It was the strict, literal, historical accuracy of the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, which forced Porphyry to deny their genuineness, as the best and only way, in which he could waive the force of the argument, taken from them, in favor of divine revelation. Both Porphyry and Celsus have long since been refuted, and the authority, of Daniel, and of the Old and New Testaments, irrefutably established. If our modern infidels are ignorant of the fact, and now revive and urge objections long since exploded, it is only one among the many proofs we have, that ignorance is the greatest enemy with which Christianity has to combat. But little is to be feared from the ignorance of the infidel. Far more is to be dreaded from the ignorance of professed Christians. It is not with the former, that these disquisitions are so much concerned, as with the latter, whose neglect of their Bibles, and whose ignorance of the great and wonderful things contained in them, are a reproach to the religion they profess.

The prophetical portions of the Sacred Scriptures commend themselves to our study, by the most cogent arguments. They are in fact God's exposition of our hope, holding forth the great objects presented to the attention of our faith, and promised for our future enjoyment. They are a beacon light, in times of storm and agitation on the great ocean of human life, thrown out to guide us as we navigate, and to warn us of the breakers on dangerous coasts. They are the pledge and dawnings of the glory to be realised by us. careful and prayerful study of the prophetical writings, cannot be neglected without incurring guilt, and rendering us justly liable to the righteous condemnation of God.

The

CHAPTER II.

THE SYSTEM OF INTERPRETATION.

THE duty of studying the prophecies having been proved expressly from the word of God, and the fallacy of the objections commonly urged against it having been exposed, a question of deep interest presents itself, viz. can they be understood?" On this subject many doubt, and their doubts contribute not a little to the practical neglect of the prophetical writings. These doubts often arise from, and are justified, in the opinion of many, by the different expositions given by different commentators. These expositions, it is alleged, depend on different principles of interpretation; and, in the midst of most discordant systems, and rules often adopted most arbitrarily, what, it is asked, is to become of the plain unlettered student?

This objection may be urged, with as much propriety, against the study of any other portion of the Scriptures, as against the prophecies. Historical narratives have been pronounced allegories,—a mystical meaning has been substituted for or enveloped in the literal,-what has been called par excellence the SPIRITUAL has claimed preference above that of common sense, and the recondite been sought after with eagerness, to the neglect of the obvious. The infidel has therefore turned away with contempt from the Bible altogether; and the advocates of the papal hierarchy have taken occasion to assert the claim of the Roman

Even the grand funwhich the apostle

pontiff to be the infallible interpreter, and to prescribe magisterially opinions and matters of faith for the minds and consciences of men. damental rule of interpretation Peter has inculcated, has been plead in support of such arrogant pretensions, and men have been prohibited from the study of the word of God, because He has said that "no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,"* as though the decisions of his Holiness are to be accounted oracular, authoritative, and final.

The reference is most unfortunate. It furnishes no proof, in support either of the inexplicable nature of prophecy, or of the oracular gift of the self-styled successors of Peter. So far from Peter claiming for himself to be the infallible interpreter of Paul, whose predictions he confesses were hard to be understood, he admits the right of every one to examine and study for himself, though he says that "the unlearned and unstable wrest them to their own destruction," adding that this charge is not confined exclusively to their use of the prophecies, but is just as true in their perversion of "the other Scriptures." If he, in the days of his apostolical authority, gave no hint whatever of an infallible interpreter, either in himself or

* 2 Peter, 1. 20. † 2 Peter, 3. 16. The admission of Peter has been sometimes employed very incorrectly and injuriously. He does not mean that Paul's style or language, his modes of reasoning or of writing, have anything peculiar in them, which, as pieces of composition, render his epistles obscure and difficult to be understood. His language is εν δις (not επιστολαις, but πραγμασι,) εστι δυσνόητα τινα, and the meaning is, that there were some things, some subjects or facts, brought into view by Paul, in his epistles, which were difficult to be understood, and liable to be wrested. His reference is to the coming and kingdom of Christ, as this verse shows.

in the other apostles, it is usurpation of the worst description to maintain that a living oracle has been perpetually established in a succession of Roman bishops. Equally preposterous and arrogant is it, to claim for the church, or for any other hierarchy, authority in these matters. All such ambitious pretensions Peter utterly overthrows, by laying down a plain rule of interpretation to assist the private Christian to interpret for himself, in all matters of general importance, "the written oracles of prophecy."

It is of chief moment, at this stage of our investigations, to observe, that the apostle does distinctly recognize some rule or standard of interpretation, and refers private Christians as well as others to it, for the correct understanding of that 66 more sure word of prophecy," "to which," he says, "we do well to take heed." What is that system?

Two very different, and in some respects, antagonistical systems are, and have been for centuries adopted by commentators. They may be designated the literal and the spiritual. By the LITERAL We understand that system which assumes the LITERALITY, or HISTORICAL REALITY of the events predicted, and resorts to the grammatical interpretation of the language of prophecy to determine its meaning. By the SPIRITUAL We understand that system which assumes the SPIRITUALITY of the events predicted. It traces something analogous, it may be, to the literal, but entirely different from it, and peculiar, of which the literal may be employed as the representative or allegorical exhibition. THE LITERAL is what Ernesti, in his "Tracts on the Interpretation of the Scriptures," has called the grammatical; and THE SPIRITUAL, the mystic, metaphysical, or philosophical.

The grammatical method "adheres to the words, and

directs us to comprehend things through the medium. of words, and not words through the medium of things." The mystic or spiritual is that "which philosophizes rather than interprets, and prefers to be metaphysical rather than grammatical, or, as it is uncouthly expressed, real rather than verbal." His meaning is, that the grammatical or literal interpretation, which is concerned with the proper meaning of words, "proceeds entirely upon grammatical principles," and is first, in all cases, to be resorted to, to know what are the things which the writer asserts or means; but that the mystic or spiritual interpretation inverts this order, and undertakes to determine the meaning of words by preconceived notions about the things.

Right interpretation, Ernesti contends, "depends entirely upon the knowledge of words," with great force inquiring, "For what is the business of interpretation, but to make known the signification and sense of words? And in what does the signification and sense of words consist, but in the notions attached to each word? This connection between the words and ideas, in itself arbitrary, has been fixed by usage and custom. And what art, but that of the grammarian, is employed in discovering and teaching this usage and custom of speech, especially of the dead languages? To the grammarian this business has been conceded by every age. For the knowledge of this usage depends entirely upon observation, and not upon the nature of things ascertained by necessary inference in any science. Theologians are right, therefore, when they affirm the literal sense, or that which is derived from the, knowledge of words, to be

* Bib. Reper., vol. iii. p. 125.