with Paul's sense and cheerfulness. "Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is,"-understanding what his merciful will is, in sending us a warning so effectual, and yet so gentle;-so well fitted to make us turn to God in the spirit which God most loves. It is a warning, not to be slack in our worldly business, as if life were certainly just about to close; not to leave off our usual and wholesome amusements, as if it were of no use to strengthen our bodies, and to brace our minds;-but it is a warning to us to leave off our sins,-it is a warning to us, that we lose no time in becoming at peace with God through Jesus Christ,-it is a warning to us to keep our lamps burning, or to go quick to get a fresh supply of oil, for, should the cry be heard of the Bridegroom's coming, he will be present almost as soon as we hear of it. It is a warning for you, and for me, that we should make life what it ought to be,-that we should be able to thank God before all men, with a sincere faith and trust in him,-that we should be his zealous and happy servants, whether he choose that we should serve him here, or before his throne in heaven.

ON THE RIGHT

INTERPRETATION AND UNDERSTANDING

OF

THE SCRIPTURES.

No question can be of greater importance to every man, than that which regards the right use of the Scriptures. The volume of the Old and New Testaments is received by Christians as their rule of life they look to it as the source of all their religious knowledge, and all their hopes and fears beyond the grave; and as to the supreme guide of their principles and practice in this world. But that which holds good of God's natural gifts, holds good, also, of the revelation which he has been pleased to make to us of himself and of his will. It is not available to our use, without some efforts on our part; its benefits may remain hidden, nay, we may pervert it into absolute poison, unless we

RIGHT INTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 375

apply ourselves to it with a sound understanding, and a sincere and teachable heart.

As with God's other gifts also, so it is with the Scriptures, that the difficulties in applying them rightly become greater in proportion to our power of mastering them. This is a part of our trial, whose severity increases as we are able to bear it. A very ignorant man, therefore, and one who has no time to cultivate his understanding, is saved from perceiving the difficulty, which, if he did perceive it, he would be incapable of solving. Such a man, with the blessing of good elementary teaching, if he proceeds to read the Scriptures with a devout spirit and an honest purpose, finds in them all that is required for his own personal wants in belief and in conduct. There is much in them which he does not understand,-many benefits which he cannot extract from them,-many beautiful proofs of their divine original which he cannot discover or appreciate. But then he finds in them no perplexities, he does not see the apparent incongruities out of which their perfect harmony is composed; if there is much which he cannot interpret at all, there is little which he misinterprets. This state, however, is one which an educated man cannot remain in. With greater powers and opportunities of discovering truth, he gains, unavoidably, a greater sensitiveness to apparent error or inconsistency,—a greater impatience of obscu

rity and confusion. It is vain for such a man to envy the peace of ignorance; God calls him to the painful pursuit of knowledge, and he must not disobey the call. Nor may he, as some do, strive to do violence to his understanding, and to the very nature of things, by trying to combine knowledge with an undisturbed tranquillity of belief, to enjoy the pleasures of a clear and active mind, without being subject to its pains. He may not say, “Here I will have the comfort of a reasonable belief, and here of a blind one." It must be all reasonable, or all blind; otherwise it will soon vanish altogether, and be succeeded by unbelief. Besides, he has not only himself to think of, but others. It is a fatal stumbling-block to many when they see a professed advocate of Christianity shrinking from inquiry, and manifestly replying to their doubts, and silencing his own, by considerations wholly inconclusive as to the point at issue.

But I wish to consider particularly the case of the great majority of young men of the educated classes of society;-of all those, in short, who do not choose the ministry of the Church for their profession. Consider these men in the present age of intellectual activity; how much they will read, how much they will inquire, with what painful accuracy they will labour after truth in their several studies or pursuits. A mind thus disciplined, and acquiring, as it generally does in the

process, an almost over-suspiciousness of every thing which it has not sifted to the bottom, turns from its professional or habitual studies to that of the Bible. I say nothing at present of the existence of any moral obstacles to belief; let us merely consider the intellectual difficulties of the case. From his own early education, from the practice of the Church, from the common language of Christians, a young man of this description is led to regard the volume of the Old and New Testaments as containing God's revelation of himself to mankind;-he is taught that all its parts are of equal authority: but in what sense the revelation of the Old and New Testament is one, and all its parts of equal authority, he has probably never clearly apprehended nor thought of inquiring. He takes it then as one, in the simplest sense, and begins to read the Bible as if it were, like the Koran, all composed at one time, and addressed to persons similarly situated. His habits of mind render it impossible for him to read without inquiry: obscurities, apparent contradictions, and still more, what he would feel to be immoralities, cannot pass without notice. He turns to commentators of reputation, anxious to read their solution of all the difficulties which bewilder him. He finds them too often greatly insufficient in knowledge, and perhaps still more so in judgment; often misapprehending the whole difficulty of a question, often