and sustain our minds. When once we have imbibed, by a lively faith in God's testimony, what real Christianity is, what is the scriptural standard of sin and holiness, what is meant by a contrite heart, by pardon and justification and peace in the blood of Christ, by a life of holy love and obedience and communion by the power of the Holy Spirit, by a separation in taste and pursuit from the pomps and vanities of this wicked world. When all this is understood; and when the opposite points of the utter insufficiency of mere knowledge, of a mere adherence to the name of Christian, a mere discharge of outward duties, a mere participation in sacraments, a mere historical faith and dead works are also perceived and appreciated, then we must be governed by the mighty discovery. We must not waste our time, nor fritter down our attention, upon externals and forms, and the tithing of mint and anise and cummin, whilst we insensibly lose sight of the weightier matters of the law and gospel. We must beware of the strong propensity of nature to lower the importance and explain away the injunctions of Revelation in its peculiar characters.

We must, therefore, not apply the language addressed to the first churches, where all, or nearly all, were true converts, to churches where scarcely any are. We must not argue from the purity of Christian bodies when few and scattered, and under persecutions, and separated from the civil authority; to Christian bodies when numerous, and combined in nations, and enjoying external peace, and sustained by Christian governments. The nature of the case must modify the application of our principles. We must keep in mind the broad distinction between spiritual life and spiritual death; between vigorous and primitive Christianity, and feeble and worldly; between the church when persecuted and discharged of mere formalists, and the church when at peace and filled with them; between what constitutes real and vital Christianity, and what is only nominal and external.

5. We must also ever bear in mind, that THE USE AND PLACE AND RELATIVE BEARINGS OF EVERY TRUTH, ARE TO BE DERIVED FROM THE SCRIptures, as weLL AS THE TRUTH

ITSELF.

This remark differs from the preceding ones. Those went rather to guard the interpreter who was in danger on the side of tameness and worldly mindedness-this and one or two following ones, are more designed for those whose perils spring from the common corruption of our nature, but in an opposite direction. The peculiar inspiration of the Bible, not only excludes cold and heartless interpretation, but excessive and rash. The place and consequences and use of each truth, are to be attended to, as well as the truth itself. We are apt to take the truths of Scripture; and, having formed them into a series of propositions, to think ourselves at liberty to use them as we will, expound them as we will, put them together into a compact whole as we will, draw inferences from them as we will. But this is not the Bible. This is not to interpret but to enact the law. This is not to give to God's inspired word its proper province, but to contract its limits according to our own imagination.

Humble faith, indeed, aided by the suggestions which common sense furnishes, will guard against fundamental errors in these respects; but the divisions and controversies and heresies which have taken their rise from a neglect of this obvious rule, make it important to dwell somewhat fully upon it.

Our duty in interpreting an inspired Book, is to consider, not only the statements of it in their broadest features, but in all their ramifications. We take the fall and corruption of man-but this is not enough-we must examine the way in which the doctrine is introduced, the uses to which it is applied, and the accompanying truths which are found to surround it. We take the purposes and decrees of Almighty God-we deduce the doctrine-but this is not enough, unless we conjoin the proportionate space it fills, the connection in which it stands, the churches or individuals to which it is addressed, the practical temper and feeling enforced by it. So as to all the doctrines of Scripture. The place, the bearing, the use, the proportion, are as much matters of Revelation, and are as much to be followed out in their details, as the doctrines themselves; or else

the foundation will be of God, but the superstructure of man; the premises infallible, but the conclusions fallible; the materials of supernatural temper, the building of natural.

The wheels in a complicated and delicate machine, if taken separately and dissevered from their accompanying parts, lose all their value. View them together, working the one in this way, and the other in that; some moving vertically, others horizontally-the cogs on the circle of one playing into the indented surface of another, and all regulated by the skill of the mechanic-and the result is beautiful and surprising.

But if I take a single wheel of a watch, as men take a single doctrine of Revelation. If I assert that the wheel is really a part, a constituent part of the curious machine; as men affirm that the doctrine, Predestination for example, is a real and constituent part of the infinite scheme of redemption-what avails such an insulated affirmation? I ask where are the other wheels, where the combination fixed by the presiding hand of the Maker, where the main spring, where the practical result in the indication of the hour of the day and the regulation of human affairs—as I ask where are the doctrines which surround the one in question; where is the combination of truths fixed by the inspiring Spirit, where are the main principles, where is the practical indication of my feelings and duty? The whole Bible-the whole doctrine as stated in the Bible-the whole bearing and influence of the doctrine-the whole relative position of it as to other doctrines-all the inferences and deductions from it, must be sought for in the same divine records where the principle itself is revealed, in order to entitle our statements to the high commendation of being scriptural and authoritative.

But we pass on to observe,

6. 'That we must not FORCE THE SIMPLE MEANING OF SCRIPTURE, EITHER TO EXPRESS OR EXCLUDE MYSTERIES according to our turn of mind. Man is fond of extremes. But all the parts of Scripture are to be received. They are all of equal authority, though not all of equal importance.

They all proceed from infinite wisdom; and that wisdom fixes their respective importance, as well as makes them a part of the Revelation. In a state of incipient faith, men are apt to pass over all the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, which they do not strongly feel the need of, or do not know how to apply. In a state of warm Christian feeling and advanced familiarity with truth, men are apt in some degree, perhaps, to omit and pass by the doctrines which rest on natural religion, and the primary duties which immediately flow from conscience and the accountableness of man. They consider them as not only subordinate—which they are but useless, which they are not. All Revelation takes for granted the religion of nature, and cannot be understood nor applied without that religion being admitted either explicitly or implicitly. It is generally admitted implicitly, conscience is followed, reason is taken as a minister, the responsible nature of man is acted upon without controversy, and without direct reflection. But it is important to remember, that Scripture is not to be forced either to express or exclude mysteries. All the truths in Scripture are of equal authority. The subordinate are to be received, so as not to exclude the highest; and the highest so as not to omit the subordinate. No one truth is to be so interpreted or so employed, as to contradict any other truth.

It is especially necessary, in the present day, to remember that we are not to search for the highest mysteries of Scripture, where they were never intended to be found, but to be content with the different matters of the divine Revelation as they are simply set before us. Some of the most fatal errors in the church have arisen from a desire to find the loftiest discoveries of Revelation, concerning Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, in the Patriarchal history, and in the plainest parts of the Books of Kings. The mischiefs arising from Origen's fanciful scheme of old; the errors of Cocceius, in modern times; the forcible application of every part and portion of the Psalms to the Messiah and the eagerness to find out what is called a spiritual sense, in opposition to the literal meaning of God's word, have all their origin in a discontent with the proportion in which

the mysteries of Scripture are found in that divine book, and in the wild notion of imposing unheard of, and new and remote and unnatural senses upon the plainest narratives or most devotional parts of the divine Records. The effect is to take away all meaning from the whole Bible, to open the door for every extravagance, and to destroy that fine and beautiful variety which now characterises the inspired book of God.

The Holy Spirit has in every part of Scripture, one grand meaning, and conveys one leading instruction, though others may by fair inference be deduced. This is the real spiritual meaning, that is, the meaning of a book which relates. to spiritual things, and comes down from God to man. But some call the spiritual meaning a new meaning put on Scripture by a lively fancy. Types, prophecies, parables have, of course, a meaning beyond that which they express. But in all these it is the judgment which is the interpreter, according to the established rules of language. Those parts of Scripture which are not of this character, have only one meaning, and that is the literal; and our concern is not to hunt for a new meaning which we call the spiritual, but to deduce useful instruction from the plain sense of the passage. Otherwise we may make the Scriptures mean what we please; we may impose a sense of our own; and there will remain no certainty in Revelation, but we may prove from it error as readily as truth. The Papist, the Arian, the Socinian, the Neologian, applaud the suggestion, and employ it but too successfully to their own purposes. And the piety and good intentions of some who first propose such senses, do not lessen the mischief of the scheme on which they proceed, but render it more plausible and dangerous, i

7. But I observe, lastly, that the peculiar character of Inspiration belonging to the Bible should prevent our attempting TO REDUCE TRUTH TO A TOO MINUTE HUMAN SYSTEM, WHICH PERHAPS GOD HAS NEVER INTENDED WE SHOULD Some plan of truth, in its great outlines, is, indeed, essential-the apostles continually give such schemes. The deduction of consequences is also necessary,

BE ABLE TO DO.

(i) Scott.