Rules for Reading the Scriptures.
1. NEVER open the Book of God, without remembering that you must be tried by it at the judgment seat of Christ. 2. Read, with prayer for direction to the right meaning, with earnest attention to the words, and connection of the passage; with diligent comparison of every passage with the whole Bible; and with patient thought concerning the result. 3. When you read the Scriptures, let not your attachment to the systems or the sentiments of men obscure their meaning, or induce you to pervert them. 4. When you discover any truth in the Bible, receive it with candor, maintain it with meekness, and avow it with courage. 5. When you discover any duty in the Bible, meet the discovery with a cheerful obedience. 6. In your daily perusal of the Sacred Volume, receive its doctrines with a lively faith, and practice its duties with a bold boldness. 7. When you read the Bible, pray for divine grace, by which its doctrines and duties may become the fountain, and the streams of genuine christian discipleship. 8. This Book contains the law of the Most High God; it founds its claims to divine origin on the harmony of its facts with the records of universal history; on the moral character of its inspired penmen; on the sublime yet simple majesty of its style; on the excellence of its doctrines; on the purity of its morals; and on the evidence of indisputable miracles. 9. To the Christian this volume supplies a surer guide than the Israelites enjoyed in the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night; it unfolds the consoling doctrine and the directing precept, the warning threat and the cheering promise; it exposes our guilt, proclaims our danger, and reveals our duty; it condemns to justify, and justifies to condemn no more. 10. To the dead the blessed Bible speaks life, and to the living it unfolds immortality; it makes the weak strong, and to the strong it increaseth strength; it invites inquiry, and amply rewards the honest inquirer; it holds up a guiding star through the pilgrimage of life, and extends the horizon of our mortal existence into the boundless ocean of a happy eternity.—Selected.