“What mean those words to Timothy (1 Tim. vi. 20.) Keep that which is committed to thy trust? They mean, that which was entrusted to thee, not what was invented by thee: what thou didst receive, not what thou didst devise : a thing, not of ingenuity, but of doctrine: not of private science, but of public delivery : brought to thee, not arising from thee: a thing, of which thou must be the guardian, not the author: the disciple, not the master: the follower, not the leader. What was entrusted to thee, that retain, that deliver. Thou hast received gold; thou must return gold, no base metal, no counterfeit. O Timothy, if the divine bounty hath given thee the capacity, use it to polish the precious gems of the Divine Word, to arrange them with fidelity, with skill to embellish them: give them splendour, grace, and beauty, what before, though involved in some obscurity, was believed, whilst thou expoundest, be it more clearly understood. Posterity, to thee indebted, may behold in a brighter day, what their fathers venerated in obscurity : but teach what alone thou didst learn; that, while the expression may be new, the thing said be ancient.”(\)—Ibid. n. xxii. p. 350.
Why, then, it may be said :-Is the Church of Christ to make no advance, no proficiency, in religious knowledge ? God forbid! But let it be a real proficiency, not a change.'") By the first is understood, that the thing be improved within itself: by the second, that something be introduced from without. Let intellect, science, wisdom, in all orders of men, and in all ages, receive every possible increase ; but, without any change in the dogma, in its sense, in its acceptation. a) This he illustrates from the growth of the human body, which, through all its changes, from childhood to manhood, retains its identity, and then adds: “So may the
