CHAPTER III.

Departure from the canons of just interpretation.

The moral sense in man, like the eye, requires aids extraneous to itself, to qualify it for performing its of fice. It is adapted to receive, but not to originate the light of religious truth. If thrown upon the resources of our unaided reflection and conscience, our moral being must grope its way in a darkness as profound, as that of our physical, when cut off from the light of this world. Our perceptions of right and wrong, of obligation and duty, are the combined result of the moral faculty which belongs to our own nature, and of the means afforded to assist its operations. Of course, they will be clear or confused, according to the amount, or the use we make, of the means within our reach. If our means of knowing religious truth are limited, our moral perceptions will be so too; or if they are abundant, and yet our moral faculty is so diseased, as to disqualify us for using them judiciously, the result will be much the same as if the means themselves were limited. Disease of the visual organ, may as effectually doom us to darkness, as the absence of light. How many, with every means of knowing religious truth, live and die in an ignorance of it as profound, as that of those who are the farthest removed from every such advantage. The reason is, that their consciences are perverted, or they neglect the light within their reach, or it is conveyed to their optics through the medium of prejudice, bad education, or some other means of tinging the celestial ray with unnatural hues.

There are two sources, from which religious and moral truth, is reflected upon the human mind,-nature and supernatural revelation.

By paying due attention to the tendency of dif ferent passions, affections and actions, to produce happiness or misery; by carefully observing the moral relations in which we stand, and the obligations they involve; and thus, by honestly using those means of knowing what is truth and duty, which are spread before us in nature, we may advance far in making correct moral distinctions. Of this fact we have abundant evidence, in the distinguished virtues, which have in some cases flourished even on pagan ground. Who can deny to Socrates, to Plato, or to Epaminondas the meed of splendid moral worth? And, though the relics of Grecian and Roman literature teem with deformed, impure, and erroneous images, they abound in maxims of life, which, if practiced, would impress upon character some of its noblest features. These examples illustrate the inspired text, that "these having not the law, are a law unto themselves," and do simply by the aid of nature, better than many under the full light of revelation; and hence, by showing how much better all might do, whether with or without revealed law, they stand as monuments of the divine justice, in placing the whole world under condemnation. Nature itself, if we would listen to its dictates, would correct many of the foibles, which exist in the best state of society.

It does not comport with our design to inquire into all the causes, which preclude from the mind, moral and religious light. They are numerous, and some are our fault, and others our misfortune. Among those which imply no fault on our part, is, what we have already noticed, the imperfection of language. Since language is the vehicle of all that portion of truth, which is conveyed to us by supernatural revelation, whatever serves to render the meaning of

words indeterminate, operates like a thick veil before the eye, intercepting the heavenly beam near the point of contact with the mind. And thus, unless caution be used to surmount the difficulty, we shall never advance beyond the bare twilight of truth.

It

is this circumstance, that invests the laws of correct interpretation, with such importance in all matters of religious concernment.

It should always be considered, that the truth revealed, is distinct from the language through which it is conveyed, and must remain as inaccessible, as if not revealed at all, unless we have the means of extracting it from the crude elements of words, phrases and idioms in which it lies imbedded. The existence of an order of public instructors, in connection with the inspired economy, appears to have found its basis in this fact. It began immediately upon the return of the remnant from Babylon, when the Jews first lost the pure Hebrew through intercourse with foreign nations, and when they were cut off from all connection with the thought of their sacred writings, except as they were made acquainted with it by competent interpreters. It appears to have been from this germ, that a permanent order of uninspired teachers in the christian church, sprang. Its establishment, seems to have arisen, from the necessity of some further aid in bringing inspired thought into contact with the mass of mind, than the simple record of it, in one or two languages. By thus regarding the necessity, and the intention of this institution, therefore, the people may learn what kind of teachers to select, and what to expect from them; and the incumbents of the office, are admonished to confine themselves, more exclusively, to documentary christianity. Their business is not to originate or concoct new matter, but simply to explain so clearly, that God's own thoughts shall blaze before the public eye, and burn upon the public conscience.

Our illumination from the word of God, is exactly in proportion to the degree, in which we enter into the spirit and meaning of the language employed. The cant, whining, and sanctimonious manner, in which the sacred pages are often glanced over, by those who are more concerned to appear religious, than to be instructed, or who desire to be so, but mistake the mode, while it imposes on the weak and credulous without improving them, leads the more discerning, but equally thoughtless, to treat the Bible with neglect, as having no meaning at all, or none worth the labor of digging from the rubbish, under which it lies buried. There is, perhaps, no subject, upon which words without meaning are more profusely lavished, than upon religion. Some content themselves with mere words to avoid the labor of thinking, and others, because they go higher than thoughts, in the market of popular estimation. Almost every sect has its cant phrases, which crowd themselves into the front rank of all religious discourse, but from which, the meaning they may have suggested to the men of a former age, who were familiar with the causes which gave rise to the sect itself, long since evaporated. Their only use at present is, to perpetuate the separate existence of the party, or at most, to give motion to tongues that are compelled to do service for vacant minds. If religious men were forced to keep silence, except when they had thoughts to express, there is no conjecturing the extent of fume, of which the moral atmosphere would be cleared. Alas, that the language of Scripture, should so often be tasked to this unmeaning service!

But, in addition to the propensity to employ words without meaning, absurd notions of interpretation, do much to close the avenues of the mind against inspired thought. These notions are variously modified by the systems, which different classes of chris

tians have, from first to last, adopted. But in the general characteristic, of assuming that the sense of Scripture is to be rested, not wholly upon the language employed, but upon the analogy of faith, or something independent of the laws of philology, they are all alike. Few, indeed, have run these notions up to the same extreme with the neologists of Germany, who aver that reason alone can decide in matters of faith, that the authority of Scripture is to be allowed only when it coincides with our convictions, and that it is nothing more than a human book, "in which noble and wise men of former times have laid up, entirely in the ordinary manner, the results of their own reflection." But just so far as we allow the system of faith which we have adopted, or any thing else, to influence us in attaching to the words of Scripture, a meaning which they cannot bear, when legitimately interpreted, just so far we verge towards this dismal extreme. For, the moment we vary the meaning, in the slightest degree, from what God intended to communicate, we act on a principle, which, pursued up, would lead to the wildest extremes.

That no denomination in this country, are willing to avow such principles of interpretation, we admit ; but that every denomination is more or less influenced by them, is the only fact, that will account for the diversified systems, which they contrive to extort from the inspired pages. Can it be supposed, that God speaks to us in language so indeterminate, as to admit of all these constructions? Would it not be an imputation upon his wisdom and veracity, to indulge such a thought? That there should be diversities of opinion, to some extent, in regard to the meaning of the Bible, is to be expected from the constitution of the human mind and other causes, as we have before shown-but it is hardly to be supposed,

* Kant, as found in Bib. Rep. Vol. 1. p. 122.