practice. It leaves him the full use and advantage of each scriptural topic which he has to treat. It forms his manner of stating and applying truth on the model of the Holy Scriptures, which are thus infused into all his principles and habits.

Especially, a deep knowledge of religion qualifies a minister for making continual advances in personal piety, as well as in public usefulness. He who has a partial acquaintance with truth, is prone to imagine he knows every thing, is led by names and terms, and confines himself to a circle of topics which lose much of their elasticity and value in his hands; he reads many parts of his Bible with an interpretation not collected from a careful comparison of its several statements, but composed of his own opinions, and applied violently to all subjects; and thus makes but small advances in real grace, and the knowledge of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But a thorough knowledge of truth lays a foundation of humility and constant growth in solid godliness; it raises a man above systems, and names; it expands his conceptions of Christianity; it allows to the Scriptures all their scope, all their force, all their authority; and thus his instructions are not of one fixed and unimproved character, but continually ripen with his own ripening piety, faith, and love.

At a period when, by the mercy and grace of God, an extensive revival of pure Christianity is taking place, it is more than ever important that a solid and adequate knowledge of Christian truth should be cultivated. For, in proportion as religion is more widely spread, the corruption of man will mingle with it in various ways; and nothing can so directly tend to correct errors as they arise, as a full and really scriptural knowledge of religion-truth accompanied with all the attributes and guards, with all the consequences and uses, with all the bearings and proportions which surround it in the Holy Scriptures. No part of the Bible is superfluous. Every thing is stated there in the best possible manner, and for the very purpose of being employed by the ministers of religion. To strip the truths of Christianity of these necessary defences, to divest them of their proper ornaments, to expose them naked and unprotected to the vain fancies and abuses of man, is to preach another Gospel. Such a doctrine is truth no longer. And it may accordingly be observed, that in all the revivals of religion in the past ages of the church, the chief scandals and impediments that have arisen, have manifestly sprung from defective knowledge of Scripture, united with the presumption which too commonly attends it.

But general observations like these have less weight. Let an example be taken. The im

portance of a clear and thorough knowledge of religion cannot be better exemplified than in the doctrine of the fall and corruption of our nature; a fundamental truth; and the one on which our author in his "Thoughts" dwells, with perhaps the greatest force. This doctrine includes a variety of weighty, and humiliating, and deeply practical points; man's alienation of heart from God; his impotency to every thing spiritually good; his extreme propensity to what is external and sensual; the ruin of his moral nature; in a word, his guilty, helpless, and lost condition.

Now the student who is acquiring from his Bible a competent and adequate knowledge of this great subject, will gradually feel the ground on which he stands with respect to every thing connected with it. He will see, without surprise, the opposite and apparently contradictory truths which are stated in the Sacred Volume, and stated as frequently and fully as those which declare man's lost estate; his accountableness before Almighty God, the force of conscience, the duty of repentance, faith, and love; the guilt which the sinner incurs by neglect and disobedience to the exhortations and commands addressed to him in the Gospel. Difficult as these truths may appear, he will perceive them to be most unequivocally stated in the Bible, and will therefore never make such representa

tions of the doctrine of the fall as may impeach their genuine and full force.

He will further discover the chief errors which, in different periods of the church, have arisen as to the doctrine of the fall; the tendency. of man to weaken or abuse the scriptural statements of it; to reduce it, on the one hand, to a taint, an infirmity, an effect of bad education chiefly, or bad example; thus fostering the pride and sensuality of man, and inflating him with a fatal presumption on his own powers: on the other hand, to overstate this moral disorder, so as to deny or invalidate the truths just referred to, which spring from his rational and moral nature, and responsibility before God.

The connexion of the corruption of man with the entire plan of revelation, the mystery of redemption arising out of it, salvation by the grace of God, justification by faith only in the merits of our Lord and Saviour, regeneration and progressive sanctification by the influences of the Holy Ghost, the sacred persons in the blessed Trinity, and their gracious offices in the scheme of redemption, a disposition to every duty springing from the motives of love and gratitude to God for his unspeakable benefitsall this will burst on the mind of the student of the Bible, in proportion as he attains a full knowledge of this subject. So that he will perceive the corruption of man to be a principle of

Christianity, a characteristic which distinguishes it from any other system, and pervades every part of its own-without which all is dark, unintelligible, contradictory; with which all is . consistent, holy; efficacious, divine.

The difficulties which rest on this peculiar doctrine will not merely not escape him, but will be familiar to his mind by repeated examination of the Bible. The entrance of moral evil; the temptation of our first parents; the transmission of original corruption; the affecting state of mankind as lost; will give rise to numerous difficulties, which he will silence by the consciousness of his own guilt and ignorance, and by the consideration that the Bible is contented with stating the fact of our universal degeneracy, without a single hint upon the causes which might determine the divine mind to permit it. Here then he will not only stop, but stop with a thorough understanding of the province and the limits of human inquiry. He will perceive, that the comprehension of a divine scheme, like that of Christianity, may well contain parts which surpass the reason of man; and that submission to this state of things, is, in fact, a test of his obedience and humility, of constant force and perpetual obligation.

In the mean time, our student will continually advance in a knowledge of the sentiments and feelings which in the Scriptures al