those which more immediately concern the true religion and the church, the first Christians saw, and 'we of these ages see, the extended arm of Providence by the lamp of the prophetic word, which justly therefore claims the heedful attention of every Christian, in every age, " till the morning dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts,' - till the destined period shall arrive for that clearer knowledge of the Almighty and of his ways which seems to be promised to the last ages of the church; and will terminate in that full understanding of the justice, equity, and mercy of God's dealings with mankind, which will make a chief part of the happiness of the righteous in the future life, and seems to be described in Scripture under the strong metaphor of seeing the incorporeal God.

This is the sum of the verse which precedes my text. It is an earnest exhortation to all Christians to give attention to the prophecies of holy writ, as what will best obviate all doubts that might shake their faith, and prevent their minds from being unsettled by those difficulties which

the evil heart of unbelief will ever find in the present moral constitution, according to those imperfect views of it which the light of nature by itself affords.

But to what purpose shall we give attention to prophecy, unless we may hope to understand it? And where is the Christian who is not ready to say, with the treasurer of the Ethiopian queen, "How can I understand, except some man shall guide me?" The Ethiopian found a man appointed and impowered to guide him: but in these days, when the miraculous gifts of the Spirit are withholden, where is the man who hath the authority or the ability to be another's guide?—Truly, vain is the help of man, whose breath is in his nostrils; but, blessed be God, he hath not left us without aid: Our help is in the name of the Lord. To his exhortation to the study of prophecy, the inspired apostle, apprized of our necessities, hath, in the first of the two verses which I have chosen for my text, annexed an infallible rule to guide plain men in the interpretation of pro

phecy; and in the latter verse he explains upon what principle this rule is founded.

Observe me: I say the apostle gives you an infallible rule of interpretation. I do not tell you that he refers you to any infallible interpreter; which perverse meaning, the divines of the church of Rome, for purposes which I forbear to mention, have endeavoured to fasten upon this text. this text. The claim of infallibility or even of authority to prescribe magisterially to the opinions and the consciences of men, whether in an individual or in assemblies and collections of men, is never to be admitted. Admitted, said I?-it is not to be heard with patience, unless it be supported by a miracle: And this very text of Scripture is manifestly, of all others, the most adverse to the arrogant pretensions of the Roman pontiff. Had it been the intention of God, that Christians, after the death of the apostles should take the sense of Scripture, in all obscure and doubtful passages, from the mouth of an infallible interpreter, whose decisions, in all points of doctrine, faith, and practice, should be oracular and final, this was the

occasion for the apostle to have mentioned it-to have told us plainly whither we should resort for the unerring explication of those prophecies, which, it seems, so well deserve to be studied and understood. And from St. Peter, in particular, of all the apostles, this information was in all reason to be expected, if, as the vain tradition goes, the oracular gift was to be lodged with his successors. This, too, was the time when the mention of the thing was most likely to occur to the apostle's thoughts; when he was about to be removed from the superintendence of the church, and was composing an epistle for the direction of the flock which he so faithfully had fed, after his departure. Yet St. Peter, at this critical season, when his mind was filled with an interested care for the welfare of the church after his decease, upon an occasion which might naturally lead him to mention all means of instruction that were likely to be provided, — in these circumstances, St. Peter gives not the most distant intimation of a living oracle to be perpetually maintained in the succession of the Roman bishops. On the contrary,

he overthrows their aspiring claims, by doing that which supersedes the supposed necessity of any such institution: He lays down a plain rule, which, judiciously applied, may enable every private Christian to interpret the written oracles of prophecy, in all points of general importance, for himself.

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The rule is contained in this maxim, which the apostle propounds as a leading principle, of which, in reading the prophecies, we never should lose sight,"That no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation." Knowing this first," says he, "that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” And the reason is this, that the predictions of the prophets did not, like their own private thoughts and sentiments, originate in their own minds. The prophets, in the exercise of their office, were necessary agents, acting under the irresistible impulse of the Omniscient Spirit, who made the faculties and the organs of those holy men his own instruments for conveying to mankind some portion of the treasures of his