REFUTATION OF THE REV. A. P. STANLEY'S POETICAL INTERPRETATIONS. Ar a time when, in his youth, the author of the following treatise, engaged in other duties, had no thought of ever writing a book, he was led into a long discussion with a stanch Humist on the Evidences of Christianity. Foiled in every attempt to make the slightest impression on the mind of his sceptical opponent, who rejected all testimony as incompetent to prove a miracle, and who could not appreciate the internal evidences,-he said at last, when excluded from the use of other proof, that the inspiration of Scripture could be proved from existing facts. The answer was, "Ah! I thought that you Christians said that the age of miracles is past." "Yes," it was replied, "but the age of the fulfilment of prophecy is not past." The ready response was, "Heads! horns! tails! wings! dragons!" "Poetical interpretations" of figurative prophecies would only have given farther scope to the scoffer; and, little versant as he then was with the subject, the writer knew enough of the Ruins of Volney, and of modern discoveries, to enable him to appeal, without any interpretation, to existing geographical facts, as well as to the present condition of the Jewish race, as literal fulfilments of prophecies, whereby God, as of old, had confirmed his words. The sceptic was triumphant no longer; and Hume's argument was of no avail; but in altered tone he was constrained to say, "I cannot answer you." His mouth was stopped, as that of every sceptic ought to be. Thirtysix years have passed away since this treatise, which thus originated, was first published. It has been repeatedly stereotyped, and extensively circulated in Britain and the colonies-often reprinted in America-translated into various languages of Europe and Asia-and the evidence of the inspiration of Scripture from existing facts is not now unknown: yet no answer or refutation, so far as the writer is aware, has ever appeared from the pen of any sceptic. Dr Barth of Wurtemberg said to him in Stutgardt, "Our Rationalists are very angry with you, because they cannot answer you." Something, however, in the form of an "argument" against the literal fulfilment of prophecy, worthy of a Note, has at length appeared from an unexpected quarter; for what the German Rationalists could not do, or have not done, an English clergyman can attempt, by substituting "poetical interpretations" for the literal fulfilment of prophecy. There are two opposite modes of dealing with confessedly "Divine Revelations"—either casting down imaginations before them, or vainly exalting high imaginations above them; either believing "all that the prophets have spoken," or attaching a different meaning to their words than that which they expressly bear. Mr Stanley justly says, "If we have no warrant to take away, we have no warrant to add."1 It is equally true that if we have no warrant to add, we have no warrant to take away. By this sole standard of scriptural truth his theory, and every other which professedly or indirectly appeals to Scripture, has to be tried. "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it," and "thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it" (Deut. iv. 2; xii. 32). The last warning of Scripture is, "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things-if any man shall take away from the words," &c. (Rev. xxii. 18, 19). "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isa. viii. 20). The testimony is maintained in its integrity, when nothing ... 1 This is said in reference to the Mosaic record of the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. "The question is asked, 'How could a tribe, so numerous and powerful, as on any hypothesis the Israelites must have been, be maintained in the inhospitable desert?' It is no answer to say that they were sustained by miracles (!) for, except the manna, the quails, and the three interventions in regard to water, none such are mentioned in the Mosaic history; and if we have no warrant to take away, we have no warrant to add.”— Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 25. In the Mosaic history it is recorded that "the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall gather a cerain rate every day. And Moses said-The Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full. They gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating.... And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, "&c. (Exod. xvi. 4, 8, 21, &c.) "And thou shalt remember all the way which JEHOVAH THY GOD led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. [That was the lesson which the Israelites had to learn.] Thy raiment waxed not old," &c. (Deut. viii. 2-4). It is an answer which Scripture gives, that they were "sustained" by miracles. "Yea, forty years didst Thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing" (Neh. ix. 21). "Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, he smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. He had rained down "He brought manna upon them-He sent them meat to the full" (Ps. lxxviii. 19, 20, 24, 25). them out, after that he had showed wondere and signs (onuera, miracles) in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years" (Acts vii. 36). The same Greek word is applied also in the New Testament to the miracles of Christ. is added unto it, and nothing taken away. The entrance of the word gives light. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead," Luke xvi. 31. After Christ's own resurrection from the dead, he said, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken," Luke xxiv. 25. The prophets themselves show of what they have spoken. "A fact is worth a thousand arguments." No fiction can disprove a fact; and no argument can prove that a fact is a fiction. It is a fact that the denunciations of the prophets expressly include lands and cities, buildings, walls, houses, sanctuaries, fortresses, &c., as well as kingdoms and nations; though these judgments came because of the transgressions of men. In the judgments denounced against the Israelites, if they would not hearken unto the Lord, but walk contrary unto him, it is written, "I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation.—And I will scatter you among the heathen-and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, &c. And yet for all that—I will not cast them away-to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am Jehovah their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors," &c. Fifteen hundred years after the days of Moses, the apostle Paul, looking forward to the time when as he marks the distinction between "the Jews" and "the Gentiles "—all Israel shall be saved, the proof he urged to believing men was an appeal to Scripture, "As it is written,-For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (change of purpose). Addressing unbelieving Jews, he said, "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, Hearing ye shall hear, and not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive-for their eyes they have closed-lest they should see, and should be converted, and I should heal them." Concerning this predicted and still continued blindness of Israel, Isaiah said, "Lord, how long?" and the answer was, "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man,' " &c. It is written again by the same prophet, "Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; 1 Lex. xxvi. 31-34, 43-45. b 2 Rom. xL 26, 29. 3.Acts xxviii. 25-28. 4 Isa. vi. 11 |