6

6

great multitude spread their garments in the way: others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way.' They spread their garments in the way,' says Matthew Henry, that he might ride upon them. Note, those that take Christ for their King, must lay their all under his feet; the clothes, in token of their heart-for when Christ comes, though not when any one else comes, it must be said to the soul, Bow down, that he may go over.' If the pious commentator meant that such was the spiritual sense of the clause, or if he supposed that the words were intended to teach the truth which he states in connexion with them, he was greatly mistaken. The original terms are plain, and involve no principle. They merely state the fact that the multitudes spread their garments in the way as Jesus passed along, for the sake of doing him honour; but as to an occult or ulterior meaning, there is no ground for conceiving any such to exist.

III. Let imagination be under the control of reason in ascertaining the mind of the spirit.

We are aware of the difficulty which individuals gifted with considerable power of imagination will experience in following this direction. Their mental temperament throws in their way a temptation hard to resist; while in the case of more sober and matter-of-fact persons, the temptation scarcely exists. But the necessity of curbing the fancy will be apparent even to such as are apt to give it loose reins; for when once indulged, it is not easy to tell how far it may lead the deluded captive. The faculty is of little use in the exposition of Scripture, where solid things are mainly treated. Even dry intellect, provided it be united with acuteness, is preferable to a splendid imagination, in that department. Not that the latter is useless or undesirable. The outgoings of mere intellectual ability are repulsive to the apprehension of the majority of men. But let them be invested with the beautiful garb of fancy, and they meet with cordial and ready acceptance. They will then excite something more than admiration, attracting the sympathies of those to whom they are presented. Still, however, the power of fancy is a dangerous attribute in possession of the professed expositor. It creates new senses, fertilizing the field of the written word with beautiful but baseless sentiments. It strews its flowers along the path which appears barren; although these flowers do but conceal the genuine productions that spring up to the eye of the devout inquirer as the true plants of heaven. The following example of spiritualizing belongs to this head :- I had some reflections,' says Mrs. West, 'on the Queen of Sheba's coming to King Solomon: the one'half was not told her of what she felt. Where I was made to

NO. III.

they are so fallible and full of errors as to disappoint their votary. Especially do they abound with allegorical meanings. Whoever abandons himself to them, puts himself in the way of allegorizing. He looks at God's truth with other men's eyes. It is not therefore surprising, that it should be obscurely perceived, or wholly hidden from his view.

By attending to these directions, the sacred interpreter will be preserved from the folly of spiritual fancies, and so tampering with the word of God, however unconsciously or inadvertently. The allegorizer tarnishes religious truth-heaven's pure and polished jewel-with the taint of his own defilement. This sacred gift comes from the Father of lights, invested with the celestial brightness of His own dwelling-place above; and although man is liable to defile its form and to mar its beauty, yet its genuine features are soon recognised amid every distortion resulting from human depravity. Let us therefore keep it with sacred veneration, as an inviolable treasure given us by Jehovah himself; and beware of injuring it by our unhallowed touch, lest we provoke the displeasure of the donor. Great indeed is our responsibility, as we watch over the written word with holy jealousy, that it be not perverted by the crafty or the capricious to the favouring of their own fancies. Jehovah looks upon His children to see whether they be indifferent to the written charter of their salvation-He marks their conduct; and they should be careful to approve themselves the faithful guardians of their Master's gift, amid the sincere but irreverent attempts of the learned to improve it, or the impious designs of the idolatrous to employ it in subservience to sinful passions.

she greatly erred. Had her curious fancy been restrained, it would never have been thought that the spiritual sense of the passage consists in a believer coming to Christ.

Bishop Horne's lucubrations on the seventh and eighth verses of the eighth Psalm afford a similar specimen of allegorizing. Among the all things subjected to the Redeemer, David enumerates All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.' Here is the speculation of the pious Hutchinsonian. The souls of the faithful, lowly and harmless, are the sheep of his pasture; those who, like oxen, ' are strong to labour in the church, and who, by expounding the "word of life, tread out the corn for the nourishment of the people, own him for their kind and beneficent master; nay, tempers fierce and untractable as the wild beasts of the desert, are yet subject to his will; spirits of the angelic kind, that, like the birds of the air, traverse freely the superior region, move at his com'mand; and those evil ones, whose habitation is in the deep abyss, even to the great Leviathan himself; all are put under the feet of King Messiah.' Such is the reverie of the good bishop.

IV. Study the original Scriptures in preference to commentaries. We shall not insist on this precept, although we fear there is much reason for its inculcation. The vade-mecum of many preachers is Matthew Henry, whose weighty and quaint observations they retail with some alterations, but not unfrequently with much dilution. Others who aspire to the reputation of learning, give forth the heavy lucubrations of Gill, which are sufficient to weigh the hearers down by their leaden dullness; others make so much use of Scott, that they paraphrase away all the strength of the words as they stand written in the pages of the Bible. This is the way to cramp the native energies of the mind, to stifle independent thought, to be the slaves of others. As long as a man leans on foreign aid or foreign attainments, he is a kind of cipher in the intelligent creation of God, giving forth no influence towards the reform of his fellow-creatures, because he puts constraint on the voice of Deity within him. That man should not undertake the office of a professed expositor of the divine word, who cannot go beyond commentaries and versions and the results of men's labour, to the pure source itself. Assuredly he who leans upon the comments already given to the world will frequently stumble and err. Kept in their proper place, which is a subordinate one, they may be used with advantage as auxiliaries; but when elevated to be the guides at whose mercy an interpreter meanly places himself,

they are so fallible and full of errors as to disappoint their votary. Especially do they abound with allegorical meanings. Whoever abandons himself to them, puts himself in the way of allegorizing. He looks at God's truth with other men's eyes. It is not therefore surprising, that it should be obscurely perceived, or wholly hidden from his view.

By attending to these directions, the sacred interpreter will be preserved from the folly of spiritual fancies, and so tampering with the word of God, however unconsciously or inadvertently. The allegorizer tarnishes religious truth-heaven's pure and polished jewel-with the taint of his own defilement. This sacred gift comes from the Father of lights, invested with the celestial brightness of His own dwelling-place above; and although man is liable to defile its form and to mar its beauty, yet its genuine features are soon recognised amid every distortion resulting from human depravity. Let us therefore keep it with sacred veneration, as an inviolable treasure given us by Jehovah himself; and beware of injuring it by our unhallowed touch, lest we provoke the displeasure of the donor. Great indeed is our responsibility, as we watch over the written word with holy jealousy, that it be not perverted by the crafty or the capricious to the favouring of their own fancies. Jehovah looks upon His children to see whether they be indifferent to the written charter of their salvation-He marks their conduct; and they should be careful to approve themselves the faithful guardians of their Master's gift, amid the sincere but irreverent attempts of the learned to improve it, or the impious designs of the idolatrous to employ it in subservience to sinful

passions.

197

ART. X.-Lives of Men of Letters and Science who flourished in the Time of George III. By HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., Member of the National Institute of France, and of the Royal Academy of Naples. London: Charles Knight and Co.

WHEN Pericles was asked what was the appropriate praise of woman, he said, 'her highest virtue was not to be spoken of at all.' This gauge and measure of virtue would ill suit the versatile and vivacious peer who has endowed himself with the Roman name of Vaux, for he seems to be impressed with the notion, that unless a man be at everything in the ring, le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. To be anything by fits, and nothing long, is certainly the practice, and would seem to be the pride, of the mercurial ex-Lord Chancellor. If there be a St. Vitus's dance of the mind, it has assuredly taken its hold on this remarkable personage. To be the Jupiter Scapin of the Lords-the primo buffo of the Privy Council-the learned doctor of the London University-to be the correspondent of the Ruler and Premier of France-to be the associate of Charles Dupin-to be the principal contributor of the Law Review-to be a writer of tracts, pamphlets, and ponderous volumes-to be a leader of fashion and giver of dinners-to be a hunter of the Alps, and hermit of the Chateau Eleanor Louise in Provence, are not alone sufficient to satisfy his lordship's craving for notoriety, not fame; but he must now, from the same restless impulse, put pen to paper to write the lives of Voltaire and Rousseau.

It

We have no pleasure in adverting in strong terms to his lordship's eccentricities. We could have wished to use soft words, and to have touched only distantly and partially on his failures in the character which he has just now assumed. But every man of sense is aware that the disease in this case is such as to leave its victim wholly insensible to such methods of treatment. Our observations on the lives of the men of letters in these volumes will be restricted to the account given of Voltaire and Rousseau, as notices of the men of science are to follow. will not be supposed that we are insensible to the defects or faults which belong to the character of Voltaire, or that we can be slow to condemn the indiscrimination, and recklessness of the course which he pursued in regard to Christianity. But it is time that even religious persons should bring themselves to look at the monstrous abuses which this man assailed, as well as at the errors which he propagated; that they should mark the good which attended the labours even of Voltaire, as well as the evil; and that they should admit freely whatever evidence there