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stated portion of the week for rest, by virtue of the same natural laws that enforce upon him the repose of night. If so, we need not hesitate to give the widest extension to our exposition of the Sabbath law announced at the creation.

When a comment does not receive its justification from man's universal nature, it still may be vindicated from the human constitution as modified by climate, and physical and mental peculiarities. Hence, the main internal objection to the reception of the Canticles into the Canon, is removed. The book is precisely fitted to the eastern taste. Its method of instruction is indigenous in Arabia and Persia. Metaphorical language in all its forms is the language of every day life there. Provision is made by the enticing forms of parable and allegory for the spiritual sustenance of half, it may be, of the human race. There is no more objection to the spiritual interpretation of this book in principle, especially as it appears in the original, than there is to that of the forty-fifth Psalm, or to the allegory which Paul adduces in the Epistle to the Galatians. Our refined and fastidious taste is not to be the rule for the millions of Asiatics. They have the same necessity as the polished European that the Scriptures should be adapted to their idiosyncracies. The recognition of this fitness of the Bible to the nature and intellectual cultivation of the nations to whom it was first addressed, removes many difficulties, and justifies the Divine procedure, on points where it has been often impugned.

Another illustration may be found in the interpretation of the poetic and prophetic Scriptures. Here it is eminently necessary to study the laws of the imagination. The interpreter is ill fitted for his vocation who has not quick and delicate sensibilities, a true taste, some power of imagination, who has not thoroughly studied the laws and recorded operations of this part of man's nature. In the Hebrew poets and prophets, there are not a few passages which, so far as grammar, the context, the scope, etc., are concerned, will admit of two or three interpretations. The only key that will unlock the mystery may be in that power which takes exquisite delight in reading Homer and Milton. The logical faculty cannot solve the doubt. The industrious collection of parallel texts will throw no light upon it. It appeals to the highest endowment of man's intellectual nature, and, in addition, it may be, to a simple and liberal taste. The presence of these powers of imagination and taste gives peculiar value to Lowth's biblical works, and to De Wette's German translation of the Bible.

5. We may briefly advert to one more acknowledged fact of Biblical Science. The interpreter must feel some real sympathy with the truths which he is studying. All other gifts and facilities are not a substitute

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Sympathy of an Interpreter with the Truth.

for this. A man may possess exact and extensive learning, the soundest judgment, the nicest critical tact, and still fail to recognize the true and full significance of the more spiritual portions of the Bible. He may be an honest man, and sincerely desirous to explain the Bible correctly, but without a spirit in some degree accordant with that which reigns in the Scriptures, he will not accomplish his end. The Bible on one essential point is not analogous to other books. It reveals truths which are to be believed, prescribes duties which are universally obligatory. It speaks with authority to the interpreter himself. It is as impossible as it is undesirable for him to approach his work with an indifferent state of mind. What is sometimes vaunted as perfect impartiality in a biblical critic, never had existence. The student has the deepest personal stake in the pages which he is pondering. Its truths touch his moral nature at innumerable points. His mind cannot be in a perfect equilibrium. Entirely to segregate his intellectual from his moral nature is an impossibility. Feelings will course through his soul in a thousand directions, and must modify and color his mental decisions. Besides, no one can interpret the writings of another, without entering into his spirit. The apostle Paul possessed great fervor of feeling, a tender and ardent love to the Saviour, comprehensive and profound views of the scheme of redemption, and a desire that men should experience its efficacy so great as almost to absorb every other emotion. These characteristics pervade every epistle which he has left. They shine out in all his discourses. They tinge all his language. They account for many peculiarities of his style and diction. Now one who has little or no sympathy with the pure and profound spirit of this great evangelist cannot adequately expound his language. He is deficient in one of the essential qualifications. In his method of handling, the glowing words lose their fire. The parenthesis becomes inextricably involved. He does not see that feeling lies at the bottom of the interjected clause. A rational interpreter, e. g., Grotius, with but little emotion, will explain away or dilute words which came from the depths of the heart, vital and overflowing with truth. Interpreters like Melancthon, Calvin, Olshausen, Tholuck, possess a qualification of fundamental importance, which is denied to the whole neological school. This school furnishes many most accomplished critics and philologists, but they would find a more congenial home in Greek and Roman literature, than among the practical and profound truths of the New Testament. There is also a fine and delicate spiritual apprehension, which is a result of a sympathizing study of the Gospel, and which detects a thousand nice shades of thought, almost invisible graces of language, to which a common critic, or a man of mere learning is blind.

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great current of thought has numerous tributary rivulets, little springs that send in their contributions, which will be wholly unobserved by the gross and worldly sense. It is only to the "pure in heart" to whom those finer lineaments of Christian truth stand revealed. We need not, however, expand these thoughts. They are happily recognized by biblical scholars throughout this country and Great Britain, and to a gratifying extent, in other lands.

In bringing these remarks to a close, we will briefly advert to certain desiderata in biblical science. There are aspects of it which cannot be contemplated with entire satisfaction. We are still reminded of painful deficiencies.

In the first place, the educated and Christian community fail to entertain adequate conceptions of the importance of sacred philology, and of the necessity of pecuniary means for the attainment of its objects. The channels of benevolence are too circumscribed, from the want of enlarged ideas of the value of money. The streams of beneficence do not flow too much, but too exclusively, in certain practical directions, or for the accomplishment of results which are immediately useful. Benevolent and wealthy gentlemen have not yet learned to bestow of their abundance upon fields where the richest harvests may be ultimately reaped. Public notoriety, popular sentiment, determine too much the destination of charitable bequests. It is not sufficiently considered that the happiest results often flow from obscure and almost impalpable causes. Physical science may receive a greater impulse from timely aid rendered to a periodical journal, which from its scientific character is addressed to but few readers, than by the founding of a professorship. A few hundred dollars seasonably bestowed upon a young man of decided genius in the walks of science may result in a most useful discovery. The donation to the library of a college of the most important books in the department of sacred literature might keep the flame of divine knowledge ever burning brightly there. A young man in one country of Europe, who discovers an extraordinary aptitude for music, is generously supported several years at the public expense, till he has laid a broad foundation for his profession. But in intellectual and sacred science, works of the fairest promise are left to languish and die, for want of a little timely encouragement. A journal of acknowledged value, and, from the nature of the case, of very limited circulation, is left to struggle for years, unable to avail itself of the aid of invaluable illustrations, and of other costly contributions. An enlarged philanthropy would surely prompt to a different course. A comprehensive charity would apply its means where the vital forces are most concentrated.

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Biblical Helps needed.

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It is essential, in the second place, to the prosperity of biblical science, that its elements should be studied at an earlier period of the student's life than is now common. Hebrew is a part of the required course in the German gymnasia. There is no adequate reason, so far as we can see, why it should not be required as a part of the college course in the United States. The study of it is indeed optional for a small portion of the senior year, at some institutions. But it has shared the same fate, doubtless, with fluxions, and other optional studies. It has either been wholly neglected, or pursued under great disadvanta ges. What is not a part of the required system will find but few earnest students. The result is that an invaluable part of the theological course is consumed in imperfectly studying that which might be acquired in half the time a few years earlier. Viewed in the light of philology, as elementary grammatical principles, as an important ancient dialect, the Hebrew does not pertain to professional education. It belongs to those general studies which are appropriate to the college. Could one lesson a day for three months of one of the college years be devoted to a Hebrew grammar and Chrestomathy, a foundation would be laid for the subsequent mastery of interpretation, and for a far more useful ministry. We cannot imagine why a sacred language, in a Christian country, settled by a race almost passionately attached to the Old Testament, and that founded the first colleges for the glory of God and the good of the church, should be so sedulously excluded from the collegiate curriculum of later times.

We may advert, in the third place, to certain desiderata in the way of helps for biblical study. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament has as yet received but slight attention compared with its importance. A fundamental work on that version has long been needed, which shall give us a carefully revised text, which shall sift all the facts and traditions in regard to the history of the translation, which shall determine, as far as possible, the relative value and character of the different parts, how far the language coincides with the New Testament dialect, with Josephus, and with the later classical Greek. We need also a carefully discriminated treatise on the Synonymes both of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. The materials for such a treatise may be found, in a measure, in the Lexicons and in commentaries, but, for the most part, they must be collected from an independent and careful reading and comparison of the original. A book of synonymes, such as we have of the German and Latin languages, would be an inestimable acquisition. Again, the Hebrew Syntax has not yet been investigated with that completeness which the subject demands. Invaluable as the labors of Gesenius, Nordheimer and Ewald are in this depart

ment, yet every intelligent student must perceive, that in certain topics, e. g., the article and the tenses of the verbs, much yet remains obscure and unsettled. The same remarks apply in a measure to the Compound Verbs of the New Testament. Winer, in his Programmes, has given an earnest of what yet remains in this hitherto neglected part of the language. Finally, we need Commentaries of a different character from what can now be found, with a few exceptions, either in the German or English languages. An adequate commentary deals both with the letter and spirit; it has its basis on the sure principles of grammar; but it does not rest in a jejune analysis of the outward form; it seeks to unfold whatever is in the text, however profound and spiritual it may be; it lays out its strength on the really difficult texts, and passes lightly over what is obvious to the cursory reader; it makes no display of the details of interpretation, or the formulae of science; it goes into these details only when the exigencies of the interpretation which is adopted, require; it chooses rather to give the results than the process of an inquiry; it directs its most strenuous efforts to present the exact idea of the original, and in that form, neither so compressed as to become obscure, nor so diffuse as to be wearisome, which will be most satisfactory in giving the full impression of the text. We have many commentaries which are marked by a great ability in a particular direction. They have prominent and characteristic excellencies. But we have few which are symmetrical, well adjusted, which meet the precise demands of the intelligent and Christian reader. The materials for a commentary, somewhat approximating to this ideal, are now liberally furnished. A combining and moulding hand only is required.

Again, there is needed a profounder faith in the reality and harmony of all truth. The student of God's word should proceed in his inquiries with quiet confidence, though the waves of skepticism may rise around him. He may rest assured that ultimately the apparent discordancy shall vanish. Physical science, reverently and earnestly prosecuted, will do homage to that which is divine. Anxiety as to the final verdict of the two great classes of testimony is, in the highest degree, unreasonable. He has no occasion to shun an examination of any of the results of geology or astronomy, ethnography, history, or antiquities. He may admit every fact and just conclusion established by these sciences. They cannot shake the rock on which scriptural truth rests. They cannot impugn the Bible as a literal, simple, credible history. At least no contradiction, no irreconcilable discrepancy has as yet been pointed out. Neither may he shrink from any of the demands of philological criticism. He may subject the records of

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