precepts should gain that interior admission into the mind and life of man which they were designed to gain, as that bodily food, without being well digested, should gain its proper and profitable admission into the body. Man thus, with the Bible in his hand, and even in his memory, may be as great a stranger to its living and saving contents as if he had never heard of the HOLY BOOK; so that even the Divine precept, above alluded to, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” would be totally void of spiritual nourishment, and more like a dead husk than the living kernel of Divine wisdom and salvation. For supposing that a man reads this precept, and yet, after reading it, is never led by serious consideration and purpose to ruminate on what is properly meant by loving, as applied to the GREAT and HOLY GOD; on what also is involved in the sacred title of the object to be loved, THE LORD THY GOD; and lastly, on the distinct terms the heart, the soul, and the mind, as marking the distinct principles by and from which He is to be loved; what eye cannot see, in such case, that the precept would remain useless, and so far from being the meat which endureth to eternal life, would rather be converted into the meat which perisheth, or into that
