method, where all the portions of Scripture are grouped together after some system, or according to some theory, has been more prevalent. Nothing is more alien from the genius of Aristotle than the genius of the Scriptures; but the logic of Aristotle is the weapon of which all verbal disputants naturally avail themselves. The Stagirite was pressed into the service of Christianity, and Scriptural truth was divided and subdivided, till even the most insignificant tenets assumed as many heads as the Hydra. Christianity can scarcely be recognised in the form in which it is presented by the schoolmen, with all its original lineaments obscured, and nothing presented to the student, but a number of idle and vexatious questions.

Though at the Reformation much of this rubbish was cast aside, still the reformers were not sufficiently aware of the utter worthlessness of the whole process. Christianity again began to be studied in systems and bodies of divinity, instead of being taken freshly from the Scriptures; and its truths, instead of being eminently practical, and bearing immediately upon the conscience, became airy, speculative dogmas, barren in good works, but fruitful in disputations. The Bible clearly and invincibly shows that Christ is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God; but it shows this to us, not with a view of explaining to us in what manner the Godhead exists, but in what manner our salvation is carried

on; it unveils to us not the mutual relation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which it is neither profitable nor possible for us to know,but our relations to God, as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. But how different is the trinity of the schoolmen, who talk with as much ease and familiarity of the Three Persons of the Godhead, as of the three sides of a triangle, and how different even is the trinity of many Protestant systematic divines, who darken wisdom by words without knowledge, and neglect the wise caution contained in the advice given in Ecclesiastes, "God is in heaven and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few."

The departure from the Scriptural words of soberness and truth, in the various disputes of the reformed amongst each other, is very conspicuous; and in no instance more so than in the controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians, and in the discussions relative to the five points, whether predestination was absolute, redemption universal, depravity total, grace irresistible, and perseverance certain and final. A reader, who had formed his judgment from the Scriptures alone, and held fast both the expressions and form of sound doctrine, would be able to go all lengths with neither party. It is indeed evident that the Arminians were labouring under a fundamental error, and that their doctrines contained a root of departure from the faith; still the exaggerated and unscriptural state

ments of many of their opponents, though not equally dangerous, are highly censurable, and had a large share in driving the Arminians into the opposite extreme. It will be a happy time for Christianity, when those who teach others, shall themselves cease from man, and call no one master upon earth, but receive instruction pure and unadulterated from the lively oracles of God.

V. The Scriptural system, instead of a collection of speculative notions, brings truth immediately home to the heart. It does not present truth abstractedly and absolutely, but relatively to man's present condition. It finds and addresses each man as a sinner, and it makes the hopelessness of his present condition the ground upon which all the provisions for his safety and happiness proceed.

It is necessary, for the conviction of gainsayers, to draw out occasionally the proofs of Christ's Deity, to show that neither the language, nor the connection and order of the sacred writings, will in any wise permit these proofs to be explained away; and this is sufficient to carry deep conviction to every unbiassed understanding. But how much deeper is the conviction from the Scriptures themselves, when, simply and inartificially, they represent infinite love descending from heaven to save a lost race. manifest in the flesh, and shining to the eye of faith through the veil that obscured his glory, and revealing the Father, not by arguments, but by the

God

divine energy of his works, and the divine holiness of his words, till each who is taught by the Spirit, exclaims with unshaken confidence, "My Lord and my God." There is a reality and a vital power in the divine method of the Scriptures themselves, which more powerfully affects the mind than the exactness of human systems can do ; and though it be necessary to select and combine passages of Scripture for peculiar objects, the more closely we can keep to the Scriptures, in their original connection, and living unity, the better.

VI. The use of reason, in religion and philosophy, is the same. As, without facts, we can gain no knowledge of nature, so, without inspired truths, which are God's statement of facts, either future or invisible, we can make no discoveries in religion. The use of reason, therefore, is to enable us to become intelligent listeners to the divine voice, and to open out to us the scope and purport of the inspired oracles. When we understand whatever has been affirmed by the prophets and the apostles, we have reached the ultimate limits of religious knowledge. This, and not the addition of our own speculations, is the end of all rational inquiry with respect to revelation. Had we any doubts respecting the feebleness of the human faculties, and their utter inability to discover divine truth, when not enlightened from on high, we need only look to the greatest minds that have ever existed,

groping about in the darkness of antiquity, and falling from one depth of absurdity into another. Our great duty is not to bend the discoveries of revelation, so as to meet our own opinions—but to cast away all our prejudices, and, approaching divine truth with unoccupied minds, to make the thoughts of the inspired writers our own. We must place ourselves in the point of view from which the Bible contemplates surrounding objects, that we may see all things in the clear light of revelation. We must feel as well as think with the inspired writers, and, entering into their sentiments and reasonings, be carried along with the main stream of their argument, till we arrive at all their conclusions, and find their thoughts possessing our minds, and their very words rising to our lips. Thus we shall be cast into the mould of divine revelation, and take the stamp of its godlike and immortal image; and as, at the revival of letters, it was the ambition of the Ciceronians to write upon all occasions like Cicero, clothing whatever they had to advance with his turn of thought aud mode of expression, so in taking the Bible to be our guide to sacred truth, we may enter with equal clearness into the divine thoughts, and make it the standard of our judgment and feeling, even in things remotely connected with the revelation; bearing its tone of sentiment upon our hearts, like a strain of