disgraces and punishments are recorded just as fully as their triumphs
and their joys. In the records of other nations the chief stress is
laid on power and prosperity and comfort and wealth. In these strange
records goodness seems to be the only thing of importance. To do the
right, to please the holy God is of infinitely more value than to be
powerful or rich or successful in Life. "He did that which was right
in the sight of the Lord." "He did that which was evil in the sight of
the Lord," are the epitaphs of their most famous kings.

Therefore the national history of Israel also holds its position by its
appeal to the religious instinct. No author's name, no theory of its
composition affects its position. Whatever its imperfection, it has
impressed itself upon us as the simple story of God's dealing with men.

III.--THE WITNESS OF CHRIST.

I now point you to the chief ground for every Christian man of his
belief in the Divine origin of the Bible. It is this. _That it all
centres in Jesus Christ Himself_. It cannot be dissociated from Him.
It is closely, inseparately bound up with His life.

The Old Testament tells of the preparation for Christ. The New
Testament tells that when that preparation was complete "in the fulness
of time God sent forth His Son." Jesus Christ, as it were, stands
between the Old Testament and the New and lays His hand upon them both.
The Old Testament contains the Scriptures which He told men were of God
and which bare witness of Him. The New Testament is the story of His
words and works, and the teaching of apostles and early disciples sent
forth by Him as teachers with the power of the Holy Ghost. It is this
fact that Christ is its centre which accounts for the striking unity of
this collection of separate documents. The parts belong all to each
other. And surely for us Christians our conviction as to the authority
of the Bible is increased a thousandfold by the attitude of Christ
Himself towards the only Bible that He had, the Old Testament.

It was the Bible of His education. It was the Bible of His ministry.
He took for granted its fundamental doctrines about creation, man,
righteousness, God's providence and purpose. He accepted it as the
preparation for Himself and taught His disciples to find Him in it. He
used it to justify His mission and to illuminate the mystery of the
cross. Above all He fed His own soul with its contents and in the
great crisis of His