ists under the new, although no one reached it fully; see Luke 7: 26-28. comp. Matt. 11: 9-13.*

The question here, as has been already remarked, does not refer simply to verbal revelations of the Old Testament, whose full and proper import was for the most part first rightly apprehended under the New Testament dispensation, and was in part intended to be then first understood; but it refers also to Old Testament institutions and appearances, which in like manner first attained their proper object and full significancy under the New Testament, with which they ceased, or were to cease. This leads to the proper conception of types, which are no doubt found in the Old Testament.

In the stricter sense, types were institutions and appearances intended to deepen, expand, and ennoble the circle of thoughts and desires, and thus to heighten the moral and spiritual wants, as well as the intelligence and susceptibility, of the chosen people. This was done in order that there might ultimately be formed out of this particular nation, separated from all others by peculiar bounds, a people which should serve as a model for other nations, and who, after the future removal of the restraints in which they were trained,-which were to preserve them, till the time of fulness and ripeness, from the seductive intercourse of heathen tribes, should be in the great family of nations as the first born son of God, (Ex. 4: 22. Hos. 11: 1.) already grown up and educated, a light to their heathen brethren, who yet stood and stand upon the various steps of pupilage, though some higher than others. Thus the temple with its sanctuaries and halls was a type, as being an image of the universe; and its arrangement served to declare to those who thought and reflected, that the whole world should be and become a temple of God; comp. Eph. 2: 17-22. Col. 2: 16-21. Matt. 27: 51. and Heb. 9: 11 ff. 10: 20. Its different courts for the reception of those who were more or less or not at all consecrated, pointed still more directly to this sentiment. So all the sacrifices, which at first were permitted, and then ordered and accurately assigned by God himself, were the expression and sustenance of the deep desire and necessity felt by the human heart, partly to thank the invisible Giver in some expressive manner for his benefits, and partly and especially, in the consciousness and excited feeling of his lost favour, to become again reconciled to him. Nevertheless, such sacrifices in their very nature can have such significancy only for an unripe age; since the blood of beasts cannot really purify and pacify the conscience, nor reconcile it with God. These sacrifices, then, led and pointed to the time of the New Testament, where the certainty of the divine

Most of the passages which the supporters of the allegorical method of interpretation cite in its favour, contain metaphorical

favour would be attained through the sacrificial death of the Messiah, (Is. 53: 4.) and where the true and reasonable worship of God would consist in the right knowledge of God, and in the devotion of the heart to him,-in the sacrifice of humanity, penitence, and holy, undivided love; Jer. 31. 31-34. Hos. 6: 6. Ps. 51: 19. comp. Rom. 12: 1. Heb. 9: 8-14. Above all, the great thankoffering of Israel for the deliverance out of Egyptian bondage,― without which the chosen race must have failed of its destination, -pointed to that sacrifice of the New Testament, which made an end of all external sacrifices to those who believe, and opened a way of approach to the holiest sanctuary of God's paternal heart, not only to the children of Israel, but to all his children of the whole human race. And thus we see the spotless paschal lamb, as a type of the spotless suffering Redeemer, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world; Is. 53: 7. John 1: 29. (19: 36.) 1 Cor. 5: 7. f. 1 Pet. Ï: 19.—As a similar type, we are taught by Christ himself to consider the brazen serpent (John 3: 14.) which Moses raised up in the wilderness at the command of God, with the immediate object of delivering the Israelites from the danger of physical death; in order thereby to excite to the offering up of the heart to God, in sincere faith and more willing and perfect obedience; Num. 21: 8 f.

In a broader sense, persons of the Old Testament are also said to be types and figures of Christ or of his church, on account of some certain similarity or relation which subsists between them. Thus Adam is called, Rom. 5: 14, túлos тоυ uhhovros, the figure of him that was to come, the second Adam, i. e. the Messiah, (comp. 1 Cor. 15: 45 f. with v. 21 ff.) inasmuch as from the one, destined of God to be the father of blissful life to his posterity, there spread over all a moral corruption and a train of physical evils, whose end is death; while through the other, destined of God to be the deliverer of the fallen race, there has been acquired for all his spiritual posterity, i. e. all who believe on him, redemption and a life of eternal bliss.--The resemblance is less striking, on account of which some have held Isaac to be a type of Christ, (because of Heb. 11: 19, where the exegesis is still doubtful,) in so far as by the purposed sacrifice of him (Gen. XXII.) and his subsequent deliverance, the real sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ were prefigured, through which the promise given to Isaac and his father Abraham, was to be fulfilled; Gen. XVII. XVIII.-So Melchisedek, as a type of Christ, is regarded as king of righteousness and peace; Ps. 110: 4. comp. Heb. 5: 6. 6:

or symbolical applications of earlier biblical declarations, institutions, and narratives. We find the same thing also, in almost all works in every language. Every man thinks in the forms of his own peculiar mode of observation, education, history, and occupation; these become to him types and symbols to designate his other thoughts. Warriors, shepherds, fishermen-all choose the pictures of their thoughts out of the circle of their experience. It was then natural, that the sacred writers also should express their thoughts, their hopes, their fears, their joy and sorrow, in forms of language borrowed from the circle of their experience -in the words and figures of earlier holy writ. The rite of circumcision consecrated the male children and all adults whom the Israelites wished to incorporate with themselves, to God, and separated them from the nations that were unclean. It was natural, therefore, that those who acknowledged, that this external rite could not in itself and by itself make any one a real member of the people of God, should call the true inward consecration, circumcision of the heart, or of the foreskin of the heart; Deut. 10: 16. 30: 6. Jer. 4: 4. Rom. 2: 28. Col. 2: 11. Similar metaphors occur very often ; e. g. Ez. 11: 19. Jer. 31: 33. Is. 1: 10. comp. Matt. 24: 38 ff. Luke 17: 26 ff.—Matt. 13: 35. comp. Ps. 78: 2, 3.—Mark 9: 49. John 6: 49 ff. Eph. 5: 29 ff. 1 Pet. 2: 9.-Of the same general class, although of a different species, are the passages where peculiarities in the history of Israel, conceived as an individual person, or also of particular persons in the Old Testament, are applied to Christ, or to persons or events in the New Testament; e. g. Matt. 2: 15 Out of Egypt have I called my Son, compared with Ex. 4: 22. Hos. 11: 1.-Matt.

20. 7: 1 ff. and often. And because David was the most distinguished champion and statesman of God in the Old Testament kingdom; so therefore Christ-who was to descend from him, and should, as king of truth and peace extend God's kingdom on earth even to its remotest bounds (Is. 9: 1–6. 11: 1 ff. and elsewhere)-is often called of God my servant David, and is represented as sitting on David's throne; comp. Hos. 3: 5. Ez. 34: 23 ff. 37: 24 f. Luke 1: 32 f. In like manner in this broader (metaphorical) sense, all pious persons of the Old Testament, so far as single traits of the character of the true children of God were observable in them, may be called figures or types of the Son of God, in whom alone the divine life was manifested in all its fulness and glory.

2: 18. comp. Jer. 31: 15. (Gen. 37: 35.)—Matt. 2: 23. comp. Gen. 49:26. (Is. 11: 1. comp. Jer. 23: 5. 33:15.)-Matt. 12:39 f. 16: 4. (John 2: 18 ff.) comp. Jonah 2: 1; and so a multitude of other passages. Such the like of which are found appearances, in the writings of every nation, cannot surely justify the assumption of a double or manifold sense, intended by the Holy Spirit at the moment of inspiration.

(B) The allegorical interpretation, which grounds itself on such an assumption, is further not to be admitted, because there are no clear and certain laws by which it must be practised. The Holy Scriptures must, in this manner, become a prey to the subjective caprice of interpreters, who, being as they suppose at a higher stage of attainment, do not hold themselves bound to render any other account for their often fanciful and ingenious interpretations, than to admonish their opposers, that they must make further advances in the divine life, until they become able to look into the deeper sense and connexion of the revealed word. And since such admonitions may be expressed in words which have a very good sense, and one which all would approve, viz. that he, to whom the inner, deeper, holy life of the men of God is unknown, is also of course incapable of rightly understanding their language and writings; it is therefore very difficult effectually to come at those, who favour this mode of proceeding.

(y) This method moreover is entirely superfluous; which alone is reason enough against it. It can give throughout no new and tenable results, which the grammatico-historical method, when exercised in a pious spirit, does not give. For since the Scriptures themselves authorize us to hold the Christian revelation as closed, (Gal. 1: 8 f. Rom. 16: 17. 1 Tim. 6:3 ff. 2 Tim. 1: 13 f. and elsewhere,) the apprehension must ever remain, that everything professedly new, which an allegorical interpretation may derive from the Scriptures, and which is not clearly contained in the words and in the connexion,-and consequently known or knowable by grammatico-historical exposition,-must be merely human imagination, be it ever so well meant. And this just apprehension should restrain every judicious evangelical Christian and theologian, from adopting any such results as doctrines of divine revelation; Rom. 16: 17. Col. 2: 18. 1 Tim. 6: 4 ff. comp. 2 Thess. 2: 2.

ART. IV. REMARKS ON HAHN'S DEFINITION OF INTERPRETATION, AND SOME TOPICS CONNECTED WITH IT.

By M. Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover.

It would be difficult, within the same space, to express in a plainer and better manner than Prof. Hahn has done, the correct, and only correct idea of genuine interpretation.* To interpret an author must mean, to give that sense to his words which he himself gave. To connect those ideas with an author's language which he himself connected, is the first step toward a real interpretation of him; the second is, to express the result of this in language that is intelligible to others. Whoever does both of these, may be considered as a true and adequate interpreter. Whoever does either of them in a defective manner, has come short of the real design of all genuine interpretation.

From this simple and intelligible statement it follows, that all accommodation of the Scriptures to our own preconceived notions of truth and propriety, unless indeed these entirely agree with those of the sacred writers, is foreign to the business of true interpretation. This concerns itself exclusively and solely with the sentiment of the writer to be interpreted. All the principles of language and criticism which it applies to exegesis, are only means which common sense has pointed out, as necessary and proper to be used in the explanation of any written or spoken language. Mankind have universally been interpreters, to a great extent, ever since our first progenitors commenced the use of language in paradise. All men interpret, every day, what is addressed to them by their fellow men. The laws of interpretation are a consequence of the practical, exegetical instinct (I had almost said) of the human race. I mean, that the interpretation of language is as natural to man, as the use of it is; and that this is natural, is sufficiently proved by a possession of the faculty of speaking and by the universality of its use. The laws of interpretation are neither more nor less, as to all their substantial and most important parts, than the practical principles by which men have always been guided, in interpreting each other's language. Language was not formed by the rules of grammarians and critics; but grammarians and critics, by study and observation, obtained a correct view of the phenomena of language, and then delineated this view in writing. It was thus that grammars and lexicons originated. And it is in the like

* See p. 124 above.