may be, and are properly denominated THE ALPHABETICAL, THE TROPICAL OR FIGURATIVE, THE SYMBOLICAL, AND

THE TYPICAL.

1. ALPHABETICAL LANGUAGE is the plain ordinary style of speech which men employ to state or to set forth simple matters of history, and unembellished by figurative expressions. Many of the predictions are expressed in this style, entirely devoid of figures and tropes of speech. Occasionally, passages are thrown into the book of Revelations in the same style, intended as a clue to the meaning of some of its highlywrought and complicated symbolical descriptions. In alphabetical language, words are used in their proper sense, i. e. "the sense which is so connected with them that is first in order, and is spontaneously presented to the mind, as soon as the sound or the word is heard.'

2. Beside alphabetical language, there is what may be called TROPICAL OR FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. This the prophets use, in common with all writers, sacred or profane, who, discussing or describing things which deeply interest their feelings, naturally employ figures and tropes of speech, to express, in a more lively manner, their ideas. Thus, proud and stately aristocrats are called cedars of Lebanon and oaks of Bashan ;† the troops of Egypt and of Assyria are called the fly. of Egypt and the bee of Assyria; and God is said to shave with a hired razor, and his hand to be stretched out still, and many such like mere tropical words, which the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, the rules of rhetoric, and the connection of thought, generally enable the reader to understand.

Here, it may be proper to remark, that in the prophets' use of figurative language, we meet with every variety of tropical expressions and rhetorical embel

* Ernesti on Int. p. 7. † Isaiah, 2. 13.

Isaiah 7. 18-20.

lishments. It is perfectly natural to expect this, as well from the very nature of their commission-which was to enlighten, reprove, comfort, and reform-as from the condition and circumstances of those whom they addressed. The very nature of their messages rendered it impracticable for them to speak without emotion. Different emotions, however, have different ways of expressing themselves; and, therefore, the method adopted by those under their influence, and who seek to persuade others, will not be, by logical investigation, or cool dispassionate argument, to enlighten and convince, but, by exciting and enlisting the affections and passions appropriate to the nature of the subject, or to the purpose of the speaker, to gain the party addressed. The language of the prophets, therefore, naturally became that of the passions. They appeal, not directly to reason, but use it only as auxiliary. Often, indeed, they are highly poetical, adapted in this respect to the mass of common people, who are swayed infinitely more by feeling than reason. Accordingly, the prophetical writings are far more replete with feeling than argument, highly descriptive, often exceedingly impassioned, and therefore abound with all those tropes and figures of speech, which nature suggests and which the rhetorical art has classified.

This feature of prophetical language has furnished occasion to the spiritualist, to claim for his method of interpretation, entire respect and confidence, as the only true and proper system. And, accordingly, we hear a great deal about the extravagance or intensity of Hebrew poetry, the turgid, hyperbolical cast of oriental imagery, and the semi-barbarous taste, which is pleased with and requires such things. On this ground some have given undue prominence to the prophets' use of figure, and deprived the prophecies of

all substance and meaning, until with the rationalists of Germany, and certain Unitarians of the United States,* having so generalized, or spiritually explained the predictions, they have utterly destroyed all coincidence between the prophecies thus explained, and the events which were their literal fulfillment, and have thus prepared the way for the denial of such a thing as prophecy altogether.

To all this the literal interpretation objects, contending, that however abundant may be the employment of figures and tropes of speech, by the prophets, we are not authorised to allegorise the whole, any more than your friend or neighbor, addressing you under the influence of impassioned feeling, and abounding in

See Gesenius on Isaiah. A late Unitarian discourse preached in Boston, (May 19, 1841,) may be quoted in proof of the tendency of this system of spiritual interpretation. Speaking of the simple faith, required to be given to the Bible, according to its plain grammatical import-because of its infallible inspiration, the author says: "On the authority of the written Word, man was taught to believe impossible legends, conflicting assertions; to take fiction for fact; a dream for a miraculous revelation of God; an oriental poem for a grave history of miraculous events; a collection of amatory idylls for a serious discourse, 'touching the mutual love of Christ and the church; they have been taught to accept a picture, sketched by some glowing eastern imagination, never intended to be taken for a reality, as a proof that the infinite God has spoken in human words, appeared in the shape of a cloud, a flaming bush, or a man who ate and drank and vanished into smoke; that he gave counsels to-day, and the opposite to-morrow; that he violated his own laws, was angry, and was only dissuaded by a mortal man from destroying at once a whole nation,-millions of men who rebelled against their leader in a moment of anguish." Th. Parker's discourse on the transient and permanent in Christianity, pp. 19, 20. "The most distant events, even such as are still in the arms of time, were supposed to be clearly foreseen and predicted by pious Hebrews several centuries before Christ."-p. 20. See also p. 30. Hengstenburg, Christol., vol. i. p. 233.

figurative expressions, must be understood, in all he says, to speak allegorically, and not just what the rhetorical import of his words expresses. All that the fact of the prophets' language abounding with figures of speech, does or can prove, is, that we must be careful, according to proper rhetorical rules, to distinguish between the images or figures employed, and the facts they are designed to represent, that is, to interpret similes and allegories, metaphors and metonymies, synecdoches and antitheses, hyperboles and irony, prosopopoeias and apostrophes, and all such rhetorical embellishments, just as we would in any other writings.

Here, perhaps, a few general remarks on the interpretation of figurative language, may be proper. If words occur together, which, the evidence of our senses shows, are perfectly contradictory and inconsistent with each other in their literal meaning, we at once detect a metaphor, and search for the resemblance, as when God calls Jacob his battle axe,* Jerusalem a burdensome stone,† Moab his washpot, and the like. The very nature of things, in such cases, intuitively proves the language to be figurative. So when Christ said to his disciples, taking and holding the bread in his hand, which he brake before their eyes, "This is my body which is given for you,"§ their sight taught them that he spake metaphorically, and could not possibly, without absolute rejection and contempt of the evidence of their senses, be understood literally, according to the absurd pretence of the Papists, who reject the evidence of their senses.

The metaphorical import of expressions, however, cannot always be thus easily detected; for often their

* Jer. 51. 20. † Zech. 12. 3. ‡ Psalm, 60. 8. § Luke, 22. 19.

figurative import depends upon the nature of some truth or fact either proved or assumed to be true, with which it is utterly inconsistent to interpret them literally. Here, therefore, there is great danger of false interpretation, and the greatest care should be taken, lest we assume things to be true which are not, and think we have demonstrated positions, which are untenable. A vast amount of error and confusion, in the interpretation of the figurative language of prophecy, arises from this source. A thing may seem to us to be contrary to our physiological and philosophical theories; yea, to some known and established - law of nature, altogether inconsistent with our experience and observation, a perfect miracle, and yet, in the nature of things, it be not impossible for the power of God to accomplish. In itself there may be nothing absurd and contradictory, although, to our limited knowledge, and within our contracted sphere of observation, it may appear so. In such cases we must be very cautious how we pronounce the language of prophecy to be figurative.

Thus God promised to Abraham, that Sarah should have a son. This was a thing altogether inconsistent with the established order of nature as Paul has shown,* and might, at first, have created a doubt in Abraham's mind, whether it would be or ought at all to be literally understood, and whether there might not be some recondite spiritual meaning involved in the words. But the thing, though inconsistent with the ordinary operations of nature, was not impossible with God, and the event proved that God meant that Abraham should believe it as a thing to be literally true, and no figure about it. He has given