nacle of the temple, and thence incited to do a rash act that includes the persuasion of possessing divine power, is to be tempted by a still more extravagant species of the lust of power,—what may be called the ecclesiastical thirst for dominion,—that which aims at sovereignty over men's souls as well as their bodies. But the ultimate end which is proposed by any passion that sways the human breast, is what determines its positive quality. There doubtless have been Popes and Grand Lamas, who, in arrogating dominion over the souls of men, have made this pretension and lust subservient to the desire of temporal power and wealth: the latter have been their supreme objects of regard; and the former has been valued as a means to the attainment of these ends. These then have yielded to the suggestions of Satan, as they are represented by Matthew. Other occupants of the pontifical thrones of Rome and of Lassa, have unquestionably been possessed, as their ruling aim and object, with the lust of spiritual domination, and have grasped at temporal power and wealth as calculated to promote it: These then have adopted the persuasions of the devil, as they are arranged by Luke. Thus, while it is perfectly evident that there exist these two general kinds of the lust of domination, it appears no less certain, that each of them undergoes a modification, as it is made subservient, or paramount, to the other. This is even indicated by the Evangelists in the minute distinctions of their language: thus Luke, who represents the appetite for temporal power and wealth as subservient to the ecclesiastical lust, calls the symbol of the state, simply a “high mountain;” whilst Matthew, who exhibits it as predominant, exalts its symbol into “an exceeding high mountain." Now it cannot be doubted, since the Saviour "was in all points tempted as we are*,”—was made sensible, in the human part of his constitution, of the strongest instigations to every evil that ever beset the most corrupt child of Adam; that the tempter injected the propensity to both these general evils in both these states of their development. But the only way, in the language of analogies, in which the two forms of them could be described, was, by placing the representatives of them before, and after, each other, respectively. To have done this in the same narrative would have appeared a strange tautology; neither would it have expressed the order of their manifestation or existence, the *Heb. iv. 15.

one abiding within, or occupying a more interior sphere than the other. Therefore the symbolic description of each is given in a separate book: and as Matthew's Gospel treats of things in their more exterior, and Luke's in their more interior developments, therefore, in agreement with the respective characters of the narratives, the more exterior and superficial development of these direful evils forms the subject of the temptation as described by the first Evangelist; while the latter represents them in their more interior form, and opens, in its still deeper recesses, their diabolical

nature.

(7.) The only other case which we have to notice, is that in which Matthew cites a text, as from the prophet Jeremiah, which is only to be found in the book of Zechariah: he gives it thus: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potter's field; as the Lord appointed me.”* In an ordinary writer, this certainly would argue strange negligence: but what if, occurring where it does, it affords a positive argument for the Evangelist's plenary inspiration? What if it should be absolutely impossible for a writer whose pen was irresistibly guided by the Spirit of God, to cite these words, how well soever he might know that he had read them in Zechariah, without ascribing them to Jeremiah? Such, I apprehend, will readily appear to be the fact. And indeed, how is it possible that the change of name could have originated in mistake? Is it credible that Matthew could know so little of the Scriptures as to be ignorant in what book the words were extant? And if so monstrous an improbability might for a moment be supposed, is it imaginable that, among those to whom he first communicated his Gospel, there was none who possessed sufficient knowledge of the ancient Word, with which every Jew was familiar from his cradle, to inform him of the erratum? Really the difficulties of conceiving it to be an unintended error, are greater than those of supposing that it was a dictate from the Spirit of God: they indeed are such as directly point to this conclusion. And in this we shall find an easy and natural solution of the whole seeming inconsistency.

* Matt. xxvii. 9, 10; Comp. Zech. xi. 12, 13.

15

If the Word of God be the Word of God indeed, it is a mere truism to affirm, that the Spirit which dictated it cannot possibly regard it as the work of men: consequently, that Spirit can never mean to ascribe any of its books to the men whose names they bear. Every prophet who was commissioned to deliver any portion of the Word of God, became, ipso facto, a representative type of the Word of God itself: specifically, of that portion of it which he was the instrument of writing. Now every such portion of it has a distinctive character of its own, more or less obviously discriminated. So plain is this, in some instances, as to have become proverbial: thus Isaiah is commonly called the evangelical prophet, on account of his open annunciations of the incarnation of the Lord and his advent in the flesh; and Jeremiah is popularly denominated the weeping prophet, for his pathetic lamentations over the fall and utter corruption of the Jewish Church, and its rejection and maltreatment of the Word of God, in its personal type, the prophet himself, and in its still plainer type, the roll of inspired writing which Jehoiakim committed to the flames.* When therefore a prophet is cited by name in the inspired writings, it is not that prophet, personally, that was in the mind of the Spirit of God; nor even the specific book which bears his name: but his name is used as a symbol of all that portion of Scripture which is of the same character as belongs, generally, to the writings of the prophet named, whether occurring in his book or in any other. Usually, indeed, it cannot but happen, that the passage quoted is in the book of the prophet who stands as the type of that species of divine composition which distinguishes his own writings: but where occasion occurs for citing a passage of a different character from that which belongs, in general, to the book in which it is found, and of the same as belongs to another principal prophet, Divine Inspiration, which regards the intrinsic qualities of things and not merely their external circumstances, adduces the quotation in the name of the latter prophet instead of the former. Of this, indeed, only this one instance occurs: it cannot, therefore, be illustrated by other examples: but this one itself is admirably illustrative of the principle, and points to it with a clearness which it were difficult to overlook. The weeping prophet, Jeremiah, we have noticed, though a real character, is a striking personification of that species *See Ch. xxxvi.

of Divine Truth, or of that portion of the Divine Word, which treats of the utter corruption of the Jewish Church, and its maltreatment of the Word: the latter is precisely the character of the divine declaration which is here cited as from him; it treats of the low estimation in which the Word was at this time held by the Jews, who hoped to have purchased of Judas the power of destroying its actual personification, the Word incarnate. And whilst this passage is so decidedly of the same character as distinguishes the writings of Jeremiah, it as evidently does not at all belong to the general character of the book of Zechariah, which is mostly composed in a cheering strain, and dwells more upon the restoration of the church, and her glorious state in consequence of receiving the Lord as the Word, than of her previous debasement and infidelity. The two subjects are nearly connected together, since the one event follows the other; and hence the prophets seldom dwell long upon the desolation of the church and her rejection of the Lord, without some reference to her restoration and her reception of him: but the one subject constitutes the predominant topic of Jeremiah, and the other of Zechariah: wherefore the Spirit of Inspiration designates the statements which even Zechariah delivers on the former subject, by the name of its proper type, Jeremiah.

Surely I may be allowed to say, how satisfactory, and how beautiful, is this explanation! It is a perfectly easy solution of a difficulty, which, upon every other theory, is insurmountable.* But from our system it flows unforced; and not only so, but as a natural and necessary result. May we not then assume, that both the solution and the system must indubitably be true?

The Doctrine that the Sacred Scriptures every where contain a spiritual sense, for the sake of conveying which the letter is constructed, with a knowledge of the just mode of decyphering it by the Doctrine of Representation and Analogy, will solve every other seeming contradiction in the statements of the inspired writers.

* It is affirmed by some, that Jeremiah is named instead of Zechariah, because he anciently stood first in the copies of the prophets, and so might be taken as a name for them all: but that there is no authority for such an assertion, is sufficiently shewn in the Appendix, No. II. p. xiv. Others consider the name of Jeremiah to be an accidental interpolation; but certainly it were such an interpolation as it could never come into the head of any scribe to make.

To examine, in this manner, all the passages in the Gospels which appear contradictory, would constitute a work of much interest : but our design in the present work is, simply to lay down the principles upon which they are to be solved, and to illustrate the applicability of the theory to the facts, by such examples as might be necessary for that purpose. This may now have been done. And I trust that it cannot but be seen, that varying statements, proceeding from inspired pens, may all equally be true, and may detail circumstances which equally belong to the same transaction, though sometimes, possibly, to such parts of it as were beyond the ken of ordinary observation, and could have been known to none but inspired writers. Of their inspiration, then, such circumstances, fairly interpreted, actually become evidences. Thus in this case, as in every other, the system of interpretation which we propose, wrests the weapons of the infidel out of his hands, and makes them assist in demonstrating the divinity of the Scriptures.

3. On the Class of Objections which are drawn from the imperfect morality of some of the distinguished characters of the Israelitish Church, little needs be added, after the view given of the design of the calling of that people, and of the nature of their history, in our last Lecture.

(1.) Admit the Israelites to have been chosen merely to represent the subjects belonging to the church; and consider all the persons distinguished among them as representative characters only; and all difficulties arising from the questionable morality of some of them immediately disappear. We then see, how the record may be essentially the Word of God, notwithstanding the craft imputed to the immediate founder of the nation, their adherence to eastern manners in regard to the intercourse of the sexes, and the acts of violence and treachery which several of their heroes and heroines scrupled not to commit. Some of these might perhaps be allowable according to the laws of nations that prevailed in those distant ages: but still they were such as could not, themselves, have been agreeable to the divine will, or have been practised by persons who were the subjects of a spiritual dispensation. The slaughter, noticed in our first Lecture, of Eglon by Ehud, though effected under fair pretences, and thus by treachery, was indeed no more than would have been done, and gloried in, by the most illustrious