portion of the history of the world. I call to mind the Egyptians also, as a people concerning whom we can glean but little information from existing authors. There still rests upon their land a "darkness which may be felt," precluding us from that knowledge of Egyptian antiquities and events, which would tend, if in our possession, to throw more light upon various enactments in the Mosaic Covenant, and various occurrences in the Jewish History, than any other species of information to which we could be introduced.

4. To the distance and obscurity of the periods and people to which so many portions of the Bible refer, we may add the variety and extent of the subjects it embraces. Were one age or one nation alone concerned in the transactions which the sacred writings detail, it would have been comparatively easy to investigate every connected topic. But, instead of this, we find them relating the occurrences of every age and almost every people, which has formed a conspicuous feature in the fluctuations of political society and religious opinions since the world began. We ought, therefore, to be intimately acquainted with the whole series of Civil and Ecclesiastical

a Exod. x. 21.

T

History to comprehend with clearness the entire range of their contents: a task both too laborious and too difficult for the years and talents of the most powerful mind.

5. But it is not merely as historical documents that the Scriptures are to be contemplated. They profess to be prophetic of the future as well as descriptive of the past. A new source of difficulty is thus presented to our view, and of the most formidable nature. The general object of predictions is not so much to inform the mind with certainty of what is to come, as to excite its attention by partial discovery, and to speak in a language possessing such mingled gleams of light and shades of darkness, as may at once enable us to conjecture when and where we should look for the fulfilment of a predicted event, and give us a sufficient assurance, upon reflection, that the fulfilment was foreseen. Every prophecy is not, indeed, framed with this express and only view. There are various imaginable motives for which fore-knowledge may be communicated to man, and man be authorised to declare what he forsees; but, undoubtedly, one of the most common ends for which predictions are uttered is, that when the things spoken of come to pass, we may remember and believe that they were spoken of. To effect this purpose, a

figurative language, capable of the requisite de→ gree of precision and ambiguity, has been uniformly adopted by the Prophets; either framed by the force of their own natural genius; or arising out of accidental circumstances; or suggested by the immediate inspiration of God. To interpret such a language, whatever be its source, must, of course, always be a matter of considerable nicety, and demand such a happy union of imagination and judgement in the individual employed upon its illustration, as is seldom to be found even among critics of the highest eminence.

6. Another character under which the sacred Volume appears, is that of a scheme for the redemption of our fallen nature, and a repository of religious doctrines and of moral precepts for our acceptance and use. With this object in view, the Scriptures, beginning with the formation and innocency of man, proceed next to his loss of holiness and immortality in the fall; and whilst in justice they pronounce the judgement of death upon his crime, in mercy give a promise of some future mitigation of the woe. In the gradual developement of that promise all the subsequent pages of the Bible are in a greater or less degree employed; and all the works of God's power, and all the words of his will, are

to be considered as essential and component parts in the glorious system of the Redeemer's love,-a system which though it has been constantly progressive, is still incomplete, and will receive its full and final accomplishment only in another and eternal world. Who then shall presume to say that he is able to appreciate the whole of this mighty plan, to pursue it in detail, or to tell how each event, or individual who has played his part in the great drama of life, has been made subservient to the general result? Such knowledge is too excellent for man. A scheme so diversified and enlarged is above the comprehension of any human intellect. The book, therefore, which is principally, if not entirely, conversant about this scheme, must often puzzle the reasoning of a finite being, and leaving many things but slightly noticed or imperfectly explained, give rise to a variety of conjectures and some serious difficulties, which demand the exercise of faith rather than of ingenuity.

But if the system itself be thus difficult to estimate and explain in all its parts, the consequences which flow from it, the precepts and doctrines for which it is both a reason and a foundation, cannot be less liable to abound in "things hard to be understood." It has been found a task too arduous for the Moral Philosopher to

trace, without error, even those duties and opinions which are implied only by the ordinary relation in which men stand towards their Creator and fellow-creatures, as children of one common parent, and partakers of the same feelings and prospects and powers. Much more then must the way in which man is to think and act, now that he has lost the image of his Maker, and changed the relation of a Son into that of a sinner, be pregnant with difficulty and doubt. The complexity of this new and melancholy state of the case, and the various modes in which we are called upon to co-operate with God in the divine object of recalling and reconciling the world unto himself, cannot but be still oftener inexplicable upon the mere principles of human science. We shall often, in contemplating the "great mystery of godliness"," be at a loss to perceive the connection between the means and the end of our redemption, and be incapable, in many instances, of estimating their precise nature and operation. In a word, since the Bible is a work which treats familiarly and freely of a multiplicity of truths belonging to the most intricate branches of Ethical and Metaphysical science, it would be in vain to hope that we should not be baffled by the frequent occurrence of obscurity.

2 1 Tim. iii. 16.