above the latter. It is expedient that they should walk side by side, neither supplanting nor falsifying each other.

This leads us to consider the use of reason in religion. God has addressed us as intelligent, accountable creatures. His varied communications are presented to our understandings no less than to our hearts. The powers with which He has endowed us, are to be exercised in humble dependence upon his aid, and to be gratefully improved. Our reason was given for the express purpose of enabling us to know, and fear, and obey him. What then is its office with regard to religion? What is its province in matters pertaining to God? The subject lies at the foundation of religious faith. The opinions of men as to the essence and character of Christianity vary with their views of the present topic. It is therefore of no small moment, to have accurate ideas of the legitimate boundaries which encircle the sphere and limit the extent of reason.

CHAPTER II.

USE OF REASON IN THE EXPOSITION OF SCRIPTURE.

THE first thing which reason has to do, in relation to the Bible, is to examine the evidences of its divine origin and authority. To inquire whether it be a book which has, in reality, proceeded from God; or whether it be merely of human origin,—seems to be the first office of reason. Here it judges of the evidences by which the divine original of the Bible is proved. There are external and internal evidences which are fit subjects for its consideration, and in whose investigation it finds ample exercise. Unless we be persuaded that the Scriptures have come from God, we shall never securely defend them against the attacks to which they are exposed. We must be firmly convinced of their emanation from heaven, else we shall not be stedfast and immoveable when the Christianity of our position is assailed. We are liable to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, if we be not certainly assured, that the written revelation which comes to us with all the sacredness of its claims, possesses a character consistent with its pretensions. When it is attacked by the weapons of the Infidel, we must meet him with arguments drawn from reason. It is our duty to present such palpable proofs of its holy origin as are adapted to carry conviction to his mind, or, at least, to silence his cavils. While he would persuade us that we are following cunningly-devised fables, we demonstrate, on grounds to which he cannot refuse assent, that he is grievously in error. Thus the shafts of unbelief, aimed at divine revelation, have been nobly repelled. The opponents of Christianity have been driven from the field they wished to occupy. Routed on their own territory, they have retreated from the combat with dismay. The Almighty requires no man to believe without evidence ;-He addresses himself to us as judging, reasoning creatures; and it is our duty to examine his statements, by the means which we possess. This is not the place to set forth the evidences of Christianity. All our readers probably acknowledge its divine origin. Their rea

son has been convinced of its truth;-their intellectual powers have yielded a full assent to its authority;-and its reception is thought to be a most important duty. We presume that all are agreed on this fundamental point. Christians, however, having proceeded thus far together, often separate. All who admit Christianity to be from God, differ widely in their views of its nature. With regard to the outworks of religion, our readers may be perfectly agreed; but when they approach nearer to survey its internal structure, their opinions may partake of diversity.

This brings us to the second use of reason in matters of religion, which is, to discover what laws of interpretation should be applied to the Bible-to ascertain those general principles, which serve to guide its worshippers through the interior of the temple. Every man is not at liberty to put such a meaning on the word of God as he may choose ;-or to impose on a particular passage the construction which his fancy may suggest. All are not permitted to expound the Old and New Testaments according to the peculiar notions they may have previously formed. Revelation is not to be approached in the spirit of irreverence, or selfrighteousness. Certain laws or determinate rules must be adopted by every expositor, to direct him in the province of interpretation; and if he depart from these, he abandons the path of safety. He who casts them aside as useless, resembles the foolish mariner embarking on a boundless ocean without chart or compass. God has wisely condescended to make use of such language as we can understand. He has suited his revelation to our modes of thought and of utterance. Had He employed language which we could not understand, or phraseology opposite to that in which our ideas are wont to be embodied, we could not have appreciated the communication of his will, being unable to apprehend the sentiments He intended to convey. But He has accommodated himself to our conceptions. He has brought down his revelation to our capacities, as far as it could be effected without derogation to His essential dignity, or detriment to the true character of His word. The language he employs is altogether such as we are capable of knowing, because it is adapted to carry home to our minds such ideas as the Deity meant to communicate. The Bible, therefore, is to be explained on the same principles as other books. Words should be taken in their ordinary acceptation, unless the contrary be expressly stated or fairly implied. Men have agreed to employ terms as signs expressive of their inward emo

tions; and therefore the Deity has thought fit to convey his will to them through the same medium. Now, it is obvious, that there are certain rules tacitly acknowledged, and followed by all, in developing the meaning of a book. These, so far from doing violence to reason, are, in reality, its genuine dictates. They are sanctioned by the power of judging in all. They are the legitimate offspring of reason itself. The importance, as well as the necessity of some principles, to guide us in interpreting an author's meaning, cannot be disputed. Of their great utility in ascertaining the sense of Scripture, all classes of Christians must be aware. The evils which have resulted from their non-adoption are immense. The errors into which men departing from them have fallen are almost innumerable, and assuredly, most dangerous. Men of enthusiastic temperament and warm imaginations whilst doing violence to them, have run into all manner of excess in religion; and metaphysical minds, in perverting the same simple guides, have gone into systems of belief imbued with no power to improve the heart, or influence the judgment, or purify the motives. Reason, then, adopts and recommends certain princi ples as worthy of acceptation by all men in their sacred inquiries after truth. It points to them as data, forming an essential part of the expositor's knowledge. The widely differing modes of interpretation pursued, shew that many have not a sufficient acquaintance with them, or rather, that they are neglected by men unpossessed with a right reverence for the language of God. It is strange, that they should be universally followed in the interchange of our ideas with our fellow-men, and that they should be abandoned in our communing with God through his word. It would even be inexplicable, did we not know, that we are averse to the commands of heaven, and often inclined, in the perversity of our nature, to distort them. What, then, are the principles which reason recognises and follows? It is not our purpose, at present, to describe and explain them all. They require more ample detail than our immediate object allows. We shall merely give a specimen of them, shewing, at the same time, their application and bearing, from which it will be easy to perceive, that they are such as approve themselves to reason, being in reality the legitimate result and emanation of its exercise.

The first law we shall mention is, that the Bible does not contradict itself. If it proceed from God, it must be consistent with itself. It matters not through what instruments God has com

municated his will, unless it be proved that they have corrupted or changed it. In the accomplishment of his purposes He may employ whatever agency he pleases. But, whether he make use of the unlettered or the learned, the high or the low; the revelation communicated is all his own, and must therefore harmonise in all its parts. Thus Luke cannot make a different statement from Paul, or Mark from John. They are to be regarded as the mere media of intercourse between the Creator and the creature. We look beyond them to the great Author of their inspiration. Every one will at once admit, that it is a law acknowledged by reason, that the Deity cannot state opposite things in different portions of his revelation. Let us apply the observation to several passages of Scripture.

The New Testament frequently ascribes the title God to Jesus Christ. It also states, that he was man, possessing a human body, and liable to the sinless infirmities of our nature. Humanity and Deity are both attributed to him in the gospel, and both must be true. If we reject one of these statements, we should equally reject the other, and renounce the authority of the Scriptures as repugnant to our feelings. But there are some who will not admit that he is God, although they profess to hold the principle from which it follows as a necessary inference. They endeavour to extract from the Bible the opinion, that Christ is not God. Others again do not believe his manhood in the proper sense of the word; and attempt to wrest the Scriptures so as to favour another dogma. And yet these classes of professing Christians firmly maintain, that the Almighty cannot contradict himself, in different parts of his revealed will. They acknowledge the truth of a great principle; but when we begin to apply it, immediately they are offended. Although God himself has said, in the New Testament, that the Son was both God and man, and, therefore, the propositions cannot be opposed the one to the other, many deny their agreement, and regard them as contradictory. What the Almighty has affirmed to be consistent, they treat as irreconcilable. Mark, then, the perverseness of mind thus exhibited in defiance of heaven. If submission to his will be an attribute of the Christian, we look in vain for that attribute among such as are guilty of this stout-hearted opposition to the palpable averments of Jehovah. They tell us, however, in justification of their sentiments, that it is opposed to their reason to believe, that Christ was both true God and true man at the same

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