g, startling, and useful lessons.

6. And so with Daniel and the minor prophets. The darkness and the
light, and things more useful and things less useful, are mingled in
them all.

7. It is the same with the New Testament. Some portions of Paul's
writings are as plain as they well can be; others are very obscure,
perhaps quite unintelligible. Some passages in the controversial
portions of his Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, and
considerable parts of the Epistle to the Hebrews, are dark as night to
many; and I fear that those who think they understand them, are under a
delusion. And as portions of these Epistles were wrested by the
unlearned and unconfirmed in Peter's time, so have they been mistaken
for lessons in moral laxity since. And still they are used by many as
props for immoral and blasphemous doctrines.

8. And what shall we say of the Book of Revelation? Adam Clarke thought
he understood it as well as any one, yet acknowledged that he did not
understand it at all. And though there are several passages that are
both plain and practical, and many that are most wondrously and
sublimely poetical, and some few that are rich both in truth and
tenderness, yet, as a whole, the Book is exceedingly, if not
impenetrably, dark.

9. Some portions of the Old Testament history are given twice over, as
in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, and the two accounts, in some
cases, seem to be irreconcilable with each other. The numbers often
differ, and some of them seem altogether too large. The accounts agree
well enough, and the statements are credible enough, as a rule, on
matters of great importance; but on smaller matters there are many plain
discrepancies.

Some other portions of the Bible, including two or three of the Psalms,
are given twice over.

10. Then who that reads the Proverbs attentively can help seeing, that
some of them are much plainer, and calculated to be much more useful,
than others. Many of them are rich in wisdom and goodness beyond
measure; but others appear to have neither much of beauty, nor much of
utility.

11. And the Psalms are not all of equal excellence. Some contain
terrible outpourings of hatred and vengeance. Many contain fierce and
resentful expressions. And though these things were excusable in early
times, and were, in fact, not wicked, but only a lower form of virtue,
we cannot but feel their great inferiority to the teachings and spirit
of Jesus. But taken as a whole,