them in the book of the Old Testament; frequently read over the antecedent and following texts in Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, where the cited testimonies are adduced, and most humbly pray to God, and earnestly beseech him, that he would open your understanding to perceive and know, how Christ and his apostles did interpret the Old Testament. Which pains if you shall not grudge to take, (since to a mind desirous of the true knowledge of Christ, it is rather true pleasure and joy, than labour) you will unawares tread in the safest and most certain way of coming to true wisdom. For you will procure Christ himself and his apostles, to be your teachers and instructors, and by them you will, like a child, be brought into discipline; you will be instructed; you will be, as it were, led by the hand to know rightly, how you ought to seek and find Christ, as the sum and substance of all the scriptures, for the quieting and saving of your soul.

When you have, for some time, frequented this school of Christ and of his apostles, and being introduced by these masters into the Old Testament, that is, Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and shall have well learnt, like a diligent and attentive scholar, what places are chiefly alleged by them, for the instruction and conviction of men, concerning the person of the Messiah, his office and benefits, that Jesus is he of whom Moses and the Prophets have written, to wit, the Son of God, and the true Saviour of the world; then you ought to mark those places for fundamentals, or in them to lay a foundation of a sure and saving knowledge of Christ. Which foundation being rightly laid in the school of Christ and his apostles, you will, in a short time, better

apprehend all their discourses. For you will perceive in their very words, and usual ways of speaking, that they everywhere have respect to the Old Testament, and do, as it were, search into its inmost vitals, through the conduct of the spirit of wisdom, so that even one little word (as Luther speaks) shall look through all the Old Testament.

Wherefore it is not only most necessary to lay very carefully the above-mentioned foundation, from the places quoted out of the Old Testament, by Christ and his apostles, but you must accustom yourself to attend to, and consider every word which they have spoken, and examine diligently whence it is taken, and what particular emphasis it hath; nay, you must continually accustom yourself, by the help of the scriptures of the New Testament, to converse with Christ and his apostles, as your best friends, and by meditating on their words and discourses, to enter upon, every day, as it were, a familiar conference with them.

After this manner David bath treated the words of the law, as is to be seen in Psalm cxix. Hence he could say, (Psalm cxix. 148.) Mine eyes prevent the night-watches, that I might meditate on thy word.' How much more does it behove us carefully to ponder the words of the New Covenant, which declare unto us so great salvation? and if God so blessed the meditation of David, can we think he will deny us his grace? Oh, that the things we have spoken of, were performed with a mind humble, docile, and desirous of divine grace, with the blessing of God always earnestly implored! we should then be good proficients; digging thus, we should penetrate deep, lay a firm foundation, and acquire true wisdom.

For he that watcheth for wisdom, (¿ áypvπvýcas,) whom the study of Wisdom hardly suffers to sleep, but takes away his rest, shall quickly be without care.' (Wisdom vi. 6.) But he that is contumacious and refractory, and behaves not himself in this school, with lowliness and humility, but quickly loaths the heavenly manna of the words of Christ, the apostles, and evangelists; that refuses to examine all things with a calm spirit, nor cares to proceed gradually, but presently assumes a haughty spirit, as those learned men, who are wise according to the flesh, are wont to do, such a one will never arrive to any firmness and certainty, nor be made a partaker of Christ, the very substance of the Holy Scriptures, to the delight of his soul.

It behoves you therefore to observe well the counsel that has been given you, if indeed you seriously desire to seek and so to find Christ in the scriptures, that not by unprofitable science, but by the lively efficacy of a full and fruitful knowledge, you may experience him as a true Preserver and Saviour of your soul.

When you have thus rightly learnt to know the key of the Old Testament, and are taught by Christ and his apostles, how you ought to use this key to advantage; then, and not before, you will proceed in proper order, to the reading, meditation, and more accurate consideration of the Old Testament; you take as it were a key with you, as often as you go to the Old Testament; you devoutly compare the Old with the New, the shadow with the substance, the types with the antitype, the prophecies with their completion. Thus you will understand for what reason St. Augustine said, (in his ninth tract on St, John,)

"The Old Testament has no true relish, if Christ be not understood in it." On the contrary, you will be sensible there is much joy, comfort, and delight to be found in the writings of the Old Testament, (especially in reading those places which were before wearisome, and almost irksome to you) when you perceive Christ so sweetly depictured there.

The more you are exercised in meditating on the New, so much the easier and quicker will be your progress in the Old Testament. And as before you were introduced into the sense of the Old Testament, by means of the New, so now Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, will, in their turn, assist you in acquiring so much a more solid and accurate understanding of the New Testament. The perpetual harmony and agreement also between the New and the Old Testament, will cause in you a great fulness of faith, or will certainly very much confirm and increase the faith you have.

R

2. On John I. 18.

'The only begotten Son.' John had before called Christ óyos, the Word, and in the 14th verse, povoyerña the Only Begotten, and he now adds the word vùs, and calls Him the only begotten Son; which word he afterwards frequently uses in his gospel. But as he had before said concerning the Word; 'The Word was with God' so he now subjoins, who is in the bosom of the Father.' These last words were before compared with Proverbs viii. from whence may be understood the great importance of them. Now it is further to be observed what John says here, ¿ ŵv, [who exists] who was from eternity, and is, and shall be. So Christ saith, (John iii. 13,) ́ No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, (¿ “v, truly existing, which is in heaven.' And again, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was (or was born) I am,' (John viii. 58.) He does not say, I was, or ¿yevóμny, I was made, but eiμ, I am; that he might thereby declare not only his existence, or his being before Abraham, but his eternal and immutable essence also. Psalm cii. 27, expresses this by 7,

'Thou art the same:' with which compare Heb. i. 12, and xiii. 8. It may be yet farther noted, that in the Greek it is not said, ἐν τῶ κόλπῳ, but εἴς τον κόλπον, (within the bosom,) comparing the particle e with what he had expressed by the particle pos, with, in the 1st and 2nd verses of John i. This expression may be thus interpreted: the Father and the Son are so closely united together, that this union has not only been from eternity, but will also endure to eter