Let me not be misunderstood if it is added that the Bible should be read,--I do not say _in the same manner_,--that is, in the same temper and spirit,--but at least _with the same attention_, as is bestowed upon a merely human work. In truth, it should be read with much more attention. But _that_ diligence which a student commonly bestows on a difficult moral treatise, or an obscure drama, or a perplexed history,--analyzing it, comparing passage with passage, and learning a great deal of it by heart,--I am quite at a loss to understand why a student of the Bible should be a stranger to.--"I do much condemn," (says Lord Bacon), "I do much condemn that Interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner as men use to interpret a profane book." So do I. Scripture is to be approached and handled in quite a different spirit from a common history. The mind, the heart rather, must bow down before its revelations, in the most suppliant fashion imaginable. The book should ever be approached with prayer:--"LORD, open Thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of Thy Law!" The very printed pages should be handled with reverence, in consideration of the message they contain. But what I am saying is, that none of the methods which diligence and zeal have ever invented to secure a complete mastery of the contents of any merely _human_ performance, may be overlooked by a student of _the Bible_. To what has gone before I will add one caution, and will trouble you with one only. It would be easy to multiply cautions: but I am talking to highly intelligent men; and there is only one rock which I am really fearful of your running against.