What an astonishing labor is this! Where is there anything like it to be found in the whole history of criticism or comment? There is, indeed, nothing like it to be found, because there is no other book in the world worthy of such care,—no other that is Divine.
And why, in the Divine Providence, has such care been taken of it? Because it is God's own Word—it is God speaking to man. And what he speaks. He addresses to all His creatures—to all mankind in all places and ages; and therefore, His Word was to be preserved in its integrity for all coming time. For when He speaks. He cannot speak otherwise than Divinely, that is, universally and infinitely. There are infinite depths of meaning in all His words—to be opened more and more fully, and perceived more and more clearly, as man rises to higher and higher states of purity and wisdom. Hence it is, that the Word of God is capable of being viewed in so many different lights, and is applicable in so many different ways. Where, for instance, in perusing the Sacred Volume, the Jew reads only the literal history of his fathers' deliverance from Egypt, and, after long wanderings and many trials in the wilderness, their final and happy entrance into the land of Canaan,—the Christian sees, in that interesting narrative, a type, also, of his own spiritual progress, his deliverance from the bondage of sin, the long course of trial and temptation necessary to his purification, and at length his joyful entrance into the Heavenly Canaan,—salvation and life eternal. So, again, while the Jew, in the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law, the washings and other observances, sees only the ceremony itself, the form, the outward act,—the Christian perceives that which is the soul
