We are therefore to consider the instructions of the New Testament as addressed to persons holding this sentiment, and to interpret them accordingly.

If believers in the doctrine of the future punishment of the wicked, would not naturally interpret the instructions of the New Testament as authorizing a belief in that sentiment and inculcating it, we are not to understand them as doing so. But if they would naturally, and necessarily put this construction on the communications relating to this subject in the New Testament, we must acknowledge it to be correct. For if Christ or the apostles had wished to discountenance the prevailing sentiment of the times in relation to the subject in question, they would doubtless have done it, in terms too unequivocal to be mistaken by any candid hearer or reader. And the fact that they have not discountenanced it, but have interspersed their instructions with expressions highly favourable to the sentiment in question, and have in many instances positively asserted that sentiment, if language may be allowed to have the same force in their mouths that it has in the mouths of others, is conclusive evidence of the strongest kind in favour of the doctrine.

From the foregoing remarks, the legitimate conclusion is, that the Rationalistic mode of interpretation is entirely incorrect, being based upon principles that are entirely false. Consequently the application of it to explain the holy Scriptures, is alike impious and delusive. It is impious, inasmuch as it implies the setting up of the fabric of human opinions against God's eternal truth, and in the place of it. It is delusive, inasmuch as it erects an impregnable wall of defence around the erroneous opinions and baseless conjectures of men, for the purpose of maintaining them in possession of the stolen honours of

truth.

SECTION IV.

THE ALLEGORICAL MODE OF INTERPRETATION, OR THEORY OF DOUBLE SENSES.*

1. The allegorical mode of interpretation is of very great antiquity. It was in use among the Jews before the Christian era. Philo was an allegorist; so were Pantaenus and Clemens Alexandrinus of the second century, and in the Christian church. Origin in the third century took greater liberties with this mode of interpretation, than any Christian teacher had done before him. Before his time all interpreters explained the narrations and laws contained in the Bible according to their literal meaning. Origin turned a large part of biblical history into fables, and many of the laws into allegories. In doing this he followed the track that had already been marked out in the school of Ammonius at the close of the preceding century.

Ammonius Saccas, an Alexandrine philosopher of the second century, opened a school near the close of the century, and laid the foundation of that sect of philosophers called the New Platonic.

His object was to bring all religions, and all sects of philosophers into harmony. He taught that philosophy was first produced and nurtured among the people of the east. That it was cultivated and disseminated in Egypt by Hermes, and that it passed thence into Greece, and was explained with tolerable accuracy and correctness by Plato. It is the opinion of many, that the pretended work of Hermes and Zoroaster originated in the schools of the New Platonics.

In order to reconcile the prevailing religions with his philosophical system, Ammonius turned the whole pretended history of the pagan gods into allegory. This system Origin applied with specifications and modifica

tions peculiar to himself, and borrowed from various sources to the interpretation of the sacred volume.

Preceding writers had resorted to allegories, principally to discover predictions of future events, and rules for the direction of life. He resorted to them principally to establish his favourite system of heathen philosophy on a scriptural basis.

The Platonic idea of a twofold world, a visible and invisible one, and the one emblematical of the other, lead him to search for a figurative description of the invisible world, in the inspired history of this. He supposed that as man was admitted to consist of three parts—a rational mind, a sensitive soul, and a visible body, so the Scriptures have a threefold sense-a literal, moral, and mystical or spiritual sense. The mystical or spiritual sense, he supposed, acquainted us with the nature, state, and history of the spiritual and heavenly world, which he believed to have been made after the same pattern as this.

The mystic sense he attributed to every part of the sacred Scriptures,-the literal sense was only partially diffused, according to his view, some passages having no literal meaning at all.

A similar system of allegorical interpretation has more recently been inculcated by Swedenborg. He attributes to the sacred Scriptures three senses, which he entitles the literal, spiritual, and celestial.

While both the systems here referred to have been generally discarded by the Christian church, multitudes in all ages have turned Scripture into allegory, for the purpose of rendering particular passages of them more significant than they would otherwise be, either in the prediction of future events, or in the communication of moral and religious instruction.

2. The allegorical system of interpretation is built upon what is called the doctrine of correspondences,— namely, that there is such a correspondence between natural and spiritual, terrestrial and celestial objects and events, as to make the former correct and perfect types of the latter. If the doctrine of a correspondence between natural and spiritual, terrestrial and celestial objects

and events, be admitted in its full extent, so that the one is an exact resemblance of the other, then all descriptions of natural objects and events, as well as those contained in Scripture, may be considered figurative of spiritual and heavenly things, and may be applied to represent such things with the utmost propriety. The principle is very broad and extensive in its application. It applies with as much force to profane as to sacred history; and, according to this system of philosophy, (for it deserves the appellation of a system of philosophy, rather than one of religion or of interpretation,) all profane history would be allegorical, and descriptive of spiritual and heavenly things, however ignorant the authors might be of any such meaning being attached to their language.

3. But the doctrine of correspondences is nowhere asserted in the Bible. The inspired writers have used figurative language just as they might be expected to do if no such correspondence existed; and the use of these figures, with which their writings abound, is fully authorized by that principle of general analogies, which is the foundation of metaphorical language among uninspired writers. Figurative language may be pressed too far. We are not to suppose that there is a perfect resemblance in every particular wherever there is a general one in some particulars. Things resemble each other which have some things in common. The more things they have in common, the greater is their resemblance.

Earth resembles heaven just as far as it has things in common with it. Body resembles mind just as far as it has properties in common with it. God resembles the sun, to which he is several times compared, just as far as he has properties and relations in common with it, and no farther. So light resembles knowledge as far as it has relations and properties in common with it. Light and vision are to the eye what knowledge is to the soul,

that is, their relations are analogous. But in this view of the subject, perfect resemblance of earthly to heavenly objects is not assumed ;-neither is it necessary to assume it, in order to justify the analogical and figurative language of the sacred Scriptures.

4. Arguments generally adduced in favour of a double sense being attributed to the sacred Scriptures.

1. Unless we allow them to have other meanings than the plain and obvious one according to the common rules of interpretation, some parts of the sacred volume will become uninstructive and unimportant. Answer. The knowledge contained in the Bible, interpreted by the common rules of interpretation, is of the greatest extent and highest value. It is a fountain which the most powerful and active minds have been unable to fathom, and still more so, to exhaust. Explained on these principles only, it teaches the purest morality, and the sublimest theology. It discloses the only way of life and salvation, and points out the only effectual means of regaining the favour of God.

Those parts of the Bible, or those passages, for it is only to occasional passages that the remark can be applied, which seem unimportant to us, may have been highly important and useful when they were originally written, or may be still so in some future period of the world, without any aid being derived from the theory of double senses to render them so.

2. It is also urged, that on the hypothesis of double senses, the Bible is made more spiritual than on the other hypothesis. Answer. The word spiritual has three meanings. 1. Consisting of spirit; as we say of the mind, it is a spiritual substance-a substance consisting of spirit. 2. Relating to spirit and the concerns of spirits, as we speak of spritual enjoyments, spiritual world, &c. 3. Pious, religious; as we say of a pious man, he is very spiritual, that is, he is very pious, devout.

The application of the term spiritual to the Bible, in the first sense, is absurd; for it contradicts our intuitive perception. We know by the evidence of our senses that the different communications which compose the Bible, taken separately, and the whole taken collectively, are not spirit in the literal sense of that word. They do not consist of spirit, that is, they are not a living, reasoning and thinking being.