in the image of God, and as all are redeemed by Christ, in whom God hath reconciled the whole world unto himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses.

The commandments of God are not of temporary obligation, are not for one age alone, but for the guidance of the whole human race. And responsibility for the knowledge of God and of themselves, revealed to men in the Scriptures, is incumbent, not only on the wise, the learned, and the educated, but upon the lowly and the simple: nay, even more on these last; for "Not many wise, not many mighty, are called ;" and "God hath chosen the foolish things of this world, to confound the wisdom of the wise;" making it an especial character of the Gospel, that it is preached to the poor.

Know, then, that God hath given the revelation of Himself in his word; and be assured, that for understanding it nothing more is necessary than the belief that it is the word of God, addressed to the heart of man by his Maker, who knows all its inmost workings. He who formed the heart, and has given the word to mould the heart of man to his will, is not acting at random, is not trying a doubtful experiment; but has adapted the means most exactly to the end; has given his word in a form intelligible by every honest and believing heart, to guide it in the way of salvation. And be assured that his word shall not return unto him void; it shall accomplish its purpose, and prosper in the thing whereunto he hath sent it: it shall be a savour of life unto life in them that receive it, while in them that reject the word of life it becomes a savour of death unto death.

The whole Scripture must be regarded as one revelation; and with equal reverence, as all given in the wisdom of God for one end, and preserved for that end by his constant superintending Providence. He who undervalues any portion of Scripture, loses the instruction God designed to give him; and so not only stints his growth in grace, but greatly perils his soul. Let him fear, moreover, lest he should be guilty of blasphemy against the wisdom and power of God, by acting as if he thought that God may have given forth his word in vain, or created the soul of man with powers incapable of comprehending and obeying the commands of its Creator. He who believes in God, and has faith in his word, shall find that all of it is adapted by Infinite Wisdom to the cravings of his soul, and shall have perfect assurance that as he exerciseth faith on the word his comprehension shall enlarge, till the whole body, growing up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, every jot and tittle of the word shall have its corresponding reality in the church, and we shall all know even as we are known.

It

The word of God pervades all time, and abideth for ever. bears in it the eternity of its Author; being all of it, in strictness

of speech, not past, nor future, but always present. The first word of God to man was, " Have dominion" (Gen. i. 26): the Psalmist extols the excellent name of the Lord, who hath made man to have dominion over all things (Ps. viii.); and this word shall not fail, but have its exact accomplishment in the world to come (1 Cor. xv. 27; Heb. ii. 8). But the word stands good the whole intermediate time: it never has been void, where there has been faith to lay hold on it: Adam found it when every living thing came before him to be named; Noah found it when they came to take refuge in the ark; and our Lord displayed it to the astonishment of his followers, who cried out, "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!" And this dominion our Lord left as the inheritance of his church, saying, in his parting prayer, "The glory which thou (O Father) hast given me, 1 have given them" (John xvii. 22); and in his parting words, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth: Go ye therefore ".. and," lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. xxviii. 18): " Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke x. 11).

The distinction which is sometimes made between the doctrinal and the prophetic parts of Scripture may be useful as a nomenclature, but is pernicious if carried farther than this. It is pernicious, and very dangerous, to suppose that any one part of Scripture is of less importance than another, or to make Ourselves the judges of what is most important in God's word; and still worse to assert that any portion of it is not applicable to ourselves. Against these errors we are continually cautioned in Scripture; and taught in every form of expression, that this one truth might be fully conveyed, of God having formed the soul of man as a casket for the reception and safe keeping of the most precious treasure, his holy word. And the soul answers the end of its creation when every one of its chambers is replenished with its heavenly furniture, and the word, like seed in a good soil, bringeth forth fruit unto life eternal. No Scripture is of private interpretation; it all belongs to the whole human race. Exclude not yourself from, rob not others of, any portion of the doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness; but let every man of God be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. iii. 16): for prophecy came not at any time (marg.) by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet. i. 21).

There cannot be any real or essential distinction between doctrine and prophecy; for every prophecy includes a doctrine, and every doctrine is a prophecy of a grace or a glory to come. All the doctrines of the Gospel, and all the acts of Christ, were once

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the subject of prophecy; and all the greater glories of the Gospel, which every believer expects, are only prophecy as yet. Heaven and hell we believe on the prophetic word of God; our own growth in grace and stability in the faith we expect from the same sure word; and on it alone we calculate for the morrow's dawn, for the heavens and earth which now are, by the same word are kept in store (2 Pet. iii. 7). Every future object of faith is of necessity the subject of prophecy, and no more: faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen: and when the word becomes realized in possession, faith ceases, being swallowed up in fruition.

The impropriety of distinguishing between doctrine and prophecy shews itself very clearly in considering the person and offices of Christ; in all parts of which the endeavour to separate between doctrine and prophecy is impracticable, and in some respects would appear perfectly absurd. The declaration, for instance, in the Gospels, that Christ shall judge all men at the last day, is professedly believed by all, and asserted as an indubitable and fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, while we state it only in these general terms; but when we attempt to explain the process or time of the judgment, this is forbidden, and reprehended as prophecy. We never have ventured to indulge imagination in explaining these things, but have sought for them in Scripture; either in the parables of our Lord, in which the process is given; or in the Epistles of Paul, Peter, and Jude, in which the signs of the times are given; or in Daniel and the Revelations, in which the times are given: and for doing this we have been proscribed by a large portion of the professing church, and reviled as "pestilent fellows" by many; and we grieve not at such treatment, but at its coming from some whom we had thought to rank among the excellent of the earth.

A false impression too has been produced, that none but the learned and the studious can understand or value prophecy; as if God had given the greatest part of his revelation in such terms as to be useless to the greater proportion of mankind. The Scriptures themselves are very simple, easily understood by all simple-minded men; the prophecies as easily as the other portions, when they are taken literally; but the prophetic portions contain so many denunciations against rebellious nations, wicked rulers, and false teachers, that the Sadducees, Herodians, and scribes of all ages, have used all their endeavours to blunt and turn aside the arrows of the Lord, which fall so thick upon them from the quiver of prophecy. These arts of concealment and evasion were practised to the utmost in the Papacy; and at one time succeeded to their hearts' content, wherever the authority of popes and cardinals found respect. They restricted the perusal of the Scriptures to the learned alone, and in their own

version only, and allowed no explanation or comment but such as had been approved by the Church of Rome. Even the learned might not peruse the original Scriptures without a special licence, nor give an interpretation to any passage in any respect differing from the interpretations previously allowed. When concealment failed they had recourse to evasion: the mystical Babylon was denied, and all its burdens of woe shifted to the Babylon of old, or to Pagan Rome and sometimes the sevenhilled city was interpreted Constantinople, or even Jerusalem; and the false prophet, Mohammed, or Martin Luther. Several of these, as Lindanus and Ofhusius, called by Feu Ardent docti et acerrimi judicii, turn Luther's name into the number of the Beast, 666, and make him the Antichrist.

Strange as it may seem, we know that the same arts of concealment and evasion are now practising in all the Protestant churches; in some, by the high hand of authority and avowed coercion; in others, by the less observed but as effectual coercion of universal proscription to any member of the body who dares openly express an original and independent opinion. The cases. of Bulteel, Armstrong, and Boys, are notorious instances in the Church of England; and the cases of Campbell, Maclean, Scott, and Dow, in the Church of Scotland: many more of such cases have come to our knowledge, both in these churches and among the Dissenters, which we only forbear to mention. lest it should tend to increase the sufferings of individuals without curing the evil.

Those who sanctioned the concealment and evasions of the Papacy were not all designing knaves; some of them were sincere in purpose, and continued to practise concealment which they found already universally established, and had imbibed with their earliest education. And very many of the Protestants are unconsciously sanctioning similar practices, who would indignantly repel such a charge: but it is certain, and will be granted by all, that the great majority of Protestant divines learn their theology not from the Scriptures direct, but from commentators; and we declare, knowingly and deliberately, that the commentators to which the Papists most lean are better guides than those to which the Protestants generally lean: that Jerome, De Lyra, and Paul of Bruges, are better guides than Grotius, Hammond, and the Westminster divines; and that even Erasmus and Bellarmine teach more prophetic truth than Scott, D'Oyly and Mant, or Adam Clarke.

One example from each must suffice. Grotius on Mic. v. 2, thus comments: "At tu Bethlehem Ephrata.. Ex te mihi egredietur. Id est nascitur.. Natus ex Bethlehemo Zorobabel recte dicitur, quod ex Davidis familia esset quæ orta Bethlehemo! Et egressus ejus ab initio, a diebus æternitatis. Origo ipsi

(Zorobabeli) ab olim, a temporibus longis : id est, originem trahit a domo illustri antiquitus, et per quingentos annos regnatrice"! -What an eternity!

Hammond on the First Resurrection and Millennium says, it denotes the Christian church "having and sitting on thrones, which literally signifies the quiet possession of judicatures and censures in the church, as most remarkably they began to do in Constantine's time."...." Here it" (the first resurrection)" is figuratively used to express the flourishing condition of the Christian church for that thousand years wherein the Christian professors, in opposition to idolatrous Heathens and Gnostic Christians, live safely and happily in the enjoying the assemblies; which is," saith he, "as if the primitive martyrs were fetched out of their graves to live again here in tranquillity upon earth! "What a Millennium!

The narrow and exclusive theology of the Westminster divines may be unexceptionably exposed by referring to the "Briefe Summe of Christian Doctrine," which accompanies the Westminster Confession. From this, one instance will shew the constraint they put upon the free grace of the Gospel, to force it into their own narrow scheme. The Apostle says (2 Cor. v. 19), God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. "The elect world, or the world of redeemed souls," say these divines. "Christ Jesus....and the Father in him, hath been about making friendship betwixt himself and the elect world."-Who then is not elected?

Of Scott, D'Oyly and Mant, and Adam Clarke, we should not think it necessary to speak, if they were left in their proper places with the other commentators; but these have been preposterously extolled as the idols of three several parties; and societies enlisted into the service. of promoting their wider circulation. Scott has been printed and stereotyped to an amazing extent, both in England and America; and sermons are annually preached for translating his Commentary into French. D'Oyly and Mant is printed by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge; and Adam Clarke is the oracle of the Wesleyans.

For Scott we have a great respect, as an honest, fearless follower of truth, as far as he knew it; but he, if living now, would feel as strongly as we do the short-comings of his own Commentary, and protest more strongly than any against the sin and folly of making his imperfect attainments a barrier to further inquiry. His commentary was written under every disadvantage, and he never ceased to deplore his own rashness in undertaking it, and to lament and do his utmost to correct its many defects. Peace to his memory! we will not throw a stone at him; but will tell the idolaters of his commentary that the faults which he lamented they have converted into merits, and