o which they introduced us,--can we conceive it possible, that
the real meaning of all these shall be hopelessly obscure and uncertain;
that if we seek it ever so diligently, we shall not find it? With an
humble mind ready to learn, with a heart fully impressed with the sense
of God's presence, so as to be morally and spiritually in a condition to
receive God's truth, can we believe, then, that the use of those
intellectual means, which open to us certainly the sense of human
writers, shall be applied in vain to those writers who were commissioned
to be the very heralds of a divine message, whose especial business it
was to make known what they had themselves heard? Surely if a sufficient
certainty of interpretation be attainable in common literature, the
revelation of God cannot be the solitary exception.

But we may be mistaken: we may _believe_ that we interpret truly, but
we cannot be _infallibly sure_ of it; we want an authority which shall
give us this assurance. This is no doubt the natural craving of our
weakness; but it is no wiser a craving than if we were to long for the
heaven to be opened, and for a daily sight of our Lord standing at the
right hand of God. To live by faith is our appointed condition, and
faith excludes an infallible assurance. We must earnestly believe that
we have the truth, and die for our belief, if necessary, but we cannot
_know_ it. No device which the human mind can practise, can exclude the
possibility of doubt. If we would find an armour which should cover us
at every point from this subtle enemy, it would be an armour that would
close up the pores of the skin, and stop our breath; our fancied
security would kill us. Is it really possible that, with our knowledge
of man's nature, our belief in any human authority can really be more
free from doubt than our belief in the conclusions of our own reason?
There must ever be the liability to uncertainty; we can put no moral
truth so surely as that our minds shall always feel it to be absolutely
certain. Where is the infallible authority that can assure us even of
the existence of God? And will the scepticism that can believe its own
conclusions in nothing else rest satisfied with one conclusion
only--that the writers of the first four centuries cannot err? Surely to
regard this as the most certain proposition that can be submitted to the
human mind, is no better than insanity.

But we will consent to trust, it may be said, with God's hel