truth as our minds are capable of approaching. The mariner who has to steer his passage through the untracked ocean, when it happens that he cannot have the exact line of his course pointed out, is often enabled to avoid any important deviation from it, by being acquainted with certain boundaries on each side of it, and by keeping his vessel between them. Certain rocks and landmarks may serve to furnish to his eye a kind of line, which will secure him, as long as he keeps within them, from certain shoals or currents which he is to avoid on one side of his destined course: but this is of no service in guarding him against the dangers which may beset him on the opposite quarter: for this purpose, another line must be pointed out to him, in the same manner, on the contrary side; and though neither of these lines is precisely that of the course he is to steer, yet an attention to both of them will enable him to proceed midway, in safety, and in the direction required. Even thus, it will often happen, that two apparently opposite passages of Scripture may together enable us to direct our faith or our practice aright; one shall be calculated to guard us against certain errors on one side, and the

other, on the other side; neither, taken alone, shall convey the exact and entire truth; but both, taken in conjunction, may enable us sufficiently to ascertain it. Perplexity, therefore, and error must be the result of an undue preference, and an overstrict interpretation, of one or two such expressions, to the neglect of the others. For we have in many instances (to use another illustration) something corresponding to the composition of forces in mechanics: several different texts will be analogous to several impulses in various directions acting on a body which is to be set in motion, and whose combined effect will propel it in the direction required; though no one of the impulses, taken singly, is acting precisely in that direction.

§ 5. After all, indeed, the notions conveyed to us in this way can be but very faint and indistinct; but for that very reason they are the less likely to be incorrect; for if we obtain a full and clear notion of things beyond the reach of the human faculties, it cannot fail to be an erroneous notion. The main object of revelation being to represent to us, not so much what God

is in Himself, as what He is relatively to us, with a view to our practical benefit, this object may be sufficiently accomplished by dim and faint pictures of things which could not otherwise be revealed at all. The "light which no man can approach unto," if presented in unmitigated blaze to eyes too weak to endure it, would blind, instead of enlightening; we now "see through a darkened glass," what we could not otherwise see at all.

Although, however, we may well believe that we are deficient in faculties for comprehending, as they are in themselves, many things of which the Scriptures furnish us with some faint representations, yet since, of course, no one can form a distinct conception of the nature and extent of his own deficiency, it may be profitable to illustrate our own case by that of a person destitute of some faculty which we do possess; by which means we may the better understand the nature of that mode of instruction which the Scriptures adopt, and the advantage and necessity of employing it for such beings as we now are. Let any one, for instance, attend to the case of a man born blind, and endeavour

to convey to him some idea of the sense of seeing, and of the nature of light, and colours: when you attempt this, you will then be in a situation answering in some degree to that of the Inspired Writers when they are instructing as in the unseen things of God.--You might easily explain to the blind man that colours are perceived by the eyes; which convey to men (as well as the other senses, and even better) a knowledge of the objects around us; you might also easily make him understand that light is something different from heat, and yet proceeds from the sun,---a fire,---a candle,--or the like; and that when nothing of this kind is present, there is darkness, in which no one can see; and also that light is cheerful and agreeable, and darkness something melancholy: so far, we are giving merely general descriptions; which would be intelligible enough, but could convey only the most faint and imperfect idea of Seeing. You might then impart some further knowledge by means of the analogy of the other senses; for instance, you might teach him that Seeing, in one respect, resembles Hearing and Smelling, inasmuch as it conveys a knowledge of things at

a distance, as they do; but that, nevertheless, it is as different from either of them as they are from each other; and that, moreover, Seeing gives us, what Hearing and Smelling cannot, a notion of the magnitude and of the form of bodies; in which respect, it agrees with the sense of Touch; though this last again conveys the knowledge only of such bodies as are close to us; whereas Sight extends to a distance. Now such instruction as this, given to a blind man, may serve to illustrate what has been just said about the apparent contradictions in Scripture; for the blind man might easily interpret the two parts of this lesson as contradictory; and might say, "How can the same thing bear any resemblance to Hearing, and at the same time to Feeling?" Or he might regard even each part of the lesson as in itself contradictory and impossible ;---saying, "You would fain persuade me that there is some way of touching things at a distance; or that there is a kind of Hearing or of Smelling by which one can judge of form and magnitude; none of which is conceivable:" and it is plain, that if he regarded either part of your instruction, by itself, and was not careful to limit