This language, so discouraging as it is, may be heard from two very opposite parties, so that their agreement may appear to give it the more weight:  it is used by men who are indifferent to religious truth, as an excuse for their taking no pains to discover what the truth really is; it is echoed back quite as strongly by another set of persons who wish to magnify the uncertainties of the Scripture in order to recommend more plausibly the guidance of some supposed authoritative interpreter of it.  But yet it ought to be at any rate a painful work to any serious mind to be obliged to dwell not only on the obscurities of God’s word, but on its perpetual and invincible obscurities; and, though an interpreter may be necessary if we know not the language of those with whom we are conversing, yet how much better would it be that we should ourselves know it:  nay, and if we are told that we cannot know it, that our best endeavours will be unable to master it, the suspicion inevitably arises in our minds, that our pretended interpreter may be ignorant of it also; that he is not in truth better acquainted with it than we, but only more presumptuous or more dishonest.

Still a statement may be painful, but at the same time true.  There is undoubtedly something in such language as I have been alluding to, which appears to be confirmed by experience.  There is no denying the fact, that the Scriptures have been a long time in the world; that they have been very generally and carefully read; and yet that men do differ exceedingly as to religious truth, and these differences do not seem to be tending towards agreement.  It seems to me, there fore, desirable that every student of the Scriptures should know, as well as may be, what the exact state of the question is; for if the subject of his studies is really so hopelessly uncertain, it is scarcely possible that his zeal in studying it should not be abated; nay, could we wisely encourage him to bestow his pains on a hopeless labour?

Now, in the very outset, there is this consideration which many of us here are well able to appreciate.  We read many books written in dead languages, most of them more ancient than any part of the New Testament, some of them older than several of the books of the Old.  We know well enough that these ancient books are not without their difficulties; that time, and thought, and knowledge are required to master them; but still we do not doubt that, with the exception of particular-passages here and there, the true meaning of these books may be discovered with undoubted certainty.  We know, too, that this certainty has increased; that interpretations, which, were maintained some years ago, have been set aside by our improved knowledge of the languages and condition of the ancient world, quite as certainly as old errors in physical science have been laid to rest by later discoveries.  Farther, our improved knowledge has taught us to distinguish what may be known from what may be probably concluded,