himself to the study of the books of Moses. Nor can this position be reasonably objected to a priori as appearing unnatural or improbable; for in the earlier and simpler stages of society and language, such a mode of giving utterance to the conceptions of mind, so far from seeming rare and unintelligible, is known to have been usually more prevalent and popular.* The original signification of those metaphors, which make up so large a part of all language both spoken and written, must then have been fresher in the memory of man; they were daily, if we may so express ourselves, in the process of being increased in their number, and extended and modified in their import, as the occurrence of new ideas or new associations demanded. The mind habituated to this process would catch and retain, with quite sufficient rapidity and distinctness, the truths and instructions conveyed through the medium of those images and allegories, which in fact do so largely and constantly present themselves in the literature, both sacred and profane, of the ruder ages. It may be added, that the wisdom and theology of the Egyptians, to whose customs the Israelites had been so long inured, appear, from the remotest antiquity to which we can trace them, to have been involved in figurative and mystical representations. The whole hieroglyphical system must have been little else than a tissue of metaphor and allegory addressed to the eye instead of the ear.‡ These considerations might well lead us to suspect, that even they whom we regard as having needlessly and fancifully assumed or exaggerated the mystical sense of many parts of the Mosaic record, are at least not more unphilosophical than they who utterly proscribe every interpretation of the kind, however sanctioned by the authority of the New Testament, or countenanced by fair and reasonable analogies."§

The length of time during which this doctrine was that of the Christian Church universal, is brought down by Mr. C. later than by me; for he says, "The truth and reasonableness of this view of the Mosaic records has been acknowledged, until within the last half century, by the whole, or nearly the whole, of the Christian Church."||

6

He quotes and adopts, with unreserved commendation, a sentiment of " the learned Spencer," in which "he acknowledges unhesitatingly the distinction between the Scriptura exterior cujus sensus minime difficilis se cuivis offert,' and the Scriptura interior legis mirabilia continens, quæ ut planius et apertius intueatur psalmista oculos retectos expetit.' "¶

I might add some powerful reasoning of our author in confirmation of his assertion, that "we not only find that our Lord and his followers themselves affixed a secondary and more exalted sense to many passages of the Old Testament, but that they argue as though such a principle of interpretation were acknowledged as legitimate :"** but I will only take further, from the first Lecture, some remarks which are exactly coincident with some of my own, respecting those Christian teachers who would reject the spiritual sense of the Scriptures altogether. "We may grant," says Mr. C., " somewhat to the influence of outward circumstances, somewhat more perhaps to the alleged, and,

we hope, sincere desire of conciliating the open adversaries of our faith ;* a conciliation however seldom effected, and certainly not worth the purchasing, by the surrender of nearly all that distinguishes the Gospel from the mere philosophical creed of the deist ; but where we are told, in a voice purporting to be that of all the reasonable divines of protestant Europe, that every type, every prophecy, every adumbration of the Messiah's work and kingdom, to which we have been accustomed to look for the confirming our faith and the invigorating our devotion, is to be at once and entirely discarded, as matter of nothing better than Jewish superstition; where we see this rejection of all spiritual interpretation coupled with an undisguised anxiety to divest even the historical relations of Scripture of every thing exceeding human powers and attainments, we are assuredly tempted for the moment to inquire, Can these men be Christians?"§

He afterwards shews that it is an unfounded error to suppose, as some would have us, that the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, introduced into Christianity from its foundation, originated with, or even prevailed among, the Pharisees, or that it was borrowed from them or the other Jews.

The design of the six next Lectures is to evince, that the principles which thus appear evidently proposed to us upon the face of the Scriptures themselves, have accordingly been assumed and acted upon by the whole body of interpreters of Scripture till within a very recent period; in reference to which fact he observes, “ It is both useful and gratifying to find, that those opinions which we believe to be grounded on the firm warranty of Scripture and of reason, have received the support of the wise and the pious in former ages."|| Here then they who may wish to see a more detailed and complete examination of this important point than could be afforded by the brief and popular view given in our second Lecture, will find ample satisfaction: but the two accounts differ in nothing but their length and form; in their tenor and conclusions they exactly coincide.

Having in his second Lecture remarked upon the traces of this mode of interpretation which are found in the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, and upon the manner in which it was cultivated by the Judaic school of philosophy at Alexandria, and especially by the celebrated Philo; Mr. C. commences his third Lecture with these important remarks: "In the two former Lectures it was endeavoured to shew, that there were reasonable grounds for attaching a secondary and spiritual sense to much of the Law and the Prophets; and that such was, as far as we have the opportunity of ascertaining matters of this nature, the opinion, if not of the whole Jewish church, yet certainly of many among its most learned and pious members. That the practice of such interpretation was carried by some to an unwarrantable excess,** affords no proof that it was not originally founded upon just conceptions of the character of the older Revelation, or that it is repugnant to the wise and benevolent intentions of Him by whom all Scripture was given, and to whom were known all his works from the beginning. The course of our inquiry has now brought

* See our Lect. I. p. 7, &c. p. 9, 10.

iii. § 4, p. 90,

Lect. II. p. 33 and 40. See our Lect. I. p. 8, 9. § P. 30, 31. &c. ** See our Lect. II. p. 67 and 70;

+ See our Lect. I. P. 11. ¶ Sec. Lect. I. p. 90, 91.

us to that period, at which the preaching of a new and more perfect dispensation was committed by its divine Author to the apostles and ministers of his choice; committed with the express assurance, and confirnied and sanctioned by the conscious and sensible presence of his informing Spirit. If we believe them to have spoken and written under the guidance of that Spirit, to have been led (as it was promised) into all truth; if we hold upon any theory the proper inspiration of that which they delivered; I do not see with what consistency we can refuse (as some would do) to acquiesce in their interpretation of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. That to these Scriptures they do affix a secondary and spiritual meaning, and that they refer to them with this view, not merely in a few partial and dubious instances, but repeatedly, and with a distinctness only to be questioned by the most determined prejudice, seems equally clear. If indeed with one school we are to deny the existence of all types and prefigurations of the Messiah and his kingdom, and to contend that where the Law is said to have had a shadow of the good things to come, no more is meant than that in comparison with the gospel it was as valueless as a shadow when compared to a substance; we would answer, that such a theory claims for plain and specific language a much greater laxity and licence of interpretation than any which it objects to. If with others; we attempt to resolve the whole into one system of accommodation, we certainly do not a little shake the credibility of those witnesses who could rest so much upon so sandy a foundation. But the writers of the New Testament in no place appear either to confess or to suspect that the secondary or allegorical sense, which they attach to the Law and the Prophets, are [is] thus arbitrary and unreal. That we are content to regard some few instances of obscure application as thus accommodated, (and the lists usually given of such accommodations might indeed be much reduced,) does not, any more than the exceptions in various other cases, invalidate the general rule."

On this subject the author introduces this highly judicious remark: “And here I would venture even to submit, whether, as we consent, both from their own internal evidence and from the acknowledged inspiration of those who adduce them, to receive the great bulk of the Scriptural quotations so adduced in the New Testament as truly and originally typical and prophetical, it may not be the part of Christian humility and sober criticism rather to suspend the judgment as to those few which present real difficulties, than to attempt the accounting for or reconciling them by any hypothesis of accommodation, or partial and individual application; by conceding that they are no more than ornaments of diction, or at best argumenta ad hominem."§ The most difficult of the supposed accommodations are a quotation or two in Matthew's Gospel; but from these all difficulty would vanish, if we understood the spiritual sense of both the records.

The preceding remarks relate to the Old Testament; but our author equally contends for the spiritual sense of part, at least, of the New. "It

* See our Lect. II. p. 56, &c. and Appendix, No. I. thesis of Sykes in his answer to Collins."

"This is the hypo"This hypothesis the theologians § P. 75

of modern Germany have derived chiefly from the school of Le Clerc." to 80.

I

cannot," he observes, " be denied or questioned, that even in the records of the new covenant, the things which concern the renewal of the inner man, and the salvation of the believer, are in more than one case shadowed out to us under types and analogies, which, if we accept the testimony of those records, we are not only authorized but bound to understand and to apply spiritually. To pass over much of that part of our Lord's teaching which was confessedly in parables; if we allow that there be any spiritual grace connected with the right usage and reception of the Christian sacraments, we must admit their outward elements to be the certain and pre-ordained symbols of that grace, and of the means whereby it is conveyed to us: we must (be it spoken with reverence and faith) admit the material body and blood of our glorious Redeemer himself to be typical of that spiritual food whereby the inward life of the believer's soul, that life which, as we are expressly told, is hidden with Christ in God, is produced and supported.* When the apostle urges, (in which our church has well and wisely followed him,) that as our Saviour died and rose again for us, so should we who are buried with him in baptism die unto sin and rise again unto righteousness; when he expressly exhorts the believers as those who are risen with Christ; we cannot deny that he sees in the history of thus much at least of his Master's life a spiritual as well as a literal import. The luxuriance of human ingenuity may indeed, as it has often done, push its imitation of these mysterious analogies much too far; the pride of scepticism may refuse to be taught at all after this manner, and its votary may question the inspiration of those Scriptures which would thus teach him but neither the abuses of the one nor the perverseness of the other can invalidate the truth of the general position, that the New Testament does not only assert the secondary and spiritual meaning of much that is contained in the Old, but authorizes and strengthens the legitimacy of such interpretation by affixing the like to portions also of its own contents."+

These extracts are quite sufficient to shew, how decided is the support which Mr. C.'s work lends to the doctrine of the spiritual interpretation of Scripture. If it is thus certain, that "portions," at least, of the productions of Inspiration possess a spiritual sense, it is equally certain that they possess it universally; as has, I apprehend, been fully proved in our Lectures above.‡ One position being granted, the other follows of course. It is most true, as our author remarks, that if "the practice of such interpretation was carried by some to an unwarrantable excess, this affords no proof that it was not originally founded upon just conceptions of the character of revelation, or that it is repugnant to the intentions of Him by whom all Scripture was given :" but in what consists this excess? Not in applying it universally, but without a just knowledge of its nature: not in drawing from every part of Scripture a spiritual sense, but in deducing from it, under the name of the spiritual sense, notions of mere human invention; or rather, in inventing such notions and endeavouring to force them into the Scriptures. It is thus that "the luxuriance of human ingenuity may indeed, as it often has done, push its imitation

See our Lect. V. p. 371 to 373. + P. 82, 83. 172, 173, 204, 205. Lect. V. p. 274 to 278.

See our Lect. IV. p.

of these mysterious analogies much too far;" being ignorant of the real analogies, it substitutes for them some of its own but this no more proves that the abused passages have no spiritual analogies properly belonging to them, than the personation of the Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, by Lambert Simnel, proved that no such Earl of Warwick existed. Hence no negative conclusion can be drawn against the affirmative principle thus established, from the circumstance, that when Mr. C., after having in the six intermediate Lectures traced the history of spiritual interpretation, and shewn that it was, for many ages, universally admitted to be of universal application, and never entirely denied till within a very recent period, comes, in his last Lecture, to attempt to ascertain its limits, he exhibits some doubt and vacillation; for doubt and vacillation must, as has been shewn in our Lectures above,* ever attend on the expositor, who, while he admits the principle at all, is deterred from accepting it as universal, by the extravagances into which some have run, who have been guided, in their endeavours to decipher it, by no more certain clew than fancy or conjecture. This is evidently the origin of Mr. C.'s attempted limitations; and thus, instead of proving the non-universality of the spiritual sense, they only prove the want and necessity of such a universal rule for its developement as we have endeavoured to present in this work. Many of the expositions which he details, as samples of the spiritual mode of interpretation as practised in different ages, are certainly sufficiently capricious and nnfounded: and though he gives some which he acknowledges to be striking and beautiful, and others which he objects to only because the letter is plain and intelligible without them; (a strange objection, by the by, to follow the admission, respecting the plain and intelligible history of the death and resurrection of Jesus, that "thus much at least of his life had a spiritual as well as literal import ;") yet it seems as if the wading through so immense a chaos of contradiction and confusion as he was compelled to examine to obtain the materials for this learned part of his work, had had rather an unfavourable effect upon his judgment, and had scarcely left it proof against the effects of unavoidable disgust. His mind was evidently in a state here of great indecision. The doctrine of a spiritual sense, so long as it is supposed, if it exists at all, to be the consequence of arbitrary appointment, is attended with difficulty ; but when it is seen, as we have endeavoured to evince is the fact, to be the result of an immutable law of nature, and absolutely essential to, and inseparable from, the truly divine style of writing; all difficulty disappears. Then its universal becomes far more defensible than its partial existence. Not even "the pride of scepticism" can then allege a plausible argument against it, or for "refusing to be taught after this manner;" and the votary of scepticism, instead of drawing from it a plea for " questioning the inspiration of the Scriptures which would thus teach him," may find in it a proof demonstrative of their divinity.§ I cannot, then, but believe,

* P. 274 to 278. See particularly the Note p. 278 to 281.

66

† See our Lect. II. p. 77. See our Lecture IV. p. 157 to 166. § Mr. C. frequently cites the judicious canon of the early fathers, "Argumentum mysticum non valet ad probanda fidei dogmata," which affirms the same prinsiple as we have urged in our second Lecture, p. 79, 80: but he surely extends