mate of heavenly things. But no one who has made revelation the object of his serious and frequent study, and found, as he must often have found, its difficulties diminishing at every fresh perusal of its pages, will not be convinced that he is justified in looking for a continued recurrence of similar illustrations.-If much of what he can see of the divine counsels, be justifiable to man; if so far as he possesses a full comprehension of the divine dispensations, those dispensations are not repugnant to righteousness; if when he is puzzled and confounded by the strangeness of what he is required to believe or do, he can yet see cause to suspect that, from the want of historical or other information, the entire state of the case is not clearly before him, or that the subject is one which relates to beings and things far above out of his sight-in all these cases he will feel, if he be rightly disposed, that he has neither a right to look for a perfect knowledge, nor to make the difficulties he encounters a ground for rejecting the Bible as the word of God. For why should the Bible differ from every other creation of omnipotence, and be condemned for obscurities which are allowed in every other department of the universe? It is indeed, "given by inspiration of God," and was expressly "written for our learning" and instruction in righteousness; but I have already shown that neither of

these circumstances demand an absence of those difficulties which exist in other writings, and attach to the natural works of the Almighty. Look, then, to what is the case with those natural works of the Almighty, and examine whether it be not, and ought not to be, the same with his Word. Lift up your eyes to the Heaven that is above us. It is not less the Heaven, nor is it less the work of its Almighty Maker, in a gloomy, than in a glorious day: and if the clouds which float upon its surface in the grey twilight of morning, be occasionally removed during the journey of the Lord of light, so as to leave him at length in the evening to shine forth with the splendors of an unsullied setting, it is as much as we can demand, and far more than we deserve. Sinful and ignorant as we are, we should be grateful both for the presence and the absence of the Sun's beautiful beams; because both their presence and their absence have their uses, though we perceive them not. So is it also with the Heaven of revelation and the Sun of righteousness. If the darkness which overspreads that spiritual firmament be found gradually to fade away with the increasing light of the intellectual and moral world; if by the successive and successful efforts of ingenuity and research, the great Ruler of the Gospel day become gradually unfolded to our view, and made to enlighten our

minds with a brighter glimpse of knowledge, and enliven our hearts with a warmer beam of sanctity, far be it from us unthankfully to weep because of his present dimness, or unwisely to shut our eyes upon his partial gleams. Those gleams, though partial, should rouse our senses to a readier perception of their brightness, because arising out of surrounding obscurity; and that dimness no doubt is for our good.-At any rate, it is according to the word of God. For though that word does indeed contain a promise that, at some time or other, we shall "know even as we are known," yet it also expressly teaches us that this is not the time. It tells us that now we are fated to "know only in part," and that the fulfilment of the promise is reserved for a future day and a future world, when prophecies shall have failed, and languages have ceased, and knowledge have vanished away. Content then let us be with the pleasing certainty that the light we possess, though feeble, is yet an increasing light, which "groweth more and more unto the perfect day." And as for that full and unclouded perception of heavenly things to which the Apostle refers-for that let us wait in a humble and rational reliance upon promise and prophecy; looking patiently for that closing hour of the Gospel day when the whole body of gloominess and thick darkness shall be dis

sipated in the second coming of the Lord. Let us wait for the splendors of that wondrous period, and the holiness of that heavenly Jerusalem, where there shall be no night at all unto the mind, no need of the candle of reason to glimmer faintly over the works of nature, nor yet of the stronger beams of revelation to illumine the dark places of Providence; because then the tabernacle of God shall be visibly present with men, and his glory shall dwell with them by his Son, and the Lord himself shall lighten them, and the Lamb be their light for ever.

LECTURE IX

CLASSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES.

2 PETER iii. 16.

"In which are some things hard to be understood."

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In our present imperfect and transitory state of being, we know but in part, and can, therefore, prophesy and interpret only in part." For a full and satisfactory comprehension of many mystérious subjects in Holy Writ, we are bound in duty and in reason to wait for a future and more

glorious dispensation, "when that which is perfect being come, that which is in part shall be done away. Such was the conclusion established in the last Discourse, and such is the precept and promise of revelation itself. For this let us look in hope, and for this let us labour also with diligence; for never was such a promise intended to encourage us to sit down with the folded arms of indolence, and without a single effort to hasten its fulfilment. The child, so long as he continues a child, will certainly, notwith

1 Cor. xiii. 10.