organs by which to read truth in the holy child Jesus. Or, rather, we are ignorant of the characters in which truth is graven on the Saviour; and therefore, though we may read it in books and manuscripts, on the glorious scroll of the heavens, and in the beautiful tracery of forest and mountain, we can never peruse it as written in the person and work of God's only and well-beloved Son. The mortification of the flesh-the keeping under the body-the plucking out the offending right eye-the cutting off the offending right hand-these, so to speak, are the processes of tuition by which men are taught "as the truth is in Jesus." Sanctification conducts to knowledge, and then knowledge speeds the work of sanctification.

We beseech you, therefore, that ye strive, through God's grace, to give yourselves to the business of putting off the old man. Will ye affirm that ye believe there is a Heaven, and yet act as though persuaded that it is not worth striving for? Believe, only believe, that a day of coronation is yet to break on this long-darkened globe, and the sinews will be strung, like those of the wrestlers of old, who saw the garlands in the judge's hands, and locked themselves in an iron embrace. Strive, for the grasp of a destroyer is upon you, and if ye be not wrenched away, it will palsy you, and crush you. Strive, for the foe is on the right hand, on the left hand, before you, behind you; and ye must be trampled under foot, if ye struggle not,

and strike not, as those who feel themselves bound in a death-grapple. Strive-there is a crown to be. won-the mines of the earth have not furnished its metal, and the depths of the sea hide nothing so radiant as the jewels with which it is wreathed. Strive, for if ye gain not this crown-alas! alas! ye must have the scorpions for ever round the forehead, and the circles of that flame which is fanned by the breath of the Almighty's displeasure.

Strive then, but strive in the strength of your risen Lord, and not in your own. Ye know not how soon that Lord may come. Whilst the sun walks his usual path on the firmament, and the grass is springing in our fields, and merchants are crowding the exchange, and politicians jostling for place, and the voluptuous killing time, and the avaricious counting gold, "the sign of the Son of Man" shall be seen in the heavens, and the august throne of fire and of cloud be piled for judgement. Be ye then persuaded. If not persuaded, be ye alarmed. There is truth in Jesus which is terrible, as well as truth which is soothing; terrible, for he shall be Judge as well as Saviour; and ye cannot face Him, ye cannot stand before Him, unless ye now give ear to his invitation, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

SERMON XII.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF SCRIPTURE.

2. PETER, iii. 16.

"In which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction."

THE writings of St. Paul, occupying, as they do, a large portion of the New Testament, treat much of the sublimer and more difficult articles of Christianity. It is undeniable that there is a great deal made known to us by the Epistles, which could only imperfectly, if at all, be derived from the Gospels. We have the testimony of Christ himself that he had many things to say to his disciples, which, whilst he yet ministered on earth, they were not prepared to receive. Hence it was altogether to be expected that the New Testament would be, what we find it, a progressive book; the communications of intelligence growing with the fuller opening out of the dispensation. The deep things of the Sovereignty of God; the mode of the justification of sinners, and its perfect consistence with all the attributes of the Creator; the mysteries bound up in the rejection of the Jew

and the calling of the Gentile; these enter largely into the Epistles of St. Paul, though only faintly intimated by writers who precede him in the canon of Scripture. And it is a natural and unavoidable consequence on the greater abstruseness of the topics which are handled, that the Apostle's writings should present greater difficulties to the Biblical student. With the exception of the Book of Revelation, which, as dealing with the future, is necessarily hard to be interpreted, the Epistle to the Romans is probably that part of the New Testament which most demands the labours of the Commentator. And though we select this Epistle as pre-eminent in difficulties, we may say generally of the writings of St. Paul, that, whilst they present simple and beautiful truths which all may understand, they contain statements of doctrine, which, even after long study and prayer, will be but partially unfolded by the most gifted inquirers. With this admission of difficulty we must join the likelihood of misconception and misapplication. Where there is confessedly obscurity, we may naturally expect that wrong theories will be formed, and erroneous inferences deduced. If it be hard to determine the true meaning of a passage, it can scarcely fail that some false interpretation will be advanced, or espoused, by the partisans of Theological systems. If a man have error to maintain, he will turn for support to passages of Scripture, of which, the real sense being doubtful, a plausible may be advanced on

the side of his falsehood. If, again, an individual wish to persuade himself to believe tenets which encourage him in presumption and unholiness, he may easily fasten on separate verses, which, taken by themselves, and without concern for the analogy of faith, seem to mark out privileges superseding the necessity of striving against sin. So that we can find no cause of surprise in the fact, that St. Peter should speak of the Epistles of St. Paul as wrested by the "unlearned and unstable" to their own destruction. He, first of all, admits that in these Epistles "are some things hard to be understood." And we consider it, as we have just explained, a necessary consequence on the difficulties, that there should be perversions, whether wilful or unintentional, of the writings.

But you will observe, that, whilst St. Peter confesses both the difficulty and the attendant danger, he gives not the slightest intimation that the Epistles of St. Paul were unsuited to general perusal. The Roman Catholic, when supporting that tenet of his Church which shuts up the Bible from the laity, will appeal confidently to this statement of St. Peter, arguing that the allowed difficulty, and the declared danger, give the Apostle's authority to the measure of exclusion. But certainly it were not easy to find a more strained and farfetched defence. Had St. Peter intended to infer, that, because obscurity and abuse existed, there ought to be prohibition, it is altogether unaccountable that he did not lay down the inference. A