ive a Bible to any
one who can read, he will be able to understand it rightly. Even in this
extravagance, there is indeed something of a truth. If a man were so to
read the Bible, much he would, unquestionably, be able to understand;
enough, I well believe, if honestly and devoutly used, to give him, if
living in a desert island by himself, the knowledge of salvation. But
when we talk of understanding the Bible, so as to be guided by it
amidst the infinite varieties of opinion and practice which beset us on
every side, it is the wildest folly to talk of it as being, in this
sense, its own interpreter. Our comfort is, not that it can be
understood without study, but with it; that the same pains which, enable
us to understand heathen writings, whose meaning is of infinitely less
value to us, will enable us, with God's blessing, to understand the
Scriptures also. Neither do I mean, that mere intellectual study would
make them clear to the careless or the undevout; but, supposing us to
seek honestly to know God's will, and to pray devoutly for his help to
guide us to it, then our study is not vain nor uncertain; the mind of
the Scriptures may be discovered; we may distinguish plainly between
what is clear, and what is not clear; and what is not clear will be
found far less in amount, and infinitely less in importance, than what
is clear. I do not say, that a true understanding of the Scriptures will
settle at once all religious differences;--manifestly, it cannot; for,
although I may understand them well, yet if a man maintains an opinion,
or a practice, upon some other authority than theirs, we cannot agree
together. Nevertheless, we may be allowed to hope and believe, that in
time, if men could be hindered from misinterpreting the Scripture in
behalf of their own opinions, their opinions themselves would find fewer
supporters; for, as Christianity must come, after all, from our blessed
Lord and his apostles, men will shrink from saying that that is no truth
of Christianity which Christ and his apostles have clearly taught, or
that that is a truth of Christianity, however ancient, and by whatever
long line of venerable names supported, which they have as clearly, in
our sole authentic records of them, not taught. It is not, therefore,
without great and reasonable hope, that we may devote ourselves to the
study of the Scriptures; and those habits of study which are cultivated
here, and in other places of the same kind, are th