ears to be confirmed by experience. There is no denying the fact,
that the Scriptures have been a long time in the world; that they have
been very generally and carefully read; and yet that men do differ
exceedingly as to religious truth, and these differences do not seem to
be tending towards agreement. It seems to me, there fore, desirable
that every student of the Scriptures should know, as well as may be,
what the exact state of the question is; for if the subject of his
studies is really so hopelessly uncertain, it is scarcely possible that
his zeal in studying it should not be abated; nay, could we wisely
encourage him to bestow his pains on a hopeless labour?

Now, in the very outset, there is this consideration which many of us
here are well able to appreciate. We read many books written in dead
languages, most of them more ancient than any part of the New Testament,
some of them older than several of the books of the Old. We know well
enough that these ancient books are not without their difficulties; that
time, and thought, and knowledge are required to master them; but still
we do not doubt that, with the exception of particular-passages here and
there, the true meaning of these books may be discovered with undoubted
certainty. We know, too, that this certainty has increased; that
interpretations, which, were maintained some years ago, have been set
aside by our improved knowledge of the languages and condition of the
ancient world, quite as certainly as old errors in physical science have
been laid to rest by later discoveries. Farther, our improved knowledge
has taught us to distinguish what may be known from what may be probably
concluded, and what is probable from what can merely be guessed at. When
we come to points of this last sort, to passages which cannot be
interpreted or understood, we leave them at once as a blank; but we
enjoy no less, and understand with no less certainty, the greatest
portions of the book which, contain them. And this experience, with
regard to the works of heathen antiquity, makes it a startling
proposition at the very outset, when we are told that with the works of
Christian antiquity the case is otherwise.

We thus approach the statement as to the hopless difficulty of
Scripture, confirmed, as we are told it is, by the actual fact of the
great disagreements among Christians, with a well-grounded mistrust of
its soundness; we feel sure that there is something in it which is