perfectly amazed, and thought he had heard one reading out of a book, till he came a little more curiously to examine him, and found that he did it only by the eyes of his understanding, having the Scriptures written, not in books or tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart. There are many such like instances in ancient history.

At the time of the reformation also, after the Bible had been buried under the rubbish of human ordinances for many ages, the people in this country were extremely eager to read and hear the holy Scriptures. They were received with inexpressible joy. Ridley and others could repeat large parts of them without book. Barnes sometime afterwards, read a small pocket Bible, that he usually carried about him, a hundred and twenty times over, at leisure hours. Beza, at upwards of eighty years of age, could repeat the whole of Paul's Epistles, in the original Greek, and all the Psalms in Hebrew.

Cromwell, in a journey to and from Rome, learned the whole of the New Testament by heart.-Lady Jane Gray, though executed at the age of sixteen, the night before she died, bequeathed to her sister a Greek Testament, on one of the blank leaves of which she wrote:-"I have sent you a book, which, although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is of more worth than all the precious mines, which the vast world can boast of. It is the book of the law of the Lord. It is the testament and last will which he bequeathed unto us wretched sinners, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy.-It will teach you to live, and learn you to die. If you apply yourself diligently to this book, seeking to direct your life according to the rule of the same, it shall win you more, and endow you with greater felicity, than the possession of all your father's lands, and you shall be an inheritor of such riches, as neither the

covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the thief shall steal, neither yet the moths corrupt."

Elizabeth, speaking of her own conduct, saith, “I walk many times in the pleasant fields of the holy Scriptures, where I pluck up the goodlisome herbs of sentences by pruning; and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory by gathering them together: that so, having tasted the sweetness, I may the less perceive the bitterness of this miserable life."

Alphonsus, king of Naples, who did not begin to study till he was fifty years of age, read over the Old and New Testament, with their glosses, fourteen times.

Grotius made the holy Scriptures his favourite stu dy in every period of his life. They were his consolation in prison; he always devoted a part of the day to them and they were his principal study during a great part of his embassy abroad.

Father Paul had read over the Greek Testament with so much exactness, that having used to mark every word, when he had fully weighed the importance of it: as he went through it; he had, by going often over it, and observing what he had passed by in a former reading, grown up to that at last, that every word was marked in the whole New Testament; and when any new illustrations of passages were sug gested to him, he received them with transports of joy.

Wotton, after his customary public devotion, used to retire to his study, and there to spend some hours in reading the Bible, and authors in divinity, closing up his meditations with private prayer.

Hartopp, amidst his other applications, made the book of God his chief study, and divinest delight. The Bible lay before him night and day.

Bonnell made the holy Scriptures his constant and daily study. He read them, he meditated upon them, he prayed over them.

Witsius was able to recite almost any passage of Scripture in its proper language, together with its context, and the criticisms of the best commentators.

Gouge tied himself to read fifteen chapters in the Bible daily.

Lady Frances Hobart read the Psalms over twelve times every year, the New Testament thrice, and the other parts of the Old Testament once.

Susannah, Countess of Suffolk, for the last seven years of her life, read the whole Bible over twice annually.(6)-And that the knowledge of the holy Scripture was never intended to be confined to clergy, or to kings, learned men, and persons of rank, is evident from the words of Erasmus, who contributed more perhaps than any other man, towards promoting the knowledge of the scriptural learning." I would desire that all women should read the gospel, and the

(6) There have been many female characters highly eminent for their piety and knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures. Queen Catharine Parr-Queen Mary-Lady C. Courten-Lady M. Houghton-Lady Cutts-Lady E. Hastings-Lady M. Armyne-Lady A. Halket-Lady Langham-Lady E. Brooke-Lady M. Vere, Mrs. C. Phillips-Mrs. J. Ratcliffe-Mrs. C. Bretterg-Mrs. A. Baynard-Mrs. A. M. Schurman-Mrs. E. Bury-Mrs. E. Burnet, Mrs. E. Rowe, and others.

In the reign of Henry V. a law was passed against the perusal of the Scriptures in English. It enacted," that whatsoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land, catel, lif, and godes from theyr heyres for ever, and so be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and most errant traitors to the lande."

The above is an honourable list of female characters. We may therefore place them in the higher class of Aylmer's account of the fair sex; for this good bishop, when preaching at court before Elizabeth, tells his audience, that " women are of two sorts, some of them are wiser, better learned, discreeter, and more cone stant, than a number of men: but another and worse sort of them, and the most part, are fond, foolish, wanton flibbergibs, tatlers, triflers, wavering, witless, without counsel, feeble, careless, rash, proud, dainty, nice, tale-bearers, eves-droppers, rumour-raisers, evil-tongued, worse minded, and in every wise doltified with the dregs of the devil's dunghil."

epistles of Paul. I would to God, the plowman should sing a text of Scripture at his plough; and that the weaver at his loom would thus drive away the tediousness of time. I would the way-faring man, with this pastime, would expel the weariness of his journey. And in short, I would that all the communication of the Christian should be of the Scripture."

If we come to our own time, it might be made to appear, that abundance of the most serious and valuable people, among the different denominations of men, spend a good portion of their time in this sacred exercise. I observe only, that Romaine studied nothing but the Bible for the last thirty or forty years of his life.

All these examples from ancients and moderns, are produced in this place, to encourage the believer to abound in this divine employ, for the comfort and edification of his own mind. The more intimately we are acquainted with these writings, the more fully shall we be persuaded of their incomparable excellency. Le Clerc tells us, (( that while he was compiling his harmony, he was so struck with admiration of the excellent discourses of Jesus, so inflamed with the love of his most holy doctrine, that he thought he but just then began to be acquainted with what he scarce ever laid out of his hands from his infancy." Indeed, the scheme of redemption therein exhibited is most worthy of acceptation, admirably calculated to make all mankind virtuous and happy, could all mankind see its excellence, feel its necessity, and submit to its righteous requirements. Far are we from wishing you to pay a blind submission to every thing that goes under the name of religion. Very far are we from desiring you to believe as we believe, or to act in every respect as we think right to act. Prize the liberty wherewith God hath providentially made you free. Use your own reason, but use it soberly. Beware of vain and spurious pretensions. Be upon

your guard against a sophistical philosophy, the fashionable folly of the present day. To sound philosophy we have no objection; but when a spurious kind of wisdom, falsely called philosophy, would rob us of our Bible, to which we are all more indebted than we are willing to confess(7), we must say of it as Cicero said of the twelve tables :" Though all should be offended I will speak what I think. Truly the little book of the twelve Tables alone, whether we consider the several chapters, or regard it as the foundation of all our laws, exceeds the libraries of all

(7) Steel says, "the greatest pleasures with which the imagination can be entertained are to be found in Sacred Writ, and even the style of Scripture is more than human."

We have an account of Henry Willis, farmer, aged 81, deceased, who had devoted almost every hour that could be spared from his labour, during the course of so long a life, to the devout and serious perusal of the holy Scriptures. He had read, with the most minute attention, all the books of the Old and New Testament eight times over; and had proceeded as far as the book of Job in the ninth reading, when his meditations were terminated by death.

A still more excellent account we have in the Shepherd of Salisbury-Plain. In a conversation with Mr. Johnson, he gives the following pleasing account of himself: Blessed be God, through his mercy, I learnt to read when I was a boy.-I believe there is no day for the last thirty years, that I have not peeped at my Bible. If we can't find time to read a chapter, I defy any man to say he can't find time to read a verse; and a single text, well followed and put in practice every day, would make no bad figure at the year's end; 365 texts, without the loss of a moment's time, would make a pretty stock, a little golden treasury, as one may say, from new year's day to new year's day; and if children were brought up to it, they would come to look for their text, as naturally as they do for their breakfast.-I can say the greatest part of the Bible by heart. I have led but a lonely life, and have often had but little to eat; but my Bible has been meat, drink and company to me-and when want and trouble have come upon me, I don't know what I should have done indeed, if I had not had the promises of this book for my stay and support."

Let no man hereafter pretend he cannot find time to read the Sacred Writings. Every person has abundant leisure for the purpose. Find but inclination, and you will soon find time.