of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might, by his Spirit, in the inner man,-that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,-that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God."

ABERDEEN, May, 1834.

A. L. G.

LETTER I.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

I HAVE recently perused a sermon delivered by you at the ordination of the Reverend J. Sparks, in Baltimore, with no small degree of interest. The subjects of which it treats must be regarded as highly important, by every intelligent man who is a serious inquirer after revealed truth. And if the views which you have disclosed will stand the test of examination, and shall appear to be those which the Word of God maintains, or which it will justify, it certainly will be the duty of every friend to Christianity to embrace and promote them.

It is proper, no doubt, that every one who reads and reflects upon your sermon, should do it without prejudice or party views. Unless I am deceived as to the state of my own feelings, I have endeavoured impartially to weigh the arguments, and examine the reasonings which it presents, with a wish to know and believe the truth. I dare not flatter myself, indeed, that I have perfectly succeeded in doing this; for every man who is acquainted with his own heart, will find reason to believe that he often has been, and may be again, deceived by it. But, as I am not conscious of party feelings on the present occasion, will you permit me, without apology, to lay before you my thoughts in regard to three topics of your discourse that stand in close connexion with each other, and are among the principal points in regard to which I feel myself compelled to dissent from your opinions.

The points to which I refer are-the principles of interpreting Scripture; the unity of God; and the divinity and humanity of the Saviour. I limit myself to these three, because it would require more time and labour than I can possibly spare at present, and more health than I enjoy, to express in writing my views of all the statements of doctrines which you have made. I might adduce another reason for confining myself within these limits. If the

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principles of reasoning which you adopt, and the results which you deduce from them, in regard to some of the points on which I am about to remark, are untenable or incorrect, the consequence of this must extend itself essentially to some of the remaining and most important topics which you have discussed in your sermon.

The general principles of interpreting Scripture you describe in the following manner :—

"We regard the Scriptures as the records of God's successive revelations to mankind, and particularly of the last and most perfect revelation of his will by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures, we receive without reserve or exception. We do not, however, attach equal importance to all the books in this collection. Our religion, we believe, lies chiefly in the New Testament. The dispensation of Moses, compared with that of Jesus, we consider as imperfect, earthly, obscure, adapted to the childhood of the human race, a preparation for a nobler system, and chiefly useful now as serving to confirm and illustrate the Christian Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the only master of Christians; and whatever he taught, either during his personal ministry, or by his inspired Apostles, we regard as of divine authority, and profess to make the rule of our lives.

"This authority which we give to the Scriptures, is a reason, we conceive, for studying them with peculiar care, and for inquiring anxiously into the principles of interpretation, by which their true meaning may be ascertained. The principles adopted by the class of Christians in whose name I speak, need to be explained, because they are often misunderstood. We are particularly accused of making an unwarrantable use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture. We are said to exalt reason above revelation, to prefer our own wisdom to God's. Loose and undefined charges of this kind are circulated so freely, and with such injurious intentions, that we think it due to ourselves, and to the cause. of truth, to express our views with some particularity.

"Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books. We believe that God, when he condescends to speak and write, submits, if we may so say, to the established rules of speaking and writing. How else would the Scriptures avail us, more than if communicated in an unknown tongue ?

"Now, all books and all conversation require in the reader or hearer the constant exercise of reason; or their true import is only to be obtained by continual comparison and inference. Human language, you well know, admits various interpretations; and every word and every sentence must be modified and explained-according to the subject which is discussed according to the purposes, feelings, circumstances, and principles of the writer, and according to the genius and idioms of the language which he uses. These are acknowledged principles in the interpretation of human writings; and a man whose words we should explain without reference to these principles, would reproach us justly

with a criminal want of candour, and an intention of obscuring or distorting his meaning.

"Were the Bible written in a language and style of its own, did it consist of words which admit but a single sense, and of sentences wholly detached from each other, there would be no place for the principles now laid down. We could not reason about it as about other writings. But such a book would be of little worth; and perhaps, of all books, the Scriptures correspond least to this description.

"The word of God bears the stamp of the same hand which we see in his works. It has infinite connexions and dependencies. Every proposition is linked with others, and is to be compared with others, that its full and precise import may be understood. Nothing stands alone. The New Testament is built on the Old. The Christian dispensation is a continuation of the Jewish, the completion of a vast scheme of providence, requiring great extent of view in the reader. Still more, the Bible treats of subjects on which we receive ideas from other sources besides itself; such subjects as the nature, passions, relations, and duties of man; and it expects us to restrain and modify its language by the known truths which observation and experience furnish on these topics.

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"We profess not to know a book which demands a more frequent exercise of reason than the Bible. In addition to the remarks now made on its infinite connexions, we may observe that its style nowhere affects the precision of science, or the accuracy of definition. Its language is singularly glowing, bold, and figurative, demanding more frequent departures from the literal sense than that of our own age and country, and consequently demands more continual exercise of judgWe find, too, that the different portions of this book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer perpetually to the times when they were written, to states of society, to modes of thinking, to controversies in the Church, to feelings and usages which have passed away, and without the knowledge of which we are constantly in danger of extending to all times and places what was of temporary and local application. We find, too, that some of these books are strongly marked by the genius and character of their respective writers, that the Holy Spirit did not so guide the Apostles as to suspend the peculiarities of their minds, end that a knowledge of their feelings, and of the influences under which they were placed, is one of the preparations for understanding their writings. With these views of the Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually, to compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek, in the nature of the subject and the aim of the writer his true meaning; and, in general, to make use of what is known, for explaining what is difficult, and for discovering new truths.

"Need I descend to particulars to prove that the Scriptures demand the exercise of reason? Take, for example, the style in which they generally speak of God, and observe how habitually they apply to him human passions and organs. Recollect the declarations of Christ, that he came not to send peace, but a sword; that unless we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we have no life in us; that we must hate father and mother; pluck out the right eye; and a vast number of passages equally bold and unlimited. Recollect the unqualified manner in which it is said