particular portions and detachments of it, and to guard them from error and corruption.

When, upon a solemn occasion, the question was put to our Lord by a Roman governor, "What is truth?" though it was what he fully and perfectly knew, and what he came purposely and professedly to teach", he did not define it. He knew that definition was never the best method of instruction, and that, in its common use and application, it was seldom the friend of truth. Philosophically viewed, words do not constitute truth. They are only the vocal instruments by which it is communicated, or the written signs by which it is recorded. The latter are the daughters of earth, the former the sons of heaven. By an inquirer therefore things are to be examined, rather than words defined. By a teacher, things are to be conveyed by words in some form or other, which are doubtless to be explained to the understanding, if not sufficiently understood before. But explanation is one thing, and definition

12 Καὶ εἰς τῦτο ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα μαρτυρήσω τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. Πᾶς ὁ ὢν ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας, ακύει με τῆς φωνῆς. John, xviii. 37.

is another. Explanation is the first office of a teacher; definition, if it be good, is the last of the inquirer, after the truth be found; and is then the most advantageously employed by the teacher, when his previous instructions have prepared him for its possession.

But let us mark the conduct of the teacher professedly sent from God. Himself the fountain and conductor of truth, he is represented in the sacred oracles as the sun", the fountain of light, and as the day-spring from on high", the harbinger of light and of these apt similitudes, familiar to all even without an explanation, which had been employed by Solomon in some of his sublime portraits of wisdom, He often availed himself, expressing truth by the significant emblem of "light and the light of life.”

Whatever opinion therefore we may entertain of the doctrines and tenets of these two ancient philosophers, from the example of One who was wiser and "greater" than they, we may venture, in the present instance, to prefer the native of Abdera to the

13 Psa. lxxxiv. 11. Mal. iv. 2.

14 Luke, i. 78.

master of the Lycæum: and, instead of instituting the present investigation, by vainly attempting to define, it may be safer to follow the example of Him, who, in manner as well as in matter, was infinitely above the Stagyrite, and to avail ourselves of this similitude, as a fit illustration of truth in general.

God is supremely a Mind, and truth is consequently an attribute of mind.

To the sun "declaring at his rising a marvellous instrument "," He, "by whom all things were made"," hath delegated the power of enlightening the material system; whilst he hath reserved to Himself the office, which is more suitable to his nature, of giving light and knowledge by his eternal truth to the mind of man. But, whether he act through the instrumentality of his creatures, or more immediately from himself, he is uniform and consistent in his operations, so that one part of his divine economy is always illustrative of another. As the sun sheds his light over the material creation to

14 Eccles. xliii. 2.

16 John, i. 3.

be apprehended by the eye, truth is the light shed down from heaven to be apprehended by the intellect, given to illumine every subject natural and moral, corporeal and spiritual, so far as they are qualified by their different natures to convey it to the human mind; or rather, perhaps, so far as the human mind is qualified to receive it from them. For the difficulty of truth does not exist so much in the subjects, as in ourselves; and truths, which are the strongest in themselves, may sometimes shine upon our minds with the weakest force".

17 Ἴσως δὲ καὶ τῆς χαλεπότητος ἔσης κατὰ δύο τόπες, ἐκ ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐν ἡμῖν τὸ αἴτιον αὐτῆς. ὥσπερ γὰρ καὶ τὰ τῶν νυκτερίδων ὄμματα πρὸς τὸ φέγγος ἔχει τὸ μεθ' ἡμέραν, ὕτω καὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας ψυχῆς ὁ νοῦς πρὸς τὰ τῇ φύσει pаVEρÚTATA TÁνTwv.-Aristot. Metaph. lib. ii. cap. 1.

De causa difficultatis in veritatis cognitione discrepantes sunt sententiæ: alii enim res ipsas hujus difficultatis causam esse, alii nos ipsos esse censent. Heraclitus et Academici omnes res fluxas et caducas nullamque omnino stabilem et immutabilem esse putarunt, et in rebus ipsis difficultatem possuerunt. Alii, omnem veritatis difficultatem in imbecillitate nostri intellectus habuerunt, hisce nisi argumentis: "Siqua res esset cognitu difficilis, ea esset talis respectu cujuscunque intellectus; sed ratione divini Intellectus nulla res sit cognitu difficilis." Et " Quicquid per se tale est, id ea re non est difficile tale." Sed intermedia sententia recipienda est, Quod difficultas cognoscendæ veritatis partim ad nos, partim ad res ipsas referenda sit.-Joan. Ludov. Havenreuterus Com. in Aristot. Metaph. lib. ii. cap. 1. 8vo. Francf. 1604.

Thus from the Divine mind, truth becomes an attribute of the human, and must be in proportion to the mind in which it is; and, from a comparative view of these different minds, so far as we can judge of them, however imperfectly that may be, assisted by this scriptural similitude of light, we may hope to arrive at a general conception of truth, as it relates to man.

In the Divine mind, which pervades and comprehends all things, truth is universal (allowing for the inadequate comprehension of our ideas and words when applied to the Deity); in the human, which, though it be capable of enlargement from the body, and can reach to distant times and places, is not of all times and places, it is partial; as the light of the sun, by the rotation of the earth, is to the human eye. For, whereas our minds are only in particular places at particular times, it is the sole prerogative of the Divine to be present in all places and at all times. In the Divine mind, which is separate and distinct from body, it is immediate and intuitive; in the human, which is joined