The proper remedy for evils of this kind is not to be found in the timid or overbearing prohibitions of those who endeavor to prevent the mischief by interdicting inquiry; and who would make it a sin or a folly for a Christian to ask the meaning of certain portions of Scripture. Cautions and restrictions of this nature are incompatible with the principle of Protestantism, as well as unnecessary, arrogant, and unavailing. If indeed man possessed any means of intrusion upon the mysteries of the upper world, or upon the secrets of futurity, there might be room to reprehend the audacity of those who should attempt to know by force or by importunity of research what has not been revealed. But when the unseen and the future are, by the spontaneous grace of Heaven, in part set open, and when a message which might have been withheld, has been sent to earth, encircled with a benediction like this—"Blessed are they that hear, and keep these words:" then it may most safely be concluded that whatever is not marked with the seal of prohibition, is open to scrutiny. In truth, there is something incongruous in the notion of a _revelation_ enveloped in menace and restriction. But be this as it may, it is certain that whoever would shut up the Scriptures, in whole or in part, from his fellow disciples, or who affirms it to be unsafe or unwise to study such and such passages, is bound to show reasons of the most convincing kind for the exclusion. "What God has joined, let not man put asunder;" but he has connected his blessing, comprehensively, with the study of his word. It should be left to the Romish Church to employ that faulty argument of captious arrogance, which prohibits the use of whatever may be abused. Unless, then, it can be shown that a divine interdiction encloses the prophetic portions of Scripture, it must be deemed an ill-judged and irreligious, though perhaps well-intended usurpation, in any one who assumes to plant his little rod of obstruction across the highway of Revelation.