Prelate thus introduces the difcuffion, which is purfued through this and the two following difcourfes.

«Time was, when I know not what myftical meanings were drawn by a certain cabaliftic alchymy, from the fimpleft expreffions of holy writ,-from expreffions in which no allufion could reasonably be fuppofed, to any thing beyond the particular occafion upon which they were introduced. While this frenzy raged among the learned, vifionary leffons of divinity were often derived, not only from detached texts of fcripture, but from Jingle words-not from words only, but from letters-from the place, the shape, the pofture of a letter! and the blunders of tranfcribers, as they have fince been proved to be, have been the groundwork of many a fine-fpun meditation!

"It is the weakness of human nature, in every instance of folly, to run from one extreme to its oppofite. In latter ages, fince we have feen the futility of thofe myftic expofitions, in which the school of Origen fo much delighted, we have been too apt to fall into the contrary error; and the fame unwar rantable licence of figurative interpretation which they employed to elevate, as they thought, the plainer parts of fcripture, has been used, in modern times, in effect, to lower the divine." P. 1.

Among the paffages which have been thus mifreprefented by the refinements of a falfe criticifm, he reckons all thofe which contain the explicit promife of the "coming of the Son of Man in glory, as in his kingdom." Thefe, he thinks. ought, every one of them, to be understood literally of our Lord's coming to judgment at the end of the world, and not, as they are now commonly interpreted, of the deftruction of Jerufalem by the Roman armies. But before he states the arguments by which he fupports his own opinion, and ob viates the objections which the learned have urged to it, he thus accounts for difcuffing such a question before a mixed audience.

"It is the glory of our church, that the moft illiterate of her fons are in poffeffion of the fcriptures in their mother tongue, It is their duty to make the moft of fo great a bleffing, by em. ploying as much time as they can fpare from the neceffary bufinefs. of their feveral callings, in the diligent ftudy of the written word. It is the duty of their teachers to give them all poffible affiftance and encouragement in this neceffary work. I ap prehend that we miftake our proper duty, when we avoid the public difcuffion of difficult or ambiguous texts, and either keep them entirely out of fight, or when that cannot easily be done, obtrude our interpretations upon the laity, as magifterial or ora. cular, without proof or argument;-a plan that may ferve the purposes of indolence, and may be made to ferve worfe purposes, but is not well adapted to answer the true ends of the inftitution

of

of our holy order. The will of God is that all men fhould be faved; and to that end it is his will that all men, that is, all defcriptions of men, great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, fhould come to the knowledge of the truth. Of the truth, that is, of the truths brought to light by the gofpel; not only of the fundamental truths of faith towards God, of repentance from dead works, and of a future judgment,-but of all the fublimer truths concerning the fcheme of man's redemp tion." P..4.

That there is no danger to be apprehended from the illuf tration of the fublimeft truths of the gofpel, or the public difcuffion of difficult and ambiguous texts, by fuch a man as Bishop Horfley, who thought accurately and profoundly on all fubjects that attracted his attention; who never attempted to explain what he did not himself understand; and who poffeffed the art of rivetting the attention to the most fubtle or critical difcuffions, we readily grant; but we should hesitate to recommend to the clergy in general fuch difcuffions, in mixed audiences, of difficult and ambiguous texts, not connected intimately with the effentials of the faith. A man may be a very ufeful parish-prieft, who is not qualified to difcufs texts which can be illuftrated only by a minute acquaintance with ancient cuftoms, ancient fuperftitions, and ancient fcience; and hence it is, that the royal declaration prefixed to our articles, prohibits, we think with great wif dom, all public difcuffion of thofe curious points which dif turbed the peace of the church in the feventeenth century; and which a party among us, are now, in defiance of that prohibition, difcuffing again, as effential doctrines of the gofpel. With refpect to the doctrines effential to the faith, what the Bifhop fays is unquestionably true. Of them nothing that can be profitable ought to be kept back from the lowest of the people; and we are willing to hope, with him, that the knowledge of the fcriptures neceflary to the underftanding of fuch things, is what few in this country are too illiterate to attain. We likewife agree with him, that

"It is our duty to facilitate the attainment by clearing dif. ficulties. It may be proper to ftate thofe (which) we cannot allow, to prefent our hearers with the interpretations that have been attempted, and to fhow where they fail; in a word, to make them mafters of the queftion, though neither they nor we may be competent to the refolution of it. This inftruction would more effectually fecure them against the poifon of modern corruptions, than the practice dictated by a falfe difcretion, of avoiding the mention of every doctrine that may be combated,

and

The cor

and of burying every text of doubtful meaning. ruptors of the Christian doctrine have no fuch referve. The doctrines of the divinity of the Son-the incarnation-the fatisfac. tion of the cross as a facrifice, in the literal meaning of the word-the mediatorial interceffion-the influences of the Spiritthe eternity of future punishment-are topics of popular difcuffion with thofe, who would deny or pervert thofe doctrines: and we may judge by their fuccefs what our own might be, if we would but meet our antagonists on their own ground." P. 6.

All this is unquestionably juft; but fill we may be permitted to doubt, whether the church be the fitteft place for the difcuffion of fuch topics by ordinary preachers; and we are fure that the Bishop would have agreed with us, that great abilities, great addrefs, and great difcretion, are requifites to the difcuffion of them any where, fo as to edify the illiterate part of the community. It is indeed true, as his lordship obferves, that we often find confiderable proficiency made in fome fingle fcience,

"By men who have never had a liberal education, and who, except in that particular fubject on which they have beftowed pains and attention, remain ignorant and illiterate to the end of their lives. The fciences are faid, and they are truly faid, to have that mutual connection, that any one of them may be the better understood for an infight into the reft; and there is, perhaps, no branch of knowledge which receives more illuftration from all the reft, than the fcience of religion: yet it hath, like every other, its own internal principles on which it refts, with the knowledge of which, without any other, a great progrefs may

The following obfervations on this fubject, by another learned prelate, are worthy of the clofeft attention.

"All objections to truth muft needs be founded in falfe judg ment. Falfe judgment proceeds from ignorance, or a fuperficial view of things; but this ignorance is the proper allotinent of the vulgar; fo that what arifes from thence, as referring to, and confonant with their capacities, cannot but make a quick and eafy impreffion. On the contrary, the folution of thefe difficul ties muft needs be formed on a true judgment of things. This judgment proceeds from a profound view of nature or (of reve lation.) But fuch a view requires a large detail; and the mu. tual connexions and dependencies of things, a ftrict examination. Hence the neceffity of time to inquire, and of attention to com, prehend. Thefe different properties in OBJECTIONS and SOLUT TIONS are fo conftant and notorious, that the cafe of queftioning foolishly, and the difficulty of answering wifely, is become pro

verbial.??

Warburtin's Sermon on the Nature, &c. of Truth.

be made; and these lie much more open to the apprehenfion of an uncultivated underftanding, than the principles of certain abftrufe sciences, fuch as geometry, for inftance, or aftronomy, in which I have known plain men, who could fet up no pre. tenfions to general learning, make distinguished attainments." P. 9.

If this be a fufficient vindication, as we admit it to be, of the conduct of thofe clergymen, who, poffeffed of learning and judgment fufficient for the purpofe, discuss, with thofe committed to their paftoral care, the moft obfcure parts of revelation; it furnishes likewife a fufficient proof, that no clergyman fhould enter on fuch discussions, who has not fome acquaintance with the whole circle of the fciences. If no branch of knowledge receive more illuftration from all the reft than the fcience of religion; how dare the illiterate mechanic quit his workshop to enlighten his countrymen in this most important of all sciences, and how can the vulgar fuppofe, even for a moment, that fuch a teacher is a fafer guide than the regular clergy, who devote their lives to the ftudy of literature and of fcience. The Bishop introduces thefe obfervations, not with the view of giving the fmalleft countenance to illiterate preachers, but as an apology for himself in difcuffing a fubject, which, on the firft view of it, might feem adapted only to a learned auditory. That fubject is the import of the phrafe of our Lord's coming-a phrafe which, with the exception, perhaps, of some paffages in the book of Revelations, he infifts, is through the whole New Testament, to be understood literally of a visible defcent of our Lord from heaven, as vilible to all the world as his afcenfion was to the apoftles" a coming of our Lord in all the majesty of the Godhead, to judge the quick and dead, to receive his fervants into glory, and to fend the wicked into outer darknefs." That there is fomething figurative in many of the paffages which mention our Lord's coming, he admits; but he contends that the coming itself is to be taken literally of the perfonal coming at the laft day; and

"That the figure is rather to be fought in thofe expreffions, which, in the literal meaning, might seem to announce his immediate arrival. And this St. Peter feems to fuggeft, when he tells us, in his fecond epistle, that the terms of foon and late, are to be very differently understood when applied to the great operations of Providence, and to the ordinary occurrences of human life. The Lord, fays he, is not flack concerning his promife, as fome men count flackness. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Soon and late are words

whereby

whereby a comparison is rather intended of the mutual propor tion of different intervals of time, than the magnitude of any one by itself definedThus, although the day of judgment was removed undoubtedly by an interval of many ages from the age of the apoftles, yet it might in their days be faid to be at hand, if its distance from them was but a small part of its original distance from the creation of the world, that is, if its diftance then was but a fmall part of the whole period of the world's exiftence, which is the ftandard, in reference to which, fo long as the world fhall laft, all other portions of time may by us be moft properly denominated long or short.

"There is again another ufe of the words foon and late, whereby any one portion of time, taken fingly, is understood to be compared, not with any other, but with the number of events that are to come to pafs in it in natural confequence and fac ceffion. If the events are few in proportion to the time, the fucceffion must be flow, and the time may be called long. If they are many, the fucceffion must be quick, and the time may be called fhort in refpect of the number of events, whatever be the abfolute extent of it. It feems to be in this fenfe that expreffions denoting speedinefs of event, are applied by the facred writers to our Lord's coming." P. 14..

The Bishop then enumerates fome of the many ftupendous events that are clearly foretold as to take place before the final coming of our Lord, and then adds that

"When the apoftles fpeak of that event as at hand, which is to clofe this great fcheme of Providence, a scheme in its parts fo extenfive and fo various,-they mean to intimate how bufily the great work is going on, and with what confidence, from what they faw accomplished in their own days, the first Chriftians might expect, in due time, the promifed confummation.

"That they are to be thus understood, may be collected from onr Lord's own parable of the fig-tree, and the application which he teaches us to make of it. After a minute prediction, (St. Matt. xxiv.) of the diftreffes of the Jewish war, and the deftruction of Jerufalem, and a very general mention of his fecond coming, as a thing to follow in its appointed season, he adds-Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: when its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, ye know that fummer is nigh. So likewife, ye, when ye fhall fee all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors."That it is near;-fo we readi in our English Bibles; and expofitors render the word it, by the ruin foretold, or the defolation Spaken of. But what was the ruin foretold, or the defolation spoken of? The ruin of the Jewish nation-the defolation of Jerufalem. What were all thefe things, which when they fhould fee, they might, know it to be near? All the particulars of our Saviour's detail;-that is to

fay,