primitive believers, and those which are obligatory upon all generations; to exchange the dim, uncertain light of tradition, for the full, bright, and undying brightness of the blessed Scriptures.

3. Again; the degree of instruction which the inspired teachers could bestow upon the vast majority of their converts, was exceedingly limited. In a very large proportion, it must necessarily have been confined to an occasional discourse or exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures. It was physically impossible that the apostles could give to all their followers that careful and repeated teaching, without which every hearer might have wholly mistaken their words. Many of those who were converted in apostolic days, never saw the apostles themselves; and of those who did so, not one in a hundred could have enjoyed the benefit of that private conversation, in which alone the teacher can adapt his language and explanations to the manifest difficulties of the mind which he is instructing. Those who were so amply taught, as that their teaching might be looked upon as an exact transcript of the doctrine of the apostles, must have been so few, that they could in no way have supplied the place of inspired

teachers to the generality of the converts. From the first, there must have been multitudes whose means of information were rare and scanty, whose recollections of apostolical preaching must have been almost their only source of knowledge, and who consequently were in continual danger of deceiving themselves, or being deceived by others.

Compare this with the means of information to which all men have access who possess the written word. Compare the occasional visits of an apostle, and the instruction gathered in the midst of persecution and tumult, with the unfailing fountain of light to which we now may daily and hourly repair. Let a man compare his recollections of what he has heard, with his knowledge of what is ever before his eyes, and which he may study without ceasing. We know what would be our own practice in every similar case; we should not for an instant put the accuracy of a mere remembrance into competition with the correctness of our interpretation of a written document of whose authenticity we had not the shadow of a doubt. We who have the power of studying all the writings of the apostles, and of bringing to their investigation the assistance of the most acute intellects and the most

laborious critics, are led to form most inadequate conceptions of the exceeding difficulty with which the early converts must oftentimes have attained to an undoubtedly correct knowledge of the truths of the Gospel. Even among ourselves we are aware how long it frequently is, before the sincere inquirer can form clear ideas of the doctrines which constitute the articles of the Christian faith, and in which other men endeavour to instruct him. How much greater, then, must have been the difficulties of the Christians, who had no complete canon of Scripture to fall back upon in all their doubts; whose sole guide was a report of discourses, handed from mouth to mouth, and liable to alteration and perversion at the hands of every individual through whom it was conveyed.

We all know how to estimate the correctness of traditionary teaching in general; we know how the most faithful and honest, the most able and cautious, are the unconscious instruments in gradually changing and destroying any abstract truth or principle which is not preserved in writing. Even the simplest facts are often unintentionally mistaken; how much more then is it difficult to guard against the unseen encroachments of error, when we transmit from one to another, opinions, feelings, and difficult doctrines.

We must not forget also, that the peculiar character of the Christian mysteries especially exposed them to this gradual corruption. They are mostly of that deeply obscure nature, so far beyond human comprehension even when thoroughly received and earnestly studied, that none but miraculous guidance could have preserved traditionary reports of them from decay and perversion. The phraseology in which they are couched was essentially novel in its character, when the religion was first promulgated; old words were employed with unknown significations, and new words were introduced and made the vehicle of the most mysterious announcements; and the general mode of argument and style of teaching were wholly alien to the previous habits of many who were thus instructed. And therefore the greatest possible circumspection in the choice of words and illustrations, and a continued and varied repetition of the truths designed to be conveyed, were alike necessary to furnish correct ideas of the doctrines, as first declared by the apostles, and to preserve the reports of such preaching from rapid destruction. So that it is most unreasonable to conclude, that the accounts which prevailed among the early Christians with respect to the

apostles' doctrines, are to be put into competition with the interpretations of holy writ which in any after age may have been produced by the assiduity and ability of pious men. The primitive believers who were not in possession of the sacred canon, had no other source of information than that one which daily experience shows us to be unceasingly liable to corruption. New and incomprehensible doctrines were committed to the charge of men with weak powers of mind, and hearts still clogged with sinful passions; and therefore the conclusion is inevitable, that the preservation of such truths in their pristine simplicity, must have been, in the most literal sense, a miracle.

4. The mere fact that in the first age of Christianity, there were upon the earth inspired men, to whom reference might be made in every case of difficulty, in no way proves that every doubting Christian actually applied to them for guidance. For it would be the most unfounded of assertions to allege, that those who were in error, were thereby necessarily led to seek to know the exact truth; on the contrary, the believer who had misunderstood the words of an apostle, would be as fully satisfied with his own conceptions, as those who were most sound