t to the
greatest. Let them preach this, and with unbroken confidence repeat
the exultant words of Holy Writ, the words which shall warrant all
their speech, that "our Saviour Jesus Christ hath abolished death,
and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel";
and it will be this Gospel echoing forth with all the music of its
joyful tidings that shall answer infallibly and beyond all dispute
the question of the hour--"_What is Christianity?_"

The Bible

THE WORD OF GOD

"When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received
it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God."
(1 Thessalonians 2:13.)

THE Apostle here testifies that he believes himself to be the bearer
of a revelation direct from God; that the words he speaks and the
words he writes are not the words of man, but the Word of God, warm
with his breath, filled with his thoughts, and stamped with his
will.

In this same epistle he writes:

"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord." (1 Thessalonians
4:15.)

The preposition "by" is the dative of investiture as well as means,
and is Paul's declaration that what he is writing to the
Thessalonians are not his ideas, clothed in his own language, but
ideas and thoughts whose investiture, whose very clothing, is no
less than the word of the ascended Lord--he who is none other than
the "Word of God."

Writing to the Corinthians he says:

"Which things we speak, _not in the words_ which man's wisdom
teacheth, _but_ (and grammar requires us to understand) _in the
words_ which the Holy Ghost teacheth." (1 Corinthians 2:13.)

According to Paul's testimony, therefore, the fourteen epistles
which he wrote to the churches are not letters written by a mortal
man, giving expression to the ideas and thoughts of man, but are the
very words of the infinite God, giving utterance by the Holy Ghost
to the thoughts of God.

An examination of the other epistles of the New Testament will show
the same high and unqualified pretension. The apostles write (all of
them) not as men who are giving an opinion of their own, but as men
who know themselves under the domination of the Spirit, and as
giving authoritative expression to the mind and will of God.

Nor is this peculiar to the writers of the New Testament.

Constantly, the writers of the Old Testament introduce their message
with the tremendous sentence: "Thus saith the Lord." Again and again
they de