Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/92

84 Then turn and observe how with this best witness of Christendom, the best witness of Christianity, as set forth in the Scriptures, entirely agrees. Take any of the chapters of the Old or New Testament, to which Prophets and Apostles appeal as containing, in their judgment, the sum and substance of their message—take, above all, the summary of all Evangelical and Apostolical truth in the Four Gospels. Read them parallel with the so-called religious wars and controversies of former ages. Read them parallel with the so-called enlightenment and the so-called religious sects and parties and journals of our own age. Read, and fear, and hope, and profit by the extent of the contrast.

Doubtless there is much in the study of the Scriptures that is uncertain and difficult. But this is nothing in comparison with the light they have still to give, both in checking our judgment of the past, in guiding our judgment of the present and future. We may in former times have gone too much by their letter and too little by their spirit; but it has been far oftener our fault that we have gone neither by letter nor by spirit; it has far oftener happened that, however much the spirit may be above the letter, yet the letter is far beyond the spirit in which we have often been accustomed to deal with it. Each age of the Church has, as it were, turned over a new leaf in the Bible, and found a response to its own wants. We have a leaf still to turn, a leaf not the less new