e varied inhabitants of this globe better than Solomon,
though "he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even unto
the hyssop that springeth out of the wall . . . . and of beasts, and of
fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes[1]." The world is more
learned in these things than of old, probably will learn more still; a
vast prospect is open to it, and an intoxicating one. Like the
children of Cain, before the flood came and destroyed them all, men may
increase and abound in such curious or merely useful knowledge; nay,
there is no limit to the progress of the human mind here; we may build
us a city and a tower, whose top may reach almost to the very heavens.

Such is the knowledge which time has perfected, and in which the old
paths are commonly the least direct and safe. But let us turn to that
knowledge which God has given, and which therefore does not admit of
improvement by lapse of time, this is _religious knowledge_. Here,
whether a man might or might not have found out the truth for himself,
or how far he was able without Divine assistance, waiving this
question, which is nothing to the purpose, as a fact it has been from
the beginning given him by revelation. God taught Adam how to please
Him, and Noah, and Abraham, and Job. He has taught every nation all
over the earth sufficiently for the moral training of every individual.
In all these cases, the world's part of the work has been to pervert
the truth, not to disengage it from obscurity. The new ways are the
crooked ones. The nearer we mount up to the time of Adam, or Noah, or
Abraham, or Job, the purer light of truth we gain; as we recede from it
we meet with superstitions, fanatical excesses, idolatries, and
immoralities. So again in the case of the Jewish Church, since God
expressly gave the Jews a precise law, it is clear man could not
improve upon it, he could but add the "traditions of men." Nothing was
to be looked for from the cultivation of the human mind. "To the law
and to the testimony" was the appeal, and any deviation from it was,
not a sign of increasing illumination, but "because there was no light"
in the authors of innovation. Lastly, in the Christian Church, we
cannot add or take away, as regards the doctrines that are contained in
the inspired volume, as regards the faith once delivered to the saints.
"Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ[2]."

But it may be said that, though