Writings and commentaries are chiefly available for the fol lowing purposes : to preserve, restore, or defend the purity of the text ; to exhibit the exact force of the language employed by any sacred writer ; to explain the circumstances under which any passage was uttered or written, or to which it refers ; to remove errors or abuses which have arisen in later times. — The first hearers required none of these things. Now, however, it is the office of commentaries to effect and supply them in some measure, so that the hearer of to-day, when furnished with their aid, may be in a condition similar to that of the hearer in primeval times who made use of no such assistance. There is one point in which the moderns have an advantage over the ancients, namely, that they can interpret the prophecies more clearly by the sub sequent event. Whatever things, of whatsoever kind, indivi dual readers themselves derive from the study of Holy Scrip ture, they can and ought all to communicate to each other, especially by word of mouth, and also by written compositions ; in such a manner, however, as neither to diminish, supersede, or interfere ivith, the perpetual use of Scripture itself.
Scripture is the foundation of the Church : the Church is the guardian of Scripture. When the Church is in strong health, the light of Scripture shines bright ; when the Church is sick, Scripture is corroded by neglect ; and thus it happens, that the countenance of Scripture and that of the Church, are wont to exhibit simultaneously, the appearance either of health, or else of sickness ; so that it comes to pass that the treatment of Scripture corresponds, from time to time, with the condition of the Church. That treatment has had various ages, from the earliest times, down to the present day. The first may be called Native or natural ; the second, Moral; the third, Dry; the fourth, Revived; the fifth, Polemic, Dog matic, Topical; the sixth, Critical, Polyglott, Antiquarian, Ilonri- letic. That mode, therefore, of examining, expounding, eluci-