and what is probable from what can merely be guessed at.  When we come to points of this last sort, to passages which cannot be interpreted or understood, we leave them at once as a blank; but we enjoy no less, and understand with no less certainty, the greatest portions of the book which, contain them.  And this experience, with regard to the works of heathen antiquity, makes it a startling proposition at the very outset, when we are told that with the works of Christian antiquity the case is otherwise.

We thus approach the statement as to the hopless difficulty of Scripture, confirmed, as we are told it is, by the actual fact of the great disagreements among Christians, with a well-grounded mistrust of its soundness; we feel sure that there is something in it which is confused or sophistical.  And considering the fact which appears to confirm it, I mean the actual differences between Christians and Christians, it soon appears by no means to bear out its supposed conclusion.  For the differences between Christians and Christians by no means arise generally from the difficulty of understanding the Scripture aright, but from disagreement as to some other point, quite independent of the interpretation of the Scriptures.  For example, the great questions at issue between us and the Roman Catholics turn upon two points,—­Whether there is not another authority, in matters of Christianity, distinct from and equal to the Scriptures,—­and whether certain interpretations of Scripture are not to be received as true, for the sake of the authority of the interpreter.  Now, suppose for a moment, that the works of Plato or Aristotle were to us in the place of the Scriptures; and that the question was, whether these works of theirs could be understood with certainty; it would prove nothing against our being able to understand them, if, whilst we look to them alone, another man were to say, that, to his judgment, the works of other philosophers were no less authoritative; or, if he were to insist upon it, that the interpretations given by the scholiasts were always sure to be correct, because the scholiasts were the authorized interpreters of the text.  No doubt our philosophical opinions and our practice might differ widely from such a man’s; but the difference would prove nothing as to the obscurity of Plato’s or Aristotle’s text, because another standard had been brought in, distinct from their works, and from the acknowledged principles of interpretation, and thus led unavoidably to a different result.

The same also is the case as to the questions at issue between the Church of England and many of the Dissenters.  In these disputes it is notorious that the practice and authority of the church are continually appealed to, or, it may be, considerations of another kind, as to the inherent reasonableness of a doctrine; all which are, again, a distinct matter from the interpretation of Scripture.  One of the greatest men of our time has declared, that, in the early part of his life,