First, have always in view, the end for which the Scriptures were written, even to show us the way of salvation, by Jesus Christ. “Search the scriptures,” says our blessed Lord, “for they are they that testify of Me.” Look, therefore, always for Christ in the Scripture. He is the treasure hid in the field, both of the Old and New Testament.

Have Christ, then always in view when you are reading the Word of God, and this, like the star in the east, will guide you to the Messiah, will serve as a key to everything that is obscure, and unlock to you the wisdom and riches of all the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

Secondly, search the Scriptures with an humble childlike disposition. For whosoever does not read them with this temper, shall in no wise enter into the knowledge of the things contained in them. For God hides the sense of them, from those that are wise and prudent in their own eyes, and reveals them only to babes in Christ: who think they know nothing yet as they ought to know; who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and humbly desire to be fed with the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow thereby.

Thirdly, search the Scriptures, with a sincere intention to put in practice what you read. A desire to do the will of God is the only way to know it; “If any man will do My will,” says Jesus Christ, “He shall know of my doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself.” As He speaks in another place to His disciples, “To you, (who are willing to practice your duty) it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, bu to those that are without (who only want to raise cavils against my doctrine) all these things are spoken in parables, that seeing they may see and not understand and hearing they may hear and not perceive.”

Those who consult His word with a desire neither to know Him, nor keep His commandments, but either merely for their entertainment, or to scoff at the simplicity of the manner in which He is revealed, to those, I say, He never will reveal Himself, though they should search the Scriptures to all eternity.

Fourthly, in order to search the Scriptures, still more effectually, make an application of everything you read to your own hearts. For whatever was written in the book of God, was written for our learning. What Christ said unto those aforetime, we must look upon as spoken to us also; for since the holy Scriptures are nothing but a revelation from God, how fallen man is to be restored by Jesus Christ: all the precepts, threats, and promises, belong to us and to our children, as well as to those, to whom they were immediately made known.

The fifth direction how to search the Scriptures with profit: Labor to attain that Spirit by which they were written. For the natural man discerneth not the words of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned; the words that Christ hath spoken, they are spirit, and they are life, and can be no more understood as to the true sense and meaning of them, by the mere natural man, than a person who never had learned a language can understand another speaking in it.

Sixly, let me advise you, before you read the Scriptures, to pray, that Christ, according to His promise, would send His Spirit to guide you into all truth; intersperse short ejaculations whilst you are engaged in reading, pray over every word and verse, if possible; and when you close up the book, most earnestly beseech God, that the words which you have read, may be inwardly engrafted into your hearts, and bring forth in you the fruits of a good life.

Seventhly, read the Scripture constantly, or, to use our Savior’s expression, “search the scriptures”; dig in them as for hid treasure; for here is a manifest allusion to those who dig in mines; and our Savior would thereby teach us, that we must take as much pains in constantly reading His word, if we would grow wise thereby, as those who dig for gold and silver.

Search, therefore, the Scriptures, my dear brethren; taste and see how good the Word of God is, and then you will never leave that heavenly manna, that angel’s food, to feed on dry husks, that light bread, those trifling, sinful compositions, in which men of false taste delight themselves: no, you will then disdain such poor entertainment, and blush that yourselves once were fond of it. The Word of God will then be sweeter to you than honey, and the honeycomb, and dearer than gold and silver; your souls by reading it, will be filled as it were, with marrow and fatness, and your hearts insensibly molded into the spirit of its blessed Author. In short, you will be guided by God’s wisdom here, and conducted by the light of His divine word into glory hereafter.