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his own gracious purpopes in it, are registered fully, unequivocally and finally, in his written word.

All holy Scripture, from the earliest preserved manuscript recognized as in the Synagogue by Jesus Christ, down to the latest letter of an inspired apostle authenticated by the Church-“ all holy Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction and correction in righteousness"within the covers of that sublime volume is "Truth." There, and there only, are the laws of moral movement and progress. It is a revelation of the will of the Eternal for the government and present and final happiness of his creature. As rounded and complete as are the laws of physical motion, so must be, unquestionably, the laws of moral mind. If not, the code must be imperfect; and we could as soon, nay, sooner admit the idea of an imperfection or a slip, an omission or an excess in the solar system or the laws of chemical relation, than suppose an omission in a purposed revelation which is to rule the eternal destiny of almost countless millions of souls.

It follows from this, that "the truth" may be ascertained. It is a revelation, that man may know his Maker's gracious will. Then, certainly to the extent that he intended it to be a revelation, it may be distinctly read and known.

The Father of thought and language has chosen his thought which is to be revealed, and the language by which it is best fitted to enter into and to adapt itself to the mind of man. It would be strange indeed, therefore, if the heavendirected language failed to convey the thought; if the invited inquirer found himself baffled, not by his own ignorance or error, but by the chosen vehicle of the idea. True,

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there may be difficulties, obscurities, things hard to be understood;" and as far as these are so, they are part of the system, part of the object in view, a portion of the means for training and disciplining the mind; as there are deep spots on the sun's bright disk that we cannot fathom while we receive the effulgence of his light. But, if there are really in Scripture obscure passages or thoughts, to the extent to which they really are obscure, they were intended to be obscure; and it cannot be said, therefore, that it is of the nature of a revelation that it is obscure-that it is not a revelation-that it does not convey a distinct idea; but rather that in that wondrous book in which God has been pleased to make his revealed mind plain to his creature, there are also passages which are intended to be difficult and mystic, to show man, so easily puffed up and exalted, what a poor imbecile creature he is, when he brings his boasted wisdom to look upon a thought which God has not been pleased to make plain. This has little, however, to do with the fact, that as far as God has been pleased to make his written word a useful revelation of his will, so far the meaning stands out in the very best way for man's ascertaining it. And if he will he may. We must put away, therefore, all the too popular and common notions of the obscurity and difficulty of Scripture, whether the objection comes from Romanists or indolent Protestants. The idea is a solecism. It is an assumption that God had bidden the sunshine of his will pierce through the mist of his own chosen language to illumine the human understanding, and that it has failed. It cannot be but that a proper measure of diligent application, through the instrumentality of a proper education, guided and

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sanctioned by right moral feelings, must bring out that meaning which God had mercifully enshrined there, as a light and not a darknessrevelation and not a mystery. If this is not so, the whole avowed object of the book is baffled and lost; and that which is the prerogative of man, to make himself understood by langnage, is not the prerogative of God. Observe, it is not argued that man can penetrate into the mysteries which God did not purpose him to know; but that he can perceive and understand that which God did purpose that he should know; and that, by means of the channel through which God has directly appointed that this knowledge should come. God's will, in his written word, is a revealed will intended to be known; and man is invited and enjoined to read and understand it.

There is a collateral idea here of some importance: that the written will of God is not to be supposed to owe anything in the way of addition or improvement or developement of any new notion not within itself, to any unwritten source such as tradition or church authority and announcement. The system of written revelation as it stands is the subject of the most ample, jealous, and elaborate proof; and consequently any other portion of revealed truth, if there were any, must from analogy be looked for, not in the realms of the indefinite and the uncertain, but in the clear light of an amply-sustained proof like the rest. The manifest object of revelation by means of a written document, distinctly ascertained and guarded, is that it may stand out to all ages fixed, definite, and incapable of change, forgery, or adulteration. Once publish such a document largely by many copies and in more than one language, and "litera scripta manet"-the

demonstration of the mind of God abides as sure as the great mountainous outlines of the earth's surface. Add to it anything unwritten, anything yet to be developed from the breast of subsequent men, and the grand outline is blurred and lost amid the mists of accidental or mischievous vacillation and change. The revelation as a whole is gone. The purposed object is lost. On no authority whatever could the idea of traditional addition to revealed written truth be admitted, except on the absolute distinct averment of the book itself. And yet when we look to it, it appears at once that one of the most serious faults with which the great incarnate teacher charged the keepers of the then existing portion of Holy Writ was, that they had "taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and made void the commandments of men by their tradition." It is easy to perceive that if men were hostile, directly or indirectly, to the essence of revealed truth, they would readily have recourse, if possible, to some such diluting and adulterating invention, by which the distinctiveness of the statements of infinite wisdom might be confounded and neutralized. But few honest minds would be prepared to admit that after the direct object of the litera scripta had been clearly ascertained, and the sin of tampering with part of it had been at so important a crisis so solemnly denounced; that then the whole completed canon of written revelation should be plunged at once into cloud and mystery, and all the accurate and infinitely distinct delineations blurred and irretrievably defiled in the quagmires of church authority and priestly traditional developement. It is of the wisdom of the infinitely wise, that if, for the safe guidance of his creature he condescends to

place his will within a written document, he draws a line of demarcation around it, such that it shall stand alone; and all the arguments for the modification of it by an unwritten and traditionary revelation are but mystifications to neutralize its power and to defeat its purpose, which he will laugh to scorn.

But to return. If God's written word is a revelation; if, according to His gracious will, its purport is ascertainable, then it ought to be ascertained. No duty was ever plainer. No privilege ever stood higher than to know through this gracious condescension the mind of the Most High. "Holy Scripture" has been talked of till the idea is become commonplace; but what a woful error! Look at the idea intensely, and it rises with you in intensity, till it is not possible to entertain a thought more awful than this distinct record and detail of the mind of the Almighty. We meet this infinite Being in the blast of his storm, in the flash of his lightning, and in the rocking of his earthquake, and the mighty roll of his ocean: but it is more solemn still to meet him in the revelation of his will. To this mercy invites. To this duty, the highest sense of duty, enjoins. It is the call of the 'still, small voice.” The full import of the message ought to be known in all its breadth and in all its minuteness. Man, according to his ability, should set his strenuous effort to this work. What can be for one instant admitted to be equally momentous? Ask the intensely studying astronomer what he thinks of the knowledge of nature's physical laws? and what are they! They must perish. We speak not now of the plain, unlettered man who, in the reading of a faithful version, lays hold sufficiently of the great features of revealed truth, and presses them to his heart as

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all his salvation and all his desire; but we affirm, in a higher sense still, the Church ought to know, beyond all question and doubt, the full meaning of the inspired records; and so ought the lettered and intelligent individual of that Church. No pains should be spared, and no patient, laboured, and continuous effort accounted too great for such an object. It should be the highest strain of the intellect and the heart. When the admirers of the works of God in nature would know the laws by which visible nature is governed, and trace the wisdom of the Creator in the systematic processes of a perishing creation, they combine, they form their institutes, their associations. They calmly register for centuries apparently unconnected facts, observations, and experiments, and wait and watch till the patiently sought indication brings forth some new generalization; and so they continued till the whole scientific world can say, So far we have ascertained; so far we are agreed; so far the inviting veil which has been thrown over the principles of physics is removed; up to a certain point we know the law of nature, the law of successional agencies by which the Author of Nature has been pleased to bring about visible results." For a long time the language of empiric science was but fanatical pretence; but before philosophical investigation, the mind of God and his mode of working in nature have been unfolded. Up to a certain point philosophers are agreed; on all the main lines of inquiry there is no controversy.

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If there had been any proper measure of desire to read the written mind of God as to his moral government of his creature, would it have remained even till now in the Church a matter of mere casualty whether this awful inspired

speaking from on high has been rightly comprehended or not? Where is the combined institute, the united effort carried on for a series of ages to record and compare, to illustrate and eliminate, as if men believed the momentous fact that God had spoken; and that by a diligent enquiry into this volume of historical, didactic, and prophetic tracts, the very mind of the Eternal respecting the eternal interests of his creatures might be educed? Such a measure, solemnly and deliberately adopted, would have long since settled beyond controversy the grand outlines of truth revealed in all important points; and the universal Church would have acknowledged without controversy the great mystery of godliness. It would not have been left as it is for each new and isolated enquirer to launch his frail bark on this wide ocean of research, almost without a compass and without a guide. It would not have been in this latter day a church-dividing question whether the restoration of a sinner to acceptance with his Maker is by baptism or by a living faith; or whether the safe holding of an individual on this system of grace depends upon the sincerity of his own intention, or on that of the priest.

It is impossible to doubt that, in a revelation from heaven, whether through many channels or one; whether through the instrumentality of one human mind, or whether the book has been the issue of the varying dispensations of a thousand years, there must be, from first to last, one only harmonious meaning breathing throughout the whole. It is impossible to suppose a discrepancy. There may be collateral points running nearly into matters of revelation, on which the book has not spoken, and men have not yet clearly defined its limits, and NOVEMBER-1845.

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having thought and differed, have heedlessly laid the blame, or some of it, on the record. It is a great matter to define well the limits within which the authority of revelation rules; where the Lords peaks definitely; and where he has left men to judge for themselves. But on every point on which he has condescended to speak, there is, and must be, a definite harmonious statement throughout the whole document, which men may and ought to find. Upon all such points the blame of men's differing opinions lies, somehow or other, with themselves. Let God be true and every man a liar." Men are guilty of their isms, and their schismatic views. The different doctrinal notions of men are a libel either on the book or themselves. It is not for any man or sect to say, "We have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and all men who read differently are in error, and consequently in guilt;" but it does behove the universal Church to say-" There is blame somewhere. We cannot charge it on the written word. We cannot impugn the unity and simplicity of truth, or of the divine revelation of truth. The truth, and the chosen vehicle of it, must be infinitely perfect. As long therefore as we differ, some of us, perhaps all in one degree or other, are in sin upon the point of that difference." And it will not do to sit down satisfied with the existence of differing doctrine in the universal Church, as if it was a matter of no moment that a divine message could be supposed to contain or countenance two differing views upon one point. It should be the earnest cry of the whole Church, in the diligent and rightly appointed channel of such enquiry, "What is the truth?" Let universal Christendom approach the divine record in 3 Q

the same humble, patient, selfrepressed spirit, in which the Baconian philosophers sought to raise the veil of nature; and doubtless, for the honour of infinite wisdom and for the happiness of created dependance on it, the mist of doctrinal and practical difference would gradually vanish. TRUTH,

revealed truth, would shine forth with meridian splendour, and out of the subsiding ocean of angry controversy and dispute, there would arise the long-sought, symmetrical, and infinitely lovely form of UNITY!

LATIMER.

(To be continued.)

THOUGHTS ON THE BIBLE SOCIETY.

It is an affecting circumstance that a Society which is so simple and so unexceptionable, as well as allowedly important in its object, as the Bible Society, should seem to require or even admit of an advocacy or defence; but we live to see the strangest things fall out to us in this crooked world, and the failure and desertion, not to say the treachery of friends rather than the avowed and undisguised assault of enemies, seems to be the character of the fiery trial which is to try us in these latter days. I well remember all that this Society had to encounter in its infancy, and I know how it gathered strength by opposition, and grew in public estimation. Men of talent and learning only assailed in order to induce the powerful and unanswerable arguments of its abettors, among whom were ranked the first men of the day in point of station and intellect: the effect of which has been a comparative rest from hostile quarters. It has been seen only to grow stronger from opposition, and hence its destruction has been abandoned as a hopeless effort.

And one would have hoped that in the steady progress of its blessed achievements if foes were silent, friends would be faithful; and that

as railway speculators are only found to forsake the scheme which is doubtful in its advantages, and cling to that which is manifestly prosperous and sure, so the maturity of years and the evident progression of success, added to the sublimity and perfectness of the object, would only confirm and establish attachment, and lead old friends to exult in the honour and privilege of their position, with feelings of interest and self-satisfaction not inferior to those which the individual possesses who has had the good fortune to be an early shareholder in one of our most prosperous railways.

But the fact cannot be concealed, that the Bible Society in the present day is chiefly suffering from the defection of friends. There is, it is to be feared, a growing alienation amongst the Clergy of the Church of England. Bishops who once supported stand aloof. The Clergy, in many directions, look on with suspicion and indifference: while many who do not recal their pecuniary support, are afraid of being otherwise identified with the Society.

May I hope that any suggestions that can here be offered will meet the eye of any so circumstanced, and obtain their thoughtful, and

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