If God is a reality, and the soul is a reality, and you are an immortal being, what are you doing with your Bible shut?
Other books we may read and criticise. To the Scriptures we must bow the entire soul, with all its faculties.
Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, both as authority and illustration, in a manner that shall make the mind instantly refer each expression that is introduced to the venerable book whence it is taken; but let our part of religious language be simply ours, and let those oracles retain their characteristic form of expression unimitated, unparodied to the end of time.
There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.
A loving trust in the Author of the Bible is the best preparation for a wise study of the Bible.
The reason why we find so many dark places in the Bible is, for the most part, because there are so many dark places in our hearts.
