but this mystic art? On the other hand, when these same ingenious advocates of a hopeless cause endeavoured to retaliate upon Revealed Religion by attacking the credibility of its historical records; Christian writers too readily fell into the practice of vindicating their own belief by this precarious mode of defence. When pressed with difficulties respecting the literal sense of certain Scripture narratives, they appear to have deemed it sufficient to shew that these, as well as Heathen legends, were capable of a satisfactory allegorical interpretation, to which the Heathen opponent could not consistently object. And in thus attempting to combat the adversary with his own weapons, they not unfrequently pushed the argument so far as to put to hazard the credit of the facts themselves.

The Jews also were instrumental to this evil. Their ancient Targums abounded with such interpretations. Philo delighted in them and, in after times, other Jewish writers engrafted upon them the innumerable absurdities of the Cabalistic Theo

logy; affecting the discovery of profound mysteries in almost every word, syllable, or letter of the Sacred Oracles, and overlooking, in pursuit of these, the more solid and substantial matter.

From such corrupt sources some Christian Commentators appear to have unguardedly drawn their supplies. To these may be ascribed many strange reveries among the earliest heretics, and many mystic extravagancies which in later times have disgraced the annals of the Church; giving occasion of triumph to the scorner and the enthusiast, while the reverential believer has trembled for the cause of Truth confided to such injudicious hands.

This mode of interpretation may not, indeed, be safely intrusted even to the most learned or well-intentioned Expositor, unless he be content to circumscribe it within the limits of such necessary rules as those which have been here suggested. No faculty of the human mind requires to be kept under stricter discipline, than the Imagination; none being more difficult to control, none more eccentric or capricious

when

when suffered to act without restraint. Nothing therefore may be deemed admissible in this branch of Scripture-criticism, which is not warranted either by the necessity of the case, or by clear Analogy from Scripture, or by the authority of some inspired Interpreter. Spiritual improvements (as they are sometimes called) of particular passages of Scripture;—that is, deducing from them spiritual instructions for the practical edification of the reader ;whether or not they flow directly and naturally from the subject, may at least be harmless. But when brought forward for the purpose of Interpretation properly so called, they are to be viewed with caution and even with mistrust. For scarcely is there a favourite opinion which a fertile imagination may not thus extract from some portion of Scripture and very different, nay, contrary interpretations of this kind have often been made of the very same texts, according to men's various fancies or inventions.

:

Nor is it a slight objection to the indiscriminate application of this species of exposition,

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position, that it renders the Scriptures in general too deep and mysterious for popular apprehension. Almost every mystical Expositor aims at novelty. His object is to make discoveries in spiritual knowledge. He sets out with a persuasion that a great portion of the Scriptures has hitherto been, as it were, a sealed Book, not fully understood, except by a chosen few, gifted with extraordinary powers to penetrate its interior, and to disclose its precious treasures. He adopts, moreover, a principle, which makes it scarcely possible to determine, when the whole truth is actually laid before us. For, if so excursive and volatile a faculty as the Imagination be permitted to range ad libitum in its airy regions, who shall say when it has arrived at the conclusion of its labours? What errors too in religious opinions may not receive a plausible appearance by the aid of a mode of interpretation so lax and flexible in itself, and affording such facilities for a perversion of the truth? The advocates, however, for carrying this system to an unbounded extent, are

wont

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wont to urge on its behalf St. Paul's distinction between "milk for babes who are "unskilful in the word of righteousness," and "strong meat for them that are of full "age";" as implying that the literal sense is fit only for novices in the Faith, and that the spiritual sense is the proper nourishment for more advanced Christians. But this appears to be a misapprehension of the Apostle's meaning. He reproaches those who, after having been taught "the first principles of the oracles of God," faith, repentance, and the like, did not " go on "unto perfection," but had "need to be "taught them again"," and who, in consequence, were both indisposed and unqualified to enter into his more profound disquisitions respecting the connection between the Christian, the Mosaic, and the Patriarchal Dispensations. His censure falls upon those who, though they ought to have been themselves qualified to become teachers of the elementary doctrines of Christianity, had need to be instructed

a Heb. v. 13, 14.

b Heb. v. 12. and vi. 1, 2.