man; but what would the combined effect of all appear, when weighed against the force of one single text of Scripture, resting, as it does, on its authority of the word of God? Compared with this, what are the consolations or the advantages which other books supply, but palliatives of an evil which they cannot heal; narcotics, which stupify the sense instead of relieving the pain; delusions, which increase the danger by cloking its advances; miserable expedients, adopted by wretchedness to delay the misery which cannot be averted; while Scripture only discovers the evil in order to apply the eure, and offers a real and positive remedy for every evil of which we are

conscious.

In this way, if the Scriptures form in one sense the sum and substance of a Christian minister's attainments, in another sense they are the point to which every ray of knowledge must be made to converge, in order to produce that light

which it is his office to dispense to others. As officially charged with the exposition of the law of God, he must not only be familiar with its text; he must not only know the various materials of which the volume is composed, and the way in which they harmonize or clash with each other; but he must bring to the study of these separate portions, a mind prepared by exercise, fraught with knowledge, capable of perceiving or of extracting truth, and of exhibiting, with distinctness and with force, the truth which he collects.

Whatever may be the simplicity of the study proposed, it would be idle to suppose that a preparation like this can be accomplished without labour. Whoever considers for a moment, the nature of the materials which are thus brought before him; the infinite sublimity of the subjects of which they treat; the circumstances under which they were delivered, and under which they have been handed down; must

feel that there is not an acquirement within the reach of human intellect, not a talent or a faculty in our nature, which may not be employed, which is not required in this study. The simplicity of the object, therefore, does not imply the facility of its acquisition. So wonderfully constituted, indeed, is that record of divine truth to which our attention is called, that while the humblest intellect may comprehend something, while the slightest measure of conscientious and faithful application is sure of being met by its proportionate degree of light; there is in it a breadth and depth, which the greatest powers and the most unbounded diligence will never be able to fathom. The way-faring men, though fools, shall not err therein; while angels still may be engaged in studying the unsearchable riches of Christ, through the mysteries they behold in his church.

If, then, we are induced to name the Bible, and the Bible only, as the minister's

appropriate learning, it must be understood that it is the Bible, as diligently studied under all the assistances which moral discipline and general literature supply; that it is the Bible, as illustrated by philology, as analysed by meditation and study; as considered in all its several parts, and in its application to the wants and necessities of the heart; and, above all, as read with prayer and with reflection; and as interpreted in the very spirit which it inculcates. To think otherwise, would be to substitute the letter for the spirit, the form for the substance; and he knows little of the office he undertakes, has little considered the greatness of the work, and the extent of its responsibility, who imagines that a hasty, and partial, and imperfect study of the Bible, may supersede the necessity of other acquirements, and qualify him at once for the perilous distinction of be coming a guide to others.

:43

CHAPTER III.

The Study of the Bible considered as the substance of the knowledge required in the Ministry. The peculiar advantages belonging to this scheme.

In proceeding to consider the study of the Bible as the peculiar employment of the Christian minister, it is obvious that we deviate in some respect from the plaus which have been generally proposed. The importance of the minis terial office, an importance which no representation can over state, has induced those authors who have written on the subject, to accumulate every accomplishment and every talent in the list of the