But those writings of St. John and St. Paul which were our first lessons in Christianity, and those other accounts of our Lord’s life and teaching to which they introduced us,—­can we conceive it possible, that the real meaning of all these shall be hopelessly obscure and uncertain; that if we seek it ever so diligently, we shall not find it?  With an humble mind ready to learn, with a heart fully impressed with the sense of God’s presence, so as to be morally and spiritually in a condition to receive God’s truth, can we believe, then, that the use of those intellectual means, which open to us certainly the sense of human writers, shall be applied in vain to those writers who were commissioned to be the very heralds of a divine message, whose especial business it was to make known what they had themselves heard?  Surely if a sufficient certainty of interpretation be attainable in common literature, the revelation of God cannot be the solitary exception.

But we may be mistaken:  we may believe that we interpret truly, but we cannot be infallibly sure of it; we want an authority which shall give us this assurance.  This is no doubt the natural craving of our weakness; but it is no wiser a craving than if we were to long for the heaven to be opened, and for a daily sight of our Lord standing at the right hand of God.  To live by faith is our appointed condition, and faith excludes an infallible assurance.  We must earnestly believe that we have the truth, and die for our belief, if necessary, but we cannot know it.  No device which the human mind can practise, can exclude the possibility of doubt.  If we would find an armour which should cover us at every point from this subtle enemy, it would be an armour that would close up the pores of the skin, and stop our breath; our fancied security would kill us.  Is it really possible that, with our knowledge of man’s nature, our belief in any human authority can really be more free from doubt than our belief in the conclusions of our own reason?  There must ever be the liability to uncertainty; we can put no moral truth so surely as that our minds shall always feel it to be absolutely certain.  Where is the infallible authority that can assure us even of the existence of God?  And will the scepticism that can believe its own conclusions in nothing else rest satisfied with one conclusion only—­that the writers of the first four centuries cannot err?  Surely to regard this as the most certain proposition that can be submitted to the human mind, is no better than insanity.

But we will consent to trust, it may be said, with God’s help, to our own deliberate convictions that we have interpreted Scripture truly; but you tell us that the Scripture itself is not inspired in every part; you tell us that there are in it chronological and historical difficulties, if not errors; that there are possibly some interpolations; that even the apostles may have been in some things mistaken, as in their belief that the end of the world was at hand.  Where shall we find a rest for our feet, if you first take away from us our infallible interpreter, and now tell us, that even if we can ourselves interpret it aright, yet that we cannot be sure that the very Scripture itself is infallibly true?