The recent progress made towards the adoption of an improved method of exposition demands to be named amongst the most auspicious indications of the present times. Insensibly, and undesignedly, and from the operation of various causes, all well-intentioned theologians have of late been fast advancing towards that simple and rational method of inferring the doctrine of Scripture which corresponds with the inductive method of inquiry, practiced in the pursuit of physical science. Just as, in the ancient schools of philosophy, each pretended expounder of the mysteries of nature, first framed his theory, and then imposed upon all phenomena such an interpretation as would best accord with his hypothesis; so have biblical expositors, in long succession, from the ancient Jewish doctors, to the Christian divines of the last century, with very few, if any exceptions, followed the method of interpreting each separate portion of Scripture by the aid of a previously formed theological hypothesis. And although these theories of divinity may have been, perhaps, fairly founded upon scriptural evidence, partially obtained, they have often exerted an influence scarcely less pernicious than as if they had been altogether erroneous. This system once admitted to constitute a synopsis of truth, has been suffered to exercise the most arrogant domination over every part of Scripture in detail. Certain dogmas, awfully clothed in the clouds of metaphysical phraseology, have bid defiance to the most explicit evidence of an opposite meaning; and no text has been permitted to utter its testimony, until it had been placed on the rack. But the folly and impiety of this style of interpretation have become conspicuous; and though not yet quite abandoned, it is left to those whose minds have been too long habituated to trammels to move at all without them. The rule of the new mode of exposition is founded on a principle precisely analogous to that which forms the basis of the inductive method of inquiry in physical science. In these sciences it is now universally admitted, that, at the best, and after all possible diligence and sagacity have been employed, we can scarcely penetrate beyond the exterior movements of the material system; while the interior mechanism of nature still defies human scrutiny. Nothing then could be more preposterous than to commence the study of nature by laying down, theoretically, the plan of those hidden and central contrivances, as if they were open to observation; and then to work outwards from that centre, and to explain all facts that come under observation in conformity with principles so ignorantly assumed. This is indeed to take a lie in our right hand, as the key of knowledge: yet such was the philosophy which ruled the world for ages!