It is both a happy and a safe place to be an inquirer. Happy, because it keeps the soul in direct intercourse with the Lord, for we must inquire in His temple; safe, because His Word will be regarded as that which is to search and guide us, rather than as a subject for the speculation of our minds. But we are naturally prone to be impatient of the place of inquirers, and readily fall in with a theory which, though it may embody great features of truth, hinders the direct application of the truth to our conscience and affections.
While we are thus impatient of inquiring in the temple in the attitude of worshippers, we are no less impatient of inquiring among ourselves. Self-confidence will lead a few to dogmatize, while, to save the trouble of thinking and judging for themselves, the many will follow on in the wake of dogmatic teaching. The result is opposing theories, and then all the help which one might afford another is lost. When Christians, with the single desire of ascertaining the mind of God, have inquired one of another, as in His presence, concerning the meaning of Scripture, how many a crude thought has been shaped, how many a precious thought has been disentangled, while some imaginative mind has perhaps been checked in carrying out a particular truth beyond its limit; and thus have hearts been “knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding”; all have been edified, all have been comforted.
Pr.