restrict the meaning of the Scriptures to their literal sense alone. Admitted, that all Points of Faith are to be established by the literal sense: But that the objection against a further sense would fall to the ground, could it be shewn, that the Scriptures are written throughout according to an immutable Law or Rule, a knowledge of which would, in explaining them, substitute certainty for conjecture, and cut off the sources of vague interpretation.

IN our opening Lecture we took a brief view of the present state of public opinion, on the subject of the divine inspiration of the Word of God, or Holy Scriptures; and we have seen that, while absolute infidelity is at present more prevalent throughout Christendom than at any former period since the establishment of the Christian religion; while the attacks upon the credibility of the Christian revelation were never so unremitted and daring; the cause has been half betrayed by many of its advocates, in the lax notions which they inculcate respecting the nature of Scriptural inspiration. We also drew a faint picture of what must be the character of a composition which has God for its Author; we stated the four leading classes of objections by which

infidels deny this character to belong to the writings called the Holy Scriptures; and we advanced it as a fact, to be afterwards proved, that all difficulties would disappear, were the true nature of the Holy Scriptures distinctly understood, and the design for which they were given fully discerned. What this design was, we now proceed to state.

When well-meaning men have been induced to make the admission, that the sacred writers might not, on all occasions, be inspired, it has been in consequence of not considering, any more than the opposers to whose railings they have so far yielded, what was the sole design for which the divinely inspired volume was composed. Things, for example, that appear like contradictions, have in some places been pointed out; and though most of these admit of being satisfactorily answered even in the literal sense, yet, because some of them, if we confine our attention to the literal sense alone, are attended with real difficulty, many, even of the sincere friends of Christianity, have admitted, that the Scriptures may, in some instances, have proceeded from fallible authors,-from penmen who were not at all times inspired! This admission they have made, to open a door for retreat, in case any of the statements made in the letter should be proved by an adversary to be indefensible. But surely had it been consi

dered, that whatever proceeds immediately from God, in the nature of a communication of his will, must be spiritual and divine, and that the sole design of it, in every part, must be, to improve man in the wisdom of salvation; it would have been seen, that merely historical circumstances, however important to the actors in then, can never be of such moment in the eyes of an Infinite Being, as that the communication of even the most correct knowledge respecting them can be a thing to have place in his express Word of revealed Wisdom, unless things of far higher consequence be at the same time referred to and represented by them. Hence, when we find such things spoken of in a book which its Divine Author assures us was given from Him, and which bears so many marks, both internal and external, that evince the truth of this assurance; we ought to be satisfied, that things of far higher, even of eternal moment, are shadowed forth, and represented to us, under these historical relations ;-as we shall see presently is also expressly declared by the Lord and his Apostles. In short, we ought to conclude, (as we shall find both reason and Scripture assure us must be the case with every composition that has God for its Author,) that in the Sacred Scriptures there is an internal or spiritual sense, distinct from the letter, but contained within it, and no otherwise capable of

being conveyed to human beings in this world of nature; which spiritual sense must treat, not of natural things, but of spiritual; not of things relating to the body of man and his transitory life, but to his soul and life eternal: And we ought to conclude further, that although the historical circumstances detailed in the literal sense are in general substantially true, having occurred as they are related, yet if there are any of them that are in any respect contradictory, the reason must be, not because the narrative is not divinely inspired, but because the letter has been forced, in such instances, to bend a little, as it were, under the weight of the important matters contained within it, to express which more fully, a slight turn has been given to the literal narration. Nor is there, in this supposition, the smallest degree of inconsistency. For every composition, either human or divine, must be judged of, according as it is adapted to express the Design of the Author. But a revelation from God cannot be designed to improve us in natural knowledge, but in heavenly or spiritual. If then the literal sense of the Holy Word is so adjusted, as to be a proper vehicle for the divine realities of a spiritual kind with which it is inwardly replenished, then it answers the Design for which it was given, whether the literal expression, regarded by itself, be in all respects perfectly coherent or not;-whether

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the historical occurrences, respecting which, regarded by themselves, it is no part of the Divine Author's plan to communicate information, arę detailed with all possible clearness or not. In short, if the Design for which a revelation from God must be given, had been steadily kept in view, and the outward expression had been judged of accordingly, it would have been seen that the Word of God does, in every part, contain a spiritual sense, which treats solely of the Lord, his kingdom, man's soul, and his improvement in heavenly graces, and that the literal sense is constructed purely in subserviency to the spiritual and then the objections against its divine inspiration would never have been raised, or, if they had, would soon have obtained a completely satisfactory answer. To evince that this is its true character, will be the main object of this and our subsequent Lectures.

1. The first thing necessary to the clearing up of this argument, is, to ascertain, what is the kind of inspiration which the Scriptures claim for themselves.

Here then the fact, that the title, "the Word of God," is claimed by the Scriptures for themselves, is alone sufficient to satisfy us, that they assume to have been written by a plenary divine inspiration. For what can "the Word of God" be, but divine speech or revelation flowing from