have no other weight, than that which they derive from their evident reasonableness and agreement with Scripture as authority, they have none. I shall confine myself therefore to a few English testimonies; only observing, once for all, of the modern writers in general, that while the ancients generally believed the spiritual sense to extend throughout the Scriptures, few of the moderns allow it this complete universality; on the other hand, while many of these deny its existence generally, few of them refuse to admit it in particular instances. This qualification then must be applied to the testimonies I shall adduce from them in favour of a spiritual sense; but we shall see in the sequel, that, if we make the admission at all, we must, with the ancients, make it universal.

As the most recent of modern testimonies of importance, I select that of the Rev. T. H. Horne, with an older author or two cited by him: we shall also have occasion to refer to other authorities in our subsequent Lectures. In his laborious "Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures,”—a work which has rapidly passed through three editions, and has been received with the general applause of biblical students, Mr. Horne expresses himself thus: "the spiritual interpretation of Scripture has been as much depreciated by some commentators and biblical critics as it has been exaggerated and carried to the extreme by others but if the argument against a thing from the possibility of its being abused be inadmissible in questions of a secular nature, it is equally inadmissible in the exposition of the Sacred Writings. All our ideas are admitted through the medium of the senses; and consequently refer, in the first place, to external objects but no sooner are we convinced that we possess an immaterial soul or spirit, than we find occasion for other terms, or, for want of these, another application of the same terms to a different class of objects and hence arises the necessity of resorting to figurative and spiritual

interpretation. Now, the object of revelation being to make known things which 'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man to conceive,' it seems hardly possible that the human mind should be capable of apprehending them, but through the medium of figurative language or mystical representations."* In this passage, as it appears to me, the question is placed upon exactly the right ground; and a clue is at the same time given to the discovery of the law or rule according to which the Scriptures are written, and by which their spiritual sense is to be decyphered. It is perfectly true that our ideas are received, in the first instance, by the instrumentality of the senses: these, however, can bring us acquainted with none but external and sensible objects; the images of which, thus obtained, become, nevertheless, the basis of all our future thoughts, and, in numberless instances, are transferred from their primary notions, and used as the signs of totally different things. It has been objected by infidels, that as all our ideas have a reference to the objects of outward nature, and we cannot think even of immaterial things without the help of images thence compounded, this is a proof that nothing but nature has a real existence, and that all beyond is purely the creature of the imagination: but this is a most gratuitous assumption the true statement of the case would be, that there is between material and immaterial objects such a sort of regular analogy, that the former present the most appropriate signs for the expression of the latter. We shall see in the sequel, that it is by this immutable principle that the Word of God is written. Mr. Horne has established this truth by a beautiful quotation from Dr. John Clarke, who states it thus:

"The foundation of religion and virtue being laid in the mind and heart, the secret dispositions and genuine acts of which are invisible, and known only to a man's

* Vol. 2, Pt. 2, Ch. 1, § 5.

self; therefore the powers and operations of the mind can only be expressed in figurative terms and external symbols. The motives, also, and inducements to practice, are spiritual, such as affect man in a way of moral influence, and not of natural efficiency; the principal of which are drawn from the consideration of a future state; and, consequently, these, likewise, must be represented by allegories and similitudes, taken from things most known and familiar here. And thus we find in Scripture the state of religion illustrated by all the beautiful images we can conceive.— In the interpretation of places, in which any of these images are contained, the principal regard is to be had to the figurative or spiritual, and not to the literal sense of the words. Of this nature are all the rites and ceremonies prescribed to the Jews, with relation to the external form of religious worship; every one of which was intended to shew the obligation, or recommend the practice, of some moral duty, and was esteemed of no farther use than as it produced that effect. And the same may be applied to the rewards and punishments peculiar to the Christian dispensation, which regard a future state. The rewards are set forth by those things in which the generality of men take their greatest delight;—and the punishments are such as are inflicted by human laws upon the worst of malefactors but they can neither of them be understood in the strictly literal sense, but only by way of analogy, and corresponding in the general nature and intention of the thing, though very different in kind."*

"But,” adds Mr. Horne, "independently of the able argument a priori, here cited, in favour of the mediate, mystical, or spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, unless such interpretation be admitted" [in conjunction, he means, with the truth of the literal sense,] "we cannot," [in the conclusive words of the late Bishop of Calcutta,]

* Folio Collection of Boyle's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 229.

"avoid one of two great difficulties for either we must assert, that the multitude of applications made by Christ and his apostles, are fanciful and unauthorized, and wholly inadequate to prove the points for which they are quoted; or, on the other hand, we must believe, that the obvious and natural sense of such passages was never intended, and that it is a mere illusion. The Christian will object to the former of these positions; the Philosopher and the Critic will not readily assent to the latter."* This powerful writer says again, in a passage not quoted by Horne, that, without such a two-fold explanation, "it will be impossible to place any of the citations in the New Testament, except, indeed, direct and avowed prophecies, on any better footing than that of being accidentally apposite to the occasion. A quotation from the Psalms, by St. Paul, will not, in its application, possess any advantage over a quotation from Horace by Addison."

Here then I am contented to rest my case, in regard to the question, of the propriety of claiming for the Scriptures a spiritual sense, upon the supposition that they are rightly designated "the Word of God." If philosophy, and the immutable nature of things, are to be consulted, "the Word of God" must contain such a sense within it. If the testimony which the Scriptures bear to themselves is to be regarded, they do contain such a sense. If the multitude of applications" made of texts "by Christ and his Apostles" was not "fanciful and unauthorized," the double sense of Scripture is irrefragably established. If the concurrent acknowledgment of all who lived in the best days of Christianity is of any authority, we are constrained to admit this sense. If the preservation of this acknowledgment through so many centuries, even through the ages of the greatest darkness, when the sentiments aris

Doct. of Greek Article, p. 580.

↑ Ibid. p. 588.

ing from it, together with all the doctrines of the Christian religion, suffered gross perversion ;-if this, nevertheless, is an index that points to the source whence the acknowledgment was derived;-then is the doctrine that the Scriptures do contain such a sense, a fundamental doctrine of the true Christian religion. And, finally, if the force of truth has pointed out this conclusion to the most intelligent of the moderns; if these, after throwing off the trammels of authority, and recurring to the original sources, are constrained to confess, that the spiritual sense of the Scriptures cannot be denied, without denying their truth altogether: assuredly we ought to embrace the doctrine, as we would embrace the palladium of the Christian faith.. We shall find in the end, that, when rightly apprehended, it will prove a palladium indeed, by its power of preserving the Christian faith from the assaults of its opponents.

IV. But, as has already been observed, though the testimony to the fact, that the Word of God contains stores of wisdom in its bosom, independently of what appears on the surface, is so ample, objections, during two or three centuries past, have been made to it, and its credit has gradually diminished. The belief in the spiritual sense of Scripture, has run parallel with that of its plenary inspiration as this has declined, so has the other. Indeed, they are inseparably connected for, as we have seen, if the Word of God is written by a plenary divine inspiration, it must contain interior treasures within its outward shell, necessarily formed there by its descent from the Inmost of all things into the world of nature; whereas if it is not so written, it cannot include such hidden wisdom; at least, whatever it must thus contain beyond the letter, would be, in the latter case, the result of artificial contrivance in the writers, not, as in the former, naturally inherent in writings so imparted: and the looking at the spiritual sense thus, as a merely artificial contrivance, has