-following peace with all men, and holiness, that we may fee the Lord. Which GOD of his infinite mercy grant, through the merits of his Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen. SERMON XLII. Search the Scriptures. ST. JOHN V. 39. Search the Scriptures. HAT things of the most ineftimable TH use and value, for want of due application and study laid out upon them, may be paffed by unregarded, nay, even looked upon with coldness and averfion, is a truth too evident to need enlarging on. Nor is it lefs certain that prejudices, contracted by an unhappy education, will fometimes fo ftop up all the paffages to our hearts, that the most amiable objects can never find accefs, or bribe us by all their charms into juftice and impartiality.-It would be paffing the tendereft reflection upon the age we live in, to fay it is owing to one of these, that those inestimable books, the Sacred Writings, meet fo often with a difrelifh (what makes the accufation almost incredible) amongst perfons who set up for men of taste and delicacy; who pretend to be charmed with what they call beauties and nature in claffical authors, and in other things would blush not to be reckoned amongst found and impartial critics.-But fo far has negligence and prepoffeffion ftopped their ears against the voice of the charmer, that they turn over those awful facred pages with inattention and an unbecoming indifference, unaffected amidst ten thousand fublime and noble paffages, which, by the rules of found criticism and reafon, may be demonftrated to be truly eloquent and beautiful. Indeed the opinion of falfe Greek and barbarous language, in the Old and New Teftament, had, for fome ages, been a ftumbling-block to another fet of men, who were profeffedly great readers and admirers of the ancients.The Sacred Writings were, by thefe perfons, rudely attacked on all fides; expreffions which came not within the compass of their learning, were branded with barbarism and folecism; words which fcarce fignified any thing but the ignorance of those who laid fuch groundlefs charges on them.-Prefumptuous man-Shall he, who is but duft and afhes, dare to find fault with the words of that Being, who firft infpired man with language, and taught his mouth to utter;-who opened the lips of the dumb, and made the infant eloquent!-Thefe perfons, as they attacked the inspired writings on the foot of critics and men of learning, accordingly have been treated as fuch:-and tho' a fhorter way might have been gone to work, which was, that as their accufations reached no farther than the bare words and phrafeology of the Bible, they, in no wife, affected the fentiments and foundnefs of the doctrines, which were conveyed with as much clearness and perfpicuity to mankind, as they could have been, had the language been written |