but reads the letter carelessly, and takes up a wrong idea of the course recommended, and sets about a speculation, before he has made himself acquainted with his correspondent's plan: and consequently receives as little benefit from the communication as any of the for

Now it is quite clear that not one of the four believed the information of their correspondent. Their unbelief is of different kinds, but the result is the same in all. A letter is merely the vehicle of a meaning, and if that meaning is not believed, the letter itself is not believed. The two first understood the meaning of the letter, and rejected it openly and professedly on its own merits. The two last openly and professedly assented to it, but they believed their own interpretation of it, and not the meaning of the writer. It is an absolute absurdity to say that a meaning can be believed without being understood and therefore nothing which has a meaning can be fully believed until the meaning is understood. When a thing is said or done, of which we don't perceive the meaning, we say, we don't understand that.We are sure that the word has been spoken or the action performed, but we don't apprehend its import. Can we possibly then believe that import? In such cases, understanding and belief are one and the same thing. The third and fourth merchants could perhaps both of them repeat the letter by memory; and the third especially, though ignorant, and therefore unbelieving as to its immediate application, could probably talk well of its general principles, and

quote Adam Smith in illustration or defence of it. There is a fifth who reads, acknowledges the signature, understands the contents, believes them, and acts accordingly. This man believes the meaning of his correspondent, and if the information was good, he reaps the full advantage

of it.

In religion there cannot be any cases parallel to that of the second merchant. No man can believe that the Bible was written by God, and at the same time openly profess to disbelieve its contents; and there are not very many who avow their unbelief of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. But there are many nominal Christians in situations very closely resembling that of the jurymen above mentioned, and of the third and fourth merchants. Are there not many who would be astonished and hurt if their Christianity were doubted, who evidently attach as little meaning to the words Judgment, Eternity, and Justification by faith in Christ, as those men did to the Chinese vocables? Can these be said to believe? Are there not many who can speak and reason orthodoxly and logically on the doctrines of the Gospel, and yet do not understand the urgency of these doctrines in application to their own souls? These do not believe the meaning of the Gospel surely. And are there not many who, mistaking the whole scope of the Bible, find in it, what is not there, a plan of justification, in which man performs some part, if not the whole, in the work of redemption; or see in it merely a list and a description of duties, by

the performance of which, a man may recommend himself to the favour of God? Those who believe this, believe their own vain imagination, and not the Gospel. A man who is honest in his belief of that which he professes to believe, is certainly free from the charge of deceit and hypocrisy; but his honesty will not convert a lie into a truth; it cannot make that good news, which is not good news; it cannot change the import of the Bible, or the will of God. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" was Philip's question to the Eunuch; and it is a question which each reader of the Bible should put most jealously to himself; for, as it is said in the parable of the sower," when any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart."

The Jews believed in the Divine authority and inspiration, by which Moses spoke-they had much more reverence for his name and honour than the great bulk of professing Christians have for the name and honour of the Saviour-and yet He who knew the thoughts of the heart, declared that they did not believe Moses; " for," says Jesus Christ, "had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me; but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" He does not mean here, to question, their belief that God had indeed spoken by Moses; but to deny their belief of Moses's meaning. They did not understand Moses, and therefore they could not

believe him--they believed their own interpretation of his law, not his own meaning in it.

I may understand many things which I do not believe; but I cannot believe any thing which I do not understand, unless it be something addressed merely to my senses, and not to my thinking faculty. A man may with great propriety say, I understand the Cartesian system of vortices, though I don't believe in it. But it is absolutely impossible for him to believe in that system without knowing what it is. A man may believe in the ability of the maker of a system, without understanding it; but he cannot believe in the system itself, without understanding it. Now there is a meaning in the Gospel, and there is declared in it the system of God's dealings with men. This meaning, and this system, must be understood, before we can believe the Gospel. We are not called on to believe the Bible merely that we may give a proof of our willingness to submit in all things to God's authority, but that we may be influenced by the objects of our belief. When the Apostle of the Gentiles gives a reason why he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, he does not say because it is a message from the King of kings; he does not found its importance simply on the authority of the promulgator of it, but in a great measure on its own intrinsic and intelligible value-" For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believeth," Rom. i. 16. Salvation here signifies healing, or deliverance, not from the condemnation, but from the influence of sin. His reason for not

being ashamed of this Gospel then was, because it was the mighty instrument which God had prepared for healing the spiritual diseases of men. The great importance of the object to be attained by the publication of the Gospel invested it with its high dignity. But he does not leave his Roman disciples here; he explains to them, how this great object is attained-he tells them what it is in the Gospel which produces this effect-" for," continues he in the 17th verse, " herein is revealed God's plan of justification by faith." Righteousness, through this Epistle, almost without exception, signifies the mercy of God manifested in pardoning sinners for the sake of the atonement of Christ. He is afterwards at much pains to demonstrate to them, that the belief of this mercy has, from the very nature of man, that healing influence which he had ascribed to it. I may remark here, that the passage of Malachi, in which the Messiah is predicted under the figure of the Sun of Righteousness, or forgiving mercy, bears a striking resemblence in meaning to the verses which have been quoted from the Epistle to the RoThe Apostle represents justification, or the remission of sins, as the prominent feature and characteristic of the Gospel, and to this he ascribes the whole of its healing or salutary power, and the prophet's eye, in like manner, is caught by the absorbing glory and brilliancy of this plan of redemption-he sees from afar a new manifestation of the Divine character rising on the dark world. Many and diversified are the high attributes of that character; but as the

mans.

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