of God or not : and, if we are convinced that it is his word, then must we receive it with the most child-like simplicity, and obey it without either hesitation or reserve. Nothing is to appear to us " an hard saying." If it be beyond our com- prehension, we should be content to say, in relation to it, " What I know not now, I shall know hereafter." If we see not exactly the reason of God's commands, we are not therefore to decline obeying them : for, if an earthly parent expects obedience, though the reasons of his commands be hidden from his child, much more may God expect at our hands a ready acquiescence in all that he commands, even when the reasons
of his injunctions are far out of sight St. Paul's prayer,
at the time of his conversion, should be ours at all times : " Lord, what wilt thou have me to doc?"]
To recommend to you this disposition in perusing the Holy Scriptures, I will proceed to mark,
II. Its conduciveness to a clear understanding of them —
It will most materially aid us, 1. In a discovery of its origin —
[When this holy disposition is wanting, almost every truth of Scripture will prove a stumbling-block to us : but when it regulates our researches, we shall find all the deepest and most offensive declarations of God's word to accord with our real state before him. Does he declare that " the carnal mind is enmity against him ?" We shall be ready, from our own actual experience, to admit it : for we shall be constrained to confess, that, whatever others may have been, we have had no delight in him, or in any thing that could lead us to him. When he asserts that there can be no salvation for us but through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall see how exactly that agrees with our own necessities at least; since we are wholly devoid of any righteousness of our own, and in- capable of working out a righteousness wherein we can stand before him. When he requires an entire devotedness of heart and life to his service, our own feelings attest that such a sur- render of ourselves to him is the duty and happiness of all his creatures. In fact, the whole revelation of God will then appear to us both worthy of God and suited to man : and, though other evidences of the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures have doubtless their weight and importance, and indeed are abso- lutely necessary for the conviction of others, this will prove the most satisfactory of all to a man's own mind. The very excellency of the truths of Scripture will mark, to his perfect
c Acts ix. 6.