The word spiritual, in the second and third senses mentioned above, is strictly applicable to the sacred Scriptures, understood according to the common rules of interpretation. They relate principally to spirits, and the concerns and destinies of spirits: and are of a highly devotional tendency. Nay, in these senses they are spiritual in the highest degree; that is to say, they are in the highest degree devotional, and relate entirely to spiritual con cerns. 3. It is further urged that the theory of double senses is more in accordance with the divine character and operations than that of single senses. Why enigmatical or allegorical discourses are more in accordance to the divine operations generally, than plain ones, it is difficult for a plain man to conceive. God's communications must be in accordance to his attributes. One of his attributes is truth: His communications must therefore be true. One of his attributes is justice; his communications and requirements must therefore be just. These are moral attributes, and give character to the divine communications, as they do to the other divine operations. The same may be said of wisdom, mercy, and other moral attributes of the divine character. But you cannot with propriety add; God is an Allegory, and therefore his communications must be allegorical-or that God is a spirit, and therefore his communications must consist of spirit. Man, too, is a spirit; but his communications do not consist of spirit. The spirituality of the communications does not follow as a consequence from the spirituality of the agent that makes them. Communications are only one class of phenomena resulting from the divine operations; and if these consist of spirit, so must all such phenomena. Besides, it is according to the analogy of the divine operations, and according to the attributes of the divine character, that if God should undertake to hold intercourse with men through the medium of language, he would use language as men use it, and express himself intelligibly. No communication is intelligible, which is not contained God has made his com in language understood by man. munications in languages which were generally understood at the time and in the countries in which they were made, and which we still have the means of learning. If he departed in any measure from the common usage, in the application of words to designate objects or to express ideas, it would become necessary in order to be understood, to show how far and in what, that usage was departed from. No such explanation is found. God nowhere intimates that the meaning he attaches to words is different from the common one, neither does he any where intimate, that the theory of double senses is that according to which he requires his word to be explained. 5. ADDITIONAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE THEORY OF DOUBLE SENSES. 1. The later inspired writers often quote from the writings of those who preceded them; but never refer to those writings as having more than one true meaning. In Acts ii. 25, we find a quotation of this kind; as also in Acts xiii. 35-37. It is evident from an inspection of these passages, that the apostles considered the declaration which they quoted, as referring solely to Christ, and not to David at all. For they expressly assert that it cannot be applied to David, and that it did not receive its fulfilment in him. 2. The historical parts of the Bible are as simple narratives of events as any other history, and have no marks of allegorical and hidden meanings, that other historical writings do not have. Take for example the histories of David, Solomon, Ahab, &c. They appear to be as free from allegorical and hidden meanings, as the histories of Constantine, George the 4th, Calvin, Luther, or any other individuals, narratives of whose lives are recorded. 3. The same may be said of the preceptive parts of the Bible. They exhibit no marks of hidden and allegorical senses that other preceptive writings do not exhibit. The laws of God are stated with as much precision, and with as much apparent simplicity, as any intelligent father would use in giving directions to his children. The com mand, “Thou shalt not kill," forbids our unlawfully taking the life of a fellow-man, and of course prohibits all those angry and revengeful feelings that lead to murder. There is no need of allegorical interpretation to give such ample extent to this command. It is already sufficiently extensive in its meaning. The same may be said of every other precept. 4. The origin and early history of the allegorical mode of interpretation are against it. Authentic history, instead of referring it to the schools of the prophets or to the communications of divinely inspired men, can trace it only to the mystic instructions of Jewish Rabbies, who made void the law of God by their puerile traditions, or to the schools of heathen philosophy, whose very light consisted in the thickest darkness of paganism. When God spake to Moses from the burning bush, and on various other occasions, his words must have been understood according to their usual meanings. Moses could not have supposed them to mean any thing more or less, than to designate those ideas which men generally attach to them. When God spoke to the children of Israel from Mount Sinai, he must have been understood in a similar manner by them. They had only one dictionary by which to learn the meaning of words, whether used in the communications of God to man, or of man to his God and to his fellow-man. 5. If God had intended that his words should be interpreted in allegorical senses, aud that other meanings different and distinct from the natural one should be conveyed, we should suppose, of course, that he would have intimated that fact to the prophets, and have authorized them to have revealed it to the church at large; but we have no historical evidence that this was ever done, neither have any general or particular rules been given by inspiration, according to which the investigation of hidden senses is to be prosecuted. 6. Allegorical interpretation is injurious to the interests of religion, in leading persons to neglect and undervalue the natural sense of the sacred Scriptures. In these writings, interpreted according to the common rules and principles of language, are treasured up the great doctrines and duties of the Christian religion-doctrines and duties by which sinners are converted to God, and saints prepared for heaven. If the study of these doctrines, and the practice of these duties, are not constantly urged, religion can hardly fail to decline. A system of interpretation, therefore, which leads men to overlook and undervalue them, must be of highly pernicious tendency; and this is certainly in many instances the fact, with those who adopt the allegorical system of interpretation. They puzzle themselves with prying into supposed allegories, when they ought to be studying faith, repentance, and prayer. 7. Again, in multitudes of cases, the pretended internal senses are the plain and obvious meanings of the passages to which they are attributed, or nothing more than obvious inferences from those meanings, so that there is no need of other rules of interpretation than the common ones to elicit them. We ought carefully to distinguish between the proper meaning of a passage, and the inferences which may be even correctly drawn from it. For example, the command, thou shalt not kill, means thou shalt not unlawfully take human life. Inferences, however, which may be drawn from it, are exceedingly numerous and various. If we are prohibited from inflicting death on the body, surely it must be wrong for us voluntarily to be the cause of the eternal death of the soul; but to prohibit inflicting spiritual injury, so to speak, was no part of the design of God in the command under consideration. But though it was no part of his design to make that prohibition in this passage, yet he has made, and repeated it in many others, and the principle on which it is founded is the same as that which serves as the foundation of the prohibition referred to in the command, "Thou shalt not kill,”—that is, thou shalt not inflict temporal death. The principle of this and of every other prohibition, and of every other command relating to social duties, is "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" and in applying it we are to remember that love is kind, and that it worketh no ill to our neighbour. 8. Finally, according to the common rules of interpretation, the Bible inculcates every moral virtue, and interdicts every species of sin, at the same time that it presents the strongest motives to obedience, and holds out the strongest dissuasives from disobedience. The theory of double senses, therefore, cannot increase the perfection of the Bible as a rule of life, it being already perfect and complete. From all which the conclusion is obvious and irresistible that the theory of double senses, or, in other words, the system of mystical and allegorical interpretation, is wrong and injurious. SECTION V. INTERPRETATION OF THE PROPHECIES.* The prophetical writings of the sacred Scriptures are almost entirely useless to a large portion of professed Christians, from the imperfect understanding they have of them. Prophecy corresponds to history. It is a narrative or description of events written before the events take place. Both prophecy and history are expected to give a correct and true delineation of the events to which they refer, and of no others. In many cases the language of prophecy is as full and explicit as it is possible for that of history to be. In many cases prophecies are obscure, especially where they have not been fulfilled; and their obscurity arises principally from the difficulty of determining their chronology, and also of distinguishing plain from figurative language. The difficulty of determining the chronology of events referred to in the prophetical writings, occasions the same obscurity in the prophecies, which a similar indefi * See BIBLICAL CABINET, Vol. I. p. 213, section on the Interpretation of Prophecy, by Rev. C. H. Terrot. |