How do I know that His blood was shed for me? By the Scriptures. Blessed, solid, eternal ground of knowledge! Christ suffered for sins: I have gotten sins. Christ died, "the just for the unjust:" I am unjust. Wherefore the death of Christ appropriates itself to me as fully, as immediately, and as divinely as though I were the only sinner upon earth. It is not a question of my appropriation, realization, or experience. Many souls harass themselves about this. How often has one heard such language as the following: "Oh, I believe that Christ died for sinners, but I cannot _realize_ that my sins are forgiven. I cannot apply, I cannot appropriate, I do not experience the benefit of Christ's death"! All this is self, and not Christ; it is feeling, and not Scripture. If we search from cover to cover of the blessed volume, we shall not find a syllable about being saved by realization, experience, or appropriation. The gospel applies itself to all who are on the ground of being lost. Christ died for sinners. That is just what I am; wherefore He died for me. How do I know this? is it because I feel it? By no means. How then? By the Word of God. "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; He was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4.) Thus it is all "according to the Scriptures." If it were according to our feelings, we should be in a deplorable way, for our feelings are hardly the same for the length of a day, but the Scriptures are ever the same. "Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven."--"Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name."