LECTURE VII.

PSALM XII. 6. The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

THE connexion of this passage shews that, by "the words of the Lord" here mentioned, we are to understand his promises of mercy and protection to his faithful servants, when they are exposed to sufferings from the treachery of false-hearted men, and when their hopes of aid from their friends are diminished by the death or oppression of the "godly" and "faithful.” In opposition to the flatteries and deceitful actions of an unprincipled party, the author of this psalm exults in the fidelity of God, and the assurance that the fullest reliance might be placed on every authenticated declaration of the divine will. This is illustrated by the metaphor of metallic purity. Silver and gold occur native, in the proper metallic state; yet, even in that case, they cannot be got free from the stony substances which inclose or penetrate them, without the art of the refiner: but, when the processes of the hammer, the crucible, and the furnace have been duly performed, the precious metal is obtained in a state of high purity, and fit for completely answering every purpose in the arts of life, for which it is adapted.

That which is thus declared concerning the “ exceeding great and precious promises" of divine grace, is equally true of every other part of what God has been pleased to reveal, for the purposes of his wisdom and benevolence to mankind; "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness." The most scrupulous student of the Bible will not accuse me of making an arbitrary application of Scripture, because from this particular instance, upon the principle of evident analogy, I deduce a universal truth. That truth is, that every declaration contained in the writings of the prophets and apostles, which has a respect to the faith, the obedience, the consolation, and the usefulness of believers; and when understood in the sense intended by the Author of inspiration; possesses the purity of the best refined silver, the INFALLIBILITY of unmixed TRUTH. The sentiment, in an enlarged form, is given by the son of the writer of this psalm; "Every word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."* Every serious mind will perceive how solemnly this caution bears upon our proceeding, in the endeavour to elicit the sense of the Scriptures. It not less clearly follows, that one of our first duties is to ascertain, by those means which God has put into our possession, the genuine meaning of the divine oracles, without prepossession in favour of some interpretations, or prejudice against others.

*Prov. xxx. 5, 6.

Our honest question must be, "What saith the Lord ?"

It is not, I trust, in disregard of this caution, that I avail myself of the analogy suggested by our text, as an instructive direction, not of fancy, but arising justly and naturally out of the imagery employed. The use of silver, though it is often found native in metalliferous veins, would be confined within narrow limits, if mankind could employ only the native metal. The quantity obtained, and the capacity of even the best specimens for being applied to the many valuable purposes for which the Providence of God has given us that metal, would be very small, were it not for the skill and laborious diligence of the metallurgic workman. So the treasures of the heavenly word, more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold," require that we should exert our best faculties, in digging out of the mine, (if I may carry on the metaphor,) and in separating the actual SUBSTANCE of divine communication from that which is necessarily human, the forms of language, and the condescending methods of comparison with the affections and actions of men, by which God is pleased to bring spiritual and divine realities within the sphere of our narrow comprehension. The matter is divine, but the vehicle is human. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels." Pursuing this train of thought, we arrive at some important principles for Theology and the study of the Scriptures.

I. Of the nature and attributes of the Infinite Spirit, of his purposes and his acts, which cannot

but have the characters of his own perfection, we have no intuitive knowledge: and we have no possible means of receiving knowledge, though communicated from its own Divine Fountain, except through the medium of RESEMBLANCES to objects of our own thought, or of sensible perception by our own organs. "Behold, God is great; and we know him not!" Of the Divine Nature as Infinite Intellect, PURE MIND, we can form no conception but by reflecting upon, and drawing conclusions from our own consciousness, and the operations of our own minds. In like manner, we gain our knowledge of the Eternity of God, by adding the notion of infinity to our perception of the flow of time. By our touch and our sight, we get the ideas of motion, resistance, and impulse; and, by reflecting on the lesson thus taught, we rise to the notion of effects and causes. We look and feel around, we lay hold of bodies extraneous to ourselves, and we discover certain states and alterations of states following upon certain conditions of tangible and visible things; we then rise to a wider survey of the sensible world around us, and we see a vast number of changes taking place, upon a scale of great magnitude; and at last our feeble minds having acquired the idea of power, we transfer it, with the highest increase of form, to our conception of the Infinite and Eternal Deity; and we call our new idea Omnipotence. In a similar way, we form conceptions of justice and kindness, from the action of parental and infantile

feelings, and from the mental phenomena which we experience inwardly and the actions of our fellowbeings observed outwardly; to these conceptions we also annex the qualities of infinity and eternity, and thus we gain some notion of the MORAL attributes of the Supreme Majesty, his Holiness and his Benignity. But, how faint, how low, are our best conceptions! "Lo, these are parts of his ways: and what whisper-word is heard of him!-The Almighty! We find him not!”*

I humbly think that these positions are selfevident to every reflecting person. Equally manifest it is, that the highest order of created intelligences, though they may be immeasurably superior to man in their faculties of understanding, can know GOD in only the same way; by elevating their minds. through aids of analogy: unless the TRANSCENDENT ONE, in his boundless goodness, have reserved for them some mode of immediate communication; but to conceive which must necessarily be beyond our powers.

From this general statement, some important consequences follow.

1. All the methods of representation, that may be employed to convey notions of the Deity to the mind of man, must, of absolute necessity, be designed to produce only analogical or comparative

* Job xxvi. 14. The word rendered parts signifies the extremities of lines, mere points: but I know not of any good English word which I could venture to substitute. The whisper-word is the barest literal rendering; and it is too beautiful to be lost, as in the common version. Chap. xxxvii. 23, also closely rendered.