because more specially adapted to their personal experience, or to their most cherished tendencies and earnest aspirations.* As if the mind of a finite creature could itself afford a sufficient criterion of eternal truth; or as if an adequate view of an extensive landscape could be taken by the traveller, who wandered amongst its enamelled meadows and luxuriant thickets, and refused to ascend the single elevation, which would enable him to survey the whole area at a glance, and to detect the relative position of its prominent points.

The apocryphal saying, current in the early church, "be good money changers," is really pregnant with wisdom, beautifully illustrating the apostolic precept: "prove all things; hold fast that which is good."† Haste and carelessness constantly mislead the masses, prompting them too eagerly to acquiesce in whatever is plausibly and earnestly presented to their acceptance. But unless we have " our senses exercised by reason of use to discern both good and evil," and are duly trained by the diligent and comprehensive study of the whole Scripture, with its distinct lines upon lines, and precepts upon precepts, we shall be very apt to reject the precious coin which was really issued from the mint of God,

* 66 'Generally the student of nature ought to suspect what most arrests and enchains his intellect, and therefore in such cases the greater caution should be used to secure its impartiality." Bacon Nov. Org. "If the soundest mind be magnetised by any predilection, it must act irregularly." Cecil. A half truth conceived with deep religious feeling rapidly passes into error. See Neander Denkw. aus der Gesch des Christ. Lebens P. 38.

1 Thess. v. 21. See Clemens A. Strom. i. 11, 53; 28, 177; Chrysost. v. 5, p. 942 and 943.

with His own image and superscription, simply because it has become worn, and despoiled of its original brightness, by its circulation through a world of impurity, and to prefer some brilliant and artfully devised counterfeit which allures us by its freshness.

“Through wisdom," however, as the Proverb strikingly testifies, "is a house builded; by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches." ""* There are, no doubt, various degrees of Christian attainment in every living church. Many, who have been made wise unto the saving of their souls, are never well established, or endowed with a correct understanding of the articles of their faith in their beauteous harmony; and of those, who are thus established, few follow on perseveringly, in the right use of their five talents, to the full measure of attainable enjoyment. In the church, as in the world, some die as little children; yet more as young men; only one here and there reaches a ripe old age. The apostle believed the Hebrew Christians to be safe; for he knew how patiently they had "endured a great fight of afflictions," and could bear distinct

*Prov. xxiv. 3, 4.

"I question whether there is a thoughtful and studious divine who does not often modify his opinions in the course of his life. Who retains at the age of sixty all the views which he had at thirty? To have them would indicate a little mind. Truth is so profound, and we find in investigating it so much that resembles it, that it is easy to mistake it, as if already in our grasp. We are all, more or less, too hasty in our conclusions." Beausobre Hist. de la Réf. i. 317. "The lapse of a year brings such changes in all our minds, and till our faculties decay, changes surely for the better, unless we wilfully let the ground lie fallow, or plant it with weeds." Dr. Arnold.

witness to their labour of love, in kind and sympathetic ministrations to their brethren in Christ; nevertheless, he was constrained to reprove them, as dull of hearing, and as having need of milk, and not of strong meat, because they were still so unskilful in the word of righteousness. This is a humbling, and yet a comforting fact. For many, whose want of manly understanding* we must now deplore, decidedly surpass us in every particular of practical holiness; and the earnest, devoted child is more precious and more beautiful, even in our eyes, than the colder and more enlightened man. But it is not therefore the less incumbent upon us to strive to combine warmth and wisdom, and thus to "follow on to perfection," or to the stature of men of full agent with all the earnestness of which we are capable, and to stimulate others to do the same. For truth does not lie upon the surface, neither is it revealed to the sluggard; nor can it ever be apprehended by those who rest in hasty generalisation, or in selected fragments of divine revelation. All its treasures are hid in Christ; and it

* 1 Cor. xiv. 20. The Jew Philo has many thoughts and phrases similar to the apostle's. See here vit. Moys. i. 8, &c.

† Heb. vi. 1, with v. 12—14.

+ "We must be ever learning and inquiring. The well instructed alone know their ignorance, and how far they come short of the truth." Philo Quæst. in Gen. 1. 4, § 156; de Plant. § 19. Compare 1 Cor. viii. 2. For dogmatism is the vice of ignorance or of inexperience alone; but "it is most conducive to the attainment of knowledge to inquire, to ask, to seem to know nothing, and to think that we have apprehended nothing accurately." Philo Quis Rer. Div. Her. § 3. But this must not be extended so far as to call in question the clearness and certainty of the leading doctrines of revelation, or the Christian's own personal assurance of salvation; for "he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." 1 John v. 10.

is only as we abide and work in Him, that we can prosper in any of our investigations, or find any knowledge really salutary and precious.

For the most part, indeed, every well instructed Christian has been taught very gradually, having only acquired his maturity of wisdom and knowledge by the habitual exercise of caution,* and by the firmness, with which he has refused to bow to any human teacher, and ever waited, in prayerful dependence upon the Spirit, and in diligent investigation of the whole word of God, for furthert light.

When the Lord Himself sojourned amongst men, He carefully adapted the lessons which He inculcated, to the varying circumstances and capacities of His disciples, leading them on step by step to the clearer knowledge of His character and Person, and of the real object of His Advent. Nor even thus was He fully understood by their pre-occupied minds. The gift of the Holy Ghost was deferred; but He alone could

*It was Sir A. Pawlet's maxim, "stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner;" Bacon made it his own.

† See the farewell exhortations of Robinson of Leyden, one of the original Independents, in Neal's History of the Puritans: V. ii. p. 109. "I am verily persuaded the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy word. Luther and Calvin penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but were they now living would be as willing to receive further light, as that which they first received." Compare Milton's Prose Works V. i. p. 319-329: ed. 1806. "Truth amongst mortal men is always on her progress," &c.

Compare Matt. viii. 25-27 with xiv. 32, 33. Was not this revelation (see xvi. 17,) the object of His prayer, (xiv. 23,) and of His continued absence from the exhausted fishermen?

"bring all things," which the Lord had taught them, or had accomplished in their presence, "to their remembrance," and practically "guide them into all truth." Neither, however, was His work one of violence, or of constraint.* None of the laws of the human mind were suspended; the necessity of thought, of earnest inquiry, and of patient labour, as it were concentrated in the search after hidden treasures, was never superseded; and the apostles themselves were very slow in discovering the full extent of the mystery revealed to them, and of that grand commission which the gifts on the day of Pentecost supernaturally enabled them to execute.

Even the threefold office of the Messiah, as our Prophet, Priest, and King, was only gradually unfolded in the Gospel, although it is obvious, that, in the purpose of the Eternal Father, He had necessarily sustained it at every moment, on behalf of every member of His universal church. But it would appear, that it was more particularly as a Prophet and a Teacher, sent from God, that Jesus of Nazareth first manifested Himself in Israel; and that His Priestly Office was only actually declared, when He rose again from the dead, and with

Common sense (in the conduct of life) has been well said to consist chiefly in that temper of mind, which enables its possessor to view the various circumstances around him with perfect accuracy and coolness, so that each of them may produce its due impression without any exaggeration arising from his peculiar habits. This admirable quality, applied to the consideration and interpretation of the Scriptures, is a sure indication of the presence of that "Spirit of a sound mind," (2 Tim. i. 7) the absence of which we have to deplore in so many popular writers of the present day.