which must be known and allowed, before we can understand what the Scriptures contain. The case of the Jews demonstrates by a notorious fact, that the matter of the Bible may be grossly misapprehended and falsely interpreted. They were zealously affected, after their manner, to Moses and the prophets they were familiarly acquainted with their writings, and understood the original language in which they were delivered. But still, they had eyes without seeing, and ears without hearing. The Bible was open before them; but their attention or their affection (one of the two it must have been) did not penetrate beyond the surface. And as our Saviour preached to them in the same way as Moses and the prophets had written, (of which we shall see more hereafter,) they were as much at a loss for the meaning of His discourses, as for the true sense of the law and the prophets. The same defect may be in us at this day,

and certainly is in many, although we have the Scripture in our mother tongue; a blessing which was denied to us so long as we were under the authority of the Church of Rome. If a man hears the Bible all his life with a Jewish mind, he will know no more of it at last than the Jews do. The son of Adam will be left as ignorant as the son of Abraham, unless his heart and understanding are opened to admit the principles of the Christian revelation. It is vain to argue about the superstructure, so long as the foundation is disputed, either through ignorance or disaffection.

This obscurity then in the word of God doth not arise from the language or the grammar; for so far the Bible, like other books, is the subject of critical industry and much useful labour hath been employed by learned and pious men in clearing the letter of the Scripture from the ambiguities to which all language is subject. The difficulties

of the faithful, and the condemnation of the wicked. It opens to us an invisible world of spirits, some of whom are in alliance with God, and others in rebellion against Him; assuring us withal, that every man will have his final portion with the one party or the other. None of these things are known to us by nature; and it is not pretended that they are; for if man draws a scheme of religion for himself, not one of all these articles finds a place in it. Therefore as the nature of man doth not know any of these things till God reveals them, it must of course be under two very great difficulties; first, of understanding or comprehending; and secondly, of admitting or receiving them. From the difficulty we are under of comprehending such things as are above natural reason, the manner of the Scripture is as extraordinary as its matter and it must be so from the necessity of the case. Of all the objects of

sense we have ideas, and our minds and memories are stored with them. But of invisible things we have no ideas till they are pointed out to us by revelation : and as we cannot know them immediately, such as they are in themselves, after the manner in which we know sensible objects, they must be communicated to us by the mediation of such things as we already comprehend. For this reason, the Scripture is found to have a language of its own, which doth not consist of words, but of signs or figures taken from visible things. It could not otherwise treat of God Who is a Spirit, and of the spirit of man, and of a spiritual world; which no

words can describe. Words are the arbitrary signs of natural things; but the language of revelation goes a step farther, and uses some things as the signs of other things; in consequence of which, the world which we now see becomes a sort of commentary on the mind of

God, and explains the world in which we believe.

It being then the professed design of the Scripture to teach us such things as we neither see nor know of ourselves, its style and manner must be such as are no where else to be found. It must abound with figurative expressions: it cannot proceed without them and if we descend to an actual examination of particulars, we find it assisting and leading our faculties forward; by an application of all visible objects to a figurative use; from the glorious orb which shines in the firmament, to a grain of seed which is buried in the earth. In this sort of language did our blessed Saviour instruct His hearers; always referring them to such objects as were familiar to their senses, that they might see the propriety and feel the force of His doctrine. This method He observed, not in compliance with any customary figures of speech pe

culiar to the eastern people, but consulting the exigence of human nature, which is every where the same. He spake a sort of language which was to be carried out into all lands; and which we of the western world are obliged to follow in our preaching of the gospel, because we cannot otherwise preach it so as to be understood by our hearers. Here I find it necessary to confirm what I have advanced by some examples.

As we have but imperfect notions of the relations and differences between life and death, our Saviour, when He was about to raise a maid to life, said to those who were present, "the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." He did not say, she is dead, and I will raise her to life; but she is asleep; whence it was to be inferred that she would awake. They who were not skilled in the divine language of signs and figures, laughed Him to scorn as if He had spoken

our

Upon another like occasion our Saviour expressed Himself in the same manner to His disciples; " friend Lazarus sleepeth';" and when they did not understand the force of His words, He said plainly, "Lazarus is dead"." When He spake of the deadness of the mind, a state which, however real, must always be invisible, because the mind itself is so; He expressed it under the same term with the death of the body; "let the dead bury their dead" of which ex

stead of words. Admit this principle, and then all is clear and consistent. It is as if Christ had said, "let those who are dead in their spirits (with respect to the new life of the gospel) employ themselves in burying those who are dead in body; for they are fit for nothing else but by following Me and preaching the gospel, thou shalt raise men from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness."

In the writings of the prophets, the spiritual blessings of the gospel are so constantly described under some allusion to nature, that their expressions are not true till they are figuratively interpreted. Let us take an example from the prophet Isaiahi: “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." Who ever heard that this was liter

f John xi. 11.

h Matt. viii. 22.

g John xi. 14.

i Chap. xl. 4.