it is in holy writ exhibited, as suits the nature of the subject.

In arguing from the divine oracles, great care ought to be taken that we quote and interpret them candidly; in other words that we give always what, according to the best of our judgment, is the real sense of the sacred author. Preachers, I know, will sometimes make a very plausible appearance of supporting their side of the question by a passage of scripture, which in the detached way wherein they quote it, appears very favourable, but which, taken in connection with its context, means something totally distinct. For my own part, were the doctrine meant to be defended ever so truly a scriptural doctrine, I could not approve an attempt to support it by such a misapplication of holy writ, and consequently by misleading the hearers in regard to the sense of particular portions of scripture. This is like bringing people to submission to magistracy, by perverting the sense of the law; and though a person may be fighting in a good cause, one, who takes this method, fights with illicit weapons. If it be safer to be under God's direction, than under any man's, it must be safer to exhibit to the people the sense of the sacred oracles purely and candidly, leaving it to them to form the conclusions and make the application. This I take to be preaching not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves the people's servants for Jesus's sake. The contrary method is indeed preaching ourselves, it is abounding in our own sense, and even wresting the word of Christ to render it subservient to our opinions. I would not by any means however be understood to pass so severe a censure on the misapplication of a passage of scripture

arising from a mistake of the sense, a thing to which the wisest and the best are liable, but only on an intended misrepresentation of the true meaning, in order to make it serve as evidence of a point we are maintaining. That I may be better understood in the aim of this remark, I shall produce an example in the way of illustration. In support of this doctrine, that whatever is done by unbelievers, even those actions which are commonly accounted most laudable and virtuous, are of the nature of sin; it has been sometimes very gravely and very confidently urged, that the apostle says expressly (Rom. xiv. 23) "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." Yet this expression (however apposite it may appear, when cut off from the passage with which it stands connected) has not the remotest relation to that famous question. When recourse is had to the apostle himself, and the occasion of the affirmation, we find it is brought in the conclusion of his reasoning, in regard to a point much disputed in that early age of the church, the observance of a distinction in meats and days. And though the apostle explicitly declares his own conviction, that no kind of meat is in a reli gious view unclean of itself, yet he is equally clear, that to him who estcemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean, because he believes it to be so. Hence he justly concludes, that he who doubteth is liable to condemnation, if he eat; because he acts against the dictates of his conscience, even though a misinformed conscience, he himself not believing that he does right, "for," he adds, "for," he adds, "whatever is not of faith is sin;" whatever action is not accompanied with a belief of its lawfulness, is so far criminal, as it shows in him, who commits it, a presumptuous disposition

to violate the rights of conscience. But this has not the least reference, to the belief of the principles, tenets or doctrines of christianity; but merely of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of certain actions. It deserves also to be remarked, that, in the matter discussed by the apostle, it is of no consequence, for rendering the action virtuous or vicious, whether the things believed be true or false, but barely that they be believed, and that our practice be conformable to our belief. To act against conviction or belief, he tells us, is a sin, to forbear acting in such a case is a duty, even though the thing believed be a falsehood. Nay it is, in fact, against what he himself acknowledgeth to be an erroneous faith, that he declares the man justly condemnable who acts. Now when such a perver. sion of the sacred text, as I have been illustrating, is made knowingly by the speaker against his better judgment, it is without doubt what the apostle calls

handling the word of God deceitfully," even though the sentiment, in support of which it is produced, be a true sentiment and conformable to the doctrine of Holy Writ. There is a candour and simplicity, which ought ever to attend the ministry of religion, not only in regard to the ends pursued, but in regard to the means employed for the attainment of the ends. Castalio in the defence of his Latin translation of the Bible against Beza, who had attacked him with a virulence which savours too much of what, not greatly to the honour of polemic divinity, has been called the odium theologicum, amongst other things mentions an accusation, for translating the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis in this manner, "Jussit Deus ut existeret lux, et extitit lux, God commanded that light should be,

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and light was." And the reason of Beza's animadversion is, that in his opinion, Castalio had, by so doing, suppressed an important argument for the trinity. Moses," says Beza, "purposely used the verb amar said, that he might indicate another person in the Godhead distinct from the person of the Father, and from the person of the Holy Ghost, namely the Son of God, by whom the whole series of creation was enunciated. The evangelist John, taking occasion hence, calls him 2oyos the word, and proves him to be God, and to have been in the beginning with God. But this man, (meaning Castalio) excluding the verb said, in which the greatest moment and principal weight is placed, expresses only in his version the signification of the verb ihi fiat." Thus far Beza; in which remark if he was sincere, as we are bound in charity to believe, it is impossible, whatever his erudition and other talents might be, to think otherwise than meanly of his skill in criticism. I own at the same time that I like the common translation, "Dixit Deus, Fiat lux, et facta est lux;" much better than Castalio's, and that, not indeed for Beza's reason, which is no reason at all, but merely, because it is more conformable to the simplicity and dignity of the original. Castalio's answer to the above charge, though it would perhaps be thought too ludicrous for the seriousness of the subject, justly exposes the absurdity of his antagonist. "Hæc sunt illius verba, quibus nihilo aptius argumentatur, quam si quis ita dicat. Moses in illis verbis, Dixit serpens feminæ, cur vobis dixit Deus, &c. data opera usus est verbo amar, dixit, ut alteram in diabolo personam distinctam a persona patris, et a persona spiritus impuri, nempe filium diaboli insigniret;

nam certe simillima est locutio." He subjoins this sentiment, in which every lover of truth will cordially agree with him. "Ego veritatem velim veris argumentis defendi, non ita ridiculis, quibus deridenda propinetur adversariis." How much more modest, in this respect, was Calvin, whose zeal for the doctrine will not be questioned, than either Beza or Luther? This last had exclaimed with great vehemence against both Jews and antitrinitarians, for not admitting that in these words, in the first verse of Genesis, God created, bara Elohim, there is contained a proof of the trinity, because the noun, signifying God, in the Hebrew has a plural form, though joined to a verb in the singular. Calvin on the contrary refutes this argument, or quibble rather, at some length, and adds judiciously, speaking of this expression, "Monendi sunt lectores ut sibi a violentis ejusmodi glossis caveant." I remember once to have heard a sort of lecture, on the miraculous cure of Bartimeus's blindness, from perhaps the most popular preacher, I cannot add the most judicious, that has appeared in this island in the present century. From these words of the blind man, addressed to Jesus, who had asked him, what he would have done for him? "Lord, that I may receive my sight," the preacher inferred not only the divinity of Jesus Christ, but Bartimeus's faith in this article. "He could not," said he, "have given him the appellation Lord Kupiɛ, had he not believed him to be God." And yet Mary gave the same appellation Kupiɛ to Jesus, when she took him for no higher person than a gardener. The same appellation was given by the jailor to Paul and Silas, the prisoners under his care, Kupio. In the first of these places our transla