the Lord." For other examples, see Isa. xl. 16, and Jer. xix. 5. But in 2 Kings iii. 27, is a case exactly parallel to this of Jephthah. What Jephthah, according to the most direct import of his words and the Septuagint rendering of them, is supposed to have promised to do, the king of Moab, when sore pressed by the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom, is affirmed to have done; and in precisely the same words joined in precisely the same construction. Of the king of Moab it is said, "Then took he his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him (for) a burnt-offering upon the wall." The words that express, and offered him (for) a burnt-offering, are the only : והעליתיהו עולה Jephthah's are : ויעלהו עלה : difference is in the mood, tense and person of the verb, and a common variety in the spelling of the noun: the same affix,-1,-is used in both; in both the is omitted. It must now, I think, be evident, that although Dr. Randolph's interpretation may possibly be correct, its credit must stand entirely upon the strength of his first grammatical argument, the applicability of which to the case is, we have seen, not indisputable: his second, we find, is destitute of any validity whatsoever. And it is no less evident, that, after all the labours of the learned to fix a sense upon Jephthah's vow which should exclude the idea that a human sacrifice was either intended by it or might be its unintended result, nothing satisfactory has been produced. It is still undeniable, that the old common translation, or rather the older one of the Septuagint, is that which naturally flows from the words, if taken in their regular construction. Certain it is, that if Jephthah had spoken English, and had said, "Whosoever cometh out of the doors of my house, &c.-shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt-offering;" and these words had been translated from English into Hebrew; they could not otherwise have been exactly rendered than by the very words which now stand in the Hebrew Bible. Upon the whole, then, I think, it will be admitted, that the assertion in the Lecture is fully made out, that the most unforced inference from the language of the original, and from the history in general, is, that the sacrifice took place." But as, nevertheless, there are other considerations which render it in the highest degree improbable that such a sacrifice did take place, it seems to be reasonable to conclude, that the letter is so framed as apparently to affirm it, because, otherwise, the subjects treated of in the spiritual sense, for the sake of which, pre-eminently, the letter is constructed, could not have been so fully represented. How important then does the doctrine of a spiritual sense become, as affording the only key to a satisfactory solution of such difficulties! No. VII. (Page 575.) ARGUMENTS FOR THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST PART OF GENESIS CONSIDERED. I have stated in the text above, that the regarding of the early part of Genesis as a pure allegory, solves all the difficulties attending it, and is itself unattended by any. I am aware, however that difficulties have been attempted to be raised against the allegorical interpretation; but the arguments by which they are supported appear to me to be scarcely deserving of the least consideration,-to be such as would never have been offered but in behalf of a cause altogether indefensible. We will, here notice one or two that are most insisted on; being the only ones I have seen which make any approach towards plausibility. It has been urged, that the account of Adam and Eve, and of the other antediluvian patriarchs, is referred to in the New Testament as real. But, certainly, nothing is any where said of them which is not as applicable to the spiritual as to the literal acceptation of the history. For instance: When Paul says, "that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," the meaning is the same if we understand by Adam the first assemblage of human beings who were ever formed by God into a Church, and by the departure of whom from the primeval integrity man at this day inherits a corrupt nature, as if we understand by him a single individual: indeed it is perfectly evident, that the Apostle uses the term Adam for man's state by nature. In like manner, when the genealogy of Jesus Christ is carried up to Adam, the true meaning is the same, whether some of those personages be purely allegorical characters or not. For although those from Abraham, or perhaps from Eber, were individual men who lived as such in the world, they still were all representative characters, and they are mentioned in that genealogy to denote certain species of human minds, or certain principles which enter into the composition of the human mind: these then are enuinerated as ancestors, according to the flesh, of the Lord Jesus Christ, to inform us, that in his human nature was concentred every thing belonging to the human character, from highest to lowest, from first to last; every thing that had ever entered into it, froin the primeval times, when human nature appeared in its highest integrity, so as to be almost a pure, abstract essence, till the age in which he was born among the Jews, who then were the most gross and carnalized race that ever existed: thus that all was assumed, and all was redeemed, by him. * 1 Cor. xv. 21. Of the same nature is the objection of Lord Bolingbroke, whose statement is quoted by one of the advocates of the literal interpretation, and who introduces it thus: "Even Lord Bolingbroke (than whom Revelation never had a more subtle opposer) justly rejects the allegorical interpretation: 'It cannot (says he) be admitted by Christians; for if it was, what would become of that famous text [that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head,] whereon the doctrine of our redemption is founded?'"* But the writer who has adduced this as authority, while he declares the subtilty of this opponent of revelation, has here, in his own simplicity, overlooked the snake in the grass. The passage he quotes is itself an example of the subtilty of the noble infidel; whose object, doubtless, was, to clog the belief of Revelation with all possible difficulties; and who therefore wished to shut out the allegorical interpretation of this part of the Word of God, because he saw that, if this were admitted, no solid objection would lie against it. Whether the woman spoken of in this prophecy denote the first female of the human race, or human nature in general as to its principle of affection or will, it equally was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was as truly the seed of the woman in the spiritual as in the literal sense of the words. In another instance it has been attempted to overturn the whole doctrine of allegorical interpretation by a quibble: it has been said, that "a figurative fall would require only a figurative redemption." But it is not the fall itself which the allegorical interpretation represents as figurative, but the description of it: the fall itself it considers as real, and, of course, that it required a real redemption. Altogether then, I trust, it must be seen, that every consideration which can be brought to bear upon this question, confirms the fact, that the history in this part of Genesis is a continued allegory; and that no reasonable objection can be raised against it. No. VIII. REMARKS ON THE RECENT VOLUME OF BAMPTON LECTURES, BY THE LATE REV. J. J. CONYBEARE, M. A.; AND ON THE SUPPORT IT AFFORDS TO THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE PRESENT WORK. It has yielded no small encouragement to the Author of the work * Horne's Introd. vol. i. p. 174. now offered to the public, to see issue from the press while these Lectures were in it, a volume which, to a considerable extent, espouses and most ably maintains the same argument; a volume, also, the character and intrinsic merits of which must recommend it to a large and influential body of readers: whilst it can hardly fail to generate, in the minds of many who peruse it, ideas upon the spiritual interpretation of Scripture, which nothing but such a consistent system as the present work endeavours to develope can satisfy and fill. As was to be expected, the amiable and learned author, whose sudden loss to the church of which he was so decided an ornament I sincerely unite with her in lamenting, does not attempt to free the system of spiritual interpretation from those incumbrances and inconsistences, with which, as has been noticed in our Lectures above, it has in modern ages been crippled. But the reason evidently is, because he had not found in the writers on Scripture-interpretation whom he had examined, any Rule of uniform and universal application. Had such a regular system been presented to him, it appears reasonable to infer, from the affirmative sentiments with which his mind was so strongly imbued on the general question, that he would have accepted it with joy; and therefore, beside the general grounds for regretting his premature removal, I cannot but think that I have a personal one also, and that the present work has lost by the dispensation, not only a well qualified and candid, but, in addition, a favourable judge. Mr. Conybeare (who was brother to the gentleman from whose valuable writings on Geology an extract or two are taken in our Lecture above*,) describes his work as "An attempt to trace the history, and to ascertain the limits, of the Secondary and Spiritual Interpretation of Scripture;" and the argument of the whole is precisely the same, though in a form so much more extended, as that of the third Section of our second Lecture. Had not our work been so enlarged as almost to render the single volume to which it is necessarily, by its original plan, confined, a book of inconvenient bulk, I should have deemed it advisable,-for certainly it would materially promote my own design, to examine these Bampton Lectures at a length proportioned to their importance and interest: as it is, I must confine my notice of them to a few quotations and some brief remarks. Not to notice them at all would be doing equal injustice to my readers and myself. The first Lecture, after proposing the design of the work, is chiefly occupied with arguments on the reasonableness and necessity of admitting the Scriptures to contain, in general, a spiritual sense, and against * P. 560, 561. the low principles of Scripture-interpretation which have become general on the continent. In the following passage the author advances several of the principles which we have endeavoured to establish in this work: "However we may scruple (as many in the fair and legitimate exercise of private judgment doubtless will scruple) to follow the more learned and eminent of these [the authors who have enumerated several divisions and varieties of the spiritual sense] to the full extent of their respective theories; yet, that such a secondary and spiritual meaning was, from the earliest period, partially at least, involved in the traditional and written monuments of the Jewish faith, cannot, we hold, be fairly and successfully denied; cannot even be doubted by any one who, with a belief in their inspiration, and an unprejudiced and impartial frame of mind, applies 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 * See our Lect. III. p. 170, &c. and p. 190, &c. k |