LETTER VIII.

Perplexity in reading the word of God-Complaint of the want of personal application-Natural aversion to the Bible-Mistaken expectations-An impious practice-Failure arising from listlessness in reading-Want of consideration-Forgetting that God is the author-Looking for an extraneous something-How the Spirit imparts the right meaning-Duty of becoming familiar with the plan of salvation-Caution relative to reading other books-Concluding advice.

MY DEAR SIR,

ONE of your expressions merits particular notice: "Although I am confident that the Bible is the word of God, and that it is the ordinary means, in his hands, of relieving the spiritual wants of his creatures, yet it appears not of the least avail to me. It meets none

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of my difficulties. It presents no personal application to my own mind. There is in it nothing that is suitable to my exigencies. have thought a thousand times, that I should rejoice to see a plain delineation of myself; something in a tangible form, to fix and rivet my attention. It is of the reverse of all this I complain. Every thing appears confused and indefinite, as it regards my own

situation. In some portions of this book, I can discover beauties which my judgment approves; and I can take some little interest in its historical records. But although I task myself, in hopes of some development, or some discovery not yet made, I shut it again and again, as much in the dark as ever."

Sad complaint of a soul distressed with a sense of its loneliness, and ject suited to its necessities.

sighing for an ob

appointment does it indicate! murmurs does it give rise!

And what a dis

To how many How often does

it create a wish that the Bible were not what it is! But where is the fault? Certainly not in the book itself; but in the mind of the reader. And, in evidence of this, we might mention the different impressions which may be made on the same mind, at different times, and under different circumstances. The scriptures are not always the same to the Christian himself. In seasons of coldness, their energy ' and interest are, in a great measure, lost. Conviction of their intrinsic value and individual reference, will indeed continue. But it is conviction from past, not from present experience. And even in the mind destitute of any spiritual taste, the effect left by a perusal

of the sacred pages may, and does vary, both in degree and character. The same may be asserted of any piece of intelligence, which shall be of equal value to ten persons, to whom it is communicated, and yet the effect shall not be precisely the same upon any two of them.

It must be admitted as an universal truth, that the natural understanding can have no relish for the spiritualities of the gospel. A man of this description would not only entertain some repugnance to its phraseology, or the singularity of its diction; a fault, if it be such, which arose from the state of the age in which our translation was made, as well as from a subject without analogy; but he would regard it as something so mystical in its character, and so different from his natural ideas of religion, as to produce an aversion which he may often find it difficult to repress. Habit and education may, in certain cases, and to a certain degree, qualify this repugnance. And a sense of duty, or a negative kind of veneration for what is divine, might carry the effect somewhat further. Yet without an acquired taste for spiritual things, there can be none of those peaceful feelings which are the legitimate fruits of the holy word in the renewed soul.

But admitted as all this may be, on the part of the inquirer, it furnishes no solution to his most pressing questions. "If he cannot enter with all that freedom into the comforts of the gospel, so fully avowed by the growing Christian: if there be no delight for him in pondering the testimonies of God, why does he not find something suited to his own case, in a revelation expressly intended to be univer sal, something adapted to relieve an anxiety its own truths have occasioned?" Perhaps the following remarks may furnish a partial answer to his question. The convicted sinner is usually disposed, on his first alarm, to resort to the Bible for light and relief; and he is right in doing so. But he is not unapt to open its pages with expectations which can never be justified by success. He looks directly for some instantaneous operation upon his mind, perceptible in itself and miraculous in its nature. He has, perhaps, heard of the wonderful influence thus produced upon others, and readily anticipates the same in his own behalf. Something is immediately to occur worthy of the power of the divine word. Some energetic passage is to carry its force, at once, to the heart, with light and life. He reads. No such result ensues. And

the disappointment changes the attitude of his thoughts, and the nature of the impressions.

Now the cause of this disappointment is obvious. His mind has been occupied with fanciful expectations, and the proper bearing of the truths which he read, was suffered to escape it. A miraculous energy was anticipated from language, without its reaching him by the ordinary channel of reflection and comparison. This is a perversion of the design of the Scriptures. And it was no wonder it was fruitless of all benefit to the heart

or to the mind. Whatever extraordinary events of this kind may have occurred in the lives of others, and not a few of them have been the offspring of a heated imagination, they should never form the object of our own expectations. The dealings of the Holy Spirit are not likely to be inconsistent with what is suited to man as an intelligent and intellectual creature. Depend upon it, any expectation of miraculous influence, as the ground of consolation, or as the rule of practice, is indicative of some radical defect. Here the hope is not placed upon any thing in the word itself, but, virtually, on the expected influence, whatever it may be. This is a regard