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OUR

Heavenly Father's Book.

I.-The Origin of the Sacred Scripture. THIS Book in all our homes, so various in size, often occupying a conspicuous place, held sacred by some, and in high respect by all, sometimes handed down from a former generation as a large, family Bible, and seen on the desks of all our churches,-whence came it, and why is it

here?

The story is a long one, but profoundly interesting and profitable. On inquiry, the discovery will be made that this venerated Volume is fully worthy of all the respect and reverence it has ever received.

"Bible," from the Greek biblos, a book; coming to us, however, through the Latin and Norman French from the plural form, ta biblia, the books, which as early as the fifth century began to be applied in the Greek churches of the East to the whole collection of writings regarded as belonging to the sacred canon. In all our modern languages it has become a singular noun,

THE BOOK, emphatically; the one Book containing in itself all the particular books of the sacred canon, the Book of books, the King of books, in excellence above all others.

Who is the author of this great Book, this foremost Volume of the world? Some say it has many authors; as many as the names attached to the several divisions, from Moses to John the Apostle, through a period of fifteen hundred years. How, then, did it become one? Whence this singular and wonderful unity, out of such wide-spread and far-reaching diversity, unparalleled in the history of human literature? On turning its pages we shall discover the reason. It is because one and the same Being speaks through it all. Apart from and above all these human scribes employed in different ages to write out its successive portions, it has one supreme, Divine Author who inspired the theme and superintended the work from beginning to end. It is the circulation of the infinite wisdom of His love through each one of the parts or members that combines the whole into one compact and living organism. Hence the name given it, "THE WORD of the LORD," for it is the Divine Truth written in the language of

men.

II.-The Eternal Word.

LET us first of all consult the teachings. of the Book itself with respect to its origin, its purposes, and character. Turning to the first chapter of John's Gospel, we read that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

When we know that the Word is Divine Truth, we can see how it existed from eternity, and how and why it was with God and was God. Before it was revealed and written for men, it remained only as Divine thought, reserved as ineffable light and wisdom, stored in the secret chambers of the Eternal Mind. Hence it was an essential part of the Divine Being, as a man's intellect, with all it contains, is an integral, living portion of the man himself. How simple, too, the idea, and how clearly true, that when God came to act in the creation of the world all things should be made by His wisdom, and should have its unerring principles embodied in all their forms and laws.

And so, also, how simple and true it is that when He came to utter that truth for the light and guidance of men, providing to have it written in suitable forms for their understandings, the Book should contain within its depths hidden stores of wisdom impossible for men to exhaust.

III.-The Word Revealed.

THE Psalmist tells us that "Jehovah gave the Word, and great was the company of them that published it." A work having this origin, the product of the infinite intellect, cannot but be endowed with unspeakable meaning, holiness and power. And therefore in our endeavors to form a just estimate of this sacred Volume we must always carefully "consider that Jehovah the Lord who is the God of heaven and earth, spoke the Word through Moses and the prophets; and that therefore it cannot but be Divine truth, for that is what Jehovah the Lord himself speaks. Nor does [the objector] consider that the Lord the Saviour who is the same as Jehovah, spoke the Word written in the Evangelists, much of it by his own mouth, and the rest by the breath of his mouth, which is the Holy Spirit, through his twelve disciples. For this reason, as He himself says, in his words there are spirit and life, and He

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