5. To use in our interpretation of the inspired volume all the helps within our reach; whether spiritual or temporal; whether derivable from the living or from the dead. Among these helps, the most important and indispensable are prayer and a holy life. With respect to prayer, the promises in Holy Scripture, that guidance to the truth shall be given to him that asks it, are, as we have seen, numerous and indisputable. {34f} And as regards a holy life, or the labours of the humble and diligent individual, who, from desire to do the will of God, conscientiously exerts himself to know it, our Lord Himself expressly declares, “If any man will do (θέλει ποιεῖν, or is desirous to do) his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” {34g} To these helps may be added others equally obvious, so far as they are consistent with the opportunities, station, or profession of the individual—such as familiarity with Scripture in the original, knowledge of history, and particularly of the manners, laws, customs, and opinions of antiquity, Jewish as well as Christian; joined to acquaintance with sound principles of Biblical interpretation, criticism, and translation. But a point which more particularly seems, under this rule, to require illustration, is the _degree of value_ at which the conscientious inquirer after sound religious knowledge ought to estimate ecclesiastical antiquity. Many pious individuals (in their well-meant zeal against Romish errors) have thought themselves obliged to discard ecclesiastical antiquity, under a persuasion that by attaching any value to ancient writers, they would violate the great Protestant axiom of resting on the sole authority of God’s written word.