" 10. Error of those who assign many meanings to a word, at the same time and in the same place. Such an opinion is to be rejected, although the practice is very old, as Augustine testifies, Confess. XII. 30, 31. The opinion probably originated from the variety of interpretations given to the ambiguous passages; several of which appeared probable, and were recommended by a sentiment of reverence towards the authors of them. A principle of this nature, however, must introduce very great uncertainty into exegesis, than which nothing can be more pernicious. (Morus, p. 35. vii.)

11. Error of those who afirm that the words of Scripture mean all that they possibly can mean. This sprang from the Rabbinical schools, and passed from them, in early times, to Christians. The transition is very easy from this error, to every kind of licence in the introduction of allegory, prophecy, and mystery into every part of the Bible; as the experience of the Jews, of the ancient fathers, the scholastic divines, and the followers of Cocceius, demonstrates.

The Rabbinic maxim is; on every point of the Scripture, hang suspended mountains of sense. The Talmud says, God so gave the law to Moses, that a thing can be shewn to be clean and unclean in forty-nine different ways. Most of the fathers, and a multitude of commentators in later times, were infected with these principles. Little more than a century ago, the celebrated Cocceius, of Leyden, maintained the sentiment, that all the possible meanings of a word in Scripture are to be united. By his learning and influence, a powerful party were raised up in the Protestant church, in favour of such a principle. The mischiefs resulting from it have not yet ceased to operate.

§12. The sense of words properly considered is not allegorical. Allegory is rather an accommodation of the sense of words, or an accommodation of things, to the illustration of some doctrine. Moderately used, and well adapted, it may be of some profit which is entitled to regard. But when resorted to by the unlearned and those of an uncultivated taste, it commonly degenerates into empty and ridiculous trifling. (Comp. Morus, Dissert. Tom. I. p. 370, &c.)

'It is impossible adequately to describe the excesses and absurdities which have been committed in consequence of the allegorizing spirit. From the time of Origen, who converted into allegory the account of the creation of the world, the creation and fall of man, and multitudes of other simple facts related in the Bible, down to the Jesuit, who makes the account of the creation of the greater light to rule the day, to mean the Pope, and the creation of the lesser light and the stars, to mean the subjection of kings and princes to the

particular connection, is the necessary one; and a conviction that the sense in any case is necessary, will be in exact proportion to the degree in which it is felt to be obvious. By obvious here, is not meant what is obvious to an illiterate or hasty interpreter; but to one who has learning and good judgment, and makes use of all the proper means of interpretation.'

Pope, there have been multitudes, in and out of the Catholic church, who have pursued the same path. The most sacred doctrines of religion have often been defended and assailed by arguments of equal validity, and of the same nature, as the exposition of the Jesuit just mentioned. The spirit which prompts to this may, in some cases, be commendable; but as it is a mere business of fancy, connected with no principles of philology, and supported by no reasons drawn from the nature of language, so it is, for the most part, not only worthless, but dangerous. And of what possible use, in the end, can a principle be, which can prove the most important doctrine, either of Judaism or Christianity, as well from the first verse of the first chapter of Chronicles, as from any part of the Bible: or, rather, of what use can the Bible be, if it may be interpreted by such principles?

§ 13. Properly speaking, there is no typical sense of words. Types are not words, but things, which God has designated as signs of fu ture events. Nor is any special pains necessary for the interpretation of them. The explanation of them, which the Holy Spirit himself has given, renders them intelligible. Beyond his instructions on this subject, we should be very careful never to proceed. As for those who maintain a typical design in all the parts of Scripture, they certainly display very little judgment or consideration; for they lay open the way for the mere arbitrary introduction of types into every part of the Bible. The design of the Holy Spirit, in the mention of this or that thing in the Scriptures, can be understood only so far as he himself has explained it, or afforded obvious grounds of explanation.

'If it be asked, how far are we to consider the Old Testament as typical? I should answer without any hesitation, just so much of it is to be regarded as typical, as the New Testament affirms to be so, and NO MORE. The fact, that any thing or event under the Old Testament dispensation was designed to prefigure something under the New, can be known to us only by revelation; and, of course, all that is not designated by divine authority as typical, can never be made so, by any authority less than that which guided the writers of the Scriptures.

14. Danger resulting from the spirit of multiplying allegories and types. That sentiment, which through imprudence or want of knowledge fell from some of the ancient fathers, and was echoed by many of the Romish doctors, viz. that some passages of Scripture have no literal sense, is dangerous beyond description. I presume they meant to affirm this of those passages which they did not understand. Such a sentiment has been recently defended by Wittius, on the Pro

By literal sense here, Ernesti means a sense not allegorical or mystical; for to these literal is here opposed, and not to tropical, as it commonly is. There are a multitude of passages in Scripture, which have only a tropical meaning, and which, nevertheless, are neither allegorical nor mystical.'

verbs of Solomon; and Thomas Woolston, taking advantage of this, has converted the narrations of our Saviour's miracles into mere allegories. pp. 36-39.

Art. III. A brief Notice of some ancient Coins and Medals, as illustrating the Progress of Christianity. By the Rev. R. Walsh, LL.D. M.R.I.A., late Chaplain to the British Embassy and Residence at Constantinople. 12mo. pp. 36. Plates. London, 1827. [Reprinted from the Amulet.]

IT

T is not long since our attention was called to a dissertation upon some coins of a city in Thessaly, which was not previously known to have existed+. Although of sufficient im- 、 portance to have its coinage, its name had almost become lost to history. The boast of the poet, monumentum ære perennius, holds good of the pompous mausoleum, the flattering and treacherous marble; but the most imperishable record of all, perhaps, is the medal. It is astonishing what a world of history may be compressed within the circle of the rudest coin, and how a whole train of laborious argument and learned speculation may be either set aside, or superseded, by the discovery of one of these portable monuments, these circulating histories, which present as it were a silver key to unlock the dark chambers of the past. Could we snatch Mr. Foster's lazy pen out of his hand, we would strike off a few eloquent pages upon this tempting subject, which no other writer could so well do justice to. We had in our hands, a few years ago, a real Perkin Warbeck.-What a jade is history, that she never chose to tell us, that we were so near having him among our crowned heads; since, impostor or not, it is clear by this traitorous token, that he was to some extent backed in his pretensions.

The importance of these collateral documents, as illustrations of profane history, has not escaped the attention of the scholar and the antiquary; and the ingenious Editor of Calmet's Dictionary has laid the public under obligations, by the numerous plates of ancient medals and coins, given in the enlarged edition, with a view to shew the absolute and universal prevalence of idolatry, in ages subsequent to the introduction of Chris

* This shews how dangerous it is, to set the adversaries of religion an example of perverting the interpretation of the Scriptures.' Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. Articles 11

and 12.

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tianity. The latest of those adduced, which date in the second and third centuries of the Christian era, demonstrate the power of the sword and of the magistracy to be still in the hands of the heathen. Not one bears any impress of Christianity; and yet', it is added, we know from other authorities, that the doctrine of the risen Saviour was rapidly spreading throughout these countries: it was prevailing against the opposition of prejudices, supported by the sanction of the deepest antiquity. The plates we refer to, are valuable, not only as affording evidence of the truth of history, and a graphic representation of the prevailing idolatry, but as they illustrate to a great extent, the rites, customs, dress, and sometimes the natural history of the respective countries. There are also given, some plates of Jewish coins, and a dissertation on the Hebrew money, which are highly interesting.

From the point, however, at which the Editor of Calmet stops, in his numismatic illustrations, the Author of the present essay sets out. Not one of those given by the former bears any impress of the Christian religion, it being the Editor's object to shew the prevalence of heathenism up to the third century. The design of the work as a biblical dictionary, not an ecclesiastical history, scarcely admitted of Mr. Taylor's taking a wider range, even had he possessed the requisite materials. But it was perhaps due to the memory of that able and indefatigable illustrator of the sacred volume, to except him from the sweeping charge, too just in its intended reference, but not applicable to such a man,-that no one has thought it worth his while to make coins and medals subservient to the illustration of the progress of Christianity, while great pains have been taken to illustrate by such means the histories of Pagan Greece and Rome. For whom this remark was intended, we are not left in any doubt.

Pinkerton is particularly testy on this subject. Coins of the Byzantine emperors, he calls "utterly barbarous ;" and says, that "the admission of a coin of that barbarous nation the Jews, is justly esteemed a disgrace to a cabinet." The only work on coins published in England before his Essay, was an ingenious little treatise by the Rev. Dr. Jennings. He unluckily noticed some Jewish and Christian coins; and Pinkerton says, he would "pass him over in silent contempt, as he is taken up with Jewish shekels and divinity, as in duty bound to pray!"-Pinkerton on Medals, vol. i. p. xiii.'

That the imbecile and irreligious prejudice of such a man should have had the slightest influence upon medallists, is indeed a circumstance at once disgraceful and deplorable. Yet, Dr. Walsh informs us, that this affected contempt' for Chris

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tian medals, enabled him to make a larger collection in the East, than he could have hoped to obtain, had he had more competitors.

The first two of the series of Roman coins here given, are of the reign of Diocletian. One is copied from a Diocletian in the collection of the king of France, and represents, on the reverse, Jupiter armed with a thunderbolt, and trampling a kneeling figure which is supposed to designate Christianity. The legend is 'Jovi Fulguratori. The other coin, given by the Continuator of Bandurus, exhibits a similar design, with a head of Maximian on the obverse. In support of this interpretation of the allegorical figures, Dr. Walsh cites two inscriptions given by Gruter, said to have been found on some beautiful columns at Clunia, in Catalonia. They are to the following effect: Diocletian Jove, and Maximian Hercules, August Cæsars, having increased the Roman empire in the ' east and west, and extirpated the Christians who were overturning the republic.' To Diocletian Cæsar, and Augustus • Galerius, having every where extirpated the Christian su'perstition, and restored the worship of the gods.' 'It is remarkable,' adds Dr. Walsh, that Gibbon, who quotes Gruterus for other inscriptions, takes no notice of these.' As some apology for Gibbon, however, in this instance, it might be urged, that the genuineness of copies of inscriptions is always liable to suspicion. Gruter has given another inscription, said also to have been found in Spain, which extols Nero ob pro• vinciam his qui novam generi humano superstitionem inculca'bant purgatam. Scaliger and other learned men, and Mosheim himself, have expressed their doubts as to the authenticity and authority of this incription, although the latter writer maintains the reality and general extent of the Neronian persecution, in opposition to Dodwell*. We have no wish to palliate the malignant unfairness of Gibbon, whose credulity is as striking on some occasions, in admitting evidence hostile to the character of the Christians, as are his caution and scepticism on the opposite side. It must be conceded, nevertheless, that the statements of even Eusebius are not always deserving of implicit credence; and the exaggerated accounts put forth with regard to the number of the several persecutions, and the numbers of the martyred, justify a degree of reserve and suspicion. It is always difficult to ascertain the accuracy of numerical calculations, which are generally very arbitrary. But,

See Mosheim's Commentaries on the Affairs of the Early Christians. Vol. I. pp. 185, et seq.