From this clear sentence you perceive that God does not refer the Jews for the settlement of their controversies to the letter of the law, but to the living authority of the ecclesiastical tribunal which He had expressly established for that purpose. Hence, the Priests were required to be intimately acquainted with the Sacred Scripture, because they were the depositaries of God’s law, and were its expounders to the people. “The lips of the Priest shall keep knowledge, and they (the people) shall seek the law at his mouth, because he is the angel (or messenger) of the Lord of hosts.”(136) And, in fact, very few of the children of Israel, except the Priests, were in possession of the Divine Books. The holy manuscript was rare and precious. And what provision did God make that all the people might have an opportunity of hearing the Scriptures? Did He command the sacred volume to be multiplied? No; but He ordered the _Priests_ and the _Levites_ to be distributed through the different tribes, that they might always be at hand to instruct the people in the knowledge of the law. The Jews were even forbidden to read certain portions of the Scripture till they had reached the age of thirty years. Does our Savior reverse this state of things when He comes on earth? Does He tell the Jews to be their own guides in the study of the Scriptures? By no means; but He commands them to obey their constituted teachers, no matter how disedifying might be their private lives. “Then said Jesus to the multitudes and to His disciples: The Scribes and Pharisees sit upon the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do.”(137) It is true our Lord said on one occasion “Search the Scriptures, for you _think_ in them to have life everlasting, and the same are they that give testimony to Me.”(138) This passage is triumphantly quoted as an argument in favor of private interpretation. But it proves nothing of the kind. Many learned commentators, ancient and modern, express the verb in the indicative mood: “Ye search the Scriptures.” At all events, our Savior speaks here only of the Old Testament because the New Testament was not yet written. He addresses not the multitude, but the Pharisees, who were the teachers of the law, and reproaches them for not admitting His Divinity. “You have,” He says, “the Scriptures in your hands; why then do you not recognize Me as the Messiah, since they give testimony that I am the Son of God?” He refers them to the Scriptures for a proof of His Divinity, not as to a source from which they were to derive all knowledge in regard to the truths of revelation. Besides, He did not rest the proof of His Divinity upon the _sole_ testimony of Scripture. For He showed it First—By the testimony of John the Baptist (v. 33), who had said, “Behold the Lamb of God; behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world.” See also John i. 34. Second—By the miracles which He wrought (v. 36).