66 power," "glory," "riches," "height and depth," "inward working," 66 66 spirit," mystery," and, "Christ indwelling," to stand for nothing? Are they random words uttered for effect, or from a sort of habit, as sacred names are now used by sinners to make their language tell? Are his expressions glowing, not because his subject is great, but because his temperament was sanguine? Is he antithetical, not because he treats of things discordant, but because he was taught in the schools of Tarsus? or does he repeat their words, not from the poverty of human language, but the slenderness of his vocabulary? Yet this age is disposed, out of mere consideration for St. Paul, to adopt the latter alternative, choosing rather that he should speak beyond or beside his own meaning than its comprehension; so that it has become a fashion almost to cease looking for any particular meaning in discourses, which the Angels desire to look into. To acquiesce in a confined idea of them, has been thought a sign of deference rather than of neglect; as if to seek more were unfair to the great Apostle,-I had almost said, ungenerous. Thus a popular writer protects the Inspired Teacher of the Nations, by the following considerations.-"St. Paul, I am apt to believe, has been sometimes accused of inconclusive reasoning, by our mistaking that for reasoning which was only intended for illustration. He is not to be read as a man, whose sole persuasion of the truth of what he taught, always or solely depended upon the views under which he represented it in his writings;" otherwise, of course, his faith would have been illogical. He continues: "Taking for granted the certainty of his doctrine, as resting upon the revelation that had been imparted to him, he exhibits it frequently to the conception of his readers, under images and allegories, in which, if an analogy may be perceived, or even sometimes a poetic resemblance be found, it is all perhaps that is required." He is evidently afraid lest Christianity, as it stands integrally in the Bible, should fail under the ordeal of this educated age 2 Elsewhere, he thus remarks:-"Their doctrines,' the Apostles', "came to them by revelation, properly so called; yet in propounding these doctrines 2 Again : When we "There is such a thing as a peculiar word or phrase cleaving, as it were, to the memory of a writer or speaker, and presenting itself to his utterance at every turn. observe this, we call it a cant word, or a cant phrase. It is a natural effect of habit; and would appear more frequently than it does, had not the rules of good writing taught the ear to be offended with the iteration of the same sound, and oftentimes caused us to reject, on that account, the words which offered itself first to our recollection. With a writer who, like St. Paul, either knew not these rules, or disregarded them, such words will not be avoided. The truth is, an example of this kind runs through several of his Epistles, and in the Epistle before us," to the Ephesians, "abounds; and that is in the word riches, used metaphorically as an augmentative of the idea to which it happens to be subjoined."—Ibid. 2. in their writings or discourses, they were wont to illustrate, support, and enforce them by such analogies, arguments, and considerations as their own thoughts suggested. The doctrine" [of the call of the Gentiles] "must be received; but it is not necessary, in order to defend Christianity, to defend the propriety of every comparison, or the validity of every argument, which the Apostle has brought into the discussion 1." These conclusions, I doubt not, will be painful to many a man who adopts the principles from which they follow. For we have been detained by circumstances, or, as I may say, frozen, in an intermediate state between Protestant premises and their rightful inferences. Those circumstances are now, after several centuries, dissolving, and we are gradually gaining a free course, and may choose our haven for ourselves. We must either on a voyage where we can discover only barrenness, or return home to our ancient country, and the sepulchres of the prophets. To see where we shall end, if we go forward, may, through God's mercy, persuade us to go back. To conclude: what has been said concerning the interpretation of the sacred terms of Scripture, to which the text gave rise, has come to this; that though from the depth of those terms the particular context is no measure of their meaning, and there 1 Part. iii. ch. 2. fin. fore affords no criterion whether we have attained it; yet, that it affords a test of what they do not mean, as often as a proposed interpretation makes it inconsistent with itself; and further, that while external aid is necessary to determine their full sense, it must, to be an aid, be, if possible, derived from persons who had means of knowing it, not from speculations and theories which can but guess at it. LECTURE VI. ON THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 2 COR. vi. 16. "Ye are the Temple of the Living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them." JUSTIFICATION, being an act of Divine Mercy exerted towards the soul, does not leave it as it found it, cannot but make it what it was not before, as has been shown at length. It stands to reason that a soul that is justified, is not in the same state as if it had not been justified,-is not in the state of others which are not justified. No one would assert that one who is justified is in all respects the same as another who is not; even a professed Antinomian will generally allow that he has certain spiritual feelings, as he falsely calls them, or experiences, or an assurance, or the consciousness of renouncing merit, to distinguish him from those who remain in a state of wrath. We know well what that state of wrath consists |