ESSAY II.

ON THE IMPEDIMENTS TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE.

Unknown matters incidentally treated of-mystical and systematic interpretation-tricks played with Hebrew-controversy and funded criticism-poetry and painting-mistaken attempts at personal application-want of leisure-division into chapters and verses.

REGARDING the Scriptures as only one of the various modes of revelation which God has been pleased to make use of, we must remember that such a mode has been chosen by him with a full knowledge of all circumstances. He has revealed himself in other ways, and that knowledge which he gives us by means of a book, he might have given by some of those other means of revelation which he has used, or by other means which he has not used. He has, however, adopted this mode; and, as I have said, with a full knowledge of all circumstances a full knowledge of man, and of

his mode of making, using, and deriving knowledge from, books.

When, therefore, the question is, "How are we to understand this revelation?"—that is, "how are we to understand this book?"— the natural answer seems to be, "As we should understand any other book." Whatever difference may exist between the Bible, and all other books, as to its Divine origin and inspiration, its authority, purpose, or subject matter, I believe there is none which should affect the principles of interpretation; but as there are in fact some accidental impediments to our understanding the Bible, which do not exist, or are less felt, with regard to other books, it may be worth while briefly to notice them.

Certainly the great impediment to man's understanding the revelation of God is, that his powers of understanding are impaired, and his eyes are blinded by the god of this world, so that he has not spiritual discernment for those things which the Spirit of God reveals; and farther that, after his eyes are in some degree opened, and the enmity of his mind is in some degree subdued, he has not a full will to believe all that is revealed, but finds things

system of allegorizing, or spiritualizing, as it has been called, appears to owe its origin to the hellenizing Jews. I apprehend that when they came in contact with heathen philosophy, they became ashamed of the simplicity of the Word of God, and set to work to render it respectable in the eyes of the Gentiles. But what was to be done? It was undeniable that their law contained many things which in the eye of human wisdom did not seem very important; and the only way was to pretend that these plain, and, as they seemed to Pagan philosophers, trifling rules, were significant of some deep mysteries. Thus the Pseudo-Aristeas, in the conversation which he has recorded as taking place between himself and Eleazer the High Priest, represents the latter as stating that there was something profound in all the regulations about clean and unclean things; and as adding that he would explain one or two by way of specimen, in order that the inquirer might not think so meanly of Moses, as to suppose that he legislated about mice and weasels, and such things. As to birds, he told him that those considered clean and pure were such as fed on corn, or pulse— the unclean were wild and carnivorous; and

the meaning of this was, that the Jews were to live justly, and avoid violence and oppression. After some other similar, but more absurd, explanations, by which he says that he has shewn that their legislator did not make these rules just as a matter of fancy, but very judiciously, he goes on to say that the saine applies to the regulations about mice, and weasels. The former little beasts being, as he states, extremely mischievous and destructive, were,

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suppose, forbidden in order to teach men not to be mischievous and destructive; but the meaning of prohibiting weasels, he states to be, to teach men not to be spies.

The reader will not suppose that I am maintaining the genuineness or authenticity of this work, which I only quote because it is at least a very early specimen of this mode of interpreting; and because the motive is so clearly and plainly avowed. In reference to the explanations which I have quoted, Mr. Conybeare has said, "The chief ground for proposing this "explanation appears to have been a dread "lest the Scripture should be supposed to have "prescribed any thing as of divine ordinance, "without reason or truth, (eixñ ǹ μvoúdos ;) a pretext which (with, perhaps, a yet greater

which it is not only difficult to comprehend, but hard to receive. This point, however, is so universally admitted, and so commonly treated of by Christians, that I need not here repeat what is familiar to every reader. My object in this Essay is rather to offer a few remarks on what may be called accidental impediments, which (however they may have come there) now lie in the way of a reader of the Scriptures; and have, more or less, a tendency to prevent his clear understanding of the word of God.

I. It has often been remarked that one great and obvious impediment to our understanding the Scriptures is, that they treat of things not cognizable by our senses, and beyond our comprehension: this is true to a certain extent; but, I apprehend, that a great part of the difficulty arises rather from the fact that the Scriptures do not treat of those things; but only incidentally refer to them in connexion with those things of which they do treat. I do not mean to say that there are not things treated of, or alluded to, in the Scripture, which could not by any means be brought within the comprehension of man, as he is now constituted and circumstanced; but only,