Scripture; but it is a reason against going beyond Scripture with metaphysical speculations of our own. One out of the many evils resulting from this, is, that they thus lay open Christianity to infidel objections, such as it would otherwise have been safe from. It is too late, when objections are alleged from the difficulties involved in some theory, to reply, that the whole subject is mysterious and above reason, and cannot be satisfactorily explained to our imperfect faculties. The objector may answer, " Then you should have left it in the original mysterious indistinctness of the Scriptures. Your own explanations of the doctrines of your Scriptures you must not be suffered to make use of as far as they are admitted, and then, when they are opposed, to shelter them from attack, as sacred mysteries. If you enter on the field of philosophical argument, you cannot be allowed afterwards to shrink back from fair discussion on philosophical principles."

It is wiser and safer, as well as more pious and humble, and more agreeable to Christian truth, to confess, that, of the mysteries which have been so boldly discussed by many who

acknowledge them to be unfathomable, we know nothing beyond the faint and indistinct revelations of Scripture: and that if it had been possible, and proper, and designed, that we should know more of such matters, more would have been there revealed.

And we should rather point out to objectors that what is revealed, is practical, and not speculative; that what the Scriptures are concerned with is, not the philosophy of the Human Mind in itself, nor yet the philosophy of the Divine Nature in itself, but (that which is properly Religion) the relation and connexion of the two Beings;-what God is to us,-what He has done and will do for us,-and what we are to be and to do, in regard to Him.*

"All religious inquiry, strictly speaking, is directed to the nature of God as connected with man, or again to the nature and condition of man as connected with God. Metaphysical discussions on the divine nature, similar to those in which an attempt is made to analyze or arrange the principles of the human mind, are sometimes indeed confounded with religious views, but are really compatible with the most complete denial of all religion. Religious obligation arises not from the absolute nature of God, but from its relation to us. Accordingly Epicurus and his followers were content to admit the existence of a Divine Being, as a philosophical truth, provided

The difference between Religious knowledge, properly so called, and what may be more properly styled theological Philosophy, may be thus illustrated. Different theories, we know, have prevailed at different times, to account for the motions of the planets,-the moon, and other heavenly bodies,-the tides, and various other subjects pertaining to natural philosophy. Several of these theories, which supplanted one another, have now become obsolete; and modern discoveries have established, on good grounds, explanations of most of these points. But the great mass of mankind cannot be expected to understand these explanations. There are, however, many points of daily practical use, which they can understand, and which it is needful for them to be informed upon. Accordingly, there are printed tables, shewing the times of the sun's rising and setting at each period of the year, the appearances of the

it was granted that He had no connexion with the world. Now much of the speculation of the philosophers was directed to this object, that is, to the absolute nature of God. It was indeed the chief, because it seemed the more scientific inquiry, and the other was only incidental."-Hinds's History, vol. i. pp. 31, 32.

moon, the times of eclipses, the variations of the tides in different places, and the like. And all these are sufficiently intelligible, without any study of astronomy, even to such plain unlearned men as the shepherds who visited Jesus at Bethlehem. The practical knowledge thus conveyed involves no astronomical theory, but may be equally reconciled with the Ptolemaic or the Copernican systems of the universe. It is not the less possible, nor the less useful, for any one to know the times when the sun gives light to this earth, even though he should not know whether it is the sun that moves, or the earth.

Now it is just such practical knowledge as this that the Scriptures give us of the Christian dispensation. They afford practical directions, but no theory. But there is this important difference between the two cases. The human faculties could, and at length did (though it is beyond the great mass of mankind) discover the true theory of the appearances and motions of the heavenly bodies. In matters pertaining to divine revelation, on the contrary, though there must actually be a true theory (since there must

be reasons, and those known to God Himself, even if hidden from every creature, why He proceeded in this way rather than in that) this theory never can be known to us; because the whole subject is so far above the human powers, that we must have remained, but for Revelation, in the darkest ignorance concerning it. Many curious and valuable truths has the world discovered by philosophy (or, as our translators express it, "wisdom"); but," the world" (says Paul)" by wisdom knew not God:" of which assertion the writings of the ancient heathen philosophers, now extant, afford sufficient proofs.

2. And, I would further remark, that if it had been possible, and allowable, for us to follow up, by metaphysical researches, the view opened to us by Revelation, and thus to enlarge our knowledge of God's dealings with man, Paul (as well as the other Apostles) would not have censured, but favoured such researches, and would have set us the example of so speculating. And if he had done this, even in those discourses of his which are not recorded in writing, we may be sure (as I have said), that