Every reader of your discourses, must be surprised at the extent to
which you have carried the practice of allegorising the Scriptures: you
declare your assent to them, and yet in practice, you seem to consider
each part as a fable from which you can draw a moral to suit the purpose
of the moment; and the belief which you profess in their divine origin,
does not restrain you from indulging in all the licentiousness of
fiction. "Sacred History, (says an eminent writer,) has always been read
with submissive reverence, and an imagination over-awed and controlled.
We have been accustomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of
the authentic narrative, and to repose on its veracity with such humble
confidence, as suppresses curiosity. We go with the historian as he
goes, and stop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous
and vain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for the
purposes of religion, seems not only useless, but is in some degree
profane. Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of
divine power, are above the power of human genius to dignify. The
miracle of Creation, however it may teem with images, is best described
with little diffusion of language: _He spake the word and they were
made._"[12]
Footnote 12:
Life of Cowley.
That an argument may sometimes be illustrated by a moral drawn from the
events recorded in Scripture, I do not deny; but I think a pious mind
must always indulge in the practice with great caution, and be careful
not to make an allegory of the fact itself. Nor do I think that the
passage of Scripture "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life"[13] which you so often quote, is at variance with this view of the
subject, or can furnish any argument in excuse for the spirit of
mysticism by which you involve every part of them in obscurity. It is
true that this passage is in the figurative language generally used in
the East, but the meaning appears so plain, that only those can mistake
it, whose minds have been perverted by the habit of speculating in the
airy regions of the imagination. The New Testament is a code of moral
law and spiritual instruction, teaching man his duty to his neighbour,
and the true way in which he can render acceptable worship to God. For
the outward order of this worship, and the government of religious
society, certain rules and ordinances must be necessary, and were found
to be so, even in the days of the apostles; but as under the old
covenant many had been led to consider the outward observance of the law
as their _only_ duty, and that "if they paid their tithe of mint and
anise and cummin, they might omit the weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy and faith; although _both_ ought to have been
observed;"[14] so this exhortation is intended to caution the flock, not
against the observance of the rules of discipline which had been
established, but that they might not sink down into the belief that such
observance was all that was required; and that they ought always to
remember that "God is a Spirit;" and they that "worship him, must
worship _him_ in spirit and in truth."
Footnote 13: