he can find and entreat him in prayer to save his soul. Tell him that you have heard that he receives sinners and has said, him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. John 637 Tell him that you are a poor, vile sinner, and that you come to him on the faith of his own invitation. Tell him you put yourself wholly and entirely in his hands, that you feel vile and helpless, and hopeless in yourself, and that except he saves you you have no hope to be saved at all. Beseech him to deliver you from the guilt, the power, and the consequences of sin. Beseech him to pardon you and wash you in his own blood. Beseech him to give you a new heart and plant the Holy Spirit in your soul. Beseech him to give you grace and faith and will and power to be his disciple and servant from this day forever. Yes, go this very day and tell these things to the Lord Jesus Christ if you really are in earnest about your soul. Tell him in your own way and your own words. If a doctor came to see you when sick you would tell him where you felt pain. If your soul really feels its disease you can surely find something to tell Christ. Doubt not his willingness to save you because you are a sinner. It is Christ's office to save sinners. He says himself I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Luke 5.32 Wait not because you feel unworthy. Wait for nothing. Wait for nobody. Waiting comes from the devil just as you are go to Christ. The worse you are the more need you have to apply to him. You will never mend yourself by staying away. Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first babblings of her infant so does the blessed Savior understand sinners. He can read a sigh and see a meaning in a groan. Fear not because you do not get an answer immediately. While you are speaking Jesus is listening. If he delays an answer it is only for wise reasons and to try if you are in earnest. Pray on and the answer will surely come. Though it tarry wait for it it will surely come at last. If you have any desire to be saved remember the advice I have given you this day. Act upon it honestly and heartily and you shall be saved. 3. Let me speak lastly to those who do pray. I trust that some who read this paper know well what prayer is and have the spirit of adoption. To all such I offer a few words of brotherly counsel and exhortation. The incense offered in the tabernacle was ordered to be made in a particular way. Not every kind of incense would do. Let us remember this and be careful about the matter and manner of our prayers. If I know anything of a Christian's heart you to whom I now speak are often sick of your own prayers. You never enter into the apostles words when I would do good evil is present with me. Romans 7 21 So thoroughly as you sometimes do upon your knees you can understand David's words I hate vain thoughts. You can sympathize with that poor converted hotentot who is overheard praying, Lord deliver me from all of my enemies, and above all from that bad man myself. There are few children of God who do not often find the season of prayer a season of conflict. The devil has special wrath against us when he sees us on our knees, and I believe that prayers which cost us no trouble should be regarded with great suspicion. I believe we are very poor judges of the goodness of our prayers and that the prayer which pleases us least often pleases God most. Suffer me then as a companion in the Christian warfare to offer you a few words of exhortation. One thing at least we all feel. We must pray. We cannot give it up. We must go on. A. I commend, then, to your attention the importance of reverence and humility in prayer. Let us never forget what we are and what a solemn thing it is to speak with God. Let us beware of rushing into His presence with carelessness and levity. Let us say to ourselves I am on holy ground. This is no other than the gate of heaven. If I do not mean what I say, I am trifling with God. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Let us keep in mind the words of Solomon. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God, for God is in heaven and thou on earth. Ecclesiastes 5, 2. When Abraham spoke to God, he said, I am dust and ashes. When Job spoke, he said, I am vile. Genesis 18, 27 Job 11, 4. Let us do likewise. Be, I commend to you, in the next place, the importance of praying spiritually. I mean by this that we should labor always to have the direct help of the Spirit in our prayers, and beware above all things of formality. There is nothing so spiritual but that it may become a form. And this is especially true of private prayer. We may insensibly get into the habit of using the fittest possible words and offering the most scriptual petitions. And yet we may do it all by rote, without feeling it, and walk daily round an old beaten path, like a horse and a mill. I desire to touch this point with caution and delicacy. I know that there are certain great things we daily want, and that there is nothing necessarily formal in asking for these things in the same words. The world, the devil, and our hearts are daily the same. Of necessity we must daily go over old ground. But this I say we must be very careful on this point. If the skeleton and outline of our prayers be by habit almost a form, let us strive that the clothing and filling up of our prayers be as far as possible of the Spirit. As to praying out of a book, it is a habit I cannot praise. If we can tell our doctors the state of our bodies without a book, we ought to be able to tell the state of our souls to God. I have no objection to a man using crutches. When he is, first, recovering from a broken limb, it is better to use crutches than not to walk at all. But if I saw him all his life on crutches, I should not think it matter for congratulation. I should like to see him strong enough to throw his crutches away. C. I commend to you in the next place the importance of making prayer a regular business of life. I might say something of the value of regular times in the day for prayer. God is a God of order. The hours for morning and evening sacrifice in the Jewish temple were not fixed as they were without a meaning. Disorder is eminently one of the fruits of sin. But I would not bring any under bondage. This only I say that it is essential to your soul's health to make praying a part of the business of every twenty-four hours in your life. Just as you a lot time to eating, sleeping and business, so also a lot time to prayer. Choose your own hours and seasons. At the very least, speak with God in the morning before you speak with the world. And speak with God at night after you have done with the world. But settle it down in your minds that prayer is one of the great things of every day. Do not drive it into a corner. Do not give it the scraps and leavings and pairings of your day. Whatever else you make a business of, make a business of prayer. D. I commend to you, in the next place, the importance of perseverance in prayer. Once having begun the habit, never give it up. Your heart will sometimes say, we have had family prayers. What mighty harm if we leave private prayer alone? Your body will sometimes say, you are unwell or sleepy or weary. You need not pray. Your mind will sometimes say, you have important business to attend to today. Cut short your prayers. Look on all such suggestions as coming direct from the devil. They are all as good as saying, neglect your soul. I do not maintain that prayer should always be of the same length. But I do say, let no excuse make you give up prayer. It is not for nothing that Paul said, continue in prayer, and pray without ceasing. Colossians 4-2. First Thessalonians 5-7. He did not mean that men should be always on their knees, as an old sect, called the Yucatay, supposed. But he did mean that our prayers should be like the continual burnt offering, a thing steadily preserved in every day, that it should be like seed-time and harvest and summer and winter, a thing that should unceasingly come round at regular seasons, that it should be like the fire on the altar, not always consuming sacrifices, but never completely going out. Never forget that you may tie together morning and evening devotions by an endless chain of short ejaculatory prayers throughout the day. Even in company or business or in the very streets, you may be silently sending up little winged messengers to God, as Nehemiah did in the very presence of our Azirksis. Nehemiah 2-4. Never think that time is wasted which is given to God. A nation does not become poorer because it loses one year of working days in seven by keeping the Sabbath. A Christian never finds he is a loser in the long run by persevering in prayer. E. I commend to you in the next place the importance of earnestness in prayer. It is not necessary that a man should shout or scream or be very loud in order to prove that he is in earnest, but it is desirable that we should be hearty and fervent and warm and ask as if we were really interested in what we were doing. It is the effectual fervent prayer that availeth much and not the cold, sleepy, lazy, listless one. This is the lesson that is taught us by the expressions used in Scripture about prayer. It is called crying, knocking, wrestling, laboring, striving. This is the lesson taught us by Scripture examples. Jacob is one. He said to the angel at Pneul, I will not let they go except thou bless me. Genesis 32 26. Daniel is another. Remember how he pleaded with God, O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive, O Lord, harken and do, defer not for thine own sake, O my God. Daniel 9 19. Our Lord Jesus Christ is another. It is written of him, in the days of his flesh he offered up prayer and supplication with strong crying and tears. Hebrews 5.7 Alas, how unlike is this to many of our supplications, how tame and lukewarm they seem by comparison. How truly might God say to many of us, You do not really want what you pray for. Let us try to amend this fault. Let us knock loudly at the door of grace, like mercy in pilgrim's progress, as if we must perish unless heard. Let us settle it down in our minds, that cold prayers are a sacrifice without fire. Let us remember the story of Demosthenes, the great orator, when one came to him and wanted him to plead his cause, he heard him without attention, while he told his story without earnestness. The man said this and cried out with anxiety that it was all true. Ah, said Demosthenes, I believe you now. F. I commend to you in the next place the importance of praying with faith. We should endeavor to believe that our prayers are always heard, and that if we ask things according to God's will, we shall always be answered. This is the plain command of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11, 24. Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow. Without it, prayer will not hit the mark. We should cultivate the habit of pleading promises in our prayers. We should take with us some promise and say, Lord, here is thine own word pledged, due for us as thou hast said. 2 Samuel 7, 25. This was the habit of Jacob and Moses and David. The 119th Psalm is full of things asked according to thy word. Above all, we should cultivate the habit of expecting answers to our prayers. We should do like the merchant who sends his ships to sea. We should not be satisfied unless we see some return. Alas, there are few points on which Christians come short so much as this. The church at Jerusalem made prayer without ceasing for Peter in prison. But when the prayer was answered, they would hardly believe it. Acts 12, 15. It is a solemn saying of old trails. There is no sure mark of trifling in prayer than when men are careless what they get by prayer. G. I commend to you in the next place the importance of boldness in prayer. There is an unseemly familiarity in some men's prayers, which I cannot praise. But there is such a thing as a holy boldness, which is exceedingly to be desired. I mean such boldness as that of Moses, when he pleads with God not to destroy Israel. Wherefore, says he, should the Egyptians speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains? Turn from thy fierce anger. Exodus 32, 12. I mean such boldness as that of Joshua, when the children of Israel were defeated before I. What, says he, wilt thou do unto thy great name? Joshua 7, 9. This is the boldness for which Luther was remarkable. One who heard him praying said, What a spirit! What a confidence was in his very expressions, with such a reverence he sued, as one begging of God, and yet with such hope and assurance as if he spake with a loving father or friend. This is the boldness which distinguished Bruce, a great scotch divine of the 17th century. His prayers were said to be like bolts shot up into heaven. Here also I fear we sadly come short. We do not sufficiently realize the believer's privileges. We do not plead as often as we might. Lord, are we not thine own people? Is it not for thy glory that we should be sanctified? Is it not for thy honor that thy gospel should increase? H. I commend to you in the next place the importance of fullness and prayer. I do not forget that our Lord warns us against the example of the Pharisees, who for pretense made long prayers, and commands us when we pray not to use vain repetitions. But I cannot forget, on the other hand, that he has given his own sanction to large and long devotions by continuing all night in prayer to God. At all events we are not likely in this day to err on the side of praying too much. Might it not rather be feared that many believers in this generation pray too little? Is not the actual amount of time that many Christians give to prayer in the aggregate very small? I am afraid these questions cannot be answered satisfactorily. I am afraid the private devotions of many are most painfully scanty and limited. Just enough to prove they are alive, and no more. They really seem to want little from God. They seem to have little to confess, little to ask for, and little to thank Him for. Alas, this is altogether wrong. Nothing is more common than to hear believers complaining that they do not get on. They tell us that they do not grow in grace, as they could desire. Is it not rather to be suspected that many have quite as much grace as they ask for? Is it not the true account of many that they have little because they ask little? The cause of their weakness is to be found in their own stunted dwarfish, clipped, contracted hurried, little, narrow, diminutive prayers. They have not because they ask not, O reader, we are not straightened in Christ, but in ourselves. The Lord says, Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it, but we are like the King of Israel who smote on the ground, thrice, and stayed, when we ought to have smitten five or six times. Psalms 31, 10, 2 Kings 13, 18, 19, I, I commend to you in the next place the importance of particularity in prayer. We ought not to be content with great general petitions. We ought to specify our wants before the throne of grace. It should not be enough to confess we are sinners. We should name the sins of which our conscience tells us we are most guilty. It should not be enough to ask for holiness. We should name the graces in which we feel most efficient. It should not be enough to tell the Lord we are in trouble. We should describe our trouble and all its peculiarities. This is what Jacob did when he feared his brother Esau. He tells God exactly what it is that he fears. Genesis 32, 11. This is what Eleazar did when he sought a wife for his master's son. He spreads before God precisely what he wants. Genesis 24, 12. This is what Paul did when he had a thorn in the flesh. He besought the Lord, 2 Corinthians 12, 8. This is true faith and confidence. We should believe that nothing is too small to be named before God. What should we think of the patient who told his doctor he was ill but never went into particulars? What should we think of the wife who told her husband she was unhappy but did not specify the cause? What should we think of the child who told his father he was in trouble but nothing more? Let us never forget that Christ is the true bridegroom of the soul. The true physician of the heart. The real father of all his people. Let us show that we feel this by being unreserved in our communications with him. Let us hide no secrets from him. Let us tell him all our hearts. Jay, I commend to you in the next place the importance of intercession in our prayers. We are all selfish by nature, and our selfishness is very apt to stick to us, even when we are converted. There is a tendency in us to think only of our own souls, our own spiritual conflict, our own progress in religion, and to forget others. Against this tendency we have all need to watch and strive, and not least in our prayers. We should study to be of a public spirit. We should stir ourselves up to name other names besides our own before the Throne of Grace. We should try to bear in our hearts the whole world, the heathen, the Jews, the Roman Catholics, the body of true believers, the professing Protestant churches, the country in which we live, the congregation to which we belong, the household in which we sojourn, the friends and relations we are connected with. For each and all of these we should plead. This is the highest charity. He loves me best who loves me in his prayers. This is for our souls' health. It enlarges our sympathies and expands our hearts. This is for the benefit of the church. The wheels of all machinery for extending the gospel are oiled by prayer. They do as much for the Lord's cause who intercede like Moses on the mount, as they do who fight like Joshua in the thick of the battle. This is to be like Christ. He bears the names of his people on his breast, and shoulders as their high priest before the Father. Oh, the privilege of being like Jesus! This is to be a true helper to ministers. If I must needs choose a congregation, give me a people that praise. OK. I commend to you in the next place the importance of thankfulness and prayer. I know well that asking God is one thing, and praising God is another. But I see so close a connection between prayer and praise in the Bible that I dare not call that true prayer in which thankfulness has no part. It is not for nothing that Paul says by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God, Philippians 4-6. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving, Colossians 4-2. It is of mercy that we are not in hell. It is of mercy that we have the hope of heaven. It is of mercy that we live in a land of spiritual light. It is of mercy that we have been called by the Spirit and not left to reap the fruit of our own ways. It is of mercy that we still live and have opportunities of glorifying God actively or passively. Surely, these thoughts should crowd on our minds whenever we speak with God. Surely, we should never open our lips in prayer without blessing God for that free grace by which we live and for that loving kindness which endureth forever. Never was there an imminent saint who was not full of thankfulness. St. Paul hardly ever writes an epistle without beginning with thankfulness. Men like Whitfield in the last century and Bikkersteth and Marsh and Haldane Stewart in her own time were ever running over with thankfulness. Oh, if we would be bright and shining lights in our day, we must cherish a spirit of praise, and above all let our prayers be thankful prayers. I. I commend to you in the last place the importance of watchfulness over your prayers. Prayer is that point of all others in religion at which you must be on your guard. Here it is that true religion begins. Here it flourishes and here it decays. Tell me what a man's prayers are and I will soon tell you the state of his soul. Prayer is the spiritual pulse. By this the spiritual health may always be tested. Prayer is the spiritual weather-glass. By this we may always know whether it is fair or foul with our hearts. Oh, let us keep an eye continually upon our private devotions. Here is the pith and morrow and backbone of our practical Christianity. Sermons and books and tracks and committee meetings and the company of good men are all good in their way, but they will never make up for the neglect of private prayer. Mark well the places and society and companions that unhinge your hearts for communion with God and make your prayers drive heavily. There be on your guard. Observe narrowly what friends and what employments leave your soul in the most spiritual frame and most ready to speak with God. To these cleave and stick fast. If you will only take care of your prayers, I will engage that nothing shall go very wrong with your soul. I offer these points for private consideration. I do it in all humility. I know no one who needs to be reminded of them more than I do myself, but I believe them to be God's own truth, and I should like myself and all I love to feel them more. I want the times we live in to be praying times. I want the Christians of our day to be praying Christians. I want the church of our age to be a praying church. My heart's desire and prayer in sending forth this prayer is to promote a spirit of prayerfulness. I want those who never prayed yet to arise and call upon God, and I want those who do pray to improve their prayers every year and to see that they are not getting slack and praying amiss. End of Chapter 4 Part 2 Chapter 5 of Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part 1 Bible Reading Search the Scriptures John 5 39 How Read Is Thou? Luke 10 26 Next to prayer there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible Reading. God has mercifully given us a book which is able to make us wise and a salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3 15 By reading that book we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do, how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace. Happy is that man who possesses a Bible. Happier still is he who reads it. Happiest of all is he who not only reads it but obeys it and makes it the rule of his faith and practice. Nevertheless it is a sorrowful fact that man has an unhappy skill in abusing God's gifts. His privileges and power and faculties are all ingeniously perverted to other ends than those for which they were bestowed. His speech, his imagination, his intellect, his strength, his time, his influence, his money, instead of being used as instruments for glorifying his maker are generally wasted or employed for his own selfish ends. And just as man naturally makes a bad use of his other mercies, so he does of the written word. One sweeping charge may be brought against the whole of Christendom, and that charge is neglect and abuse of the Bible. To prove this charge we have no need to look abroad. The proof lies at our own doors. I have no doubt that there are more Bibles in Great Britain at this moment than there ever were since the world began. There is more Bible buying and Bible selling, more Bible printing and Bible distributing than ever was since England was the nation. We see Bibles in every bookseller's shop. Bibles of every size, price, and style. Bibles great and Bibles small. Bibles for the rich and Bibles for the poor. There are Bibles in almost every house in the land, but all this time I fear we are in danger of forgetting that to have the Bible is one thing and to read it is quite another. This neglected book is the subject about which I address the readers of this paper today. Surely it is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. Surely when the plug is abroad you should search and see whether the plug spot is on you. Give me your attention while I supply you with a few plain reasons why every one who cares for his soul ought to value the Bible highly, to study it regularly, and to make himself thoroughly acquainted with its contents. 1. In the first place, there is no book in existence written in such a manner as the Bible. The Bible was given by inspiration of God. 2 Timothy 3.16. In this respect it is utterly unlike all other writings. God taught the writers of it what to say. God put into their minds thoughts and ideas. God guided their pens in setting down those thoughts and ideas. When you read it you are not reading the self-taught compositions of poor and perfect men like yourself, but the words of the eternal God. When you hear it you are not listening to the airing opinions of short-lived mortals, but to the unchanging mind of the King of Kings. The men who were employed to indict the Bible spoke not of themselves. They spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 2 Peter 1.21. All other books in the world, however good and useful in their way, are more or less effective. The more you look at them the more you see their defects and blemishes. The Bible alone is absolutely perfect. From beginning to end it is the Word of God. I shall not waste time by attempting any long and laboring proof of this. I say boldly that the book itself is the best witness of its own inspiration. It is utterly inexplicable and unaccountable in any other point of view. It is the greatest standing miracle in the world. He that dares to say the Bible is not inspired let him give a reasonable account of it, if he can. Let him explain the peculiar nature and character of the book in a way that will satisfy any man of common sense. The burden of proof seems to my mind to lie on him. It proves nothing against inspiration, as some have asserted that the writers of the Bible have each a different style. Isaiah does not write like Jeremiah and Paul does not write like John. This is perfectly true. And yet the works of these men are not a wit less equally inspired. The waters of this sea have many different shades. In one place they look blue and in another green, and yet the difference is owing to the depth or shallowness of the part we see, or to the nature of the bottom. The water in every case is the same, salty. The breath of a man may produce different sounds according to the character of the instrument on which he plays. The flute, the pipe, and the trumpet have each their peculiar note, and yet the breath that calls forth the notes is in each case one and the same. The light of the planets we see in heaven is very various. Mars and Saturn and Jupiter have each a peculiar color, and yet we know that the light of the sun which each planet reflects is in each case one and the same. Just in the same way the Bible of the Old and New Testaments are all inspired truth, and yet the aspect of that truth varies according to the mind through which the Holy Ghost makes it flow. The handwriting and style of the writers differ enough to prove that each had a distinct individual being, but the divine guide who dictates and directs the whole is always one. All is alike inspired every chapter and verse and word is from God. Oh, that men who are troubled with doubts and questionings and skeptical thoughts about inspiration would calmly examine the Bible for themselves. Oh, that they would act on the advice which was the first step to Augustine's conversion. Take it up and read it. Take it up and read it. How many Gordian knots this course of action would cut? How many difficulties and objections would vanish away at once, like mist before the rising sun? How many would soon confess the finger of God is here? God is in this book, and I knew it not. This is the book about which I address the readers of this paper. Surely it is no light matter what you are doing with this book. It is no light thing that God should have caused this book to be written for your learning, and that you should have before you the oracles of God. Romans 3, 2, 15, 4. I charge you. I summon you to give an honest answer to my question. What are you doing with the Bible? Does thou read it at all? How read is thou? 2. In the second place. There is no knowledge absolutely needful to a man's salvation except a knowledge of the things which are to be found in the Bible. We live in days when the words of Daniel are fulfilled before our eyes. Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased. Daniel 12, 4. Schools are multiplying on every side. New colleges are set up. Old universities are reformed and improved. New books are continually coming forth. More is being taught. More is being learned. More is being read. Than there ever was since the world began. It is all well. I rejoice at it. An ignorant population is a perilous and expensive burden to any nation. It is a ready prey to the first Absalon or Catalan or Watt Tyler or Jack Cade who may arise to entice it to do evil. But this I say, we must never forget that all the education a man's head can receive will not save his soul from hell unless he knows the truths of the Bible. A man may have prodigious learning and yet never be saved. He may be master of half the languages spoken round the globe. He may be acquainted with the highest and deepest things in heaven and earth. He may have read books till he is like a walking cyclopedia. He may be familiar with the stars of heaven, the birds of the air, the beasts of the earth, and the fishes of the sea. He may be able, like Solomon, to speak of trees from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall, of beasts also, and fowls and creeping things and fishes. 1 Kings 4.33 He may be able to discourse of all the secrets of fire, air, earth, and water, and yet if he dies ignorant of Bible truths he dies a miserable man. Chemistry never silenced a guilty conscience. Mathematics never healed a broken heart. All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death. No natural theology ever gave grace in the prospect of meeting a holy god. All these things are of the earth, earthly, and can never raise a man above the earth's level. They may enable a man to strut and fret his little season here below with a more dignified gait than his fellow mortals, but they can never give him wings and enable him to soar towards heaven. He that has the largest share of them will find at length that without Bible knowledge he has gotten no lasting possession. Death will make an end of all his attainments, and after death they will do him no good at all. A man may be a very ignorant man and yet be saved. He may be unable to read a word or write a letter. He may know nothing of geography beyond the bounds of his own parish, and be utterly unable to say which is nearest to England, Paris or New York. He may know nothing of arithmetic, and not see any difference between a million and a thousand. He may know nothing of history, not even of his own land, and be quite ignorant whether his country owes most to some ramus, bodhishya, or Queen Elizabeth. He may know nothing of the affairs of his own times, and be incapable of telling you whether the Chancellor of the Echequer or the Commander-in-Chief or the Archbishop of Canterbury is managing the national finances. He may know nothing of science and its discoveries, and whether Julius Caesar won his victories with gunpowder or the apostles had a printing press, or the sun goes round the earth, maybe matters about which he has not an idea, and yet if that very man has heard Bible true with his ears and believed it with his heart, he knows enough to save his soul. He will be found at last with Lazarus in Abraham's bosom while his scientific fellow creature who has died unconverted is lost forever. There is much talk in these days about science and useful knowledge, but after all, a knowledge of the Bible is the one knowledge that is needful and eternally useful. A man may get to heaven without money, learning, health or friends, but without Bible knowledge he will never get there at all. A man may have the mightiest of minds, and a memory stored with all that mighty mind can grasp, and yet if he does not know the things of the Bible he will make shipwreck of his soul forever. Woe! Woe! Woe to the man who dies in ignorance of the Bible! This is the Bible about which I am addressing the readers of these pages today. It is no light matter what you do with such a book. It concerns the life of your soul. I summon you. I charge you to give an honest answer to my question. What are you doing with the Bible? Do you read it? How will read is thou? 3. In a third place. No book in existence contains such important matter as the Bible. The time would fail me if I were to enter fully into all the great things which are to be found in the Bible, and only in the Bible. It is not by any sketch or outline that the treasures of the Bible can be displayed. It would be easy to fill this volume with a list of the peculiar truths it reveals, and yet the half of its riches would be left untold. How glorious and soul-satisfying is the description it gives us of God's plan of salvation. And the way by which our sins can be forgiven. The coming into the world of Jesus Christ, the God-man, to save sinners, the atonement. He has made for our sins by his own blood, the justification of every sinner who simply believes on Jesus. 4. The readiness of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to receive, pardon, and save to the uttermost. How unspeakably grand and cheering are all these truths! We should know nothing of them without the Bible. How comforting is the account it gives us of the great mediator of the New Testament, the man Jesus Christ. Four times over his picture is graciously drawn before our eyes. Four separate witnesses tell us of his miracles and his ministry, his sayings and his doings, his life and his death, his power and his love, his kindness and his patience, his ways, his words, his works, his thoughts, his heart. Blessed be God, there is one thing in the Bible which the most prejudiced reader can hardly fail to understand, and that is the character of Jesus Christ. How encouraging are the examples the Bible gives us of good people. It tells us of many who were of like passions with ourselves, men and women who had cares, crosses, families, temptations, afflictions, diseases like ourselves, and yet by faith and patience inherited the promises and got home safe. 12. It keeps back nothing in the history of these people. Their mistakes, their infirmities, their conflicts, their experience, their prayers, their praises, their useful lives, their happy deaths, all are fully recorded, and it tells us the God and Savior of these men and women still waits to be gracious and is altogether unchanged. How instructive are the examples the Bible gives us of bad people. It tells us of men and women who had light and knowledge and opportunities like ourselves and yet hardened their hearts, loved the world, clung to their sins, would have their own way, despised reproof, and ruined their own souls forever. And it warns us that the God who punished Pharaoh and Saul and Ahab and Jezebel and Judas and Ananias and Sapphira is a God who never alters and that there is a hell. How precious are the promises which the Bible contains for the use of those who love God. There is hardly any possible emergency or condition for which it has not some word in season. And it tells men that God loves to be put in remembrance of these promises, and that if he has said he will do a thing, his promises shall certainly be performed. How blessed are the hopes which the Bible holds out to the believer in Christ Jesus. Peace in the hour of death. Rest and happiness on the other side of the grave. A glorious body in the morning of the resurrection. A full and triumphant acquittal in the day of judgment. An everlasting reward in the kingdom of Christ. A joyful meeting with the Lord's people in the day of gathering together. These are the future prospects of every true Christian. They are all written in the book, in the book which is all true. How striking is the light which the Bible throws on the character of man. It teaches us what men may be expected to be and do in every position and station of life. It gives us the deepest insight into the secret springs and motives of human actions, and the ordinary course of events under the control of human agents. It is the true discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4.12. How deep is the wisdom contained in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. I can well understand an old divine saying, Give me a candle in a Bible and shut me up in a dark dungeon, and I will tell you all that the whole world is doing. All these are things which men could find nowhere except in the Bible. We have probably not the least idea how little we should know about these things if we had not the Bible. We hardly know the value of the air we breathe and the sun which shines on us, because we have never known what it is to be without them. We do not value the truths on which I have been just now dwelling, because we do not realize the darkness of men to whom these truths have not been revealed. Surely no tongue can fully tell the value of the treasures this one volume contains. Well, might old John Newton say that some books were copper books in his estimation, some were silver, and some few were gold, but the Bible alone was like a book all made up of banknotes. This is the book about which I address the reader of this paper this day. Surely it is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. It is no light matter in what way you are using this treasure. I charge you, I summon you to give an honest answer to my question. What art thou doing with the Bible? Does thou read it? How read is thou? For in the fourth place no book in existence has produced such wonderful effects on mankind at large as the Bible. This is the book whose doctrines turn the world upside down in the days of the fossils. Eighteen centuries have now passed away since God sent forth a few Jews from a remote corner of the earth to do a work which according to man's judgment must have seemed impossible. He sent them forth at a time when the whole world was full of superstition, cruelty, lust, and sin. He sent them forth to proclaim that the established religions of the earth were false and useless and must be forsaken. He sent them forth to persuade men to give up old habits and customs and to live different lives. He sent them forth to do battle with the most groveling idolatry, with the vilest and most disgusting immorality, with vested interests, with old associations, with a bigoted priesthood, with sneering philosophers, with an ignorant population, with bloody-minded emperors, with the whole influence of Rome. Never was there an enterprise to all appearance more quixotic and less likely to succeed. And how did he arm them for this battle? He gave them no carnal weapons, he gave them no worldly power to compel assent, and no worldly riches to bribe belief. He simply put the Holy Ghost into their hearts and the scriptures into their hands. He simply bade them to expound and explain, to enforce and to publish the doctrines of the Bible. The preacher of Christianity in the first century was not a man with a sword and an army to frighten people, like Muhammad, or a man with a license to be sensual to allure people, like the priests of the shameful idols of Hindustan. No, he was nothing more than one holy man with one holy book. And how did these men of one book prosper? In a few generations they entirely changed the face of society by the doctrines of the Bible. They emptied the temples of the heathen gods, they famished idolatry, or left it high and dry, like a stranded ship. They brought into the world a higher tone of morality between man and man. They raised the character in position of woman. They altered the standard of purity and decency. They put an end to many cruel and bloody customs, such as the gladiatorial fights. There was no stopping the change. Persecution and opposition were useless. One victory after another was one. One bad thing after another melted away. Whether men liked it or not, they were insensibly affected by the movement of the new religion and drawn within the whirlpool of its power. The earth shook and their rotten refuges fell to the ground. The flood rose and they found themselves obliged to rise with it. The tree of Christianity swelled and grew, and the chains they had cast round it to arrest its growth snapped like toe. And all this was done by the doctrines of the Bible. Talk of victories indeed! What are the victories of Alexander and Caesar and Marlborough and Napoleon and Wellington? Compare with those I have just mentioned. For extent, for completeness, for results, for permanence, there are no victories, like the victories of the Bible. B. This is the book which turned Europe upside down in the days of the glorious Protestant Reformation. No man can read the history of Christendom as it was five hundred years ago and not see that darkness covered the whole professing Church of Christ, even a darkness that might be felt. So great was the change which had come over Christianity that if an apostle had risen from the dead he would not have recognized it, and would have thought that heathenism had revived again. The doctrines of the Gospel lay buried under a dense mass of human traditions, penances, and pilgrimages, and indulgences, relic worship and image worship and saint worship, and worship of the Virgin Mary formed the sum and substance of most people's religion. The Church was made an idol. The priests and ministers of the Church usurped the place of Christ, and by what means was all this miserable darkness cleared away, by none so much as by bringing forth once more the Bible. It was not merely the preaching of Luther and his friends, which established Protestantism in Germany. The grand lever which overthrew the Pope's power in that country was Luther's translation of the Bible into the German tongue. It was not merely the writings of Cranmer and the English reformers which cast down papery in England. The seeds of the work thus carried forward were first sewn by Wycliffe's translation of the Bible many years before. It was not merely the choral of Henry VIII, and the Pope of Rome which loosened the Pope's hold on English minds. It was the royal permission to have the Bible translated and set up in churches, so that everyone who liked might read it. Yes, it was the reading and circulation of Scripture which mainly established the cause of Protestantism in England, in Germany, and Switzerland. Without it the people would probably have returned to their former bondage when the first reformers died. But by the reading of the Bible the public mind became gradually leavened with the principles of true religion. Men's eyes became thoroughly open. Their spiritual understandings became thoroughly enlarged. The abominations of papery became distinctly visible. The excellence of the pure gospel became a rooted idea in their hearts. It was then in vain for popes to thunder forth excommunications. It was useless for kings and queens to attempt to stop the course of Protestantism by fire and sword. It was all too late. The people knew too much. They had seen the light. They had heard the joyful sound. They had tasted the truth. The sun had risen on their minds. The scales had fallen from their eyes. The Bible had done its appointed work within them, and that work was not to be overthrown. The people would not return to Egypt. The clock could not be put back again. A mental and moral revolution had been affected, and mainly affected by God's word. Those are the true revolutions which the Bible affects. What are all the revolutions recorded by Vertot? What are all the revolutions which France and England have gone through compared to these? No revolutions are so bloodless. None so satisfactory. None so rich in lasting results as the revolutions accomplished by the Bible. This is the book on which the well-being of nations has always hinged, and with which the best interests of every nation in Christendom at this moment are inseparably bound up. Just in proportion as the Bible is honored or not, light or darkness, morality or immorality, true religion or superstition, liberty or despotism, good laws or bad will be found in a land. Come with me and open the pages of history, and you will read the proofs in time past. Read it in the history of Israel under the kings. How great was the wickedness that then prevailed! But who can wonder? The law of the Lord had been completely lost sight of, and was found in the days of Josiah, thrown aside in a corner of the temple. Second Kings 228. Read it in the history of the Jews in our Lord Jesus Christ's time. How awful the picture of scribes and Pharisees and their religion! But who can wonder? The Scripture was made of none effect by man's traditions. Matthew 156. Read it in the history of the Church of Christ in the Middle Ages. What can be worse than the accounts we have of its ignorance and superstition? But who can wonder? The times might well be dark when men had not the light of the Bible. This is the book to which the civilized world is indebted for many of its best and most praiseworthy institutions. Few probably are aware how many are the good things that men have adopted for the public benefit, of which the origin may be clearly traced up to the Bible. It has left lasting marks wherever it has been received. From the Bible are drawn many of the best laws by which society is kept in order. From the Bible has been obtained the standard of morality about truth, honesty, and the relations of man and wife, which prevails among Christian nations, and which, however feebly respected in many cases, make so great a difference between Christians and even. To the Bible we are indebted for that most merciful provision for the poor man, the Sabbath day. To the influence of the Bible we owe nearly every humane and charitable institution in existence. The sick, the poor, the aged, the orphan, the lunatic, the idiot, the blind, or seldom or never thought of before the Bible leavened the world. You may search in vain for any record of institutions for their aid in the histories of Athens or of Rome. Alas, there are many who sneer at the Bible and say the world would get on well enough without it. Who little think how great are their own obligations to the Bible? Little does the infidel workman think, as he lies sick in some of our great hospitals, that he owes all his present comforts to the very book he affects to despise. Had it not been for the Bible he might have died in misery, uncared for, unnoticed and alone. Verily the world we live in is fearfully unconscious of its debts. The last day alone, I believe, will tell the full amount of benefit conferred upon it by the Bible. This wonderful book is the subject about which I address the reader of this paper this day. Surely it is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. The swords of conquering generals, the ship in which Nelson led the fleets of England to victory, the hydraulic press which raised the tubular bridge at the Menai. Each and all of these are objects of interest as instruments of mighty power. The book I speak of this day is an instrument a thousandfold mightier still. Surely it is no light matter whether you are paying at the attention it deserves. I charge you. I summon you to give me an honest answer this day. What art thou doing with the Bible? Does thou read it? How readest thou? Five. In the fifth place, no book in existence can do so much for every one who reads it rightly as the Bible. The Bible does not profess to teach the wisdom of this world. It was not written to explain geology or astronomy. It will neither instruct you in mathematics nor in natural philosophy. It will not make you a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. But there is another world to be thought of beside that world in which man now lives. There are other ends for which man was created beside making money and working. There are other interests which he is meant to attend to beside those of his body and those interests are the interests of his soul. It is the interests of the immortal soul which the Bible is especially able to promote. If you would know law you may study Blackstone or Sugden. If you would know astronomy or geology you may study Herschel and Lyell. But if you would know how to have your soul saved you must study the written word of God. The Bible is able to make a man wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus 2 Timothy 3 15. It can show you the way which leads to heaven. It can teach you everything you need to know. Point out everything you need to believe and explain everything you need to do. It can show you what you are a sinner. It can show you what God is perfectly holy. It can show you the great giver of pardon, peace and grace. Jesus Christ. I have read of an Englishman who visited Scotland in the days of Blair Rutherford and Dixon. Three famous preachers and heard all three in succession. He said that the first showed him the majesty of God. The second showed him the beauty of Christ. And the third showed him all his heart. Is the glory and beauty of the Bible that it is always teaching these three things more or less from the first chapter of it to the last? The Bible applied to the heart by the Holy Ghost is the grand instrument by which souls are first converted to God. That mighty change is generally begun by some text or doctrine of the word brought home to a man's conscience. In this way the Bible has worked moral miracles by thousands. It has made drunkards become sober. Unchast people become pure. Thieves become honest and violent tempered people become meek. It has wholly altered the course of men's lives. It has caused their old things to pass away and made all their ways new. It has taught worldly people to seek first the kingdom of God. It has taught lovers of pleasure to become lovers of God. It has taught the stream of men's affections to run upwards instead of running downwards. It has made men think of heaven instead of always thinking of earth and live by faith instead of living by sight. All this it has done in every part of the world. All this it is doing still. What are the Romish miracles which weak men believe compared to all this even if they were true? Those are the truly great miracles which are yearly worked by the word. The Bible applied to the heart by the Holy Ghost is the chief means by which men are built up and established in the faith after their conversion. It is able to cleanse them, to sanctify them, to instruct them in righteousness, and to furnish them thoroughly for all good works. The Spirit ordinarily does these things by the written word, sometimes by the word red and sometimes by the word preached, but seldom, if ever without the word. The Bible can show a believer how to walk in this world so as to please God. It can teach him how to glorify Christ in all the relations of life and can make him a good master, servant, subject, husband, father, or son. It can enable him to bear afflictions and privations without murmuring and saying, it is well. It can enable him to look down into the grave and say, I fear no evil. Psalm 23.4. It can enable him to think of judgment and eternity and not feel afraid. It can enable him to bear persecution without flinching and to give up liberty and life rather than deny Christ's truth. Is he drowsy and soul? It can awaken him. Is he mourning? It can comfort him. Is he airing? It can restore him. Is he weak? It can make him strong. Is he in company? It can keep him from evil. Is he alone? It can talk with him. Proverbs 6.22. All this the Bible can do for all believers, for the least as well as the greatest, for the richest as well as the poorest. It has done it for thousands already and is doing it for thousands every day. The man who has the Bible and the Holy Spirit in his heart has everything which is absolutely needful to make him spiritually wise. He needs no priest to break the bread of life for him. He needs no ancient traditions, no writings of the fathers, no voice of the church to guide him into all truth. He has the well of truth open before him. And what can he want more? Yes, though he be shut up alone in a prison or cast on a desert island, though he never see a church or minister or sacrament again, if he has but the Bible, he has got the infallible guide and wants no other. If he has but the will to read that Bible rightly, it will certainly teach him the road that leads to heaven. It is here alone that infallibility resides. It is not in the church. It is not in the councils. It is not in ministers. It is only in the written Word. A. I know well that many say they have found no saving power in the Bible. They tell us they have tried to read it and have learned nothing from it. They can see in it nothing but hard and deep things. They ask us what we mean by talking of its power. I answer that the Bible no doubt contains hard things, or else it would not be the Book of God. It contains things hard to comprehend, but only hard because we have not grasped of mind to comprehend them. It contains things above our reasoning powers, but nothing that might not be explained if the eyes of our understanding were not feeble and dim, but is not an acknowledgement of our own ignorance, the very cornerstone and foundation of all knowledge, must not many things be taken for granted in the beginning of every science before we can proceed one step towards acquaintance with it? Do we not require our children to learn many things, of which they cannot see the meaning at first? And ought we not to expect to find deeper things when we begin studying the Word of God, and yet to believe that if we persevere in reading it, the meaning of many of them will one day be made clear? No doubt we ought so to expect and so to believe we must read with humility, we must take much on trust, we must believe that what we know not now we shall know hereafter, some part in this world, and all in the world to come. But I ask that man who has given up reading the Bible because it contains hard things, whether he did not find many things in it easy and plain. I put it to his conscience whether he did not see great landmarks and principles in it all the way through. I ask him whether the things needful to salvation did not stand out boldly before his eyes, like the lighthouses on English headlands, from the lands in to the mouth of the Thames. What should we think of the captain of a steamer, who brought up at night, in the entrance of the channel, on the plea that he did not know every parish and village and creek along the British coast? Should we not think him a lazy coward, when the lights on the lizard and eddy stone and the steward, and Portland and St. Catharines and Beechey Head and Dungeoness and the forelands were shining forth like so many lamps to guide him up to the river? Should we not say, why did you not steer by the great leading lights? And what ought we to say to the man who gives up reading the Bible because it contains hard things, when his own state and the path to heaven and the way to serve God are all written down clearly and unmistakably as with a sunbeam? Surely we ought to tell that man that his objections are no better than lazy excuses and do not deserve to be heard. I know well that many raise the objection that thousands read the Bible and are not a whit the better for the reading, and they ask us, when this is the case what becomes of the Bible's boasted power? I answer that the reason why so many read the Bible without benefit is plain and simple. They do not read it in the right way. There is generally a right way and a wrong way of doing everything in the world and just as it is with other things so it is with the matter of reading the Bible. The Bible is not so entirely different from all other books as to make it of no importance in what spirit and manner you read it. It does not do good, as a matter of course, by merely running our eyes over the print, any more than the sacraments do good by mere virtue of our receiving them. It does not ordinarily do good unless it is read with humility and earnest prayer. The best steam engine that was ever built is useless if the man does not know how to work it. The best sundial that was ever constructed will not tell its owner the time of day if he is so ignorant as to put it up in the shade. Just as it is with that steam engine and that sundial so it is with the Bible. When men read it without profit the fault is not in the book but in themselves. I tell the man who doubts the power of the Bible because many read it, and are no better for the reading, that the abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it. I tell him boldly that never did a man or woman read that book in a childlike persevering spirit like the Ethiopian eunuch and the Bereans, Acts 828, 1711, and miss the way to heaven. Yes, many a broken sister will be exposed to shame in the day of judgment, but there will not rise up one soul who will be able to say that he went thirsting to the Bible and found in it no living water. He searched for truth in the scriptures and searching did not find it. The words which are spoken of wisdom in the Proverbs are strictly true of the Bible. If thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shout thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Proverbs 2 3 4 5 This wonderful book is the subject about which I address the readers of this paper this day. Surely it is no light matter what you are doing with the Bible. What should you think of the man who in a time of cholera despised the sure receipt for preserving the health of his body? What must be thought of you if you despise the only sure receipt for the everlasting health of your soul? I charge you. I entreat you to give an honest answer to my question. What does thou do with the Bible? Does thou read it? How readest thou? In the sixth place, the Bible is the only rule by which all questions of divine or of duty can be tried. The Lord God knows the weakness and infirmity of our poor fallen understandings. He knows that even after conversion our perceptions of right and wrong are exceedingly indistinct. He knows how artfully Satan can guild error with an appearance of truth and can dress up wrong with plausible arguments till it looks like right. Knowing all this, he has mercifully provided us with an unerring standard of truth and error, right and wrong, and has taken care to make that standard a written book, even the scripture. No one can look around the world and not see the wisdom of such a provision. No one can live long and not find out that he is constantly in need of a counselor and advisor, of a rule of faith and practice on which he can depend. Unless he lives like a beast, without a soul and a conscience, he will find himself constantly assailed by difficult and puzzling questions. He will be often asking himself, what must I believe and what must I do? A. The world is full of difficulties about points of doctrine. The house of error lies close alongside the house of truth. The door of one is so like the door of the other that there is continual risk of mistakes. Does a man read or travel much? He will soon find the most opposite opinions prevailing among those who are called Christians. He will discover that different persons give the most different answers to the important question. What shall I do to be saved? The Roman Catholic and the Protestant, the Neologian and the Tractarian, the Mormonite and the Swedenburgen, each and all will assert that he alone has the truth, and each and all will tell him that safety is only to be found in his party. Each and all say, come with us. All this is puzzling. What shall a man do? Does he settle down quietly in some English or Scottish parish? He will soon find that even in our own land the most conflicting views are held. He will soon discover that there are serious differences among Christians as to the cooperative importance of the various parts and articles of the faith. One man thinks of nothing but church government, another of nothing but sacraments, services and forms, a third of nothing but preaching the gospel. Does he apply to ministers for a solution? He will perhaps find one minister teaching one doctrine and another another. All this is puzzling. What shall a man do? There is only one answer to this question. A man must make the Bible alone his rule. He must receive nothing and believe nothing which is not according to the word. He must try all religious teaching by one simple test. Does it square with the Bible? What saith the scripture? I would to God the eyes of the laity of this country were more open on this subject. I would to God they would learn to weigh sermons, books, opinions and ministers in the scales of the Bible, and to value all according to their conformity to the word. I would to God they would see that it matters little. Who says a thing? Whether he be father or reformer, bishop or archbishop, priest or deacon, archdeacon or dean. The only question is, is the thing said scriptural? If it is, it ought to be received and believed. If it is not, it ought to be refused and cast aside. I fear the consequences of that servile acceptance of everything which the parson says, which is so common among many English laymen. I fear lest they be led, they know not whether like the blinded Syrians and awake some day to find themselves in the power of Rome. 2 Kings 620. Oh, that men in England would only remember for what purpose the Bible was given them. I tell English laymen that it is nonsense to say, as some do, that it is presumptuous to judge a minister's teaching by the word. When one doctrine is proclaimed in one parish and another in another, people must read and judge for themselves. Both doctrines cannot be right, and both ought to be tried by the word. I charge them, above all things, never to suppose that any true minister of the Gospel will dislike his people measuring all he teaches by the Bible. On the contrary, the more they read the Bible and prove all he says by the Bible, the better he will be pleased. A false minister may say, you have no right to use your private judgment. Leave the Bible to us who are ordained. A true minister will say, search the scriptures, and if I do not teach you what is scriptural, do not believe me. A false minister may cry, hear the church, and hear me. A true minister will say, hear the word of God. End of part one.