daily that you may learn what your dangers are, and what you must do to escape them; what your spiritual enemies are, and by what methods you may gain affiftance capable of overcoming them. Confult it daily, that you may difcern which is the track of fecurity and duty; and may not depart from it to the right hand or to the left. Consult it daily, that you may perceive diftinaly which is the broad way that leadeth to deftruction; that course of wicked pleafures and selfish purfuits, wherein fuch multitudes of worldlyminded people are haftening to eternal ruin : and which is the narrow way that leadeth to life; that courfe of Chriftian piety and Christian practice which it is fo difficult to purfue with perfeverance, yet which you muft purfue, under the Divine bleffing, with perfeverance, if you would be received into heaven.

Suffer me briefly to mention fome of the difpofitions effential to the profitable study of the Scriptures.

In the first place, ftudy them devoutly. Remember that they are the word of God: that they were written under the fuperintendence of his Spirit; and that their great purpose was to introduce and extend over the whole earth the Gofpel and the kingdom of Q4

his Son. Remember alfo that they were written to conduct you to falvation through faith in Chrift Jesus. Read them therefore with reverence and holy fear. And make it your earneft and conftant prayer to Him, from whom alone every good and perfect gift cometh, that his grace may open your understanding, enable you clearly to comprehend the import of the Sacred Writings, and deeply impress it upon your heart.

Secondly; ftudy the Scriptures with humility; with a fincere defire, to receive inftruction from them, and to fubmit your own opinions to the declared Will of your Maker and your Saviour. If we may judge, by the manner in which fome perfons fpeak concerning the Scriptures, of the temper and fpirit with which they read them; we may almost conclude that they read them for the purpose of cavilling, finding fault, and raising difficulties and objections. Be not thus blind and prefumptuous. If you take up your Bible with Chriftian humility, you will not fay concerning any doctrine which you find plainly revealed there; "This is a strange "and unreasonable doctrine, and I cannot re"ceive it." Your language will be: "This "doctrine is clearly contained in the word "of God; and therefore must be true.'

You

You will not fay concerning any rule of practice, "This is a hard and grievous com, "mandment; and I may be excufed from "regarding it very ftrictly." Your language will be; "This commandment is pofitively "enjoined by my Lord and Judge: and I "must obey it, if I would prove my love to him, or escape condemnation at the last “ day.”

Not

Finally, read the Scriptures with a full purpose of heart not merely to learn what they require of you, but faithfully to practice it, through God's bleffed assistance, every day of your life. "Not every one "that faith unto me, Lord, Lord, fhall enter "into the kingdom of heaven: but he that "doeth the will of my Father (e). "the hearers of the Law are juft before God; "but the doers of the Law fhall be juf"tified (f)." If you read the Scriptures carelessly, or merely from cuftom, or rather from a fpirit of curiofity than from anxiety to profit by them and to grow in grace; do not read them as you ought to read the Word of your Maker. You do not read them like a perfon folicitous above all things to obtain through Chrift the kingdom

you

(e) Matt. vii. 21.

(f) Rom. ii. 13.

of

of Heaven; and confcious that it will be beftowed by Chrift on thofe only, who strive according to their power to learn from the Scriptures the way of his commandments, and faithfully to walk in it by his help unto death,

CHAP. VI.

SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

F

I. If the authenticity and inspiration of the Scriptures have been established in the two preceding chapters; then the truth of the Christian religion has also been demonftrated. This propofition is felf-evident. Nay, if there had remained any doubt concerning the infpiration of the writers of the Old and New Teftaments; if it had not pleafed God that the Bible should be able to claim a higher character than that of an authentic narrative written by uninfpired men ; Christianity still would have been proved. If the predictions there recorded were actually delivered; if the facts there related actually took place; in other words, if the Bible had merely spoken truth through the aid of human information and veracity; the certainty of the Christian religion would still have been indisputable. If the miraculous circumstances which, according to antecedent prophecies,