secondary evidence, though more methodical and perspicuous, to original evidence, even though charged, as it almost always is when genuine, with incompleteness in the details, with apparent inconsistencies, and with a hundred unexplained allusions? The compiler of history is an INTERPRETER of the story: not so the contemporary and original narrator of facts, who seldom or never turns aside from the vivid objects that fill his mind, to provide for the ignorance, or to prevent the cavils of posterity. Unless we be slaves of superstition, we shall then hail with pleasure those very imperfections (imperfections they are not) which mark the canonical books-historical, didactic, and epistolatory, as unquestionably genuine. Thankfully shall we embrace those obscurities which are the seal of Truth. Deprived of its difficulties, every well informed mind would be staggered in admitting the Bible to be what it professes.

And yet from this distinctive glory of the documents of our religion are drawn, by the superstition and the overweening dogmatism of zealots, endless occasions of strife. That abrupt form which belongs to original evidence, is a rock whereon wranglers of every age have split. Some usage-some circumstance or ceremonial, infinitely trivial, but which a compiler of history might probably have supplied or explained, is left open to conjecture in the apostolic record,

Alas the lamentable omission! Why did the inspired writers grudge us the single decisive particle which must have excluded doubt ? So does the zealot repine in secret over the sacred page. But in public he loudly denies any such deficiency of evidence in reference to the disputed point. Among his followers, and in presence of the simple, he becomes hoarse in protesting the demonstrable certainty of his assumptions. Language, he assures us, has no means left for making plainer than it is, what was the apostolic usage in this

matter!

A signal advantage it is that the Scriptures (of the New Testament especially) have traversed the wide and perilous waters of Time, not on one keel only, but a thousand. No ancient text has been so abundantly secured from important corruption as the text of the New Testament: in the present state of critical science, who entertains a doubt of its substantial integrity? But the But the consequence, the inevitable consequence of this multifarious transmission of copies has been the origination of innumerable verbal variations. Here again the superstition which dotes upon jots and tittles, is broken in upon. Heaven has treated us as MEN; and it supposes that we shall prefer what is truly valuable to what is trivial. We receive a most important confirmation of our faith; but are denied the fond and idle satisfaction of

possessing a Text for every particle of which, and for the position of every syllable and letter, Divine authority might be challenged. Are we still disquieted and discontented? It is manifest then that our estimate of what is desirable differs widely from that of the Author of Revelation. He has bestowed upon us the better and the greater advantage; we fretfully demand the less.

Entertainment (and instruction too) might be drawn from an exhibition of certain instances in which, if we had actually possessed fewer means of information than we do, we might have pronounced decisively upon points that are made questionable by the additional evidence.-If one apostle only had spoken, we should have been free to dogmatize stoutly; but two have glanced at the matter; and we are plunged into doubt! Sometimes, as we have seen, the sacred writers say too little; and anon too much! The very copiousness of our means of knowledge deducts in such cases from our certainty; that is to say, it disturbs the presumption of ignorance, and baffles the arrogance of bigotry. Are there those one might almost believe it from their temper, who so love darkness rather than light, that they would willingly surrender the three testimonies, or the five, which bear upon a controversy, so that they might, with unrebuked fervour, assume and assert their factious opinion?

While it is certain that the Scriptures will, like all other rational compositions, convey their principal purport to every ingenuous mind, it is not less certain that these books, in common with other remains of ancient literature, must present thousands and tens of thousands of questionable points, critical, historical, or dogmatic. On this ground industry and erudition find their field; and what labour can be more noble or worthy than that of endeavouring to fix or to elucidate the sense of writings in which (beside their unparalleled merits as human compositions) are imbedded the inexhaustible treasures of heavenly wisdom! How honourably are our modern Christian Rabbis employed in bringing to light, from day to day, some hitherto neglected particle of the "true riches;" and how thankfully should we - the unlearned, receive these products of the diligence of our Teachers! One might properly notice here the beneficent provision made for perpetually supplying new matter of instruction to the Biblical teacher, so that the zest and expectation of the taught need never become languid. Sacred Science, in all its departments, having been diffused miscellaneously through the substance of a volume so large as the Bible-and an ancient volume too, the time will perhaps never come (certainly it has not yet come) in which it might be said that the sense of every portion has been determined.-All would

be well if the simple principle could be remembered-That although the perfection of knowledge in matters of religion is an object of the most worthy ambition to every Christian for himself, something immensely less than the perfection of religious knowledge is all we are entitled to demand from others as the condition of holding with them Christian fellowship.

The vexatious question of Terms of Communion presents one of those instances-and there are many such, in which, while formidable difficulties attach to the THEORY of the affair, none whatever, or none that are serious, are found (unless created) to belong to the PRACTICAL OPERATION. Science often stands embarrassed, where Art moves on at ease. Science is indeed the proper mistress of Art; nevertheless she should have discretion enough to be willing to receive lessons of homely dexterity from her menial. Men of speculation are always splitting upon the reefs in these shallows. Presuming that the Abstract is always purer, and of more avail than the Concrete, they reform-not for the better, but the worse; and, impatient of ideal faults, plunge themselves and others into real and fatal perplexities. How often does the unthinking artisan employ simple expedients which the philosopher could never have taught him; and actually carries his work triumphantly through theoretic impossibilities. And how often,