whole of the meaning of the Canon, his gloss happens exactly to miss the
only important point. The plain meaning of the words,--"Only out of the
Scriptures can you explain the Scriptures,"--is obviously rather
this:--'That in order _to interpret_ the Bible, our aim must be to
_ascertain how the Bible interprets itself_.' In other
words,--'Scripture must be made _its own Interpreter_.' More simply yet,
in the Professor's own words, (from which, _more suo_, he has
imperceptibly glided away,)--"_Interpret Scripture from itself._"
(p. 382.) ... How then does Scripture interpret Scripture? _That_ is the
only question! for the answer to this question must be held to be
decisive as to the other great question which Mr. Jowett raises in the
present Essay,--namely, How are _we_ to interpret Scripture?
Now this whole Inquiry has been conducted elsewhere; and will be found
to extend from p. 144 to p. 160 of the present volume. It has been there
established, by a sufficiently large induction of examples, that _the
Bible is to be interpreted as no other book is, or can be interpreted_;
and for the plain reason, that _the inspired Writers themselves_, (our
LORD Himself at their head!) _interpret it after an altogether
extraordinary fashion_. Mr. Jowett's statement at p. 339 that "the
mystical interpretation of Scripture originated in the Alexandrian
age," is simply false.
And in the course of this proof, (necessarily involved in it, in fact,)
it has been incidentally shewn that the sense of Scripture is not, by
any means, invariably _one_; and _that_ sense the most obvious to those
who wrote, heard, or read it. It has been fully shewn that the office of
the Interpreter is _not_, by any means, (as Mr. Jowett imagines,) "to
recover the meaning of the words _as they first struck on the ears, or
flashed before the eyes of those who heard or read them_." (p. 338.) The
Reverend writer's repeated assertion that "we have no reason to
attribute to the Prophet or Evangelist any second or hidden sense
different from that which appears on the surface," (p. 380,) has been
fully, and as it is hoped effectually refuted.
And here I might lay down my pen. For since, at the end of 74 pages, the
Professor thus delivers himself, (in a kind of imitation of St. Paul's
language[186],)--"Of what has been said, this is the sum,--That
Scripture, _like other books_, has _one_ meaning, which has to be
gathered from itself ... _without regard to à priori notions about its
nature and origin_:" that, "It is to be interpreted _like other books_,
with attention to the prevailing state of civilization and knowledge,"
and so forth; (p. 404;)--it must suffice to say that, having established
the very opposite conclusion, I claim to have effectually answered his
Essay; because I have overthrown what he admits to be "the sum" of it.
Let me be permitted however--before I proceed to review some other parts
of his performance,--in the briefest manner, not so much to
recapitulate, as to exhibit 'the sum' of what has been hitherto
delivered on the other side; in somewhat different language, and as it
were from a different point of view.
We are presented then, in the New Testament Scriptures, with the august
spectacle of the Ancient of Days holding the entire volume of the Old
Testament Scriptures in His Hands, _and interpreting it of Himself_. He,
whose Life and Death are set forth in the Gospel;--whose Church's early
fortunes are set forth historically in the Acts, while its future
prospects are shadowed prophetically in the Apocalypse;--whose
Doctrines, lastly, are explained in the twenty-one Epistles of St. Paul
and St. Peter, St. James and St. John and St. Jude:--He, the Incarnate
WORD, who was "in the beginning;" who "was with GOD," and who "was
GOD:"--that same Almighty One, I repeat, is exhibited to us in the
Gospel, repeatedly, holding the Volume of the Old Testament Scriptures
in His Hands, and _explaining it of Himself. "To day is this Scripture
fulfilled_ in your ears[187],"--was the solemn introductory sentence
with which, in the Synagogue of Nazareth, (after closing the Book and
giving it again to the Minister,) He prefaced His Sermon from the lxist
chapter of Isaiah.--"Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me:
_for he wrote of Me_[188],"--"'O fools, and slow of heart to believe all
that the Prophets have spoken! Ought not CHRIST to have suffered these
things, and to enter into His glory?' And _beginning at Moses and all
the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself_[189]."--"These are the words which I spake unto you,
that all things must be fulfilled _which are written in the Law of
Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me_[190]."
"CHRIST was before Moses. The Gospel was not made for the Law; but the
Law was made for the Gospel. The Gospel is not based on the Law, but the
Law is a shadow of the Gospel. In order to believe the Bible, we must
look upward; and fix our eyes on JESUS CHRIST, sitting in Heavenly
Glory, holding both Testaments in His Hand; sealing both Testaments with
His seal; and delivering both Testaments as Divine Oracles, to the
World. We must receive the _written Word_ from the Hands of the
INCARNATE WORD[191]."
This august spectacle, let it be clearly stated,--(1) Establishes,
beyond all power of contradiction, the intimate connexion which subsists
between the Old and the New Testament; as well as the altogether unique
relation which the one bears to the other:--(2) Invests either Testament
with a degree of sacred importance and majestic grandeur which
altogether makes the Bible _unlike "any other book_:"--(3) Proves that
the Bible is to be interpreted as no other book ever was, or ever can be
interpreted:--(4) Demonstrates that it has _more than a single
meaning_:--and lastly, Convincingly shews that _GOD, and not Man, is its
true Author_.
It will of course be asked,--Then does Mr. Jowett take no notice at all
of this vast and complicated problem? How does he treat of the relation
between the Old Testament and the New?... He despatches the entire
subject in the following passage:--"The question," (he says,) "runs up
into a more general one, 'the relation between the Old and New
Testaments.' For the Old Testament _will receive a different meaning
accordingly as it is explained from itself, or from the New_." (Very
different certainly!) "In the first case,--a careful and conscientious
study of each one for itself is all that is required." (That is to say,
it will not be explained at all!) "In the second case,--_the types and
ceremonies of the Law, perhaps the very facts and persons of the
history_, WILL BE ASSUMED (!) to be predestined or made after a pattern
corresponding to the things that were to be in the latter days."
(p. 370.) (And why not "_will be found_ to be replete with Christian
meaning,--full of lofty spiritual significancy?"--the _proved_
marvellousness of their texture, the _revealed_ mysteriousness of their
purpose, being an effectual refutation of all Mr. Jowett's _à priori_
notions!)
"And this question," (he proceeds,) "stirs up another question
respecting the Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. Is such
Interpretation to be regarded as the meaning of the original text, or
_an accommodation of it to the thoughts of other times_?" (Nay, but
Reverend and learned Sir: "nothing so plain," as you justly observe,
"that it may not be explained away;" (p. 359;) yet we cannot consent to
have the sense of plain words thus clouded over at your mere bidding. It
is now _our_ turn to declare that the Interpreter's "object is to read
Scripture _like any other book_, with a real interest and not merely a
conventional one." It is now _we_ who "want to be able to open our eyes,
and see things as they truly are." (p. 338.) We simply petition for
leave to "_interpret Scripture like any other book, by the same rules of
evidence and the same canons of criticism_." (p. 375.) And if this
freedom be but conceded to us, there will be found to be no imaginable
reason why the Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New,--(CHRIST
Himself being the Majestic Speaker! our present edification and
everlasting welfare being His gracious purpose!)--should not be strictly
"regarded as _the meaning of the original text_." ... But let us hear
the Professor out:--)
"Our object," (he says, and with this he dismisses the problem!)--"Our
object is not to attempt here the determination of these questions; but
to point out that they must be determined before any real progress can
be made, or any agreement arrived at in the Interpretation of
Scripture." (p. 370.) ... They must indeed. But can it be right in this
slovenly, slippery style to shirk a discussion on the issue of which the
whole question may be said to turn? especially on the part of one who
scruples not to prejudge that issue, and straightway to apply it, (in a
manner fatal to the Truth,) throughout all his hundred pages. Mr.
Jowett's method is ever to _assume_ what he ought to _prove_, and then
either to be plaintive, or to sneer. "It is a _heathenish or Rabbinical
fancy_:"--"Such complexity would place the Scriptures _below human
compositions_ in general; for it would deprive them of the ordinary
intelligibleness of human language" (p. 382):--&c.
"Is the Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New to be regarded as
the _meaning of the original text_; or an _accommodation of it to the
thoughts of other times_?" (p. 370.) This is Mr. Jowett's question; the
question which it is "_not his object_ to attempt to determine;" but
which I, on the contrary, have made it _my_ object to discuss in my VIth
Sermon,--p. 183 to p. 220. Without troubling the reader however now to
wade through those many pages, let me at least explain to him in a few
words what Mr. Jowett's question really amounts to: namely this,--Do the
Apostles and Evangelists, does our Blessed LORD Himself, when He
professes to explain the mysterious significancy of the Old
Testament,--_invariably,--in every instance,--misrepresent "the meaning
of the original text_?" And the answer to this question I am content to
await from any candid person of plain unsophisticated understanding. Is
it credible, concerning the Divine expositions found in St. Matth. xxii.
31, 32,--xxii. 43-5,--xii. 39, 40,--xi. 10,--St. John viii. 17,18,--i.
52,--vi. 31, &c,--x. 34-5:--the Apostolic interpretations found in 1
Cor. ix. 9-11,--x. 1-6,--xv. 20,--Heb. ii. 5-9,--vii. 1-10,--Gal. iv.
21-31:--is it conceivable, I ask, that _not one_ of all these places
should exhibit the actual '_meaning of the original text_?' And yet, (as
Mr. Jowett himself is forced to admit,)--"If we attribute to the details
of the Mosaical ritual a reference to the New Testament, or suppose the
passage of the Red Sea to be regarded not merely as a figure of Baptism,
but as a preordained type;--_the principle is conceded_!" (p. 369.) "A
little more or a little less of the method does not make the
difference." (_Ibid._) In a word,--in such case, Mr. Jowett's Essay
falls to the ground!... To proceed however.
$3.$ The case of Interpretation has not yet been fully set before the
reader. Hitherto, we have merely traced the problem back to the
fountain-head, and dealt with it simply as _a Scriptural question_. We
have shewn what light is thrown upon _Interpretation_ by the volume of
_Inspiration_. The subject has been treated in the same way in the Vth
and VIth of my Sermons. But it will not be improper, in this place,--it
is even indispensable,--to develope the problem a little more fully; and
to explain that it is of much larger extent.
Now, there is a family resemblance in the method of all ancient
expositions of Holy Scripture which vindicates for them, however
remotely, a common origin. There is a resemblance in the general way of
handling the Inspired Word which can only be satisfactorily explained by
supposing that the remote type of all was the oral teaching of the
Apostles themselves. In truth, is it credible that the early Christians
would have been so forgetful of the discourses of the men who had seen
the LORD, that no trace of it,--no tradition of so much as _the manner_
of it,--should have lingered on for a hundred years after the death of
the last of the Apostles; down to the time when Origen, for example, was
a young man?... It cannot possibly be!
(i.) "The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses,"
(writes the great Apostle to his son Timothy,) "the same commit thou to
faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also[192]." Provision is
thus made by the aged Saint,--_in the last of his Epistles_,--for the
transmission of his inspired teaching[193] to a second and a third
generation. Now the words just quoted were written about the year 65, at
which time Timothy was a young man. Unless we suppose that ALMIGHTY GOD
curtailed the lives of the chief depositaries of His Word, Timothy will
have lived on till A.D. 100; so that "faithful men" who died in the
middle of the next century might have been trained and taught by him for
many years. It follows, that the "faithful men" last spoken of will
have been "able to teach others also," whose writings (if they wrote at
all) would range from A.D. 190 to A.D. 210. Now, just such a writer is
Hippolytus,--who is known to have been taught by that "faithful man"
Irenæus[194],--to whom, as it happens, the deposit was "committed" by
Polycarp,--who stood to St. John in the self-same relation as Timothy to
St. Paul!
(ii.) Our SAVIOUR is repeatedly declared to have interpreted the Old
Testament to His Disciples. For instance, to the two going to Emmaus,
"beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, _He interpreted to them in all
the Scriptures the things concerning Himself_[195]." Moreover, before He
left the world, He solemnly promised His Apostles that the HOLY GHOST,
whom the FATHER should send in His Name, "should _teach them all
things_, and _bring to their remembrance all things which He had spoken
to them_[196]." Shall we believe that the Treasury of _Divine
Inspiration_ thus opened by CHRIST Himself was straightway closed up by
its human guardians, and at once forgotten? Shall we not rather believe
that Cleopas and his companion, (for instance,) forthwith repeated their
LORD'S words to every member of the Apostolic body, and to others also;
that they were questioned again and again by adoring listeners, even to
their extremest age; aye, and that they taxed their memories to the
utmost in order to recal every little word, every particular of our
SAVIOUR'S Divine utterance? It must be so! And the echo, the remote echo
of that exposition, depend upon it! descended to a second, aye and to a
third generation; yea, and has come down, faintly, and feebly it may be,
but yet essentially and truly, even to ourselves!
(iii.) And yet,--(for we would not willingly incur the charge of being
fanciful in so solemn and important a matter,)--the great fact to be
borne in mind, (and it is the great fact which nothing can ever set
aside or weaken,) is, that for the first century at least of our æra,
there existed within the Christian Church _the gift of Prophecy_; that
is, of _Inspired Interpretation_[197]. The minds of the Apostles, CHRIST
Himself "opened, _to understand the Scriptures_[198]." Can it be any
matter of surprise that men so enlightened, when they had been
miraculously endowed with the gift of tongues[199], and scattered over
the face of the ancient civilized World, should have disseminated the
same principles of Catholic Interpretation, as well as the same elements
of Saving Truth? When this miraculous _gift_ ceased, its _results_ did
not also come to an end. The fountain dried up, but the streams which it
had sent forth yet "made glad the City of GOD." And by what possible
logic can the teaching of the early Church be severed from its source?
It cannot be supposed for an instant that such a severance ever took
place. The teaching of the Apostolic age was the immediate parent of the
teaching of the earliest of the Fathers,--in whose Schools it is matter
of history that those Patristic writers with whom we are most familiar,
studied and became famous. Accordingly, we discover a method of
Interpreting Holy Scripture strictly resembling that employed by our
SAVIOUR and His Apostles, _in all the earliest Patristic writings_. As
documents increase, the evidence is multiplied; and at the end of two or
three centuries after the death of St. John the Evangelist, voices are
heard from Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine; from Antioch and from
other parts of Syria; from the Eastern and the Western extremities of
North Africa; from many regions of Asia Minor; from Constantinople and
from Greece; from Rome, from Milan, and from other parts of Italy; from
Cyprus and from Gaul;--all singing in unison; all singing the same
heavenly song!... In what way but one is so extraordinary a phenomenon
to be accounted for? Are we to believe that there was a general
conspiracy of the East and the West, the North and the South, to
interpret Holy Scripture in a certain way; and that way, the wrong way?
Enough has been said, it is thought, to shew that many of Mr. Jowett's
remarks about the value of Patristic evidence are either futile or
incorrect; or that they betray an entire misapprehension of the whole
question, not to say a thorough want of appreciation of the claims of
Antiquity. We do not yield to the 'Essayist and Reviewer' in veneration
for the Inspired page; and trust that enough has been said to shew it.
Our eye, when we read Scripture, (like his,) "is fixed on the form of
One like the Son of Man; or of the Prophet who was girded with a garment
of camel's hair; or of the Apostle who had a thorn in the flesh."
(p. 338.) We are only unlike Mr. Jowett we fear in _this_,--that _we_
believe _ex animo_ that the first-named was the Eternal SON, "equal to
the FATHER," and "of one substance with the FATHER[200]:" and further
that St. Paul's fourteen Epistles are all _inspired writings_, in an
entirely different sense from the Dialogues of Plato or the Tragedies of
Sophocles. It follows, that however riveted our mental gaze may be on
the awful forms which come before us in Holy Scripture,--as often as we
con _the inspired record of the actions and of the sayings of those
men_, we are constrained many a time to look upward, and to exclaim with
the Psalmist, "Thy thoughts are very deep[201]!" And often if asked,
"Understandest thou what thou readest?"--we must still answer with the
Ethiopian, "How can I, except some man should guide me[202]?"
(iv.) To assume however that our defective knowledge "cannot be supplied
by the _conjectures_ of Fathers or Divines," (p. 338,) is in some sort
to beg the question at issue. To say of the student of Scripture that
"the history of Christendom, and all the afterthoughts of Theology, _are
nothing to him_:" (p. 338:) that "he has to imagine himself a disciple
of CHRIST or Paul, and _to disengage himself from all that follows_:"
(_Ibid._:) is not the language of modesty, but of inordinate conceit. In
Mr. Jowett it is in fact something infinitely worse; for he shews that
his object thereby is to "obtain an unembarrassed opportunity of
applying all the resources of a so-called criticism to discredit and
destroy the written record itself[203]."
"True indeed it is, that more than any other subject of human knowledge,
Biblical criticism has hung (_sic._) to the past;" (p. 340;) but the
reason is also obvious. It is because, in the words of great Bishop
Pearson, "Philosophia quotidie _progressu_, Theologia nisi _regressu_
non crescit[204]." "O ye who are devoting yourselves to the Divine
Science of Theology," (he exclaims,) "and whose cheeks grow pale over
the study of Holy Scripture above all; ye who either fill the venerable
office of the Priesthood or intend it, and are hereafter to undertake
the awful cure of souls:--rid yourselves of that itch of the present
age, the love of novelty. Make it your business to inquire for that
which was from the beginning. Resort for counsel to the fountain-head.
Have recourse to Antiquity. Return to the holy Fathers. Look back to the
primitive Church. In the words of the Prophet,--'_Ask for the old
paths_[205].'"
When therefore Mr. Jowett classes together "the early Fathers, the Roman
Catholic mystical writers, the Swiss and German Reformers, and the
Nonconformist Divines," (p. 377,)--he either shews a most lamentable
want of intellectual perspective, or a most perverse understanding. So
jumbled into one confused heap, it may not be altogether untrue to say
of Commentators generally, that "the words of Scripture suggest to them
_their own thoughts or feelings_." (p. 377.) But when it is straightway
added, "There is nothing in such a view derogatory to _the Saints and
Doctors of former ages_," (_Ibid._,) we are constrained, (for the
reasons already before the reader,) to remonstrate against so
misleading and deceitful a way of putting the case. Mr. Jowett desires
to be understood not to depreciate "the genius or learning of famous men
of old," when he remarks "that _Aquinas or Bernard did not shake
themselves free from the mystical method of the Patristic times_."
(_Ibid._) But with singular obtuseness, or with pitiful
disingenuousness, he does his best by such words to shut out from view
the real question at issue,--namely, _the exegetical value of Patristic
Antiquity_. For the Church of England, when she appeals, (as she
repeatedly does,) to "the Ancient Fathers," does not by any means intend
such names as the Abbot of Clairvaux, who flourished in the middle of
the twelfth century; or Thomas of Aquinum, who lived later into the
thirteenth. It is the spirit of _the ante-Nicene age_ which she defers
to; the Fathers of _the first four or five centuries_ to whose opinion
she gives reverent attention; as her formularies abundantly shew.
Whether therefore Aquinas and Bernard were or were not able to "shake
themselves free from the mystical method _of the Patristic times_,"
matters very little. The point to be observed is that _the Writers of
the Patristic times_, as a matter of fact, "did not shake themselves
_free from the mystical method of" CHRIST and His Apostles_!
Very far am I from denying that "any one who, instead of burying himself
in the pages of the commentators, would learn the Sacred Writings by
heart, and paraphrase them in English, will probably make a nearer
approach to their true meaning than he would gather from any
Commentary." Quite certain is it that "the true use of Interpretation is
to get rid of interpretation, and leave us alone in company with the
author." (p. 384.) But this is quite a distinct and different matter, as
every person of unsophisticated understanding must perceive at once. The
same thing will be found stated by myself, in a subsequent part of the
present volume, at considerable length[206]; the qualifying condition
having been introduced at p. 16. The truth is, a man can no more divest
himself of the conditions of thought habitual to one familiar with his
Prayer-Book, than he can withdraw himself from the atmosphere of light
in which he moves. _Not_ the abuse of Commentators on Holy Scripture,
but _the principle on which Holy Scripture itself is to be
interpreted_,--is the real question at issue: the fundamental question
which underlies this, being of course the vital one,--namely, _Is the
Bible an inspired book, or not_?
Apart from what has been already urged concerning "the torrent of
_Patristic_ Interpretation[207]" which flows down not so much from the
fountain-head of Scripture, (wherein so many specimens of _Inspired_
Interpretation are preserved,) as from the fontal source of all Wisdom
and Knowledge,--even the lips of the Incarnate WORD Himself;--apart from
this, a very important Historical circumstance calls for notice in this
place.