THE PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE. MARCH, 1856. Miscellaneous Articles. OUR GUIDE IN RELIGION. "THY word," says David, "is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." We find in almost every verse of the hundred and nineteenth psalm some expression of delight in the Holy Scriptures. And we must confess that the author's reverence and love for the word of God was far above that of most religious people in our time. In the almost infinite extent and variety of our religious literature, how seldom have we any such effusions of humble and holy delight in our sacred writings! Yet David had but a small part of our present Bible. All the sacred records then known to the people of God were the first seven books of the Old Testament, and perhaps the book of Job,-a part of our Holy Scripture by no means the most instructive or attractive to the church of the present day. The later history of the Hebrew commonwealth, the writings of the prophets, the wise maxims of Solomon the son of David, and the whole New Testament, with its records of the life, the character, and the doctrines of David's greater Son,-all these formed no part of David's Bible. And if so small and inferior a portion of Holy Scripture was so precious to him, how much more precious to us should be the complete revelations of our Bible! Ever since the fall this world has been in itself a scene of spiritual darkness. Sin closes the eyes of men against the light of nature; so that from what may be clearly seen in the things that are made they learn little or nothing of the true God. They do not learn from the teachings of natural conscience, nor the study of their own constitution, either their interest or their duty. By the sunlight of the old creation they do not see the way to heaven. VOL. VI.-No. 3. 97 |