their wants, fulfil the urgency of their desires; and supply all the direction and joy needful for them on their way to heaven.

The whole objection, in short, is frivolous: it first misunderstands the facts, and then magnifies them; and then argues falsely from them. No; there are no differences of interpretation as to main points of the divine records; and the diversities that do exist on less particulars, are as the dust of the balance, or the moats in the sunbeam, compared with the grand, controlling, divine discoveries of salvation to ruined

man.

But we hasten to apply for an instant the whole subject to ourselves. The real question is, What kind of faith is it that we repose in the Holy Scriptures? OUR INTERPRETATION WILL PARTAKE OF THE NATURE OF THE FAITH FROM WHICH IT SPRINGS.

Every man is an interpreter of Scripture-not in public, perhaps,—but to his own heart, to his children, to his family. And every one interprets according to the moral and religious state of his mind. This divides the readers of the Bible into two grand classes; those who have a true and living faith, the operation of grace and those who have only a dead and speculative assent, the produce of mere unassisted nature.

THE VITAL CHRISTIANITY OF THE HEART CAN ALONE interpret aright, because it reads with faith, it reads with genuine submission of soul, it reads with an honest desire to know the will of God, it reads with some experience of the blessings treated of, it reads with prayer for the Holy Spirit. This kind of Christianity can employ aright the various rules of ordinary language, under the guidance of plain sense. This kind of Christianity can be aided by the suggestions we have offered on the peculiar character of inspiration attached to the Christian records. But A MERELY NOMINAL AND SPECULATIVE Christianity

may

can do nothing as an interpreter of the divine word. It discuss some incidental matters, arrange historical testimonies, settle a genealogy, argue a various reading; but what can it make of the infinitely momentous discoveries of Revelation which faith alone can receive and apply? This Christianity wants not an interpreter, but conversion; not direction, but life; not the common aids of literary remark, but the transcendent helps of the Holy Spirit.

WHAT, THEN, IS YOUR INTERPRETATION OF THE HOLY BOOK? Tell me its nature, and I will tell you what your faith is, and what the state of mind in which that faith resides.

But the case is plain. Multitudes of professed Christians read the Bible with a veil upon their hearts. They see, but perceive not; they read, but understand not; they hear, but they comprehend not. The defect is not in the object, but the faculty; not in the book of God, but in the will of man; not in the smaller errors of interpretation, but in the want of the first elements and materials of religious perception.

Let each one, then, who is conscious that he has never understood his Bible-that it has been as a sealed book--that its mysteries have been a stumblingblock, and its doctrines as foolishness to him-HUMBLE HIMSELF BEFORE THE THRONE OF MERCY, AND IMPLORE THE GRACE OF THE ILLUMINATING SPI

RIT; let him seek that aid which removes impediments and obstacles from the mind; which changes the heart; which abases the soul under a sense of sin, and elevates it with the hope of pardon in Jesus Christ. Then all will be clear. Interpretation will become, as I before observed, rather intuition than reasoning. All the mysteries of salvation will lie open in their practical use to his eager view; the import and force of every part of Scripture will commend itself to his conscience; the inward possession of the blessings treated of will correspond with the description of them,

LECT. XXIV.] OF SCRIPTURE.

UNIVERS

CALIFORNI

as the impression on the softened wax answers to the seal; and diversities of interpretation will shrink into their true insignificance.

This is the grand distinction. Do we interpret the Bible by grace or by nature; by mere reason, or by the aid of the Holy Spirit; by dint of labour and study, or by experience; by the powers of science and the application of intellect, or the voice of conscience and the feelings of the heart? Do we rest satisfied with the shell and surface of Christianity, external and incidental matters, a theoretic scheme of doctrine, and the creed of a national church; or do we penetrate to the life and interior meaning of Christianity, reach its essential discoveries, understand its scheme of salvation, and adhere to it from an inward perception of its unspeakable benefits?

If, on this all important question, any doubt remains, let us solve it by SEEKING MORE EARNESTLY AND DECISIVELY FOR THE AIDS OF GRACE; let us examine our state before God; let us, by prayer, imbibe and drink in the heavenly influences; let us never rest satisfied till we know the truth, and the truth has made us free from the chains and degradation of sin and Satan.

And let the sincere student of Scripture, whose faith and love are bringing into his heart all the treasures of the divine word, grow and advance in that HUMILITY AND TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT, which are the best preservatives against the minor evils of different interpretations of Scripture. The real danger from these evils is not from the passages thus expounded in various manners, but from the self-will, the pertinacity, the dogmatism, the spirit of controversy, which the great spiritual adversary may take occasion to infuse. Humility and love preserve our own rights of judgment entire, but avoid the bitter fruits of obstinacy and division. The vital and fundamental points are held in meekness and charity; the incidental ones in silent

and unobtrusive opinion; whilst that blessed time is waited for, in which the operations of the intellect and the emotions of the heart shall be for ever harmonized in the revelations of a world, where knowledge and love will be united in their highest exercises, never to be disjoined or clouded through eternity.

363

LECTURE XXV.

THE UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION WHICH LIES UPON EVERY HUMAN BEING TO OBEY DIVINE REVELATION.

JOHN iii. 18-21.

He that believeth, is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.

We have done with the evidences of Christianity; we have concluded our argument. We turn now to entreaty, to feeling, to the impression which we desire to leave on every heart; to the universal obligation under which every one of us lies to receive the Christian Revelation with a true and lively faith; such a faith as carries with it all the practical ends for which Christianity was designed, and terminates in Ever

LASTING SALVATION.

Nothing can be a stronger proof of the corruption.