now the substitute for those gifts : and by learning must we labour to attain the ends for which those spiritual gifts were formerly bestowed; namely, to acquire the hioivledge of religion ; to attaiii a facility of diffusing it; and to maintain it agai?ist all its adversaries.
By learning we must attain the knowledge of re- ligion. Of course, I must not be understood to say, that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity cannot be understood without learning : for then I should condemn to hopeless misery all the unlearned of the earth. No : God has not so constituted his Gospel, that it should be hidden from the poor : for it is a characteristic feature of the Gospel, that it was to be preached to the poor and illiterate, and that it would commend itself to them, whilst it was hid from the wise and prudent. The fundamental truths of our holy religion are few and simple. The man who feels himself an undone sinner, and who looks simply to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, is truly instructed in the Gospel, though he be not able to read one word in it. And the Scriptures are so written, that even the poorest man who can read them, and who has a spiritual discernment given him from above, can comprehend all that is contained in them, so far as it is necessary for the edification and comfort of his own soul: and to keep the Bible out of the hands of the poor, from an idea that they will only receive injury from the perusal of it, is a Popish delusion, an unchristian cruelty, an impious reflec- tion upon God himself. But still I must say, that, to a full and complete understanding of the sacred volume, a very considerable degree of learning is requisite. In truth, that volume itself contains mines of learning, which many years of investiga- tion are scarcely sufficient to explore. Numberless things at this very day are but matters of conjecture, even to the most learned men upon earth, because of the very partial information which is transmitted to us of the customs to which they refer, and the cir- cumstances with which they were connected. And