LECT. works of nature, and to look into the ways I. ~~of nature, are very different things; the latter of which is the result of much labour and obfervation. If the œconomy of nature is not to be learned from a tranfient inspection of the heavens and the earth; and if the ground will not yield its ftrength but to those who diligently turn it up and cultivate it; who can imagine that the wisdom of God's word can be discovered at fight by every common reader? Nature must be compared with itself; and the scripture must be compared with itself, by those who would underftand either the one or the other. Every science hath its own elements; it hath a fort of alphabet peculiar to itfelf; which must be learned in the first place, before any judgment can be formed, or any pleasure received when that science is treated of: for none but fools are enamoured with what they do not underftand; and few things can be understood How can I without being first learned. understand, faid the Ethiopian Eunuch, unless I. unless fome man should guide me? When he LECT. looked into the prophet Ifaiah, he had a book before him, in which it frequently happens that the thing fpoken of is not the thing intended; and he knew not how to diftinguish: of whom speaketh the prophet this? faid he; of himself, or of fome other man? Therefore he wanted one to guide him. But the cafe is fo particular, that something more than the guidance of man is neceffary: and the royal prophet was fenfible of it, when he faid, Open thou mine eyes, that I may see the ondrous things of thy law. Even in men of honeft minds, well affected to the truth, there was found a flowness of heart, which our bleffed Saviour found it neceffary to remove by his own immediate grace, before his difcourfe could be understood: then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the fcripture. Thefe, and many other like paffages, shew, that there is a certain obscurity in the language of the bible, which renders. it difficult to be understood: that there is fome B 2 1. LECT. fomething which common eyes cannot difcern: and it may be collected from what happens to us in every other kind of learning, that there are elements or principles which must be known and allowed, before we can understand what the fcriptures contain. The cafe of the Jews demonftrates by a notorious fact, that the matter of the bible may be grofsly misapprehended and falfely interpreted. They were zealously affected, after their manner, to Mofes and the prophets: they were familiarly acquainted with their writings, and understood the original language in which they were delivered. But ftill, they had eyes without feeing, and ears without hearing. The bible was open before them; but their attention or their affection (one of the two it must have been) did not penetrate beyond the surface. And as our Saviour preached to them in the fame way as Mofes and the prophets had written, (of which we fhall fee more hereafter) they were as much at a loss for the meaning of his discourses, as for the true fenfe of the law and the prophets. The I. The fame defect may be in us at this day, LECT. and certainly is in many, although we have the scripture in our mother tongue; a bleffing which was denied to us so long as we were under the authority of the Church of Rome. If a man hears the bible all his life with a Jewish mind, he will know no more of it at laft than the Jews do. The fọn of Adam will be left as ignorant as the son of Abraham, unless his heart and understanding are opened to admit the principles of the Christian Revelation. It is vain to argue about the fuperftructure, fo long as the foundation is difputed, either through ignorance or difaffection. This obfcurity then in the word of God doth not arise from the language or the grammar; for fo far the bible, like other books, is the fubject of critical industry: and much useful labour hath been employed by learned and pious men in clearing the letter of the fcripture from the ambiguities to which all language is fub ject. The difficulties under which the B 3 LECT. Jew laboured were not grammatical diffi I. culties and whatever these may be in the original, they are removed for all common readers by the translation of the bible into their mother tongue. The great difficulties of the fcripture arife totally from other causes and principles; namely, from the matter of which it treats, and the various forms under which that matter is delivered. Let us confider firft, how the cafe ftands with refpect to the matter of the fcripture; and then fecondly, with respect to the form or manner in which that matter is represented. The bible treats of a difpenfation of God, which began before this world, and will not be finished till the world is at an end, and the eternal kingdom of God is established. It informs us of the inftitution of religion in paradise, with the original dependence of man upon his maker: of a primitive state of man under a former covenant, which is now forfeited: of his temp |