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Neither has the good

no means, been the case. always been retained, nor has the evil, in every case, been got rid of. The piety and learning of those days are, as all will attest, now seldom to be met with; while some of the refinements have not only remained, but have acquired an influence and ascendancy as baleful as they have been general, and have, therefore, produced the most lamentable consequences. I mean the metaphysical systems of Calvin and Arminius, which now divide the Established Church, no less than the Conventicles, of England. It will be idle and useless further to inquire into the origin and progress of this evil; it shall suffice at present to say, that it is difficult to conceive how generation after generation could have persisted in encumbering the Holy Scriptures with matter of this sort, and with which they certainly have not the smallest connection. What necessity there ever could have been for the introduction of any such philosophy, it is quite out of my power to say, unless it was to amuse the tardy moments of indolence, or to flatter ignorance of the lowest grade with the idea, that now at last it had arrived at the source of all knowledgethe mighty secret, and the sovereign alchymy, by which the distant wealth held out in the Bible could be turned into current gold, and be applied to immediate use,-something which would resolve the painful expectations of faith into the delights of present fruition, and enable the saint thus ideally matured and purified, to pronounce the ban of ignorance and of error upon all who had not arrived. at this degree of knowledge and of assurance; —or, on the other hand, which could exterminate Provi

dence from its own creation, reduce the means of grace to appointments unmeaning, unintelligible, and almost unnecessary, for the purpose, apparently, of elevating the ignorance of the creature into something like divine wisdom; and the infirmities with which he is encompassed, into an assumed potency, to which every hour of his existence will directly give the lie.

These, however, are not the only methods by which a want of Scriptural knowledge has been attempted to be supplied, although these have perhaps been the most prevalent. In other instances, claims have been made to the all-powerful and controlling influences of the Spirit; and, that which it was the province of industry to make its own, has been made the exclusive subject of prayer, and the rule whereby men and doctrines were to be tried, recommended, or reprobated. In all cases of this sort, reason and inquiry are necessarily out of place; a fallible, deceitful, and deceived, mind is elevated into the situation of an infallible judge; and the dupe to his own infirmities made to believe, that what he may deem to be erroneous in others, cannot but be scriptural and right in himself. signifies but little to our purpose, under what shape this delusion has appeared, whether installed in the chair of St. Peter, recommended in the garb of the inflated Churchman, or that of the querulous Dissenter. The spirit, the delusion, is one and identically the same. Ignorance is its parent, vanity its attendant, and confusion must be its end.

It

From these considerations, it will appear, that it is one main duty of the teacher of others, first, by a careful and patient use of all the

accessible means of instruction, to inform himself what are, or are not, the declarations of Holy Scripture; and then, but not till then, proceed to lay open to others the whole counsel of God. Interpreters have, indeed, ever been careful not to advance too little, and, generally, have left neither passage nor particle without giving what they have believed to be its just force and meaning. I am of opinion, however, that they have abundantly erred in another respect; I mean in proposing too much : by calling in principles with which they had nothing to do, and hence proposing doctrines and opinions which seem never to have been intended, and which have, in their application, proved exceedingly injurious. They do not seem to have been aware, that instructions intended for general use must necessarily be plain, easy, obvious, and practical; or, that a book coming down from the highest antiquity would probably be of this description; nor, that such would be sufficient for all the purposes of religious teaching. They appear, on the contrary, to have imagined that, as philosophy was in itself good, the word of God, which is also good, must necessarily be greatly recommended by its assistance; and, that what seemed, under some views, to elude the grasp of the most acute, could never be too much divided, subdivided, refined upon and explained, in order the more successfully to enforce the amazing sublimity of its precepts, and the unfathomable mysteries of its doctrines. It has occurred to me, however, (whether right or wrong others must judge,) that this was all either beside or beyond the mark, and that Divine authority, such as the Scriptures really possess, proposing,

as it does, precepts for instruction, with the promises of pardon and of every blessing in its several means of grace for encouragement, is as much more. cogent, intelligible, and efficient, as the authority of God can be supposed to be superior to that of man. The full and mature grapes of our Eshcol, as Bacon has well remarked, require but the gentlest pressure in order to produce the wines which shall be in the greatest variety and of the richest flavour; and the truth is, that whenever more has been wrung out of them, the result has been any thing but that which was to gladden the heart of man, or the fatness of the vintage to cherish and support him.

But, independent of this reasoning, it has long been my conviction, that the character of our Scriptures is thus simple, easy, and efficient. I have been unable to find in them the wire-drawn theories either of some of the Fathers, the Schoolmen, Calvin, or Arminius. My belief is (and I have taken some pains to inform myself of its justness), that they proceed on principles totally different; and are as much easier of interpretation as they are practical and encouraging; and no less worthy of their Divine Author, than they are comprehensive and beneficial with regard to man. These views the reader will find advanced and discussed throughout the Sermons, and the first part of the first Dissertation.*

*The Sermons have undergone some slight alterations since they were delivered.-Dissertations were had recourse to, because notes are seldom read, and have the additional inconvenience of continually breaking the thread of discourse; besides, as I had an ulterior object in view, notes would not have been sufficiently connected for my purpose.

My principal object in these has been to recommend the study of the Scriptures, and to urge the authority, the reasonableness, and the applicability of their precepts and provisions of grace, and carefully to exclude that with which they seem to have nothing to do.

In this part of my work will also be found some remarks on a recent publication by Dr. Whateley, entitled "The Difficulties, &c. of St. Paul." My business, in this case, has been to correct what I conceived to be erroneous views on the nature and permanency of the Moral Law of Moses, and of the obligations of the Christian Sabbath. The views of Dr. Whateley are, that the Moral Law is now no longer binding; and, consequently, that the precept to keep the Sabbath day holy, as contained in the fourth commandment, can exercise no influence upon Christians. My opinion is, that Dr. Whateley has suffered himself to be misled on these questions; my reasons will be seen in the place referred to. I may now say, that notwithstanding the objections I have to make to this part of Dr. Whateley's book, I must be allowed to offer my testimony in general, that this work, like every other proceeding from his pen, is highly worthy of the attention of the theological student. If my views of the obligation of the Christian Sabbath are as just as I have reason to believe they are original (though not new), it will appear that the Christians of the first ages of the Church did not, as some will have it, arrogate to themselves a usage which belonged to none but Jews; but were bound by a law which even now is binding on all.*

* It should be observed, that the citations made by me are taken from the first edition of Dr. Whateley's work. I have examined

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