The Spirit and Life of Holy Scripture

The following is from George Whitefield's sermon Walking with God.

And, First, Believers keep up and maintain their walk with God by reading of his holy word. ‘Search the scriptures', says our blessed Lord, ‘for these are they that testify of me'. And the royal Psalmist tells us ‘that God's word was a light unto his feet, and a lantern unto his paths'; and he makes it one property of a good man, ‘that his delight is in the law of the Lord, and that he exercises himself therein day and night'. ‘Give thyself to reading', (says Paul to Timothy); ‘And this book of the law, (says God to Joshua) shall not go out of thy mouth'. For whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our learning. And the word of God is profitable for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, and every way sufficient to make every true child of God thoroughly furnished unto every good work. If we once get above our Bibles, and cease making the written word of God our sole rule both as to faith and practice, we shall soon lie open to all manner of delusion, and be in great danger of making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. Our blessed Lord, though he had the Spirit of God without measure, yet always was governed by, and fought the devil with, ‘It is written'. This the apostle calls the ‘sword of the Spirit'. We may say of it, as David said of Goliath's sword, ‘None like this'. The scriptures are called the lively oracles of God: not only because they are generally made use of to beget in us a new life, but also to keep up and increase it in the soul. The apostle Peter, in his second epistle, prefers it even to seeing Christ transfigured upon the mount. For after he had said, chap. 1:18. ‘This voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount'; he adds, ‘We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts': that is, till we shake off these bodies, and see Jesus face to face. Till then we must see and converse with him through the glass of his word. We must make his testimonies our counselors, and daily, with Mary, sit at Jesus' feet, by faith hearing his word. We shall then by happy experience find, that they are spirit and life, meat indeed and drink indeed, to our souls. [source]