And let it be carefully noted that we will listen to nothing on this subject but the voice of Holy Scripture. Let not reason speak, for we own it not. Let not tradition lift her voice, for we wholly disregard her. Let not expediency thrust itself upon us, for we shall give it no place whatever. We believe in the all-sufficiency of Holy Scripture--that it is sufficient to furnish the man of God thoroughly--to equip him perfectly for all good works (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). The word of God is either sufficient or it is not. We believe it to be amply sufficient for every exigency of God's assembly. It could not be otherwise if God be its author. We must either deny the divinity or admit the sufficiency of the Bible. There is not a single hair's breadth of middle ground. It is impossible that God could have written an imperfect, an insufficient book. This is a very grave principle in connection with our subject. Many of our protestant writers have, in assailing popery, maintained the sufficiency and authority of the Bible; but it does seem very plain to us that they are always at fault when their opponents turn sharp round upon them and demand proof from Scripture for many things sanctioned and adopted by protestant communities. There are many things adopted and practised in the National Establishment and other protestant communities, which have no sanction in the Word; and when the shrewd and intelligent defenders of popery have called attention to these things, and demanded authority for them, the weakness of mere protestantism has been strikingly apparent. If we admit, for a moment, that, in some things, we must have recourse to tradition and expediency, then who will undertake to fix the boundary line? If it be allowable to depart from Scripture at all, how far are we to go? If the authority of tradition be admitted at all, who is to fix its domain? If we leave the narrow and well-defined pathway of divine revelation, and enter upon the wide and bewildering field of human tradition, has not one man as much right as another to make a choice? The gates of hell shall assuredly prevail against every human system--against all those corporations and associations which men have set on foot. And in no case has that triumph been, even already, made more awfully manifest than in that of the church of Rome itself, although it has arrogantly laid claim to this very declaration of our Lord as the bulwark of its strength. Nothing can withstand the power of the gates of hell but the assembly of the living God, for that is built upon "the living Stone." Now the local expression of that assembly may be but "two or three gathered in the name of Jesus," a poor, feeble, despised handful. It is well to be clear and decided as to this.